Libreoffice (sorry, I am going to mash up versions). No "fatal" flaw fixed -- but there are a lot of improvements.

- improved text display
- better typography (true small-caps, etc.)
- bug fixes
- improved ergonomics (dialogs, previews)
- better header/footer editing
- better import/export, including Visio import
- dead code removal
- grammar checker

Anyway, OpenOffice is no longer Oracle, so there may be a merge

Adaptec RAID 6805... average joe.

SAS RAID controllers would be a complete non-starter without Linux support. Adaptec or not. ESX support is just as important.

Using this as a SATA controller? This is a $600 card. Why?

Sorry, I don't see this as an "average joe" card. FWIW, an "above-average joe" would be better "served" by buying a complete HP DL360 server, including SAS disk (and controller). These are available (used) for under $2000.

And the 6805's driver will be incorporated INTO the Linux native drivers in short order, at which point it will be ready for "average joe". But this (historically) will NEVER happen with Microsoft Windows.

Also, since you are running 7x3TB, you are above the safe limit for RAID5. You may wish to consider using ZFS (possibly BTRFS) instead for data integrity (putting my architect hat on). I would strongly recommend that change.

Hardware RAID would be recommended if using much smaller drives. 146GB 15k, (or, possibly 300 or 600GB). 1TB+ drives really need ZFS for reliability (and the smaller drives are ok as well).

A few years ago a Rogers representative called me. She informed me that a special promotion was under way. I could get a discount on digital service (half off?) for a year. She said that Rogers was going to go all digital soon anyway so I shouldn't miss this promotion.

I signed up. As part of the offer, I received a digital convertor (my TV, although HD, was analog). The convertor was rented.

Rogers didn't go all digital.

A bit over a year later my nephew was visiting. He asked if he could watch a "Pay per View" event. I agreed. He then asked where the digital box was. Someone had disconected it, sometime (it was broken). No one in our (immediate) family had even noticed.

I then cancelled our cable TV service.

Not a problem reading. OS/2 1 used '286 protected mode. Support for this promised by IBM -- Bill Gates called the mode "brain dead". Probably for several reasons -- first was that variable segment lengths made "steady state swapping" very difficult (maybe impossible). Second may have been the limited selector availability (4 or 8 thousand?) Third may have been (most likely) that there was (deliberately) no method to leave '286 protected mode, and no "real mode" compatibility.

OS/2 1 actually RESET the processor using the keyboard subsystem, and used that to enable the DOS subsystem. Very slow (and kludgy). Since devices had to be restored from RESET on task switches, it is doubtful that Windows (with third-party drivers) would have functioned (I don't believe that the mode switch code was accessible). Nobody (AFAIR) used Windows under OS/2 until OS/2 was running 32 bit, with Virtual 8086 support.

But then, Windows 2 wasn't really a hot item either...

Windows NT and OS/2 are more similar than Windows NT and VMS.

NT supported OS/2 applications "out of the box". Character mode, certainly, and PM could have been done. There has never been a source compatibility or easy conversion capability with VMS and RMS. And I thank $deity for that.

Interesting, and wrong.

OS/2 1.0 offered a single "DOS box". No claim was made to be a better "Windows than Windows".

With OS/2 2.x, 32 bit mode was exploited, and Virtual 8086 mode as well for multiple DOS boxes. Windows 3 was modified to run in a "virtual friendly" fashion. Remember that IBM had a source license and was allowed to modify Windows 3.

THIS version was a "better Windows than Windows" -- at least 16 bit Windows. Better performance, less crashing.

However, the para-virtualized Windows relied on a certain addressing layout. Microsoft made sure to break that with Windows 95, removing the option of modifying and running under OS/2.

Yes, a monolithic CONFIG.SYS was a bottleneck -- some ran into 100 or more lines. But, practically, not as big a concern. OS/2 was smaller, did not support multi-user, and few file systems. CONFIG.SYS was arguably the right choice. For OS/3... not so much, but then, that became Win NT.

Ken

Boxgrinder will become a standard part of RHEL at some point. Right now, it's a technology preview. But I can see a future where, if my local compute resource isn't sufficient, external ones can be called for.

Apple uses it right now with Siri. But, Siri is limited in scope. To use this generally, the user (read application if you like) has to be able to move parts of itself to either specific servers or the cloud. Now, we shouldn't care WHAT the cloud is -- if I happen to have usable servers of my own (and, as it happens, I do), I should be able to use those. If I don't, I should be able to job it to whatever cloud compute resources are available. Indeed, the lowest spot price, and the application should find it.

Since the raison d'etre of the OS is to manage resources, this particular function should arguably be an OS function. Until this infrastructure exists, user applications will probably not use it, but we can see the beginnings now (Google Docs, Siri, etc.). Why shouldn't I be able to simply push my own applications as well? (and, with boxgrinder I can finally see a way).

Linux is at the lead in supporting this kind of stuff. Since it is, people who are pushing the leading edge will tend to use it, giving even more support to Linux as the "advanced OS".

Back to the drivers... I really don't trust the vendors to produce good binary drivers. I much prefer reviewed drivers. Reviewed by people that I trust. Indeed, (for non-Linux people), Linux kernel issues are ignored, and the kernel is considered "tainted" if a binary driver is used. There must have been a reason for that particular decision.

Ken -- as long as you were happy with 640x480 16 colour graphics, you are right.

Getting Windows 3.1, and 95, 98 running with anything else (possibly VESA modes were supported out of the box by 90/ME) meant using a substandard proprietary vendor driver.

Which crashed a LOT -- there are still people who refuse to use AMD on principle.

At least Linux XFree86 gave a consistent view of the hardware, and with the appropriate mode lines, it would work. Maybe not "accelerated", but the accelerators were ALSO crap.

So, yes, I could claim that Linux worked better, even then. And, since I refused to use Windows 98 (later, ME, and these were provably unstable OSs) on my laptop, I have been using nothing but Linux since 1998.

Obviously, Windows 98 and ME were NOT ready for my desktop back then -- Windows XP may have been, and I considered it. But it caused me an installation horror story when I tried (back in 2004/5). It was ALSO not ready for my desktop use (basically, it installed from a CD, and then refused to see the CD or network until motherboard drivers were installed, which were located on a CD. Couldn't get my money back; $200 down the drain.

Insignificant? Only as far as current use of computers is defined by capability. How about home transcoding of videos? I guess applications can be re-deployed into Windows, but the bulk of the work in this space is on POSIX systems.

How about support infrastructure for home computers?

My music player crashed (no, Linux does not make for a perfect system). The event was logged into the crash processor, which then allowed me to report the issue. On digesting the crash, the crash processor suggested that a fix was already available, and in testing. It advised me as to the fix to apply. Couldn't have worked in a closed source infrastructure, unless the media player and OS were controlled by the same company.

Wait -- they are if using Microsoft Windows! Doesn't Microsoft have something like this available?

The advantage of GPL and peer review are working to this users desktop advantage.

But GUI applications just work -- the developer should use rpath and bundle the necessary libraries with the application.

Just like Windows, btw -- most of the applications bundle things like the Microsoft base C library (or, at least, they did the last time I bothered looking). Or, a .NET installer, etc.

For example, LibreOffice does it that way.

Then again, Sage doesn't (and it's bigger: 2.5GB of code). Go figure, Sage supports Linux, Solaris, BSD, so maybe they are right.

My "third party" applications include Adobe Reader, Skype, LibreOffice, Chrome Browser and Sage. And, personally, I have never had a problem distributing applications either.

Actually, I think you have that backwards. Windows 95/98/ME were trying to compete with Linux. Microsoft used illegal means to compete -- fair competition would have resulted in OS/2 and Linux on top.

Finally, in 2001, Windows XP achieved some parity with Linux and OS/2.

OS/2 has gone away; Linux hasn't. But, even today, Windows 7 is no particular match for Linux. Does Windows run on Z-series mainframes? Sparc? Anything other than x86? Big-endian? Embedded? With how much compatibility?

The Linux kernel is remarkably successful. What is amazing is that even with all the illegal efforts at exploiting a monopoly, and actual engineering efforts that have been put into Windows 7, that Linux is even considered competitive.

The OS is a commodity. Shouldn't be a "premium" item, in my opinion. Now, let's go over some of the benefits Linux brings to the table.

1 - POSIX. If you want to develop for POSIX, Linux supports this out of the box.

2 - Mature, peer-reviewed and stable.

3 - No cost. But, support is available, for free or paid. Since Linux is peer-reviewed and is GPL, support can be very high quality.

4 - Best alternate driver support, due to support by Vendors (IBM, Acer, Oracle, etc.). The Vendor support leads to people writing drivers due to demand. Driver are ALSO peer-reviewed, leading to higher quality.

5 - Number one platform for clusters and super-computing. Leads to best support for algorithmic GPU use. Easiest platform to use for applications in this space.

6 - Considered standard platform for virtualization base. As a result, Cloud Computing based primarily on Linux.

Now, if a "desktop user" doesn't need or desire Linux, or prefers Windows, my opinion is that she should not be forced into it. If the user CHOOSES a platform, she will make an effort to use that platform.

So, don't try to sell the use of Linux. Indeed, Linux as an OS doesn't really need these efforts (it will be no worse off than it is now).

I would like you to expand on your reply. As far as I know, linking tables in Base is just drawing a line between them. You may be right about moving data -- but doesn't Base allow SQL?

Temporary tables, temporarily? Wouldn't that need table descriptions to be executed? I imagine that would be a bit beyond what Base is intended for.

I thought the purpose of Base was to allow table, form, and report design. And allow links from the tables to spreadsheet and word processor.

You can put buttons and stuff on a form and build mini-aplications as well.

I didn't know about the CSV export issue. By the time I have a desire to do something like that, I am (usually) using PostgresQL as a data store anyway, and I don't bother with a export/import as part of a workflow. If it's a small amount of data, I usually have it in a spreadsheet anyway. So I guess I have never had the need.

Sorry for replying to my own post. Note that I don't do this for free -- it's a commercial service. There should be some other benefit for your selection of OOs over Microsoft Office. Simply saving a couple of bucks on licensing won't make up our conversion fee. However, platform support, ability to control both the app and platform layers, ability to write extensions in other languages, whatever, may justify the conversion.

Calc doesn't do VBA. Different Macro semantics. If you want help in the conversion, you can contact me at fred (dot) weigel (at) zylog (dot) ca.

Assuming you want to go it alone:

ActiveWorkBook is replaced with ThisComponent
ActiveSheet is replaced with ThisComponent.CurrentController.ActiveSheet
ActiveCell is replaced with ThisComponent.getCurrentSelection

etc.
try http://www.openoffice.org/api/docs/common/ref/index-files/index-1.html

Basically, OOo BASIC macros are really not that useful for beginners -- there is a lot of crufty stuff.

msgbox WorksheetFunctions.Average(Range("A1:A5"))

is replaced by something like

Dim oSheet, FuncService
FuncService = createunoservice("com.sun.star.sheet.FunctionAccess")
oSheet = ThisComponent.CurrentController.ActiveSheet
msgbox FuncService.callFunction("AVERAGE", _
array(oSheet.getCellRangeByName("A1:A5")))

As you can see, the VBA can be replaced, but it's not easy.

What version of OpenOffice/LibreOffice are you using? Did you (or someone) use Tools/Customize to delete Tools/Macros? (possible, and I might do it for a delivery platform). In which case, use Tools/Customize, and select Menus. Select "Tools" from the Menu pull-down and add the Macro Editor again. Or, reinstall.