Are you thinking about moving your computer to Linux, but worried about living without office software? Well don't be.

You can run Microsoft Office, and many other native Windows programs on Linux using Wine, which is a Windows compatibility layer for Linux and similar operating systems.

However, you do not need to do this, and the majority of Linux users do not, because Linux has bucket loads of its own high-quality office software.

Here is a table that shows some alternatives to the Windows software that you might have been used to.

A Note about Terminology (its a big world)

In the first column above on the far left, is a list of the brand names of Microsoft Office programs. In fact, for most, if not all, of these programs, Microsoft did not event the main concepts, there were existing programs long before Microsoft Office was invented. Therefore, in the second column is the generic term for each of the program types.

When you are talking generally about office tasks, using the Microsoft brand name instead of the generic term is a lazy and incorrect practice. You should remember to use the generic terms whenever possible, unless you are specifically talking about Microsoft's products.

Choice is Good (really it is)

Linux is all about choice, freedom and competition. So the three columns on the right of the chart contain three alternatives to each of the Microsoft Office products. Brackets indicate that the programs have not had a formal release, so these are more theoretical at this stage.

Linux is not about some big brother telling you what to do, therefore you can choose which applications work for you. Remember choice is good, don't fall for the brainwashing of advertising and propaganda that tries to make you scared of your computer and scared of making your own technical choices.

There is no wrong answer, each one of the programs above has thousands of loyal users. There is no financial risk, none of these Linux applications costs anything to use beyond the bandwidth it takes to download them.

While the GNOME, KDE and OpenOffice applications will have a consistent interface for their programs, I would not let that stand in your way. The best tool is the one that gets the job done. So feel free to pick and mix, or take the whole column, it is entirely up to you.

Application specific notes (take them or leave them)

I will point out a few things that might help you investigate the applications.

On the web browsers, Firefox's killer feature is that it has an extremely large number of community created extensions. Epiphany and Konqueror are faster and lighter than Firefox and more integrated into their respective desktops, however they do not have anywhere near the number of plugins as Firefox.

The mail/calender applications listed here are all mature and feature complete applications. Not really much to choose between them.

The three word processors are different beasts. OpenOffice Writer is a fully featured Word Processor that competes directly with MS Word on features and completeness. Abiword aims to be easier to use and less demanding on system resources, it is the faster and lighter option. KWord has an innovative Frame-based approach that is normally seen only in very high-end professional writing packages, however you can also use KWord as a bog-standard Word Processor.

KSpread is of course very KDE integrated and Calc is OpenOffice's spreadsheet, it aims to directly compete with Excel. Gnumeric is a GNOME integrated and light spreadsheet which also has a scientific bent, it aims for statistical accuracy so it is a good choice if mathematical standards of correctness are required.

Horses for courses (life after office software)

So let me emphasise, there are (at least) two to three suitable replacements for every Microsoft Office product on Linux. You can move to the Linux Desktop and work almost exactly the same as before.

However I should point out, many people, once they have made the jump, find they do not want to work in the same way that they did before.

Even on Windows, for many tasks, people will find it more efficient to use more focused, more specialist tools than the MS office products, and that trend is even more pronounced on Linux.

The difference is that on Windows, users are often forced to use MS Office products instead of the more efficient tools because the latter are often prohibitively expensive, that is normally not the case on Linux, so people are more likely to use more focused tools.

BT's old slogan "Don't work harder, work smarter" neatly explains how software on Linux works.

So the two presentation software packages are both good, but many people will find it easier and quicker to add a little HTML or LaTeX mark-up to their existing text in order to make a presentation.

Likewise the three database managers are quite fine, but many people will use more focused database or domain specific tools.

Indeed, many people (such as myself) do not use much office software at all. Much of the drudgery of day to day computing can be automated away, why do something when the computer can do it for you?

A computer won't write a novel for you, but there are loads of day to day tasks that the computer can help automate away. So make the robots do it!

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