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Now comes the important part. in a month, I'm switching over to a completely linux system, and I'm gonna need a replacement for Office. so who's it gonna be?:)

OpenOffice looks good, but when I tried it several times during 2001 it was slow and crashed all the flaming time. I'm sure it's improving but I got bored waiting. Therefore:

To replace Word: KWord looks cool, but I couldn't get equations to work properly. LyX is really nice if you take the time to understand the concepts behind LaTeX and WYMIWYG. LyX especially rocks for editing equations, but it'll do everything else you could want too, and the output is beautiful. Abiword isn't there yet (tables etc.) but might be one day.

To replace Excel: Gnumeric.

To replace Outlook: I actually use IMP, a webmail application. I retrieve pop3 email with fetchmail, make it available via IMAP (one of Debian's IMAP packages) and access it with IMP, on apache-ssl for security, from home and anywhere else with an internet connection. Best thing about IMP is it's the fastest email client I've used! I have folders with hundreds, some with thousands, of emails and the likes of Balsa or Evolution can take forever to access them (if they don't crash). IMP takes seconds, and it never crashes! (I use Galeon for my web browsing/ IMP access). The HORDE project of which IMP is a part is actually an entire groupware suite, but I've only used IMP.

PowerPoint: MagicPoint looks pretty good but I've never used it.

Access: Postgresql or mysql should more than meet your needs. There are nice GUI tools available for both.

Best of luck.

I am no LyX user. Actually, I tried it once but I found it so ugly that I came right back to AUC-TeX.

TeXmacs on the other hand is a constant aesthetic pleasure. I know that structured documents are not about good looking screens, but I really think that a beautiful tool is WAY more pleasurable to use than a ugly one.

However, I cannot see why you think that TeXmacs is only a tool for maths. if you look at the screenshots on the LyX site, what will you see? Math formulas.

Just have a look at these documents if you want to see how TeXmacs can be be used to typeset source code documentation.

I found LyX and excellent way to start using LaTeX.

I'd be interested in people's comments who have used both.

How does it compare with Lyx?

Not the original poster but I'm a few steps down the road you're contemplating so I thought I'd share.

First and foremost, IMHO, the printed output is so much more visually appealing from LaTeX than Word. That is what got me started investigating LaTeX and continues to put a smile on my face. Nevertheless, I wouldn't put up with it if that was the only benefit.

I think the greatest benefit is that the focus is on the content, not the appearance. You decide what type of content you are writing and let LaTeX determine how best to format it. In a way, it's similar to HTML in that you define the content type (H1, H2, etc. . .) and the underlying engine determines how to display it.

Of course, you can define how those types should look but that takes place separately from the content creation. If you've ever used styles in the new version of Word, you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about except that LaTeX did styles right (and long before Word). Word's use of styles always felt broken to me.

One huge benefit is the presentation of equations. It was designed by a mathmetician after all. If you've ever struggled to make an equation look halfway decent in Word then you need to give LaTeX a try.

In the end, I use LaTeX because it is more closely aligned with my goals of spending time writing, not formatting and getting good looking output. I love the fact that it breaks the typewriter paradigm to which almost every other document preparation system is bound. You don't need to put in two spaces between sentences, That should be the typesetters job. Tabs are not layout devices.

If you prefer a GUI approach, I'd suggest checking out LyX. It takes the concept of visual editing and marries it to a LaTeX backend. Be sure to take the LyX Graphical Tour to get a feel for what it does and how it does it. In any case, choose the tool that makes you most effective. If that happens to be Word, so be it.

Not the original poster but I'm a few steps down the road you're contemplating so I thought I'd share.

First and foremost, IMHO, the printed output is so much more visually appealing from LaTeX than Word. That is what got me started investigating LaTeX and continues to put a smile on my face. Nevertheless, I wouldn't put up with it if that was the only benefit.

I think the greatest benefit is that the focus is on the content, not the appearance. You decide what type of content you are writing and let LaTeX determine how best to format it. In a way, it's similar to HTML in that you define the content type (H1, H2, etc. . .) and the underlying engine determines how to display it.

Of course, you can define how those types should look but that takes place separately from the content creation. If you've ever used styles in the new version of Word, you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about except that LaTeX did styles right (and long before Word). Word's use of styles always felt broken to me.

One huge benefit is the presentation of equations. It was designed by a mathmetician after all. If you've ever struggled to make an equation look halfway decent in Word then you need to give LaTeX a try.

In the end, I use LaTeX because it is more closely aligned with my goals of spending time writing, not formatting and getting good looking output. I love the fact that it breaks the typewriter paradigm to which almost every other document preparation system is bound. You don't need to put in two spaces between sentences, That should be the typesetters job. Tabs are not layout devices.

If you prefer a GUI approach, I'd suggest checking out LyX. It takes the concept of visual editing and marries it to a LaTeX backend. Be sure to take the LyX Graphical Tour to get a feel for what it does and how it does it. In any case, choose the tool that makes you most effective. If that happens to be Word, so be it.

Have you tried Lyx?

I doubt if it would be fast enough for note-taking though... It's more for publication-quality stuff.

LaTeX? Sure, I could use it, but why would I want to waste my time marking something up in LaTeX when I can open Word, type it out, spend four seconds formatting it the way I need, and then save it to any of five dozen file formats (most importantly, Word).

That's why you should use LyX for all your document processing needs. It's a GUI frontend to LaTeX that calls itself WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean). It makes LaTeX output available to the point-and-click crowd.

Try comparing the printed output of Word and LyX and then answer that question. Word has made great strides over the last 5 years but it still leaves a great deal to be desired. Give LyX a try and see how you like it. I did and I don't think I'll ever go back to Word if given a choice.

You can even run Lyx under Windows if you don't have a Linux machine to run it on. It's not the easiest of installs but when you've come to appreciate the power and beauty of LyX (and the underlying LaTeX engine), it's worth the hassle.

Lyx is an excellent choice if the import and export of proprietary Microsoft Word files is not a hard requirement.

Try: http://www.lyx.org

• DocBook was created exactly for writing technical docs, so it should have all the features you need.
• SGML/XML is portable, can be processed with standard tools -- and XML seems to be the future so your stuff will remain readable for a long time (unlike using some proprietary format)
• Pure text, works with CVS
• HTML and PDF output works out of the box (infinite customization is possible using DSSSL/XSLT)

• basic structure like title, chapters, sections, etc.
• links, cross refs
• lists
• simple tables
• embedded images
• code examples

See LyX or kLyX, that will fill many of your needs. I usually start files as LyX files then, when they get too big to easily handle in a WYSWIG editor, export to LaTeX and break the document up into multiple files and continue on in "raw" LaTeX from that point (it is quite easy to cut and paste out of an existing LaTeX doc, somewhat troublesome to create a LaTeX doc from scratch w/o a template).

I love LyX. The xforms user interface is very clunky, but the printed output is always very professional looking.

You may want to have a look at LyX with KDE user interface (KLyX) then (no binaries there; try this klyx page on rpmfind.net).

The LyX people write that it is currently unmaintained, but the last version I tried worked quite stable.

The benefit of using
LyX is that it can do both LaTeX and DocBook
output. That means it can basically export to any
useful format you might need (although MS-Word
.doc output might be a little awkward).

Don't discount DocBook just because it's a pig to
install and set up, it is a professional and pretty
well-designed documentation solution. Talk to the
LinuxDoc people if you don't believe me (who,
incidentally, are still considering making LyX the semi-official
application for editing their HOWTOs).

But then, I'm biased.

--

If an application crashes, it's the developer's fault. Period. End of story. It is NEVER the user's fault.

To answer the article's question. I recommend LaTeX, LyX, latex2html (comes with LaTeX), and dvipdf (comes with ghostscript).

--Bob

Have you tried LyX? It's a very powerful multiplatform typesetting program. Seems to do everything you want it to do.

This article is strange for me. While icewm is great choice, I don't understand why he wrote about mtv and xanim. I think that software is bad, very bad.

Thanks to avifile author we have many free and powerfull players today. Please try mplayer and avifile if you don't know it.

How xanim or binary-only mtv can be better than free alternatives? Last time I checked it was even impossible to rewind a movie there!

XWC as fm? Well, ok, but I preffer emelfm , which is much better than mc for me (try to use mc in directory with 10000 files!).

Last but not least - word processing. What about LyX ? OK, there is kword and abiword, but there are fat. IMHO LyX is much more powerfull than real MS Word, and it's fast and light. The only problem with LyX is xforms :-(

So - it's nice to see that kind of article, but I think choices are not best there.

Since you mentioned LaTeX...

I thought I'd just put in a plug for LyX which takes all the creamy goodness of LaTeX and spreads it onto all the nooks and crannies of a GUI.

My apologies to the writers of "The Tick".

I don't know why it hasn't been mentioned, but LyX seems to be maturing well.

1. Do the initial writing in some format like Word or plain text, send out for review, then once you're satisfied, copy and paste to LyX. Plus, AbiWord can output LaTeX from all sorts of files.
2. Write in TeX to begin with, and send your review people a copy of LyX for the platform of their choice, available, even for windows, here. Then these people might try LaTeX and the world will become a better place.

They aren't perfect, but they can cruft around dependance on Microsoft products. Your point is still a good one.

I used this combo for my C Programming class. It worked great, and other students were begging me for code snippets that i had typed. Some of my programming assignments were as simple as copying the code from jPilot (Linux Palm frontend) into gVim and compiling. The only thing is make sure you have enough desk space for the folding keyboard. Once, i moved the folding keyboard so that the front was off the desk. The folding stand for the palm collapsed, and the palm fell onto the floor. I had to send it in to Palm to be fixed.

I don't know what to say about the math notation. suff like "z=sin(x^y!/3)" and junk like that (i'm sure what you need to take notes of would be much more advanced) isn't very convenient.

If you want to go the slim laptop or tablet route, MathCAD might just be right up your alley. It's basically a mathematical word processor. It's no Mathematica, but it would probably work. The student price is $120. That's if you want to run Windows on a laptop or (maybe?) web pad. If you you're a Linux guy (like myself) then i'm not sure. You might try lyx like the other person suggested (i've never used it). I have used MathCAD, and it was really nice, although I was just using it for Calculus. I used it a long time ago, and i don't know how good or bad the program or the company is now. But it did a great job for me back when.

Try LyX and you'll never touch Word again.

I agree with the original poster, only Excel has any value. With Linux I find I don't need Excel as Gnumeric is a great basic spreadsheet and I just use one of the many programming languages if I need more power. The problem with Excel is that too many see it as a platform for building applications (that suck) when they should have just used a real language to begin with.

Star Office sucks too. All Office suites suck. Small seperate apps that do a single job well is the only way to go.

When it comes to document sharing if you can't say it with plain old text then you obviously don't have much to say.

> See above. Kdevelop also makes it easy to set up
> automake/autoconf build methods, even for people
> who aren't familiar with them.

Those people have no business doing software development.

There are lots of things in the world of software development. Lots of languages, lots of miscellaneous helper tools. Lots of IDEs. I've never used automake/autoconf in my development career, and I've never needed to. Hard as it may be for you to believe, autoconf/automake familiarity is neither necessary nor sufficient to be a good software developer, in C++ or any other language.

I also reckon that you believe WYSIWYG "html editors" have a place? Maybe for my 10 year old female cousin, but not for anyone else. Yet again, they shouldn't play the game if they are afraid of the ball.

Personally, I actually do think that WYSIWYG "HTML editors" have a place. I also think applications like Lyx have a place. It's just a shame that at the moment there aren't any standout contenders in the HTML side that focus on generating standards-compliant HTML (at least as far as I know, I'd be happy to be corrected on this point).

As an aside, is there any particular reason you say "my 10 year old female cousin," rather than just "my 10 year old cousin" or "a 10 year old child"? Are you trying to imply that she's doubly disadvantaged in being ten years old and female? Or perhaps even more disadvantaged in that she's your cousin?

SQL is a backend issue, there are no reasons for it to be tied into a toolkit.. if so, it is the worst form of bloat.

Hard as this (again) may be for you to believe, but Qt is not just a GUI toolkit. GUI stuff is a large part of it, but not the only part. I mentioned in another comment that I know of one app, Doxygen, that used Qt without using any of the GUI stuff - simply because the author really like the fact that it abstracted the low-level platform-specific stuff so nicely.

The other major issue with QT is the terrible licensing. It still sucks, and I doubt it will ever not suck. I would never base my software on something that will make it as valuable as a pile of rubbish one day.

IDE.. hah, I'd like to see you use Kdevelop on a text terminal.

WTF are you babbling about? If you want to restrict yourself to using a text environment, do so. Nothing stopping you. Of course, if you're supposed to be developing a GUI application, you might not be able to test it at all, but I'm sure that doesn't matter for someone like you.

Have a nickle, get yourself a real computer.

Pete.

Well this wasn't Matthias Ettrich's first and only accomplishment. He also gave us the first and only usable frontend to latex.

I (and many other people!) swear by lyx for their scientific papers. It is absolutely great. Only after this did Matthias Ettrich start KDE.

First he created a GUI for the best OS text processing system, then he went on to create the best GUI for the entire unix OS!

Unlike some other guys (Miguel, Bruce, ...) he did not become a poster child of slashdot kids, but he deserves our gratitude for his great work towards a linux (and BSD) for the end user and on many desktops.

THANK YOU!

Well this wasn't Matthias Ettrich's first and only accomplishment. He also gave us the first and only usable frontend to latex.

I (and many other people!) swear by lyx for their scientific papers. It is absolutely great. Only after this did Matthias Ettrich start KDE.

First he created a GUI for the best OS text processing system, then he went on to create the best GUI for the entire unix OS!

Unlike some other guys (Miguel, Bruce, ...) he did not become a poster child of slashdot kids, but he deserves our gratitude for his great work towards a linux (and BSD) for the end user and on many desktops.

THANK YOU!

Did you try getting people to use LyX? Why (not)? Did it work? Why (not)?

Cheers //Johan

The lyx people are very aware of this stumbling block. One of their stated goals is to make lyx gui independent. That means support for gtk and qt. Go to http://www.lyx.org to find out more.

Try lyx if you want a really good (thesis quality) WYSIWYG editor. You should still know LaTeX before you go putting your thesis in it, but it is incredible. The mathematics ability of lyx and LaTeX put Word to shame.

What it boils down to is choice. Running an emulator (of whatever kind) gives one even more choice, more freedom. You can have your cake and eat it too. Of course, that still leaves the original question -- Why would anyone who is running a lovely stable operating system like Linux, want to us M$ Windows as well? People have already given a number of reasons:

• To check compatibility with M$ Windows (for example -- to check if your web pages work for those people who do use M$ Windows)
• To run M$ Windows software
  1. Because a Linux equivalent does not yet exist
  2. Because you need to be able to exchange data with others using the M$ product (and a good enough Linux equivalent still does not exist)
  3. Because you have a bunch of existing data (whether that be some WP format or DB format) which it would just take too much effort to convert over to a Linux equivalent

I myself have encountered situations like this. For example, the documentation for a project I work on is required by the client, to be in an M$ Word electronic format. We managed to get them to agree to RTF. We thought, hey, we'll use the same RTF source to produce an online HTML version of the docs, that'll wow 'em! We're a Unix house, we ended up writing our own RTF2HTML converter based on a public skeleton one... we dug into the spec for RTF, finding that, yes, we could link PNG pictures rather than embedding WMF pictures into the RTF files... we produced the HTML, after much wrestling with M$ Word to actually allow us to link the PNG pictures (it kept on wanting to produce WMF as well)... we produced the HTML! And the resultant RTF files... cannot be edited in StarOffice without completely messing them up. StarOffice simply wasn't good enough. I would really like to have a Windows emulator running on my box instead of having to go to the PC at the other end of the office to update the documentation. (Yes, I have raised the possibility of converting the documentation to LyX and producing PDF and HTML, but TPTB haven't gone for it)

Another example: at home, I have a very old version of M$ Access running on my PC, (why get an upgrade when the old one still worked?) which holds information about my video collection (about 500+ tapes). That data has been collected over many years, as my collection has grown, and I need it. I have a few choices:

1. I can dual-boot M$ Windows. This is what I currently do, but I am getting tired of it.
2. I can run a M$ Windows emulator. (Another pain, because unfortunately WINE won't work on my old software; I've yet to try the others)
3. I can convert the entire database into something completely different, like PostgreSQL. This is also a pain, and takes time to do.

Another example: I have a DVD disk on my PC (as many new PCs do). I want to play DVDs on it. Fortunately, with vlc I can, but its featureset is still not not full; it can play DVDs but you don't get the menu screens etc. I am willing to put up with that, but others want more features. If a windows emulation will enable them to run specific software that they like better, surely this is a Good Thing? Freedom of choice!

What it boils down to is what kind of tradeoffs one is willing to make, to get the things you want. And for many, a M$ Windows emulator will give them a solution which saves them time/money/effort/hassle.

There are LaTeX processors for most platforms. A quick Google search can be rather useful.

As for viewing LaTeX files, you can convert them to many popular formats - HTML, postscript, PDF, RTF, DOC... - or use a browser plugin. IBM's TechExplorer (http://www.software.ibm.com/network/techexplorer/ ) allows you to view TeX, LaTeX and MathML documents in IE or Netscape.

LaTeX is much more flexible than any other format I've tried so far. It can do books, articles, reports, and slides - and these are all standard packages. The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network is to LaTeX as CPAN is to Perl - an immensely useful repository of cool stuff. =)

It's not too hard to learn, either. You can pick up the Not-So Short Guide to LaTeX (http://wso.williams.edu/how/lshort2e) or any of the other tutorials on the Net.

LaTeX is beautiful. I haven't had to use anything else for my papers ever since I discovered the joys of LaTeX. <g>

There are plenty of web interfaces for CVS. We switched from PVCS to CVS where I work a year and a half ago, and people still thank me for getting rid of PVCS. The big problem with documentation is binary files don't version control very well with any software. A good solution would be an easy to use word processor that save's in xml and can be converted to HTML, Word, etc... I don't know anything like that that's easy to use. Lyx is the closest thing I've found, but it's a long way away. I once started to look into Adobe Framemaker for this purpose, but didn't bother because it's way too expensive.

I have used LyX also (front end for LaTeX), and it is quite good. It's math-entry and rendering is the best I've seen yet in a user interface. My girlfriend now uses it exclusively to write papers (beats the crap out of bloated M$ Word or Staroffice). I usually use straight TeX for my papers and presentations so I can manipulate things at a lower level, and use some macros developed by/for physics people.

As to extending graphitti, I'd think that this would be a losing proposition. After adding strokes for the roman alphabet, greek alphabet, hebrew alphabet, numbers, and symbols, you might as well have just tried to recognize the symbols in the first place. I think for a tablet the easiest thing to do would be to have an "input" area that is very large (i.e. write very large) that then gets recognized and transferred to the document. The input area should draw a vector-graphic with your pen strokes, and after the stroke is complete, attempt to recognize it after-the-fact, allowing for you to correct it. (maybe tap on the incorrectly-recognized letter and have it bring up a list of nearest matches)

I have found graphitti less than perfect for most of my needs. I prefer to type. I'm not sure how much extra work scientists would be willing to put up with in entering formulas. I mean, usually there's a "bigger picture" in the back of your mind, trying to work out the calculation. If you have to interrupt your thought process a whole bunch to enter the formula in a way the computer can handle, you've lost the advantage of putting it on the computer in the first place. Attempting to recognize existing math and notations would be a big win.

--Bob

Why not just write a macro and save it either on your network drive (if you have one) or on a floppy.

Better yet, why not spend a little time learning to use LaTeX? If you're a grad student in a technical field, it's worth investing the time in learning a heavier-weight document preparation system.

If you're partial to a GUI front-end, I've had good experiences with Lyx. TeXmacs also looks interesting, but I haven't played with it yet.

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

The LyX project could do with some GUI design help, currently it is done by some rough guidelines of what is wanted, but some more top-down design and how things can be improved would be beneficial.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the developers on the project so I'm bound to be biased.

I think Office Suites are really a non-starter in the *nix world as they violate the principal of small applications that do small jobs well. A monster behemoth single one app does all, is and always has been a bad idea. Small offices are buying MS Office and then in reality only using one or two of the included apps. If MS was really sensitive to customer needs they would unbundle these and make them available as stand alone apps.

I have tried Star Office and hate it for exactly the same reasons I don't like MS Office. It's bloated.

Just compare Word to LyX particularly in ease of use. LyX does virtually everything better and has a wider range of output options. I'd pay for LyX.

Think about it, does a distribution that has Word Processors, SQL databases, decent spreadsheets, and several competent programming languages really need an office suite?

Look at a small office of say ten networked users. Ten copies of Office and only two people use word, one person uses Excel and the rest need Office just to read the output. Gee, if those MS apps would just output in PS or PDF then this same office could buy two copies of Word and one copy of Excel. That would be sensitive to customers needs.

My personal experince with Windows users confronting Linux (Gnome or KDE) for the first time suggest that there is zero learning curve as far as the GUI is concerned. Blackbox usually gets responses of "I want that". The look on their face when I launch about seven applications as fast as possible, is priceless. You can see them just waiting for it to crash.

I hear you! I got to save Steve Litt (my good friend and regular flamemail target ;-) in March [2000] by writing Chapter 33 (~45 pages) in a weekend (after another contributing author "flaked" -- which is quite common). I also did Appendix A and B (the ones on Solaris and BSD), although I had plenty of time to write those (pretty much all of January [2000], for only ~30 pages total).

So, as far as myself, I'm good for about 1 productive page/hour (including proofreading/revisions/reorg) -- and I assume other people are in the same boat. That means 3-4 chapters are possible per week, if you don't have a regular, 40hour/week job (which I do).

Yes, the Word markup really pissed me off, crashing numerous times resulting in no less than 2 total losses of my file (luckily I exit and save the file to a different directory every 15 minutes). The sad thing is that I regularly use LyX for all my personal and semi-professional technical writing. LyX which produces LaTeX, which is probably what they were parsing the Word back into for final publication -- quite ironic IMHO.

As far as "compensation," did you read your contract? I was under the impression that you should NOT reveal any compensatory info to anyone else! Oh well, here's the "unwritten rules" on compensation:

• Contributing authors (1-5 chapters, usually 3-10 in any publication) get a flat rate, no advance.
• Main authors (10-50 chapters, or co-authors, meaning only 2, possibly 3, total) get a flat rate and/or royalties, possibly with an advance (along with their name on the cover ;-).
• Compensation is relative to your authoring experience.
  [ Mine was none, so I did it for the exposure -- the "rate", based on my 1 product page/hour, was quite a "pay cut" from what I'm used to. ;-PPP ]
• Again, the contract forbids you from devulging this info in public.
  [ I'll assume MacMillian is "done with you" now ;-P ]

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

Being out of college now, I don't run into this too much. And my trusty HP 48/49 RPN calculator keeps me from writing too much down when I do. But this is an interesting question that I will probably pursue for you (because I want to do it for myself since I regularly consider switching to teaching). In the meantime, I offer these leads (feel free to contact me directly), although it's NOT a direct answer to your question.

As you mentioned, LaTeX is less than ideal. But even those that do not like LaTeX like LyX. LyX is a WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) TeX/LaTeX, SGML/DocBook, HTML, etc... editor for UNIX (and Windows if you have an X-Server like eXceed). It can export HTML c/o its integrated (as of v1.1.6) TTH (TeX to HTML) export. TTH produces multiline equations usually in standard HTML. So I guess using LyX and its export, people can generate HTML and cut'n paste the resulting HTML into their text box on your site (or export and cut'n paste LaTeX for that matter). Maybe you can take the LyX/TTH source (which is GPL) and tailor the app.

Another interesting program that I think does NOT have HTML export features (but is interesting none-the-less) is Net Planet Software's THX-1138. NPS has a clean X-Windows C++ framework called JX built right atop of plain'ole Xlib. THX-1138 is a "quickie, but goodie" program written in this framework and is a nice, equation writing features. Although I did not see an HTML export feature, it can export EPS (encapsulated postscript -- a size-efficient vector graphics format for printing) which can be used for conversion to another graphic format -- like a small, vector-based graphic format (so you don't have to worry about size/resolution issues with bitmap graphics).

I'm sure there are many, many other examples, probably ones not so UNIX-focused either (I run Linux 100% of the time -- and support UNIX at work -- sorry). I'll let you know if I find anything else.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

If you want to try some truly powerful software try LyX.

The only real word processor I've ever used.

I'll bet that you wish /. had a grammar checker. It might have stopped you from using that last sentence.

Using "emphasize" instead of "italicize" so you can redefine it easily if style needs to change.

The "Section" environment that not only renumbers itself correctly but can allow generation of a table of contents easily.

Being able to use a provided document class to create documents that look exactly as they are supposed to but with a minimum of effort on the part of the writer.

With the standard WYSIWYG editor, you're gonna have a lot more trouble with these things. Typewriters were great, in their time, but we have computers now.

(The only thing even marginally innovative here is apt-get, a lame command line tool that works around the lack of software packaging standards in Linux. It's not present on other systems only because they have no need for it.)

1.
You have no idea what APT does, do you? It handles the retrieval and installation of packages, all with minimal effort by the user. Don't like the command line? (Why would anyone not like the command line? :) Then there's gnome-apt, console-apt, aptitude, dselect, etc. The reason why APT is not present on other systems is because those systems are inferior, not because they don't have no need for it. Just remember that the next time you have to personally retrieve your software (even by going to the store, or downloading it from an FTP site) and all its dependencies.
2.
What is so "innovative" about the WYSIWYG word processor? It's an imitation of a typewriter! The WYSIWYG word processor is the biggest waste of time for someone using a computer. You have this awesome computing machine, it can do billions of instructions per second, and yet you are doing all the work required to manually typeset and format just like you were still using a typewriter? Fortunately there were some smarter people in this world than those who designed Microsoft Word. Check out LaTeX (using an implementation such as teTeX) and LyX, a graphical front-end for LaTeX that provides a different metaphor for word processing that I would argue is superior to the run of the mill WYSIWYG.

Agreed.

Open Source Software (OSS) -- you don't have to switch entirely over the Linux. Just try out various OSS programs for Windows -- keep your data out of proprietary application hands.

I'm sick of even "officiers" in my local LUGs, with users of 3+ years still running MS IE and Office (at meetings for God's sake!). God, could they please try StarOffice, or even the MS-IE-like KMelon browser? And there are many other application ports to Windows as well.

I write books and technical documentation just fine with LyX, which I switched to Word 97, from Word 95 and lost half my technical report styles. I had had enough of putting my data at risk with proprietary software. Never again, never again.

The people bitching the loudest are "so-called Linux advocates," who after years of running Linux for some niche purposes, haven't really spent a good 3 months using it as a serious desktop. They keep saying it is "not ready." I say BS! Get serious! Quit bitching.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

If you choose TeX/LaTeX as a standard, which is a good idea partly because of the quality of the output and because of the way it can handle complex templates, you can edit LaTeX rather easily using open source tools like LyX or KLyX. They're not perfect (yet!) but it's a good way to start using LaTeX in an almost-WYSIWYG fashion.

If you choose TeX/LaTeX as a standard, which is a good idea partly because of the quality of the output and because of the way it can handle complex templates, you can edit LaTeX rather easily using open source tools like LyX or KLyX. They're not perfect (yet!) but it's a good way to start using LaTeX in an almost-WYSIWYG fashion.

You want LyX!!!

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

There is a really cool open source project called, LyX. (www.lyx.org) LyX is the first What-you-see-is-what-you-MEAN (WYSIWYM) document processor. Right now it seems to be geared to preparing scientific papers, but the possibilites are quite numerous...

Or maybe you should help along another project which is doing a very similar thing: LyX

For those scared to learn latex but want a superior document processing system LyX does work and work well. I have used it for many articles and papers for work and school. And as an added incentive there is a mif to lyx filter if you happen to be one of those now stuck by Adobe's decision.

lyx website.

mif 2 lyx translator.

For those scared to learn latex but want a superior document processing system LyX does work and work well. I have used it for many articles and papers for work and school. And as an added incentive there is a mif to lyx filter if you happen to be one of those now stuck by Adobe's decision.

lyx website.

mif 2 lyx translator.

FrameMaker is a desktop publishing program with a lot of features that support technical manual production. Notice that I said "desktop publishing" and not "word processing." The difference between these two jargonettes is an emphasize on layout and design, versus document composition and structure. This boils down to "production" versus "writing". I have some interest in document production, but to me it's always secondary to content. This is especially true with the current shift to electronic documents -- a web page or a help topic just doesn't have the same design constraints as a printed page.

Unfortunately, writing tool designers tend to drift towards the DP paradigm. All the commercial WPs are sold mainly for their DP features. Everybody, designer and users, seems stuck in a very old rut. There's an emphasis on big, clumsy programs that try to do everything (a hangover from the early days of electronic publishing when WPs and DPs were dedicated special-purpose systems, not apps running on general-purpose computers). There's an emphasis on specific physical layout (PDF files that are simply printed page images and HTML pages that consist of single fixed-width tables), making edocuments that are very hard to browse, especially on small displays. FrameMaker has done well because it supports this obsolete, but popular, paradigm. And it does so with a clumsy, semi-EMACS UI, which my brain is just not wired to deal with. FrameMaker does not help me with document organization, brainstorming, hyperlinking, or any of the other things I do every day.

Of course, FrameMaker+SGML, like any basic SGML editing tool, does a good job of enforcing document structure. But enforcing structure and creating structure are very different things.

I'm still waiting for a writing tool that emphasises content over production. I'm unoptimistic, having seen a lot of lost opportunities. In the 80s, there was a spate of "thought processors" that looked very promising, but never caught on commercially. (They survive as clumsy outlining tools, usually built into WPs.) SGML has mostly been destroyed by its own power and generality -- few people are cut out to design a DTD. HTML showed great promise, but was destroyed by the commercial need to produce pretty web pages, and browser designers who didn't care about the markup/presentation dichotomy. XML still shows great promise, but so far seems to be used mainly as a universal data interface.

So no FrameMaker for Linux? Good. This will leave an opening for tools that actually attempt to address my problems, such as LyX. A tool I mean to spend time with, once I catch up with my current project. Which is (sigh) a massive API document, written in RTF using Word97, to be distributed via a Linux-based WinHelp clone.

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It fails your non-TeX requirement though :-(. Anyway, if you haven't tried it yet I suggest you do.

Also, I should point out that I'm in no way connected to the LyX project other than that I have used it a couple of times and think their WYSIWYM idea is *excellent*. So some of this information may very well be wrong, although of course I think it is correct.

Cheers //Johan

First off, don't put your documentation or data at risk, always use standard documentation languages. Languages that are not only open, not only formats taht will last for decades, but formats that are 100% facimile reproducable. Think like a publisher.

With that said, SGML with strict DTDs is key. Factor in the ubiquious nature of other, widespread documentation languages like TeX/LaTeX, HTML, XML and, now, DocBook and its obvious that you want to standardize on SGML and DocBook and convert between them all. Plus you need to be able to make PDFs quick and easy.

Now you need a GUI. The problem with most GUIs is that you are limited by them. Not LyX, it is highly-extensible and more and more features are added by the moment. Originally a WYSIWYG (actually WYSIWYM, "what you mean") for TeX/LaTeX, LyX can eat TeX/LaTeX, SGML and other mark-up in-line. Again, you have a GUI, but you are not limited by it.

From the GUI standpoint, LyX has automatic TOC, TOF, biblio, indices, notes and other table/figure generation. I personally love LyX for its margin note and sidebar features, as well as headers and footnote. Lastly, LyX can eat EPS in-line and the PostScript preview is exactly what PostScript will go to your printer (I hate apps with print previews that aren't exact).

Lastly, built in support for RCS/CVS revision control makes it an ideal application for multiple tech writers. IMHO, who need limited collaboration tools when you have real revision control underneath?

If you're looking for a quick "HOWTO" to getting LyX installed, there is one for RPM-based distros here..

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith