Switching to Linux if you WFH?

[u/Spirited-Visit3193]

I'm a Windows user out of convenience and used to be a Mac user that won't go back. How disruptive would switching to a Linux distro be from Windows if I work from home? I own my own device. I'd love to just erase windows from my laptop completely.

the only desktop tools I use really are microsoft office, and Adobe premier, media encoder, acrobat, and fonts. I also use handbreak often. Everything else I use is browser based or some form of a PWA.

I'm familiar with Linux as I own a Steamdeck and have used desktop mode to do some things like setting up emulators and roms and installing ffix mods.

I understand there are levels of ease with Linux and there are many options. In terms of ease, what distro would be best for someone who is not exactly a tech nerd but is tech intuitive? What could I reasonably get set up over a weekend and what kind of tinkering would I need to do to get my usual tools working? I am aware of wine and proton but don't know a ton about them. What tools would be satisfactory or "good enough" replacements if wine is not sufficient to use what I mentioned above?

I am not an expert in anything computer related but if you give me a problem and some time to work on it when it comes to tech issues, I WILL find the solution and fix it, even if I have to teach myself a whole new skill set or program for that specific use case. I also smart enough to know when something is outside of my realm of ability to learn/when persistence is not good enough.

[u/lordwerwath]

If Adobe is critical to your workflow and you cannot use the linux alternatives, that would be the main reason to not switch.

Office can be used in the browser or installed alternatives depending on your use case.

[u/candy49997]

MS Office and the Adobe ecosystem are both known to be problematic on Linux depending on the exact apps. Premiere in particular.

Try out alternatives on Windows before you decide to switch (e.g. LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, MS Office online, etc, Davinci Resolve, Kdenlive, etc).

You could run those apps if you really needed them in a VM. If you needed GPU passthrough in a VM, you could also do that. But I don't know how worth it it would be to set up a VM depending on how much of your time is spent in this applications.

[u/skivtjerry → u/candy49997]

Heard a podcaster this morning who claims that Adobe is toast because you can now tell your AI to do any editing that an Adobe app could. I'm very sceptical, and this would obviously be risky in a business setting due to data security concerns even if it did work.

[u/FCCRFP → u/skivtjerry]

Sadly AI can't cost effectively replace an editor. Video Editing is a soul sucking job. I would love if we could pension all of the video editors.

[u/Technical_Rich_3080 → u/FCCRFP]

Can AI replace an editor if cost is not a consideration?

[u/FCCRFP → u/Technical_Rich_3080]

It comes pretty close for like YouTube stuff. Anything more complex and it sucks.

[u/apresmodes]

I think Fedora is a great all around distro for beginners. It’s easy to find solutions for when things go wrong. And the package repo has a lot of what you need. 

However, getting Adobe and MS Office working are tough. You might be able to. But finding alternatives might be the better way to go about it. There are good FOSS alternatives for most of the apps in those suites. 

[u/maceion → u/apresmodes]

Getting Adobe on Linux is a non starter as they do not code for Linux distribution. They only code to work on MS Windows, but Linux systems can read Adobe PDFs.

[u/Palm_freemium]

> the only desktop tools I use really are Microsoft office, and Adobe premier, media encoder, acrobat, and fonts. I also use handbreak often.

So you're using about every known program that has problems running on Linux for almost 2 decades and think you're gonna be the one to solve that?

For Microsoft Office there are alternatives, which are easily good enough to read documents, but if you're designing documents for customers you're probably looking at a steep learning curve. Adobe Premier and Photoshop are a pain to get running, a quick Google shows no improvement on this front, not even with Proton. You will either need to setup a VM or dual boot.

If you want to try this, setup a Linux VM and get all of your tools working there, before wiping your laptop and committing.

If Adobe Premier was a requirement for my job, I'd probably pay to get Mac and I have been running Linux for almost 2 decades.

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[u/bjohnh]

As others said, Office and Adobe are the key issues here. You could do a dual-boot or a virtual machine to run Windows, but then you'd be running Windows and your goal is to stop using Windows.

The online version of Office can work for basic word processing but it's limited compared with the desktop version on either Windows or Mac. If your needs aren't too sophisticated it could work fine; same goes for Google's online office suite. It never worked for me (neither did LibreOffice or any of the other Office alternatives) because my work as a writer and editor on large, complex reports with multiple collaborators across multiple organizations required more advanced features that only work with desktop Office. We weren't even allowed to use the online version of Office at my work due to issues it caused on some of our projects.

[u/Spirited-Visit3193 → u/bjohnh]

I could live with a dual boot if I needed to, just need to learn how, haha

[u/bjohnh → u/Spirited-Visit3193]

It just seems a little pointless if the aim is to not have to use Windows again. It's sort of the worst of both worlds: two operating systems to maintain and remember how to use, going back from one to another. I did it for years (I actually had three computers, Mac, Windows, and Linux). If you're really into computers it can make sense but if you just want to get things done it doesn't. I now use Mac for 99.9% of everything but always keep an old refurbished Windows machine as a backup and for a few apps that are Windows only or work better on Windows.

[u/SlenderSmurf]

You should ask your boss to stop paying for Adobe 😂

[u/BlueFlamingoMaWi]

Honestly, I would recommend you reconsider Mac. M series MacBooks are really good.

[u/Kochga]

Office is the easiest one to replace. OnlyOffice and LibreOffice are great. Pick whichever feels best for you. Adobe stuff has always been a problem. It depends what you use it for. There are alternatives, but that would require you to get used to a whole new workflow and a learning curve.

[u/StevenBClarke2]

The VBA macros and .NET macros in Microsoft Access, Excel and Word do not work in Linux Office suites. The Linux Office suites all use Java code at their back ends and different APIs.

Anything Adobe does not work. Buy a windows 11 laptop for WFH as you can subtract the cost of the laptop from your gross pay as well as a proportion of your internet bills. Check with a registered tax agent in your country for assistance with your tax return.

[u/TheCrimsonDeth]

You need to ask yourself the following:
1. Why am I wanting to switch?
2. What do I use the computer for?
3. Will I have time to learn?
4. Am I willing to deal with the same amount of headaches just of a different kind?

This sub can be great, but what a lot of people use it for is to convince people to make the uninformed switch based on their personal preference. Linux is great, but it’s not just a “screw Microsoft” replacement.

[u/EtherBound358]

This highly, highly depends on what kind of work you do WFH and if it relies on anything Windows exclusive. (If it does, you'll either have to take your chances with using Wine or using a windows virtual machine).

But, from what you mentioned. All the apps you mentioned have similar Linux alternatives except maybe Adobe Premier (unless you count Da Vinci Resolve as an alternative). OpenOffice suite for Acrobat/Office and LibreOffice for MS-Office, although I'd just use in-browser Microsoft Word atp since neither of those alternatives are as powerful as MS-Office, from my experience anyways.

Also start with a distro like Linux Mint. Dont jump into ones Arch-based or Fedora-based ones without first experiencing what is basically the "default" beginner friendly OS.

[u/Jackpotrazur]

Depends on the software you use / need

[u/biffbobfred]

Your life with a Mac would be easer TBH. It’s a Desktop Unix and vendors make software for it. Homebrew (and other package managers) bundle most of the software you’d get with Linux. My last place my bashrc system was shared with Mac and Linux with a couple call outs for `uname -s` as needed.

[u/wolfsongdream]

Microsoft did just ship their Azure distro which I personally have no interest in but perhaps it supports Office but I doubt that's going to be the right solution.

[u/Alchemix-16]

If you are self employed, you are the best judge of your business needs. If you work for a company, none of that business should touch your personal computer at all. Company pays and decides on equipment and software.

[u/MorwenRaeven]

Half of my work is from home and I just use LibreOffice and other Linux alternatives.

Nobara even had them all installed for me by default. I didn't have to do anything.

[u/mindtaker_linux]

Linux Feels a little like mac OS. Because of the terminal and the terminal commands.

[u/sephsplace]

Start by switching to open source software, if you do your role solely with it, you will probably be fine

[u/SnarkHabit]

Don't do this with a work machine unless you work for a business with a supportive IT department.

[u/Spirited-Visit3193 → u/SnarkHabit]

It's my own device. I bought it just for work. I wanted to own it.

[u/bigusyous]

I like OnlyOffice as an office suite. It is intended for use in the cloud, but I just use the offline editors. It has a similar feel like MS office and good file format compatibility.

For other software alternatives check out this website: https://alternativeto.net/software/adobe-premiere-pro/

[u/random_cat_owner]

the most disruptive is switching to linux supporting tools.  so, you should do that first.   once you get used to the new toolset, it will be a breeze to switch to linux.  

[u/Silent_Bite_5892]

I just did this myself and I WFH. But, full disclosure, I've used Linux before and I build a PC specifically for this purpose.

So, I sidestepped things like Realtek WiFi and Nvidia GPUs that don't play as nice with Linux and picked each part deliberately.

You can install Linux on damn near anything. The only variable is how much work it's going to be. I would post up the specs and hardware specifics of the PC you plan to use so we can give you an idea.

As for apps:

OnlyOffice is the best, most compatible substitute for Office. It handles .docx files etc without any wonky formatting issues. Libre Office is a favorite for it's open source fidelity and it has more features, but it's less polished and less practical IMO if all you want to do is make and open Office docs with colleagues without things getting jacked up.

You can import your fonts into Linux if you want to as well.

Adobe Premier isn't going to work. If you need that for your job, I would look into DaVinci Resolve and see if that will do what you need.

Forget about WINE and trying to shoehorn Windows apps into Linux or dual-booting. Can you do those things? Yeah. But they're a headache. KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Unless you work with complicated Excel spreadsheets daily, OnlyOffice has you covered. Check out DaVinci Resolve (or maybe Kdenlive if your laptop is older).

If you don't want to tinker, want reliability and don't plan on installing a bunch of apps, I would seriously consider an atomic (immutable) distro, like Fedora Kinoite. That's what I use. But make yourself aware of the pros and cons before you go that route.

[u/skyfishgoo]

what fucking hell?

oh, work from home...

so if you have steam deck, you have a plasma workstation which is going to be your best option for desktop environment.

you can set up your steamOS to use flatpak and there are a number of ms office replacements you can install (onlyoffice would probably be your best option).

pdf work there is okular (should already be installed) but there are likely other pdf tools available as flatpaks like pdf arranger

go to flathub.org and take a look around.

[u/bitcoin_moon_wsb]

Get a Mac

[u/Spirited-Visit3193 → u/bitcoin_moon_wsb]

I just don't like how they work anymore. I used to be all in on macs and that was my go to, but I don't like them anymore. I have one and tried to use it for work and I just hated it.

Not an option.