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How was your experience using Linux in college?

This is aimed at students/ex-students that used Linux while studying in college.

I’m asking because I’ll be starting college next year and I don’t know how much Windows-dependency to expect (will probably be studying to become a psychologist, so no technical education).

I’m also curious about how well LibreOffice and Microsoft Office mesh, i.e. can you share and edit documents together with MOffice users if you use LibreOffice?

Any other things to keep in mind when solely using Linux for your studies? Was it ever frustrating for you to work on group projects with shared documents? Anything else? Give me your all.

souperk ,
@souperk@reddthat.com avatar

It depends on the field you are studying. I was into CS, using Linux was recommended because the machines they used to test our code were also running linux.

Most fields are going to be okay with linux, the only exception being fields that rely on specialized software like architects, engineers, and audio/video editing. Also, some software like MatLab are possible to run on Linux but it’s a pain to set them up.

RmDebArc_5 ,
@RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works avatar

For the office part: Libreoffice formats differently than MS office so there may be problems, but you could also use Onlyoffice (Foss) or WPS office (free but proprietary) which have supposedly 100% compatibility. You could also use MS office web which is free

soundconjurer ,
@soundconjurer@mstdn.social avatar

@RmDebArc_5 @clark , I know MS Office can open and save ODFs, I am not sure how well it does it. One would pressume that it being an open document format (hence the name) and it being a NATO standard, MS office would have proper compatibility, but I am rather reserved to confidently pressume this.

RmDebArc_5 ,
@RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works avatar

Last time I tried MS office is worse at opening odfs than Libreoffice is at opening docx created in MS office, but you can save as doc from Libreoffice which also has problems, but way less

Dotdev ,
@Dotdev@programming.dev avatar

In college right now 2yr computer science, anything Microsoft is a pain to work offline. I miss the onedrive sync in windows i just use syncthing for that now .

I use onlyoffice since it has one of the best Microsoft office compatibility though I submit my obsidian export as a pdf for my assignments or records.

If you really need ms office or for group projects and you have an o365 account, just use the web version for it.

Windows2000Srv ,

I’m a bit like you! I’m studying to become a High School science teacher, so I’m not in a technical program. My computer serves mostly as a typing machine. I switched 2 years ago and it wasn’t all smooth, but I’ll share some of the things I encountered and what I did.

First problem I had, cloud sync. I used to be a a big OneDrive user and I wanted to sync everything with my drive as I used to be. There isn’t a very good program for syncing OneDrive. I bought a licence to InSync and it made it work flawlessly. Seriously good software! (nowadays I host my own Nextcloud server, but don’t start with that, it’s a lot of job for not a whole lot).

Second problem was getting used to LibreOffice. Compared to Office, LO isn’t formated around pages, every text you write is considered “one big text” and then it calculates where to put its page breaks and everything. What does it change? Not a whole lot, but technically speaking, it’s not as good as a formatting tool as Word is. Doesn’t really matter if you aren’t a formatting freak like I am, but it took me a some time to get use to it. To get better with it, I recommend you to practice styles on it (text style and page style).

Third problem, collaboration. I didn’t find a very good solution to it. What I do is I ask all my colleagues to write their parts online (Google Docs, MS Office Online,…) then once everything is done and perfectly written, I download it and open it in LO and do the final formatting. So I’m always the one doing the formatting. It’s important than when you give it back to your teachers, give it in a .PDF format. (Btw, unrelated, but look into Zotero, it’s a life saver)

And a general tip and trick I could give you is to keep close a Windows/Mac machine (not with you at all times, but just something you access fairly easily if you plan in advance). There were a few times a professor mandated that we submitted the work in MS office format, and I didn’t want to risk it not being right, so I did it in LO and polished it in Office. That and I was asked to use a very specific, Windows only software, so having it was very useful.

If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

clark OP ,
@clark@midwest.social avatar

Thank you so much for writing this elaborate comment! Super appreciate it. :)

driving_crooner ,
@driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br avatar

I had no problem, but my classmates hated me because everytime a professor gave us an assignment to be done in excel I asked that if it was ok to use livreoffice because I use Linux and they always changed it to be done on R or Python.

Plopp ,

When I studied at the uni 5 years ago we only collaborated over Google Docs. I’d strongly recommend online collaboration over sending files back and forth. For most things I ran Linux, and booted into Windows when there was a particular need for it, which wasn’t often. But it all depends on what software you’re expected to run during your studies. If you have room on your drive maybe having a minimal Windows install along side Linux could be a good thing?

Also, I’d recommend a distro that comes out of the box with working BTRFS snapshots. The last thing you want is have the machine you rely on for school shit the bed due to a bad update or something you do, and you have to learn how to repair Linux in the middle of an assignment that’s due tomorrow. With snapshots you can just roll back to before it shat the bed.

BaalInvoker ,

Well, I’m a psychologist and my entire college time I used Linux. Most of the times me and my friends used Google Docs instead of MS Office

In psychologist school you’ll be reading a lot, so you’ll need pdf reader, but that is easy in Linux. Maybe, but this is a big maybe, you’ll learn about statistics using a software, but we have Jamovi and JASP for that. If you’re into R or Python, that’s easier in Linux then Windows

If you really need to share documents with your friends using MS Office, LibreOffice may do the job for the content, but have in mind that if you’re in charge of formatting the document, noone else could do it. Otherwise, if other person is in charge, you’ll be better not try to format. Or just use Google Docs / Office 365 (online)

In my own experience, I had no issue using only Linux in my school time

Also, in my daily work as a psychologist, I have no issue with that as well

mrvictory1 ,

MS Office works oob on Crossover and could work on Wine with a bit of tinkering. Research if your college uses examination software. If they do you are either forced to either using Windows / Mac or gambling your academic carrier via running the software on Wine.

Karmmah ,
@Karmmah@lemmy.world avatar

Studying mechanical engineering at a university in Europe at the moment and using Linux exclusively on my main laptop for a few years now. Mostly it’s totally fine since I almost always work with PDF documents while studying and when working in groups we always use something cloud based (Office365) to enable simulataneous editing anyway so no problem there.

However recently we had had to use a program to get bonus points that only runs on Windows and not even inside a virtual machine. Also CAD software is essentially Windows only (I got by using Fusion360 online but it’s much slower than the native app).

So I guess you should be fine, especially since some university/college staff are also Linux enthusiasts but it will probably vary wildly based on where you’re studying.

gjoel ,

My university mainly ran Solaris, pretty much everything also ran on Linux. In the rare case where Windows was required a remote desktop was available.

My university probably isn’t your university though, so answers may not be worth much…

belha ,
@belha@bolha.us avatar

@clark Uni sold their soul to Microsoft, not one Linux machine in sight.
However, I've been using it since last year just fine, as it was intro to programming class.
Though, I will have one electronics class down the line which uses a proprietary, Windows-only, not-gonna-give-you-a-license software, and it really sucks.
Hoping that next time it gets better...

clark OP ,
@clark@midwest.social avatar

I think many technical educations are dependent on Windows to some extent, but I’m not sure how it is with humaniora / social studies-focused education programs.

belha ,
@belha@bolha.us avatar

@clark If it can be achieved on a browser, Linux can definitely be used.

Jumuta ,

wdym by college? the same word means a lot of different things in different places

clark OP ,
@clark@midwest.social avatar

College / university, the thing right after highschool.

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