Yes www.armbian.com/odroid-c2/ a friend has a couple of those all running Armbian just fine. With all SBCs the trick is to get something that is supported by Armbian.
You guys want to have it both ways, first you’ll say that Office online is the ultimate solution for every Linux user that needs to collaborate with MS Office users and now this. lol
You most likely do not want to run a mainline kernel / system. Run Armbian instead, it is Debian optimized for SBCs, it has a very good track record and sometimes is the only option after manufacturers stop creating images for their old boards.
Generic images / mainline kernel might underperform in your board, the GPIO and other low level components will, most likely, not work and you might burn your storage as logging and other I/O intensive operations aren’t tweaked for SD/eMMC. Armbian aims to fix all those issues and provides continuous system and kernel updates long after the manufacturer stops doing so.
Again, if layout of your end product is important, don’t share .docx files.
I know a LOT of people who’ve been doing this since Office 97 and formatting holds across computers. And to be fair it seems to hold a lot better between older and newer versions of MS Office than with LibeOffice.
It’s not messed up, though. It’s just set to a different value. If the exact amount of paragraph spacing is important to you, you can either set it before you print, share the file as PDF or use a proper layouting software. This isn’t a Linux issue, you should do the same when sharing a file with someone using MS Office.
You’re missing the point, if you get a document from a MS Office user you can’t simply view it or print it and assume the result will be what the user intended it to be. Same applies in reverse if you make changes to the document. This makes LibreOffice unsuitable and not a real alternative.
Your yardstick for a usable desktop system is “every detail and default setting in all software needs to be exactly the same as on the Windows equivalent”.
No, the problem is that most people on this post want it both ways, want to say that LibreOffice is 100% perfect and can fit 100% of uses cases and be used for collaboration and at the same time say stuff like you said “It’s not messed up, though. It’s just set to a different value.”. Its one thing or the other, not both.
And for what’s worth is shouldn’t be “set to a different value” because it breaks compatibility and LibreOffice say it does the best they can to ensure compatibility with MS Office formats.
Wine/Proton can run a huge amount of Windows programs.
Except for everything that people usually want such as the latest MS Office. Or that nice program developed for Windows 98 that works flawlessly under Windows 11 and it totally broken under Wine.
You mostly don’t because Linux desktop is kind of a “collective delusion”. You either assume you’ll be using alternatives that aren’t compatible with your current applications and potentially deal with collaboration issues with users of such apps or stick with Windows.
If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with others then native Linux apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. Once collaboration with Windows/Mac users is required then it’s game over – the “alternatives” aren’t just up to it.
When it comes to distros I suggest you keep to Debian and use Flatpak to install software - this will give you a rock solid OS with all the latest version of the applications you might want to use. Flatpak apps can be installed from the GNOME Software “store” GUI which makes things really convenient.
Speaking about office, LibreOffice is great, however it isn’t as good as people like to sell it. Take for instance this simple documented I created in MS Word, side-by-side, it can’t even properly display a simple document with some headings and a few bullet points:
Things like that print screen and what is written on the article are the hard facts that people like to avoid and downvote, but it is what it is. Linux is great, but not in most desktop use case scenarios.
And how many times do I have to tell you that Office Online doesn’t have all the features of Office Desktop? It isn’t even close.
When LibreOffice can’t even make sure text ends up on the same place (as on the screenshot) it isn’t good for collaboration with MS Office users.
Why is it so hard for you look at the screenshot and admit that it isn’t as good as you’ve been saying?
using markdown in a comment describing why I am “out of touch” for using markdown.
No, you’re not “out of touch” for using markdown, you’re “out of touch” for implying that markdown can be a solution for the typical MS Office user as you did.
Damn this was unexpected. So it seems they’ll just proxying / serving all email to Outlook apps through their servers. Damn Microsoft that’s really fucking anti-competitive.
Yes, libreoffice doesn’t really work for live collaboration. But office online is a good solution for that collaboration (…) Therefore, the author’s conclusion (you need windows to collaborate on word docs) is still wrong.
The author isn’t wrong neither he’s right as the actual answer is: it depends. We don’t even have to go as far as “live collaboration” if you’ve to do serious work in MS Office apps just emailing a document to a co-worker that uses LibreOffice can end up badly. LibreOffice works, yes, until you find your custom TOC broken, macros not working, embedded content from other documents not there… images scattered around or even paragraphs ending on a different page just because the MS version of some font is slightly different from what comes with LibreOffice but different enough to totally trash your document. Even Office online has issues with some of the things I described, let alone LibreOffice and this is precisely why people in big companies buy MS Office.
Let me show you even on a very simple document I just made how wrong you are. I created the following document in MS Word and then proceeded to open it in LibreOffice just look at the comments:
So… LibreOffice can’t even ensure that the most basic formatting and features are displayed and saved properly. So much for “it works fine”.
I personally also believe that WYSIWYG editors are highly overrated: markdown is significantly better for note-taking and similar small documents, and reports would often be better off with LaTeX or something similar.
Let me guess you’re someone who works in IT and never had a typical “office job” that includes spending 90% of your time writing reports and pushing spreadsheets around. This is why you don’t get it, you’re not the typical user of MS Office and you don’t share the same use cases the OP, the article author and myself share.
I use office almost daily, Libreoffice is fine for local editing and office online works if I have to collaborate.
So you’re essentially making the point of the article “office online works if I have to collaborate” implied that LibreOffice really isn’t up for collaboration.