I recently installed Kubuntu on my wife's laptop. She's used to Windows, and I want to make her transition as seamless as possible. Plasma is nice as is, and it felt similar enough to Windows for her to be happy with. One thing she was concerned about was her ability to use MSOffice on Linux, as she's required to use it for her school assignments. My suggestion was that she try using Office 365 online for a little while, and if she didn't like it we would look into getting her a new computer. I would like to make it feel like she's just opening another application when she opens up Office 365 online. Is there a way to write a script and associate it with a desktop/taskbar icon or start menu selection to have a browser open up signed in and directly into Excel/Word/whatever she needs, and minimize the browser decorations (i.e. tab area, url-area etc.) The hope is to get her as close to feeling like she's using the native desktop application as possible.
I'm planning on installing Linux for my wife, and she's looking for a Windows-like experience. I was planning on using Plasma as her desktop environment. Kubuntu seems like a natural choice. What I'm concerned with, though, is this:
The latest Long Term Support (LTS) version of the Kubuntu operating system for desktop PCs and laptops, Kubuntu 20.04 LTS supported with security and maintenance updates, until April 2023.
Is there really only just over a year of support for the current LTS version, or is that possibly a typo? Ubuntu 20.04 is supported until April 2025, which sounds a lot more reasonable. I guess I had expected both flavors to offer the same long-term support. Am I simply wrong?
If there really only is support for Kubuntu through April 2023, should I just install Ubuntu, and download Plasma onto that? Are there any concerns with installing Plasma and the KDE application suite alongside the Gnome desktop and its applications, such as applications "interfering" with eachother (i.e. rewriting config settings shared by both, etc.)?