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I like Focuswriter, it’s a little more feature rich than Notepad, but it stays out of your way and has that same “Just me and a blank page” vibe.
does it leave behind formatting upon copy/pasta like notepad does?
As a Linux daily driver, LibreOffice is ass. I’ve tried, but it just feels like a cheap, not nearly as good alternative to Microsoft Office. Hate to say it
OnlyOffice is pretty good
Back when I last used it (we’re speaking ~8 years ago), I was actually happy using it instead of MSO. …until I opened a Word document and all the tabulations and spacing went to shit. I don’t know whether it got fixed yet, but as soon as they always look identical to the pixel, opened in either editor, I will finally ditch Word.
I guess the same goes for Excel/Calc. Once all the functions are called and work the same, all the formatting looks the same in both, I’ll stick with Calc.
From what I heard, MSOffice documents saved on their proprietary format will almost always find a way to not look quite right, because haha fuck you, pay for Office365
OnlyOffice is a bit more polished and similar to MS, have you tried that?
Having used LibreOffice and OnlyOffice, I find that if you need a full office suite, (and fortunately I don’t anymore), LibreOffice has more ‘stuff’ in it and perhaps a bit better comparability with Microsoft 365 than OnlyOffice. Still, I had no real beef with OnlyOffice. It’s a somewhat lighter on space the LibreOffice for sure.
Thankfully, all I really need anymore is AbbiWord and Gnumeric for my now simple and infrequent needs. Soooo much faster and lighter than a full office suite.
I wouldn’t say it’s ass, but it’s definitely not office.
As someone who’s used Apple’s Pages as my primary word processor app for the past 18 years, I’ve spent the past 6 months or so using only LibreOffice in order to get myself to a place where I’m not reliant on Apple hardware.
And oh my fucking god, LibreOffice is dog shit in comparison. It’s horrifically unwieldy, to the point that it’s only marginally easier to use than Word. And Word is God’s continuing punishment of all mankind for what we did to Jesus. Word is ebola tearing through an orphanage. Word is Kid Rock covering the collected works of U2.
And LibreOffice Writer is just a little better than that.
It kills me that Pages is locked to Apple hardware, because it’s just so nice to use.
I don’t understand what people are using office for that libre can’t do. Are we not just putting words on paper?
It’s probably advanced Excel users, mostly. Also, people who heavily use the collaboration features of MS Office.
Collaborative features makes sense. But if I am ever needing ‘advanced’ excel, I am not going to be using excel.
I use Excel for a lot of advanced things, but even their word processor is garbage. I tried to use it to take notes for DnD but things like bullet points wouldn’t work correctly, spacing got all messed up, etc. Just a ton of small shit. I eventually just switched back to the web version of Microsoft Office.
I absolutely love Linux, but some things Microsoft does better, and Office is one of them.
I prefer Kate. (Da best)
(It’s also Windows supported.)
Kate exists on windows and linux
Notepad++ does way more out of the box. I’m saying this as someone who has used npp for over a decade and been using Kate since last September since indefinitely switching to Linux.
It doesn’t have AI tho.
(Joking)
Upset about notepad, so downloaded a bunch of random software that has nothing to do with editing text files?
Not A tipping point but several. They’ve been upset about a lot of things but this was the last straw.
Thought the same thing, nothing wrong with Libre Office, but why not Notepad++?
For me personally, I was using Notepad++, but the enshitification of notepad, to me, was just the last straw. It was another thing in Windows becoming worse, & there was no sign of the enshittification stopping, so I finally jumped ship & switched to Linux.
I think a lot of “Windows 11 sucks!” is kind of overblown. For example:
Have an issue with Co-Pilot in Notepad? Click the gear in the upper right hand corner, scroll down, “Copilot - Off”.
Kind of like when they tried to force Cortana on everyone in Windows 10… super easy to disable, enough people did that, then it got removed.
It sucks that the user has to take steps to clean this crap out of Windows, but it CAN be done and it’s not THAT different from clearing out all the bloatware vendors like HP used to install by default.
For example:
“My start menu is full of advertising!”
So, turn it off.
“I keep getting ads as notifications!”
(They really want people buying Xbox stuff)
Turn that off too:
If you can’t figure out these basic configurations in Windows, switching to Linux will not be an option for you. You’ll have no hope of figuring out Linux settings.
Operating Linux isn’t an issue for me.
None of this is relevant. Whether or not I could or couldn’t disable copilot in notepad would have had no effect on me as I didn’t use the app. You missed the point entirely. The enshittification of software by a company signals a shift in the company’s priorities. A shift I’m not willing to support. I’m not saying Linux is for everyone, but it also isn’t as difficult to operate as many people like to make it out to be, especially the more popular distros. And with the progress it has made over the last few years with regard to gaming, I think a lot more people would be happier with Linux than Windows.
Besides that fact, my biggest issue with windows is forced updates.
I’ve performed every one of those steps (and a few reg edits besides after the second week of repeated uninstalls and turning off copilot in apps and turning off Edge as a default by going through literally every file type and removing it as a default for everything possible (a few .edge_ files not possible to change). Copilot is back in my apps list and startup files with every boot. W11Pro, originally I installed from lenovo recovery media but reinstalled from recovery media created from the MS download ISO of the major update to W11 a few weeks ago. Problem continues
“I’m done with Microsoft Windows™ because I dislike Copilot™! I will now move to Linux even though it breaks constantly and install LibreOffice which probably doesn’t even have a spell checker!”
Have an upvote for a controversial (hopefully on purpose) cliche take.
Weird take. Im a Linux noob and I haven’t broken it once since installing a year ago, and libre office obviously does have a spell checked. It’s a Microsoft office competitor, not some barebones text editor.
Linux still has an unstable reputation among aging Windows nerds who haven’t tried it in 15 years.
Speaking of unstable, when was the last windows update that broke some people’s system? A few days ago?
I’m also enjoying a stable Linux setup and use Libre spellcheck. I just found it weird that the OP spreads such false information in this supposedly anti windows post, but nobody got it, so joke’s on me
Ah yes you failed to account for one critical detail: I am an idiot. Your joke has no power here.
I don’t see the problem. Ignoring the fact that Linux doesn’t break that much, they said they got tired of AI so they moved to a platform that doesn’t have AI.
I’m not mad about the downvotes or anything, but I’m astonished that everyone misreads my comment like that. Man, Internet discourse has really shifted.
Or maybe you wrote a comment that doesn’t convey what you intended
Given a up and down vote option, of people didn’t Get your point they will downvote you. I asked to try to clarify, but you just used that to complain
I still don’t know what you wanted to say
Instead of saying something like “I’ve been thinking about making some changes, I’m gonna finally check things out, fingers crossed”, the person in the screenshot went out of their way to emphasize how limited and broken LibreOffice / Linux supposedly is.
As an experienced user of both I think that’s utterly ridiculous, so what I was going for in my post was an absurd exaggeration of that sentiment. It’s not the greatest post or anything, but I don’t think the text is super ambiguous either. I guess can kind of see how people mistook my post for one that’s shitting on FOSS (especially with a negative vote count already next to it), and it’s really not the end of the world, but I’m also rolling my eyes at how superficial of a reading that presupposes.
There, you asked.
I think it veget it now. If the user has so many issues with libreoffice, they should switch to something else. I agree.
Reading was not superficial. You didn’t convey that message
Yeah that wasn’t at all the read a got, sorry.
FYI, the author of the post addresses this kind of comment in her thread on Mastodon (see source).
I… I don’t think they do.
Works on my machine.
I used notepad precisely because it lacks features beyond writing text, this is such an anti feature
SublimeText might be a good next option. :)
Yeah I have that as well, and I’m surprised how fast and light weight it feels compared to something like VS code
Isn’t notepad++ better?
My entire work brain is in there. Hundreds of tabs none of them were ever saved. I was recently looking for something and found notes I took 2 years ago. I love it but I also get why a lot of people don’t.
Not if you want less features. 🤷🏻♂️
Not if you don’t use windows, or if you want a more modern looking and less busy interface, or integration with what I consider the best git GUI. I used to use N++ long ago, but after trying ST I realized it just feels clunky.
I think in general you can also just expect that any OS, techy or not, ships with a basic, lightweight text editor. The fact that Windows seems to want to change that is an anti-feature for the entire OS.
There’s a lot of discussion here without any mention of Sublime Text.
Are you even a programmer if you don’t just do everything through
ed?I think my programming career was notepad++ then sublime, then vscode, and presumably now I should start using Cursor but I can’t bring myself to do it.
my journey was notepad++, vim, atom, vim again, neovim
Use Copilot to write your own Notepad. With Blackjack. And hookers.
linux is definetly not all of that anymore.
but yes, one step at a time, its time will come for ya.
I’m gradually immersing myself in Linux until my Macbook loses macOS support, at which point I’ll go full time on Asahi, having learned the ropes from Mint on my old Mac mini.
There are still some things that send me scuttling back to macOS, glad that Preview exists with its easy to operate editing and PDF viewing. But I’ll learn to make that stuff second nature in Linux. Eventually.
Hopefully Asahi will support it
Linux is extremely stable nowadays. Just download Ubuntu and you’re set.
Anything but Ubuntu. The “broken or will break” since version 4 but looks like it might be user friendly!
Fedora is more stable these days, and that isn’t even my desktop of choice.
I recommend people start off on either elementary or mint depending on the walled garden they’re used too. It seems to make the transition easier; especially for those who are less interested in tech and see the OS as a means to an end.
Some people just don’t want to learn new ways of working, regardless of how much it benefits them in the long run. My 78 year old grandad being my most recent convert to elementary (after a lifetime of mac OS).
He hasn’t had any issues with the transition thus far. Everything is where he expects it to be, I don’t think he’s even realised libre office is a different application to Microsoft office. Whilst I’m sure he’d have the capability of working out Ubuntu; I also think the effort would be enough to push him back towards Mac.
But yeah, a near 80 year old can use Linux without any training or problems, which I feel really emphasises your original point around Linux stability.
Vivaldi
Ahm, sure?
Yeah, was wondering about that. I’ve just installed it for the first time and while it looks OK, i’m wondering what the catch is.
Any privacy or security holes that one might to be aware of?
Just the usual one: it’s a proprietary fork of Chromium.
Ah.
Its not really AI its just a string manipulation program, that, rather pointlessly, summarises paragraphs. The sort of thing you see done in BASIC in old program listing books.
I’m glad I left Windows again when I did (about 2 years ago). There’s no AI bullshit in vim or mousepad. That said, vim is available on windows, so a full switch isn’t necessary if you’re not all about that Linux life.
Shout out to people who can’t spell but persevere on!
