(apologies in advance if this isn’t the right community for this question)
I’ve been flirting with Linux on and off for about 15 years and I think I’m ready to make the switch mostly full-time. I use a laptop for work and have a Microsoft 365 plan with email and such. I need to replace that with something Linux-friendly and would much prefer something that works with a desktop email client. Easy syncing of email, contacts and calendar to Android is a must.
Proton seems like it might be a good option but the privacy features aren’t a huge selling point for me so I’m open to other options!
Just in case you don’t know, you can use those Microsoft services no problem in Linux through a web browser. You can also “install” them since they’re PWAs and integrate them with your system notifications.
There’s also Thunderbird from Mozilla, and the open source fork Betterbird that has a far more modern appearance and options. That will work easily with your existing Microsoft email.
I’m by no means encouraging that you stay on Microsoft, but moving to Linux AND changing providers for important stuff like email and calendar might be a lot all at once.
Good advice - I should have clarified that I’m already doing this. I’ve been dual-booting PopOS for a while and using webmail Outlook. I hardly ever log in to Windows anymore. OneDrive is unusable in Linux so I’m going to use Nextcloud instead; after that I just need to replace the email system.
Look into rclone mounts, assuming your org allows you to use rclone with OneDrive and SharePoint Online.
There’s also this open source, and commercial client, but I haven’t used them myself.
I looked into these but the “on demand” functionality is missing; I don’t want to download the entire OneDrive contents to my laptop or have to manually sync and unsync folders. Nextcloud does have that feature.
rclone mounts don’t download anything; they cache “hot” data, and you can tweak that behaviour.
That sounds like it’s beyond my current proficiency level – I’m willing to put in some work to de-Google/Microsoft myself, but still want something that “just works”.
Nextcloud is awesome. I work in cloud engineering and we’re implementing them for a client right now. So many cool extensions, and everything open source
Easy to self-host with a turnkeylinux appliance, too.
OneDrive works better in Linux than in Windows with the open-source client. Takes up almost zero memory or resources, downloads files quicker than the Windows client. Only doesn’t have the “on demand” functionality but that often didn’t work properly in Windows either.
i agree, i encourage you to try others systems, but it’s a different OS, it work differently, so take it slow, try in a VM, to try apps, them make a dual boot, so you still have windows there while you learn