ComputerWorld has a positive mini-review of Tamar Granor’s new book, “OOoSwitch: 501 Things You Wanted To Know About Switching to OpenOffice.org from Microsoft® Office.” Tamar is a good friend and we’ve collaborated on several books before. I got to see some early drafts of this book, and I was pretty pleased about how well it covered the topic, especially the perspective of writers like myself coming from Office.
Tag Archives | Linux
Microsoft’s Plans For Fighting Linux…
Microsoft Hints of Future Programs to Stave Off Linux Overseas. Redmond is focused on finding the right price point and feature set for its products in developing countries, says its platform strategy chief. [Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]
Chandlers ZeroPointThree available for download, evaluation, study
Exciting news! Chandler is a Python-based application that aims to provide a world-class PIM for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Just released: version 0.3, a preview of what’s coming, and a chance for developers to download, evaluate, comment and kibbitz on the design and implementation.
Open Source ‘Chandler’ Project Hits Milestone. The Open Source Applications Foundation just announced the release of Chandler version 0.3. Chandler is the combination personal information manager and platform that has enormous potential to help re-energize the stagnant PC desktop software marketplace. Link courtesy pf Dan Gillmor’s eJournal
Realbasic to support migration and runtime on Linux, Mac, Windows
InfoWorld reports “Real Software is adding the ability to migrate Windows applications to Linux in an upgrade of the company’s Realbasic tool.”
Is Linux Keeping the Softies Awake at Night?
Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley asked Is Linux Keeping the Softies Awake at Night? and the answers . “We asked readers if they believed Microsoft’s every move is dictated by Linux. Their answers may surprise you.”
Review of Libranet on OSNews
Like the reviewer here, Debian distributions are something I’ve gotten a bit interested in, since my last LUG meeting, where several attendees mentioned it as their choice. Linux on Laptops Part II: Libranet 2.8.1 is reviewed on OSNews
Migration from Windows to Linux saves thousands
A testimonial from a 300-person company that estimates savings of $145,000 by moving to Linux from Windows.
IOGear print server and Linux
I blogged back in July that I’d picked up a charming little Ethernet-to-USB print server from IOGear for $60, and needed to set it up with Linix. Leeman Strout wrote to ask if I’d ever had any success. I wandered over to the Linux workstation to check, and it wasn’t set up, so I set to it. The printer is a Lexmark E312, which speaks PostScript natively, making it a bit easier to set up with Linux. Here’s the
trick I used, thanks to the latest issue of Linux Magazine, March 2004 and http://www.linuxprinting.org. I opened a browser to localhost: 631, the http interface for CUPS. I added a new printer with the following specifications: Device: LPD/LPR Host or Printer, Device URI: lpd: 192.168.1.xx/ – its local address, Make: Postscript, Model: generic postscript printer (en). The trick was realizing that it used an older LPR interface, rather than the more modern Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). Test prints worked great!
Installations on Linux, still a challenge
Slashdot readers debate the pros and cons of Building A Better Package Manager. As a newbie, I can say I’m certainly frustrated with the experience of trying to install packages on my Linux machines.
I spent some time today installing Python 2.3.3 and wxPython on my development workstation. First, because I’m still afraid of breaking something, I tried downloading the precompiled binarys in RPM (RedHat Package Manager) format, and clicking on them in the Nautilus graphical shell to install them. Dialogs cheerfully appeared and disappeared, progress bars filled, and then,… nothing. Presuming that no news was good news, I try running, and no, version 2.2 is still installed. Grrr. Many fumbles later, the RPM command informs me the package is not installed. I knew that. I wish I had been told, however.
So, I attempt the dreaded “building from source.” This involves downloading the source code for the package (typically C code) and running through a series of steps to properly configure it for your system and compile it. Python turned out to be a piece of cake: 3 commands (./configure, make, make install) fill the terminal window with inscrutable stuff, but eventually seem to complete successfully. Bravo to the team that put that together!
wxPython was a little more challenging. The readme file was a bit more intimidating, as the ethusiastic author wanted to make sure I understood more options than I was comfortable with. I’m about halfway through that process now, and while the stuff flying by in the window looks okay to me, we’ll see how the process comes out…
Mary Jo lambasts yet another Microsoft ‘study’
Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft Funds More ‘Facts’. “Microsoft is touting a new “independent” study aimed at helping users make fact-based choices between operating systems. This time, the study was performed by Jupiter Research and commissioned by Microsoft.”
Yet another suspicious “study,” although the devil’s in the details more than the farcical “a mainframe costs more than a bunch of server” study. In this case, there is no “study” really, but a survey of the opinions of people (presumably IS Managers) about what they know about interoperability. That’s surely not the same as evaluating what sort of interoperability is out there. I’ve automated OpenOffice.org from VFP, and you can do so from Perl, Python, Java or C++. I run my SourceSafe files from a Samba share on a Linux box. I can read and write MySQL tables (on any platform) via ODBC or JDBC or Perl libraries or other interfaces. Now, that’s interoperable!