What potential issues come with switching to Linux

Joe Dunfee

I was just preparing a print for the boss, who was rushing out the door for an appointment. Then windows forced an update. It shut down, and the boss had to leave without the print. Windows was in the process of installing its update for an hour, when I was unable to work, while Microsoft forced some updates, and forced the install of some new apps. Also, lost about 20 minutes of unsaved work in BricsCAD. I know it gave me a warning that it was going to restart, but since I was working, that warning window was accidentally dismissed, as I was clicking and typing elsewhere.

Needless to say, we are not happy with Microsoft and the way it thinks it owns our computer and can do what it wants with it. Our small office also uses Office 360, and am having problems with it also. For some unknown reason the OneDrive is no longer syncing. This caused more than a little confusion and issues with people getting files that were outdated.

So, what can I expect if our office were to say, enough with Microsoft? I know all our apps have Linux equivalents. But, the other issue is that we do like the ability to use cloud storage, and have access to our e-mails across devices.

-Joe

Michael Mayer

The issues I have is mostly missing some exotic peripheral software,
that I was used on Mac and don't find it for Windows either.
And half of my 3D and CAD Software has no Linux support.

The other problem is that Bricscad is still not as smooth and reliable
on Mac and Linux as on Windows.

For me Linux is far superior and more trustworthy than Windows.
It is stable, fast and controllable.

For cloud storage on Linux I would take a look at Own Cloud / Next Cloud,
which could also run secure at your own server or a hosted server.

But for me, unwanted updates are the least problem on Windows.
I set my update/restart allowed times to times when do not work.
And manually look for updates before I switch the machine off.

navnav

As a software developer, I've used Linux for over 7 years of my career. Almost all of the companies I've worked at use Mac/Linux over Windows and all of them use G Suite products for office work. They're all browser based and integrate seamlessly together (all of your documents can be stored on Google Drive, shared with anyone in your company and available on any of your devices). But it's not free. I'm also using G Suite for my personal email (I have numerous personal domains), which cost me around £4/month (which I believe is per user). IMO it's worth it.

The other option is to use something like LibreOffice, but I wouldn't recommend this. Like most free Linux software, it's functional but it doesn't come close to the commercial competitors.

As for BricsCAD, I've been using it for almost a year on Ubuntu 18.04 and it's been great. Found a few minor issues in V19 but apart from that, it's worked great for me. But I should point out that I'm a former FreeCAD user, so my standards were right down there when I switched to BricsCAD.

If you're willing to pay for it, I'd go with G Suite on Linux. If you're not willing to pay, I wouldn't recommend moving to Linux at all.

Tigershroff

Users grew up with different versions of the Windows OS, so it’s difficult to change.