Our Mission

OS-College focuses on office suites that can be used on almost any desktop operating system – Windows, Mac OS, and most Linux distros. The main reason for this is to help users free themselves from having to stick to Windows or Mac.

Therefore, the Website has videos, Web pages, and blog articles about four suites listed below. There is also information about several Linux distros and applications that are for Linux or work equally well on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Four suites

The main goal of teaching about and how to use these applications is to give users a choice of operating system. Some individuals and organizations would prefer to use Linux and Mac, or they want environments where all three types are used.

Others may only use Windows, but they use or want to use one of the alternatives to Office for Windows listed below. The information on this Website is for them as well.

libreoffice

This open-source suite has similar features and capabilities to Microsoft Office for Windows. All the features and applications are available on any operating system it runs on. The six-application suite is available on Linux distros for both Intel/AMD and Arm processors.

It is the most popular and default office suite for Linux distros.

• LibreOffice overview
• LibreOffice Writer overview

OnlyOffice

This is a three-application office suite, where the applications open in separate tabs in the same window. The desktop editors are free and can be downloaded and work offline on Windows, Mac, and Intel-based Linux distros. They also can connect to several different cloud services.

In addition to the desktop editors, there are versions of the suite for Android and Apple devices. Organizations and their employees also can access these three applications and other applications can be accessed through any Web browser.

Google office

This is probably the second most popular office suite. Anyone with a Gmail account can use it, and they can use it through any Web browser on any operating system. It is not installed.

It is composed of a document manager, Drive; word processor, Docs;

Microsoft Office Online

The version of Office is accessed through a Web browser. Like Google office, it is available to anyone, regardless of operating system, and they can use just about any Web browser.

This is probably the best way Linux users can use Microsoft Office. Some versions of the suite can be installed through Wine, but it doesn’t always work well.

linux distros

OS-College has videos, Web pages, and blog articles about four Linux distros.

• Ubuntu
• Linux Mint
• Zorin
• Manjaro

A blog article explains why the focus is on these four. There are links and information about other distros, as well.

Here is a list of other popular Linux distros

• Fedora
• Elementary
• Debian
• OpenSUSE
• Pop_OS