I think most of the complaints are that Microsoft Office doesn’t work. Which is true. The web version of Microsoft Office is honestly kinda terrible.
And no, people don’t want to use a product that does the same thing as Microsoft Office, they want to use a product called “Microsoft Office”. No, it’s not logical, and doesn’t make any sense at all but it’s how people are.
The only sense it makes is that M$ hasn’t followed the spec, and so things done in office display fine in say libreOffice, but not the other way around. So if your company is willing to transition, but everyone you deal with outside the company is still on Office, there’s a bit of a communication issue. That’s M$'s biggest strength, homogenous work environments.
That’s why my business only uses pure, crisp .txt files. If I can’t open it in notepad, I don’t want it!
I have unironically been preaching the powers of text and JSON, and have some converts. Universal compatibility is great.
Json is a garbage format for anything that’s meant to ever be touched by a human. At least use yaml or json5.
In the first paragraph of JSON5’s site:
It is not intended to be used for machine-to-machine communication.
YAML is not supported by a lot of enterprise software (example: Azure pipelines supports it but Power Automate does not). JSON, XML, CSV, or failing that Text are the safe bets. We use a few options for reading or building presentation layers quickly. Ultimately the idea is to move data around in a way that is friendly to our current and future applications.
It’s absolutely trivial to convert either format to json if necessary. The real killer for me with json is the lack of comments. Human-maintained files absolutely need comments.
With markdown or asciidoctor or restext or … you get both worlds.
Fuck it! I’m in!
You spelt monopoly wrong.
There shouldn’t even be word processor documents between companies. PDF is the file type for maintaining consistency of page formatting!
Should be and is in fact? Two veeeerrrry different things
This needs to become illegal and bear a bankruptcy inducing fine if repeatedly done.
We need to get rid of these monopolists
Pretty sure it is “illegal” I mean didn’t they get dragged through court in what the 90s 00s? Specifically for anti-competative monopolistic actions. Illegal was in quotes there because nothing really changed.
They’re a feature of the economic system, not a bug. We don’t have a good track record working against it.
So use OnlyOffice instead of LibreOffice
Microsoft’s biggest strength is the Active Directory. Linux user and computer management is a huge PITA.
For Linux user management you can just use an LDAP solution like FreeIPA. You can even tailor sudoer rules based on security groups, so like you can allow someone to reboot the server but not actually make configuration changes to system config files and what-not. It’ll also handle CA and PKI with smart card support and of course DNS. It has a web interface as well.
I’ve done workstation maintenance in a previous job. Every part of the Linux centralized management was worse than Windows. We did it to support our coworker’s wishes, but SSSD constantly shits the bed, and having to code (config management) to write some pretty simple rules like default printers is super annoying compared to the Active Directory built ins.
I don’t know, I like using Fleet Commander with FreeIPA (where it stores the profile). You just spin up the template VM for whatever like-clients on the network you want to make default profiles for and make the changes, shut it down, checkbox the changes (the configurations and stuff) that you approve and let it apply the profiles across the network. Easier than depending on Puppet or Ansible playbooks IMO.
I have had issues with SSSD as well though and it had to do with Kerberos tickets but I can’t remember what I did to fix it. We’d have to manually use kinit on each machine when it’d basically fall off the realm. I want to say it was a DNS issue but it was so long ago, I just don’t remember.
We used to use Centrify for Linux and Solaris and it was easy using Access Manager to basically handle AD users and computers with Active Directory and had some GPO support (you could push config writes with GPOs for example and organize it all via OUs for example) but it would get a little wonky between trusts in the forest sometimes (in regards to zone management in Centrify) and they kept getting more expensive. Maybe they’ve fixed that stuff now but it was really simple to use and you could basically manage a lot through the AD and create group profiles in the Access Manager. I think the last straw was wanting to force us to license the entire suite regardless of whether we were using it or not. Personally, I never liked it because it wouldn’t use SSSD or kclient/nsswitch and if some service tried to join the realm/domain, it’d join using the same computer accounts and basically break the account since Centrify used its own client, so you’d specifically need to join the computer accounts via Centrify as a different name. It wasn’t detrimental or anything – just annoying that it was a problem at all. Also, sometimes the user cache database saved in specific users’ appdata that use Access Manager would corrupt from time to time and you’d need to manually delete it to use Access Manager. I’d hope they fixed that by now too though.
All and all, I’m not saying Active Directory isn’t an excellent product because it is and I’m not saying that there is a 1:1 solution for Linux but I’m saying it that in my experience it isn’t terrible either with FreeIPA and products you can use with it. I definitely hated other 389 solutions prior to FreeIPA though.
AD is easy top set up in Linux with a samba4 docker container. For instance: https://github.com/Fmstrat/samba-domain. Even HSS a script to easily join debian based machines.
Ironically, Microsoft has retired the “Microsoft Office” name.
If only libreoffice had an app for mobile platforms…
Being unable to open the documents I wrote on my computer without using some kind of crappy ad filled third-party app is annoying.
Libre Office has a mobile app. The one called LibreOffice viewer is only a file viewer but works perfectly if you only look at documents, it is developed by the same foundation that develops LibreOffice. If you want to edit, Collabora is the name of the app, it is based on LibreOffice and is officially approved by The Document Foundation. It is developed by one of their certified collaborators. Both are available on Android and iOS.
Thank you!
Try Collabora Office!
Thanks!
I installed a Windows 11 update. Office no longer worked. Office refused to re-install despite trying a huge number of things. It literally refuses to install. Tried their help tool which even does removal of old references in the system. Failed 5 times.
Tried using the web version for a simple thing. First localization struggle which doesn’t carry across sessions. Excel column formatted to number. Then to currency. Then to general. Autosum shows #Div!0 still. Tried seeing if the AI could help. Have to re-login. (Using Mozilla this whole time btw). After re-login, ai tool says stop using private mode. I’m not…
Literally trying to do the simplest autosum on about 25 lines and it can’t function.
Installed LibreOffice. No problem with ‘Excel’.
I’m really not exaggerating. I saw online a similar issue and the guy had to reinstall the entire OS to get office to work again 🤨
I’m really not exaggerating. I saw online a similar issue and the guy had to reinstall the entire OS to get office to work again
That’s windows for you, have a major issue? Reinstall the OS. Been using the computer for to long? Reinstall the OS
Micro$oft office is being teached in college for my friend and I, having libreoffice, tried doing the exact same thing in it. Not only everything was possible, but also its more convenient in LibreOffice. There are many annoyances in m$ office like auto formatting which cannot be disabled and auto prediction which fills in the details of next cited person from previous (like hell what, how should two people must have same bio?) and now you have to edit all that out by replacing the autofilled ones. LibreOffice on the other hand has much better UX
(Talking about Excel vs Calc and also Word vs Writer)
I mean maybe that specific advanced feature is not in libreoffice, but there are much more good things in it that is worth considering using it.
I use libreoffice and onlyoffice daily for academic works, with a few works published out there. I even use more features than the average office user, and I have to listen to people claiming that they can’t use any of those, because they’re inferior. I even have to listen to people saying that libreoffice isn’t suited for doing any SERIOUS WORK, and I’m like “What? My work isn’t serious?”.
But tne other user got a point. People want to see the name and the ms office logo. They will reject any alternative just because is isn’t ms office, no matter how good and sufficient they are.
Our company has bought into the whole onedrive/teams/ Microsoft family.
They’ll do what the IT guy says but that first time copilot popped up grrr
At least one good thing that Google has done is that Docs/Slides work on browsers and (where I live) most people use that now.
Google is not really much better than MS. It still leaves you under the yoke of big tech. “Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss”.
Not great if you are also trying to de-Google, though.
If the alternative is Microsoft, you’re between a rock and another rock that used to claim not being evil.
Libreoffice all the way. Most users don’t need more than that.
I have seriously considered trying to install Microsoft Office 2024 (aka OnlyOffice) for a family member to see if they even notice.
OnlyOffice is pretty nice for homegamers I think. I just don’t need or want a full up heavyweight office suite anymore. And I’ve gotten to the point where I remove LibreOffice and replace it with OnlyOffice every time.
So do it, just do it. You know you want to…
Oh I run OnlyOffice locally and in NextCloud already ;) So it would only be for someone who lives in another state, simply to see the reaction.
I would do it for the reaction. I doubt they would complain very much at all.
You know, i made my dad try OnlyOffice and he loved it except for the fact that not all shortcuts worked. Years of experience with excel shortcuts didn’t translate in exactly the way he wanted. Which makes sense ig but i think that would give it away
Edit the menu entry?
My dad initially wanted his old Norton Antivirus, so i made an internet shortcut with the logo and name, to a webpage explaining why antivirus sucks.
Have you tried excel ? Its WAY AHEAD of any excel like thing available as office in wild. Just example vlookup , Power tables , vba are no whwre near in any of the products.
You’re giving me VBA flashbacks. The worst language I’ve ever programmed in.
Last time I tried HDR on Windows, that sucked too.
My Android TV and consoles are about the only devices where it works properly.
HDR games is fucking baller on the steam deck. I’m legitimately thinking of switching to kde from sway so I can take advantage of it on my new OLED monitor.
We recently got hdr support tho
And lack of Adobe is a feature, not an issue.
Linux wins again.
To access a lot of pdfs used in the military you need adobe or it won’t open, you get this stupid screen telling you to download the latest version. So it’s required for some jobs :(
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You can get both on Linux. KDE Plasma 6 with Wayland supports HDR, and you can even run some Adobe apps through Wine (Photoshop on Linux, Illustrator on Linux).
Using Adobe on Linux is a sacrilege. Screw that company.
photoshop, illustrator, etc are genuinely good programs though. the ‘linux alternatives’ just arent usually as powerful or easy to use.
this is coming from a linux and foss fanatic, btw. i dont use adobe, but i probably would if i was in a creative industry
I agree that they are effective programs for getting work done. There are some drawbacks in a professional setting though, the biggest being the data scraping that has been introduced. It’s hard to explain to clients that any licensing of their images has been violated before it has even been applied. Either Adobe are going to get away with exactly the kind of IP infringements that they are so against when it comes to their own work, or they’re lining up a buggerload of legal problems for themselves further down the line.
Then there’s the price-gouging that they’ve gotten into with their online subscription model and instability on some hardware.
How to trust them?
For people starting a new business in a creative industry I don’t think Adobe is the obvious choice that it once was.
I actually do use acrobat for legal document work
It good for adding signatures and making changes to pdf format schtuff
what do you use for illegal documents?
A pirated copy of acrobat
Like this?
Pirate acrobatWe got pirate acrobat at home.
Pirate acrobat at home:
Adobe Acrobat works for me using Bottles/Wine. Pirated and old version of course
If that’s your only use case you can also use Xournal++ on Linux which does the job.
Of course your choice of OS is totally up to you and you don’t have to justify it to anyone, just letting you know the tool exists.
Xournal lets you paint on a document, which I guess isn’t what they need when they talk about legal stuff. Digitally signing a document is still one of the rare cases where I boot up my windows vm. It’s so annoying that there’s practically no way to do that in Linux as my company’s processes rely on it.
Okular can digitally sign
Ohhhh yeah you’re right, I forgot digitally signing is different from just painting a signature on there >< .
Wait digital signature is not easy on linux? What kind of digital signing is this? I thought it was possible with GPG and also with gui apps. Maybe I’m thinking about some other digital signing??
PDFs have embedded digital signatures, so the signing tool needs to support the proprietary format.
What if i just sign the entire pdf file with GPG? That is not valid?
If it was valid, do you really think people would be talking about it being a problem here? Please use your head a little.
Also, two entitely different meanings of the word signing being used here. Signing as in signing a bill vs. Cryptographic signing. Adobe has some weird “halfway” thing that’s more than painting the sig on the image, but isn’t gpg.
Hooray for proprietary shit becoming accepted for legal use! Yuck.
When I worked with a lot of legal documents, we just used DocuSign mostly. Have you attempted that on Linux? Not sure what it’s like these days, also curious if it’s because it’s a web application if it works the same.
Imagine real signed file being denied and one with painted signature accepted
We use foxit reader on Linux for that at work.
HDR works. On KDE Wayland and in games only with Gamescope, but we are getting there. And there is the Steam Deck of course.
I never managed to get gamescope working on my Nobara. Any docs I should look into?
Depends on what you mean with not working. Get any errors? e.g. i like to test with vkcube (vulkan-tools need to be installed. don’t know the package name on Nobara / Fedora). if
gamescope vkcuberuns, then its likely not a gamescope problem but one with the e.g. game you try to run or wine / proton.But the latest versions seem to be indeed a bit problematic. The last that works (mostly) flawless on my Arch is 3.14.2. So maybe worth a shot to downgrade to that if your current one fails with vkcube.
Otherwise, it is probably a good idea to get in contact with the Nobara community or the developer. I hate to recommend Discord, but as far i know that is unfortunately the only place where they are active.
And there is of course always the excellent Arch Wiki which is usuable for other distros as well: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamescope
HDR is awesome if you have the right hardware. I’ve never seen a movie look so good. Someone needs to get HDR working.
It works in KDE + Wayland… mostly… for applications that support it… and there was this update that ruined my color profile for a while but they fixed that now!
It’ll be finished on Wayland before the end of this year
It does work for most games. MPV player supports it as well. It’s still rough around the edges, but it’s definitely there.
first game I played in HDR was mass effect legendary. I don’t care that the game itself is close to 15 years old, the 4k remaster + HDR blew my mind and set a new standard for how good games could look.
The funniest thing is, people say Linux is not ready, cause [insert feature] doesn’t work. The problem is said feature doesn’t work on Windows either.
For example pausing/resuming playback across multiple appliacations using media keys. It’s not perfect on Linux (not every app uses MPRIS), but it’s not great on Winodws either
Hell tbh I never use my pause/resume button, I just hit “p.” I <3 VLC
My stream deck, which I use to resize windows, lock my computer, handle Spotify and discord, and more, does not work at all with Linux. Switching to my dual boot option feels like cutting off my left thumb, sure I can still do most things it just takes longer and feels awkward so why would I?
I’m confused. I don’t have a steam deck. Your steam deck is Linux. But it also sounds like you’re using you steam deck like a Wii U Gamepad for your Windows Desktop? I can’t tell if this is a shit post or a complaint about (seemingly) niche functions of a steam deck.They didn’t misspell “stream deck”
I didn’t say they did.
EDIT: OH MY FUCKING GOD. I’m blind.
The biggest problem with Linux (other than the whole “most people give up the second they see a terminal” thing) is software availability, which will hopefully improve as Linux gains market share.
2024 is indeed the year of the linux desktop
I’m still waiting for gimp to actually be a viable alternative program to photoshop before installing dual boot linux
Gimp lacks photoshop features and still isn’t catered towards creatives which is the main demographic of people using the software
I’m aware of krita but it’s suited as a drawing program and also lacks many of the photo editing features I would use in photoshop
I’m still waiting for DOS to reach feature parity with MacOS
What I want from an OS:
Free, or a one time fee
Tells the date and time
Has a folder system that is indexed and easily searched.
Supports Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and Steam.
That’s it. Genuinely cannot think of any reason I would ever want my computer OS to do anything more than that.
I would like a web browser and don’t want to lose my password manager
use winapps on linux, adobe isn’t problem anymore, nor office
Wait, as in office 365?
latest crossover supports o365
Last time I tried it claimed it did but the installer failed to run every time
HDR? Who the fuck cares?
Every cinephile and most gamers
I actually ran into a scenario where I wanted HDR on a Linux desktop only days after writing this. It was a stupid comment
HDR is actually pretty cool, at least when you got a proper HDR display such as an OLED screen
