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Libre or Open Office to write?

Freyrs_stories ๐Ÿšซ

I'm going to build a dedicated writing machine (VM) and it will be based on Kodachi Linux. I'm moving away from Windows, at least for this purpose.

I'm wondering what experience people have with them. Right now I'm leaning towards Libre as it seems to have better 'Word' compatibility. Ideally what ever version I use will have some way of embedding notes and commentary inline in the document. As a backup I may fail over to Office 2021 but that is only a small chance. It may be used for organising correspondence and files that fail to play nice on the Linux machine.

I know some people use MS exclusively so having a backup even if its on a separate machine is probably good planning. And Open doesn't seem to save to DOCX though it can open it.

Can anyone suggest any other Linux packages that are good to write in? Its a very long time since I looked at using something more powerful than a Word equivalent so I'm out of the loop on that side of things.

I guess the only other thing is that it makes it easy to format an output that SOL can use and keep ALL the formatting as it was in the app of choice.

so there we are. Open, Libre or Other. what should I choose? Thanks in advance to those that reply.

F.

Switch Blayde ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

If Libre can save as .docx but Open cannot, it's a no brainer for me โ€” Libre โ€” but I'm a Word user.

Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

I'm not an author but I have used nothing else than LibreOffice for the past decade or so. 100% on Linux for even longer. There are very few differences between LO and Word concerning features.

You can set LibreOffice to save as a .docx by default:
Menu: tools, options
Item: Load/Save
SubItem: General, set option "Always save as:" to .docx

There are other editors/word processors but LibreOffice is the closest thing to Word on Linux. It all depends on your personal preferences and the features you require. If your main purpose is to write for SOL I would suggest to try a much simpler editor. For example if you upload html to SOL a html editor with a spell checker could very well be enough.

I assume you are familiar with Kodachi Linux otherwise I would suggest to start with a more general purpose distribution. Sure it give a lot of extra privacy and security but that also introduces problems you have to be familiar with to handle. If the screws are tightened it moves more difficult :)
Also remember that a VM depends on the host where it runs. A Windows host may unknowingly leak from your VM.

Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

I use Libre Office and I save the files in .ODT.

Libre Office (LO) is by the same coders who worked on Open Office (OO), but after Oracle bought OO and started moving it toward using a lot of proprietary code owned by Oracle the main group of OO programmers left the OO project and set up LO. They started with LO 3 which was a direct copy of OO 3 and have greatly improved LO since then. The changes have made it faster and better.

One thing I like about LO is I can easily set it up to look and work like MS Word 6 did, which is what I was using before I switched to OO, then later switched to LO.

I've found LO can open and use all the file format variants of Word, including .DOCX, but I don't use any of them unless someone specifically asks for a particular MS Word file format.

Freyrs_stories ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

thanks for all the quick replies.

40+ years on computers but only 2 on Linux, but have a couple of mates who have been in the trenches for 20 years and can 'help' here and there.

I've used both OO and LO and didn't really notice any difference but not sure about the comments features of either. just not gone into that side of things.

Yes .DOCX is a high priority for both sending and receiving so that may be a slamdunk for LO.

As far as a VM leaking can you recommend a hypervisor. used both Hyper-V and VMware, I'll likely stick with VMware for the time being unless someone can suggest otherwise.

Replies:   Keet  Ernest Bywater
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

As far as a VM leaking can you recommend a hypervisor. used both Hyper-V and VMware, I'll likely stick with VMware for the time being unless someone can suggest otherwise.

VMware is good and easy. I currently use both VMware with VMware player and KVM with Virtual Machine Manager (at the same time on the same host) but will transfer complete to KVM in a few weeks because that works really well with VM's on a remote machine.
The leaking I mentioned is only partially for the hypervisor, it's Windows that can't be controlled to the point that it doesn't have a finger in it.

Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

On the issue with VM - a lot will depend on what you want to run in it. I don't use a VM, but my son uses them a lot and swears by VirtualBox. However, VB (and not the Aussie beer) has an issue with 6.1 needing hardware virtualization as it no longer supported software vitalization and this caused problems with running software designed for Win XP and before. This makes setting up VB is a lot more work and harder.

Freyrs_stories ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

OK, quick question. About to build a Win 11 Pro box (Bare Metal). does the 'isolation' security feature help prevent this leaking or would I be better off installing on Server 2022 on one of my more powerful boxes? note still need to look into the exact HW specs '22 needs though I do have a legit license for both. no tomfoolery here.

Replies:   Keet
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

OK, quick question. About to build a Win 11 Pro box (Bare Metal). does the 'isolation' security feature help prevent this leaking or would I be better off installing on Server 2022 on one of my more powerful boxes? note still need to look into the exact HW specs '22 needs though I do have a legit license for both. no tomfoolery here.

I'm a 100% Linux guy and my knowledge of Windows goes back to the last days of WindowsXP. If you are not going to do any work on the host itself it's way over the top to use a windows install for that. A clean minimal Linux install is enough to run the VM's and uses way less resources which you can better use for the VM's. If you need Windows you could consider making a VM for that. Take a look at Proxmox (https://www.proxmox.com/en/) which is based on a minimal Debian distribution and does nothing else than offering an easy way to manage your VM's.

Considering hardware specs, the most important thing is to make sure your processor supports virtualization. VMware supports most of those processors but you should check before you buy. An other aspect is the number of cores compared to the number of VM's you are going to run. More cores allows you to assign more processors to a VM. Each VM requires at least one (duh) but with more cores you can assign more to selected VM's. The same goes for memory. You have to add up how much your VM's need and leave some for the host.

As mentioned in another post: the possible leakage is not about data on disks but about memory. Windows is very proprietary about sharing the memory on a machine. Data on disks can be protected by creating VM's with full disk encryption and by encrypting any additional virtual disks. That ensures only the VM has access to it's own disk space.

StarFleet Carl ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

Libre or Open Office to write

Libre is still supported with regular updates. Open Office is not. I switched from OO to LO a little over a year ago and I'm VERY happy with the differences. Plus, LO also saves nicely in all those fun formats, and even better, converts FROM them as well.

I save my stories in ODT on my own machine, and then save as HTML when I'm ready to upload them. Never had an issue that wasn't a simple user error.

Replies:   Dominions Son
Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ

@StarFleet Carl

Libre is still supported with regular updates. Open Office is not.

Depends on your definition of regular updates. The last update of OO was May of 2021.

My $0.02: Monthly or Bi-Monthly (every other month) releases in an office suit are NOT a drawing card.

Freyrs_stories ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

Well I removed OO and installed LO and two big changes right away:
LO handles screen orientation changes far better. pages 3 wide on landscape 1 wide and just shy of 2 high on portrait. it does this automatically. I had to force OO between the two setting for every window every time I changed.
Secondly it's child's play to add descriptive notes to sections of text in LO. couldn't find a way to do that in OO.

It will be interesting to see what happens when I roll over to the Linux build, I may make it bare metal but for now it will be a VM as I'll have the horsepower and ram to run a well spec'd one on the new install.

Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

It will be interesting to see what happens when I roll over to the Linux build,

A few years ago I had to use a Win 7 then a Win 10 machine for a while. LO appeared and worked exactly the same all both systems and the 2 Linux system I used since then.

One piece of advice I found handy when switching between installs:

Somewhere on the system is the LO directory with the personalized settings and dictionary, copy that and after you install LO on the new system copy that directory back in. on my Linux system it's located at:

/ home / ernest / .config / libreoffice / 4

just copy the whole directory of 4 and it has all you need.

To locate it on your system open LO go to Tools > Options > Paths

There it lists the directory path for your settings - - it's also where you can change the directory for the file save function to save the files.

Dinsdale ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

In the beginning was Star Office, it was decent but did not have many customers - MS Word was dominant by then.
Then Sun Microsystems bought them, eventually making Star Office open source and calling it Open Office. I believe there was also a version which cost money and came with support.
Then Sun fell on hard times and was bought by Oracle.
Oracle and "open source" did not get on very well, in the end some - or most - of the project team forked the project and called the new product Libre Office.
The two co-existed for a while - with OO retaining the supported customers along with those who had not noticed what was happening - but OO gradually lost customers as LO's development surged ahead.
I thought someone from OO even suggested once that their customers should switch, OO leads a pretty marginal existence nowadays.

Goldfisherman ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

I have been using word processors since I had a Xerox Star in the late 80's. I used windows until 2013 after the very early windows. I switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon and have been using it exclusively with Libre Office since I retired. I read all Windows versions of word processors and can save to all of them as well. I also have instant access to over 80 different directories and languages. Also I have access to many thousands of apps. The largest files I currently have are just over 40 GB. In most of my computers in the family I have only 2 GB of RAM although I have 2 systems with 12 and 16 GB RAM they all are running the same OS and it is all bug free as well as free distribution. No Norton or other backdoor or pricy fees to pay.

Grey Wolf ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

I write on Windows (also in a VM, but it's a Windows VM) using Scrivener, so I had nothing to contribute on your base topic.

On the hypervisor topic, though, I can contribute some thoughts. First question: what sort of leaks are you concerned about? Someone getting the disk(s) from the hypervisor host and looking for leaks, or are you concerned with network attacks, etc?

First thought is that pretty much anything is at risk if it's seized while up and running, encrypted partitions mounted, etc. So it doesn't really matter what you host it on - if it's running, there are a lot of points of attack. So, my thoughts below are more about data at rest.

Windows as a host is probably safest against physical-disk attacks if you put everything related to the VM on an encrypted disk. However, if you disable all memory checkpointing, neither Hyper-V nor VMWare should have much in the way of leaks. Remember that Hyper-V is common in datacenter use where leaks are a Very Bad Thing. You do have to worry about the underlying Windows being at risk for malware attacks, but that puts both at equal risk.

The other option is to take a bare metal machine, run VMWare ESXi on it, and build your VMs on that. ESXi has a very limited attack surface compared to Windows (and you can easily firewall it away from the Internet without blocking VMs from reaching the Internet). Your data at rest should be as secure as the guest OS makes it (e.g. if your guest OS is running encryption, your data's encrypted). ESXi is much less likely to leak memory contents.

The learning curve is higher, but it's not that bad.

ESXi is free as in beer for any system the vast majority of people are likely to have at home. You need a license, but licenses are free and easy to get. VCenter is NOT. However, you can do an awful lot with ESXi.

If you want a free software alternative, look at Proxmox. I've used ESXi for years, but even as a raw newbie I found it much easier to use than Proxmox -- but Proxmox works fine, is open source, and isn't that hard to learn to set up.

I have an ESXi box running a number of VMs (file serving, local certificate authority, backups, Plex until recently, downloads, etc) and Proxmox running my router (OpenWrt x86 - virtualization makes it MUCH easier to do updates with minimal risk of crashing my home network). My router is on a tiny, cheap x86 box with network hardware that ESXi doesn't support, or I'd run ESXi there, too.

It's easy to get to the ESXi guests with Windows Remote Desktop, vnc, or X Windows. VMware also provides a very capable free-as-in-beer client; you can pop up a console in a browser window, too, but it won't perform as well.

Replies:   Freyrs_stories  Keet
Freyrs_stories ๐Ÿšซ

@Grey Wolf

there are 2 places I'd run a VM:
1) new box I'm about to build, just waiting on a couple of parts. R9 5950X w/ 64 GB Ram. Upgrading from an i7-3770 w/ 32 GB, the VMs on it are programming environments and sandboxes so I have a live OS in front of me if I get asked how to do something in 'X'. I can just spin them up and down as need be.
2) a HP DL380 with around 100 GB Ram and 2 CPUs for processing. Problem with the HP is its loud, but very soon its going in an enclosed data cabinet on the other side of the house. So noise won't be as much of an issue

I'm still trying to make up my mind on what to put on the HP, Hypervisor wise though I'm tempted to throw on the DC 2022 license I have on it. it doesn't have to do a lot, maybe 3-5 VMs. Std only lets you run 2.

I've also run bare metal Hyper-V though can't remember the version year. I know a little about ESXi, a mate runs it for his dev work so I have a handy resource if I get into the weeds there.

One thing I really need to do is build a new file server, the current one is well past its used by date and I've been pushing against hard limits for the last 18 months. But lack of reliable income has meant no purchasing power. The new file server will also be able to host a few VMs but even with semi-reliable work that's at least 9 months away of saving every penny.

still tossing up what system to run on that hardware, but I doubt this is the place to debate the ins and outs of ZFS Vs Raid 60, BSD Vs Linux Vs Windows server. there are definitive plans for the data cabinet and every RU is booked for hardware of some sort.

As far as leaks are concerned I guess I'm most worried about traffic crossing between the VM, isolated in a number of ways and the internet in general via the host. I only have around 2 years on Linux so my knowledge is short of what I want it to be, where as I've been on windows since the 3.11 days when you used Novell for authentication over LAN.

If you think you can contribute here mail me and we can chat privately

Replies:   Goldfisherman
Goldfisherman ๐Ÿšซ

@Freyrs_stories

Over 88% of all secure servers are Linux including most of those at Microsoft.

Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ

@Goldfisherman

Over 88% of all secure servers are Linux including most of those at Microsoft.

I work in IT for a consulting firm.

The client I work at is one of the biggest utility companies in the US. Maybe 10% of their servers are Unix/Linux. The rest are Windows.

Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ

@Goldfisherman

Over 88% of all secure servers are Linux including most of those at Microsoft.

I work in IT for a consulting firm.

The client I work at is one of the biggest utility companies in the US. Maybe 10% of their servers are Unix/Linux. The rest are Windows.

Replies:   Keet
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Dominions Son

The client I work at is one of the biggest utility companies in the US. Maybe 10% of their servers are Unix/Linux. The rest are Windows.

From https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/linux-statistics/:
*In 2021, 100% of the world's top 500 supercomputers run on Linux.
*Out of the top 25 websites in the world, only 2 aren't using Linux.
*96.3% of the world's top 1 million servers run on Linux.
*90% of all cloud infrastructure operates on Linux and practically all the best cloud hosts use it.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Market_share_by_category
Windows only has a majority market share on the desktop market.

Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Grey Wolf

The other option is to take a bare metal machine, run VMWare ESXi on it,

I mentioned Proxmox in another post but ESXi is also a very good alternative. Using either is always safer than running a full OS host.

Replies:   Grey Wolf
Grey Wolf ๐Ÿšซ

@Keet

My only real issue with Proxmox was finding its storage configuration extremely unintuitive. The rest of it wasn't bad.

My writing VM is Hyper-V hosted on Windows, but I'm not concerned with security at a hypervisor level there. It's simply a way to partition my entire writing environment into its own space. The only place the hypervisor could 'leak' would be out to my main Windows laptop, and - of the two - there's more personally sensitive information on the main laptop than in the VM.

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