Comment by dijit
3 days ago
Office is the true killer.
Games are pretty much there for linux, reasonable stress about anti-cheat aside; but the network effects of Microsoft office are the real poison pill.
The irony of course is that if it wasn’t for games you could have a good time using office on MacOS with their cut down versions: but no such version exists for Linux and FreeBSD.
Since its purely network effects, I’ve taken to trying to promote Google Docs usage; since their tools anywhere with a modern browser, which is practically every modern desktop environment.
I know its pushing another US tech giant, but somehow the network effects are less egregious.
I don't play video games much, so maybe it's law of small numbers, but recently putting Linux on my spare PC, I didn't get how people say it's fine for games now. Proton didn't work right for my one Steam game BeamNG, and Gamecube controllers had unfixable input lag for Dolphin (Slippi). Nvidia GPU + Intel integrated spelled trouble for Xorg to the point where I had to change to Ubuntu just to have Wayland, and that worked.
On top of the game stuff, this PC is under my TV, so I kinda wanted a way to remote in. VNC is surprisingly jank, and Chrome Remote Desktop somehow never worked. So combined with 0/2 of my games working, I just gave up and went back to Win10.
Interesting; I haven't played BeamNG but it looks like it should work according to the ProtonDB https://www.protondb.com/app/284160. Sample size of one, but I haven't really had any issues with Proton on Linux, particularly within the "SteamOS" tenfoot interface. I don't play online games, and admittedly most of my games are several years old, so I can't tell you how well modern games play (though a friend of mine didn't appear to have too much trouble getting Pacific Drive working on full blast).
Not trying to diminish your struggle, and if it didn't work for you then obviously you shouldn't use it.
I don't own a Gamecube controller anymore, but I haven't noticed much lag with a wireless Switch Pro controller with Dolphin. I played through Tony Hawk's Underground and Tony Hawk's American wasteland on my laptop a few months ago using Dolphin, and as far as I could tell my terrible scores had nothing to do with lag, and I was able to finish them.
Definitely have had issues with Nvidia drivers though. It cost me an entire weekend getting one working a few months ago and I didn't enjoy that process.
Yeah this is why I don't trust the ProtonDB ratings. It says gold, but everyone else has the same problem as me where it's slower and crashes if you spawn traffic. Also had to wait like 30 minutes to generate vulkan shaders. AoE2:DE's ProtonDB page says gold but there are a bunch of comments saying multiplayer doesn't work at all... I feel like that's not gold either.
The GC thing is specifically the Wii U adaptor. There's an overclock kmod, but it's known (on gh issues) to be finicky and didn't work for me. Regular controllers have no lag but also don't work quite the same; on Win and Mac the standard is that Wii U adaptor.
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> but recently putting Linux on my spare PC, I didn't get how people say it's fine for games now.
It is because there are way more games that work than games that do not work at all. Also in general the "golden path" is really an all AMD PC (since that is where most of the testing and open development goes).
That said sometimes you may need to tinker/tweak things but this applies to Windows too, hence the existence of pcgamingwiki (which recently has added Linux info, though that is still dwarfed by the Windows info). I've been gaming on Linux for a few years now and was gaming on Windows before that and i do not find Linux any worse at all when it comes to getting stuff working (this was certainly not the case before ~2021 or so though).
This stuff and other games I played in the past worked without any tweaks in Windows, though. Unless you're modding ofc.
BeamNG runs just fine for me, it sounds like you're trying to play on a potato laptop... it needs a 16gb video card bare minimum.
The game runs fine in Windows on the same machine. The ProtonDB page has a lot of comments about AI traffic crashing the game, reportedly cause of a memory spike, but it seemed more like a leak since it took a couple of minutes.
The web versions of Office tools are pretty good these days. There’s a few missing features, but you can get by mostly. I don’t think my company even gives licenses for desktop office by default any more.
I get why you'd say the web versions are "pretty good" for most people, and I agree they've improved, but I think that's only true if you're doing basic stuff. The moment you hit a complex corporate or academic document, the web version of Office falls apart. It's materially worse than even LibreOffice when you consider a power user's reality.
The real killer is Excel. The web version has zero support for crucial tools like Power Query or Power Pivot, which are essential for any modern data analysis. You can't run, edit, or even create serious VBA/Macros, and advanced data validation and conditional formatting are stripped down to the bone.
For Word, if you're in law or academia, forget it. Features like Table of Authorities or Table of Figures are either completely missing or so simplified they are useless. Even the ability to handle standard APA or MLA citation styles is heavily cut down compared to the desktop app.
And for PowerPoint? You lose access to serious third party add-ins, and the granular control over animations and timers that professionals need just isn't there.
So, while the web version might be fine for a quick edit of a simple file, if you need to reliably work with a complex document from a Windows-based company, the compatibility issues and missing features will force you into a desktop app eventually. If you're going to be forced into a desktop experience anyway, you might as well bite the bullet and go LibreOffice for its feature completeness on Linux/FreeBSD.
It's a stronger bet than relying on Microsoft's cut-down web versions.
I don't use office stuff much. What office components are available in Microsoft Office that aren't available on Linux?
I also try to avoid google wherever possible.
Office and the entire Office 365 ecosystem is the true killer. Microsoft is so entrenched in enterprise it's almost scary. And they're still trying very hard to wedge themselves in with their AI offerings.
I was completely unsuccessful in getting Microsoft Office to run natively with Wine in Linux. Like I wasn't even able to get past the installer for any version of Office later than 2007. Of course the web version works well enough, but in my case, I don't think I will ever be able to convince my parents to move to Linux if I cannot get proper Microsoft Office working on there. I am quite confident that they will not be happy with Kaligra or LibreOffice or OpenOffice or OnlyOffice or anything other than the Microsoft-branded Office.
In fairness to them, they've been using Windows and Office a lot in the last ~30 years, so asking them to abandon all that stuff isn't a trivial endeavor, but my point is that
Clients are going to send you Office documents, spreadsheets, etc.
Maybe you'll luck out and get something cross-platform or online, but 90% of the time if a client is sending a document, it's going to be something from Office (or rarely, Pages).
Spreadsheets can run scripts, and important ones you need to be able to run accurately, and not just hope your alternative office suite works.
I hate it, but it is what it is.
Excel
Gaming on Linux is there, if you don't mind the 10-40 fps drop in most modern and demanding games...
For me that's a no go.
I can live with bash in a WSL2 though... That's about what I need of Linux anyway. I can enjoy my gaming and the remaining of the userland too.
Best of both worlds.
What you’re saying doesn’t align with what PC reviewers are stating outright though.
The Legion GO being the most prime example[0].
Some games work better on Linux, some worse, but largely comparable[1].
I don’t believe that reviewers are paid to promote this view.
[0]: https://youtu.be/CJXp3UYj50Q?si=QWx6DRTQqzXnwfPL
[1]: https://www.noobfeed.com/articles/steamos-vs-windows-10-pc-b...
Compare PC for PC, not some kind of handheld-device-you-decided-to-pick-just-for-your-sake-of-argumenting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Giois6VtLPM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAfrarQDBIQ
Even freaking Phoronix, which is quite "pro linux"
https://www.phoronix.com/review/nvidia2022-windows11-linux
Let's stop the gaslighting here, it doesn't work with me.
Thank you, have a good day.
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I haven't used Office since 2005, the only exception at Uni collaboration with some Latex allergic folks. Onlyoffice just works for .docx the last 2 years for me when I needed it.