How to use microsoft products well on Linux like Power BI

[espanto28]

More of a rant but I do am forming this into a question to get people's opinion.

How to use Microsoft products on Linux?

Context:

I bought my first laptop for fully Linux setup in 2019 and minus the aches and pains of installing Linux I found it a great purchase. I paid $700 for similar specs I would have paid for my Macbook Pro in 2019. The complete control I had over my set up made it one of the best purchases of my life.

However in the last 2 years, I have gotten a lot of enterprise clients that use Microsoft Products. Power Bi, Excel and Teams. I work as a ML engineer building AI solutions for these clients. And usually conversations and business tasks are occurring in the Windows world. So I do what most people do I download the Linux version of the MS product. Yet I found a lot of bugs with MS Teams and Power BI is not a option. Most of my ML output and evaluation dashboards need to be reflected on Power BI.

So I decided to partition my drive to include Windows partition which is also quite useful for other things as well like updating BIOS. However I am finding that I need to jump on a daily basis. A meeting in Teams while I pop open my Tensorflow model in Linux. I like to use 1 laptop for everything so I am not carrying multiple laptops every day.

I am very anti windows but I find even Apple MS products work better than on Linux. I also tried cloud base versions of the MS apps but I also find them very limiting.

So wondering if anyone were if anyone has any advice?

[RIH]

A virtual copy of Windows is the best way to run Windows products.
Personally i use VirtualBox, but there are plenty of alternatives these days.
The only drawback is that you do need a decent CPU & plenty of RAM if you are going to have a half decent Windows experience.

[Hoser Rob]

No genuine ML engineer would have to ask this.

[BwingBob]

+1 on running windows in a VM. I too need to run windows at work on my laptop. I use a dual monitor setup at my desk and run the VM in full screen mode on one and Linux in the other. I migrated to pop_OS! on my laptop but operated in a similar fashion when I was running Mint. pop_OS! will do firmware updates without the need to switch to Windows. https://support.system76.com/articles/system-firmware/. The link talks about System 76 Machines, but firmware updates for my Dell machine are showing up and installing properly.

I still use Mint on my machines at home.

[AndyMH]

If the customer insists on MS products run windows, don't try to fight it. Either dual boot or run win in a VM. I did the latter, when I was working I had a win7 VM for MS office. It worked very well (this was on a thinkpad T430, relatively low spec).

[Hoser Rob]

If the customer insists on MS products run windows, don't try to fight it. Either dual boot or run win in a VM. I did the latter, when I was working I had a win7 VM for MS office. It worked very well (this was on a thinkpad T430, relatively low spec).

I've felt for years that many new users are far too quick to yank their WIndows. Like it or not some need it. Wine just isn't reliable and things like LO and Gimp are not acceptable substitutes for pro use.

[lsemmens]

I just set up a machine to dual boot, with a SSD boot drive it's far quicker than faffing around trying to get windows programs to work in a virtual machine.

[RIH]

I just set up a machine to dual boot, with a SSD boot drive it's far quicker than faffing around trying to get windows programs to work in a virtual machine.

Sorry it isn't.
Because every time you want to use a Windows program you have to log out of Linux & into Windows & when you have finished you have to log out of Windows & into Linux.
That is to say nothing about the future potential issues you will get with disk sharing with Windows when it updates..
There is no "faffing around trying to get windows programs to work in a virtual machine" - they are running in Windows, so just work..

[rossdv8]

It sounds like you are running a computer busineess, as many of us have done in the past. If you don;t actually need to 'Use Windows', but only have to have access to the Windows Software your customers or friends are using, the suggestions here to run Windows inside a Virtual machine make a lot of sense. Provided you have a copy of winrdows and licence conditions that allow you to run it.

You must have that I guess, or you would not be able to do the other main suggestion, which is to Partition the drive and Dual Boot between Mint and Windows.

If you have the resources to run a second computer (which could be a laptop, or a small desktop, like a NUC or a Lenovo Tiny or similar small space system - and there are usually plenty of the things second hand, including a WIndows licence, for sale for less that $100 that have, say intel i5 processors and 8GB RAM, you could stick one of those in a corner somewhere, or behind your monitor (most can even be mounted to the back of an LCD) - you could run that, and use the same keyboard, mouse and monitor you are viewing your existing computer on.

Do some reading about VNC (Virtual Network Computing). It is dead easy to set up,and doesn;t even require you to create an actual wired or WiFi 'network as such. You simply install the software, then plug it into the same Wireless or Wired router you are already using. A few minutes later you can see the Windows computer in a window in your main machine, and your mouse and keyboard control it, as if they were connected to that machine.

With Linux able to make 'Virtual Desktops' (these days often referred to as Workspaces) you can just have one of these set as the access into the other machine. The only 'clutter' is the small space a small form factor machine takes, plus the power supply, and if your computer is not connected to a Wireless Router, you'll have to run a network cable to your router.

So, you have the suggestions already offered here:
Partition the drive and Dual Boot between Mint and Linux
Install a copy of Windows into something like Virtual Box inside your computer
Get hold of a Small Form Factor computer with at least an i5 proc and 8GB RAM, and use VNC to access it through your existing machine

Dual booting will probably cost you a Windows licence

Installing into a VM will probably cost you a Windows licence

Using VNC into a Small Computer will cost you a second hand ex-office SFF machine that is probably 8 years old - but if you do your homework, will come with a licence for Windows. You just need to make sure it is a Windows edition that will work with the software your customers use

When I had my businesses, I used options one and two. If I had my tiime over again, and knowing how easy it is and what else I can do with it, I would use VNC every time. We just didn't have things that easy 20 years ago !

The joy of Mint, is you almost always have fairly simple solutions. Something in this thread will do what you need.

[AndyMH]

Dual booting will probably cost you a Windows licence

Installing into a VM will probably cost you a Windows licence

Gone are the days when you could get a cheap (£10) licence for win10 off amazon. I got several this way. You can still get them on ebay, but more expensive.

[Pierre]

the fallow of looking for cheap win licences, can be very problematic, at best.
and is still practiced in some forums, even these days.

there are recommended sites, that are more legitimate & are usually recommended.

if your main priority is to have windows programs available to use,
then it's sometimes more prudent to use the windows system as an Host System
and thus run any number of Linux Systems in an Guest Box, instead.

[AndyMH]

I have bought three win10 licences off amazon, all cheap. Maybe I got lucky, they all worked, one was OEM, another volume and one was retail (that surprised me - that licence you can move from PC to PC).

[rossdv8]

In my reply I was more or less suggesting that the OP might already have a Windows licence, or that things like second hand Intel NUC, Gigabyte Brix, Lenovo m0xx series Tiny etc, or second hand laptops generally come with one.

VNC is a vastly underrated, but affordable solution to the Windows software problem. AUD $100 that I paid for the last two on the open market, including freight, is a lot cheaper when changer into US dollars. And both mine came with Windows 10 licence.

[axrusar]

I pay U$d18.48 Windows 10 pro keys. Been using the same site for a few years and no issues so far.
PM if anyone needs the link

[The Muffin Man]

A virtual copy of Windows is the best way to run Windows products.
Personally i use VirtualBox, but there are plenty of alternatives these days.
The only drawback is that you do need a decent CPU & plenty of RAM if you are going to have a half decent Windows experience.

A decent CPU and plenty of RAM is pretty easy to find. Mine laptop is pretty old and it runs VirtualBox/win10 fine. I paid around $100 on Amazon, used, about 3 years ago.

Code: Select all

Operating System: KDE neon 5.27
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.6
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.107.0
Qt Version: 5.15.10
Kernel Version: 5.19.0-45-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz
Memory: 15.5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4000
Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Product Name: Latitude E6330
System Version: 01

[AndyMH]

Also elderly hardware, T430, an i5-3320M, 8GB RAM, runs win in a VM okay with VB (I give it 4GB RAM). Running from an SSD makes a big difference.

[The Muffin Man]

SSDs do help a lot. BTW "Giving it" RAM or Disk drive space (assuming it's a dynamic size) or CPUs doesn't mean that VirtualBox (or VMWare) consumes that much. Rather that's how much the guest sees. That is, the host allows it to use that much, the guest may not need it all the time.