Why are Windows Users so Difficult to Convert to Linux?

Discussion
1

Over the weekend I had a windows user come to see me, he had no sound on his laptop computer speakers.Running windows 10.

Easy, into devices on the control panel, look for realtek and enable them, sound worked. But reboot, they stopped.

Virus check showed he was badly infected, so many lost count. Malwarebytes, adwcleaner etc and removed them, restart enable device worked, but second restart no sound, virus check again and they had returned.

The computer is not capable of converting to windows 11. Easy answer linux mint, my prefered option. Plus I will not buy a new copy of windows to do a clean install for anybody, takes too long and not sure the virus issue would go.

He was sure he did not want linux but could not justify why.

So quich demo linux mint (my 15 year old 32bit ) against windows 10.
Google chrome vs chromium slight colour change
Microsoft office vs libreoffice, he writes few letters per year and never excel or powerpoint.
Google docs, the same
Google sheets the same
Acrobat reader the same
Vlc for music or films the same

So big difference
Windows 120 euros vs linux free
My time 150 euros to install windows (i over price to turn away work) vs 35 euros for my time to do linux.
Microsoft office ??? Price vs free libreoffice.

Final decission he is going to buy a new computer at 500 plus with windows 11, then buy office, then buy a anti virus.

More money than sense !

But he will be back to have his files transfered and retrap the virus !

You cannot please any of the people any of the time. So I please myself.

7 Likes
2

:rofl:

There are different tasks, which cannot be (currently) done with LO.
Here’s my wife.
We still have a licence for Office 2007, and she used to use it for her work, becuase it has features she knows, and she knows where to look for a specific feature in the disgusting ribbon menu.
She is just very familiar with Excel. Office 2007 runs quite smooth on WINE, so no problem with that, we all used Debian.
So far…
Recently she made something very clever thing at here real office along with her colleagues, and this stuff requires pivot tables (could be done with LO as well), but also something called “slicer” - as this is in a hungarian version of Excel, I’m not sure the feature is called that. That does not work in LO, nor in Office 2007. So I needed to install Office 365 (her employer provided the licence for that)m, but I found no way to correclty run it natively in Linux despite I tried everything, even downloaded a trial of Crossover.
So I installed Win11 in a VM, and O365 into that, that works smooth and well.
I don’t even care if the Win11 VM gets blown by viruses, just replace its .vhd with the original one (that I backed up at the moment it was ready to use, everything set up, and working correctly).
So, yes, sadly, there are tasks, for which Linux lacks the software.
This is not the problem with Linux itself, this is a problem of the providers of those softwares. MS ported Office to Mac, but not to Linux, so my educated guess is that they DON’T WANT LINUX USERS to use MS Office.

There’s VMix, which is a boradcasting software, only available for Windows.
Yes, Linux has OBS, but it’s capabilities are nowher near to what OBS can offer.
Still, for my usage OBS is great.
But doing a sports-event broadcast with 8 cams, slowmo repetitions of goals, display number of goals, and insert teazers, etc, similarly like you would see it on Eurosport- is definitely beyond OBS, however that task can be done with Vmix. I saw it, I was there in the production a dozen times (not doing the VMix thing, just a cameraman at one camera)

I gave you 2 examples, where keeping Windows is reasoned, probably there are other cases too.
But the most of the Windows-prisoners are simply lazy. Lazy to learn to use something different.

4 Likes
3

But they are happy to change from 10 to 11 or from word 6 to office 365 which looks totally different as you say with ribbon bar, which personally I hate cannot find some of the easy things to do.

3 Likes
4

From a user perspective the 10 to 11 change is less harmful, than it was from 7 to 8 - I think.
But you are right, some of them change happily, just because because it is the new and shiny. However, I know people still on Windows 7, no matter it is after EOL, and security wise in zero-day since years…
I know only one guy who liked Linux Mint so much, that left Windows.

I love Softmaker Office, which is configurable which style to use.
I know LO can have both ribbon and classicmenu too.
I’m lost in the ribbon too.

2 Likes
5

Don’t accept the job. Might infect other parts of your system.

4 Likes
6

Now you know 2, I jumped ships 20 years ago and only go back to fix client windows machines

3 Likes
7

Yes I told him that, offered to do it to linux machine but not windows, hence I give silly prices to do windows and offer no form of garanties

1 Like
8

Even much more over the the internet.
But I mean personally, living here in the district wher I live.
You are quite far away from here :smiley:

1 Like
9

An Excel proficient user for many years before converting to Linux/LO. Slicer is just a fancy filtering tool with preset buttons/toolbar to help you get that data from Pivot Tables into another form, pulling out only the data you want from them.

It’s true, to the best of my knowledge, they have yet to add this feature to Pivot tables in LO. They have attempted to with normal “tables.” It is a feature request by a few, so not sure if/when it will happen.

But now that I work in Excel daily for the past 2 years, understanding how a Pivot Table is derived from data and then the slicing used to manipulate the output of that data without changing the Pivot Table, I use workarounds.

What most people complain about is not being able to import the .xls file that contains the slicer into LO, since all the data will import but without the slicer.

Sheila

4 Likes
10

I am so glad that I do not have a need for any of the varieties of Office software… Linux or otherwise.
I do occasionally write a letter or an article, and I use Latex. R can do anything a spreadsheet can do.
Office software is a lockin phenomenon.

2 Likes
11

I’ve found ALL the features I need in MS Word or MS Excel from Office 365 (and Outlook too) work 100% using a Web Browser like Chrome or Edge… And Edge works quite well sync’ing your settings using your Office 365 credentials from your employer…

I don’t know about this add-on you call “slicer” though… Just another option to consider - running it in a browser… And I’ve never used Pivot Tables, so I don’t know if that works in the web version… Actually - I prefer using the web version of Outlook, running in Edge, to the Outlook “fat client”…

According to this - Slicer / Pivot Tables works in Excel Online :
How to Add a slicer with Excel Online.

Screenshot from 2025-07-16 11-15-23
Screenshot from 2025-07-16 11-15-23740Ă—194 21.4 KB

3 Likes
12

I think the problem is, people are stuck in their ways. I built my missus a new computer, she has Windows 11 on it, as she does not want to learn how to use Linux, as all the software she has bought over the years, is Windows only.
I built her a customed Windows ISO without having to go through the process of having to login with a email account, local account only. Telemetry all switched off, Microsoft Edge completely gone. Put Brave-Browser on there instead, switched off the Bit-Coin stuff in Brave, as people complained about it, all that is required is switching it off. My missus uses LibreOffice, as I managed to persuade her, that for what she does on the computer, Office-365 is not needed. She has given me her old computer, so Linux will be going on that. She does a bit of photography, makes her own greeting cards, Birthdays, Xmas, etc. I built her a powerful machine, 32GB of Ram, NVIDIA 4060 TI with 16GB of onboard rammage, two 2TB M.2 drives, RYZEN 5700x eight cores, sixteen threads Processor, housed in a seven year old Game-Max Silent ATX Tower, with front optical bays, for CD/DVD writer/player. Problem is, it’s DDR4 and what I have noticed is DDR4 is beginning to not be made anymore. Concentrating on DDR5, or AM5. So as she is using Windows, will have to maybe upgrade her system again, in five to ten years time.

5 Likes
13

Do you mean one can use LibreOffice in Windows? I did not know that.
That puts a different slant on converting windows users.

You certainly built a capable machine.

3 Likes
14

Cross-platform programs are really interesting, especially when they’re free. Wonder how many of our Linux programs are this capapble? Yes, Paul certainly built his wife a real hot rod.

2 Likes
15

There are a few others. Vbox is one. Can you make us a list?
What we can do is infiltrate windows with these until it reaches the point where there is minimal microsoft content left, so the conversion problem ceases to exist.

2 Likes
16

People are generally afraid. It’s new, and new is scary. Most users do not understand how a computer works, and telling them they need something completely new is going to give them all kinds ideas of the potential horrible issues they might encounter.

Whether this is true or not does not matter to them. They want something familiar and a familiar name. Whether that familiar thing and name are actually good does not matter to them. It’s familiar and known.

Some users just want a computer to get stuff done, and to them a computer means Windows. No amount of convincing will change their thoughts. It’s all about instinct: familiar is safe; new is unsafe and scary.

7 Likes
17

Been using LO in Windows, ever since XP!!!

4 Likes
18

Why do I use Windows???
Because it works!!!

1 Like
19

Follow-Up to Humor? :grin:

2 Likes
20

Works on windows, mac as well as linux, i cannot tell the difference, just waiting for a android version

It used to be called
Star office
Sun office
Then open office
And now
Libreoffice

Not quite true but close to be the same !
Depends who owns it and how its being developed.

2 Likes