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Corel

WordPerfect Office 2000 - Now Shipping 164

Posted by HeUnique from the very-good-news dept.
Corel has announced that Corel WordPerfectOffice 2000 for Linux is now shipping. You can find all the details about what each version includes at the URL above. Here is a link with a review of Wordperfect 2000 for Linux. Oh, they also include in the package this little cute bean-filled penguin. I read the review and I'm not sure if this shipping date isn't a bit too early though.
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WordPerfect Office 2000 - Now Shipping More

WordPerfect Office 2000 - Now Shipping

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  • Early review (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The review was based on Beta 1. There were lots of bugs fixed between beta 1 and beta 2 (beta 1 was flatout unusable on some testers systems).

    Beta 2 also had a bunch of bugs, and testers haven't seen what's going to be shipped, so who knows what the quality will be.
  • I currently use StarOffice without any major problems, though I can't stand the all in one app, probably because I'm just not used to it from so many years of the other office packages.
    Anyway, back to the point, the more choice we have for office suites the better chance we have of gettign a very robust and easy to use program as now they compete to get us to use it which is always good for us.
  • Well, wasn't it Al Gore who invented Linux?? I mean, he invented the internet. Maybe he has stock shares in Corel.
  • I bought it and am satisfied. Now my wife and kids can generate a nice looking document without rebooting to windows.

    Anyine else buy it?
  • It is my understanding that it uses the Wine libraries, not the wine emulator itself. So if this is true, it is not a windows .exe, it is a native Linux executable.
  • Talk about share^H^H^H^H^Hcrippleware!!
  • And just how is xv crippleware? I mean you have the source and can edit it yourself.
  • I read the review, but the link just went down; might have been slashdotted :)

    If they wanted 100% Microsoft Office compatibility, they'd never release. It's a miracle that they have Access working at all; it has the most proprietary format of all the MS Office apps.

    I hope they can make the majority of this work, though. It's very convenient to query databases and have the results pop up in a spreadsheet. In fact, if they can make the ODBC query part stable, I'd be ready to switch.

    On the subject of bloat: Nearly 500 meg for an office suite? Spare me the pain of installing that on every PC in my office! I'd rather set up an Office "server" and run it remotely using X or Tarantella. How does the size of this suite compare to Office 2000?
  • I believe that the internet installer is the only one available from MS. However, you can get IEAK (IE Admin. Kit) "free" (as in beer, of course) - lets you create your own internet-based installer (aimed at ISPs), single-directory installation (for LANs) or a CD-ROM based installation. AFAIK, there is no "single-file" installer available for IE5.
    ________________________
  • "I read the review and I'm not sure if this shipping date isn't a bit too early though."

    OK, if you REALLY read the review before posting this, then why didn't you notice that the review was done of a BETA (That means NOT the final release version, since you don't seem to be aware of the meaning of that word.) copy of WPO.

    The Adventures of Beaver and Butthead

    Beavis^H^Her: Gee, Wally, does that mean that they would actually have bugs in their beta?

    Butthead: Uh-huh-huh-huh... You dumbass.

  • Now the corel offically is releasing WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux this going to open a new arena for Linux companies now. Hopefully corel will be smart and allow it to run on any linux distribution I hate to do reinstall just to install something else. This will help keep linux foot in the door as a desktop replacement for companies and even for people at home now you sell linux computers to people who have limited needs for thier computers with no fear of them having problems finding a Good office software packages they need. This is not the last we will see of this kind of thing. This will be fun to see how this plays out


    http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]

  • Hey.. You can't do macro virii in WP, can you? :)


    -- Thrakkerzog
  • I'm kind of surprised that this doesn't seem to have impacted their stock, not even a little bit. I guess people are waiting on their earnings, expected today. The best press release Corel could hope for at this point would be 'Cowpland Vaporises' or 'Cowpland falls off of a cliff' or something of that nature......
  • Evidence to the contrary please?

    Now c'mon, SJ, you know it doesn't work like that.

    Yes, as a matter of fact, I did [buy it].

    Okay, that's two of us, but I think we'll need a little larger sample.

    the local CompUSA and Best Buy stores carry WordPerfect 8 and a number of other Linux titles on the shelf

    Wouldn't a better sign of selling power be if they were disappearing from the shelves, rather than occupying them? Now, if you're saying that they must be doing well to even have been on the shelf in the first place, I have to note that Microsoft BOB (!) and OS/2 Warp 4 used to be found on store shelves as well. :)

    I agree with you that there aren't as many cheapskates in the Linux world as in the Windows world, but that's because Windows users make up around 95% of the users. In percentage terms, though, I'd peg the percentage of Linux cheapskates as substantially higher than that for WIndows. There are no doubt loads of warez kiddies on the Windows side, but they end up accounting for a small portion of the total users. On the other hand, you've got to admit that the stereotype of the Linux user isn't all that far from the demeanor of your average warez kiddie. I'm of the opinion that there's a good-sized overlap. (Note that I'm not referring to someone who might engage in an offhand license abuse -- the percentages of those are probably high in both camps -- but the type unwilling to pay for anything.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • > Or even cooler, the installation program could scan your Windows partition, see what apps you have
    > on your Start Menu, and set them up to run from Wine.

    The GNOME panel has options to automagically include KDE and AnotherLevel menus. How much effort would it be to add Windows Start menus?
    The only real problem is that the Windows shortcuts are in some unintelligle binary format, and rest-assured Microsoft won't just give the specs away...
  • Ten dollars to ship a CD-ROM? I hope it comes with a printed manual, or something.

    Are they perhaps doing something silly, like shipping them all from Canada? I don't know if Corel even has an office in the US, it seems like everything in North America goes out of the Ottawa office. Either that, or they're just trying to make a couple of bucks off of shipping...
  • I hope a lot of folks at IBM/Lotus read Slashdot, because I would buy SmartSuite for Linux in a heartbeat.

    For all the good points of the software Corel owns that used to be Borland (Paradox, Quattro Pro), Lotus' products were better. In consumer-grade database software, for example, I still use and recommend Approach over MS Access, and most people would agree that 1-2-3 is a top-tier spreadsheet. Freelance Graphics might not have had all the connectivity bells and whistles of PowerPoint, but then, I don't usually try to integrate presentations with other Office apps anyway, because the memory footprint has usually meant that the overall presentation would have run too damn slow.

    Trouble is, so far the Lotus consumer apps are still tied to the one set of OS's I absolutely will not continue with, that is, Microsoft's. If Lotus wants any more of my money, they'd better get something going on the Linux side of the fence.

  • Hell I find GIMP the easiest to use. Especially the devel stuff out right now. I've run every build that has come out. I love the tear-away menus. The only think gimp needs I think is Pantone support but I have a feeling that will never happen except via third party plugin. There are some licensing issues or what not around that I think.
    It's funny. There's a guy here at work who was starting to use photoshop and I was actually able to help him with a couple of things once I located the menu options. I started out with gimp so I'm not a photoshop kind of guy.

  • I think (If im not mistaken) that Corel Draw is a vector based graphics app similar to Illustrator more than to photoshop.
  • Actually, buying this and Corel Linux (non-deluxe) costs US$159, since the high-end version of Corel Office includes Corel Linux. :-)
  • I believe Corel had maintained publicly for some time that the first iteration of their suite would depend on Wine, so as to be quicker to market. They would have to be even dumber than Commodore to not create a native Linux version for the next iteration. If for no other reason, native code will be so much faster and more stable.

    It's a first step, and the free uber alles zealots can just use the KOffice suite. Choice is good.
  • If you don't want to pay $14.95 for the CD, just look for a magazine with it on the Coverdisc - like PC world Feb 2000...
  • Yeah, He could have also used a spell check, or at least got someone else to proof read. I don't think his bio covers up for the fact that like the product reviewed, the review itself seems a little rushed and disjointed.
  • Same here, I'm simply waiting for WP2000 and Corel DRAW/PhotoPAINT and my life is complete.
  • If you'd bothered to read this review [justlinux.com] before posting, you'd see they have screenshots.
  • Speaking as a beta-tester, this product is nowhere near ready to ship.

    I used to work for corel's tech support department, and this doesn't surprise me at all. When WP2K for windows was released it had so many bugs it was basically unusable for anything but basic wordprocessing. There were features advertised on the box that weren't even in the damn program! The first 2 service packs added up to about 100 megs, and replaced a large chunk of the suite.

    I used to be a big fan of corel. I still think they have the best interface and features of any of the big name wordprocessors, but I gave up on them after WP2K and started using word (when in windows of course). Say what you will about microsoft, at least they released office 2000 in a somewhat usable state.

    If I were you guys I'd give the linux version of WP a couple of service packs before buying it (or just use something else entirely - waiting for koffice my self).

    kms1

  • Hey, don't forget reveal codes! They are the feature I miss most when moving from WP to Word. Not knowing all the extra formatting codes left in my word doc just drives me nuts. I have no idea why ms never implemented this feature, as it seems to be the major reason hardcore WP users won't switch over, even in the face of extremely buggy releases (eg, WP2K for windows).

    As for the virus stuff mentioned later in this thread: WP 6-8 only have support for their own scripting language, PerfectScript. While it is possible to write a virus with ps, I never saw one in my year of doing corel tech support on the macros team. WP9 has support for VBA, but it remains to be seen whether virii written for Word will work the same in corel's VBA implementation.
    -kms1
  • Expect to see an all-in-one distro from them soon, corel linux with the office suite included. It seems to me that it would be very consumer oriented - as long as they can undercut MS, which I'm sure they can, they could bust into the home/small business market quite handily.
  • <em>Is Corel even going to release a version of WP9 free for educational and non-commercial use in support of the community?</em>

    What community is that, I wonder? The shareware community? The WaReZ community? When did our "community" become a bunch of people who only wanted gratis software despite everything else the OS is supposed to stand for?

    Quite frankly, Corel Office has nothing to do with the community. They are a company trying to sell freedom-subtracted software to desperate GNU/Linux users.

    Yes, you heard me: desperate. Why do you think Corel is developing for GNU/Linux? Looking for another market? No. They know that with our new fragile user-base that they *can* cause our users to depend on their office suite. Unfortunately for them, they will have to do a lot of marketing to defeat our philosophy of Free Software*. Or am I wrong?

    Remember a few years ago when we had "The Desktop Wars" ? KDE, at the time, depended on a propietary software library to function at all. Then GNU launched its own desktop project, GNOME, that depended only on Free Software. Now that Qt has relaxed its license, the desktop wars have come to an end.

    What this means is that our community values freedom over conveniance. KDE costed nothing then and costs nothing now. GNOME can be purchased from Helix Code. But because of our community both are almost completely Free Software.

    Corel has created an OS based of GNU/Linux to run their propietary software. There are a few obvious holes in the GNU/Linux OS. One is Netscape. It is slow, it is buggy, and it has poor support for standards. And there is nothing anyone can do about it because it is propietary. Corel is creating an Office Suite that is propietary. But fear not, it will be seen as another obvious hole in the OS. Corel Office will eventually be replaced.

    Yes I am raving evangelist. But I see a thin line in the dirt that too many don't see. Cross that line and we may never find our way back. Once propietary software becomes common we have already given up our freedom. And we have then transformed our OS into something it is not.

    * Free Software means Free as in Freedom, has nothing to do with price. For you newbies ;)
  • no precompiled headers, no incremental linking

    Actually you can create a foo.h file that includes everything you need, and parse it with gcc -E -dD foo.h > foo.ph. This outputs the preprocessed code with all the definitions, so when you include it in every file you need, the preprocessor has to do a lot less work.

    Many of the incremental linking benefits may be obtained with shared libraries, as described in this article [ddj.com] from Dr. Dobbs Journal.

    Of course, I don't know how this would require changes in the Corel's codebase, and probably Wine had to be used anyway, so... but, as you see, these are not real issues with new projects.

    Just my 0.03 Euro (damned inflation :-)

  • As one of the beta testers one of the most dissapointing part of WP2K was that is runs under Wine. Linux has more than enough momentum that it should not have to revert to emulation for major apps. My experiences with it on average user machines (K6 300 to PII 300), are slow and a general feeling that it's out of place.

    I was really looking forward to this, but after seeing it I am very disappointed, and probably won't bother to buy it...
  • $159 for both? Now I definately like that number. That's less than a Win2k Pro license (which I got today for testing under VMWare 2.0)!

    I checked out pricing for MS products today. That's even less than MS Select Pricing for Win2K/O2K if you're a business with under 400 people. Plus, unlike the combination of O2K and Win2K, these WILL work together. We ran the two together here, and although they DID work, it just wasn't well. Why wait for a service pack real soon now, when you can get the real thing now? :)

    By the way, I did run Excel and Word 2000 documents in StarOffice 5.1 and WP Beta. Worked flawlessly. Didn't run through Presentations though.
  • >Are there any mainstream distributions that
    >include Wine ready-to-run?

    I'm using Mandrake 6.1 right now and it came with Wine inluded...

  • I use WP2K for Windows and it seems to work great for me - although HTML conversion sucks, at least it doesn't crash as Word often did when I opened HTML...I'm not sure what features on the box you're talking about, but I don't know of anything I can't do...then again, it's possible that I have a CD of the patched version. However, it seems to me that anyone who works tech support will always see a product as being buggy, because they are exposed to every single bug.
  • If they wanted 100% Microsoft Office compatibility, they'd never release.

    Also remember that Office 97 wasn't even downwardly compatible with Office 95. If MS's own people can't ensure compatibility, then how are competitors with no access to secret APIs? Also, the fact that Office 97 could actually increase its market share given its compatibility issues, indicates that it is not a show stopper (at least if you have the power to leverage near-monopoly market share of desktop OS's).

    How does the size of this suite compare to Office 2000?



    MSO2K Standard requires just 189 Mb, but the full install of MSO2K Premium needs 526 Mb

  • Although I *despise* the operating system, one thing that makes the Microsoft Office suite powerful is the VBA scripting glue. Excel is powerful as it has the ability to link in external c/c++ functions.

    (...when it works as claimed, and when backwards compatibility isn't broken..)

    In any case, it would be _awesome_ if there was a *real* scripting language for the Corel suite, such as python, (not the VBA crap) as well as the ability to link in foreign functions from C. Then, the suite would offer stability, there would be a great deal of synergy between the separate apps (especially paradox/ qpro). It is important to have the ability to bring in info from external databases (like sybase/oracle), or from your own custom defined functions.

    For a programmer in a business environment, (trading floor), customization, and linking into external databases/ legacy systems is what its all about.

  • StarOffice *does* discriminate based on OS. You cannot run StarOffice on any linux platform except x86, and from the looks of things, WP2K will too.
  • One point which seems to have been overlooked is that WordPerfect Office 2000's dependency on WINE make it pretty much stuck on the x86 platform. I would really like to be able to run this with LinuxPPC or RedHat/sparc. I wish that corel would have opted for a native port.

    With a $150+ price tag I'll will have to wait. Too bad, I was really anticipating this product
  • IIRC Corel licensed VBA from from M$ last year, probably not be totally shunned from the business sector that M$ helds hostage.

    However the merger with Inprise/Borland will give the combined company ability to also integrate the Delphi/Kylix scripting capabilities with Corel's Office for Linux and _that_ should make Corel's Office (for Linux or 'doze) a lot more attractive to enterprises.

  • VBA's 'big' thing going for it is the 'VB' kick that some Win32 programmers seem to think is the wave of the future.

    Not to mention the cool macro virus support.
  • If they follow suit, Corel will be releasing SP1 in about 4 weeks after inital release. I've worked with a lot of Corel products (superior to any any office clone, including M$ Office itself IMHO) and found that although well designed, bugs exist. Corel seems to be more concerned about getting a product out, and fixing the bugs later. This makes a shodier product out of the box, but if you wait a month or so after the initial release SP1 will be available, which will fix the major bugs and make a great Office clone. I still prefer it over M$ Office any day. Corel actually attempts to fix the current bugs, not just "fix them in the next release". All things considered, I'll be proud to run this fine office suite on my system.
  • How about just make an NFS share and share the files off of that? That would make sense to me. That's what I did with WordPerfect 8.0.
  • If you ask me Corel is climbing the ladder of Linux supporting companies quite well. And I would not be at all surprised if Corel would once become a company which gives the most support to Linux in a commercial way. At this point I would even rate them a little bit higher then RH myself.

    IMHO they are beginning to take Linux even more serious then they did when releasing WP 8. WP 8 was very functional and it was a very good move to release it for free. I wonder how many people actually downloaded and/or bought WP 8 for Linux.

    But I guess they feel the market is big enough to release a commercial release only (unfortunatly I'm not 100% sure here due to the /. effect) which shows to me that the Linux market is indeed growing and becoming a major player.

    Linux not ready for the desktop? I still agree on that point but movements like this are sure pushing it in the right direction.

  • If you had bothered to read the press release, you would have found out that Corel Linux, Download Edition is being bundled with Office. Also, the Standard/Deluxe versions of Corel Linux come with Corel WordPerfect 8, Download Edition.

    This is as it should be, at least from a marketing perspective. Buy the OS and get a real word processor. Buy the Office Suite and get an OS to run it. If you want the high caliber OS <i>and</i> the high caliber office suite, then buy them both.

    Buy them both? Why would I do that? I'll just buy Windows...and Office...oh, I get it now.

  • While I have to confess to not being a fan of Word Perfect (I prefer Lotus Word Pro or Star Office), this is incredibly significant.

    Someone's already said that if Corel Draw were to be added to this it would be a serious package for a Linux based office. I think it is as it stands.

    Yes, in Star Office and ApplixWare Linux already has two integrated office suites, but irrespective of how good/bad/etc you may consider these packages, neither has quite the mainstream commercial significance as Corel.

    With certain Lotus software already being ported to Linux, could it only be a matter of time before the only one of the 'Big Three' office suites missing is MS Office? I hope so, SmartSuite on Linux would go down very well in my book.

    --
  • You also have to figure in the labor they pay some to pack it, the labor they have to pay some to give it to the ups guy. Also it cost money to process your order. The cost of the packageing. Plus the Credit Card company gets 3% of the total transaction. I say $10 is about what the shipping and HANDLING cost. You have to remeber all the little costs or you will go broke fast.
  • In the article, the reviewer mentions that WP2000 has a 467MB Memory footprint. I think he means disk space :)

    I wish that journalists would at least take the time to proofread their articles...sheesh.
  • They would take out all the beta debug code of the shipping version which would speed it up considerably. Worked fine for me.
  • I'm actually very cruious to hear some comments from some of the BETA testers out there. They are the ones that have been running it, and have a the best feel for WordPerfect Office 2000 for linux. I'm curious how they feel it turned out? Is there really a problem with it running under winelib (if I'm wrong please correct me), and basically do they feel that it is worth it to buy? Don't get me wrong I'm all for companys porting their products to linux but I mean if a program port is crummy to begin with and there is something else better out there (not that I've seen much better StarOffice has a HORRIBLE interface emulating a Windows Desktop, and Abiword isn't even in the same class as desktop publishing suites. I'm sorry a college student needs something like that, something reliable and compatible with everything else) then I'm going to go with the better program despite cost. Soooo if someone that has the beta could write up their feelings on the review and post them (and perhaps a couple screenshots that we can actually see something of the interface from?) I for one would be greatful, and it would help me in a decision to purchase it.
  • No, you're not alone. IMHO, the best word processor ever is TeX -- I can type papers quickly in a old 486 notebook, and still get unbeatable quality when printing them.

    TeX, the GIMP, xv and octave make my "office" package. Ill never install StarOffice, MS Office or whatever in my computer.
  • ...Microsoft (tm) Office for Linux. Just wait.
  • That comes back to one thing that I find somewhat inconsistent of OSS software- the programs they release as 'beta' are usually fully-functional, and nearly bug-free. Only a few bugs need ironing out.

    Whereas Commercial software Betas are EXACTLY that- they ARE riddled with bugs, inconsistencies, performance problems, etc. Why do you think that the Beta testing is usually a fairly "closed" deal- with only select people testing? I certainly don't expect to go to the store and buy a "BETA" version of any other program. The Beta releases are released to find & squash bugs- not show off the program for reviewers.

    And, OSS programmers use good judgement in waiting until the software is fairly bug-free before releasing it. A lot of newbie OSS zealots (who don't seem to realize that 1.) The 'beta' software they get is like a final 'beta' for commercial software, and 2.) Open Source software isn't necessarily released to the public until the programmers feel it's almost to the release point anyway. I can't count all the complaints I've seen from people who want some project they've heard of "NOW" even though it isn't finished, nor functional, etc. They want to 'test' it- when they really don't know what REAL software testing is. They're used to these nearly-fully-functional beta releases you see from GNOME, GIMP, etc.
  • Put those fears to rest; it uses .deb packages and .rpm's
  • You're not alone but I don't agree for the same reasons as you. I have WP8 suite on windows and it ships with a PIM software called Corel Central. I have tried to install it on Win95 and Win 98 with various patches from corel and it NEVER even launched properly. At 95% of the time, it would crash at launch time. I have never seen such a horrible peice of crashware in my who life.

    Now Corel tries to make it in the Linux space with a disto full of closed source additions and every possible peice of open source software that is not free (liberty). What a parasite approach so far. (No, I don't think their involvment in whine should excuse all of this.)

  • The press release says, "Both the Standard and Deluxe Editions of WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux will also include the download version of Corel(r) LINUX(r) OS..." So you don't have to buy them separately.
  • I was on part of the beta test and I do believe its being shipped too early. The beta testers only recieved up to Beta 2. Considering XFree86 4.0 was released only recently I wonder if anyone bothered to test WPO2K again it. And considering 2.4 kernel is going to be released in the near future I can only imagine some of the problems that will be encountered. Overall I think its a good product I would have liked to seen it go through at least one more beta test. One thing I hate is the Fonttastic font server that ships with WPO2K. Espically now that XFree86 4.0 comes with its own TrueType font server there is no need to ship a seperate font server just for the fonts corel ships.
  • Are you trying to be a silly first poster? It would be stupid for Corel to bundle Corel Draw with Office 2000. 90% of the people that buy office suites do not need that type of powerful graphics program and the ones who do have a need for it can purchase it. Why should they drive the price up for something that most people don't need?

    Remember, 99 out of 100 computer users don't know what half the functions in MS Paint are.

    kwsNI

  • Yes! (Score:1)

    by AjR ( 148833 )
    Add Corel Draw and you have a seriously effective system for offices...

    Kudos to Corel

  • Re:Yes! (Score:1)

    by AjR ( 148833 )
    Not in the slightest - I merely pointed out that with the two programs **available** for Linux a lot of the "apps" FUD is made redundant.

    I also never suggested they bundle them. I only merely pointed out that Draw and WP Office combined together make an excellent tool for businesses.

    You're right in a way that a bundle wouldn't work. But give people the choice of buying the two.

    I would buy both WP Office and Corel Draw. I'm also sure that a lot of people out there would find a cut-price linux Corel Draw **very** attractive for their businesses.

    And forget the old AC's who can only spout venom behind the cloak of anonymity.

    I've used Corel Draw since v2 and it is simply one of the best programs ever put together.
  • Smartsuite and Corel Draw are the only apps I keep a WIn9X machine around - personally. I've got 5 years of work in WordPro and 123 format and I don't fancy converting every file piece by piece!

    I liked WP8 for Linux but I didn't think it was a "killer" app - it was nice, but didn't really fire me up (personal opinion) - plus with no Lotus import filters I was stuck.

    I think before long Lotus will have to look at their market share in the WIN market and do something to make a real difference.

    When parent company IBM is falling over backwards for Linux surely Lotus (who have ported Domino) cannot be far behind with Smartsuite.

    Perhaps that could be a good campaign to start - Smartsuite Millenium for Linux. Again, I don't mind paying for software if it helps further the Linux cause.
  • Does Corel Draw compare to packages like Photoshop? Anyway, this is the last thing I was waiting for to ditch Windows forever. Schweeeet.
  • Use Cheapbytes or LSL or one of the other discount places if you want to save a couple $$. They should have it available soon. If you need a manual I'll cost extra, though I don't see the need.

    Cheapbytes, btw, sells RedHat 6.1 for $1.99 + $5 shipping (U.S.). Most other CDs, or multi-packs, cost $5-$14 + $5-$23 shipping.
  • What about a generic gzipped tarball? I haven't found .deb support in Slackware and .rpm just doesn't work when you don't use it to install everything.
  • Beta 2 was sent to testers on Feb 23, I really wonder just how many of the bugs were fixed between then and this "final" release. Guess we'll be waiting for some patches or a service pack.
  • I've always liked the Motif interface to Applix, and the news of a GTK-based, overhauled version (possibly 5.0) coming soon is very welcome.

  • This is *definitely* premature (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Speaking as a beta-tester, this product is nowhere near ready to ship. Basic summary is that it's just WP2K for WinNT compiled against WINE.

    Yep, that's right. Those of you who've used WINE know what that means.

    If I were doing quality control for Corel, I would have done at least 2 more beta rounds. I've currently got 20 open bug reports with them that haven't been fixed, for example, and the regression between beta rounds has been atrocious (files which opened in Beta 1 would crash Beta 2, for example).
  • I guess the person who wrote the review meant hard disk space usage. A memory footprint of >400 MB would blow away most machines, especially the one the tester used (with 96 MB of RAM), swapping them to death :)

  • I doubt Corel ported it themselves. Much more likely is that they just used the usb backport by Vojtech Pavlik:

    usb backport to 2.2 [www.suse.cz]

    Another useful URL:

    Linux USB project [linux-usb.org]
  • When I downloaded the free version of WP8 for Linux earlier this year (last year? damn time moves fast), I noticed that WordPerfect used their own font directory and 'fonts.dir' system for the application. The free version apparently doesn't let you add fonts, so I can't use any of the umpteen megabytes of fonts that are served up by xfs (including TrueType fonts). Has this been rectified in WP9?

    Is Corel even going to release a version of WP9 free for educational and non-commercial use in support of the community?
  • Is there a trial version of the Corel Office for Linux? I an not a free-software zealot and I wouldn't mind paying for Corel Office. If it's a good product that is. But I cannot justify spending even a penny for something that just barely runs. And that's why I want a trial version.

    Corel WP8 for Linux was a complete joke. I could not believe they were actually trying to sell the thing. Corel Linux is also a joke. I used it for about 2 days and that was enough for me. Once again, I could not believe somebody would actually pay money for this garbage. And now, several posters have said that the long-awaited Corel Office for Linux is nothing more than the win32 version linked against WINE with little or no testing done. So, is there a trial version? I want to see for myself. Also, please reply with your experience using Corel Office. (But don't bother to reply if you've never used it before).

    ___
  • The bitstream font server gives access to font outlines and additional metrics, which WPO2k needs. (As do other WPs... I hear that Applix is using it too?)

    It's not going away until X gives access to much more font info than it does now.
  • Sounds like Wine is getting to the point where it could be ready for end-users. At least, ready for end-users who need to run a particular application and don't mind if it breaks occasionally.

    Dosemu was at this stage for a long while before 1.0 came out, and distributions like RedHat included it. Are there any mainstream distributions that include Wine ready-to-run? Ideally, a Windows application would just appear on the programs menu like any other. You could run it using the binfmt_misc kernel module to start wine automatically.

    Or even cooler, the installation program could scan your Windows partition, see what apps you have on your Start Menu, and set them up to run from Wine.

  • I totally agree with you. I love LyX, LaTeX, GIMP, XV, ImageMagick, NEdit, etc. I prefer to make my presentations in png and html, I don't use spreadsheets much, if I did, I'd use Gnumeric, and gnome-pim is as good or better as any, the KDE versions are equally excellent.

    However, there comes times when one must open, edit and save MS files, like Word and Powerpoint. So one must have something that can do conversions.

    Take it from me, as I've tried everything on all platforms. Applixware on FreeBSD is absolutely the fastest, most stable, most excellent office suite available. It amazingly seems to use no memory when you fire it up. Anyone who thinks StarOffice is fast and stable has way more money for hardware than anyone I know, everyone I've talked to who've used WP8 for Linux thinks that the font rendering is so shitty as to render it useless at times.

    I personally anticipate the release of KDE2 and KOffice. These are going to rock the office software world for sure. Then, the GNOME guys will just make it all look prettier and that's what I'll use. Until then, it's FreeBSD on my laptop, and Linux on my workstation (paradoxically) because I like to use VMware and run Dreamweaver, and VMware just sucks on FreeBSD.

    Don't believe the hype. FreeBSD kicks ass on the desktop. Everything acts and feels much snappier and more stable than linux. And with softupdates to the filesystem, you get the next best thing to journaled filesystems. When you run a lot of desktop software, the occasional X freezes are inevitable, so it's nice to have the security of an uncorruptable filesystem.

    My recommendations: 1) if you need a lot of software you used to use on Windows, or you need the best multimedia on Unix/ latest greatest hardware driver, then go with Linux. 2) If you are a vet and know exactly what software you use and can use them well AND these are solid Unix apps, like GIMP, XV, ImageMagic, TeX, LaTeX, xpdf, gv, etc., etc., then try FreeBSD and Applix (for compat w/ the MS world out there). You will not only not be disappointed, you will be amazed, and the 4.0-STABLE is an awesome upgrade.

    My system: Dell Inspiron 3000, P200, 144M RAM, 3G HDD. WindowMaker + GNOME; Netscape, XFMail, GnuPG, GIMP, EEyes, NEdit. To the amazement of my Windows friends, I usually have 30 apps open at once and never have a hiccup. Load avg, is 0.15, 0.14, 0.10, uptime 30 days (for my laptop), and of 144M of RAM, I have 644K free. I love this system.

    Don't get me wrong, I use Linux daily (debian being my choice as it's the most BSDish) (OpenBSD for firewalls), I run it for VMware and FrameMaker, and because my sound hardware works best in Linux. I like my MP3s. Other than those, I feel I must anticipate the inevitable improvements (i.e., catchups) Linux must make against the BSDs in terms of stability and security. However, FreeBSD could learn a lot from debian's ease in upgradability. No /usr/ports and /usr/src is not comparably simple. Upgrading your whole system, user apps, system apps and all with one command is a Big Plus(TM). Upgrading it with no breaks is even bigger.

    Nate's dream world of UNIX: FreeBSD-strength with a dpkg and apt-get --like package management system + a world of the Universal Source Package such that it would be truly trivial to port an app or driver from one *NIX/Linux to another. I actually believe such a day will come. And we will call it Debian GNU/HURD.

  • A lot of Slashdot readers buy Linux software.

    Evidence of this, please?

    I'm sure a lot of people out there have bought WordPerfect 8 for Linux for example.

    Did you buy it? I didn't even know one single person who had until somebody gave me a copy of Corel Linux last week (it comes with WP8; don't even get me started -- can you say "No shadow passwords?" I knew you could). I tend to doubt your "lot of people" statement, although some evidence could sway me.

    While a lot of us believe in open source and free software, we are not all totally idealistic about it.

    Hey, no offense to you personally, but who said anything about idealism? The conventional wisdom behind Linux users not buying software (Linux or otherwise) has nothing to do with idealism, and all to do with cheapness.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • I feel like I am feeding trolls here, but...

    That is a pretty silly reason to avoid a product. Like the penguin mascot or not, it is a symbol that people recognize. You can't blame companies for recognizing that and taking advantage of it. You could just as easily be critical of Microsoft using their little warped windowpane logo and all of the companies that use it. It is pretty unfair to assume that the motivation of every company that uses the Penguin logo is doing it just to seem 'l33t and kewl'. It sounds more like you are the one trying to pose an image by being critical of companies which don't fit some preconceived image. And you acuse me of being on crack? Eh, whatever. As for you not buying the product, how much money do you really plan to spend on software in the next year? How much software do you specify, recommend or approve at your job in a year? Are you really that big of a loss?

    It may be fair to a certain extent to be critical of companies that are jumping on the bandwagon late, but I don't think that this is a fair criticism of Corel, as they've been flirting with the Linux market for quite a while. The current WordPerfect 8 for Linux under their own label isn't the first version. I was using WordPerfect 6 years ago, which was a colaborative effort with Caldera.

    I would prefer to judge companies on how good their products are, and how well they live up to their promises on product delivery. So far I think Corel stacks up fairly reasonably. I've used WordPerfect 8, and it seems to work fine for me. I've heard both good and bad reports about Corel's Linux distribution, but it is after all, their first real attempt at a distribution, and it will probably get better as it matures. I don't know of any distribution of anything that doesn't have some people complain about it anyway, not Windows, not MacOS, not Solaris, not Red Hat. So time will tell if Corel's distro is a long term player. As for Corel Office 2000, they have at least lived up to their promise to ship it. I hope to get it pretty soon and see how well it works. That will be the real test. I am also waiting for Corel Draw. If they deliver that for Linux, they will have lived up to most if not all of their promises to the Linux community, and that is a pretty good track record for anyone.

  • I rarely ever do anything complex with footnotes, but they are a big issue for some people, especially lawyers. WordPerfect's superior handling of footnotes is one of the things that is often listed as a reason why law firms are still a bastion of support for WordPerfect. That and the fact that most of them have huge template libraries that are in WordPerfect format (which unlike MS-Word hasn't changed gratuitously for every version. Another reason is that so many of them have automation systems using WordPerfect's scripting language (it had scripting way before the VBA stuff was added to MS-Office) that would be a lot of work to rewrite.

  • Tables: nope. Columns: yep. Bulleted lists: nope. WordPerfect is better with columns. Word is better at tables and bullted lists,

    Well, I would tend to disagree, especially about bulleted lists. While I was able to eventually figure out how to make MS-Word do what I wanted with both of those things, it was much easier to figure out in WordPerfect, and less cumbersome to do once figured out than it was in MS-Word.

    however there is a learning curve. It is not initially intuitive,

    Uh, but the thing that MS-fans are always harping about is supposedly easier and more intuitive user interfaces in Microsoft's products. With the case of table editing and bulleted lists, that certainly is backwards, in that WordPerfect seemed a lot more intuitive and generally simpler. Also Microsoft's online help was next to useless in trying to figure out those options. I can't say anything one way or the other about WordPerfect's online help, as I've been able to figure out everything I wanted to do without needing to look at it. Not something I can say about MS-Word.

    but once learned, it is a very useful tool.

    MS-Word isn't totally unusable (except perhaps for multicolumn layouts), but I will stand by my opinion that WordPerfect works much better for me than MS-Word.

    Odd, I think most people liked WP5.1 and started to dislike it when they poorly attempted the GUI.

    Poorly attempted? 6.0 wasn't that bad, at least it wasn't any worse than Microsoft's GUI for MS-Word of that era. If you want to see a really bad GUI design, look at the first version of WP for the Mac. Woof, what a dog. It had all of the 40 f-key commands of the 4.2 DOS version stuck in a single drop-down menu. Blech.

    WP lost out to MS-Word mainly because they were slow to do a Windows version at all, as they fell for Microsoft's fake-out with OS/2 and spent a lot of effort supporting it while Microsoft was secretly working on undercutting OS/2 with Windows and plotting to take over the applications markets from Lotus and WordPerfect.

    WP5.1 was incredibly useful and fast (although there was a nasty learning curve with all the ctrl-alt-shift-Fx crap)

    The horror. That was what I hated about the MS-DOS versions of WordPerfect. I was never actually an MS-DOS user. I didn't buy an x86 machine until '93, and that was put together specifically to run *nix. I had intended to run 386BSD, but could never get it to work with the cobbled together junk parts I had at the time, so I tried Linux, and it worked, and I have been using it every since.

    MS sent me a nice, free copy of O2K and it is the thing that really keeps me out of linux.

    MS doesn't send me free stuff (only fair since I don't buy or recommend any of their stuff). Frankly, I'm always skeptical when they are giving away anything for free, as it often has strings attached in the long run. That isn't just Microsoft either, I am always a little skeptical of 'free lunches'... Not to say I won't take them, but I like to know if there is a fish hook in the bait before I bite in.

    If you're like me, you have to do documents and spreadsheets, and you can't just send someone a damn .xml file. As cool as XML is, I need to be able to save as .xls.

    I almost never need to do anything with spreadsheets other than open up spreadsheets other people send me. So I really only need to be able to read .xls files, and then only very occasionally.

    I'd agree that I don't care for the 'desktop' integration in newer versions of StarOffice. I'd prefer to be able to split the applications. However, I'd rather deal with that than have to go find a machine to install MS-Office on, especially since I'd have to install MS-Windows on it first, and I don't have a copy of MS-Windows or MS-Office, or a spare machine that has enough horsepower to run those effectively. I only use MS-Office at work, and only because I am basically stuck with it there. That and Outhouse^h^h^u^e^hlook are just about the only reasons I ever touch the PC on my desk there -- I do most of my work there on Solaris. That will be changing soon as I am changing jobs to a place that is much more UNIX/Linux centric and I will be able to control the images on my local workstations.

  • Unless they have backtracked from WordPerfect 8, I can definitely say you are incorrect. WordPerfect 8 is a native Linux executable. I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't do the same thing for WordPerfect 2000.

  • It is probably not as much what you said, but how you said it. You shouldn't get moderated down for saying something that is an unpopular opinion, but you should get moderated down for saying it in a way that would fit into flamebait or trolling. If you have been moderated down unfairly, one would hope that the moderator who did so got slapped when it came time for meta moderation. Also, you would probably find that you would be less likely to get moderated down if you were posting from a real account instead of as Anonymous Coward.

    I rarely ever agree with Zico, but at least his posts are generally mostly civil and not personal attacks.

  • Evidence of this, please?

    Evidence to the contrary please?

    Did you buy it?

    Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.

    I didn't even know one single person who had until somebody gave me a copy of Corel Linux last week (it comes with WP8; don't even get me started -- can you say "No shadow passwords?" I knew you could). I tend to doubt your "lot of people" statement, although some evidence could sway me.

    Without conducting a scientific poll of Slashdot users, it would be difficult (even then it would be difficult) to get any solid evidence one way or the other. I do know that I live out in the middle of nowhere, and the local CompUSA and Best Buy stores carry WordPerfect 8 and a number of other Linux titles on the shelf. If they weren't selling, they wouldn't be there. I know that most of the people in the local Linux user group read Slashdot, and several of them have purchased WordPerfect 8 for Linux and/or several other commercial titles for Linux.

    Hey, no offense to you personally, but who said anything about idealism? The conventional wisdom behind Linux users not buying software (Linux or otherwise) has nothing to do with idealism, and all to do with cheapness.

    I don't think there are that many more cheapskates in the Linux world than there are in the Windows world. A lot (close to, if not most) of the people I know in the Windows world just pirate everything. I could very easily have just pirated WordPerfect 8 for Windows, but I didn't.

    I could easily afford to buy Windows and commercial software if I wanted to, I make decent money. The 'conventional wisdom' that Linux users are all broke college students is a load of crap as far as I can tell. I use Linux because I like it, and it works well for what I want to do. I don't use Windows because I don't like it, and it doesn't work well. The fact that Linux is less expensive than Windows is just a pleasant bonus. For that matter, if I wanted to, I could just pirate Windows and every commercial title around (I've got access to the CDs here at work, and I have a CD burner). Windows just doesn't interest me. Its not just a matter of cheapness when it comes to software, since if you are willing to pirate (which most people are), then everything is free as in 'free beer'.

  • And neither will any other Slashdot readers.

    That is a load of crap. A lot of Slashdot readers buy Linux software. I'm sure a lot of people out there have bought WordPerfect 8 for Linux for example. While a lot of us believe in open source and free software, we are not all totally idealistic about it.

  • I don't know for sure that you can't, but if you can't, that would be a good thing, no? :-) The fact that macro viruses aren't as common for WordPerfect as for Microsoft products is another good reason for me to use WordPerfect even if Microsoft was to do a version of MS-Office for Linux.

  • Wouldn't a better sign of selling power be if they were disappearing from the shelves, rather than occupying them?

    Hard to say they aren't selling, since neither of us have access to CompUSA or Best Buy's inventory system. But I believe that those chains aren't stupid, and products that aren't selling don't stay on their inventory lists for long.

    Now, if you're saying that they must be doing well to even have been on the shelf in the first place, I have to note that Microsoft BOB (!) and OS/2 Warp 4 used to be found on store shelves as well. :)

    Those products disappeared from shelves for a different reason, they didn't sell, so they got pulled. Even though they came from large and influential vendors who can afford to pay for shelf space if necessary they disappeared. Linux products don't generally have those advantages, as they typically come from smaller vendors without the kind of huge pocketbooks and influence that IBM and Microsoft have. The number of Linux titles on the shelf at the local stores is increasing, not decreasing. I would guess that this would not be happening if the titles that are there weren't selling.

    I agree with you that there aren't as many cheapskates in the Linux world as in the Windows world, but that's because Windows users make up around 95% of the users. In percentage terms, though, I'd peg the percentage of Linux cheapskates as substantially higher than that for WIndows.

    I'd have to disagree.

    There are no doubt loads of warez kiddies on the Windows side,

    It's not just warez-kiddies either, it is a large portion of the home Windows user market, even older, 'churchgoing-godfearing' types I know engage in a fair amount of piracy.

    but they end up accounting for a small portion of the total users.

    As I said, I don't think warez-kiddies are more than the tip of the iceberg in the Windows piracy world. The difference is that the Microsoft world is currently enough larger that it can bear a lot more losses to piracy than the Linux world can.

    On the other hand, you've got to admit that the stereotype of the Linux user isn't all that far from the demeanor of your average warez kiddie.

    Oh please. I have to admit nothing of the kind. For one thing, putting significance to stereotypes is a pretty stupid thing to do to begin with. For another thing, most of the Linux users I know are in their late 20's to mid 30's, and are not at all representative of that stereotype. A large portion of the Linux users I know are computer professionals.

    I'm of the opinion that there's a good-sized overlap. (Note that I'm not referring to someone who might engage in an offhand license abuse -- the percentages of those are probably high in both camps -- but the type unwilling to pay for anything.

    I would believe that there is a small overlap, but I think you are way off base in your judgement of the Linux community. The antics of a overly noisy bunch (that being the warez-kiddies and zealots on both sides) seems to have clouded your judgement, or you are trying to bend reality to fit your pre-formed opinion of how the world is.

  • While I don't think WordPerfect Office does e-mail, Magellan [csis.ul.ie] does most of the things you describe. It's still in development, but it's going to be very cool :)
  • Just search for "corel office linux" and you can preorder the puppy. Get in line today!

    www.cdw.com
  • I would no more install WordPerfect on my Linux box than I would Microsoft Office 2000. Am I the only one who feels this way?

    I just don't understand the fascination people have with tools that don't work and/or aren't flexible. Do one thing and do it well.
    --
  • This release is not only a good product, but it has features integrated that give it a lower price point than the features MS Office2K + Adobe Acrobat for Windows + Crystal Reports provide.

    Right now, they are shipping a word processor and tools that allow export to PDF, a database with reporting capabilities that allow export to word processing documents, web pages, and PDF through an intermediate step, as well as pretty complete Office 2000 compatibility.

    The cost of this when you add up Office 2000 Professional, Crystal Reports, and Adobe Acrobat for Windows will run you $1000 per user if you don't have discounts. Throw in a Windows 98 license, and it goes up to $1100, or a Win2K Pro license, which makes it roughly $1300.

    Buying this and Corel Linux Deluxe costs about $450. A machine to run this on decently (Pentium II/300 or better) that is a major corporate brand can be found for $600 through the large mailorder resellers. For about the same cost as just the software for a MS system, you can buy a decent business system that won't crash as easily.

    This is a good deal. It can read those nasty Office document formats, and it has a more complete spreadsheet (I have hit the 256 column limit in Excel before with a client). I'm going to recommend these fully loaded Corel Linux boxes to people who don't have $1000 to spend on just software. Most people use their computers for applications such as this, so that's not a bad idea.
  • They aren't shipping the Beta!

    Obviously, the fact they're shipping indicatates they have resolved all (within reason) the bugs identified in the beta releases.
  • from the press release:

    Customers can also purchase a CD-ROM of Corel LINUX OS download version with the latest enhancements from Corel Customer Service for US $4.95 + $10 shipping and handling by calling 1-800-772-6735.

    Ten dollars to ship a CD-ROM? I hope it comes with a printed manual, or something.

    Also, it looks like the review link has been /.ed already. Does anybody hae a mirror?

  • Corel draw (full package) does include some bitmap editor. Corel is a sweet package deal (everything under the sun) and a decent piece of software. The problem comes when you want to output it to a service bureaus (hi-res postscript imagesetter) for professional printing. You'll pay more, because it's such a pain in the (*&#(
    ---

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by bero-rh ( 98815 )
    Did you ever try to program in Qt and in gtk?
    Most people who used both will agree with me that Qt is easier to handle and maintain.
    Besides, they didn't use Qt, they used (yuck!) wine. I'd prefer both Qt and gtk over that...
    (Nothing against the wine project, but the API it's emulating sucks.)
  • they ported the USB support to 2.2.14, I'm running it.
  • Talk about proving your ignorance; Corel has had WordPerfect for Linux out for YEARS- I remember using it back in 1996!

    Moreover, having used both WordPerfect and various competing products (M$ Word, Lotus WordPro, etc.)- WordPerfect is far and away the easiest to use.

    These so-called "usability" tests were made by either M$-Owned labs (And THAT makes for an objective review), or magazines that have always favored M$ programs over anything else. As for having an "ugly" interface - When was the last time you have seen the WP interface?!? WP5.1?!? The interface is hands-down the easiest word-processor that I've ever used.

    So don't scoff at Corel's *continuing* support of Linux. They don't need Linux to save the company - their Windoze sales aremore than adequate, as is their market share. Corel is working to advance the Linux platform! There is nothing wrong with that. Not to mention that the Linux interface for WP2000 is very attractive. It's not "themable GTK" as some purists would complain- but then again, it's Still a nice interface!
  • they ported the USB support to 2.2.14, I'm running it.

    Oh geez... &nbsp Now your gonna make me go download the sources and compile me a kernel for my Mandrake (kernel 2.2.13-4mdk).

    Straying offtopic but how well does it work? &nbsp I have support for it on my NetBSD already (although haven't tried it yet) but I also have 2 machines at home with USB ports dying to be used.

  • USB??? (Score:2)

    by JDax ( 148242 )
    I recall Corel indicating that they would probably ship this with their newer boxed versions of CorelLinux and it's interesting that they pushed this out the door so quickly (hopefully it ain't buggy), but I'm curious as to their press release claim of "USB support", having indicated that WP2000 would come with their OS running the 2.2.14 kernel.

    Wasn't USB support (at least from the last I've read) enabled in or at least "somewhat working" in the 2.3.x+ kernel branch?? &nbsp Are they doing some kind of wild kluge here or what? &nbsp Maybe I'm wrong and there is something that can be enabled in the newer 2.2.x....

    Just curious.

  • Re:Yes! (Score:3)

    by SoftwareJanitor ( 15983 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @07:30AM (#1190739)
    Actually Corel Draw is a vector based drawing package, and Photoshop is for manipulating bitmap images. Not really comparable at all, as they are for totally different purposes.

    Gimp is probably the closest competitor to Photoshop on Linux. Gimp is pretty good, and fairly comparable overall to Photoshop, and getting better all the time. From what I've read the two areas that Photoshop still has over Gimp are mainly in printing support and support for color seperations. If you aren't doing high end work, especially if you are doing mainly work for web images, Gimp is probably already good enough for what you need to do.

  • Re:WordPerfect sucks (Score:3)

    by SoftwareJanitor ( 15983 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @07:39AM (#1190740)
    I don't know what usability you are talking about, but I haven't seen anything useful that Word 97 at least can do that WordPerfect 8 can't. And some of the things that I do just plain work a lot better in WordPerfect 8. Table editing, for example, has always driven me batty in MS-Word, WordPerfect isn't totally perfect there either, but better than MS-Word. Multicolumn layouts, maddening in MS-Word (no matter how I try to drag them around, they never space out the way I want), also better in WordPerfect. Multilevel bulleted lists, absoluetely horrific in MS-Word, works the way I would expect things to work in WordPerfect. I actually often do mulicolumn layouts with multilevel bulleted lists. I'd go insane if I had to do that with MS-Word, but I can get WordPerfect to do what I want without a lot of problem.

    For my money, even if I had to use Windows at home, I'd pick WordPerfect over MS-Word, and I personally hated WordPerfect prior to WordPerfect 6. I've used both 6 and 8 and been quite happy with them.

  • Re:Hope you like WINE... (Score:3)

    by gavriels ( 55831 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:00AM (#1190741)
    There is no significant performance penalty for using the PE (.EXE) binary loader vs using winelib - the *only* difference is that WINE is doing the work of loading the binaries instead of ld.so.

    In fact, the binary loader can be *faster* than using g++ compiled native ELF code, for a couple of reasons:

    1) code produced by g++ isn't generally quite as optimized as code generated by MSVC. Things are evening up with the new intel backend on gcc, but it hasn't been in an official release of gcc yet as far as I know.

    2) Inter-DLL calls in PE binaries are generally just direct branches. The only work the loader has to perform most of the time is mmaping the binary into memory. In ELF, by comparison, all the symbols have to be looked up by name, and calls are made through indirection tables.

    These are both really minor speed impediments, but they server to demonstrate the sillyness of declaring something 'native' or not based on what binary format it uses.

    That said, we do plan on moving to g++ compiled binaries as soon as possible, since it will give us somewhat more flexibility for using .so libraries directly within our apps, rather than indirectly via WINE.

    -Gav

  • ...and it's helped WINE (Score:4)

    by hatless ( 8275 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @06:55AM (#1190742)
    After playing with the latest builds of WINE over the weekend, I'm not surprised Corel was able to ship so quickly. Now, with an install of WINE with access to a real Windows system directory and a Truetype font server, I not only got Excel 97 working pretty decently(!), but I also got IE 5 to load a few pages. Properly. WIth DHTML working.

    These are interesting times. Native apps are always best, but it's clear x86 Linux is heading to a place where you'll soon also be able to run most Windows software cleanly. Not a Terrible Thing for desktop penetration.

    I suspect Corel WP Office 2000 doesn't suck, or at least doesn't suck any more than StarOffice 5.1a does. Corel can't market its way out of a paper bag, though. At least they pushed the WINE project ahead nicely.

  • Actually (Score:5)

    by Ian Schmidt ( 6899 ) on Monday March 20, 2000 @08:00AM (#1190743)
    The first version of WPO at least is a specially modified Windows .EXE that runs on a modified WINE (the WINE mods eliminate windoze drive letters and make the widgets look like KDE/Qt). They had planned to make it a WineLib application, but g++ has some problems with large C++ apps (you've heard them before - no precompiled headers, no incremental linking) that made going the .EXE+WINE route much more painless.

    (if there's other reasons that Gav or Zygo or any other Corel/Macadamian dudes want to correct me on, feel free.)

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