Storytime!

As a physics major, daily driving Linux worked out pretty smoothly. The thing that saved me from trouble the most was making a weekly full system backup (I used Clonezilla and my file server). If anything was truly incompatible, I took care of it on the school’s computers.

In my second semester, I began dual-booting on my X201 Tablet and desktop, eventually booting into Windows infrequently enough that I made my X201T Linux-only by the end of my second year.

Around that point, I began using LUKS full-disk encryption on my machines and USB drives. I highly recommend if you don’t already, even if just for peace of mind. I have strong ideas about the way things ought to look and work, so being able to customize Linux to my heart’s content (with Chicago95 ofc) made doing work on my computer a bit more enjoyable.

Documents

• MS Office: Libreoffice worked 95% of the time. For the other 5%, I used the school computers or my Windows VM.
• Google Docs and GMail: accessed through Chromium, which I only used to access Google and sites linked to my school’s SSO system.
• We did a lot of writing in Latex, though it might be a physics thing
• A lot of other small stuff I’m starting to forget, but if I don’t mention it, I probably did it through the browser.

Lab

• MATLAB: GNU Octave sufficed 75% of the time, often needing just slight changes to the code. Otherwise I used the lab computers or my desktop with actual MATLAB.
• Proprietary dana analysis software: One had a .deb package for oldoldoldstable so I set up a VM just for that. Otherwise, lab computers it was.
• Lab computers running old and new versions of Windows were available to us, so if there was anything computationally intensive or requiring proprietary software, I would just take care of it in the lab.

Social

• Slack, Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp: browser client, which I would check on a schedule

Tools

• VPN: NetworkManager, though it was a bit janky. I think it’s a lot better nowadays.
• Printing: We had a web print portal to upload docs and pdfs to a printer of our choice.

Graphics

• Mostly prepared my posters, etc in a mix of Libreoffice Draw, GIMP, and Inkscape
• Adobe: Had to use it on one occasion. Used the library computers where it was installed for everyone to use.
• Digital notes: I would use Xournal on my X201 Tablet whenever I forgot to bring my notebook or refill my fountain pen. Managed to impress a few of my iPad-toting classmates when I whipped out the pen and the display around on what they believed to be an ancient clunker.

As for the desktop, I had purchased it with gaming in mind, but it eventually became my SMB file share, media server, and RDP session host so I could make any library desktop like my own. Each thing in its own VM, of course. By the end of it, I was one of about 3 students running a server over the campus LAN. Even in the comp sci department, surprisingly few students used Linux.

Linux also met all of my computing needs while studying abroad in Germany. For five whole months, I had not used Windows once. Though my SSD did give out on me once, a backup saved the day.

A friend once did need to use a rather invasive remote proctoring tool. Highly recommend a separate laptop or at least a fresh SSD for this case.

Mobile privacy, if it’s relevant

• I was in the fortunate position where none of my classes or jobs required proprietary mobile apps
• Friends used Venmo or whatever else, I paid back in cash
• SMS and emails sufficed for regular communication

Overall, it was smooth sailing using Linux throughout my college years and no incompatibilities that couldn’t be solved in the library or a computer lab.

edit: i used debian btw

I used UNIX on a greenscreen terminal at university before Windows was even released. There were no compatibility problems because nobody used computers outside of CS departments. And now get off my lawn, damn kids!

Linux didn’t exist when I was in college but I did work on it’s predecessor Minix in Op Systems class in '89

My university mainly ran Solaris, pretty much everything also ran on Linux. In the rare case where Windows was required a remote desktop was available.

My university probably isn’t your university though, so answers may not be worth much…

I used nothing but Linux for my Master’s and am currently using it for my doctorate. I’ve been full-time on Linux for over 10 years.

I did find that OnlyOffice played better with MS Office than LibreOffice. I also use the school’s Office 365 that they provided me to open my finished files in the web version to verify the formatting matched. There was only one time it didn’t.

It didn’t exist!

Ex CS student. I’m on 100 % Linux, even back then.
Huge advantage in the Linux/Unix, networking labs.

The main issues were Matlab (Octave is kinda ok, but must be tested before you submit your project),
FPGA simulator - Altera (no alternatives, but it can be run on a Windows VM),
3ds Max - must be run on bare-metal Windows (maybe GPU passthrough to a VM will work),
some old weird software,
C getch() on Linux.

No problems with MS Office, I can run whatever I want, just exported it to the PDF.
No heavy formatting in drafts helps with a group project.

Honestly, if you’re sharing office files you’re probably using office 365. This means everything is a web app first and therefore Linux compatible.

I tried using the desktop version of word on a Mac last week, and the latency was so bad on a shared document that I had to switch to the web app anyway.

Basically, if you just want to use Linux you’ll be fine. If instead you don’t want to use Microsoft, you’ll probably have lots of problems.

Microsoft have been brutally effective in getting their tentacles into academic institutes, and you’ll find that everything from email to logging into internal sites relies on an office 365 account.

Just finished my Master’s this year.

I belonged to the Department of Computer Science at a university in the UK so granted there’s a lot of bias here:

I will point out a few observations, without going into much detail or reasoning:

1. Microsoft’s Office suite was a non-requirement. For collaboration, everyone was using Google’s Office suite (Google Docs, Sheets) or Overleaf (Premium if we signed up with our university email).
2. Around half (maybe more) were MacOS users, maybe 25-25% split between Linux and Windows.
3. Lots of iPads, particularly in any Maths classes.

Anything else to keep in mind? Yes, that people are ignorant. Even in our CS department people used to actively avoid using Linux, a lot of people will buy Macbooks because of reasons I would attribute more to the demographics of CS students, i.e. primarily from Asian countries where Apple is seen as a economic symbol.

Be prepared for people to judge you (not saying they should, but that they likely will). If you want to avoid this judgement, get an Apple silicon Macbook Air or something. However, I commend you for going out of your way to learn and wanting to reduce your dependency on Windows. I think that learning to be comfortable with the machine will help you in the future, most likely indirectly.

Lastly, keep in mind that when we have discussions about privacy or Linux or not supporting big tech companies who we might not agree with (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Apple etc) it’s never a binary problem. You might find that you will end up relying on teams for internal communication or that your university email is with outlook/office365.

Try and do your bit, but don’t be too harsh on yourself. :)

Needless to say, if you’re looking for a laptop that runs Linux well plenty of people will tell you to buy a used thinkpad (great from a value perspective), or if you’d prefer some of the new kidz stuff then a Tuxedo notebook.

Do not make the mistake of buying a notebook which doesn’t have a reputation of good Linux support. I bought a HP notebook (can’t quite remember the model number right now but can get back to you) and still no sound without manual kernel module patch :D

Studying mechanical engineering at a university in Europe at the moment and using Linux exclusively on my main laptop for a few years now. Mostly it’s totally fine since I almost always work with PDF documents while studying and when working in groups we always use something cloud based (Office365) to enable simulataneous editing anyway so no problem there.

However recently we had had to use a program to get bonus points that only runs on Windows and not even inside a virtual machine. Also CAD software is essentially Windows only (I got by using Fusion360 online but it’s much slower than the native app).

So I guess you should be fine, especially since some university/college staff are also Linux enthusiasts but it will probably vary wildly based on where you’re studying.

I used linux all through the years I should have been in college, but was instead a hopeless drug addict. I regret nothing!!!

…apart from the drugs…

…and not going to college…

We installed Slackware. One kid bet me that Linux wouldn’t let him drag his entire drive into the bin to delete. It did, and we all laughed, including the professor - who still gave him the passing grade since he’d seen enough of it working before it went up in flames.

Only thing to add to what has already been said: Office related stuff will be your biggest issue. Personally I suffer a lot with the web version of the Office apps, so I recommend dual boot or VM for when using office.

you can just dual boot linux next to Windows and switch to Windows when needed. I really like my linux fedora - way more than windows or macos.

What do i like about it?

• it’s very easy to work with multiple virtual desktops
• it looks way more beautiful and is more fun to work with
• extentions make it very customizable, e.g. in the top left I can see the title and artist of the current song playing.
• the feeling of of not being spied on, at least on the os level, I still think online is a lot of tracking
• the apps are open source and trustable and do just what they are suppoesed to do and nothing more
  • there is an app to download youtube videos (parabolic)
  • the audio player is very beautiful and minimalistic - I miss it on windows (amberol)
  • the app solanum is a timer app just for the pomodoro time management method. It helped me a lot
  • for notes I use Joplin, which does the job reliable. But I have to admit that I liked working with OneNote more, since it has more functionality and way better pen support.

Regarding office was my experience that MS Office is still better if you have to make an presentation or want to work at the same document at the same time. For basic office work LibreOffice is fine. I would use OnlyOffice if you want better compatibility with MS Office.

I booted windows only if I had to do a presentation or work with an Windows exclusive programm. But most of the time (around 90-95%) I used happily Linux Fedora. I use it for note taking, listening to music, browsing the web and reading & marking PDFs.

I use Firefox as my primary browser but it has sometimes problems with some videos. Then I switch to Brave which does not have those issues. I general I think Linux needs some time to get used to and wants to be discoverd. It’s not that difficult as it may sound but probably wont be a without some learning curve and looking some things up online. I recommend doing it since my user experience has been much better than on windows or macos - plus the privacy thing :)

When I studied at the uni 5 years ago we only collaborated over Google Docs. I’d strongly recommend online collaboration over sending files back and forth. For most things I ran Linux, and booted into Windows when there was a particular need for it, which wasn’t often. But it all depends on what software you’re expected to run during your studies. If you have room on your drive maybe having a minimal Windows install along side Linux could be a good thing?

Also, I’d recommend a distro that comes out of the box with working BTRFS snapshots. The last thing you want is have the machine you rely on for school shit the bed due to a bad update or something you do, and you have to learn how to repair Linux in the middle of an assignment that’s due tomorrow. With snapshots you can just roll back to before it shat the bed.