Nimble, Excel-Compatible Spreadsheets for *nix?

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Nimble, Excel-Compatible Spreadsheets for *nix?

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 16, 2004 @11:48AM from the abiword-needs-more-imitators dept.

linguae writes "I'm running a FreeBSD desktop on a PC that has a 475MHz K6-2 processor with 64MB RAM. I use lightweight programs on my desktop such as Window Maker, AbiWord, and Firefox. I have been looking for a decent yet lightweight (and preferably Open Source) spreadsheet that is compatible with Excel, and also doesn't rely on dependencies such as GNOME or Java. I'm not an Excel power user, but sometimes I do have to share spreadsheets every now and then. I wonder if there is a spreadsheet equivalent of Abiword?"

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nimble spreadsheet by lscoughlin · 2004-11-16 11:57 · Score: 4, Informative

Gnumeric is about as close as you're going to get.

It's really quite nice...

I'm not sure if it still has any gnome dependencies or not.

But really
abiWord:word::gnumeric:excel

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1. Re:nimble spreadsheet by squant0 · 2004-11-16 12:23 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I'll second Gnumeric for being a quality spreadsheet app. I like it better then OpenOffice as its quicker starting up and the interface easier IMHO.
  Linux From Scratch lists depends on its site, as well as build instructions: Gnumeric-1.2.10
  It seems to depend on a bit of Gnome-ish things. But having some Gnome stuff isn't a bad idea, and you don't _NEED_ all of Gnome for it to work.
OpenOffice by seinman · 2004-11-16 11:57 · Score: 4, Informative

OpenOffice runs on my P1/150mhz system with 48 megs of RAM. It starts up a little slow (30 seconds or so) but once it's going, has no problems. You can do a custom install so that you can use only the spreadsheet program without taking up the HD space on the word processor and presenation programs.
1. Re:OpenOffice by eviljolly · 2004-11-16 12:02 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I've also used OpenOffice on a low end machine (333mhz Windows NT 128MB/ram), and it ran just as well as Excel. I would suggest giving it a try.
Firefox lightweight? by damiangerous · 2004-11-16 11:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

I use lightweight programs on my desktop such as Window Maker, AbiWord, and Firefox.
Firefox is far from lightweight. It's a great program and all, but lightweight is the last word I'd use. Granted I don't use Windows, so maybe it's relative. I would say that Firefox is the single biggest resource sucking app I run on a regular basis. Not to mention it seems to have some sort of memory leak that makes me eventually have to close it (or it crashes).
1. Re:Firefox lightweight? by DAldredge · 2004-11-16 13:07 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  url:http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips#ot h_memcache?
  
  Turn down the memory cache. Follow the steps at the link above and then fully restart firefox. It will make a huge difference.
  
  Their are a lot of config hacks at that link that will let you do a lot on really neat stuff.
A fair few actually... by polyp2000 · 2004-11-16 12:01 · Score: 4, Informative

http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Spreadsheets/

An amazing tool google ... you ought to try it sometime....

OTOH Gnumeric and / or OOo would be a good place to start. OOo xls compatibility is very good in my experience. Havent used Gnumeric for a while last time (several yrs ago) its xls compatibility was a tad ropey - Im sure its improved by now though!

Nick

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sc -- for super lightweight... by runswithd6s · 2004-11-16 12:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

Check out sc. Debian package information follows:
Package: sc Status: install ok installed Priority: optional Section: math Installed-Size: 428 Maintainer: Adam Majer <adamm@galacticasoftware.com> Architecture: i386 Version: 7.16-2 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.2.ds1-4), libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) Description: Text-based spreadsheet with VI-like keybindings "Spreadsheet Calculator" is a much modified version of the public- domain spread sheet sc, which was posted to Usenet several years ago by Mark Weiser as vc, originally by James Gosling. It is based on rectangular table much like a financial spreadsheet. . Its keybindings are familiar to users of 'vi', and it has most features that a pure spreadsheet would, but lacks things like graphing and saving in foreign formats. It's very stable and quite easy to use once you've put a little effort into learning it.

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GNOME Depends are optional in next release by Jody+Goldberg · 2004-11-16 14:36 · Score: 4, Informative

The upcoming 1.4.0 release (due in the next few days) supports a --without-gnome configure time option that decreases functionality (no gnome-vfs means no direct http support), but still works nicely as a spreadsheet. We use this for our win32 port.
Actually, Gnumeric *is* much better by SgtChaireBourne · 2004-11-16 22:29 · Score: 3, Informative

Another option for spreadsheets on *BSD, besides Gnumeric, would be OpenOffice.org Calc.
But Gnumeric is a very good choice. Here is a detailed write up of Gnumeric. The Computational Statistics & Data Analysis Statistical Software Newsletter has a report reviewing Gnumeric vs MS-Excel titled Fixing Statistical Errors in Spreadsheet Software: The Cases of Gnumeric and Excel (Warning for PDF) Regardless, of which spreadsheet you use, it's worth a read. Some excerpts:
When apprised of the errors in v1.0.4, the developers of Gnumeric indicated that they would try to fix the errors. Indeed, Gnumeric v1.1.2 has largely fixed the flaws, while Microsoft has not fixed its errors through many successive versions.
...
Persons who desire to use a spreadsheet package to perfome statistical analyses are advised to use Gnumeric rather than Excel
So, actually, Gnumeric *is* currently much better than MS-Excel. At least if the metrics are that it's statistical functions are more accurate and that bugs get fixed faster. I'd speculate that once Quattro was killed off, MS coasted on development of MS-Excel like it has done with MSIE after killing Netscape. Anyway...

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1. Re:Actually, Gnumeric *is* much better by Otter · 2004-11-17 00:12 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  So, actually, Gnumeric *is* currently much better than MS-Excel. At least if the metrics are that it's statistical functions are more accurate and that bugs get fixed faster. I'd speculate that once Quattro was killed off, MS coasted on development of MS-Excel like it has done with MSIE after killing Netscape.
  On the contrary, I'd say Excel is by far the best product Microsoft makes, and it keeps getting better. The statistical problems are a legitimate criticism (and Gnumeric should be commended for doing a better job with them) but they mostly involve a few decimal places of accuracy in edge cases that matter to a vanishingly small number of users. The Excel developers haven't been rolling around in piles of money instead of fixing those algorithms -- they've been doing things like making references update seamlessly when a cell is moved, something none of the free spreadsheets comes close to doing.
  
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