Considering switching to Linux, but I have many questions.

  1. Gaming - I enjoy gaming and want a Distro that will let me play most games. I have read that keeping nVidia drivers up to date can be (was?) a problem. I currently use steam for 99% of my gaming, I’m aware steam is porting a lot for SteamOS, but what are the limitations of this? Will I have to wait for a port before I can play a new game? Are there stability issues?

  2. I’ve developed a lot of pretty basic macros for excel in Visual Basic, I’m not a programmer by any means, but I can write some algorithms to do QoL coding. Is making the switch to open office seamless? Will my .xlsx docs incur formatting issues? Will my macros translate to whatever editor is used in open office? Does open office use the same codes for cell functions? Are there statistic package add-ons like with excel? Essentially, I’m asking how much work is ahead of me if I make this switch?

  3. I do enjoy the old version of outlook and work with many people who use outlook calendars for scheduling. Is there a similar program that will work with the same functionality on their end? (E.g. a mail client that will allow me to accept calendar invites from others and confirm it on both ends?).

  4. I am familiar with Visual Studio and use it as my IDE for very basic programming (I like to tinker with automating certain tasks in games, again by no means a programmer). Is there an equivalent FOSS version that would have a low learning curve coming from Microsoft’s IDE?

  • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    22 hours ago
    1. I do enjoy the old version of outlook and work with many people who use outlook calendars for scheduling. Is there a similar program that will work with the same functionality on their end? (E.g. a mail client that will allow me to accept calendar invites from others and confirm it on both ends?).

    I believe Thunderbird is still the most widely supported local mail client. (Corrections welcome, but last time I used a non-webmail email client, it seemed the most popular.) I have found Thunderbird is more stable and reliable on Linux than on Windows or Mac. And thunderbird seems to intentionally mimic older versions of outlook.

    For any non-mircrosoft email provider, Thunderbird seems to usually be what the mail provider tests with, if they support non-web email access.

    If using Microsoft as your email provider, I think Microsoft occasionally sabotages Thunderbird intentionally. I have not had a good experience, with this combination.

    But Outlook(.com) works fine and is fully featured, in a browser on any version of Linux.