



You can, by the by, use Linux desktops with your existing Active Directory domains if that’s what’s stopping you from considering Linux. That makes switching over to it easier than you might expect.īut if you need corporate support, you’ll be better off with Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation or Canonical’s Ubuntu for desktop. It also has the advantage, from your perspective, of looking a good deal like Windows 7. Personally, when it comes to the many distros, I favor Linux Mint. So now might be a good time to kick Linux’s tires. But while I love it, I’m well aware of the Linux desktop’s many problems.īut recently the Linux community looks to be finally getting its act together. Then there’s my own favorite: the Linux desktop. To that, I can only observe: Why, then, has Apple - you know, the world’s first $1 trillion company - never had over 10% of the desktop market? Doesn’t huge revenue and small market share equal really big markups? Some folks say au contraire: Macs are actually more affordable, and better for work overall. MacOS is radically different from Windows, and Macs are not, in a word, cheap. You can, of course, always move to a Mac. While I love my high-end Pixelbook, any good Chromebook will do. So, if your applications are already on the net, my first suggestion is to move to a Chromebook. I’ve run Microsoft Office Online - the free, and also the simplest, version of Office - myself on Linux via a web browser with no sweat or tears. That means, in theory, you can run Office 365 on pretty much any operating system out there. It will run on any system with the Edge, Safari, Chrome or Firefox browser. Instead, the guys from Redmond want you to buy into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) Office 365. Locked into Office? Going forward, Microsoft doesn’t want you to run Microsoft Office on your PC anyway. Do you do all your essential work online? Then any operating system with a browser will do. Before you reject that idea out of hand, take a long, hard look at your work. Your best option is to finally bid Windows adieu and try another operating system.
