Only Three People Understood It the Schleswig-Holstein problem: The Prince Consort Who is Dead, a German Professor Who Has Gone Mad, and I Who Have Forgotten All About It
—Lord Palmerston (England’s greatest prime minister)
I was hired to do some VBA work in Excel last summer. Code signed it and shipped it. Only to find out that Microsoft corrupts the VBA code (and also therefore removes the code signing certificate in the Excel file) if you upload the spreadsheet to sharepoint.
LOL, Microsoft is such a garbage company. I don't understand why companies or institutions rely on their tech stack. Everything they touch turns into trash, but somehow is valued as gold.
After working with VBA for the first time in .. oh 25 years? I got to say, having the internal IDE look exactly the same as it did back in the 90's with no change or improvement whatsoever I have to disagree.
Not to mention the current iteration of Windows... or the many other Windows versions that where just hopelessly bad (but this iteration being the worst).
edit: let me not get into some of the software products microsoft sold but wouldn't even use internally for themselves because they where so bad
It was late for me to learn that Microsoft did not follow 'eat your own dig food' motto. I ended up paying their expensive software, instead learning open source alternatives.
VBA is easy too learn. It is useful in some scenario, but it had many restriction. Python does not have those restriction. I think the latest Excel supports Python. I think, because paying for subscription is too much for me. The supoosedly permanent licenses I bought are having the issue for validation. So, libreoffice is the way.
Yeah that doesn't replace VBA though. VBA can be used to design more interactive workbooks where you can have other non-technical users make choices to trigger certain scrips, manipulate and clean data, etc.
The UI does get improvements from time to time, but your memory is still basically true today. The LibreOffice UI definitely is a bit Windows XP-coded. I still use it regularly though. All the features are still there, even if it looks a bit rough.
The default ui is very much still the older style of jam every button in your face. It's a single toggle that changes the entire suite over to the newer tabbed layout that Office has been on.
Last time I installed it asked the first time I launched a suite item which interface you wanted to use. I'd assume there's a config file or registry key to use if you're looming for more of a deployment style.
As much as I love LO, I cannot use it for all documents generated by my many MS Office using peers and customers. I have been in environments where the only allowed OS is Windows and office suite, MS Office. It's the reason I do a dual-boot with my work distro Fedora.
Linux is pretty good for gaming these says. The last holdouts will be online multiplayer games with kernal level anti-cheats. I’m guessing that’s all you’re missing?
Anyone can cheat in these games with just a bit of effort. The anti-cheats stop the laziest of cheaters from trying. Unfortunately they also prevent legitimate players from playing with odd bios settings, VMs or bad drivers.
technically it might be possible using hardware that presents itself to the VM as physical hardware with the right drivers and hardware ids, but pretty much every online game with kernel level anticheat (battlefield 6 uses one) will not let you play if it detects its in a VM, and you might risk a ban on the account if you try, though it depends on the game and company's policies. This is because, by running the game in a VM, software on the host OS can manipulate things like memory and networking in a way undetectable to any software inside the VM. Not really worth it IMO, as sucky as it is a better solution would be to install windows on another partition, or ideally disk (as windows 11 especially does not play nice with other operating systems installed on the same drive and has apparently wiped Linux installs on the same drive*) and only boot it to play the game.
*based off a post from reddit a while back, I'd take it with a grain of salt, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was true
Windows doesn't really wipe the install, but it doesn't have any issues deleting the grub bootloader from your system and making it an excercise to get it back.
The game itself functions fine on Linux as is, the problem is that the anticheat kicks in and prevents you from playing even offline or single player or whatever. It's dumb.
I'm pretty sure their anticheat blocks VMs as well. Most anticheat like this does.
I’ve seen that, and only from what I’ve briefly read on it while I looked into it, it can be a lot harder to set up and run as opposed to dual booting, and for a newish person using Linux, they could easily remove the French language pack (if you get the reference) accidentally if they’re not paying attention
It is possible, because GPU pass through has been a thing for more than a decade now, it just requires some expensive Enterprise-level software and drivers to make it work.
Last I looked in to it was like 2022 for my homelab, so I could very well be wrong. I haven't taken the time to watch any Level 3 Techs vids in a while (thanks tech/game industry layoffs), but that is the info I'm basing my comment on. I really hope there would be a free/low-cost option, cause what nVidia was charging in the past just to share a GPU between virtualized machines should be criminal.
There was a video on it a while ago by I think SomeOrdinaryGamers, using I think Virtualbox or maybe QEMU and passing the GPU through to the guest OS. Though this is desktop emulation though, not a full hypervisor, and things may have changed since then.
VirtualBox has had GPU pass through for 2D since the beginning. 3D required a special plugin download from Oracle, and they always mention it’s a “trial” for the plugin. I’ve just never used Vbox long enough to use the 3d pass through on any VM instance. I always dual booted instead. I would absolutely be curious if the Vbox plugin was permanent trialware like WinRar is.
Honestly, for the issue that this thread is part of, they don’t need enterprise server level stuff, but my original comment was more pointed at Oracle and VMWare’s implementation of Desktop 3D pass through requiring some form of money to use it.
I dualboot my old windows 10 system for PUBG and BF6.
Everything else i've migrated to my linux install.
Hell the reason I installed linux in the first place was to re-image my windows install so I could enable secure boot for Battlefield 6. And just kept it.
Honestly, I daily drive Linux and have Windows installed on a separate M2 SSD for exactly these reasons. I play some BF6, and that's currently the only game that requires Windows that I play.
I’m hoping the new Valve hardware accelerates Linux gaming.
It won't, because it will be priced out of the market, and it's up to the anti-cheat companies to make their software work in Linux. Game developers just use the software to prevent cheating and piracy.
Cool, but if these games are brought to linux by their fanbases then linux will be a serious contender for windows (at least in the gaming space). Whether you like these “Esports games” or not we still need them on board.
Yep, if Steam Machine and Steam Deck both become a large enough opportunity cost, then publishers will be forced to figure something out because they won't be maximising profitability without them.
It’s the multiplayer anti-cheat that ruins some games on Linux. My understanding is that Bazzite distro already runs a lot of game just a bit faster than Windows with Steam on Linux. It’s going to get even better quickly.
Honestly, consoles are the only true cheat prevention. PCs is just whack a mole or give some company full admin just to run their game.
Yeah back when I still had Game Pass Ultimate, I just plugged a keyboard and mouse into my Series X to try out Black Ops 6 multiplayer, with crossplay turned off. I got to use my input method of choice and avoid cheaters.
Everything on my PC (running Linux) is single player or PvE. No anti cheat worries there.
If it weren’t for certain games requiring windows I’d be over on Linux today.
you sure that gap hasn't been filled by Proton? I was shocked that a game I had been saying this about for years was compatible. It actually ran better on Linux too.
Proton is pretty incredible, but a lot of competitive online games these days use kernel-level anticheat on Windows that you simply cannot do on Linux, full stop.
That said, as somebody who doesn't play such games, I've only had a compatibility issue with a single game on Linux so far.
I’ve been playing RV There Yet with friends since launch on CachyOS, I’ve not run into one incompatible game on my entire library so far, the closest was the latest Space Engineers 2 update but a simple launch option fixed that. I’m just sad I didn’t switch earlier, after two corrupted windows installs and the latest where the recovery environment didn’t work because Microsoft decided vibe coding was good enough for their OS…
Correct. Basically everything works at this point. Unfortunately the person you're responding to is only talking about that handful of dumb anti-Linux anticheat games, which Proton can do nothing about.
You can move to Bazzite and just use winboat for the rare times you actually need to use office or a windows only app. Gaming is golden as long as you don’t play multiplayer games that don’t support Linux at all like pubg. You can even dual boot if you want to try it but be sure to disable fast startup on windows before installing Bazzite. Bazzite sub is super active for anything you might want to ask
Why? There's a non subscription version of Office available, pretty pricy one time buy, unless you buy it from a grey site... But even at full price it's cheaper than Office 365 after 2 years.
Over time, those few games will become not worth it.
I used to keep windows installed via dual boot, so I could play a certain game that I played a lot of. I haven't played it in years, because I don't want to boot into windows I hate windows that much now.
So maybe over time you'll grow to let go of it. There are many games that do work on Linux. I just play those. Although, I'm growing out of games too since having a kids a couple years ago.
Fortunately for MS, the entire world uses the OS to a higher degree than you apparently do and they even get to play any game they want to.
For the rest of the world, $100 once for the OS (often just bundled into the purchase price of their device anyway) is well worth it and the cloud storage feature of the MS Office subscription is also a fantastic value.
I think you ought to check the newer-ish development called WinBoat. It's a better way to do windows virtualisation, and supposedly most games except for those requiring kernel-level executing of anti-cheating software work on linux.
I’ve been gaming on Bazzite for months, first issue yesterday. I can’t play co op Total War with my friend on windows. Every other game I’ve tried single player or coop has worked without issue
i've been on linux for 6 months now and wine/proton/lutris has made playing everything from BG3 to 2077 to Diablo IV fairly straightforward. unless you're playing something wickedly unsupported, you probably can play all of what you have on an open source machine these days.
I ended my Office subscription earlier this year when I realized I can just use Apple’s free iWork apps that came with my MacBook. I had the MacBook for like 3 years (first Mac I’ve owned) and for some reason felt like I had to keep Office around because I’ve always had Office on every computer I’ve used for the last 20 years. But I opened some docs and spreadsheets in Pages and Numbers and they generally rendered well— cancelled it that day. For my personal use they do everything I need them to do. They’re also soo much simpler than Word and Excel for the average, individual, consumer user.
I work for the Schleswig-Holstein state government on a county equivalent level. So far we only replaced our e-mail client from outlook to open exchange and I seriously doubt we'll ditch microsoft, especially windows for a long time if at all.
Also I personally welcome a more in-house solution and less dependence on corporate-owned software if the replacements were half as good, which they aren't rigjt now. The open-source e-mail client for example has half the functions of outlook and is significantly harder to navigate for my less tech-savvy coworkers.
I feel like every time I see these things the comments are full of people that believe in the concept but have no idea how much it actually impacts day to day work.
A reply to the top comment references someone personal office subscription as if it’s comparable to whole of enterprise architecture and commercial licenses…
This is the problem with a lot of things. I also feel we shouldn't be beholden to a corporation; particularly one as unfriendly as Microsoft, but the simple reality is that the alternatives just aren't as good or require a lot of technical knowledge from the user.
Which becomes a problem particularly when you need to implement it in an environment where you have too much staff per every IT worker; it ends up creating more work, and even if it pays off long term, (it usually doesn't), it creates conflicts lots of times with clients and providers.
If there was something as good as Office I'd jump in no time, but well.
but the simple reality is that the alternatives just aren't as good or require a lot of technical knowledge from the user.
Yeah and it stayed that way for as long as i remember, because too few people use the alternatives so there arent enough resources put into the alternatives to make them as good/better.
Valve putting their weight behind getting linux somewhat gaming ready seems to have moved the needle quite a bit. Governments putting their resources into open source office applications have the potential to achieve even more.
This sums it up entirely. People can complain as much as they want about Microsoft or photoshop and say there are alternatives. Yes, there are but libre office, Linux desktop option etc are leagues behind. As a business owner the time to train and productivity lost isn't worth it. It's also not a one time training but constant with people coming and going.
I'm very curious as to what "features" that outlook has that really differentiates it from others? Not trying to undermine your comment but I used only 4-5 buttons max in my 13 years of software development career.
Our new client can't automatically reroute emails e.g. during sick leave/pto and it doesn't have a built-in calender.
I always considered especially the first one to be essential in a worklace, so yeah, I'd prefer to have outlook back unless we get an open source solution that isn't garbage.
Yes, and even if the UI and features were twice as "good", you still have to train and retrain your employees. It is still a cost and has an impact.
Productivity tools are still just tools. Betty in accounting is 55 years old and still needs to learn something new gasp. There will be lots of bitching and moaning.
Huge changes require strong leadership from the top down as well as commitment. This is why so many of these kinds of projects fail, get dropped and remain incomplete, or succeed with massive pain and suffering.
Excel Macros and Add-ins have crippled our US office clientele. It becomes virtually impossible for us to migrate customers over for that reason. Curious if any best practices come out of the EU during their transition away from MS.
My only takeaway is to not use excel when a simple front end to a sql database could do the same thing.
An excell spreadsheet is still much simpler then a "simple frontend to an SQL database". Even if you're a developer, it's still simpler to just do Excell for some things. Now imagine if you're not a developer... Pay hundreds for "simple" frontend to MySQL or just spend couple hours wrangling with excell?
Munich did the same thing.
But then Bill Gates paid us a visit, for some reason we backpaddled on that and all of a sudden a Microsoft Office (not the software) appeared.
Crazy how that works. Please don't let yourself get bribed like we did.
Lol imagine dropping Linux in laps of a non-IT department like marketing or HR overnight. I hope your helpdesk is well staffed and well payed. Sure you killed licensing costs, but you are going to pay double that in support.
I believe the point the OP was making is that those departments tend to have people with less technical skills and would have the most difficulty adapting, and from my experience, I agree
I'm not so sure - more and more young adults are coming into the workforce from ChromeOS based schooling. Many jobs are now done solely in a browser. You give them a way to open Chrome and they're good.
Hell, if you're coming from Windows 7 (and we're talking government workers here) than I'd argue Linux Mint is less of a shock to the system than Windows 11.
I wish the Government of Canada and provincial governments would switch to FOSS, or at the very least, stop using AWS and find some homegrown solution. Especially with the CLOUD Act in the US.
I run Ubuntu, but I find Libre Office kind of hard to use. It takes a while to open, doesn't save to office format by default.. etc. Also it displays weirdly in Writer.
Sadly their hold on the enterprise market will be very difficult to break. They can piss off individual consumers en masse but the real money comes from the enterprise customers.
Funny that comments saying "it's not going to work", because the article itself says something that literally shows some strong commitment:
We are at almost 80, without the tax administration." For tax matters, the state finance ministers have "given themselves a clear timetable for the switch." Recently, the Christian Democrat also emphasized, according to the Südtiroler Wirtschaftszeitung, that the state has entered a marathon, not just a sprint.
This is also shown on a related article:
The goal is not only to save costs, but above all to gain digital sovereignty. [...] Schleswig-Holstein pursues an "upstream-only strategy," meaning that developments flow directly back into international projects. The state does not want to maintain its own forks, but rather contribute all improvements directly to the main projects, thereby contributing to development for the benefit of the general public. This principle has already been tested with Nextcloud.
Every one of these recent statements is like this. These orgs aren't stupid. There's something much greater at stake than Microsoft-approved "productivity". The current situation is infuriating, but fortunately there's a clear answer.
UE should pool 10% of what its countries pay for Microsoft licenses and support an open source suite with that so the suite matches needs MS Office fulfills that others don't. It's not just countries' governments that pay for MS licenses. Government owned companies do the same.
Incorrect. Ubuntu is very much the Windows of Linux, but it's still better than Windows. Mint is far superior to Windows in every way. Being unable to run Adobe slop isn't a "flaw" of Linux, and it's not something that any Linux dev can fix, Adobe has to fix that themselves.
I don't even use Adobe but you made that scenario create in your mind. Just like you have the false feeling that Linux is better. There's a reason despite being free, this very average OS has like 3% market as a personal desktop OS. Market never lies. If anything MacOS has more potential because it's not fragmented and has superior name recognition.
And when it comes to Adobe point. Yes it is a Linux issue. If Adobe doesn't fix for Linux, it's not end user's headache. They have options that work with other OSes. They are not obliged to use Linux you know. Adobe probably does that because the Linux PC market isn't big enough or relevant enough for them. So yeah, even if it's Adobe who is not doing it for Linux, from a end user's point of view it's definitely a Linux issue.
No, I didn't. I bring up Adobe because literally everyone who tries to pull the "Linux is so awful, Windows is way better" card whines about Adobe. You literally do so in your post anyway.
this very average OS
There is nothing "average" about Linux. It's very different from all other offerings, and much bigger than anything else in the world right now.
3% market as a personal desktop OS
Putting aside that you're only talking about a specific realm of computing, and putting aside that this "3%" number you got from thin air is totally made up, the only reason this is so is because Linux doesn't have the elaborate system of preinstalled prefab PCs that Windows and Mac do. It'd be incredibly easy, especially right now, for Dell or HP or Lenovo to push Linux hard, but they are being silenced by Microsoft money.
Market never lies.
Putting aside that, again, your number is totally made up, the market literally lies constantly. That's the only thing the market is actually good at.
Yes it is a Linux issue. If Adobe doesn't fix for Linux, it's not end user's headache.
It's literally not a Linux issue by definition. It's not something anyone working on Linux can actually fix. It is even considered to be the system working as intended. Blaming Linux for this, especially when you already know better, is a terrible lie that should never be validated like you're doing.
Most companies or public groups that do this end up shifting back after their supply contracts run out. They greatly underestimate the productivity losses from people having to change the knowledge of a lifetime for the things they need to actually get done. Put that together with this always resulting in a horrible mash-up of both solutions anyway, because most departments have a bunch of spreadsheets that actually run everything, as well as a bunch of legacy back end systems that will stop working if you try and migrate them, and there’s no money or scope to replace or re-engineer them.
In contrast, there would be one-time investments of nine million euros in 2026, [...] These would have to be made for the conversion of workplaces and the further development of solutions with free software in the next 12 months.
If every major government body invested parts of their license savings into OSS development like this, the scene would quickly reach a scale hand have enough money where it's truly competitive with Big Tech across the board.
Cool. I've been using Google Docs for a decade, but subscribe to Adobe (which I use every day) and am a gamer who enjoys 99.9% compatibility with my Windows desktop. Guess I'm staying put for a while.
I decided last week that with Windows 10 going EOL (even with 1 extra year of updates if you're in the EU) and Windows 11 being spectacularly ass, I'm taking the plunge and switching to Linux.
I use my machine for games, but I don't play PvP games that require kernel-level anti-cheat, so I don't have that as a hurdle to overcome. And anything else I might need either has a native Linux app, or can be run through Wine, so as soon as my new SSD arrives, I'll be making the switch.
I also love seeing more and more local European governments making the switch, because if it becomes commonplace in more places, more people will become familiar with it, and the switch will become less arduous for everyone, AND it will incentivise software makers to make native Linux versions of their software, which would REALLY get the ball rolling.
I really don't understand what these headaches are supposed to be. Just use it as intended, don't add any custom bells and whistles, and it works fine to create group chats and channels.
Every time someone tells me windows sucks or sth microsoft related sucks they have these weird convoluted non-standard and unnecessary processes they feel they need to be able to execute on top of it.
What do you think someone could add to Teams? Do you think I'm using it to hammer nails in or something. Even sending files is a bad experience, especially in a group. Not to mention that sometimes if we send messages from the mobile app, those on desktop may not see them. And vice-versa.
It's just a worse Skype. It's already bad enough that they have like 2-3 versions of Teams that they do not properly brand to see the difference.
Good for them, but I hope they have expertise with maintaining, upgrading, and patching Linux distributions. Btw, the total CVE count for Linux in 2025 is already over 4700. Have fun dealing with them! 😉
It's not harder than updating Windows. Actually it's a lot easier these days, because apparently every Windows 11 updates breaks something new. That's not something you could say about updates on an established Enterprise Linux distribution.
Only Three People Understood It the Schleswig-Holstein problem: The Prince Consort Who is Dead, a German Professor Who Has Gone Mad, and I Who Have Forgotten All About It
—Lord Palmerston (England’s greatest prime minister)
Pit the Elder!
LORD PALMERSTON
Good for them. I’m paying $100/yr for office and I barely use it. If it weren’t for certain games requiring windows I’d be over on Linux today.
LibreOffice is on Windows as well.
LibreOffice has some VBA support, I know it doesn't do ActiveX but honestly I don't really use ActiveX.
I just need my macros to work in both Excel and LibreOffice and if I can manage that, then I'm switching.
So I'm writing my code to be compatible with both.
Just learn python and pandas and give up VBA it good for your mental health.
That'd be great if businesses weren't held up by excel vba duct tape.
I was hired to do some VBA work in Excel last summer. Code signed it and shipped it. Only to find out that Microsoft corrupts the VBA code (and also therefore removes the code signing certificate in the Excel file) if you upload the spreadsheet to sharepoint.
LOL, Microsoft is such a garbage company. I don't understand why companies or institutions rely on their tech stack. Everything they touch turns into trash, but somehow is valued as gold.
I think the issue is the stack as a whole. Most of their products are pretty good its just when you need them to work together...
After working with VBA for the first time in .. oh 25 years? I got to say, having the internal IDE look exactly the same as it did back in the 90's with no change or improvement whatsoever I have to disagree.
Not to mention the current iteration of Windows... or the many other Windows versions that where just hopelessly bad (but this iteration being the worst).
edit: let me not get into some of the software products microsoft sold but wouldn't even use internally for themselves because they where so bad
It was late for me to learn that Microsoft did not follow 'eat your own dig food' motto. I ended up paying their expensive software, instead learning open source alternatives.
VBA is easy too learn. It is useful in some scenario, but it had many restriction. Python does not have those restriction. I think the latest Excel supports Python. I think, because paying for subscription is too much for me. The supoosedly permanent licenses I bought are having the issue for validation. So, libreoffice is the way.
If sharepoint modifies your upload's contents without being very explicit about it, sharepoint is garbage.
Why I said most not all lol
Unless your business requirements involve a simple button inside an XLSM file that a non-technical customer can just click...
Given the choice, I will pick pandas with python any day of the week, but I don't always get to make that choice.
There's the option of using python's dash (or R's shiny) to make applications that run on the browser, without any js knowledge required.
Python+ Polars for data science 👍👍
You really don’t even need polars.
Yeah that doesn't replace VBA though. VBA can be used to design more interactive workbooks where you can have other non-technical users make choices to trigger certain scrips, manipulate and clean data, etc.
You can script anything though.
There are translators that can make your VBA turn to JS, Python and whatnot
I would say that's what their using. OpenOffice got sold to Oracle.
Oracle gave up OpenOffice to Apache in 2011, but it’s not as maintained as LibreOffice. Also, LibreOffice is just a fork of OpenOffice.
I love it when the fork becomes the main
I used it about 6 years ago at this point and remember the UI looking pretty terrible. Has the community figured out a way to improve it visually?
The UI does get improvements from time to time, but your memory is still basically true today. The LibreOffice UI definitely is a bit Windows XP-coded. I still use it regularly though. All the features are still there, even if it looks a bit rough.
The default ui is very much still the older style of jam every button in your face. It's a single toggle that changes the entire suite over to the newer tabbed layout that Office has been on.
Will check it out. Is there a flag to make that default on install?
Last time I installed it asked the first time I launched a suite item which interface you wanted to use. I'd assume there's a config file or registry key to use if you're looming for more of a deployment style.
You can customize it. It has different sets of symbols.
That's a problem with many open source projects. To make it work well or look well, they need customization.
As much as I love LO, I cannot use it for all documents generated by my many MS Office using peers and customers. I have been in environments where the only allowed OS is Windows and office suite, MS Office. It's the reason I do a dual-boot with my work distro Fedora.
Bad thing that Libre is awful.
I'd rather use google online versions or just pirate office.
You are getting downvoted for stating fact. I guess the reddit always want to be out of touch from reality
Linux is pretty good for gaming these says. The last holdouts will be online multiplayer games with kernal level anti-cheats. I’m guessing that’s all you’re missing?
Precisely. Still have several friends playing Battlefield 6. I’m hoping the new Valve hardware accelerates Linux gaming.
Here’s hoping. Is it possible to run Battlefield 6 on a vm under linux?
A quick Google search says no: the anticheat can detect VMs and would prevent you from playing.
Let be real the anticheats are worthless. Starting to read more like an excuse to be sticky with the platform.
Anyone can cheat in these games with just a bit of effort. The anti-cheats stop the laziest of cheaters from trying. Unfortunately they also prevent legitimate players from playing with odd bios settings, VMs or bad drivers.
technically it might be possible using hardware that presents itself to the VM as physical hardware with the right drivers and hardware ids, but pretty much every online game with kernel level anticheat (battlefield 6 uses one) will not let you play if it detects its in a VM, and you might risk a ban on the account if you try, though it depends on the game and company's policies. This is because, by running the game in a VM, software on the host OS can manipulate things like memory and networking in a way undetectable to any software inside the VM. Not really worth it IMO, as sucky as it is a better solution would be to install windows on another partition, or ideally disk (as windows 11 especially does not play nice with other operating systems installed on the same drive and has apparently wiped Linux installs on the same drive*) and only boot it to play the game.
*based off a post from reddit a while back, I'd take it with a grain of salt, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was true
Windows doesn't really wipe the install, but it doesn't have any issues deleting the grub bootloader from your system and making it an excercise to get it back.
The game itself functions fine on Linux as is, the problem is that the anticheat kicks in and prevents you from playing even offline or single player or whatever. It's dumb.
I'm pretty sure their anticheat blocks VMs as well. Most anticheat like this does.
VMs don’t have GPU passthrough natively, so theoretically it’s possible, but I imagine it would be terrible.
Except many hypervisors, including KVM do seem to offer GPU passthrough...
I’ve seen that, and only from what I’ve briefly read on it while I looked into it, it can be a lot harder to set up and run as opposed to dual booting, and for a newish person using Linux, they could easily remove the French language pack (if you get the reference) accidentally if they’re not paying attention
It depends on the implementation. On unraid using KVM to pass through a gpu is literally a tickbox.
It is possible, because GPU pass through has been a thing for more than a decade now, it just requires some expensive Enterprise-level software and drivers to make it work.
Does it? I'm pretty sure there are free options, but it's not trivial to set up.
Last I looked in to it was like 2022 for my homelab, so I could very well be wrong. I haven't taken the time to watch any Level 3 Techs vids in a while (thanks tech/game industry layoffs), but that is the info I'm basing my comment on. I really hope there would be a free/low-cost option, cause what nVidia was charging in the past just to share a GPU between virtualized machines should be criminal.
There was a video on it a while ago by I think SomeOrdinaryGamers, using I think Virtualbox or maybe QEMU and passing the GPU through to the guest OS. Though this is desktop emulation though, not a full hypervisor, and things may have changed since then.
VirtualBox has had GPU pass through for 2D since the beginning. 3D required a special plugin download from Oracle, and they always mention it’s a “trial” for the plugin. I’ve just never used Vbox long enough to use the 3d pass through on any VM instance. I always dual booted instead. I would absolutely be curious if the Vbox plugin was permanent trialware like WinRar is.
Honestly, for the issue that this thread is part of, they don’t need enterprise server level stuff, but my original comment was more pointed at Oracle and VMWare’s implementation of Desktop 3D pass through requiring some form of money to use it.
? I just use VFIO daily for my windows gaming VM and macOS VM
Dual boot. I run Linux and just boot into windows for a quick match of PUBG, and that's it.
I dualboot my old windows 10 system for PUBG and BF6.
Everything else i've migrated to my linux install.
Hell the reason I installed linux in the first place was to re-image my windows install so I could enable secure boot for Battlefield 6. And just kept it.
Honestly, I daily drive Linux and have Windows installed on a separate M2 SSD for exactly these reasons. I play some BF6, and that's currently the only game that requires Windows that I play.
So you rather install rootkits than play games that don’t have full access to your box.
It won't, because it will be priced out of the market, and it's up to the anti-cheat companies to make their software work in Linux. Game developers just use the software to prevent cheating and piracy.
They are rootkit companies.
IMO it is, it convinced me to completely drop windows on my gaming desktop
Windows is my Battlefield 6 launcher. Linux does everything else.
The thing is that these games are extremely popular.
It’s kernel. KERNAL was a typo in the C64 firmware docs and they just rolled with it.
Fair enough. Just guessed the spelling
These are Esports games which ruin casual multiplayer game and these are games which I dont care
Cool, but if these games are brought to linux by their fanbases then linux will be a serious contender for windows (at least in the gaming space). Whether you like these “Esports games” or not we still need them on board.
Yep, if Steam Machine and Steam Deck both become a large enough opportunity cost, then publishers will be forced to figure something out because they won't be maximising profitability without them.
German governments, federal and local, don't even know how much they pay. They just do.
And Microsoft is clamping bavaria's balls to not abandon them by giving €€€-Jobs to politician's kids in their Munich Headquarter.
Bavaria is the only Bundesland to not join the others for a common, non-US, Techstack.
Some Software heavily depends on it being the first one you use.. at home, in school or at work.
I hate to document in "Word". I'd much rather TeX - but "We need something everybody can edit".
Everyone is the one Boomer employee who refuses to learn "new" tricks..
Check out the alternatives
https://purchasewithpurpose.eu/category/office-suite/
It’s the multiplayer anti-cheat that ruins some games on Linux. My understanding is that Bazzite distro already runs a lot of game just a bit faster than Windows with Steam on Linux. It’s going to get even better quickly.
Honestly, consoles are the only true cheat prevention. PCs is just whack a mole or give some company full admin just to run their game.
Yeah back when I still had Game Pass Ultimate, I just plugged a keyboard and mouse into my Series X to try out Black Ops 6 multiplayer, with crossplay turned off. I got to use my input method of choice and avoid cheaters.
Everything on my PC (running Linux) is single player or PvE. No anti cheat worries there.
you sure that gap hasn't been filled by Proton? I was shocked that a game I had been saying this about for years was compatible. It actually ran better on Linux too.
https://www.protondb.com
Proton is pretty incredible, but a lot of competitive online games these days use kernel-level anticheat on Windows that you simply cannot do on Linux, full stop.
That said, as somebody who doesn't play such games, I've only had a compatibility issue with a single game on Linux so far.
Well come on, share with the class
it was RV There Yet?, a fairly new game from a small dev:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3949040/RV_There_Yet/
I’ve been playing RV There Yet with friends since launch on CachyOS, I’ve not run into one incompatible game on my entire library so far, the closest was the latest Space Engineers 2 update but a simple launch option fixed that. I’m just sad I didn’t switch earlier, after two corrupted windows installs and the latest where the recovery environment didn’t work because Microsoft decided vibe coding was good enough for their OS…
It didn't work for me on Ubuntu, but honestly I also didn't try that hard.
Correct. Basically everything works at this point. Unfortunately the person you're responding to is only talking about that handful of dumb anti-Linux anticheat games, which Proton can do nothing about.
use Libreoffice and save money while cutting ties. only Microsoft i use is at work
You can move to Bazzite and just use winboat for the rare times you actually need to use office or a windows only app. Gaming is golden as long as you don’t play multiplayer games that don’t support Linux at all like pubg. You can even dual boot if you want to try it but be sure to disable fast startup on windows before installing Bazzite. Bazzite sub is super active for anything you might want to ask
Why? There's a non subscription version of Office available, pretty pricy one time buy, unless you buy it from a grey site... But even at full price it's cheaper than Office 365 after 2 years.
If you don’t use AI you can change to the $70/year plan.
You do know you can have windows and not pay for office? Right?
Over time, those few games will become not worth it.
I used to keep windows installed via dual boot, so I could play a certain game that I played a lot of. I haven't played it in years, because I don't want to boot into windows I hate windows that much now.
So maybe over time you'll grow to let go of it. There are many games that do work on Linux. I just play those. Although, I'm growing out of games too since having a kids a couple years ago.
Fortunately for MS, the entire world uses the OS to a higher degree than you apparently do and they even get to play any game they want to.
For the rest of the world, $100 once for the OS (often just bundled into the purchase price of their device anyway) is well worth it and the cloud storage feature of the MS Office subscription is also a fantastic value.
I think you ought to check the newer-ish development called WinBoat. It's a better way to do windows virtualisation, and supposedly most games except for those requiring kernel-level executing of anti-cheating software work on linux.
I’ve been gaming on Bazzite for months, first issue yesterday. I can’t play co op Total War with my friend on windows. Every other game I’ve tried single player or coop has worked without issue
i've been on linux for 6 months now and wine/proton/lutris has made playing everything from BG3 to 2077 to Diablo IV fairly straightforward. unless you're playing something wickedly unsupported, you probably can play all of what you have on an open source machine these days.
I ended my Office subscription earlier this year when I realized I can just use Apple’s free iWork apps that came with my MacBook. I had the MacBook for like 3 years (first Mac I’ve owned) and for some reason felt like I had to keep Office around because I’ve always had Office on every computer I’ve used for the last 20 years. But I opened some docs and spreadsheets in Pages and Numbers and they generally rendered well— cancelled it that day. For my personal use they do everything I need them to do. They’re also soo much simpler than Word and Excel for the average, individual, consumer user.
OnlyOffice Desktop edition is amazing.
If you want to support a Russian company...
Hmm, everything I can find says the company is from Latvia. Got any info on their ties to Russia as I'd like to know about that.
I used to play many games (Steam) that were Windoze only but ran much better under Linux.
Strange choice. There are free versions that do the exact same thing. I'd personally rather pirate office, than pay a cent to big tech...
Pirating makes you dependent on them, forcing businesses to support them when you work for the business. The way is to go full FOSS
Don't tell me about it, I use Libre Office...
Fortnite keeps me on windows
Do your own due diligence but Google “massgrave dev”, it’s very popular.
Select option 2
I work for the Schleswig-Holstein state government on a county equivalent level. So far we only replaced our e-mail client from outlook to open exchange and I seriously doubt we'll ditch microsoft, especially windows for a long time if at all.
Also I personally welcome a more in-house solution and less dependence on corporate-owned software if the replacements were half as good, which they aren't rigjt now. The open-source e-mail client for example has half the functions of outlook and is significantly harder to navigate for my less tech-savvy coworkers.
I feel like every time I see these things the comments are full of people that believe in the concept but have no idea how much it actually impacts day to day work.
A reply to the top comment references someone personal office subscription as if it’s comparable to whole of enterprise architecture and commercial licenses…
It's almost like you're actively seeking out comments from bad actors to amplify, ignoring the actual situation.
This is the problem with a lot of things. I also feel we shouldn't be beholden to a corporation; particularly one as unfriendly as Microsoft, but the simple reality is that the alternatives just aren't as good or require a lot of technical knowledge from the user.
Which becomes a problem particularly when you need to implement it in an environment where you have too much staff per every IT worker; it ends up creating more work, and even if it pays off long term, (it usually doesn't), it creates conflicts lots of times with clients and providers.
If there was something as good as Office I'd jump in no time, but well.
Yeah and it stayed that way for as long as i remember, because too few people use the alternatives so there arent enough resources put into the alternatives to make them as good/better.
Valve putting their weight behind getting linux somewhat gaming ready seems to have moved the needle quite a bit. Governments putting their resources into open source office applications have the potential to achieve even more.
Only people who've never had to maintain an in-house solution once its sole architect has left would say this.
Donate as bug and feature request bounties of the stuff you need and it will get a lot better.
But corporate sees open source as something not ready, not something to invest in.
They will switch when it's good enough to use for free, which will take awhile without more investments.
This sums it up entirely. People can complain as much as they want about Microsoft or photoshop and say there are alternatives. Yes, there are but libre office, Linux desktop option etc are leagues behind. As a business owner the time to train and productivity lost isn't worth it. It's also not a one time training but constant with people coming and going.
I'm surprised you weren't already using Docs, which is result of French and German governments working together. https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/home/
I'm very curious as to what "features" that outlook has that really differentiates it from others? Not trying to undermine your comment but I used only 4-5 buttons max in my 13 years of software development career.
Our new client can't automatically reroute emails e.g. during sick leave/pto and it doesn't have a built-in calender.
I always considered especially the first one to be essential in a worklace, so yeah, I'd prefer to have outlook back unless we get an open source solution that isn't garbage.
Yes, and even if the UI and features were twice as "good", you still have to train and retrain your employees. It is still a cost and has an impact.
Productivity tools are still just tools. Betty in accounting is 55 years old and still needs to learn something new gasp. There will be lots of bitching and moaning.
Huge changes require strong leadership from the top down as well as commitment. This is why so many of these kinds of projects fail, get dropped and remain incomplete, or succeed with massive pain and suffering.
Does search work?
If so, it's better than outlook (and Gmail for that matter.)
No, there's a search function but it's somehow worse and more inaccurate than outlook's.
God Gmail's is miserable.
It used to be amazing like Google search and YouTube search until they started implementing their best results bullshit.
Excel Macros and Add-ins have crippled our US office clientele. It becomes virtually impossible for us to migrate customers over for that reason. Curious if any best practices come out of the EU during their transition away from MS.
My only takeaway is to not use excel when a simple front end to a sql database could do the same thing.
The places I’ve been have been replacing macro-laden spreadsheets with other forms, but there’s still use of sharepoint.
I use sharepoint from a Linux environment. I haven’t had to use Excel in a while, outside of making tables for other documents.
An excell spreadsheet is still much simpler then a "simple frontend to an SQL database". Even if you're a developer, it's still simpler to just do Excell for some things. Now imagine if you're not a developer... Pay hundreds for "simple" frontend to MySQL or just spend couple hours wrangling with excell?
Fuck that website's cookie permissions.
Munich did the same thing.
But then Bill Gates paid us a visit, for some reason we backpaddled on that and all of a sudden a Microsoft Office (not the software) appeared.
Crazy how that works. Please don't let yourself get bribed like we did.
bavaria/csu is so blatantly corrupt. Sad!
Munich is lead by the social democrats and the greens.
I'm well aware that's why I said Bavaria...
CSU has nothing to do with it.
https://www.merkur.de/wirtschaft/waehrend-den-haag-aussteigt-bayern-schliesst-milliarden-deal-mit-microsoft-zr-94028610.html "Die bayrische Staatsregierung(CDU) plant einen Milliarden-Deal mit Microsoft" ....
Das Thema ist LiMux und die Entscheidung der Stadt.
Lol imagine dropping Linux in laps of a non-IT department like marketing or HR overnight. I hope your helpdesk is well staffed and well payed. Sure you killed licensing costs, but you are going to pay double that in support.
A lot of HR in Germany is using web apps. And marketing as well.
They just need: a web browser, an email client if not a web based one and a file browser
I believe the point the OP was making is that those departments tend to have people with less technical skills and would have the most difficulty adapting, and from my experience, I agree
Using that garbage of Oracle software for HR at work, recommended by consultant, and it is painful to witness such abysmal UX.
I'm not so sure - more and more young adults are coming into the workforce from ChromeOS based schooling. Many jobs are now done solely in a browser. You give them a way to open Chrome and they're good.
Hell, if you're coming from Windows 7 (and we're talking government workers here) than I'd argue Linux Mint is less of a shock to the system than Windows 11.
Paid, not payed. That's another verb.
But yes, agree, transition would be very very hard.
Yeah, they'll be back in three months, like every other times a German public sector has tried going open source.
I wish the Government of Canada and provincial governments would switch to FOSS, or at the very least, stop using AWS and find some homegrown solution. Especially with the CLOUD Act in the US.
The U.S. needs massive copyright and antitrust modernization.
Yeah but it's not happening with the way things go
Yup. The ol’ Military industrial complex is at it again…instead of a war on terror, now it’s a war for “AI”.
Heavy sigh.
I run Ubuntu, but I find Libre Office kind of hard to use. It takes a while to open, doesn't save to office format by default.. etc. Also it displays weirdly in Writer.
It's not all about the saved costs. It's about better control of your data.
With windows 11 and its unasked AI penetration into all user orifizes It's going to be a nightmare.
Are they still using the intune MDM and if not how are they managing their endpoints
Microsoft can't read the room. They will loose millions(billions? ) because they are pushing 11 so hard.
Sadly their hold on the enterprise market will be very difficult to break. They can piss off individual consumers en masse but the real money comes from the enterprise customers.
Microsoft has Windows 10 LTSC for those customers. (Supported till 2031)
Finally, next year will be the year of the Linux desktop!
For the 25th year straight lol
Desktop market share rises to a record breaking 3.87%
Funny that comments saying "it's not going to work", because the article itself says something that literally shows some strong commitment:
This is also shown on a related article:
https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Interview-Wie-die-OSS-Umstellung-in-Schleswig-Holstein-laeuft-10629991.html
Every one of these recent statements is like this. These orgs aren't stupid. There's something much greater at stake than Microsoft-approved "productivity". The current situation is infuriating, but fortunately there's a clear answer.
we need an European Linux with european financed and supported FOSS.
uza, china and ruzzia are hostile
You have SUSE and openSUSE.
French and German already started something. https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/home/
UE should pool 10% of what its countries pay for Microsoft licenses and support an open source suite with that so the suite matches needs MS Office fulfills that others don't. It's not just countries' governments that pay for MS licenses. Government owned companies do the same.
I wonder if we'll hear when they switch back to Windows.
I like Linux, very much, as a server. As a desktop, nope, there's a reason Windows dominates.
There isn't. It's smoke and mirrors, and mocking people over walled garden nonsense.
In fact there is. I tried Ubuntu and mint. Both were pretty awful compared to windows
Incorrect. Ubuntu is very much the Windows of Linux, but it's still better than Windows. Mint is far superior to Windows in every way. Being unable to run Adobe slop isn't a "flaw" of Linux, and it's not something that any Linux dev can fix, Adobe has to fix that themselves.
I don't even use Adobe but you made that scenario create in your mind. Just like you have the false feeling that Linux is better. There's a reason despite being free, this very average OS has like 3% market as a personal desktop OS. Market never lies. If anything MacOS has more potential because it's not fragmented and has superior name recognition.
And when it comes to Adobe point. Yes it is a Linux issue. If Adobe doesn't fix for Linux, it's not end user's headache. They have options that work with other OSes. They are not obliged to use Linux you know. Adobe probably does that because the Linux PC market isn't big enough or relevant enough for them. So yeah, even if it's Adobe who is not doing it for Linux, from a end user's point of view it's definitely a Linux issue.
No, I didn't. I bring up Adobe because literally everyone who tries to pull the "Linux is so awful, Windows is way better" card whines about Adobe. You literally do so in your post anyway.
There is nothing "average" about Linux. It's very different from all other offerings, and much bigger than anything else in the world right now.
Putting aside that you're only talking about a specific realm of computing, and putting aside that this "3%" number you got from thin air is totally made up, the only reason this is so is because Linux doesn't have the elaborate system of preinstalled prefab PCs that Windows and Mac do. It'd be incredibly easy, especially right now, for Dell or HP or Lenovo to push Linux hard, but they are being silenced by Microsoft money.
Putting aside that, again, your number is totally made up, the market literally lies constantly. That's the only thing the market is actually good at.
It's literally not a Linux issue by definition. It's not something anyone working on Linux can actually fix. It is even considered to be the system working as intended. Blaming Linux for this, especially when you already know better, is a terrible lie that should never be validated like you're doing.
TIL there is more Holsteins than SMS Schleswig-Holstein...
The ship was named after the province (and current state), not the other way round.
I guess so, nevertheless it was always this infamous ship for me... Sorry Schleswig-Holstein citizens 🤷
VBA's old school, but damn, it gets the job done for quick scripts.
Most companies or public groups that do this end up shifting back after their supply contracts run out. They greatly underestimate the productivity losses from people having to change the knowledge of a lifetime for the things they need to actually get done. Put that together with this always resulting in a horrible mash-up of both solutions anyway, because most departments have a bunch of spreadsheets that actually run everything, as well as a bunch of legacy back end systems that will stop working if you try and migrate them, and there’s no money or scope to replace or re-engineer them.
If every major government body invested parts of their license savings into OSS development like this, the scene would quickly reach a scale hand have enough money where it's truly competitive with Big Tech across the board.
And are not dependent of a corporation based in a country that nowadays cannot be trusted
As someone born in Gdańsk, I'm oddly offended.
I hope that this trend picks up steam.
Cool. I've been using Google Docs for a decade, but subscribe to Adobe (which I use every day) and am a gamer who enjoys 99.9% compatibility with my Windows desktop. Guess I'm staying put for a while.
Affinity is damn near 100% of Adobe these days. One time purchase for a very reasonable price.
affinity is free now.
Affinity is free now
Affinity is not Adobe, doesn't have After Effects and all the compatibility I need.
This name won't work in Poland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Schleswig-Holstein
Sounds like malware.
The article is about the current German state (and former province) this ship was named after. I guess the name will stay.
I decided last week that with Windows 10 going EOL (even with 1 extra year of updates if you're in the EU) and Windows 11 being spectacularly ass, I'm taking the plunge and switching to Linux.
Specifically, Fedora.
I use my machine for games, but I don't play PvP games that require kernel-level anti-cheat, so I don't have that as a hurdle to overcome. And anything else I might need either has a native Linux app, or can be run through Wine, so as soon as my new SSD arrives, I'll be making the switch.
I also love seeing more and more local European governments making the switch, because if it becomes commonplace in more places, more people will become familiar with it, and the switch will become less arduous for everyone, AND it will incentivise software makers to make native Linux versions of their software, which would REALLY get the ball rolling.
"saves millions" perhaps on paper at first. Wait until months of issues and support struggle sum up.
Teams and office365 saved us so much headache. I don't care if everyone hates it, there's nothing as good.
Teams is giving us the most headaches. But unfortunately this is what the overwhelming majority of our clients use so... yeah, we're stuck with that.
Microsoft has the best managed service environment. They will fall back to windows. It's the best OS
I really don't understand what these headaches are supposed to be. Just use it as intended, don't add any custom bells and whistles, and it works fine to create group chats and channels.
Every time someone tells me windows sucks or sth microsoft related sucks they have these weird convoluted non-standard and unnecessary processes they feel they need to be able to execute on top of it.
What do you think someone could add to Teams? Do you think I'm using it to hammer nails in or something. Even sending files is a bad experience, especially in a group. Not to mention that sometimes if we send messages from the mobile app, those on desktop may not see them. And vice-versa.
It's just a worse Skype. It's already bad enough that they have like 2-3 versions of Teams that they do not properly brand to see the difference.
Idk I had to use skype for business before and teams is basically an improvement on every point, except some memory leaks they had at some point.
Never had any File Sharing issues. And we're using all default settings.
Maybe someone in your company modified permissions without knowing what the hell they were doing
Therefore issue doesn't exist. Good logic.
I've worked in different teams across multiple companies and using Teams extensively for the past 5 years.
If there's an issue it's more probably than not a self caused exception.
i don't think i ever paid for Microsoft products
Okay, cool I guess?
But you would expect a German state government paying for Microsoft products and that’s what this is about
Good thing you are not part of govt
Then you have no reason to complain.
wonderful. congratulations on implementing what I've been saying for 20 years
Good for them, but I hope they have expertise with maintaining, upgrading, and patching Linux distributions. Btw, the total CVE count for Linux in 2025 is already over 4700. Have fun dealing with them! 😉
It's not harder than updating Windows. Actually it's a lot easier these days, because apparently every Windows 11 updates breaks something new. That's not something you could say about updates on an established Enterprise Linux distribution.
That's a gameachanger for devs—open source FTW!
Oh, the fact-check comes in so handy. Nothing will be saved there, because one will return to Microsoft again.
Anyone who has ever tried LibreOffice knows that, for example, Excel is a nightmare on it. SH will notice this too.