I hate windows. But I have to use it for work. The worse it gets, the more I want to break free completely, minimise my exposure to this OS. The only part I truly cannot do without I think is Microsoft Excel.
Replacing with Excel 2016 or only using webversion or so is insufficient for sure, for work it needs the SharePoint/auto save etc etc stuff. Also power query getting data from SharePoint online.
Replacing with Libreoffice or so seems completely impossible, there’s too many ‘special’ files in organisation, with .xlsm macro mess, I don’t control all that, I can’t fully steer away from such mess but need full functional access.
Other than Excel, I think I could do all my work from a Linux desktop.
Is it possible by now, reliably working in an up to date excel from a base system Linux? What is the way? Have people done this? How? Do I need to run a virtual machine with win11? How do I do that? Does anyone here have experience with it? I have high degree of control over work devices and boss couldn’t care less, as long as I can get my work done.
Thanks and sorry if this is the wrong community for this question (where would it belong better?)
You can try Winboat.
It uses docker or podman to create a windows container and run windows programs, that Wine or Proton can’t run. The experience may not be snappy, as there is no GPU passthrough support yet, but it sure is seamless. I once tried Photoshop and it ran great.
Had to look into this recently for similar reasons. My conclusion was that once you have macros involved, you can’t use anything but an actual copy of Excel. I’ll be spinning up a qemu VM with Windows to support Excel and the full version of Visual Studio when I get that far.
So it’s not excel, it’s share point you can’t live without.
There’s a software called Winboat which integrates Windows apps natively in your Linux system and under the hood it’s spin up a virtual machine for it. You can try that for Excel
Might be a life saver
Wow thank you for this tip! I’m going to give another app a try!
So, you are caught by MS… Either accept it, or do what is right.
There is no Excel alternative. It sucks, bit its the reality. I run a VM specifically for a couple windows apps and 90% of that is excel.
I use version 2019 and manipulated the installer to only install excel and none of the other office suite apps.
You can also do the same in a docker container instead of VM (winboat) if that’s more your jam.
If you want more info on any of that I’d be glad to give you more details.
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There are lots of Excel alternatives.
There is nothing that matches every single feature of excel in 2026.
That’s my point. There are lots of spreadsheet options, but if they don’t meet all the needs then they really aren’t alternatives. Maybe it’s semantics, but I find that definition to not be misleading and keep expectations in line.
I’m saying that case by case, person by person there are alternatives (software and/or processes). E.g.
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If you want features A,B,C then use alternative X
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If you want features C,D,E then use alternative Y
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If you want features A,D,F then use alternative Z
But if your team needs A,B,C,D,E & F then we come to your point that there is no alternative.
I just didn’t want people reading this thread to automatically jump to the “must use excel” conclusion.
Gotcha. That’s a fair point. I kind of jumped to the end because the typical response is to “just use libre office” and OP is clearly a power spreadsheet person where that’s not gong to work.
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I tried libreoffice too but you have to change a few settings so it’ll be compatible with ms office but it still isn’t perfect, btw Onlyofficr worked great for me, I hope it works for you too.
I think using a VM is a good choice. You get all the compatibility benefits while isolating it from your hardware.
There is one special program for some special hardware that I need for work, and I just run said program in a Windows VM. Even better, I can run the program without internet. So it’s completely safe!
This is my solution, as well. Let the windows application do its thing, sandboxed effectively. I’m no purist.
Separate your personal and your work computer. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to explain a software issue caused by your decision of not running standard software. Put Windows and all work related software on a separate work laptop and use remote desktop from your Linux PC to do your job.
And more to the point, your work computer should be provided by your employer. If you’re buying that shit yourself, you’re a chump who’s being taken advantage of.
I dont think this is mentioned enough. These days it seems a given that you’ll install XYZ app on your personal phone, or use your personal PC for something.
No. If you require me to install something then I require a device to install it on.
I also think people dont realise that often throguh active exchange IT can fully wipe your device. And Ive seen too many shitty IT operators who would accidentally do this.
There’s an episode of darknet diaries where this kid ‘hacks’ into his old school network and wipes everyone’s (including a load of parent’s) phones because they had exchange on their phones for school email.
Separate your personal and work computer
nods enthusiastically
Important for security of both the employee and the company. Don’t mix business and pleasure. It’s the only thing that makes sense!Put Windows and all work related software on a separate work laptop and use remote desktop from your Linux PC to do your job.
What? No! Keep them separate! This is how people get pwned. Don’t backdoor your employers machine from your personal PC or vice versa!
If the employer wants to prevent remote desktop sessions they can configure it that way with group policies and an always on VPN. In this case they are apparently fine with a personal computer being used which makes RDP actually a slightly more secure solution.
In this case they are apparently fine with a personal computer being used
Where? Looks ambiguous. From all we know this is a work computer provided by the employer. It’s more likely to be an oversight or deprioritized/neglected.
which makes RDP actually a slightly more secure solution
I do not see how that folllows.
If both the company and employee are indeed fine with the RDP, it should be no problem to get that confimed from IT in writing.
WPS Office version of Excel is a surprisingly good alternative.
Option 1) Dual Booting Option 2) Just run Excel with WINE/Proton Option 3) Proton Sheets Option 4) Google Sheets (Also web and libre office as you mention)
I avoid O365 as much as possible, but when I need to, I do occasionally use it with Crossover and it seems to work. Activation was a little bit janky, but did work.
Crossover is a paid version of WINE, and the other apps I’ve seen mentioned run Windows in a VM and forward the apps through RDP. There are advantages to both approaches, but I prefer the efficiency of Crossover.
It’s been a year (maybe two) since I last tried. I tried activating mine with my work account and got caught up on the Duo 2FA not working. When you activated yours, did you have to go through any 2FA prompts? If you did, do you remember what tricks (if any) you had to use to make it activate successfully?
For work, I just use windows. Not my machine not my problem.
But the slowness… I have a stroke every time I press tab after any git command in Git Bash. The piece of shit takes three seconds to respond. In Linux it happens instantaneously.
On the bright side, you’re getting paid to wait around
( /s because I know the feeling, and it’s just slow enough you can’t step away and do something else)That’s more the fault of running software designed for Linux on Windows.
I fully blame this on NTFS being terrible with metadata and small files. I’m sure everyone’s tried copying/moving/deleting a big folder with 1000s of small files before and the transfer rate goes to nearly 0…
Well - Windows has always had poor “fork()” performance compared to Linux (Windows applications prefer threads). So running lots of small applications that do lots of forking will take a performance hit.
I get paid by the hour! 😅 But for real though it’s a struggle. Mostly I try to use msys2 for everything but. I still have native git. There are some long standing bugs that make the vim excruciatingly slow to open or close, really I should go try to fix it but it doesn’t feel like a fun problem.
MSYS2 is a lifesaver!
the problem is my patience and frustration
I want to get my shit done and move on with my day, not sit here waiting on stuff and getting RSI from navigating directories so slowly
Infuriaring isnt it!
We just moved to m365 and it sucks, excel is less user friendly than sheets and I hate both.
I get it is needed for its power usage but i detest it. I cannot fathom how a suite of software as bad as m365 is just out there being used.
Calendar sucks. Outlook sucks. Excel sucks. Word sucks. Powerpoint is fine. Sharepoint is woeful. How many other half apps are connected? Loops, etc.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah
The crown jewel of shittiness in their suite has got to be Teams. Such a dogshit chat program.
I only use the webapps and they will not accept it, every meeting link opens a “do you wan to download the program” window which requires two aditional clicks to get to my meeting. Their calendar sucks, changing meetings and permissions sucks.
Its crazy you can fail so badly at cloning a competitors product yet still be so successful
Oh god. So annoying teams is. The user you’re chatting with might use Skype for bla bla. No he ain’t, he’s next to me. With teams app.
Onedrive force usage… I prefer Dropbox, better ui, better office support than Onedrive. Best of all with Dropbox, shared files are actually reachable by everyone in the team. Sharing through Onedrive, colleague can’t access file even though we set it up as reachable by anyone.
Holy fuck onedrive is ass, drive does a good job of separating yours and shared drives without necessitating a huge bloated framework like sharepoint.
To use Excel with macros, I don’t even think the web version will cut it. Your only option is to use something like winboat to use excel inside a windows docker container as far as I know.
No web version doesn’t cut it. Thanks for the tip, I’ll look into that Winboat
