Sell Me on Linux

I posted this as a comment in another post but when I got done I realized it would probably just be better as its own post. I’m sure I could find the answers I need myself but frankly I trust the userbase here more than most online articles.

As my username hints at, I’m a lawyer. I’m considering starting my own firm as a solo practitioner. I need a computer and/or laptop for it, and as a new business my budget would be pretty tight. I’ve mostly only ever used windows, but I’m getting fed up with the bullshit, so I’m considering going with Linux.

I assume Linux is capable of doing everything I need, which is primarily handling word documents, viewing PDFs, watching evidence videos, and online research. But my concern is that some of the more commonly used video types might have trouble on Linux, or that some of the word document templates I use in Windows might have compatibility issues.

I’m also nervous about using an OS I’m not familiar with for business purposes right away.

So I guess I’m asking a few questions. What is a reliable yet affordable option to get started? Are my concerns based in reality or is Linux going to be able to handle everything windows does without issues? What else might I need to know to use Linux comfortably from the get go? Is it going to take a lot of time and effort to get Linux running how I need it to?

For reference, I do consider myself to be somewhat tech-savvy. I don’t code or anything, but I’ve built my last two home computers myself and I’m not scared of general software management, I just don’t make it myself.

So, yeah, sell me on Linux, please.

BRINGit34, (edited )
@BRINGit34@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Okay so I am typing as someone who has helped local businesses set up computer systems. Nothing big just one or two person operations. Getting them computers, downloading their software, and making sure they understand how to keep up to date.

I would recommend you use what you are comfortable with at first. Use Windows, get your business in a comfortable position to experiment. And then I would say try Linux out.

I imagine you will need to keep up to date with invoices and the such and you will need to figure out what software you are going to use that. You could always just be basic and use excel sheets but most businesses are using Quick-books or something similar. And a lot of invoicing software does not work on Linux. I would say invoice-ninja is probably the most popular invoicing software on Linux so that would probably get you the best support. This is usually the point people tell me they will stick with windows.

But if you are able to get past that and maybe learn one of those invoicing software applications then I would say you would have next to 0 issues. As you are in a business environment pick something reliable. Debian, Ubuntu LTS, or RHEL. I would test them all in a vm and see what you like best.

Now word documents may cause issues. Maybe. I find libre office works for me 95% of the time. But I don’t do anything very fancy with it. I write essays and maybe every now and then I will include a graph. I would test libre office on windows and see how that works for you. Only office is also an option but I have 0 experience with it.

Also I find that linux is seriously lacking in ways to manage pdfs. At this point I use my browsers built in pdf reader more than any sort of linux app. Digital signing has always been a pain in the ass and the pdf reader I have the best luck out of is Zathura which is a cli application which is definitely not new-user friendly. But this isn’t really an issue it’s just me nitpicking. You can manage pdfs on linux just as well as windows it just may not be as user friendly some times.

You mentioned you are worried about some video formats not working on linux. May I ask what sort of video formats those are. I find vlc or mpv to have great support for most if not all video formats.

My recommendation would be to use linux. I love it. But this is a new business. Use what works for you as much as possible. Get to the point where you have the funds and free time to experiment and try linux. Poke around with some open source apps in windows and see how they work. Invoice-Ninja and libre office both have windows versions.

I wish you luck with your endeavors and I hope my comment has helped somewhat

edit: spelling and punctuation

GustavoM, (edited )
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

That is like, trying to convince a meat lover to eat veggies (only) but seriously? Just download an iso @ linuxmint.com, give it a spin. It’s free. Be aware that “It’s not Windows” so expect some things to not behave “by the Windows logic”. “Duckduckgo is your friend”, even if it means asking the most trivial things “How do I install $thing on Linux mint?”, and you’ll be just fine.

lemann,

For opening Word documents, I’d highly recommend OnlyOffice. Has outstanding compatibility with documents originally created in Microsoft Word, and it’s free on Flathub

Another alternative if you have an existing 365 subscription would be the online version of Word in your web browser.

If you’re heavily into the 365 ecosystem though, do note that things like Onedrive compatibility aren’t all the way there on linux, so you’d miss luxuries like right-clicking a file and getting a shareable link, or sending a file to someone directly from the file manager. For these you’ll need to drag-n-drop the file into onedrive, or into your email app to send them.

Things like opening PDFs, viewing various video formats etc, are built-in and work flawlessly on pretty much all Linux distros. Support for opening encrypted PDF files should be flawless too, haven’t had issues with these myself.

Would recommend Linux Mint, or Zorin OS, as both have a pretty similar look and feel when coming from Windows

TCB13,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

OnlyOffice. Has outstanding compatibility with documents

It might be decent, but is isn’t “outstanding”, advanced formatting and features sometimes fails. Another thing about OnlyOffice is that it is a web app, it might work fine for smaller documents, however when you’ve to load a 50+ page document scrolling around becomes really bad as you’ll have to scroll and wait 1-2 seconds for each page to load.

Things like opening PDFs, viewing various video formats etc, are built-in and work flawlessly on pretty much all Linux distros

It isn’t “flawlessly”. Forms in PDFs aren’t supported properly.

bismuthbob, (edited )
@bismuthbob@sopuli.xyz avatar

I use linux to run my law office, so it can be done. Most of what I use is web-based these days, so headaches are minor. That being typed, I’ve been using linux off and on since the 1990s, and there was a fair amount of learning involved. A few notes:

-Libreoffice is good enough for document drafting, unless you’re extremely reliant on templates generated in Word. Even then, that’s a few hours of clerical work that you can farm out with, presumably, no confidentiality issues to flag. Also bear in mind that if you end up using different Linux distributions on more than one computer, then you may run into minor formatting differences between different versions of your word processing software. Microsoft Office will be a reliable option unless you run windows as a virtual machine. There are workarounds, but they aren’t business ready.

-Some aspects of PDF authoring can be tricky if you’re doing discovery prep, redaction, and related tasks in-house. This is very workflow-specific, so if you’re not a litigator or your jurisdiction doesn’t have a lot of specific requirements for pdf submissions, it might not be something that you need to worry about. If it becomes a problem, then a Windows virtual machine might be a solution.

-Video support depends greatly on the linux distribution, so you may want to do a bit of research and avoid distributions like Fedora, where certain mainstream AV formats are not supported by default for philosophical/licensing reasons.

-Compatibility with co-counsel and clients will be hit or miss. I don’t let anything leave my office that hasn’t been converted to PDF and I only do collaboration when there is a special request to do so. I can fall back on a computer that I have which runs Office. It sounds like you have more than one computer, so you can have a backup plan.

-Hardware support is critical. If you need to videoconference and it turns out that your webcam doesn’t have a linux driver, then you may be hosed. Research and test on the front-end so that you don’t find yourself in an embarrassing situation of your own making.

-Learning curves cost money. If you’re using an entirely new set of user software AND you’re hopping between different distributions to find the version of linux that works for you, you’ll waste a LOT of time that you could be using to generate billable work.

tun,

My first thought was “buy linux compatible hardwares” - laptop and printer.

According to your reply, paper printing is no longer a big deal.

For the document, I thought Microsoft 365 will do.

Video codecs are available but some distro choose not to include it by default.

Most of the time linux is no go for professionals with locked-in softwares such as Adobe graphics design suite, AutoCAD, etc.

bismuthbob,
@bismuthbob@sopuli.xyz avatar

Paper printing is no big deal if you stick carefully to your first thought about linux-compatible hardware.

I use Brother laser printers whenever I need a hard copy. That brand tends to work well with linux, but research the model number in conjunction with the distribution that you’re using before you purchase.

Your point about locked in software is very important. Even in my own industry, some of my earlier jobs relied on custom Windows software for billing, dictation, document creation, and more. A lot of former nonstarters have been pushed to the cloud, but there are still challenges.

PanArab,
@PanArab@lemmy.ml avatar

No one will try to sell you anything, not even ads

fhek,

Load up Mint or Ubuntu on a virtual machine.

If you like it, install it to a drive. Don’t let people convince you to wipe a HDD and jump into Linux.

It’s not a good idea if you’ve never used Linux before and you need this computer for daily work.

bjoern_tantau,
@bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de avatar

If you’re using your computer for work and can’t afford to spend some time figuring out how to do something that would be second nature for you on Windows, you shouldn’t switch. It would probably be more expensive than just buying a Windows license.

That said, you shouldn’t expect too many problems. You can try out your Word templates right now in Libre Office. Or just run the web version of Microsoft Office in Linux. Video codecs are usually just one command away.

In terms of what distribution to choose, I would choose something popular that’s stable and comes with sane defaults. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora or OpenSUSE Leap.

The main difference for a newbie will probably be how to install software. On Linux you usually don’t go to the manufacturers website and download an installer. Instead you go to your software center and search there for what you need. Similar to the App Store and Play Store on phones.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer,

Agree. Linux isn’t that hard but there is a bit of a learning curve and you shouldn’t gamble your business on your ability to pick up a brand new OS. If you can afford support or an “IT Guy” then take the plunge. For general clerical stuff there should be zero compatibility issues.

vettnerk, (edited )

I have exactly zero experience in what work a law office does, but I would think it’s mostly paperwork and email? If so you can do that at no startup costs.

Pick a distro (pop, mint, whatever), and install libreoffice or one of its many variants for offfice integration.

A common misconception is that linux involves a lot of coding. Sure, it can if you want to - all the hooks for programatical access are there, for example if you want to build shell scripts for automation. But you don’t need to. It’s just an option many linux users, myself included, like to take advantage of.

When it comes to convincing you, all I can say is this: It costs you nothing to try.

Sage_the_Lawyer,

Yes, mostly paperwork and email for sure. Some basic spreadsheet stuff for tracking clients and payments and whatnot, but there’s also programs for that.

One less common, yet essential, thing I haven’t gotten a specific response on yet, is converting word docs to PDFs with searchable text. Not sure if you know things about that, but it popped into my head while responding here so hopefully someone who sees this knows something.

And, a generic thank you to everyone who has responded, this has all been very helpful. Even if I don’t respond to you specifically, I appreciate it.

JustEnoughDucks,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

The one thing that I would look into is digital signing and change tracking

If you use that, I am not sure how it works between linux office programs and Microsoft office.

valkyrie,

I’m pretty sure you can print to PDF or save as a PDF in libreoffice.

FrostyPolicy,

LibreOffice has a builtin pdf export functionality.

drem, (edited )

you can export to pdf and the text is searchable (in firefox with ctrl f)

bismuthbob,
@bismuthbob@sopuli.xyz avatar

On my distro, hitting print in the Office365 web app autogenerates a searchable pdf. As mentioned by others, it is trivial to generate a searchable pdf from LibreOffice as well.

beta_tester, (edited )

You can just downlaod any linux iso, e.g. fedora fedoraproject.org/workstation/download , and install it in a virtual machine. This way you can play with linux.

You can also write it to an USB and boot from the USB, nothing grts written on any other storagr device and you can test if everything works, check for compatibility, play around and once you’re done, you shut down, remove the USB and your PC is like nothing has happened. Getting to know how to download an iso, write it to usb and boot from it is a common and easy task.

I’ve never heard of a common video format not playing on linux

Sage_the_Lawyer,

This is a great tip, I’ll definitely do some test runs, thanks!

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Some old video codecs were proprietary and had to be installed afterwards from a separate repository or package, that might be where that notion is coming from. That being said once the relevant codecs are installed (open-source or proprietary) things just work fine, or you could install VLC or mpv and just call it a day.

astraeus, (edited )
@astraeus@programming.dev avatar

Some legal software only runs on Windows, including some of the proprietary video software used by courts and police departments. There’s a ton of reason they should move towards interoperability in the legal system, but a lot of this software is contract-bound and carries lofty promises of security and privacy.

That being said, I would try to run those on Wine if it’s possible.

BitSound, (edited )

Since Word documents are one of your bigger concerns, you can download LibreOffice on one of your current machines and try them out. That’s the same program you’d be using on Linux.

It’d have to be a pretty unusual video format to have issues. Similar to above, you can try VLC on Windows and see if there’s any issues.

Based on your description, I’d be surprised if you encountered any major issues. I’d recommend trying either Pop! OS if you’re OK with a slightly different UI from Windows, or Mint if you want something more comfortable. Note that you can create a LiveUSB stick of either of those, or any other distro. You can then boot your computer from it and take it for a spin to see if there’s any obvious issues.

Sage_the_Lawyer,

Yeah some counties use pointlessly complicated programs to distribute videos. I often have to try a few different players on windows to find one that works. If VLC has trouble with something, are there others you’d recommend as well?

lemann,

VLC can pretty much play everything - avi, avi+mjpeg, mov, mpeg, 3gp, flv, you name it. In some cases it can reconstruct corrupted videos and try to play them (typically AVI files)

There’s another player called MPV if you want a second option just in-case though!

redcalcium,

VLC usually can handle everything you throw at it. The other popular and capable media player is MPV, though it’s not as user friendly as VLC but has tons of advanced features.

BitSound, (edited )

VLC is the sort of software where if it can’t play it, I don’t know what else could. I guess I’d also try the ffmpeg command line tool to see if it can figure out what the video file even is, and maybe it could convert it to a regular format.

Also TBH such a video file would be interesting enough that you could probably post it here (if possible, or any metadata you can extract from it) and see if anyone knows how to play it.

asexualchangeling, (edited )

I don’t tend to use word documents much anymore, but from what I’ve heard, of the 2 main open source document viewers Only Office probably has the most compatibility with word, and iirc it recently added PDF support

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • linux@lemmy.ml
  • localhost
  • All magazines
    •
    Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #