https://atlasos.net/ windows mod that does a clean modified install to cut out most of the malware, uses half the ram and up to 10% less idle cpu of bloated default windows, uses official win10 or win11 iso files, still need a product key
https://wubuntu.org/ ubuntu that has a cloned windows ui to help ease transition (if switching is an option)
Libre office is a pretty good replacement for the Windows office suite, though I will say that Excel is a little nicer than its Libre office counterpart. You could try them out on your current system to see how they work out for you. R has a bunch of linux compatible versions though I am not so sure about Teams being able to run on such systems, there is a possibility that one might be able to run it using compatibility tools like WINE but I do not have any experience with Teams so I cant really say.
Addendum: it looks like microsoft just rolled out a version of teams for linux that is more or less up to speed with the ones for windows. Also important to mention is that there is a possibility that the security systems your organizations use might have compatibility issues so thats something to research and/or ask people in the IT department about.
You could use the web version of each of those apps. They may not have complete feature parity with the corresponding Windows desktop versions and the web versions may be a little more challenging to use, but you should be able to get by in most situations. The nice thing is that you can try it out right now on your Windows device to see what your experience would be like on Linux - just make sure you use the same/similar browser you would use on Linux.
The bigger issue with switching to Linux for school is likely going to be non-Microsoft software that one or some of your classes requires you to use that only supports Windows. If you are not able to get it to run with WINE or a Windows VM, you may be stuck running Windows for a few more years.
I know you’ve had a load of replies to this, but maybe. The issue is excel. People say libre office or web based Office365 can replace it, and it can for most basic spreadsheets, but there is no support for excel macros, additionally excel tables are not supported, and there is no powerquery equivalent which is a massive problem for sharing complex spreadsheets with others. I could not go without desktop excel for work. Libre office or web based office 365 doesn’t cut it.
I think you can replace excel completely with combinations of a basic spreadsheet program like Libreoffice with other more powerful tools including python, Matlab, maple, SQL databases, rust (🦀) etc, but only if you never intend on working with another human or organisation again. Because ultimately you’ll need to send something to someone, and starting any email with “right, the instructions on opening/running this file: so first you’re going to need to install rust…” is in immediate non starter, and even if you can get round that, in return they’ll still send you some hideous spreadsheet with 3000 different vba functions and powerqueries of multiple databases and you haven’t a hope in hell of making that work outside of excel in any viable timeframe.
Excel is sadly the standard and it’s really powerful and a lot of people use that power. This means until something fully emulates all the functionality of excel (a moving target in itself) you’re stuck with using excel. Even though I'm on Linux 80% of the time, I have a windows machine for work that’s purpose is to run excel.
The only thing that may be an issue is highly specific software, and games. Over the past year, whenever I start new stuff, I always get a Linux-compatible program/workflow, so it's gradually becoming a non-issue. Overwatch and Beat Saber are the only things tying me to Windows now.
Unfortunately, I love highly specific software and this has reduced my ability to use Linux. It is genuinely great that I can have any extremely narrow, bizarre need and some person wrote a program fixing that need in windows. Like what if I need to mux my mice and I am stuck on linux.
yeah, they have debs and rpms on their main site but for times when I have to resort to it, the flatpak sandboxing has some benefits
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download
For Uni I use Typst for most documents nowadays and sometimes LibreOffice. If I need to open a .docx I use LibreOffice for that as well. It does fuck up the formatting sometimes though so if you have an annoying professor that requires .docx files perfectly formatted you might need to use Word in a VM or a lab computer if they're available.
Teams works on Firefox so I just use it there (there's also an extension that lets you install PWAs using Firefox so you can do that to Teams as well).
For Excel, I don't use it so I'm not sure what features you need and whether LibreOffice has all of them.
I do have one issue with VSCodium, which has turned me off from it - it lacks some of the extensions. I also recall that I ran into trouble with it when configuring it for, I believe, C++ or PHP, but that might just have been a 'me' issue that will get resolved after I get more comfortable with TypeScript.
That's fair, it's certainly the one big weakness. But that's the tradeoff. Getting rid of Microsoft means getting rid of Microsoft, extension store included.
STOP TRYING TO INSTALL COPILOT
https://atlasos.net/ windows mod that does a clean modified install to cut out most of the malware, uses half the ram and up to 10% less idle cpu of bloated default windows, uses official win10 or win11 iso files, still need a product key
https://wubuntu.org/ ubuntu that has a cloned windows ui to help ease transition (if switching is an option)
If I switch to Linux will all the programs I use for Uni/work be fucked? (Teams, Word, Excel, R, etc)
R should just work straight up better on Linux.
I don't know about Teams, but Word and Excel can be replaced with LibreOffice, files made in MS Office are compatible
teams has a web app.
I use Teams every day on Arch Linux, you'll be fine for that at least.
Libre office is a pretty good replacement for the Windows office suite, though I will say that Excel is a little nicer than its Libre office counterpart. You could try them out on your current system to see how they work out for you. R has a bunch of linux compatible versions though I am not so sure about Teams being able to run on such systems, there is a possibility that one might be able to run it using compatibility tools like WINE but I do not have any experience with Teams so I cant really say.
Addendum: it looks like microsoft just rolled out a version of teams for linux that is more or less up to speed with the ones for windows. Also important to mention is that there is a possibility that the security systems your organizations use might have compatibility issues so thats something to research and/or ask people in the IT department about.
You could use the web version of each of those apps. They may not have complete feature parity with the corresponding Windows desktop versions and the web versions may be a little more challenging to use, but you should be able to get by in most situations. The nice thing is that you can try it out right now on your Windows device to see what your experience would be like on Linux - just make sure you use the same/similar browser you would use on Linux.
The bigger issue with switching to Linux for school is likely going to be non-Microsoft software that one or some of your classes requires you to use that only supports Windows. If you are not able to get it to run with WINE or a Windows VM, you may be stuck running Windows for a few more years.
I know you’ve had a load of replies to this, but maybe. The issue is excel. People say libre office or web based Office365 can replace it, and it can for most basic spreadsheets, but there is no support for excel macros, additionally excel tables are not supported, and there is no powerquery equivalent which is a massive problem for sharing complex spreadsheets with others. I could not go without desktop excel for work. Libre office or web based office 365 doesn’t cut it.
Yeah unfortunately I'm going to be using excel a lot for my research
I think you can replace excel completely with combinations of a basic spreadsheet program like Libreoffice with other more powerful tools including python, Matlab, maple, SQL databases, rust (🦀) etc, but only if you never intend on working with another human or organisation again. Because ultimately you’ll need to send something to someone, and starting any email with “right, the instructions on opening/running this file: so first you’re going to need to install rust…” is in immediate non starter, and even if you can get round that, in return they’ll still send you some hideous spreadsheet with 3000 different vba functions and powerqueries of multiple databases and you haven’t a hope in hell of making that work outside of excel in any viable timeframe.
Excel is sadly the standard and it’s really powerful and a lot of people use that power. This means until something fully emulates all the functionality of excel (a moving target in itself) you’re stuck with using excel. Even though I'm on Linux 80% of the time, I have a windows machine for work that’s purpose is to run excel.
The only thing that may be an issue is highly specific software, and games. Over the past year, whenever I start new stuff, I always get a Linux-compatible program/workflow, so it's gradually becoming a non-issue. Overwatch and Beat Saber are the only things tying me to Windows now.
Unfortunately, I love highly specific software and this has reduced my ability to use Linux. It is genuinely great that I can have any extremely narrow, bizarre need and some person wrote a program fixing that need in windows. Like what if I need to mux my mice and I am stuck on linux.
Office and Teams are officially supported by microsoft in edge which has an official linux version
also someone wrote a wrapper for teams to be it's own program to not have to run in a browser:
there are onedrive apps and such if those are used
so all of that stuff works in linux with microsoft support
https://cloud.r-project.org/ has native R for linux
That teams client is excellent too because it just shows that you're always online lmao
There's an Edge browser for Linux?!! Guess I'm ditching chrome for work!
yeah, they have debs and rpms on their main site but for times when I have to resort to it, the flatpak sandboxing has some benefits
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download
For Uni I use Typst for most documents nowadays and sometimes LibreOffice. If I need to open a .docx I use LibreOffice for that as well. It does fuck up the formatting sometimes though so if you have an annoying professor that requires .docx files perfectly formatted you might need to use Word in a VM or a lab computer if they're available.
Teams works on Firefox so I just use it there (there's also an extension that lets you install PWAs using Firefox so you can do that to Teams as well).
For Excel, I don't use it so I'm not sure what features you need and whether LibreOffice has all of them.
R works fine on Linux.
Teams has a web app you can use
'R' as in, the language?
R studio, a statistic program
I've used R studio on Arch Linux ARM before, so it should work
If I recall correctly what R studio is, it's just an IDE for the R language. There are, at the very least, alternatives to it, including VS code.
On that note, I have been meaning to relearn R. I should set up VS Code to work with it, and/or try R studio.
A good alternative to vscode is vscodium. It's basically vscode with the Microsoft-specific stuff like telemetry not included.
I do have one issue with VSCodium, which has turned me off from it - it lacks some of the extensions. I also recall that I ran into trouble with it when configuring it for, I believe, C++ or PHP, but that might just have been a 'me' issue that will get resolved after I get more comfortable with TypeScript.
That's fair, it's certainly the one big weakness. But that's the tradeoff. Getting rid of Microsoft means getting rid of Microsoft, extension store included.