I hate windows. But I have to use it for work. The worse it gets, the more I want to break free completely, minimise my exposure to this OS. The only part I truly cannot do without I think is Microsoft Excel.
Replacing with Excel 2016 or only using webversion or so is insufficient for sure, for work it needs the SharePoint/auto save etc etc stuff. Also power query getting data from SharePoint online.
Replacing with Libreoffice or so seems completely impossible, there’s too many ‘special’ files in organisation, with .xlsm macro mess, I don’t control all that, I can’t fully steer away from such mess but need full functional access.
Other than Excel, I think I could do all my work from a Linux desktop.
Is it possible by now, reliably working in an up to date excel from a base system Linux? What is the way? Have people done this? How? Do I need to run a virtual machine with win11? How do I do that? Does anyone here have experience with it? I have high degree of control over work devices and boss couldn’t care less, as long as I can get my work done.
Thanks and sorry if this is the wrong community for this question (where would it belong better?)
This is what worked for me If you want to run it without a VM: I suggest getting a licence to crossover. Then you can download the office 2016 Iso here https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/technology-science/microsoft/8-office-2016-direct-download-links and buy a cheap licence online. Mount the Iso onto your computer then in crossover search office 2016 and then as the installer select the exe from the mounted Iso. This way you get native integration so when you open an excel file from Linux it will just open excel. Here is an older video explaining the method https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WB8uqE5_8s0&pp=ygUhT2ZmaWNlIDIwMTYgTGludXggc2V0dXAgY3Jvc3NvdmVy
If its for work, its on a work machine.
That said, I have a lot of efforts (personal projects with hardware I get given, or side work not related to my job) where I need specific software. For those, I have a VM tailored to that application that’s been trimmed down as much as possible.
This let’s me rdp into them, do what I need to do, save to a designated location, and shut the VM down. Since its a VM I tend not to give it network access unless required, and I have USB drive I pass through to the VM.
This makes sure everything works, I limit the access of MS with local only accounts and win 10 (among other specific versions like XP for a specific piece of hardware, server 2008 for an irritating piece of software I sometimes need, etc).
All the VMs are on my proxmox cluster, easy to start/stop with a script.
LibreOffice Calc: Free Excel-Compatible Spreadsheet Software
8·1 day ago- The first link is SEO garbage, that claims to be the official LO site but it is NOT the LibreOffice website
- The post already said LibreOffice Calc is not an alternative.
Fixed.
Separate your personal and your work computer. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to explain a software issue caused by your decision of not running standard software. Put Windows and all work related software on a separate work laptop and use remote desktop from your Linux PC to do your job.
Separate your personal and work computer
nods enthusiastically
Important for security of both the employee and the company. Don’t mix business and pleasure. It’s the only thing that makes sense!Put Windows and all work related software on a separate work laptop and use remote desktop from your Linux PC to do your job.
What? No! Keep them separate! This is how people get pwned. Don’t backdoor your employers machine from your personal PC or vice versa!
If the employer wants to prevent remote desktop sessions they can configure it that way with group policies and an always on VPN. In this case they are apparently fine with a personal computer being used which makes RDP actually a slightly more secure solution.
In this case they are apparently fine with a personal computer being used
Where? Looks ambiguous. From all we know this is a work computer provided by the employer. It’s more likely to be an oversight or deprioritized/neglected.
which makes RDP actually a slightly more secure solution
I do not see how that folllows.
If both the company and employee are indeed fine with the RDP, it should be no problem to get that confimed from IT in writing.
And more to the point, your work computer should be provided by your employer. If you’re buying that shit yourself, you’re a chump who’s being taken advantage of.
I dont think this is mentioned enough. These days it seems a given that you’ll install XYZ app on your personal phone, or use your personal PC for something.
No. If you require me to install something then I require a device to install it on.
I also think people dont realise that often throguh active exchange IT can fully wipe your device. And Ive seen too many shitty IT operators who would accidentally do this.
There’s an episode of darknet diaries where this kid ‘hacks’ into his old school network and wipes everyone’s (including a load of parent’s) phones because they had exchange on their phones for school email.
To use Excel with macros, I don’t even think the web version will cut it. Your only option is to use something like winboat to use excel inside a windows docker container as far as I know.
No web version doesn’t cut it. Thanks for the tip, I’ll look into that Winboat
Using something like Winboat on top of a linux distro installation might be be the best option for you, since Winboat allows you to virtualize windows on a per-application basis.
(This is not Wine, it’s essentially a barebones VM, but I don’t think you need GPU acceleration for excel lol)
What I’ve heard is it’s mainly very single core CPU heavy, GPU not very relevant. Thanks I’m going to look into Winboat for sure, being suggested a lot here
If you get stuck with Winboat, as its still a very new project, you might want to have a look at winapps, which is very similar
TIL about winboat thanks to this thread
Me too!
For work, I just use windows. Not my machine not my problem.
But the slowness… I have a stroke every time I press tab after any git command in Git Bash. The piece of shit takes three seconds to respond. In Linux it happens instantaneously.
I get paid by the hour! 😅 But for real though it’s a struggle. Mostly I try to use msys2 for everything but. I still have native git. There are some long standing bugs that make the vim excruciatingly slow to open or close, really I should go try to fix it but it doesn’t feel like a fun problem.
MSYS2 is a lifesaver!
That’s more the fault of running software designed for Linux on Windows.
I fully blame this on NTFS being terrible with metadata and small files. I’m sure everyone’s tried copying/moving/deleting a big folder with 1000s of small files before and the transfer rate goes to nearly 0…
Well - Windows has always had poor “fork()” performance compared to Linux (Windows applications prefer threads). So running lots of small applications that do lots of forking will take a performance hit.
I don’t think File Explorer on Windows uses fork() to copy files? If it does, that’s insane. I don’t think git calls fork per-file or anything either, does it?
the problem is my patience and frustration
I want to get my shit done and move on with my day, not sit here waiting on stuff and getting RSI from navigating directories so slowly
You could use something like WinBoat to make installing and using a virtual machine for Windows a lot easier. It also makes Windows apps feel almost like they are native to your Linux desktop, which is nice.
Alternatively, you could try running Excel in wine using Bottles, but I’m not sure how well that’ll go since Excel is kind of a monster of an application.
We both typed out a winboat suggestion at the same time lol, nice on you to include links tho :)
I will look into Winboat, thanks
Habe you tried winboat? Is basically a docker container with a Windows virtual Maschine inside of it.
Found ze German
No never heard of before, but everyone here is suggesting it so I will check that out. Thanks
There is no Excel alternative. It sucks, bit its the reality. I run a VM specifically for a couple windows apps and 90% of that is excel.
I use version 2019 and manipulated the installer to only install excel and none of the other office suite apps.
You can also do the same in a docker container instead of VM (winboat) if that’s more your jam.
If you want more info on any of that I’d be glad to give you more details.
There are lots of Excel alternatives.
There is nothing that matches every single feature of excel in 2026.
That’s my point. There are lots of spreadsheet options, but if they don’t meet all the needs then they really aren’t alternatives. Maybe it’s semantics, but I find that definition to not be misleading and keep expectations in line.
I’m saying that case by case, person by person there are alternatives (software and/or processes). E.g.
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If you want features A,B,C then use alternative X
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If you want features C,D,E then use alternative Y
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If you want features A,D,F then use alternative Z
But if your team needs A,B,C,D,E & F then we come to your point that there is no alternative.
I just didn’t want people reading this thread to automatically jump to the “must use excel” conclusion.
Gotcha. That’s a fair point. I kind of jumped to the end because the typical response is to “just use libre office” and OP is clearly a power spreadsheet person where that’s not gong to work.
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So it’s not excel, it’s share point you can’t live without.
There’s a software called Winboat which integrates Windows apps natively in your Linux system and under the hood it’s spin up a virtual machine for it. You can try that for Excel
Wow thank you for this tip! I’m going to give another app a try!
Youre welcome, good luck :D
Might be a life saver
You can try Winboat.
It uses docker or podman to create a windows container and run windows programs, that Wine or Proton can’t run. The experience may not be snappy, as there is no GPU passthrough support yet, but it sure is seamless. I once tried Photoshop and it ran great.
So on my linux PC, I have made a KVM (Kernal Virtual Machine) using QEMU and made a Windows 11 machine inside it (and I bought a digital license for it), which I have work office and email set up. I personally only need to use it occasionally. If you give it enough resources it works decently & runs all windows software; although as it doesn’t have a dedicated graphics card it won’t look as slick as native windows 11 machine and run GPU intense software well (you can get it it’s own dedicated video card and pass it through but really isn’t worth it for just using Excel). It means I can main linux but use Windows occasionally if I really have to. It means you can have a full Windows machine with work Microsoft account set up for Office, One Drive etc - depending on your employers policies of course. You can cut down the resources you allocate it if you want to be switching between the Windows machine and other software in Linux, but Windows can be laggy without enough resources as it’s so poorly optimised.
There are sites that guide on setting up a windows 11 machine in linux, but essentially you need to install KVM modules and Virtual Machine manager in linux (available on all distros). You do need to access your PCs bios to ensure the settings that allow virtual machines to access the CPU are on (slightly different name between AMD and Intel CPUs).
Then you create a machine in Virtual machine manager, give it plenty of resources (especially if the idea being when you use it if it’s the only think you’ll be doing, give it access to most of your CPU cores and the majority of your RAM), and create a decent size virtual hard drive file (I’d say minimum 128gb or more as Windows is bloaty - you can set the virtual drive file size to be flexible so it has a max size but the actual file size is only what is used by the guest system but some file systems still use the whole space unfortunately; not sure how Windows behaves). Download the Windows 11 installer ISO, and then add that file as a virtual CD drive for your guest machine, boot the guest machine, and you should get the Win 11 installer. The VM can only see the virtual hard drive file, so you can install Win 11 safely onto the drives it sees with no risk to your PC. Then reboot and you should have a new Windows install; test it - if it works, buy a digital license (if you want…) and install Office using your 365 account OR if you have old CDs then pass those through to the virtual machine and install as on any Windows PC.
