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StarOffice 5.2 Released
CMettler writes: "Just saw on the Sun Web site that StarOffice 5.2 is released. They improved the MS Office Import filters, better Database support and there is a player for playing StarOffice presentations without an installed StarOffice."
Finally something in danish for linux, now were getting somewhere!!!
When will they remove that terrible MDI interface though? I don't want StarOffice to be my Window Manager. Am I the only one?
... or are all of these "integrated" (and I use that term very loosely) office suites getting way out of hand? There is definitely such a thing as trying to do too much, and MS Office, StarOffice et al. are heading this way at a full gallop rather than concentrating on refining what's already there.
At the rate it's going these suites will contain even more added extras than Emacs, and that program will look positively trim compared to the full suite, coming on 4 DVDs as it will. And the more "value added" features that get incorporated, the worse they get to use - trying to format long documents is always a complete nightmare, and to be honest, I'd rather do it in HTML by hand than in Word or Writer.
Anyway, my point is that if I really must have an office suite, all I want is a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database, tops. Anything else is something I can get separately to suit me. The size of a program really shouldn't be proportional to the year it's released in.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Hi guys,
There are two files (amongst the rest), that are available for download:
+ Download StarOffice 5.2 Database (Adabas D), Linux, English ( 16.33 MB )
+ Download StarOffice 5.2 Player, Linux, English ( 15.25 MB )
Are these necessary to download to get it running? (Hey, i'm on a modem connection here, I need all the bandwidth I can get).
I noticed an odd thing in earlier betas - spell checker didn't notice words where there was punctuation. Example:
howeverr,
himmo.
exampel:
Anyone know if the full release has this fixed?? If not why should I bother with this onee.
Wheeeee
i ran staroffice for a while and foud it verry nice
but the 2 things that i dindt like was the windowmanager like interface and it was so slow
so i switched back to apllix witch doesnt have all the functionality but is loads faster
(and its not free), so i hope they made it faster
42
It would be an interesting test to take two people who have never used a computer before and see if they can more easily learn MS Office or StarOffice. You could use the results of that test to improve the interface of whatever product performed worse. My point is that these big, bloated office suites are becoming indistiguishable from one another.
Somebody should write an emacs-style editor with advanced Tex-style formatting features and WYSIWYG support. It should be able to import DOC, RTF, WPD and other popular formats. Just my $.02.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Me, i'd go and look up "Free" in a dictionary. Since when did the word "Free" ever mean "Open Source"? If they arn't charging for the product, how is it not "Free"?
Free is good, Open Source is better. But dont knock Sun just because they correctly use a proper English word.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
I wish they repair the palm sync, I was terrible.
OverLord
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/pea nut/pkgs /OFFICE-SUITES/STAR-OFFICE-SUITE/Star-Office-5.2.t ar.bz2
I just love 1337 W4R3Z!
I am thinking you should stop bitching about the software not being "Open Source."
I am grateful that Sun--for whatever reason--has decided to eat a few million dollars and release a damn decent office suite at no charge.
If someone gave me car, I wouldn't rag on them for not including the owner's manual, know what I mean?
There must be an easier way to get each component to comunicate with each other, and create a lightweight office suite that doesn't take over your entire system. It just seems noone wants to try at this time. :(
No, unfortunately not, and it's because these sort of packages are aimed at institutions rather than people, and people who buy software for these kinds of places are all to fond of all in one "solutions" since they mean less licensing issues (supposedly) and other buzzwords like interoperability and so on. Stability and bloat aren't features that matter to them, just convenience.
As long as these kinds of products are aimed at this market, and I can't see it changing, then bloat and "features" will be the order of the day.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
It looks like sun.com is having it's little . kicked.
/pub.
The obvious ftp site has nothing in
Anyone want to offer alternatives?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Their software is free to the end user. It is free. It is not open source. It doesn't claim to be. Just because you, as a programmer, hacker, whatever label you want on you, think of 'free' as freeware, opensource, whatever, doesn't mean it is so.
Slashdot may be exclusively written with your eye in mind, but sun's marketing drones don't do that.
yacko
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
Have you ever compared the X and Windows versions
of StarOffice? They look pretty much identical.
The buttons, scrollbars, menus, etc. I mean.
Most of the people who will use SO( assuming that
it starts to get some share of the users at all )
will be the kind of people who could care less
what OS/Windowing system they are running. They
are office workers, home users, etc. A user
who learns to operate SO on a Mac will *instantly*
know what to expect when they sit down in front
of a Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris box running
SO because the fullscreen WiW hides the underlying
OS and windowing system completely. An initial
learning curve and then no loss when moving to
another platform. In some sense the WiW is good
for people who would like to get Linux or some
other alternative OS out of the server room and
onto desktops. If the person who uses that desktop
is a heavy office suite user, they probably
wouldn't even know the difference.
That's not to say that I like the WiW. It's
annoying to *nix-ites who are used to multiple
desktops and terms spattered everywhere. I can
just understand why they use WiW. It's there
attempt to appease what they think will be the
largest chunk of users.
IMHO.
Where is Irix or HP-UX?? I am sure some people would like BSD too.
I need Irix more the anything.
atto
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
that was a beta...
Context is what matters. Sure, I could correctly call an entirely artificial cherry-flavored candy "organic" because it is made out of carbon-based compounds and so is "organic" in one sense of the word, but that is not the sense which people generally interpret the word "organic" in relation to food, so this usage would be somewhat misleading.
Similarly, calling a piece of proprietory software which is downloadable without charge "free" is correct English but again not how people generally interpret "free" in relation to Linux software, so the usage is again somewhat misleading.
"Open Source" is yet another concept altogether (it is a philosophy of software engineering aimed at helping the developer through obtaining bug fixes from users, and really doesn't relate to the freedom of use at all; although in practice Open Source projects tend to be free software, the two terms aren't equivilent)
We've /.'ed Sun! ;-)
.com people" and should be capable of handling a little load?
When I try to download it, I get a message that their store is busy and I should try again in 7 - 10 days [1]
[1] Plus, isn't that a little absurd? If the company can't fix it within a day, why would I do business with them? Especially if they're "the
Check it out for word processing and it'll be all you need.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Okay, I downloaded the full 96MB this morning and have been checking out some of the features during the day. But unfortunately StarOffice is still not good enough for me to convince others in my office from using word.
I work in a large corporation and Word is the standard for sending documents. I work at a Unix workstation and it annoys me having to go to another machine to read these files. So in recent weeks I have been looking at the various options. Yes StarOffice filters have improved from 5.1, but looking at documents I have been sent during the week, it still makes glaring mistakes.
I am running Linux and I have truetype support in my font server (with all the Windows fonts available). But Staroffice still see parts of my documents in a symbol font (correct font appears in word).
Another document conatining a table with lists of bulleted points in the cells. Some of the bulleted point come back with the wrong formatting. 5.2 did handle this document better than 5.1
A third document which has two images at the top and two URLs embedded is cropped short. 5.2 did a worse job than 5.1, adding in a large blank space between the images and the text.
Yes it does perform better but it is still not good enough for me to use it as a replacement. Oh, and like other postings I would prefer seperate exectables instead of everything clumped together. My next target to investigate is WordPerfect Office 2000 (I do not need it for free, but I do need it to work!)
Sun are not generously giving us free (as in beer) software out of the goodness of their hearts. It is a carefully calculated loss-leader which ties in with their long-term business strategy.
Because i get my work done with staroffice , sun or no sun ! And that's the most important thing, wether you use a (pirated) windows/office or a free product on linux by a company that may be a bit on the wrong side of the tracks... :)
You use the piece of software that works for you , and there are many geeks that run staroffice for linux ( me me me )
so the post is quite relevant to me
blaah !
Nobody asked yet, but StarOffice for Mac is expected to be out by the end of the year.
Source code for StarOffice not available yet. I wonder what license Sun will use - they're using quite a few at the moment. Hopefully they'll use the MPL (Mozilla Public License) like for their "Forte for Java Community Edition" IDE.
[RANT]
You can call it no-charge if you want to download it but the deal sucks if you want an English cd-only kit!
Check it out: here.
It's amazing that if you want the English version on a CD (for those of us that don't have the time/bandwidth to download it) that you will have to pay $39.95 for the product. This was supposed to be a "free" "give away" product per Sun.
$39.95 is far too pricey for just media - but wait you get a book!
I'm sorry but I don't need a book and I shouldn't be forced into getting one with a software package that is supposed to be free.
[/RANT]
The Tick - "Spoon!"
"Bah!" - Dogbert
It took me a lot of headaches and arguments with my publisher during our last 'zine to learn to play nice with StarOffice, but now I really like it. I wouldn't say it was 'big and bloated' though...even in the depths of my ignorance I was very glad there was no animated paper clip trying to help me. :-)
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
If Star Office is SO, then is Star Office for Linux SOL? :-)
nuclear cia fbi spy password code encrypt president bomb
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
I don't know if this thing works with other versions. I downloaded the spanish version of SO 5.2 for Linux. If you create a database, by example a text database, you'll find a table that has been created previously, named Win32.dll (hummm
I don't know if this is an 'easter egg' or
what
Interesting question!
I, for one, much prefer Applix 5.0 over the other office suites, including MS Office and Corel Office. This is quite remarkable, as I didn't care for Applix 4.x much at all (they have switched to GTK and have made many improvements in the GUI design). I find the Applix word processor in particular much less bloated and irritating than wordperfect and word, with their "I'll fix that typo for you" attitude (yes, I know it can be turned off, but the default is more than a little irritating).
It would be interesting to see what completely new, unindoctrinated (from both the windows and alternative OS perspectives) users would prefer. I suspect we'd find that many people end up using windows because their friends do (and/or the perception that there is more software available, when in truth there is only more commercial software available).
On the other hand, I think, despite the fact that the X Window System has come a long way, we'd hear some strong criticisms about aspects of the GUI as well. KDE is slow and unattractive, although KDE 2.0 looks to have improved on both accounts (due out in September I think). Gnome is excellent, but still not easy enough for newbies to use and customize as it should be. Software installation doesn't automatically set up icons/menu items for either, which for a non-techie is an important feature.
One scathing criticism I have personally is the recent trend among window managers toward defaulting to the ugly "click to focus" paradigm (perhaps this is a distribution thing, not a window manager issue, in which case, my criticism is redirected to them). This hides one of the nicest features X has over windows from new users! I remember when I first used X, with twm, on an old Sun box, thinking to myself "God, this is ugly, but I can get so much work done so much faster with this automatic focus and single click cut-and-paste!").
When I gave my mother and sister Linux boxes, the first thing I did was change the default back to the sloppy focus it should have been at to begin with. Contrary to popular myth, it didn't confuse them at all (and I forgot to tell them about it when I did it). On the contrary, it helped in no small part to make them enthusiastic converts, and neither would willingly go back to using windows. But both have made comments similar to mine above -- they'd like it to be easier to add apps, and see those apps visible in their GUI.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Have they fixed that nasty bug that causes whole lines to dissapear when typing in page layout mode of w. process program? I dont know if anyone else has encountered this problem, or is it only characteristic for intel/ solaris installation of star office 5.1
> If your answer is "because it runs on Linux",
/. for sure.
> does that mean that Slashdot will print a story
> when MY Linux software emerges from beta?
Does your software compete head-to-head with widely used software from MicroSoft? If so, I would expect it to be covered on
MS Office is often cited as the *only* reason that many users have not given up their Windows.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
ehm.. ok
so the file i just downloaded, let me se..
so-5_2-ga-bin-linux-da.bin is actually staroffice 5.1
By the way there is no staroffice in danish at version 5.1 so i am a little confused...
But then again who knows...
1) It cannot see my mounted fat32 partition (which all other Linux apps could ). How is it? I don't think they have bypassed Linux file-system. My guess is that they have a 'portability layer' over it[since SO runs on Win32 too], and this layer does not work with Linux vfat file system.
2) It works only for the user which owns the SO files. It is not a matter of protection, since I tried 'chmod -R 777'. Is this intentional, as a way to enforce 'personal use only' agreement?
Ciao
----
FB
All I really want to know is, will it be faster than 5.1 on my box at home? I'm running a P2-266/64MB and it takes about 2 minutes to fire up, and ends up sucking down all my RAM. Not exactly a convenient application. I tried one of the tricks posted before about running just the word processor or spreadsheet but it still loaded the whole thing.
Are you a troll or something? The website says "Staroffice 5.2 Application Suite" - "The Ultimate free full-featured, integrated, interoperable, office suite just got better" ... "The StarOffice 5.2 suite is now available for free download in Danish, Dutch, English, ..."
I can't say for certain, but I bet one reason is that Exchange 2000 isn't out yet.
Move along. Nuthin' to see here...
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
"Does your software compete head-to-head with widely used software from MicroSoft?"
As a matter of fact, yes it does. See sig for more info.
--
Compaq dropping MAILWorks?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Having not downloaded 5.2...here's my biggest beefs with 5.1.
Quite frankly, I'm always going to have some trouble with StarOffice until they either:
a) Make it disgustingly easy to install TrueType fonts, so I can share docs with my Windows-using classmates and coworkers - even with the really good help pages out there, I still run into roadblocks.
b) Do something about it's relationship with Ghostscript and XFS, or add a pile more drivers to its own printing system, or provide a pile of GS drivers, or something to improve printing under Linux.
I think at least part of my problem is Ghostscript itself. It prints plain text just fine (though not with the fonts I specified in SO...and if you try to use SO's fonts, forget it:P), but add one box or line and kaplooie - my BJC-4000 draws faint lines, no lines, fading letters, and just absolute crap. I understand GS uses the BJC-600 driver for the 4000; I wonder if perhaps it shouldn't get its own support under either SO or GS, seeing as my Windows install of SO prints just fine (and that's painful to type). And I really, really, really don't want to have to reboot - I spent a couple hours last night compiling and testing an alpha version scanner driver just so I don't have to reboot into 'bloze to scan a freaking pic. Works fine now, thanks:)
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Didn't sun promise us the source to staroffice?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
The typical requirements of a typical home/office user.
Ok, here's the poor programmer's office suite.
A word processor with standard features such as the ability to select fonts, a spelling and grammar checker, table generation, minimal ability to embed objects (images, etc.) and a UI to die for (none of this adding of every possible button and tray everywhere nonsense).
Use LaTeX and ispell for that. If you need a UI, try LyX, a WYSIWYG frontend to TeX/LaTeX. If you want to write a quick letter, go to vi/jed/joe, make it a postcript file and print it.
A money managment app.
Ok, as every /.er know, we now have GnuCash for that.
A schedule app. Because being late (or worse: forgetting completely!) is bad.
Use at and cron; you can have your todo's sent to your mailbox.
MAYBE a presentation program. This is something that a corporate user would need more than anyone else.
You can use XV for this. Make the presentation using the image editors below, and show it as slides with XV (or any other similar program).
A simple bitmap editing program. Perhaps a vector drawing program instead (Print quality higher per size/complexity ratio).
Try the GIMP for pixel manipulation and/or xfig for vector drawing.
The ability to share files and parts of files seamlessly within the app set.
Isn't this what stdin/stdout are for? :)
A spreadsheet/database program. (Personally, I would leave this out as I have no use for it, and most people don't either.)
Use MySQL, and access it through your browser using your http server. This way you can even customize the UI!
Anything beyond this is frivolous.
I agree 100%.
--
This space left intentionally blank.
Oh, great. An email server. Yeah, most people are keeping their Windows machines around because there's really no alternative to MS Exchange.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
... and get a life.
It's Sun's software, they can do with it what they will. If they want to give it away for free, they can. If they want to charge hundreds of dollars per copy, they can. When you spend millions of dollars to buy Star Office away from them, you can do with it what you want, but not until then.
Don't like the price? Use something else. Don't like the features? Use something else. Don't like the license? Use something else. Don't like the interface? Use something else. There are plenty of alternatives. You're not required to use Star Office, and you're not entitled to free perpetual upgrades delivered your way, when you want them.
Sun is offering several low-cost ways to get a product that would otherwise be worth several hundred dollars per copy. Why do you feel you have a right to complain? It costs Sun a lot of money to package each separate distribution; presumably Sun has determined (either through market research or use of a Ouija board) that most of the users who would pay money for a CD would also be willing to pay a little more and get a manual as well. If you disagree, then by all means send Sun a polite note suggesting a change, but why whine about it here?
Are you moderating this down because you disagree with it,
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
I have recently tried weening my boss off of powerpoint. Instead, I got him to allow me to use HTML instead.
With HTML, CSS, DHTML and some Javascripting, I was able to do everything (and more!) that PowerPoint could do.
It took a little longer, but it was well worth it.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
I am a recent convert to Linux (about six or eight months now, can't remember exactly). I have an older computer w/only 32mb ram, so I don't like to use StarOffice. I don't have time to learn LaTex. I have found the best way to type up documents is in plain-vanilla HTML. It's easy (simple and creatable in any editor) and it's unbelievably portable. A Windows user can open it in their browser or in MS Word. I can stick it on my web site if I like. Easy hyperlinks are a plus, too.
It's also very flexible as far as formatting goes. You can stick some simple CSS in there for font and margin settings, and if the browser doesn't support them it's no big deal. All browsers that I have seen will print out HTML just fine.
I have only found one or two cons for my purposes: you must store images seperately of course (can't embed them in the document), and you have almost no control over page breaks or headers and footers. None of these really matter to me however.
-JD
There a server company, with the allmighty Solaris OS! Surely they can handle the Linux using masses checking out thier website? Sigh. Poor sun.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
1) I hate idea of placing all executables and configuration stuffs in just one subfolder of $HOME. Bins should be in something common for local software and all configuration should be save in "$HOME/.*". Then cloning configuration between two different host would be just trivial. 2) Possibility of running single application would be great. 3) Less number (I mean 0) of crashes is desired. 4) I do not why printing engine sends some more complex drawing as a 50MB file to printer Despite of above Sun is doing great job. A lot of functions of SO are reachable for me in much much more intuitive way than other suites.
OK it took a little longer (I actually question your use of the word little). What did you gain? Why was it "well worth it"? My no.1 commodity is time, so firing up powerpoint, seleting the corporate template and banging in a few headlines is about as much as I have time for. Why on god's earth should I have to start writing HTML & CSS? I'd be the last person to defend m$ per se, but doing what you said strikes me as shooting yourself in the foot for the sake of it.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Why no ftp?
Why no mirrors?
Put the duh in dot com
__
Arse
Sun is no longer dot in dot com.
...
/04/20/1542217.shtml
:)
Here is the story
http://slashdot.org/articles/00
Anyways guess FreeBSD is really a better server than Solaris.
*chuckle*
I have NEVER had issues connecting to Walnut Creek ftp site.
I (and about a 25,000 other Java developers) was given a free StarOffice 5.2 at JavaOne (on June 6). As near as I can tell its a full release version. Works great, even installed over NFS. I'm liking it a heck of a lot better than the hideously ugly WordPerfect 8.
Anybody know any other mirrors? sun.com is slooooooooooooooooow...
Greetings,
Ivo
... we haven't ported docs, xls's, wpds and the like to HTML.
Sure your code will be crappy but anyone could open up the sucker and it will look pretty clean (Office2K actually does a damn good job at saving in HTML).
I use up twice as much space but I keep a copy of my docs at my website. Very convenient especially whenm you thought you had a extra copy of your resume and don't.
ChozSun [e-mail]
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
This is such a sickeningly obvious troll, but I'm bored so I guess I'll feed you anyway....
Hmm, what a blatant attempt to gain even more karma by using the tried and true "I'm going to get modded down for this..blah blah blah, etc". Whatever...
Maybe because the heading on every page says "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" not "GNU/SlashDot", "RMS and Friends", or "LinuxOnlyPleaseDot".
Grr... I'm done bitching, and I'm sure your happy your troll got a complaint. Tthat was your only purpose, right? Because I would feel really sorry for you if you actually believed all of the crap you just spouted, sarcastic or no.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
so you were able to bundle a web browser with your html then?
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
However, I guess, being so used to seeing GPL'd or any other kind of "open sourced" software, that I'm used to seeing some kind of information about how bugs have been fixed or small errors have been found and dealt with. And, even though I don't always read this, it is good to know that people are still fixing problems (because you know there will never be an end to them).
So ... when I went to the StarOffice site, I expected to see some reference to the fixes they had made. To my surprise, I couldn't find anything after a short time of searching. No ChangeLog or REVISION_LOG or anything like that?
Like I said, I have been using SO for a while now (probably since January) and I've noticed some things that should be fixed. They're small things such as the fact that the font size always changes back to 12pt. whenever you try to go to the end of the file. Other stupid little things I've noticed, too, and before I download 5.2, it would just be nice to know if these had been fixed.
Got a StarOffice 5.2 CD at JavaOne two weeks ago (and so did everyone else.) In internet time that's like a year or something.
http://www.sun.com/staroffice/source/index.html Sorry! We couldn't find your document. The file that you requested could not be found on this server. If you provided the URL, please check to ensure that it is correct or try a search above. If you are certain that this URL is valid, please send us feedback about the broken link. Thank you, sun.com
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Unix and Linux StarOffice 5.x installs fine as a multiuser application. You just need to read the instructions.
/net argument.
In order to install it multiuser, you have to be logged in as root and start the installer from the command line with the
As others pointed out on the above thread, that's the public beta and not the final 5.2.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
been trying to dl for a while and the pages keep timing out.. i know that i'm not to blame(dsl connection) so i'm thinking the servers are geting /.d again.. of well..
--DV
"Kermit the frog, cuz he gets all the hos!"
--DV
In this day it is safer to be a ninja than a samurai
"Maybe because the heading on every page says "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"..."
So what makes SO5.2 more "news for nerds" than Exchange 2000? Don't get me wrong, I don't want to E2k here--neither do I want to see SO5.2.
If your answer is "it runs on Linux" don't forget that there's a LOT of software that runs on Linux that for some reason we never hear about on Slashdot.
--
Compaq dropping MAILWorks?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
$9.99 CD-ROM of SO 5.2 is not available in english.
People who speak english must pay $39.99 for a CD, which includes a printed manual.
See what all those RTFM comments got you?!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I really like StarDraw. It has great UI, and I designed a great logo in it using the bezier curves. It can nicely export those, too.
I can't give a link right now because sun.com is currently slashdotted, but a few days ago I noticed on one of their FAQs that they were dropping the OS/2 version because of the low user base (presumably measured by # of downloads).
IMHO, I think StarDraw is the most overlooked part of StarOffice. I use StarOffice mainly for the draw part of it. Although there are certainly better tools for complex illustration (CorelDraw, Canvas, AI, etc.), it works just fine for typical business graphics, and is much better than what is typically included with popular (e.g., M$) office suites.
I have but one question re: 5.2: /usr/local would fail completely, even copying the few files needed for a user (w/ "net" install) would fail if that user's ~ was NFS mounted. I got it to work by symlinking ~/Office51 to a dir in /tmp, but honestly, I shouldn't have had to, don't you think?
Can it install correctly in NFS mounted directories? I recently installed 5.1 on my computer, but not before fighting with it for several days. Attempting to install into a subdir of
So can anyone confirm if these issues have been resolved?
MoNsTeR
There are some of us who are still firmly entrenched in the command-line-driven small-program-doing-one-task-well Unix philosophy. We occasionally would like to look at Word, etc. documents. We do not want a 96MB word processor / mail client / window manager. We just want the documents converted to TeX or HTML. I wish command-line versions of just the filters would be released. My suspicion is that the filters produce horrible conversions, however. Programs that produce, e.g., html ususally produce such poor html it makes you want to kill the programmer who wrote the software.
All this does is load an empty document, you still
have the "Desktop" environment loaded into memory.
And you still have to look at that hideous start
button. The %f doesn't work, at least in *nix.
If you are having trouble try:
/home/USER_NAME/Office51/bin/soffice private:factory/scalc
Oh well. Thanks anyhooo
this is suprising to me. i've never seen sun.com go down before under pressure.
ouch! the ne^Hotwork is the computer.
must be a java servlet or something, i'm sure hotspot will circumvent the bottleneck any hour now...
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Well, sorry to "disappoint" you - but Mac version is expected by the end of the year.
Hetz (Heunique)
IBM's pretty much told everyone to clear off of OS/2 before the end of 2001. After that, even bugfixes will be something you'll need to contract IBM consultants for. It's highly unlikely you'll see any more major upgrades to Smartsuite or the Notes client for OS/2. Why should Sun do more than IBM?
At least you won't have to reformat the OS/2 machines to turn them into X terminals, right? Grab a big Linux or Solaris box and run StarOffice 5.2 remotely if you insist on being the last passenger on the ship.
OS/2 was nice. It was a better Windows than Windows for a while, and is still a better DOS than DOS--just ask your voice mail system vendor. But it's over. Time to pack up and move along. IBM is.
I'm more surprised IBM's pulled the plug on OfficeVision. Who will fill the demand for 5250 green-screen-terminal office suites? The humanity!
This is why so many ported apps fail the simpler of the "is this good Mac code" tests. For example, most ported apps will not behave right if you move files around. Maybe I'm old-fashioned and Mac users have learned to live with it, but back when I programmed the Mac those were cardinal sins and Mac users would vote with their wallet (unless, of course, it happened to be a game and to be very good :-)
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
I'm maintaining a firewall, and the biggest bandwidth wasters today are Sun and (at a short distance) Apple. With wastage defined as content that never reaches the end user because the download process dies halfway through the gazillion byte download.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
I'm in the middle of mirroring it at AARNet
for people in australia trying to get this.
it'll probably still be a couple of hours away
but it's still likely to be faster waiting and
downloading locally.
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/staroffice/
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/staroffice/
-jason
SO 5.2 is out. Yay. Great.
I'm still trying to stop 5.1 from expiring. Every single link to the registration-disabling patch points to the dead stardivision.de site. The newsgroup is morbid too.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
For some reason, StarDivision (and now Sun) continue to assume that only one user will run StarOffice. While I have to put up with that kind of crap in the Windows world (e.g., most Windows software is ignorant of the multi-user issues of Windows NT/2000, including most of Microsoft's own software), you'd figure Sun would know better. As such, when I first installed StarOffice 4.0 a long time ago, I installed it as root and always had issues afterwards when running as other users (even when I opened up the permissions).
Of course, the multiuser installation is hidden with the command-line option "/net". Why this is either not the default or presented in the GUI as an option (at least they _do_ put it in the GUI readme now), I have no idea. When you install with the "/net" option, you install a shared copy that is just as good for multiple users on one system than multiple users over a network of systems. In fact, the "/net" label is really a misnomer, it should be "/multiuser" or something similiar.
The only other thing to remember is to install in another location than "/root/OfficeX" -- something that Sun should change when the "/net" option has been specified at the command line. While it is recommended that after this "multiuser install" each user run the ./setup binary that is located in the shared StarOffice binary directory, it's completely unnecessary. Due to the power of UNIX's multiuser orientation, StarOffice (at least 5.x does) notices that you haven't done the ~2MB user-installation yet if you run the ./soffice binary in the shared StarOffice directory. Simple no? [ Why not the default then?!?!?! ]
The last complaint is the continued political BS regarding the bundling of Java with StarOffice. If you have Windows, it is bundled. If you have Linux, it is not. [ Hmmm, have to check out Solaris and see if it is. ] That is just utter BS and seems to be a political issue with the Java license -- you can bundle it with a Windows binary product, but not a Linux binary product. Nuts!
Now on the bright side, one very cool thing about the new StarOffice 5.2 installer I just noticed is the lack of the requirement of the DISPLAY variable to be set correctly. E.g., I just su'ed in a terminal to root to install via the "/net" option and StarOffice figured out that it was running on the local system and set the DISPLAY variable correctly. Sure wish other vendor's installers would do the same. [ Now what happens if I try the "/net" install without being root? ]
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
This isn't as good as it sounds! This page actually shows all the filters available for the Linux release of StarOffice. It's a much shorter list.
I for one would like to know why this is. Is there a sound technical reason for releasing a larger number of filters for Windows and Solaris than for Linux?
Among those filters not supported under Linux are:
- WordPerfect (all versions, DOS & Windows)
- AmiPro
- Lotus Manuscript
- Frame Maker
Also, the way the Microsoft Word for Windows formats are described are different. On the "all the filters" page, these are described as folows: While the "linux filters" page says: Are the two "versions" using different filter sets entierely?--
or its because you look at the wrong places
heh I'm not a troll, maybe a little sarcastic but definatly not a troll :))
I tested with my
I apologize all the people looking for the virus inside StarOffice. I'm very blushed.
I refer you to the original question that started this thread:
What would the "unindoctrinated" prefer?
In this case defaulting to the familiar serves no useful purpose, except to hide one of the nicest features of X as an alternative to windows. You "and several others" hardly constitute a majority. As for the other 80%, we don't really know what they prefer, as they haven't been given a choice they are aware of, and most will likely never stumble across the possibility of changing the default behavior, or even understand what "focus" means.
Until recently, focus follows mouse was the default for nearly every window manager. It was a very positive way of differentiating between Unix/X and everyone else, an added feature of the GUI that everyone was immediately aware of and, contrary to your assertion, one that most people preferred. I find it disturbing that major distributions have started slighting one of the nicer features of the Linux/UNIX GUI in order to mimic an operating system most of us recognize as inferior. Part of switching to a new OS entails being willing to learn something new. The notion that people should switch transparently and be unaware of the change is IMHO flawed. What shall we get rid of next to mimic windows, logins and multi-user capabilities a la BeOS?[1]
Besides, if you don't like focus-follows-mouse, you can always change it.
[1] BeOS actually hides this, they've gotten rid of the console login, but multi-user capabilities exist for such things as network logins.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Christ man, does it even matter? It's a paragraph blurb that passes off the page within a day. I was just bitching about how everything thinks that linux has everything to /. and /. has everything to do with linux. Not that many sites have much about Exchange 2000 mainly because it's a boring product. I doubt they run an article every time there's a new version of sendmail. SO was featured because people expressed an interest in it as the story being posted at all most likely hinged on a horde of people submitting it.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
Message to Sun: Show Me The Code!
I was just introduced to 5.1 about 2 weeks ago, got it, and was impressed. I was considering buying MS Office 2000 because I really needed an office suite. After trying out Staroffice 5.1, I decided I'm going to stick with it. This is on a Win98SE box btw. Downloaded 5.2 as soon as I saw it was released on here, and on my system (Athlon 650, 256mb ram), it loads itself and the applications within itself MUCH faster than 5.1. I am very impressed. I'm a linux newbie. I installed Corel Linux on my older PC (300mhz, 64mb ram), and tried to install staroffice 5.2 from X and I can't figure out how. Please realize that I've only used linux for a total of maybe 20 minutes. It's a bin file, and I can't figure out how to extract it or whatever.. and Corel Linux boots straight into X.
less than 80% of 'people' (taken to be world's population) have even heard of a computer.
The point is that a new uesr, given the choice, would use sloppy focus (strict point to focus means that you can't stow the pointer away when you're done with it, which sloppy approaches fix). The 'xx% are familiar with it' argument is a serious barrier to progress -- if we all thought that we'd still be living in caves since 'xx% of people are used to it'.
John
John_Chalisque
(I do not need it for free, but I do need it to work!)