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@SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml

2026-09-13 11:06 UTC

Bottles' Founder Has Managed to Run Microsoft 365 on Linux Mirko Brombin, the creator of Bottles, has got Microsoft 365 running on Linux. His posts on X showcase an installation that completes on a Windows 10 or 11 Wine prefix, signs in with his existing license, and launches at least one editor. He achieved this using two things, an unreleased version of Soda and Bottles 67.4. If you remember, Soda is a Wine-based runner that facilitates easy running of Windows games and applications. On first glance, what he posted might look like a developer-focused log, but these changes are the foundation of what full Microsoft 365 support via Bottles will one day hopefully look like. The results of his work Mirko was able to login into the MS 365 app using his credentials and was able to launch MS Word and use it. Of course that’s not the only thing he got working; since two-factor authentication passed, the suite detected his license, and OneDrive integration was functional. The memory footprint of the office suite was less than 500MB, so this should be light on your Linux system. The build he is currently testing is 2608 (20326.20144), which he says is the last build the installer will offer for Windows 10 and 11. And before you get all hyped up, wanting to try this out on your computer, know that you will have to wait. Soda 11.0-11 (error 404 for now) has no release yet, and the component catalog that ships with Bottles 67.4 stops at Soda 11.0-10. Even the long-standing community request for a Microsoft Office installer in Bottles is still open. Do we need Microsoft 365 on Linux? Till date, there’s not been an official Linux desktop build of Microsoft 365, and seeing how Microsoft currently operates, I don’t expect one to appear anytime soon. What’s been achieved here is remarkable. Once fully implemented, this will help draw in people into Linux, as many shudder at the thought of switching to the platform because their preferred office suite doesn’t work here. For context, CodeWeavers sells a paid Wine product, CrossOver, and its database still lists Microsoft Office 365 on Linux as “Installs, Will Not Run,” last tested against CrossOver 26.3.0. Which is why I hope the fix travels further than Bottles. Wine sits beneath every one of these projects, including Soda. So a patch that lands upstream reaches all of them at once, and you would not need a particular runner to get Office working.

Replies (32)

  • @myster0n@feddit.nl 2026-09-13 11:50

    I hope this never happens to me

    Open ##4681253

  • @Envidon@feddit.nl 2026-09-13 11:51

    I really dislike microsoft office, but the unfortunate reality is that it is used everywhere and it is such a disadvantage not to have, onlyoffice works great for me but the risk of things not looking right when sharing with someone with office is quite big.

    Open ##4681260

  • @BrickEater@lemmy.world 2026-09-13 12:15

    … Why though?

    Open ##4681319

  • @mactan@lemmy.ml 2026-09-13 12:19

    ooo a custom wine runner in 2026? daring aren’t we

    Open ##4681335

  • @JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2026-09-13 12:31

    All I need is the ability to run Teams and Outlook on Bottles.

    Open ##4681369

  • @AdamBomb@lemmy.world 2026-09-13 12:54

    Impressive

    Open ##4681427

  • @RedSnt@feddit.dk 2026-09-13 13:13

    This is great long term. If Microsoft were ever to go under or simply stop offering Windows as an OS, there’ll always be ways to run annoying software like Microsoft 365.

    Open ##4681477

  • @vort3@lemmy.ml 2026-09-13 13:28

    their preferred office suite Usually it’s not “their preferred office suite” but “office suite they are forces to use at work”. MS Office usage is high because of network effect, not because any other office suite is worse. I use LO Writer for any document I write (or work with) myself and it’s perfectly fine. The only reason I keep MS Office is that I need to work on documents other people write (or need to work with). Of course there are people who actually prefer MS Office, but it’s similar to Windows itself: most people did not choose it, they either don’t know there is an alternative or are forced to use it for compatibility reasons (at work). It’s rare that anyone actually “prefers” MS software.

    Open ##4681510

  • @uszo165@futurology.today 2026-09-13 15:17

    Sad that Linux will get its first usable database app (Access) as closed source from Microsoft. But, so be it. I’m happy that soon I won’t have to run Windows for this in a virtual machine.

    Open ##4681855

  • @tyra@lemmy.ml 2026-09-13 15:22

    Started using WPS Office and never looked back 🤷

    Open ##4681881

  • @jaybone@lemmy.zip 2026-09-13 15:28

    Soda is a Wine-based runner that facilitates easy running of Windows games and applications Isn’t that basically what wine is supposed to do?

    Open ##4681889

  • @TheNextMuon@lemmy.world 2026-09-13 15:34

    My expectation is that MS will replace Windows with Linux within the decade with a Windows lookalike theme and Windows style desktop. They will run a Rosetta like VM to keep old apps running. It will be much cheaper, Linux can do anything that Windows can, with much less development costs. They might say that Windows needs at least 16GB RAM to keep that VM running smoothly, plus some new CPU and GPU to keep the hardware industry happy. They will still make it so that Office will only run on their version of Linux.

    Open ##4681907

  • @Brkdncr@lemmy.world 2026-09-13 15:42

    This article needs an editor. Badly.

    Open ##4681923

  • @cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 2026-09-13 16:57

    This might be useful for some Linux users who want (but don’t need) to run Microsoft 365 occasionally, but actually relying on this kind of hack is a terrible idea. Once fully implemented, this will help draw in people into Linux, as many shudder at the thought of switching to the platform because their preferred office suite doesn’t work here. I certainly hope this doesn’t “help draw in people into Linux”. It’s sad to think about people and organizations switching to Linux on the basis of someone misleading them into thinking that relying on this kind of thing is a good idea because when it breaks it will give them a bad impression and they’ll blame “Linux” instead of Microsoft (or Bottles or whoever told them it was a good idea). When the lack of a Linux version of a specific proprietary program is the blocker preventing someone from switching to Linux, relying on a workaround which remains unsupported by the proprietary/adversarial software vendor is… a recipe for a bad time. Even if this mostly works today, it is extremely likely that (either intentionally or inadvertently) Microsoft will break it in the future. So, although I do see how this can be useful for some people when/while it works, in my opinion Linux and the world at large would be better off if this software didn’t exist. I hope Microsoft breaks it sooner than later!

    Open ##4682240

  • @Vincent@feddit.nl 2026-09-13 18:34

    Mirko Brombin, the creator of Bottles And also of the singularity desktop environment, and behind cpak and Vanilla OS. Even with AI I don’t see where he gets the time, and I really wonder how buggy these are. I haven’t tried them though, and Bottles seems stable enough.

    Open ##4682465

  • @MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2026-09-13 19:21

    Yeah, no. Tool suites like Photoshop, they don’t bother for a Linux version (and it’s historically grown, the original devs probably long retired). But Microslop? They really don’t want their products on Linux.

    Open ##4682690

  • @Windows2000Srv@lemmy.ca 2026-09-13 19:25

    I guess I’m the only here, but after years of running LibreOffice, I still miss MS Office. Don’t get me wrong, I can do everything I need in LO, but MSO is still better imo. Nothing is like Excel and it’s macros (I know, old school, but I can’t get macros as complete in LO). And I miss Word’s “page layout” where you can just center a text to a page vertically. Details, but still things I miss.

    Open ##4682705

  • @umbrella@lemmy.ml 2026-09-14 00:14

    FUCK microsoft, btw

    Open ##4683515

  • @SethDove@lemmy.world 2026-09-14 01:00

    Yet I cant get the Reolink app to even install

    Open ##4683803

  • @Zink@programming.dev 2026-09-14 01:03

    Remember that M365 stuff works in a browser too! I am not going to argue that some people – both creative and technical – don’t have a need for the native apps. If your line of work standardized on a Microsoft product, fair enough. If you are not one of those people though (and you have a choice, of course) Teams & Outlook work great as webpages, and they have web versions of the rest of the office suite which I assume work fine for occasional work. I’ll usually just try LibreOffice with the file anyway and it works fine.

    Open ##4683871

  • @laurelraven@lemmy.zip 2026-09-14 02:36

    Congratulations and condolences …more the latter than the former I think

    Open ##4685275

  • @Snapz@lemmy.world 2026-09-14 02:43

    The founder of toilets has managed to shit his pants in the middle of the living room.

    Open ##4685367

  • @thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2026-09-14 02:49

    I think people should instead work on alternative applications to have compatibility with the file format.

    Open ##4685409

  • @mlg@lemmy.world 2026-09-14 05:12

    If this was still like 2010 I actually would have thought this is pretty nice but office went to complete garbage just likee everything else MSFT has touched this past decade. Even on windows I’ve seen random people using libre office instead. The last time I opened excel it actually died trying to handle my copy paste of a simple list.

    Open ##4687080

  • @Agent641@lemmy.world 2026-09-14 05:57

    Do copilot next!

    Open ##4687168

  • @Mongostein@lemmy.ca 2026-09-14 06:23

    You know what? That was a great article. If you skipped it and came straight to the comments, you should click it, Adblock or not. There’s so much slop out here, we should let them know we like this. Anyway, as for the content of the article… meh, I don’t care about Office but it would be good for Linux in general to have it working.

    Open ##4687214

  • @LeninsLinen@lemmygrad.ml 2026-09-14 07:26

    Personally, I think this is good. Obviously most people here already use some libre alternative or just access this via the web or dual boot, but most non-computer savvy people are dead set with keeping to what they already use either because of work or simply being more comfortable sticking with what they know. Plus, there’s probably cases where the web versions aren’t going to be viable. Kind of ironic that so many linux people simultaneously make fun of the ChromeOS workflow where everything depends on browser-based services while being dismissing people who can’t switch fully because needing the MS suite with “just use the browser version”.

    Open ##4687371

  • @boaratio@lemmy.world 2026-09-14 12:30

    Why would anyone want to run Office 365 on Linux?

    Open ##4689020

  • But why??? LibreOffice is great, isn’t made by Microslop, and doesn’t use that god-awful ribbon bar.

    Open ##4693155

  • @joranm1@lemmy.zip 2026-09-14 20:52

    If people want to run MS Office and Linux allows them to do so, that’s a good point for Linux, whether it’s good taste to do so or not…

    Open ##4693581

  • @Rusty@lemmy.ca 2026-09-15 05:56

    Let’s try running some windows only viruses on Linux next.

    Open ##4699789

  • Lmfao you still use Microsoft 365? You still pay for it?

    Open ##4701848