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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.

leopold ,

I was doing computer science and we were asked or recommended to use the following pieces of software:

Didn’t really have any problems using Linux. Might be different if you need other software, tho.

Zangoose ,

I’m a CS student and Linux was great for all of the programming classes. For any classes that were more writing focused you can still use the online versions of MS office/Google drive. I’m assuming there aren’t any programs you’ll need specific to psychology but that is sometimes a problem with some STEM majors like engineering

The one problem that kept me dual-booting on my laptop was OneNote. I like taking notes using a pen for some classes (and my laptop has pen support) and nothing I tried on Linux even comes close in my experience. I tried obsidian + excalidraw plugin, along with xournalpp, but nothing came close for the way I take notes.

Lrobie ,

I had a great time. I studied electrical engineering and my department had moved from using Matlab to Python which made my life a lot easier. There was one class where we had to use a Matlab library but I was able to use Octave with the library. There weren’t any other programs we had to install there weren’t compatible with Linux. A lot of classes just required a web browser, no additional software, so no issues there.

lethal ,

I studied Computing Sciences and switched to Linux in my second year. I’ll skip the computing science specifics, but my overall experience was really good.

First of all, know that when you install a Linux based OS on your laptop, that you are fully responsible to make sure it works. In a BYOD exam, I had to unzip virtual machine hard disks and import them, and something went wrong. I ended up not being able to do the first try of the exam. So be sure you know how to get around and do whatever you need to do, even the specifics.

I tried to make MS office work on Fedora and got it to work using WinApps. However turning on and off a Windows virtual machine all the time you need office takes time. I found it not worth the hassle. LibreOffice can save documents in .docx format, however, there are some compatibility issues where documents don’t look the same on your/your group’s end. I have stuck to OnlyOffice which looks very similar to Windows and has very good compatibility. If you want to live edit with friends you can use Google Docs or the web version of Microsoft Office.

My university is invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, the administrators disabled the use of third party mail clients. I had to use the web client of outlook. Minor inconvenience but one to take in to account nonetheless.

If an app is not available you can always create a web app from the web browser so you can get the web version.

If you run in to an application you need, but is not available as a package of your distribution (deb, rpm, flatpak, snap, appimage etc), you might be able to translate it with Wine, an application like Bottles should make this quite easy, as long as it’s a simple application. Worst case scenario you need a Windows VM and install it in there.

If you need more specifics let us know. Good luck on your journey!

BilboBargains ,

I got no pussy

gerdesj ,

It didn’t exist!

baldingpudenda ,

Currently in college. They are agnostic as it’s all turned in on PDF files, quizzes on browser, etc but my online classes require I install some root kit program to make sure I’m not cheating and it detects if it’s on a VM. I talked to IT and they let me borrow a laptop with windows. Slow as hell, but I only need it for the online tests so 4 times a semester.

phrogpilot73 ,
@phrogpilot73@lemmy.world avatar

I used nothing but Linux for my Master’s and am currently using it for my doctorate. I’ve been full-time on Linux for over 10 years.

I did find that OnlyOffice played better with MS Office than LibreOffice. I also use the school’s Office 365 that they provided me to open my finished files in the web version to verify the formatting matched. There was only one time it didn’t.

possiblylinux127 , (edited )

It depends on the college and the region honestly. Remember they are trying to prepare you for a job.

With that being said Linux tends to be pretty popular in high end especially in computer science. Mac OS and of course Windows also have a foothold. I would get into virtualization and distrobox (podman). Even if something is natively supported on Linux is best not to pollute your system with junk. Create separate environments for everything.

EnderMB ,

We installed Slackware. One kid bet me that Linux wouldn’t let him drag his entire drive into the bin to delete. It did, and we all laughed, including the professor - who still gave him the passing grade since he’d seen enough of it working before it went up in flames.

pathief ,
@pathief@lemmy.world avatar

I had a teacher who was really passionate about Ubuntu and was distributing Ubuntu 5/6 live CDs. I ended up installing it on my laptop. It was a pretty miserable experience. Everything was ugly as hell, configuring the sound card was a pain, Wi-Fi drivers had constant problems, upgrades to the new x.04/x.10 version borked the system 100℅ of the time. Pretty miserable but got the job done.

Nowadays the experience is much, much smoother. Just ensure you don’t need exclusive software.

superkret ,

I was forced to. I had no money and needed a PC for my studies.
A roommate gifted me his old desktop with OpenSUSE.
For at least 2 days I googled various forms of “how to install programs on Linux” and got more and more frustrated, cause all I found was stuff you had to compile yourself, or things called “packages”. But I didn’t want “packages”, I wanted programs.
On the third day I found the YaST package manager and was immediately blown away by the fact you could search, download and install everything you need without hunting it down on various websites.
That was 20 years ago. Been on Linux ever since.

nexussapphire ,

😄I don’t want packages I want programs. That’s like a Mac user saying I don’t want programs I want applications. Booting up a Mac and saying where’s my god dam exe, why doesn’t anything work.

No offense it’s just funny.

recreationalplacebos ,

I actually switched to Ubuntu full-time way back in 2006 when I went back to school (anthro major), specifically to help me focus when using my computer and not get distracted by playing video games. Of course, nowadays with wine and proton on steam, that might not be as effective. But it worked well for me, never experienced any issues with word docs opening in libre office (or rather open office back then) or vice versa. There was once or twice where I had to use a computer in the lab in the library to run some niche program or another for an assignment, but not a big deal.

gramgan ,

The people I know in my program (undergrad History) use their computers for little more than Google Chrome (specifically Google’s Office suite), a PDF reader (sometimes also Google Chrome), sometimes Zotero, and sometimes MS Word. We get a lot of Mac’s around here, so one can imagine Microsoft products are not highly relied upon, generally speaking.

Everything’s through the browser nowadays, so I’d say just pick a stable distro, install 2 or three browsers in case something doesn’t work (like Google Docs with Firefox in my experience…), and submit everything as PDF.

Can’t speak much to LibreOffice as I write my papers in Typst (and before that in LaTeX, which got me brownie points with some of the older professors), which I find much faster, easier, and more flexible than WYSIWYG word processors.

whotookkarl , (edited )
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

Comp sci undergrad from a mid tier university graduated in 2012, didn’t need Windows at all. I mostly used an Ubuntu desktop, pocket sized mini laptop with bsd, and a red hat vdi the school provided during a research assistantship.

The school had labs in the library and comp sci building if you needed windows for something but it never came up. Group projects shared files on school provided web based tools or dropbox and used the same for class forums, sharing docs and assignments, etc. Some web stuff was broken for Firefox and had to use chrome, but never hit anything requiring IE (pre Edge).

Even if you’re not in a technical field you may want to explore some of the common tools they use like git for version control (like save/restore points in a video game), LaTeX/TeX for better typesetting than office, and off-site backups.

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