WordPerfect Office 2000 - Now Shipping 164
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.
Early review (Score:1)
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.
Office suites (Score:1)
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.
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:1)
I bought WP 8 (Score:1)
Anyine else buy it?
Re:Hope you like WINE... (Score:1)
xv??? (Score:1)
Re:xv??? (Score:1)
MS Office compatibility a moving target (Score:1)
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?
One-file installer for IE5 (Score:1)
________________________
You read the review? REALLY??! (Score:1)
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.
This Break alot of barriers now (Score:1)
http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
Re:WordPerfect sucks (Score:1)
Hey.. You can't do macro virii in WP, can you? :)
-- Thrakkerzog
Maybe off topic, but.... (Score:1)
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:1)
Now c'mon, SJ, you know it doesn't work like that.
Okay, that's two of us, but I think we'll need a little larger sample.
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
Re:...and it's helped WINE (Score:1)
> 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...
Re:one expensive CD-ROM/down link? (Score:1)
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...
Re:SmartSuite on Linux (Score:1)
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.
Re:Yes! (Score:1)
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.
Re:Yes! (Score:1)
Re:This is definitely a good thing (Score:1)
Re:Major concern.. (Score:1)
It's a first step, and the free uber alles zealots can just use the KOffice suite. Choice is good.
Re:one expensive CD-ROM/down link? (Score:1)
Re:"Memory footprint 476 MB" (Score:1)
Ahmen (Score:1)
Here's some screenshots (Score:1)
Re:This is *definitely* premature (Score:1)
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
Re:WordPerfect sucks (Score:1)
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
Bundled with their distro? (Score:1)
Re:Support for standard fonts? (Score:1)
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
Re:Actually (Score:1)
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
Hope you like WINE... (Score:1)
I was really looking forward to this, but after seeing it I am very disappointed, and probably won't bother to buy it...
Even Better :) (Score:1)
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.
Re:...and it's helped WINE (Score:1)
>include Wine ready-to-run?
I'm using Mandrake 6.1 right now and it came with Wine inluded...
Re:This is *definitely* premature (Score:1)
Re:MS Office compatibility a moving target (Score:1)
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
Office power is in the glue/foreign func interface (Score:1)
(...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.
Re:I Will Consider WP... (Score:1)
Major concern.. (Score:1)
With a $150+ price tag I'll will have to wait. Too bad, I was really anticipating this product
Re:Office power is in the glue/foreign func interf (Score:1)
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.
Re:Office power is in the glue/foreign func interf (Score:1)
Not to mention the cool macro virus support.
Re:Yikes! (Score:1)
Re:MS Office compatibility a moving target (Score:1)
Now this is interesting... (Score:1)
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.
It's the other way around. (Score:1)
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.
A Good Thing [tm] (Score:1)
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.
--
Re:one expensive CD-ROM/down link? (Score:1)
Uhh...467MB Memory!!! I don't think so... (Score:1)
I wish that journalists would at least take the time to proofread their articles...sheesh.
Re:I was also a beta tester (Score:1)
Lets hear it from the horses Mouth (Score:1)
Re:Am I alone? (Score:1)
TeX, the GIMP, xv and octave make my "office" package. Ill never install StarOffice, MS Office or whatever in my computer.
Soon we'll see the infamous... (Score:1)
Good observation: OSS vs. Commercial Beta (Score:1)
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.
Re:This Break alot of barriers now (Score:1)
Re:Am I alone? (Score:1)
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.)
Re:Bundled with their distro? (Score:1)
Its too soon.. (Score:1)
Re:Yes! (Score:1)
Remember, 99 out of 100 computer users don't know what half the functions in MS Paint are.
kwsNI
Yes! (Score:1)
Kudos to Corel
Re:Yes! (Score:1)
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.
Re:SmartSuite on Linux (Score:1)
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.
Re:Yes! (Score:1)
Re:one expensive CD-ROM/down link? (Score:1)
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.
Runs on everything? (Score:1)
Yikes! (Score:1)
Applixware is looking better every day (Score:1)
This is *definitely* premature (Score:2)
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).
"Memory footprint 476 MB" (Score:2)
Re:USB??? (Score:2)
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]Support for standard fonts? (Score:2)
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? (Score:2)
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).
___
Re:Its too soon.. (Score:2)
It's not going away until X gives access to much more font info than it does now.
Re:...and it's helped WINE (Score:2)
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.
Re:Am I alone? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:2)
Evidence of this, please?
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.
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
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:2)
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.
Re:WordPerfect sucks (Score:2)
Re:WordPerfect sucks (Score:2)
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
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
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.
Re:Hope you like WINE... (Score:2)
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:2)
I rarely ever agree with Zico, but at least his posts are generally mostly civil and not personal attacks.
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:2)
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'.
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:2)
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.
Re:WordPerfect sucks (Score:2)
Re:Scrappy little Os eh? (Score:2)
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.
Magellan is it (Score:2)
CDW has the preorder (Score:2)
www.cdw.com
Am I alone? (Score:2)
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 is definately a good thing :) (Score:2)
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.
Exactly! (Score:2)
Obviously, the fact they're shipping indicatates they have resolved all (within reason) the bugs identified in the beta releases.
one expensive CD-ROM/down link? (Score:2)
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 + $10 shipping and handling by calling 1-800-772-6735.
Ten dollars to ship a CD-ROM? I hope it comes with a printed manual, or something.
Also, it looks like the review link has been /.ed already. Does anybody hae a mirror?
Re:Yes! (Score:2)
---
Why? (Score:2)
Most people who used both will agree with me that Qt is easier to handle and maintain.
Besides, they didn't use Qt, they used (yuck!) wine. I'd prefer both Qt and gtk over that...
(Nothing against the wine project, but the API it's emulating sucks.)
Re:USB??? (Score:2)
Re:WordPerfect sucks (Score:2)
Moreover, having used both WordPerfect and various competing products (M$ 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!
Re:USB??? (Score:2)
Oh geez...   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?   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)
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??   Are they doing some kind of wild kluge here or what?   Maybe I'm wrong and there is something that can be enabled in the newer 2.2.x....
Just curious.
Re:Yes! (Score:3)
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)
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)
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
-Gav
...and it's helped WINE (Score:4)
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)
(if there's other reasons that Gav or Zygo or any other Corel/Macadamian dudes want to correct me on, feel free.)