Linux

For me I just don't like relying on some company. So if you don't like getting fucking in the ass by tech giants use Linux

As a lawyer you should always use Linux.

Have a LUKS encrypted hard drive.

Video formats? There literally are VLC, ffmpeg and MPV. Every normal format works on every Distro.

Get most apps from Flathub.org, use any Distro you want but I recommend Fedora Kinoite.

Word documents for sure, PDF editing actually too. PDF editing is cursed in itself, but Okular + PDF arranger + Firefox + sometimes GIMP (for actually censoring) work.

Have a look at Stirling PDF, a project combining all of these effords. Its not yet a fully graphical desktop app but this command will work on Fedora Kinoite:

podman run -d \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v /location/of/trainingData:/usr/share/tesseract-ocr/4.00/tessdata \
  frooodle/s-pdf:latest

Then you can use StirlingPDF in your browser by opening localhost:8080

Use any modern Linux Distro and stay away from outdated Desktops like Mint (Cinnamon), XFCE, Budgie, Mate etc.

It's about being in the free software ecosystem, which is really a licensing issue.

Forcing people to contribute their modifications to software when they are editing free software ensures we're never dependent on the decisions of one entity. This is what the GNU General Public License (GPL) is all about.

If we don't like what someone did, we can take that part out and redistribute a better version that we can continue to modify. This might not matter to someone who doesn't program, but it should.

You don't have to be the one to get your hands dirty with code. Just being a user in the ecosystem opens you up to these benefits. Other people are going to take advantage of them, and you can just piggyback on their work.

I, personally, think it's always just a matter of time before businesses make products worse by charging more/giving less. Look at Adobe. Look at Microsoft. Look at Apple. All of them want to lock people into endless subscriptions because they're dependent on their ecosystem. What happens when Adobe decides they're not charging enough for photoshop? They charge more, and everyone just has to deal with it. Same goes for Office. Same goes for Apple, they just do it the old-fashioned way by charging for the latest versions and making you buy new hardware.

That is like, trying to convince a meat lover to eat veggies (only) but seriously? Just download an iso @ https://linuxmint.com/, give it a spin. It's free. Be aware that "It's not Windows" so expect some things to not behave "by the Windows logic". "Duckduckgo is your friend", even if it means asking the most trivial things "How do I install $thing on Linux mint?", and you'll be just fine.

If your budget is tight, get a used/refurb, but recent model Thinkpad (T or P series) from EBay. Install Linux Mint (I say Debian Edition, since that is Mint's future). It comes with LibreOffice preinstalled. You may want to install standard Microsoft fonts, which aren't included for licensing reasons. You can search for how do do this.

Okay so I am typing as someone who has helped local businesses set up computer systems. Nothing big just one or two person operations. Getting them computers, downloading their software, and making sure they understand how to keep up to date.

I would recommend you use what you are comfortable with at first. Use Windows, get your business in a comfortable position to experiment. And then I would say try Linux out.

I imagine you will need to keep up to date with invoices and the such and you will need to figure out what software you are going to use that. You could always just be basic and use excel sheets but most businesses are using Quick-books or something similar. And a lot of invoicing software does not work on Linux. I would say invoice-ninja is probably the most popular invoicing software on Linux so that would probably get you the best support. This is usually the point people tell me they will stick with windows.

But if you are able to get past that and maybe learn one of those invoicing software applications then I would say you would have next to 0 issues. As you are in a business environment pick something reliable. Debian, Ubuntu LTS, or RHEL. I would test them all in a vm and see what you like best.

Now word documents may cause issues. Maybe. I find libre office works for me 95% of the time. But I don't do anything very fancy with it. I write essays and maybe every now and then I will include a graph. I would test libre office on windows and see how that works for you. Only office is also an option but I have 0 experience with it.

Also I find that linux is seriously lacking in ways to manage pdfs. At this point I use my browsers built in pdf reader more than any sort of linux app. Digital signing has always been a pain in the ass and the pdf reader I have the best luck out of is Zathura which is a cli application which is definitely not new-user friendly. But this isn't really an issue it's just me nitpicking. You can manage pdfs on linux just as well as windows it just may not be as user friendly some times.

You mentioned you are worried about some video formats not working on linux. May I ask what sort of video formats those are. I find vlc or mpv to have great support for most if not all video formats.

My recommendation would be to use linux. I love it. But this is a new business. Use what works for you as much as possible. Get to the point where you have the funds and free time to experiment and try linux. Poke around with some open source apps in windows and see how they work. Invoice-Ninja and libre office both have windows versions.

I wish you luck with your endeavors and I hope my comment has helped somewhat

edit: spelling and punctuation

In addition to using virtual machines, remember that once a virtual machine is installed, you can use 7zip (or any zipping program) to archive the whole folder containing the vm files, so if something screws up on the vm, you can reset by deleting the folder, restore it from the zipped archive, and trying again without having to do the whole installation process over and over. You can make as many of those archives as you want as you get a vm install to different milestones.

@Sage_the_Lawyer @linux I don't think selling is how it works. You have to be frustrated enough to seek out alternatives to the mainstream, then you find Linux and try it for yourself and it works okay.

Things made by billion dollar companies with a profit motive are almost always going to be better than things made by random people in their spare time - except in areas like privacy.

You're allowed to try it out before committing to it though.

I love Linux since switching nearly a year ago. Yet, I still once in a while find myself in situations where I screw up and I think to myself "Oh, I'm glad this is not my work computer". If you have no experience with Linux from before, maybe you should consider getting a personal laptop, install Linux on that, and get comfortable using it before transitioning your business to it. That way, the first time you accidentally uninstall your desktop environment (I managed to do this not once, but twice....), it is not 10 minutes before an important client meeting.

Get Office 365 subscriptions to use MS Office via web browser.

End of story regarding office apps.

Regarding the rest of the OS, get Ventoy and load it with a bunch of distros and test drive them to see which one you like the most.

Some suggestions to start with:

• Fedora
• Ubuntu
• OpenSUSE

All these have their enterprise variants which could come in handy in the event you need official support when your company takes off.

I personally use Arch on my desktop PCs, but if I couldn't... I would use Fedora or a Fedora based distro.

I use Fedora Server on my homelab.

I chose these because I want the latest drivers for my GPUs, gaming peripherals, and display related improvements (Wayland, Mesa, etc.).

Linux is vastly superior. I've been on Linux desktop for over 20 years now, I'll never go back.

As a typical example: this weekend I install Linux (with download and making iso) takes 20 minutes, I install windows (first time in decades, something for my son), took fucking 6 hours, 14 attempts, loads of problem searching on internet.

Having said that, there are some things to keep in mind. Linux mostly (to users) is slightly different on a few details, and because of Microsoft, there are some things to keep in mind.

You're a lawyer, so you might have to deal with Microsoft documents. Those you can process with LibreOffice (I don't like it very much, like Microsoft office), google drive (works very nice, but is still closed source, google) or your own hosted linux server with nextcloud and only office (a bit harder to setup but then it's all yours and under your control)

Look into any closed source windows applications that are required. Most windows programs run also under Linux (wine, proton, and these days various other solutions up to a virtual machine with windows for those few exceptions that won't work on Linux for some reason)

Video formats are non-issue, Linux eats everything and mostly out of the box.

Then, Linux has distributions. See it as different car brands. They're all cars, based on the same tech, just different brand names that do details slightly different. You gotta choose a distro (distribution). I HIGHLY recommend either fedora or (my person Lal preference) a Ubuntu variant. I personally have been using kubuntu for over a decade now. The graphical user interface works mostly like windows (just better) and most programs have Ubuntu ready Linux versions available, making installing them super easy. Install VirtualBox (free, as usual) to run windows in a virtual machine if needed, and setup multiple desktops so that you can easily switch to a windows desktop when needed (hopefully, and likely, never)

If you need help let me know

Nope. Try it and be your own objective judge.

I'm a big proponent of using Linux, but don't do it.
A small company I support recently almost went under cause the boss and his former IT provider were both open source enthusiasts and set up his whole network with Linux.

Then he needed a secretary, and all applicants backed out when they heard they'd have to use Linux.
And he couldn't find an enterprise resource planning software that ran on Linux.

In 1 word : freedom.

Use Linux and computer will devour your entire life just trying to make that thing you want, to work.

Get a MacBook and use apple software if you are a lawyer.