Linux

I’ve dabbled with Linux for decades but only within the last year decided to make it a permanent switch due to a new career move. When I’ve previously used Linux it’s always been on a USB stick or something like that, so when something didn’t work I just tolerated it and ended up using Windows most of the time. By removing my Windows installs and doing a permanent switch I found myself more inclined to learn and fix the problems, though most of it is simply searching and searching until you find someone else who’s already solved it.

It’s not exactly been a smooth process, and in the end I ended up dual-booting both of my machines with Windows just for the odd thing that I couldn’t be bothered fixing, and it’s kind of silly that both of my Windows installs were so easy and set most things up automatically compared to the Linux ones. While I like Linux it certainly isn’t for everyone and I don’t care what anyone here says but Linux won’t be a desktop of choice for normal people for a long time, if ever. If the year of Linux ever happens it won’t be because everyone suddenly wakes up one day and decides they love FOSS, it’ll be because someone like Google rolls out an incredibly locked down version, such as ChromeOS, in a way that works for most people. The year of Linux won’t be what people on here want it to be. And I still think the Linux community has so many people in it with a shit attitude that people are often driven away just as they’re dipping their toes in. I was just looking at a post this morning that was asking the exact question I had and the first reply began with “Did you even bother to read the wiki?”.

For phone linking you can use KDE Connect (and GSConnect if you use GNOME)

Aw half the fun of linux is all the weird janky software some nerds felt strongly enough about to release.

Npp can be replaced by several different linux tools. You just have to like using the terminal a bit. Personally I get it. I know awk and sed and all those crunchy tools the olds made exist, but it's not a crime to have it all in one place in a gui. That said it npp 1000% works under wine. Sublime Text has a linux version and all the plugins you could ever want if you're willing to learn new ways of doing stuff you've already figured out. Vscodium is also a decent npp replacement. It's fast, has a cli, and a great plugin ecosystem.

Excel is all hype. Unless you're a data analyst or numbers nerd LibreOffice Calc has all the things. It's not as performant as excel with large datasets, but it has formulas, pivot tables (though somewhat weird), and macros. It's just ugly installed from the debian repo. Also if you're paying for office you can probably still use excel in the browser.

OneDrive sucks, unless you are committed to the Microsoft ecosystem. If you find a suitable replacement for excel, you could always cancel your office subscription and setup a nextcloud instance. You can have it all hosted for you through nextcloud and they have web based office tools using LibreOffice. Their syncing app works on everything so you've got options. Or you can try to self-host it. I have a raspberry pi with an external hard drive attached running nextcloud, and a vpn. Reasonably stable, if slow.

I hope that outside of Visual Studio, you can completely free yourself of the windows ecosystem.

im kinda stuck with a windows workstation for work also, for the exact same reasons. ive used the discrepancy in environments to completely air-gap my home and work life. linux for all things personal, and windows for the BS at the office... never the twain shall meet

notepad++ really bothers me.. if theres one freakin app that linux should have a mastery of its text editing... and yet.

e. for the vim/emacs/nano peeps: no. just no. its not me who is wrong here because i dont want to learn 400 obscure keystrokes among other nonsense. we dont need to hear about your text editing stockholm-syndrome.