Universities predominantly support the use of Windows. They often supply a Microsoft 365 account (or whatever it's called now), including an MS Word license. Unfortunately, the web version has a limited feature set, and there is no native support for Linux, so you'll need to find a native Linux alternative.
Enter LibreOffice Writer—an open-source alternative that can easily replace Word, if you take the time to customise it. If you can't be bothered to do it yourself, feel free to use mine as a starting point.
Referencing is super important, and MS Word has a tool built-in. Some universities push third-party tools like RefWorks, but most of these don't integrate with LibreOffice Writer.
Zotero, another free solution, is an application that has it all—browser extensions, cloud synchronisation, and most importantly a LibreOffice Writer plugin.
If your University has its own referencing style, you can almost certainly find and import it into Zotero from this CSL repository.
A big issue with Word and Writer is the inconsistent formatting. Although you can produce high-quality documents, it often takes a lot of fiddling and sometimes, things can go wrong.
LaTeX is a "document preparation system for high-quality typesetting"^1 that solves this issue—essentially, LaTeX is a programming language that can be used to create professional-style documents.
It's good for academic papers, but it has a steep learning curve. You'll probably need to create a template that matches your institution's preferred format. I'm currently working on one that might be a good starting point—you can find it here.