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?)
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.
I will look into Winboat, thanks
We both typed out a winboat suggestion at the same time lol, nice on you to include links tho :)
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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just use an offline ltsc setup instead fucking around with linux
But I enjoy fucking around with Linux
Is dual booting an option for you?
No, I need to work in excel so much it wouldn’t make much difference
I was saying at least keep your personal and work life separate
I try, I do often use rdp on work computer (windows 11) to access private computer pc (Linux)
TIL about winboat thanks to this thread
Me too!
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.
Do I need to run a virtual machine with win11?
Yes this definitely works fine. QEMU with Virt-Manager works well, you can set up as many versions of Windows as you like. Other people use VirtualBox, VMWare Workstation, etc. These all work well enough to run Windows + standard apps like MS Office or whatever you need.
I got it working under both Wine and Bottles for someone that needed it, but it was a real pain in the ass, and the reports on actually successfully doing so are hit or miss.
Found this solid write up on various options and results though, which sounds like it could be helpful for you while investigating: https://gist.github.com/eylenburg/38e5da371b7fedc0662198efc66be57b
LinOffice looks promising, thanks!
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
So, you are caught by MS… Either accept it, or do what is right.
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
Might be a life saver
Wow thank you for this tip! I’m going to give another app a try!
Youre welcome, good luck :D
I avoid O365 as much as possible, but when I need to, I do occasionally use it with Crossover and it seems to work. Activation was a little bit janky, but did work.
Crossover is a paid version of WINE, and the other apps I’ve seen mentioned run Windows in a VM and forward the apps through RDP. There are advantages to both approaches, but I prefer the efficiency of Crossover.
It’s been a year (maybe two) since I last tried. I tried activating mine with my work account and got caught up on the Duo 2FA not working. When you activated yours, did you have to go through any 2FA prompts? If you did, do you remember what tricks (if any) you had to use to make it activate successfully?
Yeah it used to be broken for me too, I think only recently did it actually let me activate it. My university also uses Duo 2FA, and I activated it fine. But sometimes it doesn’t activate on the first try, you have to reopen office a few times.
Also it seems to only let you activate it, you can’t actually sign in with your account for online features yet.
I tried libreoffice too but you have to change a few settings so it’ll be compatible with ms office but it still isn’t perfect, btw Onlyofficr worked great for me, I hope it works for you too.
Had to look into this recently for similar reasons. My conclusion was that once you have macros involved, you can’t use anything but an actual copy of Excel. I’ll be spinning up a qemu VM with Windows to support Excel and the full version of Visual Studio when I get that far.
Does CrossOver Office support a version of Excel which ticks your boxes? Are you in a position at your workplace to move them off Excel? I honestly have never found an organisation where they were using it for what it was meant for, often being used in place of proper tools - databases, issue management systems, requirements tracking, etc - where the better tool would be better and cheaper.
But, like JIRA, the people who make decisions only know one tool, and that tool is a hammer.
Bingo on the used as database ;) It’s very hard to move them away from that, I have insufficient impact on that
