[bobdupneu]

French/Iranian lawyer here. Moved to Linux 5 years ago (from OS X) because Apple kept changing my workflow and suppressing functionality.

Libre office proved to be better than Mac Word (better support for Persian and so called complex languages) and than windows word (could open old word documents that word itself couldn’t open any more!).

Regarding ScanSnap, I replaced it with a Brother multifunctional printer that scans to an sftp folder which is watched by ocrmypdf. I get to one touch scan a document without logging in a computer. When I need the document it’s there for me as an OCRed and cleaned PDF. Super convenient.

Replaced Word with latex. Our contracts are generated with latex and smart: they check themselves up for coherency when the pdf is built.

Overall no driver problem but you need to check before buying peripherals that they will be compatible with Linux.

Updating the system is as easy as it could be. Installing software is a breeze with ‘yay’. Arch Linux is very well documented and when encountering a hurdle chances are that the solution is already in the wiki.

On the server side, CentOS proved super stable and a welcomed improvement over OSX server which terribly lacked documentation.

[titanomachy]

Running such a setup would seem to require a professional level of competence in systems administration. Do you find it challenging to maintain that alongside your legal expertise?

[bobdupneu]

It is an investment in time and knowledge. But you know that your investment will not be wiped out because it doesn’t fit any more in Apple’s or Microsoft’s business plan. My workflow has become very stable since my switch to linux and opensource. Sure the software has quirks but you can always find workarounds. When I used Windows, I remember that I needed more clicks to do the same thing with every new version as Microsoft buried functionality in successive layers of UI. All in all I would say that I’m much more productive when working on a case, at the expense of spending some of my free time learning sysadmin, emacs, latex, etc. But it’s fun and I love it. You definitely need to have a level of interest in tech to go all linux in your firm.

[throwawayapples]

Not a lawyer, but once you've acquired that knowledge, you have it forever. It's not like LaTeX changes very often (unlike, for example, Microsoft Word)

[pseingatl]

LaTeX is great for typesetting documents; easy to work with autonumbering, even nested and subnested lists. There's even a Koma-script package for legal documents (jura). But Word does a better job of redlining. And it is the standard, though there are a few offices that still use Wordperfect for the "Reveal Codes" feature. If your output is paper or a paper substitute like pdf, you can use any word processor. But if you need to collaborate, you need a 100% compatible Word processor. On Linux, it's Softmaker Gmbh's Textmaker. 100% compatible and a lot cheaper than Word. Odd that no one has mentioned it.

[kspacewalk2]

Microsoft Word is also quite stable, certainly in terms of functionality and especially backwards compatibility. They know how much money they make just from the immense inertia of being in the lead for 30+ years, and they don't kill off that golden goose.

[throwawayapples]

Re-learning where a particular feature is hidden in the menus every few years has been an interesting experience.

Microsoft is even implementing (yet another) new UI right now:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/7/22565676/microsoft-new-off...

[pseingatl]

You might try Mellel, which has baked-in right-left language support. (You'd probably have to buy it from France though). I haven't tested its collaboration feature, but if you want to switch from L-R to R-L, Mellel is your friend.

Merci.