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.
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.
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.
I’m pretty sure you can print to PDF or save as a PDF in libreoffice.
LibreOffice has a builtin pdf export functionality.
you can export to pdf and the text is searchable (in firefox with ctrl f)
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.
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.