Giving Linux and LibreOffice a Try for Your Home Office

I tried to read the whole thing, but I just had to skim the article... too much misleading garbage. It was like reading some newbie rant about GNU/Linux from the early 90s.

Has PC Magazine always been this terrible?

I see your point dotmatrix and I agree with you. It was a bit disconcerting to see a recommendation for the Microsoft closed product in his concluding paragraph. This author is obviously a heavy Windows user who just happened to write a Linux article. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he wrote the article on a Windows 10 computer.

I wouldn't be surprised if the author got a little check in the mail for reaching his conclusion. I know MS used to give reviewers free new laptops as an incentive to give their products good reviews, so...

I was looking for the "facing page" article about how Linux (and Libre Office) is actually pretty good, and not so difficult after all, even for newbies -- but couldn't find it. Isn't that how this particular journalistic game is played?

So now I'm confused -- there IS supposed to be a companion, countervailing opinion piece, right?

I read the comments here first, and I admit that I was expecting the article to be much worse than it is. Most of the problems with it are centered around the idea that you will be setting up a Linux dual boot machine yourself. Dual booting and getting all your hardware set up can involve tinkering regardless of the operating systems involved. That's not how most people end up running whatever system they are running.

Most people these days seem to have some kind of geeky friend that can get them up and running with a new operating system. Many of the people that I know that have a Linux box got it set up by me rather than doing it themselves. The lack of support calls to me is a testimony to how easy it can be to run.

>and I admit that I was expecting the article to be much worse than it is.

It's not that it's soooo bad...

However...

-there was just about zero depth to the content.

-the author notes that Fedora is his favorite distro and then 2 of 4 screen shots are Ubuntu. And the one Fedora screenshot is just the Gnome 3 menu.

-and along the way is belittling FUD commentary about the 'old and ickiness' of the interface, etc. etc...

So, there's really nothing in the article. There's no discussion about how to use LibreOffice, nothing about frames or styles or macro creation in LibreOffice basic or in-line programming with LibreLogo. There's no discussion about how to use GNU/Linux. There's no discussion about anything... From the content, it's not difficult to imagine that the author simply made the whole thing up and never once has tried to use GNU/Linux or LibreOffice.

That's why I made the suggestion on the title change.

"No depth." 'Round these parts, that's called a "puddle." As in, something a puppy makes on the floor before it's house-broken.