The Pinko-Commie-Hippie-Penguin Thread

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Given that we have so many threads about certain Redmond, WA company and its oh-so-reliable software, I thought that we could make one for news, links and comments on the alternatives.

Today I read on The Inquirer that the French Gendarmerie after switching to OpenOffice is already half on its way to replace windoze with Ubuntu.

Guimard says the Gendarmerie since 2002 found out that open source applications usually are better at handling open standards than proprietary software. Moving to centralised Imap servers for email, lead the organisation to deploy Mozilla Thunderbird on the desktops. Making all the web applications work equally well,resulted in the roll-out of Firefox across the organisation. "Users need no training to use a web browser."

In 2007 the Gendarmerie decided to replace even the desktop operating system. Guimard: "Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."

[ivor]

Hasta la Vista M$!

[beagle]

Hmm. I wish Firefox was better at handling the DTD standard than proprietary software. Displaying XML which defined \ and β via a valid DTD at work the other day we found it worked in IE/Safari but not in Chrome/Firefox.

Still, if the French are doing it ... 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Been using OpenOffice.org for quite a bit, now.

I only just learned how to address cells from one sub-sheet into another, too cool. 

I understand there is a macro language, but have not explored it yet.

I'm still too familiar with Visual Basic for Applications, the old macro language for Office 2000.  Anyone familiar with the differences for OO.org?

There appears to be a "macro conversion" engine in Open Office... haven't tried it, though.

[Darlica]

L installed Ubuntu on his semi new PC, the one that had pre installed Vista, this weekend...

Since then he has sported an unusually wide smile.

Not only was it a completely painless installation process, installing the printer (an oldish HP that usually isn't that cooperative) was more or less plug and play, an Creative Mp3 player that won't connect to your computer unless you have installed their massive junk filled software, run as smoothly as ever the second it got connected...

The very day they realease Photoshop and Illustrator for Linux I'm going over too.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There are alternatives like the Gimp (or gimpshop) for photoshop and
inkscape  for illustrator.

I don't see adobe making versions for Linux for now.

[Darlica]

There are alternatives like the Gimp (or gimpshop) for photoshop and
inkscape  for illustrator.

I don't see adobe making versions for Linux for now.

Too bad, I think it would be very popular.

As I've said before Adobe is the industry standard, you can deliver files in other formats but that would cause a lot of grumbling and varying results as most printers use Adobes colour profiles.

L's going to take a look a Wine and what you can do with that. We'll see.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

My understanding is that the Linux photoshop-alternatives are capable of saving files in the aforementioned adobe format.

At least, I would be extremely surprised if they did not support it-- open source being what it is.

For example?  In Open Office, I tend to save documents in the de-facto standard "microsoft word" format, so as to help ensure future compatibility.   There are so many billions of documents in the ubiquitous 'DOC' format, that I'm not in the least worried about being able to read it in the foreseeable future.

Same for Excel spreadsheet format.

And Open Office fully supports both of these.

Which reminds me....it doesn't yet fully support the very latest Office 2009 (or whatever it is) XML formats...but it's being worked on.

I must check for updates....

'later.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I've had problems with GIMP's stability before, but then, I'm not running Linux. I recommend PAINT.net for more casual users. OO is my LIFE. I love that thing!