How does one NOT use Microsoft Office? My job involves tracking changes in Microsoft Word. For that alone, I'm stuck with Office (I think).
In practice, that's essentially correct. If your work (like mine) requires you to be seamlessly interoperable with clients that operate in Microsoft Office, you need to run it. This is particularly true for complex documents. Sending an ugly mess back to the client makes you (and me) look incompetent. Not good for our businesses.
If you want to test drive an alternative, the OpenOffice/LibreOffice 4.0 (now 4.2?) office suite is free to download. They claim that interoperability with MS Office file formats is much improved from previous versions. LibreOffice is available for both Windows OS and Linux. I've been meaning to do some hardcore testing but haven't found time yet.
The idea of using another operating system besides Windows or IOS intrigues me. But is it more trouble than it's worth? I really don't have time to figure out if it's more trouble than it's worth. I need someone else to tell me. I guess it's time for a Google search...
IMHO the best approach is to run a separate PC with Linux and see if it covers your bases. There are a lot of PC users who don't need the fully interoperable corporate suite; they mostly do everything through a web browser. For them, Linux can do everything they need done.
Linux also has WINE, a Windows emulator, that can in theory run a genuine MS Office suite within the Linux OS. I have a Linux box with the horsepower to do this, but just haven't found time to test it all. Interesting idea though.
Hope this is somewhat helpful.
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