I have seen a few YouTube content creators try Linux in a Windows office environment and fail at different issues. So I decided to give it a try at the office where I work at. The office I work at is in the people transportation industry.
First let’s set the parameters:
- The office environment – Microsoft Windows and full Office 365 suite, multiple network printers.
- Computers – My workstation and one other computer that does not qualify for Windows 11.
- Objective – Have Linux be able to do all the same work that the Windows computers do.
My workstation has Windows 11 and Office 365 with dual monitors. I will be setting up a Linux virtual machine on this system. The other computer is a computer that was running Windows 10 in the back office and it will be replaced by Linux. This computer is shared by a couple different people in the back office.
The tasks:
- Successfully install Linux Mint on both machines.
- Make sure the computers can connect to and use the network and printers.
- Use Linux on these machines without or as little disruption as possible.
- The Linux installs are required to perform the same tasks as the Windows installs.
Linux Mint installed on the machines without issue (✔).
I was expecting the next task to go without a hitch as my copy of Linux at home detects my printers automatically. The networking part went fine and most of the printers also showed up without any effort. However, there was this one printer that Linux was not finding or connecting to. So I had to visit the printer’s website and Linux forums to find out how to get this printer to work. I did get it to work, however, was a bit of work to do.
The next hurtle, using the Linux computers for daily work in the office. I need LibreOffice and Google Chrome on both machines. LibreOffice comes preinstalled in the copy of Linux I use, so no need to install it, right? It turns out that the copy of LibreOffice that comes with the Linux install is not the latest copy available. From my experience with my computer at home, I already knew that I would have to use the package/software manager to uninstall the preinstalled LibreOffice components. Then install the latest copy from the LibreOffice official website if I wanted better compatibility with Office 365 files. Also, you have to use the package/software manager to get the installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts.
Normally it is recommended to use the package/software manager for all the software on your Linux, however, there will be times where external/proprietary applications are required. Now if you are coming from Windows, this should not be difficult. Think instead of ‘MSI’ installer files you are looking for ‘DEB’ installer files, and think instead of ‘ZIP’ files, you are using ‘TAR’ files. Before any nerds call me out on this, I attempting to keep things simple for newcomers to Linux, no need to get caught up with technical details.
- Here are the instructions to do this: How to install LibreOffice on Mint
Now on to Google Chrome; go to the Google Chrome website using the preinstalled Firefox web browser. Locate the Chrome ‘DEB’ file and download it. You should be able to just double click the file in your downloads directory to install it. Once it is installed, open the Chrome browser, and log into your google account and sync your Chrome profile.
Now on to the next pain point; because this office uses the Office 365 cloud, that means that we need access to OneDrive and SharePoint. Actually OneDrive has a few options to access and use it with Linux, however, SharePoint became a bane of my IT existence. I tried instructions from so many forums to no avail and was about to admit defeat and forced to compromise having to use the web browser to access their files.
This is going to sound like a shill for Expandrive, but I have no affiliation to them whatsoever. This software works on Windows, Mac, and Linux and works with many different network/cloud drives including SharePoint! Bonus, this is free to use for personal or small business use. Just like Chrome, you go to their website and download the ‘DEB’ file and install it.
Most of the work that is done by me in that office is through the web browser and sometimes an office app like a word processor or spreadsheet. As for me, I can use either LibreOffice or Office 365. However, because I was so used to Word and Excel (used for more years), the odd time I had to pause to find the odd function or menu item in Writer or Calc.
Thankfully nobody in that office uses macros as that would of been another pain point changing from Office 365 to LibreOffice. Office 365 relies on VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), while LibreOffice uses LibreOffice Basic and supports Python, JavaScript, and BeanShell. I guess if I had to I could use an AI to rewrite VBA code to LibreOffice Basic.
The people that use the shared computer in the back office, mostly use spreadsheets, SharePoint, and some word processing. It was most important to them that Excel files worked in Calc and be able to access those files from SharePoint as a local drive. If it could not, that would of been a deal breaker. It would of been possible to do Office 365 apps in a web browser, however, they are not polished as the installed apps on the desktop.
It has been months now since I started this experiment and since changed the rest of the computers stuck on Windows 10 to Linux. They do have Windows 11 computers and my workstation still has Linux as a virtual machine which is what I mainly use on that computer. There are two or three Windows only apps that still run on that machine which are rarely used, however, must be kept available. I guess I could install Linux on the bare metal and have the Windows as the virtual machine or the Windows only apps run through WINE, but that is more work that is not worth the effort as the Linux virtual machine is working just fine.
In summary switching to Linux on Windows 10 machines is totally worth it and for most, not too difficult to transition to. If your computer can run Windows 11, then switching to Linux is an option, especially when you get tired of Microsoft’s invasive practises.
I am not going to say that this will be this easy for every system. There are exceptions as I have come across computers that are configured with only Windows in mind and take more work to switch.
For example; the most difficult computer to switch to Linux that I ever came across thus far was the HP Pavilion all-in-one 24. It had Intel Optane (cache memory) technology which Linux just refused install to. I had to open it up and do an Optane-ectomy (remove the NVMe module) before being able to proceed with the Linux install.
So before deciding to make that jump to Linux with your computer, do some homework first or bribe your tech savvy friend with a bucket of chicken or takeout pizza to do it for you. 😉