WordPerfect Office 2000 For Linux Reviews

You may be wondering if you should purchase the WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux, since there isn't a downloadable version. Here are some reviews, which could assist you in making a decision. This is Canux review, and here you can find a review done by the people at Linux Weekly News. Also, you might want to take a look here -- you'll find comments from people who tried it (thanks to Linux Today). I hope someone from Corel is reading those articles and comments ...

Comments

It's a sad day.....

[AppyPappy]

When techies get excited about a Word processor. Why, when I was a young programmer, we did all our documents in Pong.

I was afraid of this

[wowbagger]

This is possibly one of the worst things that can happen to Linux: While I use Corel Wordperfect 8 (and find it adequate), when I heard that Corel Office 2000 was basically a Wine app, I became worried that it would be buggy and crash prone. Wine, for all the magic in its ability to run Windows binaries, it still not quite ready for prime time; furthur while I look forward to being able to run unmodified Windows binaries (for those foolish companies that won't make a native version of their app), I want programs that claim to be "Linux versions" to be just that: Linux versions, not Windows versions + an emulator.

Corel, if you are reading this: Spend the time to make your apps portable, use GTK, and make true native Linux versions. Yes, it will be several man-years of effort, but in the long run it will pay off.

As one who OWNS WPO2k

[sl3xd]

I really like it - I use Debian, XFree86 4, and a couple of font servers.

Adding the Fonttastic font server didn't hurt at all - everything still works, the fonts are beautiful and there are no conflicts.

The suite is very functional, and while having a few bugs, it is definately still acceptable to work with - moreso than Staroffice or Abiword to say the least.

And, YES, the suite is very KDE-Centric; but what do you expect? Corel is one of the large developers/contributors to KDE. As for the whole KDE-GNOME thing - just grow up. The source is free for both, QT is free source and FSF-certified as 'open source.' The crying about KDE being closed or somehow evil, bad, etc is getting very old and most uninteresting, espescially since the arguments simply aren't true. Of course, there are those who hate C++, but that's their deal.

I find it interesting that people have no problem with Closed-Source QuakeIII, CivIII, Whatever than Mech-type game is, RR Tycoon... man! Sure are a lot of closed-source programs there that are approved of! So what's wrong with having a commercial Office Suite? It's FAR more functional than the open-source counterparts at this time, and well worth the $ paid for it. (Although with Free software, you don't always get what you pay for... you often get a LOT more).

I had problems with the install of WPO2k - it was looking for some files that should have been in my path for root. That was my bad, not theirs. But, it has instructions for a manual-install via dpkg, apt, or RPM, so it's nothing I'm unaccustomed to.

The suite takes FOREVER to load the *first* time - it's building font-metrics for WINE. After that task is done, ALL the office programs load as quickly as their Windoze counterparts on my PII/450. The performance isn't 'snappy' - it's more like using a word-processor 5 years ago using a 486/66. Not bad, just having .1 - .25 seconds delay.

Honestly, I am quite satisfied with WordPerfect 2000/Linux. I am still looking foreward to the first service pak for some minor bug-fixes; but there are fewer than I've seen for other office suites.

Being an open-source purist is a luxury that I and millions of other cannot afford. There is nothing 'wrong' with having proprietary software for Linux. Just because it's not GPL'd doesn't mean it's bad. Corel has created a product that is very functional and attractive to use, and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - it will give the press, buisinesses, etc. a good look at where Linux is going- that it is NOT some fringe OS, but is here to stay. The fact that WPO2k is brand-name, commercial software for Linux is going to turn some heads towards Linux. It will win converts to the OS. It will provide a 'gate' through which people will start using Free Software, and see the advantages to it. The release of WPO2k is one of the best things that has happened to Linux in quite a while. It will turn more heads to Linux and provide incentive to move to Linux. And that's what is most important.