Linux Business Playbook

Our Linux for Business pages explain why a small business should look at Linux: lower cost, fewer viruses, less downtime, and a natural home for the AI agents that are starting to do real work for small firms.

This playbook is the how. It is written for owners and office managers, not technicians. Each part answers one practical question, gives a straight answer on what works and what does not, and walks through a real-world example from a business like yours. Nothing here needs you to open a terminal. Where a step needs technical hands, that is where we come in.

Read it in order if you are starting from scratch. Dip into a single part if you have one specific worry, such as "will my accounting software still work?"

The eight parts

Part 1: Choosing Linux for a Small Office: Which Version and Why There is no single "Linux". This part explains the two or three versions that make sense for an office, what long-term support means, and which hardware they run on.

Part 2: Office Suite on Linux: Microsoft 365, OnlyOffice or LibreOffice Word, Excel and PowerPoint are the first thing everyone asks about. Three routes, when each one wins, and the honest limits.

Part 3: Accounting and Invoicing on Linux: Xero, MYOB and the Free Alternatives Why your accounting almost certainly keeps working unchanged, and what the free alternatives are good for.

Part 4: Email, Calendar and Chat on Linux Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Teams, shared calendars and the phone system. What stays the same, and the few things to check.

Part 5: Files and Collaboration: Nextcloud as Your Own Drive Your own Google Drive or SharePoint, on a box you control, with no per-user fee. When that is worth it and when it is not.

Part 6: Automating the Boring Work: n8n and AI Agents on a Linux Box Rule-based automation for the repetitive jobs, AI agents for the ones that need judgement, and the trust rule that keeps both safe.

Part 7: Keeping Ten Linux PCs Safe: Updates, Backups and Remote Management Quiet updates, a backup rule you can remember, the honest answer on antivirus, and how a small fleet is looked after remotely.

Part 8: The 30-Day Migration Plan A week-by-week plan: audit, pilot, set up, roll out. Includes the checklist and a worked example with the savings laid out.

Who this is for

• Businesses with roughly 3 to 30 PCs who are tired of licence renewals and slow, nagging machines.
• Firms that handle sensitive client data and want more control over where it lives.
• Owners who have heard that AI agents and automation run best on Linux and want to know what that means in practice.

What it is not

This playbook will not tell you that everything runs on Linux. Some things do not, and each part has a short "What still needs Windows" box so nobody is caught out. Most businesses end up with a mix: most desks on Linux, one or two Windows machines for the holdouts.

How We Help Your Business

• We run the audit, the pilot and the rollout described in this playbook, so your staff experience a quiet change rather than a project.

• After the move, we look after the machines remotely: updates, backups, security and the odd question, for a fixed monthly fee that is usually less than the licences you no longer pay.