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Show HN: Microsoft Office Running with Wine on Linux with No Virtualization (github.com)

1 points by tombert ↗ HN
Microsoft Office famously hasn't worked well with Wine since Office 2007. There are lots of solutions out there to work around this, but all of them involve fairly heavy virtualization.

Multiple people have told me that their biggest hangup for switching to Linux from Windows is the lack of the desktop version of Microsoft Office, and they don't want to run a VM to get around it.

I recently fell into a bunch of free time with a Claude Max subscription, so I got Fable to hack at this until it worked! And with this, we have Microsoft Office running on Linux, with no Windows in sight!

I can't promise that this will work on everyone's computer, but I did put this all in Nix Flakes, so ideally it should be relatively reproducible on any Linux system with the Nix package manager and Flakes enabled. Also, it does not work very well with X, but Wayland appears to work fine.

This is not warez. You need a valid license for Office 365 for this to work. You also need to register on Microsoft's website in a browser; the flow for registering in the app proved to be tricky and not worth pursuing.

This is more proof of concept than anything else; I have no doubt that there are bugs and improvements to be made. I have only tested this with NixOS on Sway and KDE, and as stated it only really works with Wayland and the absolute latest GE-Proton, but I believe it would work fine with Gnome or any other Wayland desktop.

Full disclosure, Claude Code with Fable did the vast vast majority of the work on this. I ended up primarily just reading log messages and complaining back to it.

75 comments

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overclock-api
Good work. I had assumed Office and Wine had been an unsolvable problem due to how long it had been around.

What specifically breaks? My understanding is that the modern version of Office is in reality a combination of many things: the licensing layer, the .NET bits, the Click-to-Run packaging, and finally the app. If it turns out that the real hard part is the licensing/activation flow rather than the app itself, that is a more interesting discovery in that the problem is less about the app itself and more about how the distribution works. Which might also explain why it got easier to tackle.

farseer
I feel like the entire world needs to take a plunge towards LibreOffice for the good of all.
cyanydeez
I've been trying to slowly do this. But muscle memory and visual cues, embedded for 15 years just keep winning.

None of my excel sheets are just numbers, they're tied to database pulls and those dont work either.

Just trying to do the same things like merge cells I'm searching through a bunch of menus wondering what the hell it's called.

Theres a gui that looks similar but not enough. If they really want adoption, they need to completely add a office-clone mode and accept the consequences.

tombert
I agree with you in principle, and I honestly genuinely kind of hate Microsoft Office and I haven't used it or LibreOffice since I learned how to do LaTeX and Pandoc and Typst.

That said, whether or not it should be the case, a lot of people want specifically proper noun Microsoft Office (TM), not something "as good or better" than Microsoft Office.

I think getting people people towards a less horrible computing setup, for most people, requires it being done incrementally.

passthejoe
Today's generation of kids is using Google Apps in school and has no ties to MS Office. SAAS in general will make MS Office much less relevant. Things like Canva and Photopea are doing the same to Adobe.
tombert
Sure; honestly this is just for people like my parents.

I am slowly trying to build the case that they should switch to Linux, especially if they expect me to play IT for them.

Daviey
The biggest blocker for me is having confidence my output renders the same with people using MS Office, pdf output isn't always sufficient.
MrDrMcCoy
That has been a lot less of a problem lately. Why not try again and open a bug report if there's an issue?
afavour
Because there’s no one and done testing for it. You need to check every document you make with Office (so you’re paying for Office anyway…) to ensure it’s correct.

All very well for an open source software project but for software you’re using day to day to achieve other, business central, goals, it’s a lot of lost time with little benefit.

hagbard_c
> for software you’re using day to day to achieve other, business central, goals...

...you should use something which is reliable, no more complicated than needed for the purpose, which assures documents made now can be read in the distant future, keeps your confidential information out of the wrong hands and which is sure to be available to anyone who needs to have access to it.

Doesn't really sound like Microsoft Office is a good fit if you ask me.

afavour
You want to use the same stuff your clients use, that’s guaranteed to look the same on their computer. So Office it is.
hagbard_c
Well, you want to be using what your clients can read, it doesn't have to the the same software. This is true for most file formats - audio, video, image/graphics (the latter more restricted due to other entrenched proprietary formats) - but the 'office' space (no pun intended) is still suffering from decades of abuse of its position os operating system vendor by Microsoft. Windows is only getting worse with every release so it is just smart business sense to steer away from it and things depending on it. Microsoft Office is one of the few remaining reasons often quoted for staying with this deteriorating platform so there are other incentives to move away from it. The best moment for moving away from Windows was years - or decades - ago. The second best moment is now.
hagbard_c
As long as that is the goal Microsoft can block uptake of any competitor simply by making sure that is never achieved. They have a lot of history with this - DOS ain't done 'till 1-2-3 won't run etc. - so you can rest assured that they'll do it again. Maybe you should change your output so it isn't as reliant on 'rendering the same', i.e. make it less complex and with that less easy for Microsoft to claim the error lies with the other party? Word is not a DTP package nor a typesetter, it is a document editor. Fancy layout has never been the forte of this class of programs, they're meant to make sure the output works on different computers, different printers, different monitors.
drnick1
When is a PDF not sufficient? I write all my reports/letters in LaTeX and if someone complained about receiving a PDF, I would send them the source and wish them good luck.
tombert
That is actually why I got into LaTeX in the first place!

My resume was initially done with LibreOffice and I'd send recruiters a PDF, and they would ask for a .docx, and when I would send that they would screw up all the formatting by inserting their ugly logo on the top.

When I "ported" my resume over to LaTeX, I would send the PDF and they'd ask for a .docx, I would say "Oh, the resume is done in LaTeX. Here's a link to the source and instructions on how to compile it, feel free to do what you need".

Then they would just submit the raw PDF.

menotyou
..or they would just not submit it at all.
Daviey
When I need other people to continue editing it.

I also prefer LaTeX, I've written hundreds of letters, multiple papers, a few thesis and my CV. But the defacto for business documents sadly isn't LaTeX.

revolvingthrow
The network effect of social media has nothing on the network effect of ms office
varispeed
You can try to use LibreOffice all you want, until you receive a form to fill where LibreOffice doesn't display checkboxes and recipient won't accept "x", because their automated software only uses MS Office and won't properly attribute it to questions.
ray_kay777
Yep, I've seen this come up time and time again in the legal world and Microsoft 365 is so entrenched in the legal world that there is 0 chance of change in at least the next decade, and probably in the next 20 years.
brightball
Makes me wonder about aiming all those subscriptions at LibreOffice. How fast could it be improved to gain parity or surpass MS Office?

Maybe the new Omarchy foundation thing will take it on. DHH has pretty publicly been asking for a version of office for Linux.

varispeed
With such an advancement of AI, can't parity be vibe coded?
TiredOfLife
That would require LibreOffice not being shit.
fluidcruft
I can't tell what's going on with all the LibreOffice drama and whether it's a zombie on life support after the professional community management class kicked all the actual developers out (my take away).
DaSHacka
Can you elaborate more on this? This is the first time I'm hearing about it.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
mahboi
It's not even the only "Open" vs "Libre" drama. There's SSL too.
bastardoperator
I avoid both like the plague. These apps make me feel less productive and the docs they produce always look ugly to me. I would rather md, html or latex.
chris_money202
The word editor isn't really Microsoft's product, it's just one of the many entry points to the Microsoft Office cloud sphere where all the data can be interconnected and shareable.
ducktective
For starters, universities and government offices should not expect a proprietary format. Everyone should accept OpenDocument Format (ODF) or a similar FOSS format. MS Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice and whatnot can compete in editing and rendering open formats.

Come to think of it, this is a good proposal for EU, thanks for the USB-C, by the way :)

tombert
Can't speak for every graduate program or every school, but when I was in grad school at University of York, we actually used Overleaf with LaTeX a lot, since it allowed shared collaborative editing.

I liked that because it's still an open format.

kasabali
The problem with this is Microsoft foresaw it and pushed (bribed?) OOXML through ISO and now there's no standing on "forcing" an open standard without OOXML being one.
vrighter
how about requiring the format to actually be specified? Isn't ooxml filled with tons of chunks saying "and then this will behave like word 95 did" and not specify what tat is
illiac786
What? And this got approved by ISO?!?
vrighter
It sure did! and because those products aren't sold anymore, it's impossible to legally implement the standardc as even with the "full" spec, you need to reverse engineer stuff from unavailable software
glimshe
I think LibreOffice is an outdated and overall awful piece of software. It's not like Open Source champions like Linux, Blender and Godot at all.

Its only advantage is being Free. This product couldn't survive in the market if it was paid, arguably at any price. I really tried it to use and love it, but OpenOffice is just terrible.

ducktective
>outdated

What modern features are you looking for in a say, document editor? My experience with LibreOffice Writer and Calc has been excellent. I'm happy there is no modern AI or cloud integration noise or ribbon bars with excessive whitespaces.

staindk
I mostly just want UI icons that make sense. The LibreOffice icons all look samey to me, can never find what I'm looking for.
nonethewiser
I always wonder how people can suggest LibreOffice over Word or Google Docs. Its much worse. Either people are just extremely motivated to use it or they don’t actually use it.

You are exactly right that it is not an open source success. I wish it were.

GuB-42
Except that Microsoft Office is just better.

But with the awesome job Microsoft does at breaking it, maybe in a few years, LibreOffice will be a good alternative, if the LibreOffice guys don't screw up too much on their side.

mahboi
Realistically, the world is just gonna AI-plow their way through old moats like this.
mahboi
Also, it's not even a joke anymore how Wine is the most stable Linux ABI
alright2565
I've done something similar with a CAD app, where I've used AI tools to package it as a Nix flake. It's a really good format for wine packaging since it makes it so easy to patch wine in ways that would never be accepted upstream, and it makes launching it just one command vs needing to deal with other people's potentially broken wine prefixes.
tombert
Yeah, completely agree.

I absolutely love Nix Flakes; they feel, to me, like what Docker was supposed to be. A little self-contained packaged environment that gives you a place to do any kind of custom hacks deterministically.

aroman
nix + LLMs is the most fun I've had with personal computing since I burned an Ubuntu live CD in middle school
jmkni
What version of Office are we talking about?
PeterStuer
365 on Linux with a sup? Why would MS not celebrate this? Windows consumer has been a loss leader for quite some time, and entreprise wont touch it till its 100% cleared.
milgrum
probably the support burden, plus they already have o365 web apps that work on linux. office breaks in new and exciting ways on windows all the time, and they have full control over that. I <3 linux but I never want to support wine office in an enterprise environment, sounds like a total nightmare
tiahura
Because they want to phase out the windows apps too.
TiredOfLife
The bottles project https://x.com/brombinmirko also has been progressing with alpha being promised "soon"
tombert
Interesting, I hadn't heard of this actually, though it looks like there's a good chunk of overlap in what we were doing.

I suspect what they're doing is better than what I did. I just was happy I got something working and wanted to share.

rkagerer
That's ok, I still prefer Word 2003 to the bloated, web-wired, ribbon-infested garbage that came after.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47202540

mahboi
I'm glad this is still a complaint. I used Office 2004 (same as 03) until 2013, when I absolutely couldn't anymore because of docx incompatibility. My wife still uses 07, sadly it's ribboned.
creshal
doc vs docx is whatever, what kills older offices for me is the 64k row/col limit in excel. That was only fixed with the ribboned versions. :(
rkagerer
Do you have the docx compatibility pack installed?
mahboi
They didn't have that for Mac. Oh and turns out Word '04 was Mac-only, '03 was the last Windows version without the ribbon.
Kwpolska
Show HN is for things you made, not things where all commits are made by Claude.
tombert
To be fair, I actually emailed HN moderation before I submitted this because I actually sort of agree. They said I should go ahead and submit it because there might be some interest in this.
drnick1
Yes, sure, let's pretend we are back in 1995 and write C by hand on a beige Pentium tower.
qwerpy
Disagree, if it provides value to me I don’t care who or what built it. This provides value to me. I’m stuck on windows and eventually want to get out, and MS Office (specifically OneNote) is one of the remaining hurdles. This gives me hope that it’s only a matter of time. For the anti-AI people they can wait for someone can do a "proper", artisanal human-written version that builds on the problems that were solved by the AI-written version here.
pluc
It's cool to see things that were entirely unnecessary popping up with the help of AI. Nobody ever cared enough to do this, nobody is going to use this, but now we can just shit it out knowing full well nobody is going to care. Just had to sacrifice humanity's knowledge and a few professions to get there.
tombert
Uh, what?

I actually think a lot of people cared enough to do this; the entire Wine project sort of exists specifically because people want Windows software on Linux.

I know multiple people who have said that they won't use Linux specifically because it doesn't have the full-fat desktop version Office on there.

"Unnecessary"? Sure, I guess, I don't like MS Office and I don't use it, but a lot of people seem to really like it, whether or not they should.

cyberax
Is anything YOU do useful?

This is a very useful project for me, because I occasionally need real Excel.

mahboi
This is pretty necessary for tons of people considering Linux
tiahura
Bravo! Beat me. Been working on this for a bit.
tombert
I mean, all I did was use a large chunk of free time and Fable tokens. I wish I could say that my big brain and software engineering prowess is what got it working, but mostly it was just staring at text and not having anything better to do.
28304283409234
Ok but why. Why on earth would i want to run microsoft office in 2026?
tombert
I'm with you. You're not my parents.