I'm about three weeks into using Linux now. I've made a lot of mistakes, but nothing catastrophic, and somehow ended up accidentally correcting most of my mistakes. I originally installed Linux Mint 13 and had a lot of problems with the graphics end of it. I've been to literally many dozens of websites trying to learn and find solutions. I managed to sort out the graphics problems and now I think that I have LM 13 as my core OS, but I have also installed the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Unity desktop, which I like way more than the Mint desktop. Everything seems to be ok with all that. I have been doing all of this on the Dell Inspiron 8600 32bit X86 laptop that I am giving to my daughter to use for school. She lamented that she didn't like the Libre suite as much as MS Office, so having another license for that lying around, I thought I would try to put that on the laptop. Following instructions I found online, I installed playonlinux to use for the installation through Wine and it appears to have installed as I have icons on the desktop for Word, Excel, PP, and One Note, all the programs in this student version of Office 2010. None of them work properly though. Word opens up and looks good. I can create a doc and save it to Documents. However, when I go to Documents folder, it doesn't show up, and when I attempt to open a previously saved doc, it shows it in the folder, but won't load it. Excel opens to the program, but I haven't tried to run it through its paces yet, concentrating instead on the programs she will be using more, like Word and PP. PP won't even open. I keep getting error messages. I changed the library info in wine config to the gdplus and msxml6, setting them to native, but still no luck. It seems that I need to further configure the computer through terminal commands perhaps. Should I uninstall and start over? And if the answer is yes, does anyone know how to do that? I haven't been able to get Office to uninstall either. Otherwise, if anyone has any clues about what to do to get this running, I'd appreciate the help.

You're fighting a losing battle...Office does not work well with Wine, and there's really nothing you can do about it. Office 2010 SP1 does have a silver rating in Crossover Linux if you want to give that a shot, but it's not free.

If you must have Office, then your best bet is to install Windows in a VM in Linux. Boot it up when you need it, leave it shut off when you don't. It's the only way to get it truly working, frustration and bug free (well, as bug free as MS software can be).

1. MINT 13 ?????
why not start by installing MINT 17

MINT Community and Downloading Page

2. The new MINT will come with LibreOffice pre-installed. This is at N/C
the latest LibreOffice are more compatible with that other office system than they had been earlier; supposedly LibreOffice v 5.0 -- which is out now on the LibreOffice page,-- Libre Office 5.0 download

my general practice is to switch to Linux software for my various needs .

Darn. I was afraid that would be the response. I had seen so many comments at sites by people who did what the site told them to to get it to work and they all said it did work. I feel like I am so close to licking this, but there is something weird with the configuration that I can't seem to figure out. Playonlinux did a good job of installing, and the wineconfig seemed to work ok too. Maybe it is something to do with me trying to put it on a 32bit computer. I just felt like if I was doing everything that it looked like I should, and I got this far, someone would know the little trick to get it working. I am getting to love the terminal and the power of what it can do, but I realize that you need to know what to put in there to get the magic out of it. I won't go the VM route. I get nervous every time I try something, and I like the state of things right now, but I think that I walk a razor's edge with what I can do and can't do with the limitations of this particular computer. Would you happen to know how to uninstall Office? The ISO disk isn't able to remove it.

I'm not against trying a different OS at this stage. I just went with Linux Mint 13 because so many people recommended it for me when I was inquiring about an OS to use with this computer. I'd like to use a more recent, and presumably better, OS especially if it might play nicer with Office. We used Libre Impress the other night and discovered all its limitations. We could only get the presentation to a certain point then had to finish it in Powerpoint on a Windows 7 computer. That sucks. I'm looking to Linux to ultimately be a replacement for Windows in our house, and that would probably be a piece of cake on the newer, better computers, but I'm starting the transition with the older beater laptop just in case I seriously break something. It's the learning environment. Do you think Linux Mint 17 would work well on a Dell Inspiron 8600 32bit, 2gb, X86 computer? And do you know if the newer Libre suite you mentioned does all the things the Office suite does? Like I said,it wouldn't break my heart at this point to switch the OS, especially if it works better, plays better with Office, or has a better Libre suite.

LibreOffice versions after ver. 4 are pretty comparable to MS Office. One of the big features missing up to that point was to be able to view the edits (useful for technical editors).

Now,... About the only things that you would be missing is compatibility with Visual Basic scripting and compatibility between the LO Base and MS Access database apps. If you are heavily into databases, you really should be using one of the SQLs though...

Looks like I'll probably be migrating to Linux Mint 17 to give it a try and get Libre 5. Thanks!

to make it easier for her ( and not give her an excuse to complain ), once you settle down with LibreOffice, make the default 'save to' formats .doc,.xls, etc, instead of odf. ( Stay away from .docx and .xlsx formats )

I've watched peoples frustration when they send documents to their peers who use MS exclusively, only to get upset when the recipient cannot easily open them. Switching the default LibreOffice 'save' formats obviates that, and most times the new LibreOffice user does not go back.

I know later MS products are supposed to open odf files, but does not do a good job of it.

I've used LibreOffice for years. Nothing it cannot do, even pivot tables !

Thanks for the advice ceyx! I know the frustration you are talking about. People are resilient to change and why make things frustrating for them. My daughter is sort of like that because everything at school is MS, but when I showed her the laptop with the Linux desktop and what all it can do, she was impressed. I think that once I get it upgraded to 17 and Libre 5, she'll be even more impressed and satisfied. A lot of these kids think that only hipsters use Linux, but she looks at it as more cutting-edge. She's smart. I just mainly want her to be able to do her assignments using this computer and if she can do that with Linux, then so much the better in this MS dominated world.

What is your opinion of Lubuntu? Do you think that would be a good choice for this computer, Dell Inspiron 8600, 32bit, X86, 2gb ram, over the Linux Mint 17? Lubuntu 14.04 looks good, and it is LTS.

Probably a good choice for older hardware. Mint might be a bit demanding for the Inspiron.
Those old Dell's were built like tanks though !
Linux Mate, also, is worth a look.

Thanks for your opinion ceyx! I have been learning a lot about Linux and how to fix problems, so I'm not so skittish anymore about trying things. At this stage of the game, I'd like to explore more flavors of Linux just for comparison purposes. I actually think that I got most of the bugs worked out of running Linux Mint 13 and am pretty happy with it now, but I don't like the fact that I have a lesser version of Libre, and would prefer to be able to run the most recent, capable version of that. Yea, I sort of feel the same about the old Dells. Got a couple of them around here. I'll put Mate in the lineup too. Thanks!

Have a look over at http://distrowatch.com/