Sell Me on Linux

I posted this as a comment in another post but when I got done I realized it would probably just be better as its own post. I’m sure I could find the answers I need myself but frankly I trust the userbase here more than most online articles.

As my username hints at, I’m a lawyer. I’m considering starting my own firm as a solo practitioner. I need a computer and/or laptop for it, and as a new business my budget would be pretty tight. I’ve mostly only ever used windows, but I’m getting fed up with the bullshit, so I’m considering going with Linux.

I assume Linux is capable of doing everything I need, which is primarily handling word documents, viewing PDFs, watching evidence videos, and online research. But my concern is that some of the more commonly used video types might have trouble on Linux, or that some of the word document templates I use in Windows might have compatibility issues.

I’m also nervous about using an OS I’m not familiar with for business purposes right away.

So I guess I’m asking a few questions. What is a reliable yet affordable option to get started? Are my concerns based in reality or is Linux going to be able to handle everything windows does without issues? What else might I need to know to use Linux comfortably from the get go? Is it going to take a lot of time and effort to get Linux running how I need it to?

For reference, I do consider myself to be somewhat tech-savvy. I don’t code or anything, but I’ve built my last two home computers myself and I’m not scared of general software management, I just don’t make it myself.

So, yeah, sell me on Linux, please.

Kushia, (edited )
@Kushia@lemmy.ml avatar

I’ve worked with lawyers a bit in an IT role so I’ll put it bluntly. Don’t bother.

Why? You have to ensure complete compatibility with Microsoft Office standards in your job and you may also need to access third-party systems especially document management systems on a regular basis. These things require Windows. It’s a sad fact of life that your colleagues being able to read your documents and ensure consistent layout is more important than anything else.

Yes, you can try Libre Office and soforth. However, the moment the court staff, other lawyers or anybody else gets a jumbled mess you’re going to cause yourself more problems than it’s worth. Even you yourself need to be able to ensure compatibility when it comes to information storage and retrieval too.

Windows licences are essentially free with your devices anyway and the cost of Office is a couple of hundred bucks top. Money might be tight but losing information from your court cases could put you out of business.

Sorry Linux fanboys, but Windows is the superior option here as much as I wish it was not. It’s simply the best tool for the job.

phoenixz,

First: windows isn’t the superior option. This is basically windows being VHS, Linux being betamax. Linux is vastly superior, but it’s just that Microsoft marketing is too good at lying.

Second: Linux is very apt at running Microsoft programs, including office.

Third: fuck Microsoft office, use online office in a browser. Microsoft office 365 if you’re dumb (because my god, it’s cringy bad, or google docs if you want it easy (eats most Ms crap with little to no trouble) or if you want to go truely open source, setup nextcloud with only office.

Side comment: if governments or courts FOCRE you to pay money to a specific company to use services that can quite easily be done by open source alternatives then I say that smells like corruption and or incompetence.

Kushia,
@Kushia@lemmy.ml avatar

You are right in everything except that it’s absolutely not the superior option in OPs situation. A lawyer has to guarantee that a document is identical and recallable in its exact form even years from now and the only way to absolutely ensure this is using Office itself.

Furthermore, most law firms use and have to access other parties document management systems and the thick clients for these with all the features only run on Windows. Screwing around with WINE to get these maybe working isn’t worth the hassle for a time-poor lawyer with cases to work on.

Computers are just another tool in the box when it comes to your business and you should use the best version of it to get the job done. It’s simply only Windows in OPs case here that’s the viable option. It might be corruption or vendor lock in or whatever but there’s no point trying to fight it in this scenario.

Zangoose,

About your side comment - It isn’t necessarily that they’re being forced to use Office. It’s more that office is the standard that everyone else is using, and therefore the standard everyone expects to work with. If anything breaks or displays incorrectly, it becomes your fault for not using the standard.

To be clear, I hate Microsoft and their monopoly, and the blaming I just described as well. It definitely happens though. Same reason most of Gen Z uses iPhones: if you have an Android phone any problem with phones/chatting suddenly becomes your fault, even if the underlying reason is actually because of Apple.

phoenixz,

But that’s the point: it’s NOT a standard and government or justice departments should require open standards so that EVERYONE can participate because everyone MUST participate. Now the government at least allows the defacto forced sponsoring of a single damn near monopoly. Want to use the government? Sorry, gotta pay your Microsoft taxes first. That is not okay, not acceptable. There are loads of open standards that can be and should be used and enforced

desconectado,

Like or not, it’s a de facto standard. Good luck trying to convince your colleagues to change their workflow.

I love Linux, but I would never recommend using Microsoft Office on Linux especially if you work in a collaborative environment. Saying that Linux can run Microsoft office without any issue is a blatant lie. I run virtual machines basically so I can run Microsoft Office, but I don’t think everyone wants to go though that much hassle.

cupcakezealot,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

don’t go all in on linux when you’re already trying to get a new business up and running. it’s stressful enough without relearning an entire new os.

just install linux through virtualbox on top of windows or use a bootable usb/dvd to test drive it before you take the plunge and go all in.

if you really want to, you can install MATE on an amazon linux ec2 instance or get familiar with the command line on a micro sized free tier version.

or, for a more entry friendly approach, just enable wsl2 in windows 11 and get familiar with both gui programs and the command line. it’s not perfect but it will give you a better understanding of the underlyings of linux without having to give up the programs you’re ready for. when you’re comfortable, you can go further.

indepndnt,

I’m a CPA and my PC runs Linux, but also has a Windows VM for when I need Excel (unfortunately the open source alternatives just don’t cut it, and I’m guessing it’s similar for someone who relies on Word the way accountants rely on Excel), and my work laptop runs Windows.

If you ever edit PDFs with Acrobat Pro, there’s no good Linux equivalent that I’ve found for that either. It can be done, but you’ll need a couple of different programs depending on what you need to edit in the PDF.

In general I’d say that you can run your business in Linux, but it is probably not the best choice.

danielfgom,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

Linux is about protecting your freedom as a pc user. It means the software should always work for you, never against you, and you should have the right to inspect the code, modify it at will, and even sell it on or give it away for free

There are no licence fees, no tie in, and it runs faster on your pc then windows. It doesn’t spy on your nor force updates on you.

It should run on most computers but occasionally you may have to install additional WiFi or graphics card drivers but it’s not that common anymore.

You should definitely test it first, and try do everything you do on Windows, on Linux. To do this you can either install it alongside Windows or on a separate test pc or Intel it in a virtual machine on your pc

You can also use a live usb which lets you see it in action running off a usb stick but you can’t install additional software so it’s a limited experience.

I unequivocally recommend Linux Mint over any other Linux. I’ve seen the other comments but this is by far the best best Linux distro and the one you’ll feel most comfortable on. There are other advantages as well but you’ll learn that.

Linux Mint: linuxmint.com

Virtual box(software for running vm’s): www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

As for Office you have several choices:

  1. If you pay monthly for Office you can access the full suite online via a browser. It should do everything the desktop version does.
  2. Install Office alternatives that exist for Linux. There are 2 good choices to try:

A) OnlyOffice: www.onlyoffice.com/desktop.aspx

B) WPS Office: www.wps.com

In both cases you’ll need to download the deb file to install it. Deb files are like exe but for Debian and Ubuntu based Linux, think Mint is. They are the most widely available format.

I wouldn’t bother with the built in Libre Office as it’s not quite there yet. OnlyOffice can also do some PDF handling as well. You typically won’t find free PDF software for Linux as it’s proprietary software and companies like OnlyOffice likely pay Adobe some licencing fees to offer PDF edit functionality.

It might sound difficult but it’s not, especially if you enjoy computers. If not, ask an IT or nerd friend you might have for help.

Good luck.

interdimensionalmeme,

Use Linux and computer will devour your entire life just trying to make that thing you want, to work.

krash,

In addition to all the sound advice you’ve been give so far, you should have a support contract in case you run into problems and ideally, contract someone to set up your laptop so you have proper encryption, backup etc. You have to consider both meeting the business deadlines, and ensuring the confidentiality and availability of the data. If you want to do this yourself, contract someone to validate your configuration.

EuroNutellaMan,
@EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.world avatar

Others have given you some good advice but I’ll still give you my opinion because more data points is good.

First of all, as others said, it’s better perhaps if you switch your home computer first or try it out on a VM or dual-boot first as you learn how to use it rather than erasing Windows altogether at first. Regardless of your choice I’d recommend giving it a try still.

Affordability is not a concern at all, most Linux Distros are free and they’ll work perfectly fine, usually when you pay for distros you’re either paying for better tech support or to support the distro itself, and a lot of the software that’s on the repos is also free.

Your biggest concern probably would be re-learning the OS. Now, obviously Linux and windows work very differently, for example installing software on Linux is mainly done via an app-store or the terminal. As for graphics, shortcuts, etc, there’s two approaches here, which one is better depends on your preferences. You can either stick to something similiar to windows, so any distro that has Cinnamon, KDE plasma, or Xfce (you will have to move a few stuff and configure it a bit at the beginning) will do well, I’d recommend Linux Mint; or you can do something more different that will force you to learn something new and will tell you visually “Look, I’m not windows, I’m built different!” so something like GNOME (or customize the other DEs to something you like), personally I’m not a fan of GNOME but it works well for your use-case, as any DE will do, in this case I recommend Pop!_OS.

Both of my recommendetions use apt and are debian (through Ubuntu as the middledistro) derivatives btw. This is important because when you encounter a problem or a certain software not being in the repo it is good to look for sources closely related to your distro.

Linux can do everything you mentioned and more, however compatibility with M$ Word documents/etc can be a bit iffy. Personally I always used LibreOffice and aside from some minor annoyances never had issues with it and using .docx but I also don’t work at a professional environment that requires it to work perfectly. However you’re in luck as you can still use M$ office & other stuff from your browser if needed, tho I assume it will have less resources and will require an internet connection (this can be mitigated by working offline with LibreOffice, OpenOffice or any Office suite you like then copy-pasting it to M$ word or whatever), tho I wouldn’t know since I don’t use either and never planning on doing so. There’s also google docs.

Video types should work just fine especially common ones, VLC is a powerful tool. If you’re installing Mint make sure to install the media codecs at install.

Also I recommend learning the terminal, it may seem scary at first but it is easy, fast and will help you troubleshoot. Also accept that you will encounter problem, like in every system, and you’re expected to solve them yourself, this means you can spend a lot of time looking up stuff, learning to look at logs, etc. This will of course take time but it would take as much if not more time on windows too sometimes, on the bright side Linux tends to be a little better at telling you the problem if you know what to look for and also you almost never have to deal with an issue until the company fixes it, you can literally go and fix the code yourself if needs be. Anyways, on this end I recommend using a stable distribution (like the ones I mentioned), stick to the official repos as much as possible, and at install make a separate partition for your home folder, that way worst case scenario you can always just reinstall the OS (takes 15 mins) without losing your files*. Also, this goes for everything and I can’t stress it enough: MAKE FREQUENT BACKUPS, and better yet do them in multiple places: Proton Drive, external hard disk/USB, an other drive on your PC, whatever just have at least one, preferably 2+, place that isn’t your computer or its main drive be your backup space. This goes for Windows too and even though I assume you know it I will still say it because it’s extremely important and always overlooked.

*Unless you erase the partition by mistake or something.

P.S. also given the nature of your job, you might want to encrypt the hard disk (write the password somewhere and make sure to use a password specifically for it and one you can remember, password managers/generators don’t help here) and learn to use the gpg command when you need to encrypt and sign documents.

h3ndrik, (edited )

You need to try it. Don’t just roll it out in your business. Try it yourself before. Get an old/secondary computer and install it, try your templates and workflows. See which version (distribution) you like. Get your E-Mail connected and so on.

I can tell you Linux isn’t Windows or MacOS. For me, it works very well. I can do lots of things Windows users can not do or that are very cumbersome there, and I don’t have any advertisements or privacy issues. It respects my rights and freedoms as a user. And I’ve had way less issues with my printers and stuff than my windows-friends. I’ve never had a virus on my machine. I can’t tell you if it works for you.

I also don’t like selling it. It’s (arguably) better, faster and more user-friendly than Windows in many ways. But you need to find out if you can make use of it. One big factor against it would be familiarization with a different product. Except for that, I invite you to try it.

das_monk,

If you’re looking for something to buy, look elsewhere… Linux is FREE

Sage_the_Lawyer,

Oh I’m aware the OS is free. The affordability I was asking for was for the actual computer to run it. I guess that part wasn’t Linux-specific. Mostly just looking for a good option for a work computer that will last a while. Will probably just get some kind of refurb laptop, I’ve always had good success with those.

But if someone has a specific recommendation I’m all ears.

Nyfure,

The Lenovo Business Laptops always were super strong for me.
A bit on the heavy side (at least on the older models), but build like a tank and has an awesome keyboard.
But any halfway decent Laptop will run Linux fine.

UnexploredEnigma,

If you are ever going to bring a Linux machine to display evidence, I would suggest going in and testing beforehand. Should be fine but always anticipate failures is my takeaway

PanArab,
@PanArab@lemmy.ml avatar

No one will try to sell you anything, not even ads

asexualchangeling, (edited )

I don’t tend to use word documents much anymore, but from what I’ve heard, of the 2 main open source document viewers Only Office probably has the most compatibility with word, and iirc it recently added PDF support

PseudoSpock,
@PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

You can’t be sold on Linux. Anyone ‘sold on’ or ‘lead to’ Linux isn’t going to stick with it. The desire to learn to use and be productive with Linux is purely an internal one. Selling you on it would be like trying to push you into a religion. For this, you need to sell yourself on Linux. Install it, run it, make it your daily system for a few weeks or months… then you can decide if it is for you. The questions you’ll need to find answers to are, but not limited to:

  • Will it run the software I need? You mention PDF’s… Viewing non-encrypted PDF’s is no problem. For encrypted PDF forms that I’ve seen from some government sites, I needed Windows or Mac to fill them out reliably. I was able to do some within Wine, but that wasn’t stable enough to depend on.
  • Be aware there are desktop choices. Linux comes in many flavours, some can present and work similar to a Windows desktop workflow, some more similar to Mac (but not quite), and some are just either heritage UNIX styles or just Linux unique. Finding what you prefer can take some trial and effort.
  • I suggest Linux distributions that offer disk encryption (and be sure to use it). If you were my lawyer, I wouldn’t want the documents we share to be left around un-encrypted anywhere.

Check out some Linux periodicals, as well. They can help wet your whistle with reviews on various Linux distributions and often some introductory articles on software and How-To’s. If that kind of thing interests you, you’ve already half sold yourself on Linux.

UsernameNotFound,

Get a MacBook and use apple software if you are a lawyer.

nayminlwin,

It’s a rabbit hole, you have to get fairly deep into it to start reaping some “benefits”. Even if you start with something easy like cinnamon mint, there’s a small chance it might break something on major upgrade. But it’s generally fairly easy to fix if you have some grasp on the system.

The best way to learn would be to just install something like arch or debian in a VM but do everything in manual steps while trying to understand what every step’s accomplishing.

Dwalin,

You can do everything but you will have problems with word documents. There’s online office for better compatability with the caveat of reduced functionality. There’s great compatability with Only Office and WPS Office but its not perfect.

There was a comment recommending Zorin OS and I agree. Its a great distro to switch to from windows. Setup is easy and flathub is included in the software store.

I’d recommend trying Linux on dualboot and see if you can replace windows!

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