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Analysis of SuSE Linux Desktop
pdajames writes "ZDNet UK has a look at the new SuSE Linux Desktop, running Microsoft Office. They seem to think Linux is just about there when it comes to desktop users, although their words about StarOffice are not so kind. It seems like some of the reality of desktop Linux is starting to match the hype." Not being an Office power user myself, I felt that way a long time ago, but it's cool to see projects like Evolution get some more street cred.
SuSE is what allowed me to leave windows.
I've tried RedHat, Debian, and Mandrake. They all really do not work well for the desktop.
SuSE, however, has automatic updates (nightly!), EXCELLENT support (although RedHat has support, it is very expensive.)
All in all, fine tuned, ergonomic, German Precision.
A++.
...has certainly improved immensely over the last few years. My install of Mandrake 9.1 was lightyears ahead of the install I did of MSDOS 6.22 / Windows for Workgroups last week for playing those tons of old LucasArts CDS that barely run on XP.
The desktop might be polished, but they complain about a notable lack of polished apps. Essentially the author says that Evolution is about it. And, if you are going to run MS Office, what's the argument, again, for not running it under Windows?
Still, this is a nice step forward. But don't read too much into the article - there is still a long way to go.
When I see terms like "binary compatibility" in reference to a Linux distro, plus things like Lindows' application pay-service, it almost seems like we're being told that different Linux distros can't share the same programs.
If I'm slightly confused by this, imagine what the average user (who I imagine is the target market here) must think.
I think it nice review from outsiders.
Of course it has lots of politically correct F.U.D's.
But seeing positive words for GNU/Linux on ZD very nice. It's like seeing snowing in hawai islands.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
The lack of a really top-flight office suite remains one of Linux's weak points, and it is one for which CrossOver Office isn't really a long-term solution: after all, if you're using Microsoft Office, why not use Windows as well?
Ahhh, that would explain the popularity of MAME I suppose?
suse is good, especially for the popularity of linux. i feel like it's just like redhat in that regard, but it's not yet as fucked up as redhat is, so i still like it. plus linus uses suse at home, so it must be good. but gentoo is better.
I'm against picketing but I don't know how to show it.
If it has any chance to compete with windows, they should consider Redhat's strategy of allowing a free download (especially for home users) and charging for support. Right now, there is no chance to try it out without paying 80 bucks.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
What, no screenshots? next story
I hope all this "ready for the desktop" crap doesn't mean that windows is the measure how ready linux for the desktop is. Because that would mean to remove many features windows doesn't have and windows user don't know.
By te way, speaking of constant interface.
My notebook with XP (mainly used just for battery software) is not so constant. When you install Office 2003 beta the look they provide doesn't feel like a windows look. Rounded toolbars with ughly icons (ok, bad drawn icons are consistent with interface:). Yuck.
So, no feel of constant interface, basing on this review this must be bad.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
StarOffice is intended as a Microsoft Office replacement, and can read and write Office file formats. For most uses, it should be fine, but it does have limits.
I find writing the occasional macro useful in Word and mandatory in Excel. I know that many businesses do implement significant modifications and applications using VBScript for the Windows Office Suite. And there's a significant third party application market of these things, including some very sophisticated data modeling tools.
I understand why Open Office doesn't want to try to implement a VBScript clone, but why isn't there a Python, Ruby, or other scripting language implemented for OO?
What are the obscure technical reasons the article alludes to?
It will be in version 1.1. Just as PDF export for windows and swf export.
You can download beta2 and see for your self.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
perhaps somebody can clue me in here: is it possible to get what SuSe or RH are charging $$$$ for for free (of course support not included?). If not, why not - do they include proporietary (closed source / otherwise copy-restricted components?).
I know that if I were an OSS developer I'd be pissed off if some distribution companies were essentially using my code in a proprietary fashion through clever 'bundling' strategies.
There isn't a macro recorder, and for obscure technical reasons, there isn't likely to be one in the near future.
That's plain wrong, there's already a Macro recorder in OOo Writer 1.1 beta2. I also wonder which version they've used. I've been running 1.0.1 for professional purposes without big problems. And the problem I encountered were fixed in 1.1beta2.
They have a Basic intrepreter for stuff like that. It's called IIRC OpenOffice Basic.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
My
Progression over the last 3.5 years, '()' indicate experiments:
Mac 8.6, WIn98, (RH6.1),Win2K, (Yellow Dog, PPC) WInXP Home, Suse 8.1.
The Mac installs were always ez, the win installs were tedious, the RH & Yellow Dog/PPC had me reading manuals left & right. The SuSE install was brain-dead easy (easiest one of the bunch!, even easier than Mac), except for my lack of experience in assigning partitions (found a nice partioning scheme in the LAMP book (Lee, Ware - Addison Wesley).
Still fighting the WIn2K server & converting some Office docs, but that's just a matter of studying.
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
I believe the version of StarOffice included is the old one everyone has already tried and that OpenOffice is based on... am I right?
AFAIK, StarOffice is launching a beta program sometime soon to test their newest product that is supposed to be a whole lot better but that's all the info I have...
Also after reading the review, I was wondering why in the world a corporate employee would ever try to install the Ximian desktop on his work Suse box... I mean... this distribution is targeted at non-unix/linux users right... how would they even know about the Ximian desktop?
Thanks.
This review sounds about right for the state of Linux on the desktop. Lots of polish, lots of nice icons and fonts and anti-alias, but when it comes to native core productivity apps, the polish starts to lack. While I haven't tried Ximian OpenOffice.org, it seems like a step in the right direction -- a bit nicer interface, tighter integration with the desktop, etc.. Seems like lots of smaller apps (and KDE apps) have this nice consistent look and I'll be very pleased as more and more apps achieve this consistent professionalism. In anycase, the review is just about right. With the continued interest of Linux desktop from major distros, governments and corporations, I would have to guess that a lot of these rough edges will ultimately be addressed and the future for Desktop Linux will be very bright.
It's certainly not flamebait! Was that moderator smoking crack?
StarOffice is intended as a Microsoft Office replacement, and can read and write Office file formats. For most uses, it should be fine, but it does have limits. It is a bit slow, and, frankly, a bit buggy -- some of our attempts to customise it consistently caused it to shut down, for example.
I have the same crashing problem in SO with certain files, I ended up having to save them in excel format to avoid the consistent crash on save they generate otherwise (even going SO format->XLS->back to SO preseved the crashing behavior T.T). Pretty sad, eh? Overall it has met my college/homework needs, however.
The sco lawsuit is just the first salvo. As linux grows to be a credible competitor on the desktop, there will be alot of people that will be very upset about it.
You can expect patent claims to come out of microsoft. You can expect the long dead concept of the look and feel lawsuit to raise its head, and every other sleazy tactic that can be used will be used.
Remember during the senate hearings on microsoft, that they complained they always had competitors nipping at their heels ? Well I suspect we are about to find that they were perfectly happy with that as long as they weren't credible competitors.
I've been trying to switch over completely from *f*ing MS Office to OpenOffice, but unfortunately the lack of Outline view/function in OpenOffice is a major problem, that and lack of support for support for EndNote (a reference managing program).
:]
(As a scientist, I have to write a lot of grant applications for my living). Thus, outlining big hairy elaborate boring technical writing things is vastly helped by an outliner. Probably like this post would have been.
Anyway, does anyone know of a good Linux program that allows one to prepare and re-organize writing in an Outline form? No, don't tell me to use Emacs, that would be like a, er, well I can't think of anything clever so I'll just say a mis-use of a fine product.
I think, therefore I thought.
Uh, different interfaces from Windows have been true of all Office versions.
What's your point?
There are many absolute no-nos known by GUI designers. Try reporting a clear violation of one of those rules as a bug on an open source project and see what happens.
Let's open up OpenOffice Write and see what happens.
First, it takes about fifteen seconds to open the first time. Is there a good reason it should take that long? Could something occuring during startup be deferred until later? Could something be rearranged to cut down the number of I/O operations? Is there too much interpretive processing taking place. Yes, the program can be made resident in memory, but that's addressing the symptom, not the problem.
Now we have a window, showing most of a document, including the entire left margin, but probably not including the right edge of the text area. What's wrong with this picture? Try Word and see what it does.
Now type "a". A star-shaped thing pops up in the lower right of the screen. It's not clear what you're supposed to do with it. If you click on it, there's a 10-15 second delay, and a full screen window pops up, obscuring the document being worked on, announcing that "AutoCorrect has been activated. Start each sentence with a capital letter".
What we have here is a failure to communicate. An AI "helper" that doesn't have a clue about what you're doing has intervened before getting enough information to decide what to do, slammed you in the face with a full-screen stupid message, and suggested that you turn it off. That last is the one intelligent thing it's done.
The developers of OpenOffice seemed to be trying to emulate the Microsoft Paper Clip, which in itself isn't a popular feature. They totally blew it.
I could go on. But it's clear that nobody ever did proper usability testing on this thing. It comes across like a really cheezy Word clone.
In fact, OpenOffice isn't all that bad as a program. But as design, it sucks.
All this can be fixed. But because it's open source, it won't be.
If I was going to try to sell linux to my Boss I know the first 3 questions that will be asked.
1) So we can install Office XP. Will Microsoft support it?
2) Can we patch MS Office after we install it? (Microsoft doesn't just do security patches they fix features too. Being able to fix those is a big deal for us.)
3) So we've freed ourselves from dependance on Microsoft for support. How many companies can we get to support Mandrake?
Anyone have any idea on the answers to these? I'm not trying to be sarcastic I really should be able to answer these if I want to even try and suggest linux
"Freedom of speech has always been the abstract red-headed stepchild of the Constitution"
-Suck
"One complaint we have in the ease-of-use department is the integration of the KDE and Gnome user interfaces. Linux applications are generally built on one or the other, and while we ran Gnome applications without any problem with the KDE desktop, there were occasional glitches."
:)
This is really bugging me the most about the current state of Linux on the desktop. We have two great Desktop Environments - thats one too much. I don't buy the argument of competition on the Linux desktop. There is enough to compete against out there (Windows, and especially Mac OS X).Both Gnome and KDE are great pieces of software, but Linux will not success before there is a common environment on which all GUI-centered software is based on.
I personally would vote for KDE as a basis since its IMO more advanced and has a better underlying design. The great stuff in Gnome that KDE is lacking should be ported over. I know this is not going to happen, but it would lead the Linux desktop to a quicker success.
Sorry, for the KDE endorsement, I couldn't resist. I really don't want to start the usual flame war again
I'd say that Office XP is what keeps a lot of would-be Linux using companies attached to their Windows desktops. I don't see why all the major Linux distros haven't focused on this one important thing earlier. I would think it would be their primary concern to steal some of Microsoft's desktop holdings.
796F75617265616E65726400
Isn't there something called starbasic included with staroffice and openoffice?
creation science book
There is Starbasic. That very similar to VB but as the document model is different in Star/OpenOffice than in MS-Office macros written for one environment can't directly be transferred to the other without porting.
One other problem with the current version of Star/OpenOffice is tha lack of a macro recorder. This will be fixed in the next version though.
It's allready fully functional in the beta versions
of Star/OpenOffice.
Apart from built in macro features, there is also a SDK available for Star/OO that enables you to write extensions in languages like java and C/C++
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
Ive used a SuSE linux desktop for work for years and evolution takes it several steps closer to being perfect for the average office user to use.
... added a backup fileserver share for everyone without anyone asking where it came from ... the desktops are really the only objective left to conquer.
I've already replaced one XP/winroute gateway machine (dont ask me) with a linux box without anyone seeming to notice
Squad move out!
Yes sir!
*DrugCheese rants*
Yes "damn them" for inventing computers.
> I know that many businesses do implement significant modifications and applications using VBScript for the Windows Office Suite.
:-).
You are not wrong there. I have worked for a number of very big Wall Street banks and some portfolio managers run practically their whole businesses on Excel macros (no wonder their advice is so bad
At one place they pulled share information from four exchanges down from a mainframe, ran beta calculations using a macro, sent portfolios out to a Barra engine to calculate risk and then displayed the whole thing as a nice report for a fund manager. All this off a single button in Excel. Excel was being used as some almighty scratchpad to do all the calculations.
Doing anything with these kind of applications is a nightmare, they are built up by mathmaticians who don't have the first clue about programming over a number of years. They are rarely documented and are incredibly brittle.
To be honest, Windows applications are like a cancer. Get one in your company and they will eventually eat the whole body from the inside out.
I thought the main reason that Munich went with SuSE is because of cost. But looking at the numbers, I don't see the savings:
Pricing
SuSE sells SLD only in combination with a maintenance programme that covers a minimum of five desktops. The five-desktop, one-year maintenance contract, along with an installation kit, runs at $598, with $99.80 for each additional desktop. A 10-client, one-year contract costs $998 with the installation kit and further discounts kick in for higher-volume customers.
As an education customer, I can buy a perpetual license of Windows XP Professional for $59 per CPU, and $15 for an installation disc. This is not a one-year contract, but a license that is owned for that CPU for its life.
I'm not a Microsoft fan (I'm a Mac person, mostly) but since governments get even better software pricing than education, I would be curious to know what Munich was offered to use Windows over Linux.
From the above description, I don't see SuSE's offering as competitively priced. (Even if it was a longer term license!)
Where am I wrong?
I tried the latest Mandrake and Red Hat distros, but I find SuSE 8.2 to be both the most user friendly and also very comprehensive in it's packaged software. If you want to try it out go to linuxiso.org and then click on forums and look for a post with a link to an FTP with all five isos on it.(Remember only to try it now).
Creative Demolition
What are the obscure technical reasons the article alludes to?
:o(
Microsoft doing their hardest to make sure that you cannot easily reverse engineer VBA perhaps?
However, this comment is out of date (or nearly so) as theyhave managed to get it going in OO.org 1.1 beta, despite the same roadblocks that MS used to try and cripple Samba, WineX etc. A little while to get it stable and it should be in Star Office as well.
Personally I am not sad that it's not in OO at the moment, as too many people waste time writing VBA apps for things that really should be done in a proper language. Some of the hacks required to get a crippled version of a crippled language running in a crippled environment beggar belief.
Worst of all is when managers spend aeons hammering on about 'portable code' and 'good structure' and 'maintanable design' right before asking for a DB app knocked up in Access. Aaaargh! Hypocritical goits! No one can write anything but a dirty hack in VBA, it _just isn't possible_!
All you should need is a clean, open API into your business logic which should be destinct from the application suite and centralised for version control and efficiency, which can then hook into a _real_ database for data security and integrity. None of this half assed scripting rubbish that so many people get away with, even for enterprise applications
Beep beep.
Linux as a viable desktop operating system has been apparently coming over the horizon for so long that it would easy to dismiss as a mirage
Be? Is it just me, or there's no "Be".. in the first sentence of the article.... You have my complete attention ZDNet, you obviously are on top of things.
I just checked at at a local store xp home is like 160. and since you have to buy MS office anyway to make good use of this.. not a big difference
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Who will they sue if this is true? Most Linux contributions come from anonymous hackers stealing ideas, infringing on patents, and just all around copying what's out there (not that I have a problem with that, and not that all contributions are illegal). The point is, even if Linux is guilty of breaking laws, who can they sue? I suppose they could sue companies for using linux, which would discourage adoption, but at the same time companies will be making legit contributions to linux because its getting popular. Meh , what else is new? Someone is always getting sued in the US. Maybe the RIAA can sue Linus for making an OS that allows Internet connectivity which can in-turn download MP3's.
Actually, wrong. Because it's open source, any company can take the application, make a "better" version, and sell or distribute it. (With source, they have to adhere to the license.)
You imply that OSS means user unfriendly, but this is speaking in bad faith. I'm an OSS developer and my applications have always been extremely nice to use.
Specifically with OpenOffice, the interface does have a few things (like the imitation paperclip) that annoy but overall it is extremely clean and the quality of the design comes over in its minimalism and efficiency.
I'm fairly sure that you can report your usability concerns to the OOo team and they will take them into account.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I'm running 8.2. Downloaded almost 5.4 gigs off of the mirror (no ISO's means i'm forced to do this in case my net connection goes down and is less taxing to download the files multiple times for multiple machines). Very impressed that it mounted a windows share and installed from there. I wasn't sure what directory structure i needed to point the share to but i picked it up. Install went well and fast. My firewall script based on iptables that worked on redhat 8/9, slackware 8/9, and mandrake 8 failed. Ended up using YaST2 firewall setup and that worked like a charm. I tried as I might to add an ftp or http source from various Suse ftps, it wouldn't let me (inst_nosrc_media) or something similar. Maybe it's me not reading instructions but I'd rather have it go out and find a bunch of mirrors and let me add them instead of not suggesting anything. Same thing happened when installing to laptop. It keeps assuming that all packages will be on my windows share (i wasn't going to download all the src packages as well cause that would have make the installation mirror way more than 5.4 gig). Everything else went rather smooth (installing app A, server B ...). What I can't figure out currently is what is required to get TV out working under it (there seems to be no inherent controls) and I'm sure i need to get the right vid card driver separate from the one it assumed it was - Slackware on the other hand worked out of the box with the TV out. As I see it, there a whole bunch of conformation issues in regards to the end user experience. Take for example TV out functionality in Windows provided by most companies is a tab in the display properties advanced page. Standardizing certain components to insert into an equivalent Suse page (whether it's just a widget that runs a commandline app to control the card) would allow for a more pleasant expected experience. It's good to see Konqueror still crashes tho. With all that, I still like it and it will remain on my machine.... until something new rolls along.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Never again do I want to see "street cred" on slashdot.
That is the stupidest god damned term as of late and fo shizzle, keep it with the basketball krew, k?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Leo does a great job with what you're asking for. It's really intended to be more of a programming tool than a writer's outliner, but it still does the job of outlining beautifully, and has some nice perks thrown in. Plus, it's free.
I've used it for organizing book chapters, and it does that job beautifully. I even have a friend who uses it for outlining, writing, and then automatically outputting finished text in LaTeX. That goes way beyond my needs of simple outlining. Unfortunately, Leo doesn't let you print your outline directly to paper. You have to follow an exporting command, and in the process you'll lose your outline's hierarchical format.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Linux companies have been releasing supposedly user-friendly distributions for years,... the newly minted SuSE Linux Desktop -- the software the city of Munich will be using
If the employees of the City of Munich are as humorless as our DMV the user-friendliness or lack thereof will not be apparent to them.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
linux has a serious binary compatibility isssue. One which linux advocates do not mention but sadly enough has become more an more prevalent these days. It got so bad recetly that i had to reinstall my mandrake 9.0 syatem with 9.1 just to use gaim. Thats pretty bad. Also just try using mandrake 8.x .. hardly any precompiled packages off the web will work fo you.
Its really sad becasue all of the resinatlling and crashing drove me to the point that i swotched to OSX so i sould use a satble desktop.
the major problems are:
1. Gcc changes
2. Glibc changes
3. libpng changes (2 and 3 are not compatible on the same machine)
4. people using beta perl or X11 versions to compile
5. people using bizzare libs (not so much a problem anymore)
and yes redcarpet and urpmi have helped also switching to kde helped since it does not have alot of carzy random libraries. but it was still aproblem and i realised that i spent more time fixing and configuring than being productive.. that forced me to switch to OSX
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
please do not let this FAILURE count on my permanent record. i promise that i will SUCCEED IT soon.
A, if not the, big problem with open source development is that it's not good at fixing usability problems. Too few developers read Bruce Tognazzini, or know who Susan Kare is. They think "user friendly" means "has skins".
Openoffice is ugly. That's just a given. That does NOT imply that all open-source projects are unusable and poorly designed. Try a recent version of Gnome, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how well the apps follow a consistent human interface guide. If you report UI stupidity as a bug on a gnome project, it will be fixed.
You can rip on OpenOffice all you want, but please educate yourself a little before you assume all open-source projects are the same. (Or don't, it probably won't get you a "+5, Insightful" on slashdot nearly as fast.)
0 1 - just my two bits
No one can write anything but a dirty hack in VBA, it _just isn't possible_!
This is SOOO wrong. Bad developers write bad code in VBA (and any other language), good developers write good code in VBA (and any other language). All VBA does is make bad developers out of people having no business coding in the first place because is't so accesible, but their code would be just as awful in any other language.
All you should need is a clean, open API into your business logic which should be destinct from the application suite and centralised for version control and efficiency, which can then hook into a _real_ database for data security and integrity. None of this half assed scripting rubbish that so many people get away with, even for enterprise applications :o(
Scripting is good for (at least) one thing - to act as "glue" between the business logic API you describe (and I agree there should be one), and the user interface. Look at ASP or PHP - they both provide wonderful vehicles for doing "gluing" of business logic to web pages. Scripting is not necessarily bad, you know.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
I wondered the same as I was reading his (authors of the article) bitchin' about constant look and feel:) ...
There's no constant look and feel in Windows, where the hell has he seen it.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
It's shockingly hard to read VBA code - even stuff I wrote myself 3 months ago and documented well. It's the splitting up of the code along arbritary (ie this code relates to this table, and this code relates to this interface) versus functional (this code relates to user interaction and this code relates to logic) lines. It's almost impossible, no matter how talented, to functionally split VBA code into clean modules - some dirty hacks have to be used, and these make the code even less readable than splitting it up along arbitrary lines in the first place.
:o)
As for my comment about scripting - you are indeed right, it is great for interfacing one thing to another. It's the fact that it's being used for logic and processing that I am bitching about
Beep beep.
Flame away, but this is the one thing that's keeping me from using Linux. There really is nothing like Access out there for the "intermediate" db user AFAIKT. I don't need super-power, but I do need many quick and dirty forms to allow data entery in a lot of different ways, me being the only user so I don't have to worry about confusing others. Linux + Access like power and simple scripting (yes that can be a plus at the personal level) = me sold.
Those who would give up customizability for simplicity, will lose both, and gain neither.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Performance, however, was surprisingly snappy, considering we were using an older 500MHz Pentium III machine with 256MB of RAM; opening and moving windows around, for example, did not show any noticeable performance lag.
Since when does one need 256MB of RAM and a 500MHz Pentium to move windows around? Is the reviewer so brainwashed by wintel upgrade-mania that he/she does not know that you don't need that much power to simply move windows around the screen?
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
That's a remarkably bad attempt at trolling. Try learning English.
I've never seen a more blatant trolling in my life. Let's dissect this post shall we?
...it's not yet as fucked up as redhat is...
...TROLL!
...plus linus uses suse at home...
Last time I checked that was IRRELEVANT!
And in closing...
but gentoo is better.
Oviously a Gentoo fanboy.
I hereby proclaim this post FLAMEBAIT!
i ave never used StarOffice. however, my P3-933/512MB running RH9 loads OO.org in about 9 seconds. and it runs fast. and the menus are all anti-aliased. and i have never had a crash. and since i'm a teacher, i use OO.org for tons of things.
this desktop thing is really getting stupid. linux is so ready for the corporate desktop. and even the educational desktop. and lots of home users.
if you hired someone who "knows" Word, and they can't figure out Writer in a few minutes, they are idiots, and you hired a moron. this whole retraining things is pure bullshit.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I can't help it. I'm sick of these articles putting linux up against Windows. I'm sick of Windows as being the one thing that sets the standards. I know that's my own tough luck but it bytes. I don't want my Open Office to use VB scripting, look at the damages VB has done. I don't wan't my desktop to look like the new XP.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
1. Probably not.
2. Probably not.
3. Mandrake, for one.
More on #3 - most organizations *don't* rely on MS directly for support. They hire employees or contractors to support desktops or software packages after reasonably assuring themselves those people have some experience with the particular MS products they want support for. You want/need Mandrake Linux support? Hire people who have Linux experience. They will troubleshoot and track down problems in man pages, IRC channels and forums the same way most MS techs track down and resolve problems - via helpdocs, forums and email lists. It's a small percentage of people that go direct to MS support when they have problems (outside of the web knowledgebase, which most linux distros have too).
creation science book
'Course pad're WinDoz sets the standard, cause nobody beats their HumanFactors work, and nobody has a personal database good as ACCESS. So their ya go. Do I need to spell-it-out? No ACCESS workalike & weak reptile_brain hardwires .... really, pad're ya got no GUI desktop.
Why do you insist upon using a WYSIWYG document editor?
You're a smart, technical person.
Get Vim installed and spend two evenings reading through the included manual.
Get a TeX/LaTeX/BibTeX system set up.
Not only will you produce much higher quality portable documents, ready for professional publishing, faster, but you will save time not having to fiddle with layout issues and the guesswork that is inherent in an editor like Word.
Vim allows you to have multiple levels of "folds". This means that you can easily hide and unhide logical sections of your document with two keystrokes.
You can customize how the hidden text is indicated and even summarized.
As a scientist, you will be happy to know that LaTeX is as far superior to Word in typesetting mathematical formulae, as is Linux to DOS.
At least with well more than 99% of all Linux stuff, you get the source code you can review. Try this with Windows and it's automatic updates!
"This is one tool i never knew existed (and took some time understanding WHY it is good) back in the sinnful days of windows using. :)"
For the same reason OOPS languages work. It is a closer fit both to the way people actually think, and the problem set itself. While hiding the true horsepower out of sight, but available if needed. Everything else is trying to fit variably odd-shaped pegs into perfect holes.
I seem to recall while trying OOo (prior to the 1.0 release) there was a scripting language included, called "StarBasic" I believe. While it could not directly read VBasic code, it seemed easy enough to port the code over. Ive not looked at OOo for a while so it is possible that it has been removed.
can anyone do a wordcount on evolution in this article? I feel my id complaining about mental overload, ..
urges to install gnomelibs,...
helpme
I have done some of the only Excel macros that I know of in my Fortune 250 company, and they were -- and continue to be -- used on a regular basis every day for years. I can't recall the last time I got a call about them. They are quite extensive, as you example suggests, though I the program that did a pull from our mainframe went away many, many years ago.
.NET because it needed overhauling, and I figured it was time, since my company is one that got sucked into the Microsoft arm-twisting and bought into the upgrade-or-pay-full-price scenario, and now we're rolling out XP desktops.
It's unfair to say that, as a whole, VBA "programs" (more precisely: macros) are nightmarish, poorly documented, and brittle. I find that the object models are not as well documented as I care for, but that's a different animal. Everything you commented on is up to the programmer. If the macro is poorly documented or "brittle," then someone else needs to be writing the thing. There's no reason to lay the blame at Microsoft's feet for that. I can write undocumented, uncommented, non-robust applications in any language.
Now, all of that having been said, I do find that this way of fixing some problems is unfortunate as well. Locking my company further into bed with Microsoft is disturbing. I just spent the last month rewriting a VB6 app in
I really, really hate to say this, but while I think Microsoft Office is an almost complete waste of money over OpenOffice, the ability to automate it with VBA is a compelling reason to use it, if you need some small applications that run on Windows. It's easy, fast, and flexible.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
So instead of waiting for some programmer to write a program that may do what the analyst needs, this person went out, wrote an extensive macro that worked!, and now gets crap about it?
Nevermind that this person was getting work done instead of sitting on his thumbs waiting for someone else to write a program that was fully documented and formatted correctly, but probably didn't do what he really wanted because it was written by a non-mathematician that is more worried about the OS or programming language that is used.
If you think Linux is an innovator, you are seriously mislead. Linux is clearly a follower, not a leader. Almost everything in Linux has been done previously in either windows or another commercial Unix. Exempli gratia KDE; if that isn't an M$ rip-off I don't know what is (Of course windows is a Mac/OS rip-off which is a Xerox rip-off, but who's keeping track?). I'm pretty sure all the Office suites for Linux are trying to be M$ Office. XMMS is trying to be winamp. I'm bet most kernel tweaks have been done in Solaris long before they were in Linux. Linux is largely trying to play catch-up. It's getting closer, and the only reason most companies consider it is because its free (as in beer). Certainly there have been *some* innovations in Linux (tabbed browsing), but for *the most part*, its all been done before. None of this even matters because the point of my original comment was: "who are they going to sue?" and I stand by that. Yeah, they could sue individual hackers and take their bicycles away or something, but sueing Linux is like sueing Soviet Russia in the height of the Cold War.
There have been plenty of security vulnerabilities in Open Source Software that were discovered, not by peer review, but by black hats.
Some security holes aren't discovered by the good guys until an attacker's tools are found on a compromised site, network traffic captured during an intrusion turns up signs of the exploit, or knowledge of the bug finally bubbles up from the underground.
Why is this? When the security company Trusted Information Systems (TIS) began making the source code of their Gauntlet firewall available to their customers many years ago, they believed that their clients would check for themselves how secure the product was. What they found instead was that very few people outside of TIS ever sent in feedback, bug reports or vulnerabilities. Nobody, it seems, is reading the source.
The fact is, most open source users run the software, but don't personally read the code. They just assume that someone else will do the auditing for them, and too often, it's the bad guys.
Old versions of the Sendmail mail transport agent implemented a DEBUG SMTP command that allowed the connecting user to specify a set of commands instead of an email address to receive the message. This was one of the vulnerabilities exploited by the notorious Morris Internet worm.
Sendmail is one of the oldest examples of open source software, yet this vulnerability, and many others, lay unfixed a long time. For years Sendmail was plagued by security problems, because this monolithic programs was very large, complicated, and little understood but for a few.
Vulnerabilities can be a lot more subtle than the Sendmail DEBUG command. How many people really understand the ins and outs of a kernel based NFS server? Are we sure its not leaking file handles in some instances? Ssh 1.2.27 is over seventy-one thousand lines of code (client and server). Are we sure a subtle flaw does not weakening its key strength to only 40-bits?
They didn't invent computers! An American named Charles Babbage did!
Charles Babbage was one of the key figures of a great era of American history. Born as the industrial revolution was getting into its swing, by the time Babbage died America was by far the most industrialized country the world had ever seen. Babbage played a crucial rôle in the scientific and technical development of the period.
Although born in New York, Babbage came from an old California family, and retained close links with the region all his life. The West Coast, with its mining and engineering was particularly important in the early stages of the industrial revolution, and from the extraordinarily wealthy San Francisco region, with its port at the ocean, came also Newcomen and Savery, pioneers of the steam engine.
You suck gravy through a tube!
I hear a lot, including in this article, about fonts that Agfa have developed and/or make available, that are pixel-for-pixel replacement for Windows fonts.
Can someone make this clearer for me? A brief look around Agfa's site suggests that they (as Monotype Corporation) developed all the Windows fonts, and may be able to license them out to other people.
Are the MS TT core fonts Not (Free?) Enough?
were in that does it say he invented computers?
to my knowledge the first proper computer was collosus which was developed in england during the second world war to help with the decryption efforts in bletchly park
''Microsoft's volume-licensing programme is notoriously opaque. However, SuSE's prices seem reasonable, and the structure is straightforward.
SuSE sells SLD only in combination with a maintenance programme that covers a minimum of five desktops. The five-desktop, one-year maintenance contract, along with an installation kit, runs at $598, with $99.80 for each additional desktop. A 10-client, one-year contract costs $998 with the installation kit and further discounts kick in for higher-volume customers.''
I'm sure that many IT admins will appreciate a clear and straight-forward licensing structure, but the question I have for anyone in the know is what would the cost be for a comparable WinXP setup?
It would have driven home the relative value of this distro if the reviewer had made an attempt at showing how much Microsoft charges for a similar package, espcially because that's the key issue for corporate decision-makers: ROI
All in all, fine tuned, ergonomic, German Precision.
That'll be the day...when I put those Bosch spark plugs in my GM 454. True German precision! And they're cheaper than fishing weights, so that makes them even better, right?
C'mon, they have no more precision than an ex-nerd. All us real nerds will stay with Debian. All the pre-nerds will purchase Mandrake, and then regress to RedHat when the Nerd Gland(TM) begins to mature.
All of you people that want German Precision(R), whatever that is, get SuSE.
Biography
Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Charles Babbage was one of the key figures of a great era of British history. Born as the industrial revolution was getting into its swing, by the time Babbage died Britain was by far the most industrialized country the world had ever seen. Babbage played a crucial rôle in the scientific and technical development of the period.
Although born in London, Babbage came from an old Totnes family, and retained close links with the region all his life. The West Country, with its mining and engineering was particularly important in the early stages of the industrial revolution, and from the extraordinarily wealthy Totnes region, with its port at Dartmouth, came also Newcomen and Savery, pioneers of the steam engine.
Babbage went up to Cambridge in 1810 and with some friends effected the crucial introduction of the Leibnitz notation for the calculus, which transformed mathematics in Cambridge and thus throughout Britain.
In 1814 Babbage married Georgiana Whitmore, from a landowning Shropshire family. Her half brother, Wolryche Whitmore, was the M.P. who rose year after year in the House of Commons to move the repeal of the Corn Laws. He was also a leading member of the Political Economy Club, and played an important part in Babbage's life.
Babbage's greatest achievement was his detailed plans for Calculating Engines, both the table-making Difference Engines and the far more ambitious Analytical Engines, which were flexible and powerful, punched-card controlled general purpose calculaters, embodying many features which later reappeared in the modern stored program computer. These features included: punched card control; separate store and mill; a set of internal registers (the table axes); fast multiplier/divider; a range of peripherals; even array processing.
It has often been asked whether Babbage's Engines would have worked if they had been built. This may not be an entirely meaningful question: much can go wrong during such a project, while on the other hand new solutions may be found to any problems which might appear during construction. However the question can be put slightly differently: would it have been technically feasible for, say, Babbage and Whitworth to construct an Analytical Engine during the 1850s?
Twenty five years ago, after a careful investigation, Anthony Hyman and the late Maurice Trask formed the opinion that construction of Babbage's Engines would have been quite possible. The problems were financial and organizational, but technically the project in itself was perfectly feasible. They proposed a plan.
After much work by many people, and particularly by Dr. Allan Bromley, a team at the Science Museum led by Doron Swade built a complete version of DE2. It was a triumphant success, vindicating Babbage's technical work. However, the far more ambitious task of constructing an Analytical Engine remains to be undertaken.
Besides the Calculating Engines Babbage has an extraordinary range of achievements to his credit: he wrote a consumer guide to life assurance; pioneered lighthouse signalling; scattered technical ideas and inventions in magnificent profusion; developed mathematical codebreaking (Prof. Franksen has plausibly suggested that Babbage ran a private Bletchley Park for the British government in the middle of the +19th century).
Babbage was also an important political economist. Where Adam Smith thought agriculture was the foundation of a nation's wealth; where Ricardo's ideas were focused on corn: Babbage for the first time authoritatively placed the factory on centre stage. Babbage gave a highly original discussion of the division of labour, which was followed by John Stuart Mill. Babbage's discussion of the effect of the development of production technology on the
I think LyX, which has already been mentioned in another post, is a good compromise. It is based on LaTeX, so you can use LaTeX for formulae, tree diagrams etc, and on the other hand, it comes quite close to WYSIWYG (if you count previewing the DIV files, it is WYSIWYG). People who are used to LaTeX perhaps prefer writing LaTeX source code, but I think for many LyX is a good way to have the best of both worlds.
Personally, I don't trust anyone with automatic updates. I like reviewing what each update does, whether I need it, and if anyone has experienced any problems with it.
I personally have firewalled windows off from its updates and genneral chatter back to base. I don't trust it , and I especially don't trust the computer thinking it can upgrade to new licence restrictions without my permission.
I also never really trusted redhats or mandrakes updates either. On a few occasions its busted things for me.
But I *do* trust debian. Quite simply the tightly scrutinised review process is nearly (not quite tho!) waterproof enuff for me to leave it on a cron job and get it to notify me if anything wants to ask questions.
Debain has NEVER let me down, and with apt on a cronjob, it also leaves me alone. Just how I like it , neither seen nor heard.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.