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.

Comments

Just about there?

[positive]

It's just about where?

Re:Just about there?

[Fecal Troll Matter]

You're a fucking racist.

It's a Saturday

[gpinzone]

Time for a FP to kick off the weekend!

omg I did it

[Anonymous Coward]

first post for trollaxor's cock! I DID NOT FAIL IT

Re:omg I did it

[Anonymous Coward]

"I DID NOT FAIL IT"

Ummmmm, yeah, you did.

Re:omg I did it

[Anonymous Coward]

please do not let this FAILURE count on my permanent record. i promise that i will SUCCEED IT soon.

My Balls Itch. ca3f6e75176256acc0e0756a3f8ecc

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot

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74002ed32ae5c737a998d12d3693142417170f265eb26e87 88 50c9177f1d5780d9618ba726f62de721997196bb5619e52ef6 b53bebd1a794aa0fe7749ed72393088a5f37b756a42a21cc98 eaf804ad029c33ea7188cb0fc5d524f4ad1e8d8fc5453cad7c 1485fc1be3731762b7f6c0b9f79995153b479a0830ca77943d 5ed37f4b7a2cf08c2e361d9f8c481c7eaac2e834ff462c2eca 7365339aa7b238a9c1439d37d082ca6a765927ac1fe71fd53e 07ec3e9704cd5325678db03f3772ee9f99

SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

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++.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait? FLAMEBAIT?

Who's the moderator on frickin crack?

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[loginx]

Haha... too bad you can't moderate moderations... I'd rate that one "funny".

It would also be cool if moderators could leave a comment when they leave a negative score...

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[deadsaijinx*]

It's interesting that you mentioned the automatic updates. I find it interesting that you are pleased that SuSE does nightly auto updates, and most people hate MS for it's automatic updates. That alone says a lot about consumer trust of Linux over MS.

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.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[yamla]

You can moderate moderations. It's called metamoderation and I do it almost every day.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

I like reviewing what each update does, whether I need it, and if anyone has experienced any problems with it.

You mean, like you can do with Microsoft's updates?

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Elaborate on this ... how do you check closed source updates ?

If you dismiss this as being ridiculus, then check back. There were updates that send you dvd viewing habits to ms, that blocked viewing of .asf files with any external app.

You did catch those ? You obviously have a system that never had those problems ? A system without any bad updates.

If not -> shut up

And let's be fair, you never decently checked ANY of those updates. For all you know they could have been irc ddossing programs.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[EpsCylonB]

I like reviewing what each update does, whether I need it, and if anyone has experienced any problems with it.

Every update ?, maybe on a server that might make sense. Afterall on a web server you probably shouldn't be running anything other than the OS and web server software so the amount of updates would be small.

But on a desktop you could have many different applications that the user will need. Would checking every update really be an effecient use of time ?. Generally desktops aren't as mission critical as server's as well.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[justsomebody]

Problem with that updates is that you can't make some updates if you don't wan't some of them you might not be able install other ones.

btw. XP updates are automatical and made as stupid as possible. You get a zillion of Updates listed in Add/Remove software but no info what it was updated and most when it was updated. In more then one try when you uninstall one of them system crashes with no recovery possible. At least the recovery that lies on the system CD should not be called recovery, it's just a base install over (being surprised that I lost most of working applications everytime I run that sucker).

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[loginx]

I know about metamoderation.
What I meant was to moderate them as "Funny" for example... Metamoderation is only to make sure moderators don't screw up too much...

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[deadsaijinx*]

My workstation doubles as a render Node and triples as a small web server (I know i should offload these tasks onto other computers, but so far it's worked out well). To me, uptime is very important, and the apps I run work well enough that I rarely worry about updating until I'm confident about the stability of said updates, or if it's a crucial security patch (I still like to wait and here about any potential conflicts). If it works, there's no reason to fix it :]

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Angry Pixie]

I actually use MS's automatic update feature, and I like it. My take on it is that if it's a Microsoft OS patch, it is something that is needed. I've grown to expect security patches and bug fixes, and I don't trust an MS OS that says it doesn't need them... that says alot about my mistrust of MS :)

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[gotr00t]

I think that he means nightly updates, as in they update their site with new software and some patching, when necessary. In the case of Windows, it means patches for the operating system, not always desirable.

Moreover, people hate automatic Windows updates because in their EULA, I remember there was a clause that essentially allowed Microsoft to scan Windows XP based computers and automatically apply updates. On SuSE'S YOU(YaST Online Update), it's entirely your choice when you want to update.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[fmaxwell]

Elaborate on this ... how do you check closed source updates ?

By reading the description provided by the vendor as to what the update does. Microsoft typically supplies very detailed, informative descriptions of what each update does, to whom it applies, etc. For instance, here's one. I have never seen that level of detail and professionalism from any Linux distro vendor.

The vast majority of computer users, and even network administrators, would not be able to read C source and, to them, a detailed description of the update is far more valuable than source code. Providing the information to them is much more important than providing source code to you -- given their numbers.

Do you review and fully understand the source code to every update that you install on your computer? As you said, if not -> shut up.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[cscx]

Oh, cut the bullshit. Unless you examine every code update, line by line, you're the one being ridiculous.

And most distribution updaters (e.g., apt) provide binary updates, not source, so unless you're a whiz assembly programmer disassembling each package's binaries, -> shut up.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[The Analog Kid]

They probably won't bullshit you will wierd licensing either, because there is competiton with in Linux, if you don't like them, there is someone else, right now atleast your someone they can't afford to loose.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[NanoGator]

"hat alone says a lot about consumer trust of Linux over MS."

It says a lot about Linux zealousy. Any feature can have a good side and a down side. For example, a single mouse button is good because it's simpler and more intuitive to use. Good job Apple for figuring that out! 3 mouse buttons are better than one measly mouse button because you can be more productive with it. Good job Microsoft! Apple, you suck!

The same thing's happening here between Windows and Linux. Lotsa growing up needs to be done.

Incidentally, the Automatic Update that Microsoft does is the answer to the call to make IE less exploit prone. There are lots of 'dumb people' as it's been put before who don't install service packs. Well this feature takes care of the updates as they come along. That's bad?

While we're on this topic, it also explains some of the EULA terms you all were getting your panties in a twist about. The same term that made a lot of people here say "That means they can snoop on my hard drive!" really means "MS can detect the apps that they have updates for and correct them."

Sorry for the rant, It just bugs me how MS hate fogs the mind.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, the majority of this bulletin is an FAQ stating why MS had to re-issue this security bulletin. Turns out they were more vulnerable than they first thought and that their first fix caused other problems.

It should be pointed out that not only are SuSE's security announcements equally as descript, they are much easier to find. This URL is directly linked off their home page and contains the entirety of their security patches (mostly non-OS related applicate updates).

http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/security/ in dex.html

Please demonstrate agian how MS is so much better.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Arandir]

Funny, every Free UNIX system with package management has automatic nightly updates... but not necessarily by default.

Find a good ftp site for your system and write your own update script.

No, I'm not being elitist in telling you to do stuff yourself. I'm merely pointing out the major benefit of Free UNIX: you are in charge of your own system. Stop relying on Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc., to administer your system for you. Be your own master.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[fmaxwell]

First of all, the majority of this bulletin is an FAQ stating why MS had to re-issue this security bulletin. Turns out they were more vulnerable than they first thought and that their first fix caused other problems.

The specifics of the bulletin are irrelevent. I just picked one at random. I could have been more selective and picked out something that was inconsequential or was not security-related.

It should be pointed out that not only are SuSE's security announcements equally as descript, they are much easier to find.

How is it easier to find than hitting "Windows Update" and then clicking on the description of the updates shown?

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[roskakori]

Personally, I don't trust anyone with automatic updates.

neither do i. but the semi-automatic update tools like in mac os x are also no solution. one feature i'm wishing for is a "delayed update": the os-vendor should make updates available as soon as possible, but i as a user might choose to "see" them only after, say, 2 weeks.

take for instance, mac os x: in the past 2 years, apple has released buggy updates that

• accidentally formatted your harddisk (under certain circumstances, and only if you had 2 of them)
• deleted your email (only if german was set as preferred language)
• destroyed your ibook battery (which was kinda cool if you got a replacemend 2 months before the guarantee ended).

the only one that effected me was the battery-killer, but still, that's a kinda scary history.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

If not -> shut up


God how I fucking hate dumbasses who try to throw their weight around and act all hardcore on the internet. Pathetic pathetic pathetic.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Spellbinder]

you can be sure someone will be watching at the code
and even if once nobody looks at the code the guys at SuSE can never be sure nobody is looking
maybe they could slip in one or two things but they are always at risk to be caught with clear prove
once caught nobody would ever again trust them again and just switch to another distro
with ms there is not half the chance they could be caught and if they are caught there would be no such clear prove
and to which other distro of windows would you switch once they are caught????
every SuSE update should be available as source code or they would be in serious legal trouble

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

While we're on this topic, it also explains some of the EULA terms you all were getting your panties in a twist about. The same term that made a lot of people here say "That means they can snoop on my hard drive!" really means "MS can detect the apps that they have updates for and correct them."

Sorry for the rant, It just bugs me how MS hate fogs the mind.

It really DOES boil down to a matter of trust. SuSE isn't going to mine that information so that they can send the BSA to check up on your license compiance, M$ does.

It's not M$ hatred, it's hatred for this type of behavior. We hate the RIAA for it, too!

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[NanoGator]

"SuSE isn't going to mine that information so that they can send the BSA to check up on your license compiance, M$ does."

Exactly when has MS ever done that? I'm genuinely curious. I've never looked it up, but have never heard of it happening either. (In other words, I'm seeking education, not arguing.)

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a loyal S.u.S.E. customer for some
years now, and have every distribution since
6.0, complete in its box. Must have over 50 CD's
of RPMs of both 2.3 and 2.4 kernels.
Only have one gripe, and it may not be SuSE's
fault. That is the lack of support for my vid
card, an ATI 9700 pro. Oddly enough, RedHat has
a driver for ITS 2.4.18 kernel while somehow
SuSE has been denied one for their 2.4.20 kernel!?
Looks like a little American manufacturer backscratchin there. Don't like Ximian Evolution
though.....cannot turn off HTML in emails...
just like micro$$$$'s Outlook Express. In fact,
the only code that Ximian does'nt like is 8-bit
code in pictures. You can decide not to accept
pictures. However, you have no choice but to
eat all the OCX's, PIF's, VBS's and viruses that
the world can throw at you and the world is
Soooo Biiiiig ....just like the virus name that
is going around. For me, I will stick with
K-Mail. HTML mail dies a quick death there,
just like it should! Unlike Simian..I mean
Ximian (wink), in K-Mail I can look at the
letter's source code too! That way viruses
and other malware can have the light of day
shown on them. Makes me wonder if Gates' agents
are trying to 'monkey around' with our mail.
Now just maybe one should go out an buy a new distro of Red Hat and look for the source 'srpm' of the ATI drivers for the ATI 9700 pro and just
nicely send it to the SuSE people for their
perusal ....that is after recompiling a copy of
it into a usable SuSE driver for their own linux
installation.
Nicest thing about SuSE is that they give you
your money's worth. No comic book manual....]
a real set of books. No stiiinkin 2 disks, but a
full set of 7 to eight CD and a DVD to boot. My
last one had TWO DVDs. I contains over 2600
applications, but does not claim that in their
advertising....maybe so as to not embarrass the
competition.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[salimma]

It's interesting that you mentioned the automatic updates. I find it interesting that you are pleased that SuSE does nightly auto updates, and most people hate MS for it's automatic updates.

As long as the feature is optional it's fine, of course, at least for me. I kind of like having my updates automatically downloaded, but requiring my confirmation before they get installed.

And it's not as if M$ would be suicidal to make automatic updating compulsory. Think of the outcry in corporate environments when the sysadmins realise they could not control their desktops anymore.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[theTerribleRobbo]

Incidentally, the Automatic Update that Microsoft does is the answer to the call to make IE less exploit prone. There are lots of 'dumb people' as it's been put before who don't install service packs. Well this feature takes care of the updates as they come along. That's bad?

Let's put it this way - Service Pack 1 fscked up a lot of XP machines.

We trust them (Linux/SuSE) because the updates are probably written by someone who's actually taken the time to test the damn thing.
I'm sure there's quite a few MS employees who care about their job / doing the right thing, but the 'system' (code-writing, testing, QA) does not - it doesn't really matter a whole stack if the update fscks up a whole bunch of machines, in their view (or so it seems).

I trust Linux updates. I don't trust MS half-arsed updates.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I trust Linux updates. I don't trust MS half-arsed updates."

In the end, you have humans writing these updates. Humans are prone to error. I would have no more faith in SuSE or MS under that aspect of it. To put it another way, SuSE is just as vulernable to that type of problem.

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Andre Breton]

"EXCELLENT support (although RedHat has support, it is very expensive.)"

Uhm... seriously, when was the last time you called SuSE support? A lot has changed there. The SuSE support of old you knew now is kinda expensive too...

Re:SuSE is Excellent

[stevew158]

I have tried SuSE Linux and it does seem to be a nice flavor of Linux, i liked it much better than mandrake. I still prefer RedHat but everyone has there favorites and Redhat seems to work best for me. I have also tried Slackware, FeeBSD and NetBSD but always end up back using RedHat.

My Balls Itch. 98a4fe5f4cd325b0d131fffdcb9f61

[Anonymous Coward]

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My Balls Itch. d2d5b139c2d31f6055633cba79228a

[Anonymous Coward]

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Ease of installing

[ralphart]

...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.

Re:Ease of installing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the install of RH9 I just did absolutely pisses all over writing my OS in assembly too. Therefore Bill Gates sucks. Or something.

Re:Ease of installing

[EpsCylonB]

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.

Lol, I too am impressed with MDK 9.1 because it detected my alcatel speedtouch usb modem, the only configuring I had to do was with gShield to share the connection over my home network. My previous installation was RedHat 9.0 and although I got it to work with the modem it was a lot of hassle (I'm a linux newbie and had to mess about with lots of configuration scripts, not easy).

Now all I want is a firewall/router distro on a cd that supports my usb modem and doesn't need to touch the hard drive.

Re:Ease of installing

[Sinus0idal]

What the hell kind of comparison is that?? "Yes, my current 2003 Mandrake operating system installation was much better than Microsoft's DOS 6.22 release in 1994." Come on! Thats just desperate M$ bashing at its worst...

Re:Ease of installing

[pi42]

I think it was more of a comment on general ease-of-install nowadays versus back in the good ol' days of DOS 6.22, not cliched MS-bashing.

Windows XP, 2k, as well as Red Hat 9 and Mandrake all intalled flawlessly on my computer with no configuration needed. All of them compare quite favorably to nightmares with managing IRQs and finding obscure drivers back with Windows 3.1 or somesuch.

Re:Ease of installing

[Sinus0idal]

Ahhh yes, I see it now :-) Confusingly worded!

But it's still not quite there...

[Radon Knight]

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.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[IamTheRealMike]

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?

Lower licensing costs? Easier remote administration? Freedom from vendor dependance?

The article makes it sound like if you want to use MS Office, oh well you might as well use Windows then, as if that's a tiny and insignificant thing next to the awesome power of MS Word. Not so.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[nharmon]

[i]Lower licensing costs?[/i]

Generally I'd agree. But you missed part of the article:

[i]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.[/i]

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[nharmon]

...and I've been using UBB for waaay too long. :/

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[pVoid]

I have to say though, that I am thoroughly impressed with Microsft Office running pretty much flawlessly on that desktop.

Office is one of the 'richest' windows programs in that it uses every possible API under the sun.

It's not like it's just using Win32 like for example Winamp or Regedit would... on top of the regular stuff (GDI, Win32), it extensively uses COM/DCOM/ActiveX, and not the simple features in those either.

Kudos is what I have to say. Even though I agree with parent post =)

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[loginx]

That doesn't mean anything if you don't know what their upgrading scheme is like...

Also, remember that it includes a lot of proprietary software such as CrossOver Office, CrossOver Plugins, StarOffice and probably more... so that has to be counted in the price too.

I'm not familiar with the licensing pricing scheme of Microsoft but I'm pretty sure Windows XP corporate + Office XP isn't all that cheap either.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[RoLi]

Actually that's a lot cheaper than anything comparable in the Windows-world (no, the support from your PC-maker is certainly NOT comparable. You have to pay per phonecall for Microsoft's support.)

For home users or businesses who don't need any support, SuSE 8.1(or a comparable distro) for 70$ for unlimited desktops will probably the better choice.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[RoLi]

Sorry, to answer to my own post, but I want to add:

For Microsoft you pay 99$ per incident via mail and 249$ per incident via phone.

Both are included in SuSE's offering, AFAIK.

Link

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[IamTheRealMike]

It's not like it's just using Win32 like for example Winamp or Regedit would... on top of the regular stuff (GDI, Win32), it extensively uses COM/DCOM/ActiveX, and not the simple features in those either.

Well, that's quite interesting..... yes, it does use quite a lot of APIs, however after working on Wine for a bit you realise that the Win32 API is so labyrinthine that almost every app, no matter how small or obscure, will use it in a slightly different way.

In fact, Office itself isn't quite so bad compared to for instance Internet Explorer. Quite a lot of Offices stuff is kept internal for whatever reason.

If you want to see an app that REALLY uses DCOM, look at Internet Explorer or InstallShield (no kidding).

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[Anonymous Coward]

your sig won't parse.plz fix it!!!!!!!

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[PFAK]

So, basically what you're saying is that Microsoft Office is a resource hog, and that OpenOffice isn't? OpenOffice takes a far longer amount of time to open the Microsoft Office, and uses more memory.

Same with Mozilla vs. Internet Explorer, which uses more memory? Mozilla. But then you have commerical products like Opera that use hardly any memory, and leave a very small footprint.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[pVoid]

So, basically what you're saying is that Microsoft Office is a resource hog, and that OpenOffice isn't?

No.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[timmyf2371]

I've found Mozilla Firebird to be a very reliable browser despite it's not a 1.0 release yet.

Starts in no time at all (Athlon 900, 704MB RAM), and based on the same framework as Mozilla so you receive all the benefits.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[MonkeyBoy]

So in other words you can get five OSes plus five desktop office suites plus support - for the cost of Office XP Pro plus Windows XP Pro?

That's nothing.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[kitzilla]

> The desktop might be polished, but they complain about a notable lack of polished apps...

And they'll keep complaining until the Linux user base gets over the idea that commercial software is always evil.

I'm deeply in favor of free, but wonder how professional software developers might support themselves if they're spending a lot of hours coding for Linux. Because so much terrific software belongs to the community, we sort of assume it *all* should.

That visceral resistance to paying for programs (and the size of our user base) is why there's no Photoshop for Linux.

Perhaps as Linux continues to expand its presence on the desktop, we'll see this attitude diluted. I'm guessing we'll have all the highly polished commercial apps we'll ever want if we can ever get to 20% market share.

Thanks to all the guys 'n' gals who contribute to Open Software.

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[thynk]

Last week I spent a few hours of each day playing with the new 8.2 Distro (FTP install version) and here is what I came up with.

On my old laptop, everything but the wireless NIC and the sound card came right up. Easy to setup users, change screen resolutions. To get the NIC working, I downloaded and read the README from Cisco, Hmmm.. says I need the src files for the PCMCIA software, ok - no worries. Get the latest version. Ok, so that's unpacked. What, now that PCMCIA version wants the src for the kernel. Ok, well... dig, dig, dig and unpack. Once all this was done - ./Configure make all, make install and now the cardmgr is completely dead and stays dead. Ah, I had the wrong kernel, ok - grab the one from SuSe, uncompress the tree, fsck, my drive is full already. Ok - kill the other kernel tar ball and replace it. ./configure make all make install - still dead. fsck it.

Total install time : 3.5 hours
Total debug time: 6.0 hours

XP install. Everything including the sound card and the wireless card come up with no additional drivers needed.
Total install time : 1.25 hours
Total debug time: 0.00 hours.

I then decided to install this beast on a 20gb partition I've got on my IDE "raid". Comes up, install still takes forever. Goes to reboot and will you look at that? Since I didn't let setup format the other 100gb partition on this, it couldnt' write the boot records correctly and the MBR is hosed. Never was able to get it to boot all the way to runlevel 5. Normal tools to fix a windows boot partition (fixboot or fixmbr) are worthless. I had to wipe the SuSe partition and start installing a second image of XP to get it to see it.

Total install time : 3.5 hours
Total Debug time: 4 hours

Now, I know that I'm far from any sort of Linux master, but I've had a few years of experience in a *nix world and done a touch of administration, so I'd guess I'm probably a little ahead of the average 'Joe' who hears about this 'Linux' thing and wants to install it to see what all the hoopla is about. I'm sure that there are probably a ton of people who could tell me what I did wrong, and how I could of fixed this in half the time, and how I really should of used the -U switch even though it wasn't in the README.... but you were not at my house last week, and neither will you be there when Average Joe tries to install it the first time and shies away from Linux for the rest of his life, lest he uncover the emotional scaring done during an install like the one I just went through.

Until a some more standards are worked out, like driver sets and the like, then this creature isn't going to dent the Winderz world a bit. It's come a long way, I like *nix for what it's good at, I like winderz for what it's good at.

[/rant]

Re:But it's still not quite there...

[ralphclark]

Yes, vi sucks (and emacs sucks worse ;o) but *vim* doesn't suck at all.

Those silly british...

[James Littiebrant]

Sons of a food trough wipers! You and your silly Kinnputers! Now go away before I taunt you a second time!

Re:Those silly british...

[Sinus0idal]

Yes "damn them" for inventing computers.

Re:Those silly british...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Those silly british...

[Cassius105]

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

Compatibility

[Nastard]

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.

Re:Compatibility

[IamTheRealMike]

Yes, it is confusing. Most applications with a bit of work can be made to install on nearly any distro in fact.

The ruckus over Ximian Desktop was because it replaces a lot of core system packages (well, gnome/gtk packages) so must be tuned for each distribution separately. It's a bit odd that XD2 doesn't support the "Enterprise" editions of distros though.

Re:Compatibility

[kavau]

Most applications with a bit of work can be made to install on nearly any distro in fact.

The 'with a bit of work' part would put many users off, methinks. But luckily the vast majority of applications one can think of is included in the distros anyways, or can be downloaded from the distributor's ftp site, which is about as convenient as it can possibly get. And a lot of other applications (OpenOffice, OpenDX, to name a few) are designed to work out of the box on nearly any distro. Like the parent post said, compatibility problems are a rather rare exception.

Nice

[Delifisek]

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.

Re:Nice

[ericandgina]

Well, you're in luck, because you can go to Mauna Kea (hawaiian for 'white mountain') and ski the beautiful slopes on the beautiful island of Hawaii. Yes there is snow on the Hawaiian islands. Probably the only place where you can drive a couple of hours and go skiing in the morning, and go to a sunny beach in the afternoon.

Re:Nice

[JJahn]

Not only that, but one can go from a desert with very very little rain, to a tropical rainforest in a couple of hours. Hawaii is truly one of the most interesting places I've ever been to, and I will probably go back as soon as I can afford it ;)

Nice Attitude

[frankthechicken]

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?

Re:Nice Attitude

[Anonymous Coward]

Duhhh... Huh?

Care to explain your point of view a bit more, cause I'm totally clueless as to what you mean.

Re:Nice Attitude

[frankthechicken]

No clue what I was thinking really. I think that I thought that just because you are running a piece of software on a platform it was not intended to be run on, then what is the point in running the platform, seemed a fairly clueless point of view. And somewhere from that I thought about the comparison to MAME and other emulators, but overall I have a feeling that it is time to get the hell out of the office and hit the pub to regain some clarity in my thoughts.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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Linus uses it, so it must be pretty good.

[carrett]

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.

Re:Linus uses it, so it must be pretty good.

[mystran]

Gentoo would be the absolute top of all distribution, if it wasn't for the installation. I mean, is there a nice graphical installer that configures X for you and let's you login to a working system and start learning from the desktop first..

Gentoo is superb if you have someone install it for you. The install.txt part of the install isn't the hard part actually, you get it to boot with not too much trouble if you have some idea of your system, but before you have a nice graphical desktop system, you have to tweak and emerge a lot of things.

One thing that would be nice if we had nice installer for gentoo would be to allow it to install/configure X and Gnome (or KDE if someone really prefers it) and then populate the menus with the most useful pieces of software. Not really install them, but instead let them popup something like "Evolution is not yet installed on you system. Do you want me to install it ?" and then automatically emerge it if that's what the user wanted.

Re:Linus uses it, so it must be pretty good.

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have misunderstood the drive behind Gentoo.

Gentoo is a distribution for techs, tweakers and power-users, people who feel comfortable with a root prompt and actively love that the LiveCD boot takes them more or less straight to a root prompt. It is a hardcore distribution (and as such, is very good for the hardcore, offering an extreme degree of flexibility and being comfortable even in the face of extreme tweakery).

Gentoo does not, however, hold your hand - and in not doing this it is acting in the finest traditions of UNIX(R)[1]-like systems. It assumes you have a pretty damn good idea what you are doing.

If you are the kind of person who doesn't have a pretty damn good idea what to do at a root prompt, you should try a fluffier, more "conventional" distribution like Mandrake, SuSE, or Red Hat - you may find they are more suited to your needs - not better or worse, merely more suitable.

[1] UNIX(R) is a registered trademark of The Open Group. (And not SCO.)

Re:Linus uses it, so it must be pretty good.

[mystran]

My previous system before gentoo was a LFS so I believe I'm probably one of those that Gentoo is targeted to.

The point of my post is that emerge, rc-update and other handy tools in addition to the default gnome2 desktop would make it a good distribution for newbies as well.

After installing Gentoo, there isn't much that you need to be a Guru for, so too bad you have to choose between "easy to use" or "easy to install".

I've installed Gentoo for people that would not been able to do it, and they've been happy with it.. that that it's necessarily bad that someone has to get the system in a "startup condition" before letting the newbie in.. at least there won't be extra services before the newbie learns how to install them :)

Re:Linus uses it, so it must be pretty good.

[Anonymous Coward]

you should try a fluffier, more "conventional" distribution

So you think that you are all hard and macho because you use a real mans distro like gentoo instead of one of those fluffier distros like redhat?

Personally I think that you are pathetic.

Re:Linus uses it, so it must be pretty good.

[Anonymous Coward]

> > you should try a fluffier,
> > more "conventional" distribution

> So you think that you are all hard and macho
> because you use a real mans distro like gentoo
> instead of one of those fluffier distros like
> redhat?

> Personally I think that you are pathetic.

Hear hear.

I really wish people would get a grip on reality. I have installed Debian 2, Slackware etc. and configured them to have a working system. However, it took me about three frickin' days to just get my USB mouse work in Debian (the options I needed to use weren't even available in Debian's configuration software). I might have the skill to do it, but it's a complete waste of time for desktop systems.

All these Gentoo zealots drive me right up the wall. AS IF recompiling gEdit or the GIMP with -o3 makes *that* much difference to the speed they operate at. I'd much rather spend the weeks it takes to get a Gentoo system running, working. Hence I use Mac OS X (with excellent, free (beer) software, and a choice of less than excellent open source software if I want to use it).

Suse must be free

[ramzak2k]

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.

Re:Suse must be free

[spiney75]

You can try it out if you do an installation right from an FTP server. Granted, ISOs would be nicer, plus the FTP install doesn't come with all the extra software found in the Professional bundle, but still...

Re:Suse must be free

[gbrall]

Well, there's an FTP-only version which you can download freely of SuSE's ftp and its mirros. However, you must be connected to the Internet during the install, so this is not an option for a user who has only one PC (because you need a router or a local ftp server).

Re:Suse must be free

[MatthewB79]

What about the run-from-CD evaluation version freely available for download?

SuSE - SuSE live-eval 8.1

Re:Suse must be free

[Anthony Boyd]

Right now, there is no chance to try it out without paying 80 bucks.

What about their FTP server? I thought that you could create an install disk and then pull down a working system from their server, for free. In fact, I found the link in just 2 or 3 clicks on their site.

Re:Suse must be free

[Drakin]

*scratches head*
There isn't?

Although, admitidly you need to install from a FTP, or run it straight from a CD... but it can be done.

Re:Suse must be free

[SN74S181]

If you want to try SuSE inexpensively, you can buy a 7.3 version CD for $4.99 from CheapBytes.

Re:Suse must be free

[Anonymous Coward]

Try www.linuxiso.org

It's got a live-eval version and the install-over-ftp option.

Re:Suse must be free

[OptimoosePrime]

Trying to install SuSE over FTP in the past has proved to be hell on earth for me. I've found only one of their mirror sites that works (mil.govsomething or other). Maybe they've made it better, but I tried it for 8.1 and it was rough.

Re:Suse must be free

[Waffle Iron]

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.

As others pointed out, you can do an FTP install for free. Leaving that aside, I prefer SuSE's business model for my purposes. Red Hat makes money by charging for easy updates, and SuSE makes money by charging for easy access to ISOs. In my case, I have several computers I install it on, so I'm glad to pay the $70 once and get easy free patches without having to register with the vendor. (Not to mention I don't feel like babysitting my CD writer while I burn 5 ISOs.)

Plus, SuSE Professional 8.2 comes with just about the coolest CD packaging I've ever seen. It has 5 CDs and 2 DVDs in this cardboard foldout pack that flips open in various directions. The feel of flipping through that thing is almost worth the price by itself :).

Re:Suse must be free

[Anonymous Coward]

Download the FTP tree onto another partition before hand. That's what I did.

Re:Suse must be free

[ramzak2k]

Hey dickhead Moderators , wohoo . yeah bitches. How does voicing ones opinion make him a troll bastards ?

Re:Suse must be free

[kitzilla]

SuSE needn't be "free" in the way you mean. I tried a basic SuSE install via FTP (free, of course) and enjoyed it so much I bought a boxed copy of 8.2 Pro. It was worth the investment: lots of extra software on convenient CDs and helpful documentation. I've rocked between distros for a while, but will probably settle into SuSE for a long time.

So SuSE *is* free. If you want the extra programs and polish, you can pay for it. It's a deal at $75.

Re:Suse must be free

[haraldm]

This is an often stated but utterly misleading opinion. SuSE itself adheres to the GPL. You can do FTP installs for example, or download the evaluation ISO. The fact they don't offer ISO images of the entire distro comes from the variety of cloned (and sometimes strangely modified) Red Hat and other CDs for $1.99, for example. This is a supporter's nightmare. The YaST license, often blamed for non-GPL compliance, only forbids commercial redistribution. So there is nothing which prevents you from freely downloading and installing SuSE Linux. Some commercial or otherwise non-free parts (like XV) are missing but that is due to these components' licenses.

What you are requesting is avaible here, by the way.

What is not possible, though, is freely downloading any of the Enterprise" variants, be is SLES or SLED or any of the derived products. But then, nobody offers that. Nobody actually can offer that because that would jeopardize the entire business model of offering and supporting a stable distro over 3-5 years. TANSTAAFL, folks.

So don't spread false or misleading statements, OK?

Re:Suse must be free

[ramzak2k]

Fuck you again ! whoever modded that as flamebait. Buggers. I dont care about my karma anymore. I guess this victimization is the way the trolls are created.

omg I did it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you did it, you FAILED miserably. I've never seen such a blatant failure. Here's a haiku for the biggest failure I've ever seen.

over confidence
maybe you should just chug bleach
that's too good for you

Eye Candy

[aufecht]

What, no screenshots? next story

Re:Eye Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

What, no screenshots? next story
Here you go

Re:Eye Candy

[lub]

Here...

Re:Eye Candy

[Arker]

Wow. Ugh. Yep, it's ugly enough to be XP.

Personally I don't think that's anything to be proud of, but to each his own.

Re:Eye Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows XP looks significantly better than that trash.

Re:Eye Candy

[zuralin]

You havent you seen enough screenshots of gnome and kde yet?

Re:Eye Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, OpenOffice.org looks so much better in X.

With a Windows Classic skin under XP its butt ugly.

Re:Eye Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Erstellen Sie problemlos aufwändige Präsentationen

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[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda
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Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Huh...

[justsomebody]

I was expecting review of Linux, not a review how to turn Linux into M$Win. This was not a review of Linux but review of Windows emulator

Constant interface he's bitchin... well my Ximian desktop is preety constant:)

Even Redhat is constant at least Gnome.

Re:Huh...

[justsomebody]

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.

Re:Huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, different interfaces from Windows have been true of all Office versions.

What's your point?

Re:Huh...

[justsomebody]

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.

Why isn't there a macro language and recorder OO

[jerryasher]

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. ... There isn't a macro recorder, and for obscure technical reasons, there isn't likely to be one in the near future. 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?

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?

Re:ModPointWasterBot 0.1 (Linux) dbef360d784255c

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points I would mod this +1 informative, just to be ironic.

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[justsomebody]

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.

Linux Expensive?

[mumblestheclown]

Am I the only one a bit shocked by how expensive these variou linux distros are? from what I could gather from the article, the SuSe liences (with support, but nevertheless) were about $100/ea. I've seen that RH goes for up to several thousand dollars.

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.

Re:Linux Expensive?

[colinleroy]

is it possible to get what SuSe or RH are charging $$$$ for for free (of course support not included?)
For redhat yes, just look at their ftp.

If not, why not - do they include proporietary (closed source / otherwise copy-restricted components?).
Suse does.

Re:Linux Expensive?

[Anthony Boyd]

If not, why not - do they include proporietary (closed source / otherwise copy-restricted components?).

Well, the SuSE installer is open source in the sense that the source is available, but proprietary in the sense that it comes with a very restrictive license -- I believe it would be difficult to legally embrace & extend their installer code. So this is one of the ways that they restrict distribution, and to be honest, since they also have a free installer for FTP downloads, I really don't mind their setup. But this release in particular comes with Crossover Office, which I believe cost them a little bit of money. And since the release is actually five licenses, the price is inflated. I'm sure if they released a single license system, it would be much cheaper.

Re:Linux Expensive?

[Drakin]

SuSe does offer free downloads (install from FTP, and a Live CD version). Some packages are left out due to licensing concerns.

http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/suse_linux /index.html

Re:Linux Expensive?

[Unregistered]

Redhat can be downloaded form ftp.redhat.com

SuSE is more difficult; you have to do an FTP install. They don't provide free ISOs, but it's not too hard, even for a noob. Or try a .org distro (debian, gentoo, etc.)

Re:Linux Expensive?

[Daniel Phillips]

Am I the only one a bit shocked by how expensive these variou linux distros are? from what I could gather from the article, the SuSe liences (with support, but nevertheless) were about $100/ea.

It's not a big deal, I frequently spend more than that on a technical book. If you're worried about $100, you can always go the Cheapbytes route, or get it for the cost of a blank CD from a friend - or copy it over a network cable for free.

When you get into the business side, you're buying other things, like installation handholding and 24/7 troubleshooting.

Many people will prefer to pay $50 or $100, and get a nice box with a manual, maybe even a nice penguin toy. While I've never paid more than $8 for Linux on my own behalf, I did send my brother a $100 u.s. Xandros box for Christmas.

There will be a Macro recorder in OOo 1.1

[pierre.ch]

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.

Re:There will be a Macro recorder in OOo 1.1

[mrscorpio]

They probably used Star Office 6.0/Open Office 1.0.X because judging from the scope of the article, beta software is not an option.

That being said, I use Star Office 6.1 beta 2 daily and it rocks. I can't wait for the final.

Chris

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[Anonymous Coward]

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Actually they are working on that

[ShatteredDream]

They have a Basic intrepreter for stuff like that. It's called IIRC OpenOffice Basic.

Re:Actually they are working on that

[Anonymous Coward]

It sucks.

Installation IS easier

[sfled]

My .02

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.

Staroffice

[loginx]

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.

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Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Yellow Journalism

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Linux is 1337

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is just so fucking K3wL. Who wants an OS with functionality when you can spend days searching forums and engaging in repartee with open sores hippies to get your hardware to function?

ModPointWasterBot 0.1 (Linux) 127eeffce310580

[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda
Lies
Bullshit
Fake News
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Yellow Journalism

de33696bd64aff9a50f9a62ea681c7f8319fd8c45a08ab00 6a d64523becfa6512863298e1c75172824d2f5aa7517c89971dd 874ff78e42aa8050469380bea6698962b25e779a30ecd4c5ed 79e7b8efbd4ca7d70e2d683b8f4930dbfb1af3728239b32dfc 9ed18533ee98b921687ad87a2407a472adec62a8fbc80bc866 5d186f5a15c204653a7a3c7f4d7b5a353761b91a4fd0f5f398 2054fbac07cd4a8ba2b9ca0bc70d8b3329cc7db71f7d1be1fc 8f4698ab0024dfee6b08645663214f71d658b5e1181aef482a e9d3f57afb3baa76

Sounds about right..

[naelurec]

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.

Re:Sounds about right..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, the main thing is getting the desktop to look nice. After all, if you want to actually DO something with it, you can always take a 3yr course in CS right? I really hate all those wizards in Windows that help you get started - I'd much rather read a couple of thousand page manuals to get my RH9 to power off.

Re:Sounds about right..

[naelurec]

It is all about consistency. Consistent menu layouts, consistent hot keys/key combinations, consistent dialog boxes, etc. Unfortunately two of the core apps that make up the backbone of most office distros (mozilla & openoffice) are very losely integrated with the desktop (gnome/kde). I am not sure how feesible it would be, but it would be very cool to see the core technologies of these projects abstracted from the interface. Have a team of interface experts integrate the applications into the window managers (consistent dialog boxes, hot keys, icons, look and feel, etc..) Seems like there is a huge lack of desire to do this from the core developers of these various projects.

Re:Sounds about right..

[cscx]

I am not sure how feesible it would be, but it would be very cool to see the core technologies of these projects abstracted from the interface.

That's never going to happen. The biggest problem the open src community faces is that everyone has a different idea of what's best... i.e., there's never going to be any consistency. I mena, look at Gentoo, which was just forked.

Mod parent informative!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's certainly not flamebait! Was that moderator smoking crack?

Funny, but sad SO error...

[pocopoco]

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.

Re:Funny, but sad SO error...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sad, eh?

What's sad is that your post is only given a rating of "1", while the completely baseless (non- fact-checked, full-of-speculation, typical-ranting-and-raving) post below yours gets a score of "5; Insightful".

I think your post deserves better than that.

Expect Lawsuits and Litigation

[Crashmarik]

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.

Re:Expect Lawsuits and Litigation

[Anonymous Coward]

As linux grows to be a credible competitor on the desktop, there will be alot of people that will be very upset about it.


Not that this will affect anyone living today - you're talking somewhere circa 2097 aren't you?

Re:Expect Lawsuits and Litigation

[Daniel Phillips]

The sco lawsuit is just the first salvo.

The SCO lawsuit will fizzle pathetically (and SCO will crater, but who cares). The net effect will be to strengthen Linux and our right to *really* innovate.

ModPointWasterBot 0.1 (Linux) 9f8038b075d4a63

[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda
Lies
Bullshit
Fake News
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Yellow Journalism

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OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[rump_carrot]

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.

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[Anonymous Coward]

The main thing is to stop using a product which does what you want and use some crummy hack so you can be 1337 right?

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[TheRaven64]

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).

I can't help you with the second one, but you should try pressing the button in the OOo toolbar that looks like a compass. It brings up the navigator, which gives you a range of outline options. It's not an outline view, as such, but it does display headings by outline depth (or figures, or charts etc.) in a toool window, which makes navigating well structured documents very easy.

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[arcanumas]

I think that the best tool for easy and proper outlining especially in technical writing is LyX. It takes some getting used to it but it pays back with the ease of use and correct outcome.
Plus, there are templates for almost everything.
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. :)

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[Ezubaric]

lack of support for support for EndNote (a reference managing program).

EndNote is quite over-rated. IMHO, it would be nice if OpenOffice supported (perhaps it does, and I'm just unaware, but I don't think so) BibTex databases. For technical fields, there is a wealth of precompiled citations. While the same databases usually exist for EndNote too, EndNote suffers from not being extendable. Want to add a custom field? Go ahead --- but don't expect anyone elso to be able to read it.

If you're trying to do something by yourself, EndNote is fine, but it really isn't extensible.

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[Vengie]

Nice troll. You're a scientist.....but you use outline in MS word and EndNote? BiBTeX & LaTeX. I think you'll find your outlines LOOK nicer and are a shitload easier to write. If you have a mac, get TeXShop...love it.

Note: If you honestly weren't trolling...google for TeX, Knuth, LaTeX and BibTex and you'll be a new man...

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[kirkjobsluder]

LaTeX is good, wonderful, even beautiful to the point where if I ruled the world, I would be using it exclusively. The big deal-killer with it is that more and more journals are wanting .doc. After spending a few weeks in search of a conversion filter from LaTeX + APA to RTF, I just jumped into OpenOffice.

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[Vengie]

*cry* i remember when the ACM only accepted tex....ok well i dont.....but i've read the manuals from way-back-when. [One of my profs, stan eisenstat aka god, is important with them, and hence has like every publication of theirs EVER]. I recently saw on the website, the ACM only accepts tex and .doc. makes me wanna cry.

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[samantha]

NOOO. I will not go back to the old stupid non-WSIWYG days so some techie (like but unlike me) doesn't have to go through the trouble to think about what people would actually like to use to get their work done. Techies trying to dictate what is good enough are a disgrace to the profession.

IMHO of course. :-)

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[Heartz]

that and lack of support for support for EndNote (a reference managing program).

Dude,

Open office 1.1 has an Endnote replacement BUILT IN. It's called the bibliography database.

To use it click Tool>Bibliography Database

To add referece click Insert>Indexes and Tables>Bibliography Entry

The best part of it is that You basically can customize it to use any format you want just like Endnote. And - the database gets embedded in the document. So if you go to a computer, your database travels with you!

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[kirkjobsluder]

Yeah, although I think there are problems with LaTeX as a format. Like the need to bundle multiple files together, and the fact that parsing a document depends on everyone having both the document, and the same version of the output stylesheet.

I really like the Open Office file format because it combines some of the features of structured document style in TeX but wraps up everything into a zip wrapper. I managed to build a simple sxw to text script in about 2 hours (about 90 minutes of which was spent tracking down an under-documented feature of the Python SAX API).

Re:OpenOffice needs a good Outlining Function!

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding Endnote, there was a posting on one the openoffice mailing lists which said that the new version of Endnote supports Openoffice. The website says this as well, but is vague about the level of support, maybe it is only through RTF files??

OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Animats]

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".

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.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[IamTheRealMike]

A, if not the, big problem with open source development is that it's not good at fixing usability problems

Oh what a pile of BS. Come sit in #commits on freenode for a while. The last few commits have almost all been usability related, even really small stuff like getting the use of ellipses right.

The rest of the post is just talking about OpenOffice. Yep, it has not so great usability. But OTOH neither does MS Office, I mean really the thing is riddled with problems.

You can't take ONE program, which has been open source for not very long at all, and extrapolate that to the whole world of open source code.

If you want an easy to use, HIG compliant word processor, use AbiWord 2. Most of the work done on the GTK2 frontend lately has been about HIG compliance.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[greg_barton]

All this can be fixed. But because it's open source, it won't be.

This should read, "All this can be fixed. But because it's open source, AND I WON'T GET OFF MY LAZY ASS AND HELP, BUT ONLY WANT TO BITCH, it won't be."

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Ian Bicking]

Open Office is not an example of an Open Source program -- it was opened, but it was not originally developed open. If you want to criticize the Open Source/Free Software process, use an appropriate example, like AbiWord or KWord. Or give OpenOffice a few years to become a real Open Source program.

I think most of the problems you note about OO are very much because it was a commercial product. It did things to unnecessarily copy MS Office, or to look superficially fancy or featureful, or it used a monolithic structure necessitated by the commercial distribution process.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

The "AutoPilot" thing in OpenOffice Calc is a nice and friendly way to build and edit equations.

I don't think there is equivalent functionality in Excel 2000 (not tried Excel XP so can't comment).

I agree that there are bits of Open/Star Office that need a bit more polish, but these *are* on the way. Everyone complains about the speed issues and I believe these are being addressed.
Also, I believe that some of the enhancements that Ximian made for Ximian office are making their way back to the code trunk, so this should help the interface look less basic.

Its easy to pick holes in things though when you're used to something else such as MS Office. But not only has MS Office had a bit more time to mature, users have likely gotten used to its quirks.

For example (please correct me if I'm wrong - I might be!), in Excel 2000 how do you set the location of the speadsheet templates? As far as I can tell, you set that little piece of information in MS Word - they use a common template folder! That *ucking intuitive isn't it? I mean, they've only had 10+ years to get that right!! ;)

I agree broadly with what you're saying, but unless you really make an effort to use an alternative you'll never switch. You'll miss any benefits because you don't look. And you'll continue to be charged more for the "newer version" of the same product.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with this poster. I am a bit puzzled by the responders attitudes. This is a clear failing of the entire open source movement. Linux and all its clones are not user friendly.

If you want to take marketshare from MS, your product has to look exactly like MS. If you make it hard for an MS person to use your product, they wont use it.

Arguing that there is not a UI issue is wrong. Fix the UI issues. Make a linux that behaves exactly like MS and then add features on top. Or dont. Just make an exact replacement (without the bugs, security issues, extortionary pricing of course!)

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[timmyf2371]

IMO, Open Source software shouldn't be any different that any closed software.

A lot of us, myself included, don't have the time or know-how to learn how to hack the source and sucessfully have patches included in a release.

I am a user, and solely a user in terms of software - why shouldn't a open source piece of software such as OpenOffice iron out the kinks and fix the problems in order to be competitive with MS Office and win users?

IMO, the developers are responsible for making an application useful and competitive for the user.

Tim

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Macka]

This should read, "All this can be fixed. But because it's open source, AND I WON'T GET OFF MY LAZY ASS AND HELP, BUT ONLY WANT TO BITCH, it won't be."

Oh wake up and smell the coffee! This stupid attitude that end-users-with-a-view only deserve to have one if they can code too, is sooo old hat. Linux has grown to encompass the world of ORDINARY people now too, or hadn't you noticed? Get with the times for god sake!

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone is a coder.
Not everyone has the ability to "get off their lazy ass"
Try and use that same argument to a client when they complain abuot usability of software and see how fast all your businesss goes bye-bye.

So greggy weggie, what do you suggest those who can't code do to help?

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF does office have to do with his complaints.
Address the facts and stop interjecting MS-bashing into your arguments.

It makes you look childish and very unprofessional.
When people complain to their software vendor, the vendor doesn't go and say "but ${competitior} is just as bad!"

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[haeger]

This should read, "All this can be fixed. But because it's open source, AND I WON'T GET OFF MY LAZY ASS AND HELP, BUT ONLY WANT TO BITCH, it won't be."

I don't agree. He/she is helping. By telling us (but better yet, the developers) what's wrong and could be improved, s/he's improving the program. Not everyone is a programmer and suggestions about needed improvements by real users shouldn't be beaten up like this.

We, the open source movement, need all kinds of people on our side. The movement might be big here on slashdot but it's not in the "real" world.
So, users, translators, programmers, UI-experts, project managers and all others, your help is needed. Pick out a program that You use and contact the developers there. Tell them what You can do, I'm sure they can find something for You to do. See this as "payment" for the good program that You get.

.haeger

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[greg_barton]

This stupid attitude that end-users-with-a-view only deserve to have one if they can code too

That's not my attitude, son. The original poster specifically said that the software wouldn't change because it was open source. I disagree with that. And notice that I never said "code" in my reply. That's your addition.

Linux has grown to encompass the world of ORDINARY people now too, or hadn't you noticed?

Why, yes I have. And that growth was specifically caused by changes to GNU/Linux that made ORDINARY people comfortable with it. The original poster wanted the same types of changes made to Open Office, (specifically usability testing) but thought that wasn't possible because it is open source software.

Go read the original post, mull over it, and get back to me.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[greg_barton]

Not everyone is a programmer and suggestions about needed improvements by real users shouldn't be beaten up like this.

Constructive suggestions are fine. Most of the original poster's comments were constructive. Saying "All this can be fixed. But because it's open source, it won't be" is not constructive.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[greg_barton]

A lot of us, myself included, don't have the time or know-how to learn how to hack the source and sucessfully have patches included in a release.

True. But you can provide usability testing.

Everyone who can operate a computer can provide usability testing.

The original poster wanted usability testing on OpenOffice, but did not seem willing to provide it. He only wanted to complain about the lack of it and say that that lacking would never be fulfilled because OpenOffice is an open source project.

Comprende?

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Macka]

The original poster specifically said that the software wouldn't change because it was open source ... Go read the original post, mull over it, and get back to me

Close, but no cigar. His very carefully thought out critique of the Open Source development model's inability to code fix usability problems, was specificly about usability problems. NOT that Open Source software would not, could not be changed. You're quoting his words out of context.

And notice that I never said "code" in my reply. That's your addition

Well Duh! You critisized him for not getting off his lazy ass and helping to fix it. Just how is he supposed to fix it without changing the code? By magic?

As a matter of fact, articles like that are very useful feedback. The author has obviously spent some time thinking about the problem, and backed up his view with practical examples to underscore his points. He even went so far as to suggest ways of improving performance, clearly based on knowledge of how other software projects sequence events to give the end user a more snappy experience.

He was certainly a dam site more helpful than your lame ass reply. Though you were probably too busy frothing at the mouth to notice because someone had dared to critisized an Open Source project.

That's not my attitude, son

Well then you should pick your words more carefully in future, instead of sounding off like a wounded Zealot. And I thought old timers like you were supposed to be the sensible mature ones around here.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[greg_barton]

Just how is he supposed to fix it without changing the code? By magic?

d00d, who pissed in your wheaties?

Have you ever hear of a software tester? They test. They don't code. They shouldn't code. That's the coder's job, as so many testers have pointed out to me over the years.

As a matter of fact, articles like that are very useful feedback.

Never said they weren't. Again, your bias coming through.

He was certainly a dam site more helpful than your lame ass reply.

Terse and "lame ass" comments can be useful sometimes. They often serve to elicit reactions that show the ingrained biases of others. Your reaction was a great example of that. :)

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Macka]

Have you ever hear of a software tester? They test. They don't code. They shouldn't code. That's the coder's job, as so many testers have pointed out to me over the years.

Ooo, lets just pull something out of the air shall we to cover your ass. *yawn*

Never said they weren't. Again, your bias coming through.

Oooo, spin me round, maybe I'll get dizzy. Using double negatives to try and make a positive, while attempting to shift the focus away from you by suggesting I'm biased, isn't fooling anyone. *yawn*

Terse and "lame ass" comments can be useful sometimes. They often serve to elicit reactions that show the ingrained biases of others. Your reaction was a great example of that.

So now we get to the truth of the matter. Your life is so shallow that the only way you can get noticed is to create a stink in public. Did you know that fastidious self-absorption, childish egocentricity, and inexplicable anger are signs of chronic depression. You should go see a doctor.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[greg_barton]

Ooo, lets just pull something out of the air shall we to cover your ass. *yawn*

You're pretty impressed with yourself, ain't ye? So I'm pulling the concept of "tester" out of my ass, eh? Are you qualified to talk about software development?

Your life is so shallow that the only way you can get noticed is to create a stink in public.

Not really. I just have a few minutes to spare from work to comment on a message board. But it looks like you're calling the kettle black, kiddo. I accuse you of nothing more than bias and you return with "fastidious self-absorption" and "childish egocentricity," and "chronic depression"? Aside from the mistake of making sweeping character based on a few sentences, you may want to be careful using those big words. You might hurt yourself.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Macka]

You're pretty impressed with yourself, ain't ye?

Ad hominem, and your words not mine.

So I'm pulling the concept of "tester" out of my ass, eh?

Actually I said you pulled the example of tester "out of the air", not your ass. I wouldn't credit you with creating the concept, that implies intelligence. Besides, I doubt you're that old.

Are you qualified to talk about software development?

Ha, I recognise a hook when I see one. If I have to explain my work history and experience to you, then psychologically I put myself on the defensive, while opening the door for you to try and spin this off into an area where you feel more comfortable doing battle. Fat chance. Think I'll stay on topic, i.e. your shameful, self serving attack on the parent poster. Not that I expect you to give up just yet, I'm quite confident you'll have another go at trying to maneuver me into a defensive posture, if only from a compulsive desire to get the last word in. Go on, give it your best shot, I'm more than a match for you.

Not really.

Ooo, change of tack. Feigning disinterest and the start of playing down the significance of your own actions.

I just have a few minutes to spare from work to comment on a message board.

"just" a few innocent minutes, oh you poor thing. They must be working you to the bone. Someone pass me a tissue!

I accuse you of nothing more than bias ....

Oh "nothing more" than that. Golly gosh, I was SO wrong to interpret that as a cheep shot. (NOT)

You might hurt yourself.

Is that the voice of experience?

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[greg_barton]

Besides, I doubt you're that old.

OK. Tell me. How old am I?

Ah, fuggetaboutit. You're pretty silly, tenacious D. Have a good life building up and tearing down straw men.

Re:OpenOffice needs work. Open source hurts here

[Macka]

.. LOL ..

YOU ARE THE FAILURE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU ARE THE FAILURE!!!

Eat a dick and die, you sorry no-fp having son of a dick fucked, shit covered bitch!!!

ps, eat a dick!!

My Questions

[TJ6581]

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

Re:My Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't bother selling the Linux idea to a boss like that. He still has a few fingers left to burn before he starts thinking in the right sense. It's a waste of time trying to explain why (it's covered in a variety of detail in many other places, if you care to search), which is why you don't see many replies to you post, do you?

Re:My Questions

[chill]

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

1. Yes, you can probably install it. I know Office 2000 works, but haven't personally tried XP. Will MS Support it? Define support. Do you call MS with tech problems for Office? I've never actually heard of anyone doing that. Will they sell you more licenses? Sure. Updates -- See #2

2. Yes, you can patch it. You don't use the Office Update site, but rather download the manual patches that are available then run them.

3. Mandrake? Not sure, though probably Mandrake. With Red Hat or SuSE you can probably get a contract from your PC supplier (HP, IBM, Dell, etc.) and probably from IBM, HP, TRW or a few dozen others for "big company support". You should also be able to find quite a few of smaller, local support options.

KDE vs. Gnome

[Domino]

"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 :)

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[clarkie.mg]

We have two great Desktop Environments - thats one too much.

So what do you suggest ? Handcuff gnome developers ? Erase gnome of every computer ? As long as someone wants to create open source software, there is nothing you can do. The choice is up to the user and not to marketers/managers/financials or whatsoever.

That's good.

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[Domino]

So what do you suggest ? Handcuff gnome developers ? Erase gnome of every computer ? As long as someone wants to create open source software, there is nothing you can do. The choice is up to the user and not to marketers/managers/financials or whatsoever.

Of course not. But I would rather see the two teams to join forces, than see companies like RadHat messing with both Gnome and KDE so much by trying to make them one. How is such a design mess going to success on the desktop?

There has been a lot of good work, such as having a common *.desktop file standard, a similar dock-icon support etc, but that's just not enough.

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[erikharrison]

Actually, that is enough.

Frankly, I've had enough of the "if we eliminated competition on such and such a level, we could win the OS war" crap. What OS war? Personally I want a computer that does what I need it to do, does it well, and doesn't leave me at the mercy of a billion dollar company. Why is it that computer geeks can only think in terms of replacing one mind share monopoly with another? Replace Microsoft with Linux is the mantra, and frankly that doesn't make me any happier.

What I really want is to replace closed standards with open ones - I'm not evern talking about open versus closed source, I'm talking about Adobe becoming a highly successful company by (amongst other things) making PostScript and PDF open. KDE and GNOME have been fighting the limitations of X standards to the point where they have their own extensions to X. These extensions are open ones - I can solve most interoperability problems by running KDE or GNOME with a Window Manager that is compliant to both - specifically I use OpenBox.

Frankly, innovation comes from competition. After innovation comes consolidation - the GNOME and KDE projects (plus RoX and XFCE) have been extending X through various internal protocols, innovating in terms of X as a platform for building a desktop. Now the Freedesktop project consolidates the results from an open specification into an open standard. This means that the best results of all four projects get put together, increasing the ability of third party developers to create working applications for both, and allowing applications to be cross compatible. The next step is for the desktops to compete on other levels, allowing for innovation.

I wouldn't have it any other way. And frankly neither would you. Without the existance of not two, but four DE projects, the current state of the X desktop would be much poorer - where would we be if we had sunk everything into CDE? Would CDE have excited any developers into doing the work in the first place?

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[RdsArts]

Only one desktop on GNU/Linux and other free NIXes... I can't think of anything worse.

It'll also never happen.

Please remember that all this software is mostly coded by volunteers who do things because they find them interesting, and add pieces here and there.

Sure, there's been a lot of commerical interest in them lately, but at the core, they're still for the most part "just" things being done for fun by volunteers who do it because they like to code things.

With the OpenDesktop standards, programs should be moving more to a place where they have standards that both desktops can use. THIS is what we need - more standards so that things can interoperate. Not just mandating one desktop.

And what we also need is less people "pushing" for GNU/Linux to take over the desktop. It'll happen. Quit being in such a hurry. Sit back, code, and enjoy the ride. And check out XFCE4. It's a slick little desktop, complies with the OpenDesktop standards, and looks slick to boot.

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[cscx]

You know how Gnome started, right? KDE was first, but the hippy GNU purists weren't happy with the licensing terms for the QT libraries, so they basically said, "screw you guys, we're making our own."

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[David Gerard]

http://freedesktop.org/

Currently verging on vapor, but an idea whose time is very soon if not now.

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[Arandir]

Of course *WE* shouldn't do that! I wouldn't feel right about handcuffng a Gnome developer. That's what government is for: so we can have someone else do the dirty work while we feel all smug about ourselves for our civic mindedness.

If there's a problem with too many UNIX desktops, then we need a law!

p.s. The above post is not to be taken seriously. Come to think of it, nothing on Slashdot should be taken seriously.

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

You know how Gnome started, right? KDE was first, but the hippy GNU purists weren't happy with the licensing terms for the QT libraries, so they basically said, "screw you guys, we're making our own."

Which led Trolltech to issue QT first under the QPL and then under the GPL. So as a result we have KDE and GNOME both as truly free desktops. Sounds like good work bu the "GNU purists"

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally would vote for GNOME as a basis since its IMO more advanced and has a better underlying design. The great stuff in KDE that Gnome 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.
GNOME is the future buddy. Embrace it or get lost in the KDE featuritis and QT shiteness. C++ over C? Please...

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[thynk]

I wouldn't feel right about handcuffng a Gnome developer

I'd be just fine with handcuffing a Gnome developer, as long as she was attractive and liked that sort of thing. :-)

Re:KDE vs. Gnome

[basingwerk]

One of the main objects of standards is to reduce the number of ways of doing things. This allows things to be adopted and expanded easily. The basic idea is that we need the fewest number of standards possible that cover the area we are working in. We don't need 10 desktops; this increases the number of ways of doing things, making it hard to adopted and expand.

YOU ARE THE FAILURE!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU ARE THE FAILURE!!! Fuck off and die!!!

ps, eat a dick!!!

No way to buy for a single user?

[OptimoosePrime]

Am I missing it or is there no way to buy this just for a single user? My boss could care less what OS I use at work, but he won't do Linux for anybody else in the office. All I hold onto Windows for is for Outlook connecting to our Exchange server. We have OWA, but it sucks. I don't think there are any alternatives out there besides Ximian Connector, but it's $70.

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.

Re:No way to buy for a single user?

[erikharrison]

Well, really you don't want it for just yourself. Well, you might but really just buy SuSE's Office Desktop, as opposed to Enterprise Desktop. Besides, SuSE connects to that exchange server using Ximian Connector, so might as well just pop it into Evolution on a distro your already comfortable handling if it's just a one box thing.

Re:No way to buy for a single user?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its an enterprise edition, its not aimed at single or stand alone systems. The single desktop vesion is SuSE Linux Office Desktop.

http://www.suse.de/en/private/products/suse_linu x/ office_desktop/index.html

STARBASIC?

[mgkimsal2]

Isn't there something called starbasic included with staroffice and openoffice?

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[unoengborg]

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++

Linux Desktop and the Evolution

[DrugCheese]

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.

I've already replaced one XP/winroute gateway machine (dont ask me) with a linux box without anyone seeming to notice ... added a backup fileserver share for everyone without anyone asking where it came from ... the desktops are really the only objective left to conquer.

Squad move out!
Yes sir!

Re:Linux Desktop and the Evolution

[jhunsake]

Squad move out!
Yes sir!

Why are some of you such dorks? Didn't those beatings in high school teach you anything?!

Re:Linux Desktop and the Evolution

[thynk]

Why are some of you such dorks? Didn't those beatings in high school teach you anything?!

Taught me "Walk dorkily and carry a .357". Imagine, a slashdotter calling someone on /. a dork.

Re:Linux Desktop and the Evolution

[DrugCheese]

I'm 6" 250lbs and the only beatings I witnessed in high school were the ones given by our football team to others.
Stereotyping is a handicap

Re:Linux Desktop and the Evolution

[jhunsake]

Stereotyping is a handicap

Can I get disability then?

Re:Linux Desktop and the Evolution

[DrugCheese]

In this country I'm sure you could

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

So how is this less expensive?

[Alex Reynolds]

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?

Re:So how is this less expensive?

[benwb]

Per incident phone support from microsoft is $250 a pop. It's included in the support package suse is selling.

Re:So how is this less expensive?

[Alex Reynolds]

For consumers, yes, that's true. But for organizations, there is usually a different support structure.

In any case, tech support will tell you to reinstall or talk to your local support provider, who will be told to reinstall. I doubt that SuSE could or would do any different.

I think I'd still like to see the numbers. I'm suspicious that it was a case of supporting a homegrown company more than a financial decision.

-Alex

Re:So how is this less expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you know how the big contracts get their support from MS? If you're a high roller and you call up with a problem or a bug that's not resolved yet, they'll have the engineer that wrote that software on the other line talking to you and have him write you a fix.....

Re:So how is this less expensive?

[Cassius105]

Im not sure your right about govornment getting discount

look at the latest deal with microsoft and the US govornment
US govornment is paying them full price

as far as i know those nice discounts are reserved for education only so thats why you can get XP for so much cheaper

Re:So how is this less expensive?

[damiam]

SuSE's license is also for life, but the support lasts one year. I bet that's significantly longer than the "support" you get on $60 Windows systems.

Re:So how is this less expensive?

[David Gerard]

With SuSE, you're buying support. With your XP educational license, you're not - the direct comparison would be downloading SuSE off the FTP server.

Re:So how is this less expensive?

[Cassius105]

depends how technicaly minded you are

they might tell you to reinstall if your someone who dont know a whole lot about computers

but unlike windows they also jave the option of telling you fixes for problem by telling you to delve into the code and change somthing

SuSE 8.2

[NEOtaku17]

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).

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[Realistic_Dragon]

What are the obscure technical reasons the article alludes to?

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 :o(

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

price comparison

[minus_273]

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

Re:price comparison

[jethroT]

Checking Prices at buy.com:

XP Home : 183$
Suse Personal Edition: 32$

Please try not to compare apples with apple carts.

Here's a case in point where linux has lost the

[Anonymous Coward]

plot

Noob installs RH9.
Attempts file search.
Error: you need to refresh the database or some shit. Type blah blah blah. OK

Now WTF?? An error box telling me to go to a terminal, type in blah blah, when it could have:
a) just fucking refreshed it without telling me
b) checkbox: refresh database: OK

This is lame beyond comprehension

But who will they sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:But who will they sue?

[commodoresloat]

Most Linux contributions come from anonymous hackers stealing ideas, infringing on patents, and just all around copying what's out there

Can you name a couple of such contributions? This sounds like what SCO is claiming. Anonymous hackers stealing ideas? Most linux-related code I've looked at clearly indicates the author in the copyright information, and mailing lists can be looked at to glean further information about who contributed specific things to the kernel. And if by "copying what's out there" you mean "devising a new way to implement a procedure seen in action elsewhere," well, sure, but it's the "devising a new way" part that is original.

"But because it's open source..."

[heironymouscoward]

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.

Suse Issues...

[CaptCanuk]

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.

Dont ...

[rosewood]

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?

Re:Dont ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Now excuse me while I smack my bitch up.

Re:Dont ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Yet more evidence that cultural Marxism has permeated American society to the point that middle-class, white suburbanites feel it necessary to talk like negroes.

Rap sucks. Hollywood sucks. Pop culture sucks. And wiggers suck.

Re:Dont ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet more evidence that cultural Marxism has permeated American society to the point that middle-class, white suburbanites feel it necessary to talk like negroes.

Rap sucks. Hollywood sucks. Pop culture sucks. And wiggers suck.


Mod +5 insightful

I use Leo

[Schlemphfer]

Anyway, does anyone know of a good Linux program that allows one to prepare and re-organize writing in an Outline form?

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.

Re:I use Leo

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Edward K. Ream, the creator or Leo. The url given above is out of date. Leo's correct home page is:

http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html

Department of Motor Vehicles

[malia8888]

Quoted from the article:

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.

Re:Department of Motor Vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine the lack of humour in GERMAN DMV emplyoees *shudder*

Re:Department of Motor Vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

Yikes!!!!...........that is scary!!!

Re:Department of Motor Vehicles

[Centinel]

Haven't you ever heard the joke?

IN HEAVEN ...

All the chefs are French
All the police are British
All the mechanics are German
All the lovers are Italian
And the whole place is run by the Swiss

BUT IN HELL ...

All the chefs are British
All the police are German
All the mechanics are French
All the lovers are Swiss
And the whole place is run by the Italians!

Re:Department of Motor Vehicles

[Anonymous Coward]

All the lovers are Swiss

Whats the matter with that? I'd bang a swiss chick. Hell yeah would I ever bang a swiss chick!

linux issues

[minus_273]

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

Re:linux issues

[IamTheRealMike]

Please stop spreading FUD.

It got so bad recetly that i had to reinstall my mandrake 9.0 syatem with 9.1 just to use gaim

Then you don't know what you're doing. That sounds harsh, and is. It's easy to get confused by Linux software installation. There are people working on making this a lot easier, but it's not there yet. Until it does, please don't extrapolate your mistakes into "problems with Linux" which don't actually exist.

Also just try using mandrake 8.x .. hardly any precompiled packages off the web will work fo you.

That's due to the fact that developers use the latest versions. You can always compile it yourself. In fact over time with increased awareness of how to compile in a portable fashion, this problem should decline and eventually mostly disappear.

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.

You've gotta be kidding me. OS X doesn't know the meaning of binary stability. Mac users regularly find that they have to upgrade their entire OS because application packages start requiring minor point releases of the it. The lack of any real core API sideloading makes the problem about a gazillion times worse than it is on Linux or Windows.

Let's see what you think the "major problems" are.
1. Gcc changes - s/changes/change/, which only affects C++ apps. This is a one off, and the problem disappears if you compile from source.

2. Glibc changes - glibc always preserves binary compatability. The only time things break is when the apps were broken and relying on wierd facets or bugs in glibc (postgresql springs to mind). Wine is something of a special case, in that before NPTL Linux threading was too primitive to support it, so it had to take a back route.

3. libpng changes (2 and 3 are not compatible on the same machine) - they are actually, what you mean is that major versions 2 and 3 conflict when loaded into the same process image. Recompile the application and the problem will disappear. This one is due to the quirky scoping rules of ELF, and problems like it are extremely rare.

4. people using beta perl or X11 versions to compile - then don't use their packages! Nobody forces you to use packages built by people who clearly aren't interested in compatability.

Re:linux issues

[David Gerard]

Heh. My way to get Linux binaries to work is having both linux_base-6 and linux_base-7 installed in FreeBSD. A better Linux than Linux ;-)

Re:linux issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick that thumb back up yer azzwhole, weenierdude. No Lusr will fsck_around 1-second. We're talkin' transparant function. SusE-the-*itch is pointed at RETAIL GUI Lusrs, not some 6-finger webtoe dweeb in the closet groping his fav electromechanic blo-up dolly.

Re:linux issues

[ceswiedler]

Dude, what he said was, 'binary compatibility is often broken under Linux', and you replied, 'No it isn't, just recompile the applications.'

Do you understand what binary compatibility is? It's not FUD to say that Linux doesn't support it very well. The mantra of kernel development is that source compatibility will always be maintained, but ABIs will always change. Everyone makes an effort to minimize the problem, but the rapid advance of Linux is partly due to developers being able to break ABIs.

Re:linux issues

[IamTheRealMike]

No, that guys problem was needing a higher versioned ABI than he had. Basically, if you compile on Mandrake 9.1, you will need the glibc ABI from that version of glibc - while other libraries can be sideloaded, glibc cannot be. Recompiling the app essentially "rewinds" the ABI in use.

So, old binaries will/should run fine on newer boxes, but the reverse is not true. For autopackage we are working on tools that let you compile against an older set of glibc symbol versions so that users don't have to upgrade their OS in order to get the new ABI. It's not all that hard.

Kernel development has nothing to do with this - we are talking about applications, not drivers. Also, the kernel doesn't even maintain source compatability, don't know where you got that idea from.

Re:linux issues

[minus_273]

are you kidding. whos is spreading FUD. I am only telling you of my expeience using linux since 1996. Yes things are getting better, is it ready for prime time . hell no. the fact that no new mandrake binaries will work on 8.1 anymore is pretty bad. If I compile, it may solve the problem, but woudl youspend all your time compiling? try compiling kde 3.1 kdevelop and qt3 and see how long it takes. The fact that you say just recompile as if it is really a snap gives me the impression you dont do it very often. You accuse me of spreading FUD, look at youself. Obviously you have no idea what you are saying. Are you saying my machine is too old to run linux properly and regularly get the latest updates. Try compliling the kde messenger kopete on a pentium pro with 128 MB ram, see how it teakes over a day?( yes, i did comple it) now windows 2000 works just fine runs everything new really nicely too and it doesnt take over a day to install trillian.

Re:linux issues

[IamTheRealMike]

Look, we know it's a problem but you are accusing Linux of things that can only be caused by a wierd setup or lack of knowledge. It took an entire day to compile Kopete? My machine is only a bit faster than that, and it can compile the entirety of gnome in less than a day. Something went pretty badly wrong. That's not the normal experience.

The same thing - you say "I had to upgrade Mandrake to install Gaim, Linux is so screwed". Well that is just not true, you could have installed Gaim on Mandrake 9.0 just fine, but you chose not to.

Re:linux issues

[minus_273]

let me clarify, i meant Gaim2. try installing that on mandrake 9. try the packages on rpmfind, gaims site and urpmi. I was wondering why you were so adamant that it works fine yeah gaim works fine i meant gaim2. and no it is not just a GTK issue. honestly i put up with a lot of shit under linux but that was the last straw,

Re:linux issues

[IamTheRealMike]

There is no "gaim2". There's Gaim 0.64, which is based on gtk2. To make it install on Mandrake 9, just do the usual routine - install its dependencies, then install Gaim itself. Compile or use packages for each, it doesn't really matter.

Re:linux issues

[minus_273]

sounds easy enough huh, heh how about you try it once. if you can do it without breaking your system then i will be impressed. heck most posts on the mandrake news group have similar issues.. know what the answer is? reinstall

ModPointWasterBot 0.1 (Linux) d8529754c00a90e

[Anonymous Coward]

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ModPointWasterBot 0.1 (Linux) 9b4dbf111c5f71c

[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda
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OpenOffice != Open-Source

[Cid Highwind]

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.)

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[allanj]

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.

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[Realistic_Dragon]

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.

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 :o)

does it run MSAccess?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

ModPointWasterBot 0.1 (Linux) d60aef7f82617ea

[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda
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a35c2cf55c09b79ef3d5b359f0a2cb917a2ac9f6daa0be2d ab bb91b65ed33179095902a91d1fbd8cc43d566fef70b9a4806c 472f05c8e1ec7b4eee6b9d2190b6bb32d67faa3b1d750edc26 f11d9959d941974ba26aec1036c02ecd1d7647c37d8fe71178 15d34847105f5cc78a519d8ae9492be148f2a8bfedde00178f b36af71facbebad34862a16418a25efcac9ddbdd0907b8dd72 46f8050290f4bc57a07a

Apologies to Ben Franklin...

[Gothmolly]

Those who would give up customizability for simplicity, will lose both, and gain neither.

Re:Apologies to Ben Franklin...

[damiam]

How is that relevant? None of the major Linux desktops (unless maybe you use Metacity by itself) is giving up customizability for simplicity.

Re:Apologies to Ben Franklin...

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that relevant? None of the major Linux desktops (unless maybe you use Metacity by itself) is giving up customizability for simplicity.

If you have fewer desktop environments then you have less customisability. Obviously, at the moment you can choose this or that, if there were no choice then you er... couldn't choose... I'm not necessarily agreeing with his quote but I am having trouble seeing how you could not recognise a change in customisability if you had fewer options to choose between.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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ModPointWasterBot 0.1 (Linux) 9444fa07bac2494

[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda
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256MB, 500MHz

[leomekenkamp]

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?

Re:256MB, 500MHz

[imsabbel]

HAHAHA! Unter linux, you DID. And you still do if you have a uncommon graphic card. I remember using debian on a a2000+ with a kyro2. Studdering windows. Areas waiting to be filled with color. yeah. almost like win3.1

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a remarkably bad attempt at trolling. Try learning English.

Re:Wow

[justsomebody]

No trolling, it's truth only. I see it every day.
What part of what I said isn't true???? Please, correct me if I'm wrong, I like to be corrected, it's enough FUD on this world even without me.

As for my English, yes it's bad, at least writing, it's my fourth language and sadly,... not enough important part of my life depends on it (at least writing skills). So if my writing made you feel some kind of terrible pain, .... OK, it didn't hurt me at all;)

MOD PARENT DOWN

[akedia]

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!

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[damiam]

You, sir, have been trolled. Very badly.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[carrett]

hahaha, yes yes, that was my plan!

SO != OO.org

[b17bmbr]

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.

Re:SO != OO.org

[The Bungi]

P3-933/512MB running RH9 loads OO.org in about 9 seconds

In the same machine class all of the MS Office apps load in about 1 second or less. I can't see how 9 seconds means "it's so ready for the corporate desktop". Plus OO is buggier than hell compared to MS Office.

Re:SO != OO.org

[jbardell]

OO.o is certainly far from perfect, and is a little on the slow side (Duron 900/768mb here), but it's certainly an excellent replacement for the MS Office suite. Peopl need to look at the COSTS of running Linux, and not just the system itself when considering a switch from MS>Linux Distro. I find it well worth the hassle to have to re-open an app once in awhile due to crashing as compared to pirating some lousy, icky, crumby EULA slathered MS app.

Re:SO != OO.org

[b17bmbr]

In the same machine class all of the MS Office apps load in about 1 second or less.

because all the of the resources are preloaded into memory. take a look inside your startup programs. lots of office stuff there. if i preloaded all the libs for OO.org, it'd be the same.

Plus OO is buggier than hell compared to MS Office.

please let me know where. i have found it at about the same level as office 2k.

I can't see how 9 seconds means "it's so ready for the corporate desktop"

ready menas the whole package. and having to wait 8 more seconds. wow, talk about worker productivity.

Re:SO != OO.org

[Anonymous Coward]

The word processor just about makes it, but I wouldn't trust it for anything serious. The spreadsheet is a complete joke however. If you just use it for balancing your checkbook, fair enough. But just because it looks like a bit like Excel and you can type numbers in the boexes, doesn't mean its a corporate-ready spreadsheet. Far from it I'm afraid. I doesn't matter if "all the menus are anti-aliased"

Re:SO != OO.org

[Spellbinder]

ms office is buggier then hell too
i think it's to hot in hell for bugs anyway =))
i don't mean the "now i start word in safe mode because you annoy me" type of bugs
there is no usablility ... but you get used to it
if you use ms office long enough you know what you can do and what not and you will stay away from things you can't do
and so it appears less buggie
i OO.org is very near to be ready
i "forced" my mother to use it
the first few weeks where problematic but now she finds advantages to ms office almost every day

Re:SO != OO.org

[The Bungi]

because all the of the resources are preloaded into memory. take a look inside your startup programs

Wow, you are teh 1337. I remove that after installing Office.

please let me know where

Well it has different weird bugs depending on where you run it. For example, in Windows it can't deal with certain HP printer drivers. Off the top of my head.

and having to wait 8 more seconds. wow, talk about worker productivity.

Whoosh!

Flame Me!

[Martigan80]

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.

Re:Flame Me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Then try integrating Python or Ruby or any other language to OO.org. Once you do that, try selling the idea to Windows users on why they should move to Linux... What'll you say?

* All your Word documents wont read. (if we go your route, this shouldnt be possible too?)
* All your existing VBA scripting needs to be re-done in a lovely language called Python. Nothing much, you just need to fire your existing staff, or train them in python and spend $$$s to re-code.

So on, and so forth.

It's not about following the Windows standards. We need to be complaint to survive. Building above that is a different issue, which is seldom discussed.

Re:Flame Me!

[Martigan80]

"All your Word documents wont read."

What wont Word documents read? Do I have to abuse my Word documents to get them to read?

"you just need to fire your existing staff, or train them in python and spend $$$s to re-code."

Do you work for M$ Office department? Such narrow minded arguments are usualy reserved for them.

"We need to be complaint to survive."

Bullshit, I don't need to be complaint. Do they have a patent on how an office suit should work-no. Can OO do what I want-yes. Because I like it does it mean everyone has to use it-no.

"What'll you say?"

Come back when you have a real argument.

support contracts

[mgkimsal2]

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).

Windoz IS the standard

[Anonymous Coward]

'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.

You don't need WYSIWYG

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Use the source, Luke! (was Re:SuSE is Excellent)

[mousse-man]

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!

Paradigm fit.

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[tagaran]

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.

"evolution"x$x

[denthijs]

can anyone do a wordcount on evolution in this article? I feel my id complaining about mental overload, ..
urges to install gnomelibs,...
helpme

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[Dunkirk]

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.

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 .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.

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.

Re:Why isn't there a macro language and recorder O

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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.

Stolen Ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Stolen Ideas

[commodoresloat]

Tabbed browsing is a linux innovation? Now I know you're a troll. Either that or you have no idea what you're talking about. KDE and office suites are not linux, nor is a freakin browser.

Re:Use the source, Luke! (was Re:SuSE is Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

I coulda' been somebody...

[Anonymous Coward]

You suck gravy through a tube!

Licensing Agfa fonts for replacing Windows fonts?

[Plug]

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?

Pricing, licensing and ROI

[securitas]

''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

Yea, SuSE! You rock! Have my baby!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

REAL Babbage Biography

[Anonymous Coward]

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. :first construct DE2 (the Second Difference Engine; then, if wished DE1, or a version of DE2 with `travelling platforms'; and finally a complete Analytical Engine, probably following plan 28A.

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

LyX, a good compromise

[Jadrano]

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.

And thats why I like debian.

[sg_oneill]

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.