LiberOffice is not only open source, free alternative.

OnlyOffice is one and is the most MS Word like.
FreeOffice from SoftMaker
There are many more depending on your A quick Internet search will find you many.
WPS Office Writer: Best for advanced features
If you want a word processor as feature-packed as Word but don’t want to pay a premium, check out WPS Office Writer. It’s a full-featured application suite that feels premium.

If you want to pay:
Microsoft Office Word Online: Best for users who prefer Microsoft Word’s interface
Google Docs

You are still talking FUD. I still don’t use the terminal. Even though I have used Linux for 16 years, there was still day one of use and everything I said still applies. No I never had a computer until in my 40’s (I am 69 now so my grandparents didn’t have computers they had all died by the 1980’s), always had new Windows computers until Win 8 which I hated. When Win 8 came out I switched to dual booting Linux. When I figured out the only time I went on Windows anymore was to update anti-virus and spyware software I quit dual booting and went Linux exclusively.

As for the Community, yes some like Debian can be very rude and unhelpful, but other like Ubuntu Mate and Zorin are very friendly, offer a wealth of knowledge for free and will help you solve your problems. If you are not happy look around, that is the whole point of Linux, you have choice.

‘Linux Mint USES the user to profit.’
So what? Mint is still free to download and use. Everyone needs money to develop and continue. It is not evil, it is necessary. It’s not like Mint is charging you big bucks to install the OS and related software. Do you work for nothing?

Uh huh

Can’t turn off privacy invasive “features” in pro or home. Nice.

Next bring them up to speed on “system D”

Steam is the best talking point.

Jeez, you even have to search about what those guys type to understand them. FUD..

I am talking about my experience. The experience of a real Windows user who has moved to Linux and had tons of issues. Issues people coming from Windows will probably have and obviously not problem people being on Linux since 16 or 20 years would have.
I imagine both of you inherited your PC from a grand parent and are obviously very happy about driver support in the Linux Kernel.
People coming from Windows have probably a more modern hardware and more issues. I still have to manually unplug and replug my WIFI usb key because WIFI and Linux..
People with 16 or 20 years on Linux are not the target of this article and are quite far to be able to understand what it means to go to Linux nowadays.

I am still on Linux, and happy to be. I advise people around me to move to it, and, also obviously to avoid the ‘community’, rarely helpful and often full of scorn.

That’s all very nice and Linux is very stable, but most people won’t switch because most famous and used programs for Windows are not available for Linux

There are suitable open source programs to replace them. Most people won’t switch because they have been BRAINWASHED to pay big $$$$$ for programs. I have ONE PROGRAM that is a problem and that is the Garmin updater, and only because it uses .netframe.

I started using open source on Windoze and when I saw how good the programs were and that they were free I switched to Linux. You can support any program you want with a donation, depending on how important the program is to you and how often you use it you can support it with the dollar amount you want.

The real difference is Linux doesn’t have a central authority to spend big bucks on people dancing around, singing and using their brand of computer to convince you there system is something special. They are not.

Whose FUD are you parroting?

Point 3: I’ve used many distros over the last 20 years. I’ve had problems with the hardware 10, 15 years ago. In the past few years, unless I use esoteric or bleeding edge H/W, I have no problems.

Point 4: Do you have problems deciding what car or TV to buy? Do you have problems choosing from the dozens and dozens of brands at your supermarket? People make a big deal out of picking a distro. If you don’t like one distro, install another.

Point 6:
It is easy to install S/W in Linux, just tell the package manger what you want installed and hit Execute. The package manager will pull in any and all dependencies. And you don’t have to reboot after each update. If I remember correctly. when installing Windows OS, one has to re-boot at least 4 times.

Point 9: You may postpone a Windows update for a day or two but then you MUST update whether you want to or not. Your Fedora shouldn’t update every day unless you have it set up to update automatically. It is not a rolling release. You do not HAVE to install any Linux update. You should for security’s sake but you are not being forced to.

IIRC, M$ forced users to upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10. Then, a couple of years later, it forced users to upgrade to Win 11. So much for “voluntary” updates/upgrades.

I use a rolling release distro, meaning that updates are made available whenever a package is updated. I manually run my update program almost every day but sometimes I go days without running it. The app does not run by itself. I do not get nagging notices.

How many thousands of dollars will you pay to rent the apps made by the “big players”. The equivalent Linux products are FREE and either come installed by default or can be installed for FREE. It costs absolutely NOTHING to update them. And those products are forever yours. You DO NOT rent them.

I don’t know about you, I do not have the money to spend to initially buy M$, Adobe, Autodesk and/or Corel products and the to upgrade them.

“It as if MS paid them not to develop for Linux.”
I would not put anything past M$.

More FUD. You pick a somewhat extreme example of a home built gaming PC. I have put Linux on plenty of new computers with no problems. A bit of research will tell anyone what Distros are newbie friendly. Any questions are easily answered in the Distro’s forum.
You demean choice, while real Linux users see choice as the biggest benefit. Stay on your Windoze, no one will make you change.

True, but for home usage Libreoffice is enough. The difference is if you use complex macros in Excel for example, else.. Also Office365 is usable in web browsers. I can work on the Excel forms I created with my professional laptop running Windows on my linux at home.

You are also right for the programs you mention Adobe and so on, but that does concern how many millions of people? Have we so many highly expert creative persons who have to use the Adobe suit or their talent wither?

From a guy who went from Windows to Linux few months ago, using a freshly built PC with a RTX4090 and who has tried 6 different distros without really understanding what he was doing until he settled on Fedora.
Happy on Linux and not planning to return on Windows ever, he still has to use a WiFI usb key because his Wifi 7 chipset is unsupported.

You can add “updating is easy” and “no advertising” to your list.