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Comment by sys_64738 | Hacker News Reader

You could also run WSL2 for the Linux apps you need to use part-time.

It’s more that I on occasion need to run Windows applications. Modern Office 365 doesn’t work with Wine and the web version doesn’t support the features needed.

When they fully merge the desktop app and web version of Office, I won’t need to boot into Windows ever again.

9/10 I use my computer, everything I do works in Linux. That 1 time out 10 is what forces me to pay for a Windows License and a copy of Microsoft Office. I’ll still pay Microsoft a license but I would no longer need to manage a dual boot to log into Windows to use Office when the occasion rises.

Do you need some advanced features of Office? LibreOffice is pretty good, nobody amongst my clients know I use it as we exchange documents. It’s pretty seamless!

As far as I (not the OP) am concerned, it's mostly not that I need some advanced feature of Office, it's that a document I get from someone else uses some advanced (layout) features or some fonts which aren't available on Linux, and then the document appears completely garbled.

There is no replacement for Excel in many cases. Otherwise I agree.

i want to know beyond macros, where else is libreoffice lacking behind excel ?

i have been daily driving calc for a long time now and with each update it feels like they are fixing that one bug i did not remember last time but it is fixed this time.

yeah, then there is power query and power stuff but other than that, i mean for regular people at home or "regular" office stuff, this should be enough, what do you think?

For home use sure, libreoffice or Mac pages or even Google spreadsheet is adequate.

I do a bunch of financial modeling in excel and the custom formatting, formula construction and sheer number of formulas are useful — saves me from jumping to just writing a program. Honestly, writing a program would be easier for me, but the presentation would be a pain, especially losing the excel UX that lets someone else do “what if”.

Word has that same level of complexity or more, but it gets in the way. It’s easier to write a latex doc.

I need a copy of the Windows desktop version of Microsoft Excel for a specific add on for my wife uses for a class. Even the MacOS version is not compatible with this add on. Convincing people not to use Microsoft specific Excel features that don’t work anywhere else is not the easiest thing. It’s quite calcified. I would probably have an easier time teaching pigs to fly.

You don't really need to pay of Windows nowadays as it can work indefinitely without Activation.

It looks pretty unprofessional to have a watermark whenever you record your screen. Like I said, literally the only thing keeping Windows in my house (literally could be using MacOS not just Linux) is a specific software compatibility that the current Windows versions of the Office desktop apps have. The extensions I need to use do not work on even Macs. So the ability to either stream a Microsoft desktop to any device or have full feature compatibility with the web version of Office is something I am looking forward to.

https://massgrave.dev/kms38.html

And now you won't even have to do that.

WSL2 is still too buggy to recommend this - e.g. they still haven't fixed the 100% CPU on wake from sleep.

Oh thank goodness I wasn't the only one with this issue! My coworker uses WSL2 regularly and never ran into it...

That aside I think it's a pretty good substitute, but if your stack is already Linux adjacent anyway I think running Linux is best.

They are still using ram as a buffer for file transfer... absolute pain with big files.

wow, still? this was actually the final nail that drove me back to Linux. that was years ago!

What are you talking about? I use WSL2 every day. Issues are very rare (rarer than on my desktop that runs an actual linux distribution...). I've never encountered 100% cpu when waking up from sleep.

I use it every day too. Issues are not rare. It can even bluescreen windows (docker garbage collect on a many core workstation). I would not recommend over Linux if one has a choice (I don't).

Yeah but then I’d have to put up with the telemetry, ads and other crap they’re distributing with Windows.

IMHO The bugs are far worse than the telemetry. Many Linux distributions are now more stable than both Windows and MacOS.

Ironically what WSL made for me is that I no longer need to install VMWare.

Those of us in the known, already have sorted out this with Virtual Box and VMWare at least since Windows 7 days.

The point probably was that OP don't want to run Windows as main OS.

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