Basically “professional software” that isn’t tech related.
There are fantastic alternatives that are (nearly) transparent for individual users.
There are BETTER alternatives for some software.
But working in a team/company that doesn’t prioritise Linux accessibility is painful. And it’s pain that people aren’t paid to deal with to complete their actual workload.
MS has corporate by the balls.
It’s the best office suite for Linux, I just think MS office is a better product. Maybe I’m wrong and it would be great if I was more competent with it.
Honestly, I’ve just switched (after 27 years of windows) like two months ago, and I don’t miss any of that old crap. Not once have I thought “damn, wish I could have this software under Linux”, because there was always an alternative.
Its almost always tools and programs used in their professional life. The 365 suite, adobe suite, fusion 360, simulation programs, …
Yes i know there are free or alternative options, but they are never as good or powerful as the full on suites that have existed since the dawn of time.
Ive been running linux ( dual boot with windows ) on my work laptop for 9 months at this point and i love it. But sometimes, i do have to boot windows for one of the professional suite programs.
For me the 365 suite (including copilot) all works great inside Firefox on Mint. But I work in software so the other everyday stuff is pretty well available.
I assume some day I’ll need to boot back into windows for something, but it’s already Ben months.
Depends, im a power user that does all kind of things on my pc. Gaming but also other workloads, so ill be dual booting with linux as my main soon anyway.
But for pure gaming, ye linux might do depending on the games
Logitech G13 left hand kb - no drivers, Steam VR library 20 some of 90 some games come up in steam, Microsoft intellipoint trackball, only left, right, and wheel work but cannot program the other 2 buttons, no BlueStacks - simple to use phone emulator.
Haven’t gotten any further as if VR library is not available there is no point getting rid of windows, and I really want to get rid of windows. I just don’t have the drive I used to, to fix, look up hints, tinker with my os and reinstall new ones. It has to just work. I have Kubuntu installed on a 4tb sata ssd, rtx 4070ti super, Ryzen 7 3800, 32gb ram. In the last month steam VR made some strides as setting up was as seamless as windows, but as I stated I am missing 2/3 of my VR library
I have faith steam will continue to improve proton to the point of “it just works”. As well, any new purchases of hardware will be Linux ready.
I must say Linux HAS gotten more user friendly over the last 20/30 years, and the GUIs have gotten more stable. My first Linux distro was red hat enterprise Linux, and then I hopped around to fedora, then mandrake and mandriva, a buddy suggested slack at one point, then I found Ubuntu, and now Kubuntu, I prefer the gnome environment but kde plasma seems to work better. Wayland is also long over due.
With only 20 of 90 VR games available I’d say I was already fucked over and I am nowhere near the end… Thank you for the suggestions on how to over come the issues I have so far
I use Figma (a UX design tool). It has browser support but I prefer the native app experience, I’ve seen there are Linux versions on GitHub but I heard they have some compatibility or performance issues sometimes and I need it to be 100% reliable as it is for work. I also use some Adobe products sporadically (Illustrator and Photoshop) FOSS software doesn’t make the cut for professional use, even if they do nearly the same, since you need standard industry tools.
I also like gaming and even though Linux is almost there (I love my Steam Deck) I see so many people struggling here and there and I really don’t feel like tinkering, I already tinker enough on Windows to get my games working properly.
But all in all I’m still interested in Linux and keeping an eye on it and might pull the trigger some day even if is only for personal use/tinkering :)
I use Figma (a UX design tool). It has browser support but I prefer the native app experience, I’ve seen there are Linux versions on GitHub but I heard they have some compatibility or performance issues sometimes and I need it to be 100% reliable as it is for work.
Figma has an unofficial Flatpak version available, which is a wrapper for the web version so I can’t speak for how well it works but it might be worth to give it a try on your Steam Deck? Just search for “Figma” in Discover when on desktop mode.
For games at least (haven’t tested for films/shows as I do that on my TV), HDR support is there. I‘m running nobara htpc, which has everything necessary already set up and any game I ran in gamescope so far worked perfectly fine in HDR.
My biggest hangup is Fusion360. Supposedly someone figured out how to get it working but It’s not officially supported and I haven’t had time to test it.
Apart from the many compatibility issues with all kinds of random games that can usually be fixed within an hour (but still cost me too much time), the biggest one is specific stuff like playing Assetto Corsa with mods in VR using a Logitech wheel. It’s already a pretty hefty stack of things to keep working on Windows, but on Linux I cannot even get AC to start so I have no idea whether the rest will work.
I’m already fighting computers all day. When I get home tired the last thing I want to do is to fight the computer even more. I just want a game to start without issue. Even on my Steam deck I have regular hard crashes of the system in multiple games, and my PC is probably less supported due to the more random set of packages installed
What do you use on a daily basis that’s not supported? I see this kind of comment all the time and nobody wants to tell me!
Microsoft office suite? Adobe, most DAWs. PCVR.
There are alternatives for some of these things. IMO libreoffice is good, but buggy compared to the MS office suite.
Basically “professional software” that isn’t tech related.
There are fantastic alternatives that are (nearly) transparent for individual users.
There are BETTER alternatives for some software.
But working in a team/company that doesn’t prioritise Linux accessibility is painful. And it’s pain that people aren’t paid to deal with to complete their actual workload.
MS has corporate by the balls.
Libreoffice rules
It’s the best office suite for Linux, I just think MS office is a better product. Maybe I’m wrong and it would be great if I was more competent with it.
Honestly, I’ve just switched (after 27 years of windows) like two months ago, and I don’t miss any of that old crap. Not once have I thought “damn, wish I could have this software under Linux”, because there was always an alternative.
Arch btw.
Some people were saying MS Office will still run in the browser though and that’s 90 percent of my use case these days to be honest.
Yeah that’s fair. I’m very into hotkeys and macros to speed up my workflow, so the browser doesn’t do it for me.
I do main Linux (OpenSUSE Tumbleweed), but its not a machine I use for doing serious work.
onlyoffice? it saldy uses chromium embedded framework tho.
Its almost always tools and programs used in their professional life. The 365 suite, adobe suite, fusion 360, simulation programs, …
Yes i know there are free or alternative options, but they are never as good or powerful as the full on suites that have existed since the dawn of time.
Ive been running linux ( dual boot with windows ) on my work laptop for 9 months at this point and i love it. But sometimes, i do have to boot windows for one of the professional suite programs.
For me the 365 suite (including copilot) all works great inside Firefox on Mint. But I work in software so the other everyday stuff is pretty well available.
I assume some day I’ll need to boot back into windows for something, but it’s already Ben months.
Fair, but in the context of gaming I doubt there are that many people gaming on their work machine.
Depends, im a power user that does all kind of things on my pc. Gaming but also other workloads, so ill be dual booting with linux as my main soon anyway.
But for pure gaming, ye linux might do depending on the games
Yeah, I’ve been spoiled because most of the heavier workloads I do is all programming related and Linux tends to be better there.
I have had issues with Autodesk products, but I’m able to get 99% of what I need with freecad.
If you have a large work budget, then Siemens NX (version 12 or less) runs on RHEL or SUSE.
I can tell you my issues, so far.
Logitech G13 left hand kb - no drivers, Steam VR library 20 some of 90 some games come up in steam, Microsoft intellipoint trackball, only left, right, and wheel work but cannot program the other 2 buttons, no BlueStacks - simple to use phone emulator.
Haven’t gotten any further as if VR library is not available there is no point getting rid of windows, and I really want to get rid of windows. I just don’t have the drive I used to, to fix, look up hints, tinker with my os and reinstall new ones. It has to just work. I have Kubuntu installed on a 4tb sata ssd, rtx 4070ti super, Ryzen 7 3800, 32gb ram. In the last month steam VR made some strides as setting up was as seamless as windows, but as I stated I am missing 2/3 of my VR library
Yeah, my SteamVR library is why I keep a Windows virtual machine around.
I have faith steam will continue to improve proton to the point of “it just works”. As well, any new purchases of hardware will be Linux ready.
I must say Linux HAS gotten more user friendly over the last 20/30 years, and the GUIs have gotten more stable. My first Linux distro was red hat enterprise Linux, and then I hopped around to fedora, then mandrake and mandriva, a buddy suggested slack at one point, then I found Ubuntu, and now Kubuntu, I prefer the gnome environment but kde plasma seems to work better. Wayland is also long over due.
Oof that’s quite the haul. Thanks for the write up though.
I will keep testing and one day I will be joyous. Linux is so close, just a few more years™.
People love to write up laundry lists of why they can’t change. They’re fucking themselves over in the end though.
With only 20 of 90 VR games available I’d say I was already fucked over and I am nowhere near the end… Thank you for the suggestions on how to over come the issues I have so far
I use Figma (a UX design tool). It has browser support but I prefer the native app experience, I’ve seen there are Linux versions on GitHub but I heard they have some compatibility or performance issues sometimes and I need it to be 100% reliable as it is for work. I also use some Adobe products sporadically (Illustrator and Photoshop) FOSS software doesn’t make the cut for professional use, even if they do nearly the same, since you need standard industry tools.
I also like gaming and even though Linux is almost there (I love my Steam Deck) I see so many people struggling here and there and I really don’t feel like tinkering, I already tinker enough on Windows to get my games working properly.
But all in all I’m still interested in Linux and keeping an eye on it and might pull the trigger some day even if is only for personal use/tinkering :)
That’s where I am, I’m looking at switching my gaming computer over to fiddle with it, see what’s going on.
Figma has an unofficial Flatpak version available, which is a wrapper for the web version so I can’t speak for how well it works but it might be worth to give it a try on your Steam Deck? Just search for “Figma” in Discover when on desktop mode.
https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.Figma_Linux.figma_linux
Poor hdr support is one for games and shows.
For games at least (haven’t tested for films/shows as I do that on my TV), HDR support is there. I‘m running nobara htpc, which has everything necessary already set up and any game I ran in gamescope so far worked perfectly fine in HDR.
Okay. I can see that being an issue. I’m fine without HDR but I know people who aren’t.
Literally unusable!!!
My biggest hangup is Fusion360. Supposedly someone figured out how to get it working but It’s not officially supported and I haven’t had time to test it.
Apart from the many compatibility issues with all kinds of random games that can usually be fixed within an hour (but still cost me too much time), the biggest one is specific stuff like playing Assetto Corsa with mods in VR using a Logitech wheel. It’s already a pretty hefty stack of things to keep working on Windows, but on Linux I cannot even get AC to start so I have no idea whether the rest will work.
I’m already fighting computers all day. When I get home tired the last thing I want to do is to fight the computer even more. I just want a game to start without issue. Even on my Steam deck I have regular hard crashes of the system in multiple games, and my PC is probably less supported due to the more random set of packages installed