Microsoft Products

[DaveM]

Yes you can do it like that but I just went for a complete new installation. You can also run it off a USB drive by booting it onto that drive if you just want to play around with it before making any permanent changes. I would suggest doing this first to make sure that you like the idea.

 

[T100ICE]

Once ya go Mac, ya never go back.

I do know several people who feel that way, but it is not universal.

Work gave me a macbook to do some unit testing for a project once. I tried to make it my daily driver during the course of the project, but I was severely underwhelmed by macos.

For instance, I used to think mac people always had their applications jumbled haphazardly across their desktops because they were 'artsy'.... It turns out macos just has no built in window management function ‍if you want that, you have to buy it separately on the app store.
There were several things like that, that made me go "wait, seriously?" and the macbook was living at the bottom of a drawer in less than a week.

The hardware was undeniably well built, but I didn't find it to be any better than what is available in the 'ultrabook' pc segment that is priced similarly. And macs lack features that are pretty standard for PC laptops in that price rang like 360 hinges and touchscreens.

But to each their own, of course.

 

[T100ICE]

Welcome to the Linux family!

I remember when Windows Vista came out, and I thought to myself "when XP ends support I'm going to figure out this Linux desktop stuff". Then Windows 7 was actually really great! Then Windows 8 came out, and I thought "for real this time, when 7 support ends, I'm going to linux!" But then Windows 10 was really good.....

I work with a bunch of Linux distros on various servers and VMs, but I still don't daily drive on either of my computers... but I think when i'm ready to move off windows 10 I'm finally going to make the jump for real. I have a Manjaro partition on my laptop right now, but I don't boot into it often.

The biggest was MS Office but Linux has the free version that is 100% compatible to MS Office. I have most of my main programs on my desktop but most of them also have the Linux free compatible version that I could use. For mail I used Thunderbird Mail and it really works well. I was at one time thinking of dropping Outlook for my mail and using this instead.

My biggest thing I would need to look at if I move my desktop over is the support on all the games I play but I hear they also run fine on Linux with a bit of setting up.

FYI, Microsoft actually has most if not all of their office applications available for Linux now, and especially if your games are on Steam, you shouldn't run into too many issues.

 

[Wire-Wheels]

Once ya go Mac, ya never go back.

Only trouble is, I am allergic to Apple

 

[DaveM]

Welcome to the Linux family!

I remember when Windows Vista came out, and I thought to myself "when XP ends support I'm going to figure out this Linux desktop stuff". Then Windows 7 was actually really great! Then Windows 8 came out, and I thought "for real this time, when 7 support ends, I'm going to linux!" But then Windows 10 was really good.....

I work with a bunch of Linux distros on various servers and VMs, but I still don't daily drive on either of my computers... but I think when i'm ready to move off windows 10 I'm finally going to make the jump for real. I have a Manjaro partition on my laptop right now, but I don't boot into it often.

I think when I started off it was on the first version of MS Dos and worked up from there. I only really started using Window as my daily version from around Win 95 and then it was every version that they released as they released it. I had to remain current for my work situation so I really had no other choice but to upgrade as they came out. I always wanted to try Linux but never really got around to doing this because of my work situation. Now that I am retired I am not fixed to using Windows like I was before.

Microsoft actually has most if not all of their office applications available for Linux now, and especially if your games are on Steam, you shouldn't run into too many issues.

I noticed that MS has Linux installs now but even having all the MS licenses for my laptop I decided to just keep away from them. I am now using LibreOffice and it's free and is as good as if not better than MS Office. My main issue with my desktop was they fact that I am a gamer and wanted to make sure that I would not loose that ability if I did switch that over. I did see that they now have Steam on Linux and that is something I would research more before I change the desktop over.