How was your experience using Linux in college?

RmDebArc_5 , 6 hours ago

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 , 6 hours ago

@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 , 6 hours ago

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

driving_crooner , 6 hours ago

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 , 6 hours ago

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.

Llituro , 6 hours ago

using google’s office tools is going to be pretty generally acceptable for most people. depending on your studies, you might be expected to use windows software at some point. i would recommend dual booting. depending on your computing hardware, buying a relatively cheap 1 TB SSD from any retailer and installing windows on it is usually the best option. should simply be a matter of selecting the correct boot device from your system bios. for psychologists, my supposition would be that any proprietary software used, if any, would be windows exclusive.

clark OP , 6 hours ago

Honestly I did look into dual booting some time ago, but I don’t think (and this is just a guess) that I’ll be that dependent on Windows for my studies, and it feels a bit icky to have a secondary OS that I’ll barely use (just like me having Play Store on my GOS phone). :')

Azarova , 6 hours ago

If you’re ever forced to use windows for whatever reason, your college should have computers in a library or something that you could use. As far as office software compatibility goes, the office documents themselves are likely to show up with formatting errors if opened in another office suite, but there’s no such issue if you export to PDF though, so I always did my work in LibreOffice and then turned in a PDF and there were never any issues. For group work, I always found it easier to just use one of the browser-based office suites for file compatibility or for working on the same document together.

Windows2000Srv , 6 hours ago

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 , 6 hours ago

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

BaalInvoker , 7 hours ago

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 , 7 hours ago

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 , 7 hours ago

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 , 7 hours ago

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…

kionite231 , 7 hours ago

It is pretty good actually. I can install every programming language compiler/interpreter in Linux and everything just work fine.

LibereOffice should work fine if you work on it and export it to pdf. If you want to bounce between LiberOffice and msoffice then don’t expect things to go smoothly.

Any other things to keep in mind when solely using Linux for your studies Go for a stable distro like Debian, don’t install bleeding edge distro like Arch or Gentoo unless you really want to.

clark OP , 7 hours ago

From what I have heard, the most beginner-friendly distros are Fedora, Mint, and Pop!OS, but I’ll be looking at and comparing Debian as well.

solidgrue , 5 hours ago

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is a solid pick. All thenperks and integration of Mint, without Ubuntu.

…Ubuntu which, yes, is a Debian downstream. People have their opinions on it. It works. It has its nuisances, but it works.

ProtonBadger , 1 hour ago

I haven’t used either, just curious; what kind of difference is there between regular Ubuntu based Mint and LMDE? I thought it was mostly just more recent packages with the Ubuntu base?

solidgrue , 1 hour ago

Functionally they’re no different. LMDE draws its packages from Debian (probably stable) repos while mainline Mint draws from Ubuntu’s. So yes, Mint will have overall newer packages than LMDE but it’s generally rare for that to affect your ability to get work done unless some new feature you were waiting for gets introduced.

Ubuntu is the Enterprise fork of Debian backed by Canonical, and as such have contributed some controversy into the ecosystem.

Ubuntu leverages Snap packages which are considered ‘bloaty’ and ‘slow’ by a plurality of people with opinions on these matters. They work. Mint incorporates the Snap store into their package management. You might just need to turn it on in the settings.

With mainline Mint you get new base OS packages with Ububtu’s release cycle, and the Snap store.

In the case of LMDE then, you can run a stable base OS on Debian’s rock-solid foundation, their release cycle, and still get your fresh software from the Snap store.

IMO, they’re the same for like 85% of use cases. I find I end up going to extra measures to disable certain Ubuntu-isms on my own systems that run it, effectively reverting it to Debian by another name.

As a student and occasional gamer, the trade off is having a stable base for your learning needs, and still be able to get the latest user desktop apps from Snap.

Jumuta , 7 hours ago

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

clark OP , 7 hours ago

College / university, the thing right after highschool.

belha , 7 hours ago

@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 , 7 hours ago

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 , 7 hours ago

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