Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Docs Replaces OpenOffice In Ubuntu Netbook Edition

Posted by timothy on from the hope-your-connection's-up dept.

uneuser writes "Digitizor reports that the Ubuntu developers have dropped OpenOffice from the default installation of Ubuntu Netbook Edition (UNE) 10.04 and replaced it with Google Docs. Documents in Ubuntu Netbook Edition will now be opened in Google Docs by default."

4 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. why? by dirtyhippie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Openoffice takes about 350MB of space, so it is a significant proportion of an ubuntu install, but c'mon. Despite the name "netbook", these devices in my experience spend a significant amount of time offline. This is bizarre choice - more discussion is here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1399012

  2. Re:Remember folks, it's a NETbook. by Daengbo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's also strange to switch from Google to Yahoo! (search) and OO.o to Google Docs in the same release.

    --
    Put identity in the browser.
  3. What is a netbook? by sakdoctor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't even know what a netbook is now. At the start they were defined by their tiny form-factors, low-ish power-consumption.
    The revolutionary part was the LOW price. Sony VAIOs of similar size had been around for absolutely ages, but those were just shit, overpriced laptops.

    Then microsoft moved in and netbook grew in size and power. I think my early eeepc IS a netbook, and despite the 600px screen height, I run stock Ubuntu rather than a netbook specific edition.
    Running open office has never been a problem, so I don't see the point in getting all cloud dependent for nothing.

  4. Why does OpenOffice need 350MB, anyway? by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why does OpenOffice need 350MB, anyway?

    • Why is "soffice.exe" 7MB in size? It's just the launcher. The work is done in "sdraw.exe", "swriter.exe", etc.
    • Why is there also "soffice.bin", another 7MB?
    • Does OpenOffice have to have its very own full Python installation? It's only used for scripting OpenOffice from your own applications; OpenOffice itself doesn't need it.
    • Is the whole Java/UNO system, for scripting OpenOffice from Java, really used much?
    • OpenOffice has about 100 DLLs, doing who knows what. How many of those are really used?
    • In fact, most users don't need any of the Java stuff. It's mainly for the OpenOffice database engine, and you're probably not running a relational DBMS on your netbook.

    OpenOffice could probably be brought down below 100MB for netbooks without much work.