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submitted 7 months ago by clark@midwest.social to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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.

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[-] pathief@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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.

[-] Lrobie@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago

I did computer science in uni and it was never an issue. The only time I remember needing specific windows software was a RISC processor simulator we used in my low level programming class, and for that there was a hefty license on the software anyway, so basically everyone used the lab computers.

[-] witx@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 7 months ago

It was my college experience. Didn't use anything else. No issues at all

[-] luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago

I studied CompSci, so a very technical field, and with one exception (Power BI), everything I used ran on Linux just as well. For my Thesis, I used TeXStudio. For normal writing or presentations, I just used LibreOffice. For calculations, I used Python. For collaborative document editing, we used Google Docs.

Word of caution: LibreOffice supports the various formats of MS Office, but I've had issues the other way around, where a presentation I created in LO wouldn't work in MSO. If you need to collab on files together, I'd recommend Google Docs. If it's just you, I recommend sending PDF versions along with (or instead of) the original file, just to be sure.

[-] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

My experience was that the school provided free Windows keys for a personal computer if you needed one (they didn’t provide the computer itself) but the majority of computers I interacted with on campus (mostly in the computer lab) were Linux (some Debian variant iirc). I think the printing computers in the library were windows. I took an art class at one point and they had Macs (it was for using the Apple’s Final Cut Pro).

We never used LibreOffice though. Everyone just uses Google Drive.

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago

I set up dual boot but ended up only running Windows once when I had trouble with my Windows VMs. You'll be fine.
Especially since MSOffice everything is just browser apps anyway.

[-] ssm@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I've used GNU/OpenBSD all the way through community college (US) with minor issues. Biggest issue is having to use platforms like zoom for some online courses, which requires an RTC capable browser (aka firefox or chromium, neither of which I am a big fan of) for the webclient, which the company clearly does not want you using as they won't actually give a prompt to use the webclient until you click their link to fail opening their native spyware client (so who knows when the webclient will just disappear altogether). Another issue was professors using proprietary microsoft formats which require installing libreoffice, which isn't tooling I particularly enjoy using, but at least the option is there. I haven't had to use a malware "lockdown" browser or anything like that thankfully (though if I had to, I'd just use computers on-campus to do the work). Most classes allow submissions in PDF, and if the syllabus only allows docx submissions, the professor will allow me to submit PDF after contacting them.

[-] LavenderDay3544@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

As a former computer science and economics TA and lecturer all I have to say is please don't be that guy.

If your class uses Windows, use Windows, if it uses Linux use the exact same distribution as the instructor and for the love of whatever you believe in if you bring a Mac into my classroom and argue with me that it's Unix so it's close enough I will smash it over your head and fail you so you don't hold up my class because you think you're special.

[-] DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

So far I've been able to run everything I need to off of it, and libreoffice works very well with office docs in my experience.

[-] mrvictory1@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months 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.

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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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