Linux

Depending exactly what she does on Word and Excel that might be an issue. Stuff with lots of formatting, macros, the data model or using some of the most recent features won't translate well.

It's generally pretty simple. Main issue I've found over the years tend to be when fixing stuff that doesn't work. Windows you google it and the solution is generally click this then that, if things are slightly different you can still make a good stab at it. In Ubuntu the solution is normally open the terminal and enter these commands. Fine if it works, much more complicated to fix if it doesn't.

Is Ubuntu much more secure? I've not had any issues with Windows for years so not really got much idea either way.

If her word processing and spreadsheet needs are quite vanilla, then a Chromebook is a surprisingly powerful option these days.

I've already bought the windows laptop. It's basic word processing and spreadsheets.

Also worth considering whether it's just her own documents or she'll be working with other people too.

She will be sharing docs and spreadsheets with her work. Both sides will expect to edit them.

If it's for work and sending files between people for editing, commenting, reviewing etc then I would be wary.

Others may have more experience here, but I would be concerned that something will go wrong at the worst possible time and it will be YOUR fault and responsibility to fix.

It sucks but that's the bottom line for me.

I'd do some testing before committing then.

I've not used libre office for a while but there were always a few little bits and pieces that didn't quite work when working with MS documents.

For work stuff, I'll still use a windows virtual machine to do documents (if a remote desktop / citrix desktop is not being used).

It's just not worth the monumental ballache of compatibility wrangling otherwise.

Someone posted elsewhere about how bad MS Word is if you move a picture.

LibreOffice: Hold my beer.

I never had much luck mixing MS and LibreOffice, but did ok working from Ubuntu using the online version of MS Office and the Teams app for a while. That seemed ok for most of the Word/Excel stuff I was doing, but then I ended up doing horrible stuff with PowerPoint and ran into a bunch of problems screensharing (fucking hidpi screens) and reverted to Windows until this contract is up.

Thankyou for the the replies, interesting stuff.

Does Office 365 or whatever the fuck it's called work on Linux? Presumably? Could she do all the document stuff there via browser?

It works until it doesn’t.

do all the document stuff there via browser

*laughs in user agent string*

Does Office 365 or whatever the fuck it's called work on Linux? Presumably? Could she do all the document stuff there via browser?

It does. Was about to suggest Google Docs as it is much more Excel friendly than Libreoffice or the other open source alternatives.

It does. It's OK for basic stuff but there's still quite a bit that's missing (you can't work on password protected files for instance and obviously no macros). It isn't something I'd rely on for full-time use.

Was about to suggest Google Docs as it is much more Excel friendly than Libreoffice or the other open source alternatives.

On a chrome book. Hassle free life.

Google Docs still isn't perfect though. It can fuck up formatting. The main problem I have is with Word-based forms. None of the free alternatives ever work properly.

In other words

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Ah you've talked me out of it then. If it was my machine I'd give it a crack but as it's mrssacreds I'll stick with windows. Thanks for the comments sounds like I've swerved some stress.

TIL that Scroll Lock doesn't work in Linux, which would explain why the keyboard I pulled out of a skip doesn't light-up, although is otherwise functional.

I found this and this and have got the backlight working, but I'm struggling to make the change permanent/auto on boot.

Creating .Xmodmap in my home directory (and clearing the cache) didn't work and I can only open /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gb read-only.

Any idiot-proof suggestions?

I can only offer an idiot suggestion I'm afraid. A proper bodge.

Why not create a shell script that contains the command to make the backlight change, make the file executable (chmod 755?) And then set it to run @reboot in cron?

Toe curlingly ineligant but it'd probably work.

Thanks, but I only understood the first and last paragraphs. :)

What I enjoy about Linux (compared to Windows) is that, for the most part, it "just works" and I have never needed to get my hands dirty.

So I can blindly copy/paste into the terminal, but beyond that...

I can only open /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gb read-only

Have you tried this as superuser?

Try sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gb or whatever your editor of choice is

That does work, yes! Thank you.

But how do I save and exit? "^X" = exit but how do I enter that? I can't even summon help, because that's "^G".

Does "^" represent shift or control or alt or something?

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