WordPerfect Office 2000 For Linux Reviews 109
You may be wondering if you should purchase the WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux, since there isn't a downloadable version. Here are some reviews, which could assist you in making a decision. This is Canux review, and here you can find a review done by the people at Linux Weekly News. Also, you might want to take a look here -- you'll find comments from people who tried it (thanks to Linux Today). I hope someone from Corel is reading those articles and comments ...
Non-latin1 support (Score:1)
The Rock says... (Score:1)
Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:1)
Re:It's not GPLed (Score:1)
Re:I was afraid of this (Score:1)
But think of it this way. WPO2K is probably the first major proof that Wine works (in the sense that a commercial vendor supports it). This may in turn encourage other Windows developer to port their apps to Linux, and hopefully later, supports Linux natively. Isn't that the goal of Wine? Corel is doing a lot ot help Wine, both in development and publicity.
Re:My opinion (Score:1)
If I may paint Linux people with as broad a brush as you have, it's probably because we are accustomed to our programs not crashing on us. I routinely have dozens of programs running on my system, and I switch among them easily, expecting them all to work. (This just makes me all the angrier when I'm running two or three apps on my Windows machine at work and one dies and takes the whole system down with it.)
Well, yes and no. The OS obviously can't keep other programs from crashing. It can, however, isolate the running programs from each other so that a chashing app doesn't affect any other part of the system.
Again, yes and no. For one thing, when programs at work crash, I regularly click the "details" button on the crash dialog box. I'd estimate that about half the time, the problem is within one of the system DLLs. Personally, I don't care that the source of the problem was probably data fed to a system function by the program. System libraries SHOULD NOT die as a result of user-supplied data. (Actually all libraries should follow that mantra, but system libraries especially.)
Also, the OS should do a better job of isolating the crash than Windows does. If a Windows program crashes badly, it's likely to have messed up something in the running kernel, too. In many cases, a dying program can bring the entire system down with it. Accustomed as I have gotten to Linux's stability, this is no longer acceptable behaviour for me.
So, no, Windows isn't really responsible for every crashed windows program, but the way it handles crashed apps is singularly awful.
--Phil (Hypocracy? Slashdot is a huge community. We don't all hold the same views.)
My opinion (Score:1)
Top Three Reasons I will not be buying this: (Score:1)
2. It's proprietary software.
3. How useful can it be if it lacks a built-in Lisp interpreter?
Re:that canux review is terrible (Score:1)
There are snapshots [kde.org] available now, if you want to try it out and hopefully make bug reports or feature requests. (Or contribute code!) Just remember that these are daily snapshots, not releases, and might or might not compile on any given day.
Re:Closed source woes (Score:1)
rob's page "
WPO2K *can* be installed on SuSE 6.3. I did it, with excellent help
from Gavriel State (gavriels@corel.com) and Avi Schwartz, plus some
hints from the 'setup_log' that was created when my second, manual,
attempt failed. The third attempt went fine and all the apps ran well,
albeit slow on my P166 with 64MB of RAM. The F1 help key on any
app alway fired my homepage, not the help. It was while I was
using strace (thanks, AVI) to see what was going wrong that I
saw some error msgs that caused me to decide to return the
product and wait for the Linux *native* version.
define better? (Score:1)
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:1)
It uses Visual Basic for Applications and it's own unique style of SQL (mostly compatible).
If you have an application running in Access it is not as simple as finding a program that can import the database tables (that's the easiest part). The hard part is getting your queries, forms, macros, and VBA code imported and working. And that is probably not going to happen when most suites can't even translate complex Excel formulas properly.
Anyway, to switch to another database on Linux will require rewriting of code and time and debugging, and time, and lots of effort.
Re:To anonymous cowards: (Score:1)
Also, you would find, that if you enter your password and username just once, your browser will remember it, and you don't have to worry about it again.
Re:My opinion (Score:1)
Re:I attanded the Corel WP 2000 roadshow (Score:1)
The poster before you is Gavriel. He is one
of the lead software guru's at Corel, who incidentally works on wine if I'm not mistaken.
**************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
Re:Closed source woes (Score:1)
--hunter
Re:Ha! (Score:1)
Re:I like the 'use GTK' part (Score:1)
OfficeWars (Score:1)
Well, well. It seems like all the little brothers are falling over eachother in an attempt to get the baby brother's candy. (Ok fine, bad analogy) but all big brother bill has to do is start getting into this p*ssing contest and he'll win. I dont think it really matters who wins at this point. Microsoft (especially if it gets broken up) will move into this market and take it over in a heartbeat.
I was going through a Linux hardware/software catalogue yesterday, and saw all this nice software available for a price equivalent to other platforms. It's really interesting to see all these companies attempt to take over a market like this.
It's still useless. I write up something in WP8 or StarOffice, and i still cant give this document to my friends, or paper to the prof. I have to convert it to MS-Word for them to read it. And we all know how well the third party software writes to Ms-Word format...you'll have better luck with ASCII Art.
It's interesting to see all this linux being sold everywhere and yet no where do i read of a major corporation actually using linux in the workplace.
So how big is it? (Score:1)
does it need? IMHO, reviews of large software packages would be more useful
if they included the RAM footprint of the running program(s). We would then
have some idea -- beyond the subjective "it feels like" evaluations -- of
the footprint. Would someone like to share his output of "top"? That would
be much appreciated.
Corel DRAW (Score:1)
I'm beta testing corel draw, and it seems to be about the same. Useable, but a little pokey, dos drive letters etc. It works though, and I can finally edit postscript etc. decently in Linux. Still beta though.
These are all good first efforts. Give them a little time.
I'm a little worried about programs with unavailable source, but I'm certainly going to use what I have to to do my work, until a decent free alternative comes up.
Wanted: Word Processor for the Masses (Score:1)
After seeing how frustrated it was for a non-technical person to use Word, I realized it is really not the right tool for her and others like her. Aside from the fact that Word is not just for typing up essays and is more a tool for advanced publishing / business folks, etc.
Is there a good (preferably cheap/free to students) general word processor out there, with a good number of features (we just want footnotes, we don't need to embed the damn thing in a web page) but is *really* simple to learn and use?
I thought about MS Works, but I hate the lesser-of-two-evils deal.
thanks in advance.
robert
MS-Word Make it fit (Score:1)
Dunno why it's so hidden in Word -- AFAIK that's the only way to find it -- and I think WordPerfect 6 did it first, but MS-Office does have this feature.
__________
Re:I was afraid of this (Score:1)
This way, you leverage your position in the linux marketplace, giving the technical users what they want, while still having a product to ship to the Windows market, where people are less likely to be aware of whether they're running an emulated app or not, as long as it works. Not only that, but products such as Exceed are much more stable and useful for this kind of development than using Wine to run Windows apps on Linux.
Makes no sense to me
Re:I was afraid of this (Score:1)
It's compiled against Wine!
Anyway Corel are only using this as a temporary measure and have said they are working on native versions.
Re:So how big is it? (Score:1)
FWIW, wine's VSS is usually about 56MB.
Re:Level of M$ compatibility (Score:1)
According to the presentation at the roadshow, MS Office 97 and MS Office 2000 (at least for Word) use the same file format. They demonstrated reading and writing Excel2000 and Word2000 files with Quattro and Wordperfect and for their chosen examples it looked like it worked fine. They also demonstrated that the file size using Quattro was significantly smaller than the same file under Excel, so you might prefer using Quattro's format anyway.
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:1)
matt
Re:My opinion (Score:1)
on the many other popular distos like SuSE, Caldora, Slackware, and others. There are many people out there who have paid $150 for this
mocked up buggy windows software, and have to struggle to even get it installed.
After getting it installed. Having to install all the rpms by hand, and figure out the correct oder to avoid dependancy errors. moving the files that where installed in redhat/corel specific places, such as
It says unknown format. My copy of staroffice 5.1 which is pretty old, has no problems.
Also, the email address on Corels web page linux_install@corel.com must go to
back, not even an autoresponder.
Thank you corel for raping me. Nice piece of windows crap running under wine. At least I got a 2 inch stuffed tux for my $150.
Jon
Re:My opinion (Score:1)
As far as MS Office, Its good for windows, but there is no linux port, and Im not going to switch OSes for a work processor.
My experience (Score:1)
However, dselect had no problem installing the
I'd give you a review of the package,
but I've been too busy playing Railroad Tycoon II.
Re:The Rock says... (Score:1)
Re:The Rock says... (Score:1)
Because you can! Or, conversely, why would someone use LaTeX if Corel WordPerfect is available. And it's the same answer, because they can! The more options the better, everybody can use whatever method they wish to compose/edit documents, and each respective person is happy. Nobody is forced to use software they don't want to. Everybody wins.
MHO supporting any commercial software for Linux is detrimental the whole open source movement. Linux is the People's OS, and Corel can keep their profiteering proprietary software.
I don't know if you're trolling here, or if you're just that close-minded. Basically, the more options that are available on Linux, the better. If you personally don't like the software, or are politically disinclined towards it, then don't buy or use it. However, many other people would like a fully-featured WYSIWYG word processor, and wouldn't mind paying some money for it. I think there is lots of potential for open-source and commercial software to work/play together. However, limiting oneself to either extreme doesn't do much good (IMHO, of course).
Re:It's not GPLed (Score:1)
Stick to your GPL principals if you must, but don't bitch about others making their own choice of software because it happens to be closed-source.
Closed source woes (Score:1)
If they GPL'd their code, they'd have a much better product alot sooner. They probably say they won't give it away to protect their revenue stream or the value of their company. But Red Hat's market cap is ten times greater than Corel's, they've been around a tenth as long, and their software is available for free (beer and speech).
It looks like Corel is just more afraid of figuring out a new business plan. That's too bad, because nobody wins in the closed source game. Certainly not my company, with a hundred dollar so-far worthless CD. Certainly not Corel, who's been competing with and losting to Microsoft forever, and then someone like Red Hat passes them by like they were standing still.
Figure it out, Corel. You aren't going to win at this game, and please don't claim that you are supporting linux or free software in general while you are trying. You can GPL the product and make money, just figure out how.
I'm only writing this because my operating system needs an office package that works. It's probably better to wait for someone to improve gnumeric and magicpoint and integrate them with latex.
Re:Closed source woes (Score:1)
"quote.yahoo.com/q?s=rhat&d=t" says the market cap for Red Hat is 4.759B.<p>
That's the factor of ten I mentioned. Maybe I'm reading the web page wrong or looking at the wrong column. But at least now I've cited my sources.
Re:The Rock says... (Score:1)
The new font server that comes with it is awesome and has not caused any of my applications to crash. As for people complaining about Netscape, I'm running the netscape binary from netscape and not WP, and it's working just fine with the new TrueType fonts.
Just because a software package is not free, doesn't mean that it can't be benificial to Linux. This mindset is just going to alienate Linux from the mainstream user. Remember too that the Corel Wine team will be making their changes to wine available open source at some point in the near future.
Re:Wanted: Word Processor for the Masses (Score:1)
"The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time."
Re:Wanted: Word Processor for the Masses (Score:1)
"The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time."
Wine for corel office 2000 (Score:1)
Re:Promising, but slow and unstable (Score:1)
Re:Wanted: Word Processor for the Masses (Score:1)
jon
Re:Corel vs StarOffice vs Office (Score:1)
As a high school student at a school where teachers often still give assignments with a minimum length measured in pages, the MakeItFit feature is wonderful. If I'm a few lines over, instead of spending ten or fifteen minutes trimming stuff out (and cutting my mark), I just tell it to MakeItFit. Also handy for when you're just one or two lines onto the next page.
-RickHunter
MISSED THE POINT, DIMWIT (Score:1)
> the guy reviewing for canux is a complete
> idiot, how can he get a job?
From that review I could see that a non-technical person would have about ZERO chance of getting the product (CorelLinux+CorelWPO) installed on their PC. That says all that needs to be said. Sure, if you're a hacker, you're not their demographic. You're happy writing LaTeX preprocessor output in VI or EMACS. Go away already, okay? In thinking you're so clever, you have revealed your stupidity. Ironic, no?
Some people just want to turn on their computer and use it. Those people should probably (honestly) just get an iMac and Claris Works and say 'nuts to linux, nuts to Windows too'. Neither one is Nirvana for Neophytes. Neither is the Mac either, but at least it's consistent and useable.
Warren PostmaCan it do this.... (Score:1)
machine but have everyone just run it over X?
Does it create a lockfile or something so it refuses to run more than once?
Does it simply refuse to run over a network?
If so could you use VNC (and maybe multiple displays) to get one or more people using the one install!
------------------------------------------------ -
"If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists" -
Re:To Mr 1337speak (sl3xd) (Score:1)
Although I must agree that WinAMP isn't exactly math-intensive; - it doens't use that much CPU - but it does demonstrate WINE's ability to handle the custom pointers, sound I/O, in my case, the proprietary DSP plug-ins, etc.
But I do have a great deal of experience running Mathcad under wine - I would rather take my chances with wine crashing it (which I admit does happen) than to take the several minutes to boot to windows. You gotta admit - windows takes WAY too long to boot.
And for insulting Anonymous Cowards - If you took that as an insult fine. It was more of an observation (however insulting) than a direct insult. I believe in free speech, and that's alot of what slashdot/OSS is about - but I also believe that in having the privelege of free speech comes with responsibility for what you say. Which is why I have little respect for Anonymous Cowards - as I said; most of the AC's (not all... but most) are guilty of trolling/spouting 'misinformed crap' as you said. They take their anonymity as a way to get away from 'taking credit' - good or bad - for their words. And, as a result, alot begin to become less honest in their use of 'free speech.' Is it a right? Sure. But just because it IS a right to spew whatever you want, doesn't MAKE IT RIGHT. Of course, right/wrong is subjective; ask any philosopher. But purposeful misinformation to try to deceive others into your point of view is generally considered wrong.
Sigh. But, believe me - I DO run mathcad under wine. I am on the unstable branch of Debian - which while not exactly as fresh as CVS code, it is still quite recent.
The fact that I do sign my name (and my email? I'm not sure about that. I'll have to check the setting...) should say that I WILL stand behind my words, and prove them as I may. I try very hard not to spout about things in general - espescially when I may be ignorant about it. But, I do know that I can run MathCad under WINE - the recent version(s), and while not without its bugs, WINE is still an excellent product. Not complete... but so is M$ Windows (Insert your version here).
To anonymous cowards: (Score:1)
Maybe it's because I own the product, and these so-called problems really aren't. I espescially like the part about segfaults - When a WINE-emulated program crashes, it doesn't segfault.
And - the fact that WPO2k uses wine doesn't mean it's a windows program. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Corel USED WINE to shorten the porting process a few hundred-fold. While as a result, some of it runs slower, they've got the product out the door. You can bet the next version of WordPerfect Office will be Linux-Native.
Besides - 'anonymous coward' here obviously hasn't used WINE much, since it actually does work quite well- when you can run an extrememly math and font-intenive program like MathCad, Winamp, etc using WINE, there isn't something wrong with WINE.
On an interesting note about another reason why WP actually WAS ported to linux, unlike my dear coward purports - The Windows version of WPO2k doesn't run at all under wine. The use of wine just made it easier to port to Linux.
In short, the anonymous cowards comments are a farcical tale of an experience that never happened. I chalk this one up to somebody who doesn't like the fact that it is either Corel's product, a 'Closed Source' product, or both. Nothing more.
Re:Corel Crashware 2000 (Score:1)
Corel Crashware 2000 (Score:1)
It hangers me to see that Corel is so underestimating the intelligence and integrity of the community. Especially a crowd so technically savy and used to good software as us. Corel is no better that Microsoft. If it can make the wordPerfect proprietary file format uniquitous on Linux, they will. As a matter of fact it's their plan exactly. Corel is a conveniance vendor. For the permission to install and use their products, you have to give away some of your freedom. By using their file formats, you are blocking non-Corel product owners out of the information you saved in it.
On the other hand, much of the new users that come from the Windows world dont get the ethical and practical values of free software and are more than ready to part with their money and freedom for a little convenience. Geez. I only started using Linux when Red Het 5.1 came out and I already feel like one of those bearded free software advocates when I compare myself to the average slashdotter these days. I remember a time when threads here were about a mouvement of hackers that stood for something that has a higher meaning than conveniance, market share and stock value.
Where have all the philosophers gone? Have we let ourselves be pushed out of our place of gathering by the exact mentality from which we soth refuge?
Re:OfficeWars (Score:1)
Re:Can it do this.... (Score:1)
WP2K for Linux ... what a joke (Score:1)
This kind of stuff is negative for the linux on desktop market.
"THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT"-Death
Read the reviews (Score:1)
The first review actually showed that it didn't work with Corel's own distribution but did with Redhat.
Re:Try following a thread.. (Score:1)
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:1)
Jeremy
Re:My opinion (Score:1)
Moral of the story: if you want Word files to be portable, find the Word fast-save setting and disable it.
Re:The Rock says... (Score:1)
LWN = Butthead? (Score:1)
LWN = Butthead? (Score:1)
I've used WP Office on Corel and Red Hat Linux, and it works well (not having crashed even once). I find it very usable on a Cyrix PR200, although Wine has a tendancy to scan (and time-out on) every empty CD-ROM drive in the system; With CDs inserted, the apps start up in reasonable time.
If WordPerfect doesn't work with his/her pet flavor of Linux, too bad. Linux distros are missing *SO* many services that mature apps rely on, and Corel is not going to sit around waiting for a standards group to set things straight. Corel is adding necessary functionality to Linux as they go (witness their involment in extending Linux printer support), but they can't write code to retrofit every distro.
Most Linux distros are hideous, sprawling, inconsistent masses. And every major player who lumps in a new technology thinks they have bettered Linux. But thank goodness they're wrong; Linux consists of the kernel and nothing more until standards for various levels of functionality are set. These emperors are wearing no clothes. When people try to intimidate users with the implication they're running "crippled" Linux unless they have at least 4 or 5 scripting languages installed, at least I know better.
Think of all the people who lumped their pet tools into Linux distros just to support their quick-and-dirty, user-unfriendly contributions. Why should Corel be lambasted for making their own additions and making their own apps dependant on them? Those OS additions are available to the community just like the other pet technolgies (which are often less usable anyway).
IMO, the opinions offered in the LWN article are entirely incredible. The reviewer was not honest enough to describe the distro in use (Corel only supports a finite number, you know) or the modifications it contains, *or* to admit they were working from a particular brand of Linux conventional-wisdom. He/she also didn't acknowledge X-Windows' shortcomings as a source of GUI problems (lack of support for modal windows and dialogs, for instance). This is why the LinuxWorld review, in contrast, was much more fair and ultimately more positive toward WP Office. They stated the distros and mods being used, and gave Corel credit for extending Linux up to the task of serving a mature application.
Re:The Rock says... (Score:1)
What's next? Open source hardware? This way we can have a totally 'free' computing enviorment? ;)
Stupid question.... (Score:1)
If Corel's Office suite is a Wine app, does this mean it will natively run under Windows? It sounds like a Windows version packaged with all the dll's and scripts for the WINE package....
Re:I attanded the Corel WP 2000 roadshow (Score:1)
Now that I've seen it's a wine app, I'm not quite as enthusiastic as I was. Native, please make this native. Is anyone at Corel listening? Or open source it
Re:Ha! (Score:1)
WP8.0 works great. Better than vi (if that's possible) for text.
Try following a thread.. (Score:1)
Oh BTW, I did read the reviews and they were almost completely contradictory. One described all sorts of problems and the other was a blowjob for Corel in which the reviewer oooh'd and aaah'd over the box, blew away his sytem TWICE to get it running and then proceeded to gush about how great it was.
Re:My opinion (Score:1)
You CAN run MSOffice on Linux (Score:1)
If it works out I have some customers in mind...
Information at www.trelos.com.
If I have made more money than other men it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants while my legal team imprisoned and castrated them.
-Billy Hank Windows III
the windows version ... (Score:1)
Having said that the rest of the suite is almost completely useless. Quatto Pro in particular is just plain evil. I read those reviews and it sound like the short comings aren't a result of moving the suite to linux, these problems existed in Windows as well.
All this is too bad I really wanted Corel to do a really good job on this. However that's not to say that they still can't, it's still early yet.
Re:the windows version ... (Score:1)
Re:The Rock says... (Score:1)
Because you might find the product (not necessarily Corel Office) useful, functional, and productive, and wish to support the programmers efforts in the hopes that they will support your new program, and perhaps one day release a new, better version.
Open source does not equal free. If you think no one should pay for Linux apps, that the freebie alternatives are sufficient, fine. This attitude will ensure that Linux never breaks into mainstream corporate and home use, and remain confined to the niche market that it is today.
Let's face it: Betty in HR isn't going to switch to Linux until she is given an easy way to convert all those old Word documents seemlessly; Uncle Bob isn't going to switch until he can walk into CompUSA and buy TurboTax/Photoshop/Falcon 5.0/whatever for Linux off the shelf. These products are created by software companies, and those companies want sales. What motivation do they have for creating new and unique native Linux applications if they are expected to give it away for free?
Is it stable or not? (Score:1)
that canux review is terrible (Score:2)
"True to my hacker nature, I tried it again. Same thing (go figure...)" sure sounds like quite a hacker, re-running the install script(which i bet he wouldn't have even been able to find without kfm), how devious.
when the install got to hard for him, which was when he needed to install some debs, he gave up and tried it in redhat. how pathetic(not redhat, the idiot)
and he says redhat "botched the X Server install" but i'm guessing this mental midget just goofed(that would be a real surprize). What is the point of having a guy who has no clue what he's doing write a review?
besides how smart can a guy be if he's using kde?
Re:I was afraid of this (Score:2)
It's using Winelib to port it's application which is VERY different
Try actually, you know, looking at the software they shipped. They may be planning on eventually transitioning to winelib, but right now they are very much just running a modified Windows app (all the print stuff has been ripped out and shoved into a native Linux app) under wine. Look at, for example,
Promising, but slow and unstable (Score:2)
it a few days ago on my PII266/128MB/RH6.1/KDE
system. I've used Corel's apps at work on NT
and enjoyed that, so I was really looking
forward to running them on my linux box at home.
The install went fine and after restarting KDE,
I was eager to check the apps out. My first impression was dissapointment. By all means; the
apps look very promising, but they are also very
unstable. I've mostly used WP9 and Quattro so far,
and my experience is that they crash a lot and are
generally sluggish (compared to WP8 which I also
have).
The real-time-preview of fonts on selections,
for example, is simply intolerably slow. When
scrolling through documents (imported from Word97,
no graphics or OLE stuff - but some tables) WP9
will sometimes just hang forever, while other
times it will non-permanently hang for several seconds.
There's also some weird graphical errors
sometimes, like menus that wont go away or pop
up at strange locations.
As it is now I dare not use WP9 for anything
important in fear of a crash or hang. I suppose
some or all of this will be fixed with
new versions of the WINE server they use to run
the apps. Have anyone else had the same
experiences? Or is it something with my system?
If this is how it is for everybody, then there
can only be one conclusion: This isn't production
quality, Corel!
The reviews are too kind. (Score:2)
It screwed the fonts on my system. Guess that's why it came with its own version of Netscape. Now, anything that uses any fonts freezes when I open it.
Also, I can't open files that are on NFS. Well, isn't that an annoying little bitch. I have to copy them locally, edit them, then remember to copy them back so that I don't end up with multiple versions.
And don't forget the fact that it isn't really linux code... they just managed to get it to run on Wine. How lame.
The apps have an enormous issue with insisting on being on top. They seem to have some special layer all to themselves. I have to lower them several times for them to be the same as other apps.
But, check out the newsgroups. There are plenty of complaints. I didn't see anyone in the reviews really post the problems with it.
Re:Ha! (Score:2)
Re:My opinion (Score:2)
There's a "ps passthru" printer, which works great for sending postscript output to lpd and on through to your printer just about every distribution.
Chances are good that if you have a working printer with Red Hat, Debian, Corel, Mandrake, or many other modern distros, you need to go ahead and use the passthru driver. I've used WP8 this way on every distro of Red Hat from 5.1 to 6.1, and Debian 2.1 (Slink).
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:2)
---
Native WP2K? (Score:2)
Anyone heard anything like this?
Re:that canux review is terrible (Score:2)
There is a free download! (Score:2)
I bought WPO2K4L deluxe immediately when it came out. It's really miles ahead of anything else available for Linux and comparable to MS office.
I actually find wordperfect more intuitive.
WineLib vs WINE loader (Score:2)
WINE based apps are no less 'native' than QT or GTK apps - they're all using an API layer on top of plain Xlib. It's just that WINE's API happens to be identical to the MS Win32 API. There's no CPU or other hardware emulation involved - just the loader and the implementation of the APIs.
Re:Wanted: Word Processor for the Masses (Score:2)
LyX is good, though.
--
No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Level of M$ compatibility and No BSD (Score:2)
2) No one has mentioned what level of M$ office file compatibility is there. Such as Office 97 or Office 2000.
If it is not Office 2000 file-compatible, what will an upgrade cost?
WINE Is Not an Emulator (Score:2)
- Steeltoe
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:2)
I like the 'use GTK' part (Score:2)
Oh yeah - open-source purists like it because it's not QT. Not because of any particular advantage, but because it's NOT QT. And yet, Stallman himself gave the stamp of approval for QT-2. Hmmm.
The whole 'USE GTK' thing is more a personal preference thing than anything else. There aren't any advantages of GTK over QT, except that GTK is the baby of the GNOME camp.
Both will work for Windows (although QT is more stable in Windows than GTK), and the use of either is a fine choice to do development for BOTH windows and Linux.
Either way - Corel is part of the KDE camp. This says one thing: QT and KDE. Honestly, I have no bias towards GNOME or KDE, but also don't let years-old rumors and accusations cloud my judgement.
I look foreward to the day where GNOME and KDE work together well. The day is coming - in my experience the only 'bitter rivalry' between the GNOME camp and the KDE camp are the non-programmers who spend more time debating ideology than technology. The programmers are only interested in getting them to work and play nice.
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:2)
To wit, he needs something that will allow his apps which need (specifcally) MS Access to function. These apps probably use ODBC or worse to communicate with Access so the needs are not for an open source database but something to replace Access not a work alike but an exact replacement as far as the database end goes (not front end)
But until then I appreciate what these projects are doing.(Katabase and Gnome-DB)
Jeremy
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:2)
Well, if he's using ODBC, whose sole purpose in life is to provide a database-independent abstraction layer, he can just swap out Access for something else. That's the whole point of ODBC. Unless his apps rely on some obscure functionality that only Access provides. You might be thinking of DAO, which, to my knowledge, is tied to Microsoft databases (SQL Server and Access).
Herbie J.
Re:Why I would pay for an Office Suite.. (Score:2)
Look for GNOME-DB [gnome.org] or wait for Katabase [kde.org], included in KDE2 (release in July -personnal estimation). There are always linux solutions!
Re:I was afraid of this (Score:3)
It's using Winelib to port it's application which is VERY different
The application is recompiled for Linux.
Here is an extract from WineHQ's web site:
Wine provides both a development toolkit (Winelib) for porting Windows sources to Unix and a program loader, allowing unmodified Windows 3.1/95/NT binaries to run under Intel Unixes.
WPOffice for Linux: the Paradox (Score:3)
What is funny is the reaction from the community. I hear people blinding touting the idea of bringing Linux to the desktop and to the common user. Yet, they fuss when a major software player like Corel wants to make a product for Linux and expects people to -gasp!- pay for it. WTF?
Catch a clue people. Most end lusers are not download slackware, configure Gnome without ever asking for help (go help the newbie that asks a Linux user for help), and then download a laundry list of GPL office programs and tries to compile each one themselves (only wimps use RPMs or deb packages after all). The laundry list of dependency errors alone would drive them insane. They would be old and gray before they downloaded the lib packages and kill themselves in the end before they realized it was not worth it.
Our community needs to stop waffling between the extremes and figure out once and for all do we want to be the geek man's favorite home system/server OS or do we want to be the everyman's productivity tool? If we want to be all things to all people we are going to have to make some concessions. People like buying pretty boxes with CDs that they can pay for, install and expect to get support for from a big name. The geek in us all may hate that but it is true.
Re:that canux review is terrible (Score:3)
Remember, this is a platform that has gone without a really good, polished commercial office suite for a long time.
WordPerfect 8 is nice, but hardly an office suite. StarOffice isn't bad if you don't mind the occasional X server crashes and poor compatibility with M$ Office documents (WP8 is worse on that count, though) and the massive BLOATWARE effect.
Then there's K-Office, which, my sources assure me, be available RSN. Even then, as a fairly immature suite of programs, I doubt KOffice will stack up to WordPerfect Office, at least initially, which has had years and years of polishing to make it what it is today. (Well, from the review, it looks like KOrganizer smokes WPO's PIM on network functionality, but there is more to an office suite than a PIM).
But hey, if you want to stick with open source and need true power, there's always vi and TeX!
I attanded the Corel WP 2000 roadshow (Score:3)
I'm currently beta-testing Corel DRAW and PhotoPAINT for Linux (photopaint being my favorite graphics proggie) and even in their Beta 1 state the apps are pretty and polished. Again, there is a performance issue using wine. I have an Athlon 610 MHz w/ 256 MB RAM, and just applying a basic pinch, perspective or other effect on a simple object can seem painful. I did submit this in to Corel, tho.
These professional apps, along with Corel's OS will finally make Linux on the desktop a much easier reality. With Office and PhotoPAINT, my boots to Win98 will be almost nil.
BTW, did you know COREL stands for COwpland REsearch Labs? I got that at the roadshow also.
Ha! (Score:3)
Corel vs StarOffice vs Office (Score:3)
Now here's the tough part ... trying to rank WordPerfect2000 over staroffice. I've used both of them ... and I've used them both for windows and linux. The winner is ... you choose :-).
Corel for the last couple of years has started to see linux as the other market that they should endorse. Not to mention the neo3 ads are kind of interesting to look at. But Corel does lack a web browser and it doesn't really do that perfect of a job to take care of Word files. I do like the great printer support inside wordperfect and all the fonts that have been with WP since the old groupwise days.
Though staroffice is free unless you might still want to look at wordperfect because it's more of an application than an actual suite. It looks as if staroffice was meant to be loaded onto a computer and that's all the computer would need to run. Wordperfect on the other hand does not. I really like the slideshows that Corel uses through presentations alot more than powerpoint also.
Finally. The templates in wordperfect are what keep me coming back. If you're a student and you've had to follow MLA documentation before and hate to keep going back to reformat the page the MLA wizzard/template(Whatever you call it) will make the job the easiest.
Also the MakeItFit manager has saved me quite a few times. This feature alone is worth it to me ... it manages to take the document you have and change around font size and margins in order to make the document however many pages you speficy without making it look too obvious. This is also good when you've typed too much and want to shrink the document down.
My Review (Score:3)
I just bought 2 copies WP Office 2000 deluxe for work (and home) along with Office standard (no paradox). Just some notes:
First warning . . . It looks like this is a "stop gap" measure to give Corel some time to get a true Linux native application. Why do I say this? These are modified Windows binaries that are being run on Corel's version of WINE. So not only do you get WP Office you get a rather nice version of WINE. (look at the script wordperfect and you should see how it can be made to run other windows binaries) Now WINE does give longer startup times, but once the applications are running they are rather quick. I've run this an a Cyrix 166MHz, K6 333MHz, K6 266MHz, and Celeron 400MHz and I am happy with the performance.
Installation.
WP Office Deluxe comes with Corel Linux 1.1 and I installed this fresh on a Cyrix 166 and upgraded from Corel Linux 1.0 on a K6 266MHz and a K6 333MHz (this is a laptop). I didn't have any problems with the fresh install and it was the easiest. To upgrade just boot from the Corel Linux cdrom and choose the upgrade option. The upgrade actually fixed my network problems on the K6 266 and but is also killed my laptop. I was able to fix the laptop because the boot cd comes with a rather complete running version of Linux (vi,etc) so that I could mount my hard drive and get my system running again. The main problem seems to be with not having interactive control of dpkg during the upgrade to handle conflicts. In the end I just tar > gzip'ed my home directory and
Also they fixed the 98% bug. And the partition program is Much Much better. You can now use your entire disk, keep existing partitions, choose to format an existing partition or not, and the overall interface in nicer.
Actually you don't need Corel Linux 1.1 to install WP Office. I've heard of success stories with RedHat 6.1 and Mandrake. To install Office all you need to do is mount -o exec
Running.
The first time you run an Office application it checks to see if you have a
After install the average start time was 20 secs to splash screen and another 20 secs to a running application on a Cyrix 166. All of the applications look like their Windows counterparts (probably because they ARE the Windows version). Again I recommend starting the programs the first time from a console by typing wordperfect, quattropro, or presentations (or paradox). After the first run you can just use the links in the start menu.
Problems.
If you run into a error box that says something like "The application has encountered a fatal error. If the problem persists, contact Corel Technical Support." Just try and run the application via a console and get better information like:
mand:~$ wordperfect
wine:'/home/arrasmith/.wpo2000/wineserver-mand/
And so all you have to do is
rm
and have everything working again. Which makes the graphical error box REALLY REALLY STUPID! Couldn't they add the message explaining the real problem to the box? Of course I could just see if the wine error message can be dumped to the kmessage box by looking at the wordperfect launch script (anyone what to give this a try? my bash programming isn't that good).
WordPerfect.
Nice. If you have used any word processor you should feel right at home. Weird things: File Open(Save) maps ~/,
I've been able to import several large Word 9 (MS Office 2000) and the formating is mainly intact. Equations are really screwed up though. It looks like the solution to the equation problem is to get the true type font that MS uses for their equations onto the Linux box (anybody know what font that is?). Word 8 and Word 7 conversions retain the formatting more closely to the original.
QuattroPro
The number one reason to get this package. A REAL spreadsheet. I haven't found any major show stoppers so far. By the way I have tried StarOffice, Applix, SIAG, Gnumeric, KSpread, and several other spreadsheets for Linux. None of them comes even close to QuattroPro.
Problems: you have to drag to resize and not use the maximize button. Also it seems to have problems with some very large spreadsheets. The windows version does 1,000+ by 1,000+ cell documents (where each cell is the average of the surrounding cells) and the Linux version just sits there. Updating of cells is also much slower than the windows version.
Presentations
Just plain cool. The Show on the Go feature can export your presentation as an executable. Your options are to make one that runs on Linux (2.2.x kernel), Windows 9.x, or Windows 9x/NT/Win3.11. The drawing side is really intuitive and suitable for minor graphics work. You can make an excellent presentation in very little time that is as interactive or automated as you like. Just plain cool.
Paradox, Corel Central
I haven't worked with these other than to see if they run, which they do. Corel Central doesn't interface to any email program which is really poor in my book. We need better graphical email applications than kmail or Netscape. Corel, can you bring back the one from Corel Central 8 (or was it 7)? If Corel Central just added a nice email/news reader it would be a killer application.
Bean filled penguin
My daughter (2.5 years old) loves him.
Personal Opinion.
If you want a working Office suite and have a Pentium 166MHz+ look into Corel. I am very happy with it so far, and I've been able to get several other windows applications to run with the included version of WINE. I just hope the upgraded versions will be native because nearly 40 seconds to load (on slow machines) is a very long time.
- mark arrasmith
Re:Corel forked Wine (and therefore deserves to bu (Score:4)
Take a look at the wine mailing lists - you should see that Corel offered back the changes...
It's a sad day..... (Score:5)
I was afraid of this (Score:5)
Corel, if you are reading this: Spend the time to make your apps portable, use GTK, and make true native Linux versions. Yes, it will be several man-years of effort, but in the long run it will pay off.
As one who OWNS WPO2k (Score:5)
Adding the Fonttastic font server didn't hurt at all - everything still works, the fonts are beautiful and there are no conflicts.
The suite is very functional, and while having a few bugs, it is definately still acceptable to work with - moreso than Staroffice or Abiword to say the least.
And, YES, the suite is very KDE-Centric; but what do you expect? Corel is one of the large developers/contributors to KDE. As for the whole KDE-GNOME thing - just grow up. The source is free for both, QT is free source and FSF-certified as 'open source.' The crying about KDE being closed or somehow evil, bad, etc is getting very old and most uninteresting, espescially since the arguments simply aren't true. Of course, there are those who hate C++, but that's their deal.
I find it interesting that people have no problem with Closed-Source QuakeIII, CivIII, Whatever than Mech-type game is, RR Tycoon... man! Sure are a lot of closed-source programs there that are approved of! So what's wrong with having a commercial Office Suite? It's FAR more functional than the open-source counterparts at this time, and well worth the $ paid for it. (Although with Free software, you don't always get what you pay for... you often get a LOT more).
I had problems with the install of WPO2k - it was looking for some files that should have been in my path for root. That was my bad, not theirs. But, it has instructions for a manual-install via dpkg, apt, or RPM, so it's nothing I'm unaccustomed to.
The suite takes FOREVER to load the *first* time - it's building font-metrics for WINE. After that task is done, ALL the office programs load as quickly as their Windoze counterparts on my PII/450. The performance isn't 'snappy' - it's more like using a word-processor 5 years ago using a 486/66. Not bad, just having
Honestly, I am quite satisfied with WordPerfect 2000/Linux. I am still looking foreward to the first service pak for some minor bug-fixes; but there are fewer than I've seen for other office suites.
Being an open-source purist is a luxury that I and millions of other cannot afford. There is nothing 'wrong' with having proprietary software for Linux. Just because it's not GPL'd doesn't mean it's bad. Corel has created a product that is very functional and attractive to use, and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - it will give the press, buisinesses, etc. a good look at where Linux is going- that it is NOT some fringe OS, but is here to stay. The fact that WPO2k is brand-name, commercial software for Linux is going to turn some heads towards Linux. It will win converts to the OS. It will provide a 'gate' through which people will start using Free Software, and see the advantages to it. The release of WPO2k is one of the best things that has happened to Linux in quite a while. It will turn more heads to Linux and provide incentive to move to Linux. And that's what is most important.