Over the past couple of years I've done a big chunk of my school work (and the article/benchmark stuff I've done on this website) in LibreOffice and I'd say it's powerful enough. My guess would be that Microsoft .doc compatibility might be the biggest issue to run into, though LibreOffice should be able to handle even those files for the most part. Note that I'm no Office power user by any means so my opinion might not carry that much weight in the real world of office work.

As for the operating system, I'd probably go for something super stable instead of going rolling and risking some machines suddenly borking, especially if the systems will be used by ex-WinXP users. Something like Debian with LXDE or Xfce. You'd probably also want to modify the desktop environment so that the panel is at the bottom of the screen to make sure it kinda works like Windows.

I agree with Samsai on the distro choice. You'll want something that takes minimal maintenance and is pretty much quaranteed to work after an update. Bells and whistles are not a priority, but a good and relatively slick out-of-the-box desktop experience is a definite plus.

Our office runs Mint Xfce, so we have a wide selection of software available thanks to the widely supported Ubuntu base and the PPA system, with a very usable, if mostly traditional desktop. Since version 17, Mint releases always build on whatever happens to be the latest Ubuntu LTS, so updates aren't likely to ever break anything, while the hardware enablement stack gives us recent enough drivers/kernels. If you were thinking of converting a larger corporation or city, a commercial distribution that offers paid support would possibly be a better choice, but in your case probably not. You could even argue that for a small office, the best distro is whatever your IT guy is most familiar with.


About the feasibility of such a conversion project, it's pretty much guaranteed to be an excercise in frustration (if not futility) if your users are already dead set against any change in their work flow. We've been running our little office on Linux and nothing but open source software for more than a decade, but that doesn't really mean much as we were already Linux users before we even thought of starting the business. Also, our needs and expectations aren't likely to be at all similar to those of a small town municipal office...

Maybe you could start the process by switching over only a part of the office, starting with users who are open to it? Just make sure you've got the transition planned and tested to the last detail before you do anything at all. First impressions are important.

Before you do anything at all I would suggest that you first figure out what software they use and what their daily tasks really are. How are their workflow? Then you spin up your decided linuxdesktop and try replicate what they do. Is it possible for them to do their tasks just as easy as before and on time? Do all the printers work as expected? Etc. Try to locate as many issues as you can and document your process solving them if any before going any further.
Then roll it out to a percentage of the users (maybe 20/30%) and in the whole process try involve and listen carefully to what they have to say. You will probably run into issues you had not thought about. Try gathering as much feedback as you can in the experimental period. Work out any prioritized issue and only when ready start rolling out to more and more users where you then fix any issue as you go.
And if you happen to run into any bug of any scale then please - PLEASE - file a bugreport so it has the possibility to get fixed for the future!
Maybe the whole process will go buttersmooth without any big issues at all and everyone will be superexited, but any large change to a business can go opposite as well. Doable? Yes of course! Just do it in small steps, and listen carefully to the users needs, and you'll very likely be perfectly fine!

As choice of distro I would suggest Ubuntu (which is based on Debian) with the MATE desktop. It should be familiar to use and it's "Software Boutique" and "MATE Tweak" is a real winner. The latter let's you supersimple redefine the desktop experience from a dropdown-menu. I'm sure that will be appreciated!

Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hCXwmKg4VU
Get it: https://ubuntu-mate.org/

Whatever you decide to use, it should probably be a LTS release of some sort as it is much more manageable for a business.

Here you can find some examples where Linux is used daily:

50 Places Linux is Running That You Might Not Expect

plus

Italian Parliament to Perform Major Switch from Windows to Linux (2007)
Russian Government Mandates Shift from Microsoft to Linux by 2015

As already said it would be wise to ask who's interested in using it and then set up some PCs for them.
Probably the Linux PCs will run faster and have way less hassle to deal with (such as antivirus, auto-updates, useless waste of resources..), at the end you may have people asking you to change their OS to Linux!
On the other side you can install the same software that you have on the Linux machines, like LibreOffice, same browser, etc.. so that the switch would be easier.

I won't choose a rolling release because I don't think you need to always have the latest and greatest kernel, software, drivers and so on..

In my opinion Debian, *ubuntu or Linux Mint are the way to go (I will skip Ubuntu because Unity is too 'love it or hate it' in my opinion).
The fact that Debian is criticized for the very slow updates can be a huge PRO for your situation, where you may not want to upgrade too often (like with a rolling distro).

As for DE I suggest a lightweight one such as Xfce, Mate or Lxde, you can also think about a WM-only setup with OpenBox, Enlightment or JWM that are even more lightweight.

As for the set-up I think that panel on top + dock on bottom + a good wallpaper is the best way to go!
something like this for example, where the most common applications are on the dock ready to be launched with a click, instead of going through a menu and sub-menu.

First of all, I agree with @Samsai and @tuubi regarding distro - the most important thing should be stable distro choice and You should have a distro that does not crash after updates (@f145 I'm not sure Ubuntu is a great example here...).
Regarding Libre Office I'm here with Samsai - if you don't care about legacy documents (written in MS Office) layout, Libre Office should fit standard user needs.

Quoting: Purple PuddingThe change would be done in a "public" service of a city municipality... It's not a big city too.

Regarding this (most important) part - you need to be perfectly sure, that there is no legacy, Windows only, irreplaceable software, that someone from the team uses.
When my girlfriend worked in a polish municipality, there was a software for ID documents management, and it was written in C# with WinForms (this information I know, because once she did a printscreen with stacktrace when software crashed :D )
Such a software is very often irreplaceable and I wouldn't try to permanently move it to Wine, because even if you test it hard, it's possible that one particular, very specific part of the software won't work and you'll have serious problem. However, for such a person there is a workaround, like Windows XP run in VirtualBox, only for this software.

If you're sure that nobody is using windows-only software, that has no substitute in Linux and the only thing that is necessary for team members is stable software, that allows them to edit some spreadsheets, write documents and use web-based software, then you're good. If for some reason they do other stuff, like graphic/music/video edit, programming etc. they will also be able to use various great software. However, not necessarily their favorite one.

Personally, I am a Java programmer, who worked 3 years on Linux on computer at work, and now for 1 year I am forced by the employer to use Windows (no particular reason, just received email with something like "Please install Windows on your machine. That's an order."). So I am in reverted position, than the team that you are about to force to change OS. I see no benefit of Windows, I use no Windows-only software at work and I am not happy. But it's worth to keep in mind that they may not be happy because of Linux.
However, having machines running Windows XP this times is pointless and risky, so switching to Linux is a great idea at least from security point of view.

Here is A scathing review on Microsoft I wrote, before my company launched Linux as a Primary OS. Now, I am a proud user of RHEL T450, & no shitty Microsoft device for me :)

As for the distro, it depends on the work. For Game production/3D modelling/Animation/artwork, I would recommend an Ubuntu variation. For other work, like web development, RHEL/Centos or SLES/OpenSUSE would be better.

For replacing an old Windows XP, I would recomend using XFCE or LXDE as the Desktop Environment, maybe even customize it to look like Windows XP.

Quoting: GuestJust a thought, considering that they're currently running Win XP suggests to me that they're running very old hardware. Personally I've found anything newer than the old Ubuntu 10.04 release and derivatives to be bloated even with XFCE, Mate and LXle and your old P4 slows to a crawl.

I have 10-12 years old computers at my work with 512 MB RAM, and Lubuntu works fine on them. I used to have 32-bit verison there, but this summer I installed Lubuntu 16.04 64-bit, and it runs ok too. About 120-140 MB is consumed by the system.

As far as distros are concerned, your number one consideration in the business environment is stability, so I'd stay away from any kind of rolling release. A long-term service release would be ideal since those are generally supported for several years at a stretch. But keep in mind, too, that pretty much every Linux distro allows "in place" upgrades, so you shouldn't ever have to reinstall Linux when the next update comes out.

On a related note, I'd love it if colleges and universities adopted LibreOffice as a standard. It makes financial sense because any student can get it for free, and it makes infrastructural sense because it's 100% cross platform, so if a student creates a presentation on his Linux computer, he won't have to concern himself if the classroom system happens to be Windows or Mac.

As a Freelancer IT of over 20+ Companies in my Country is simply impossible to turn all the companies that I support to Linux for the following main reasons:

1. Caseware - Audit/Accounting software that is not running in Linux
2. Office - Excel - the formulas that are using in excel is so complicated that none open source office suite software can handle them
3. Outlook they just simply cant work without it.
4. Custom software that are only running in Windows so no way to go with Linux (they dont even run in Windows 10)
5. Active Directory / Windows Server/ SQL Software like SAP Business One

So far I have 0 companies running in Full Linux environment except me :P

If you must use outlook ( and apparently manages everywhere think that it's the golden standard so you do ), then the web client is passable ( outlook.office.com ).

I've been using Linux exclusively for work for 10+ years and I am never going back, how people get any work done with that sorry excuse for a terminal is beyond me :|