I like using Linux for my studies but it is a question of tradeoffs. I do not have to deal with annoying notifications, surprising reboots, updates or surprise installed software. I do however need to spend about an hour longer on doing new things than i would if i was on Windows. This is not all bad however, once you learn to do something on Linux it is kinda permanent whereas the same knowledge on Windows can be thrown away with a UI change.
I do recommend keeping a Windows partition, not all software will run and even if there are Linux binaries it is not a guarantee that your school license will work with the Linux binary.
Writing assignments in Latex/MD is awesome, does it require a higher learning curve to start? Yes, it absolutely does however: Latex only ever does what you tell it to, there will be no surprise reshape of margins, the text in one section will not suddenly have Garamond instead of TNR, tables will be where you say, graphs will be where you say, page numbering just works.
Using Linux at school level it is amazing.
At my Gymnasium (German) the school system was/is Linux-based (I still help administer it).
It allows trivial system resets and automatic “massive” (only ~100 systems) deployments of the same image across different hardware.
It also makes it possible to set up and administer the system with a group of students, developing own, tightly integrated software for management (or lolz)…
I’d say I have learned more about computers on my humanistic school by being in that group of students then most students on STEM schools.
Using Linux privately, while the school uses Windows might lead to some issues, tho.
Using an office suite different from the one used at school is suboptimal. At my Gymnasium the students were instructed to use LibreOffice, as presentations or documents made with Microsoft Office sometimes wouldn’t work properly, and I imagine it’s similar the other way around (unless your school just preinstalls LibreOffice as well).
I think that privacy invasive operating systems and apps should be banned by law.
Hence, Linux or BSD are the only suitable options.
And the worst part is, all of the major vendors can indoctrinate entire generations of children into ChromeOS, Windows and Mac. And it’s disgusting that they’ll have an account made for them by an adult before they even know the meaning and repercussions of having those accounts.
I think Linux for school is a good choice, but I think you’ll find they won’t be able to help you when things go wrong, or you have questions. So, you’re on your own, but it would work.
With word processing, you’re spoiled for choice on Linux. There’s LibreOffice, OnlyOffice and a few more stand-alone titles. From what I hear the opinion is that if you’re going to share Word documents, then OnlyOffice offers the most compatibility. A Google search for these titles will set you right, and you can test them on Windows or Mac without having to switch to Linux. Of course, you can always print your documents to PDF for ultimate compatibility.
As far as OneDrive goes. Most Linux distros have a “Online Accounts” section in their settings, in which you can set up a Microsoft OneDrive account and access OneDrive through the File Manager just like in Windows. I don’t have a Microsoft Account so I can’t test that, but you can always either make a boot USB, or visit Distrotest.com and test out a Linux Distro and see if it’s going to work for you. Worst case scenario, is you access Word and One Drive online, in which case there are apps that you can take webpages and turn them into apps available as well.
My CS degree is practically built on a *nix backbone
It’s very doable, considering you have enough knowledge of the platform to be comfortable with. Same as Windows, however a lot of people have learnt that first and are stuck in their ways.
Ive been using Linux on my first university year, no issues at all. Im in the health field world so its true that I dont need any specific Windows software.
Even when setting up our private Wifi the university had a manual with instructions for Linux (theoretically only Ubuntu, but worked fine in my Arch install), so I had no issues.
I still have a Windows VM just in case (we did use a piece of software once that was only available for Windows) and our university provides for Office 365 license so I use that in those cases someone uploads a Word or Excel file I 100% cant afford to mess up by editing it in LibreOffice.
I assume you’re in Germany (because of Gymnasium). IT here is a bizarre patchwork, it’s up to the individual school and its IT department what they use. The most common combination is some Office 365 package (with Teams) on Windows 10/11. But I’ve seen Apple schools, even one school that almost exclusively ran Linux and other free software.
You will most likely be able to use LibreOfiice and Office 365 within your browser, but it’s probably a good idea to ask your IT department. You can upload files to OneDrive within your browser.
Distro-wise you’d want one of the really popular ones with a large user-base, like Ubuntu.
It depends what you’re studying. For writing papers, doing research, writing code, you’ll be just as good if not better than windows. Some of my engineering classes use software that is very much windows only, so that would be an issue. I have a dual boot, use Linux when I can, and windows when I have to.
First of all, Gymansium? You mean middle school? Thats the word we use for Middle school in Greece.
Now, I’m a med student and I’ve been using Linux as my main workstation for a while. It’s by far the best when it comes to productivity. In Greece Linux is the second most popular desktop, about 11% total share, and probably the most popular in Universities, kinda like macbooks are in the states.
Tips if you want to switch:
Start with fedora
Use libreoffice
If you have any question, look it up online and bookmark ArchWiki as it has everything you need
Edit :
I’m not using Libreoffice, I write my notes/papers with vim on .md, then I convert it to .docsx or any kind of format that my professor requests.
For OneDrive, you can use OneDriver, it’s free, has a gui, and has on-deman file sync. There is also abraunegg’s onedrive daemon, but I prefer OneDriver because it’s more intuitive (just disable file indexing and the likes, or it’ll think you’re trying to access all files and downloads them). There’s of course the paid option in InSync but as a college student I’d imagine money is tight.
For Office, the option currently is either use CrossOver (which is paid, though it can be cheaper with discounts) to install Office or to use a fairly lengthy process to follow the process CrossOver does manually. While I’m currently pinning my hope on Bottles Installer, for now WPS Office mostly works fine as long as you don’t work with macros.
My personal solution involves using all those, but I minimize the need to use OneDrive by using Resilio to sync to another device (there’s also syncthing but unfortunately no on-demand file sync for that one yet) and when WPS Office or Office 365 isn’t enough, I either fire up my debloated Windows 11 VM via Boxes or connect to a secondary laptop via TeamViewer.
Without my school offering linux laptops for students that needed a computer, I wouldn’t be into it now. And I had no issue working on school stuff already. LibreOffice (OpenOffice at that time) was working great and I expect the situation has got even better.
I was writing a kinda long reply at first but I noticed you mentioned gymnasium and saw you were probably a fellow Dane I’m studying Computer Engineering in Denmark and went to the HTX type of gymnasium, so if you ever need help getting started, I am happy to help out in a DM here.
That being said I have a few things that helped me get started, my first distribution was Arch Linux, not very beginner friendly but I learned a lot about the file system installing it in a virtual machine and got comfortable in the command line. Anyway it would be kinda lengthy so I’ll just list a few keywords you can look up
Text editor? Something good for nice PDFs: LaTeX (overleaf), Markdown with a markdown to PDF converter (VScode), Google docs?
Cloud storage? I use GitHub even for my notes and exercises, it’s a good idea to learn
Math tools? Maple is prominent in the gymnasium i went to so the alternatives I know of are: Octave, Julia and Wolfram Alpha (web based)
I always recommend dual booting with the original OS on a laptop where possible
I used linux all the way from the second half of high school all the way through undergrad and grad school. I concur with others who have said you’ll be fine if you can do your own tech support. I have brought my linux laptop to IT exactly twice and both times was told “we don’t support linux”. I have been able to find workarounds thus far.
As for the applications you use most, LibreOffice is great as a word replacement, but you can always use Office 365 for those applications if need be. One drive can be accessed through a browser.
Use NextCloud + OnlyOffice (it be can set up to work in something similar as Word+OneDrive). As long you don’t need very specific software, you’ll be able to go through school flawlessly (with a bit of effort to learn)
I’ve used Linux in college for 3 years. I’ve run into some issues but not software problems. I just use the Google office suite or if you need to you can use onedrive in a similar way. The issues I’ve run into are networking problems. Connecting to the school printers, using their VPN gateway when I need network resources remotely, stuff like that. Everytime I’ve called the IT department they can’t help me as soon as they know I’m running Linux. Most don’t really know much about it and there are a lot of different configurations a Linux machine could have that would all cause different issues, so I get why they can’t help. That’s really been my only complaint but I’ve usually found workarounds. Except the printers, printer networking is the devil.
As a linux user myself, I’d love it, because I find doing just about anything on the school pcs with windows a time consuming pain in the ass. As for the average student though, I think it’s probably better just to go with whatever the most people are using, unless you want to spend time teaching them about the system they are unfamiliar with.
I’m studying Computer Engineering in Denmark and went to the HTX type of gymnasium, so if you ever need help getting started, I am happy to help out in a DM here.