Anyone agree with me here?

Hamish

Hamish

Hamish

Soldato
Joined
14 Apr 2003
Posts
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Location
Deepest Yorkshire
Just something I have noticed in pretty much all of these "switch to linux" articles...

One of the major reasons given for people to switch to Linux is the cost savings of software - e.g.
Windows: Office £400
Linux: OO.org - £0

Windows: Photoshop £400
Linux: GIMP - £0

this is touted as a major reason to switch. It just gets on my nerves that it is sold this way as:

a) they are shown as equivalents when in fact PS/Office are far greater featured. No professional in their right mind who uses these type of software would use either apart from the odd casual letter or minor image manipulation.

b) both GIMP and OO.org is also available on Windows so in fact there is no comparison to take place apart from the fact that windows users have more choice of software if they wish.

Don't get me wrong I'm pro OSS but I just feel its being missold a little
 
How is office so much better than OO? I honestly don't have a problem with OO - it does what I need it to do. I agree with PS not being equal to GIMP though. Personally I use linux because I feel more comfortable with the system and it does not treat you like a retard like vista does. I also feel I can customise linux far greater and easily to my preferences than windows. Nothing to do with the cost of software really.
 
Its hard to say what specifically is better about office, there's always little things that Office can do that OO.org can't. I'd say OO.org was about on par with Office 97 in terms of features.

I haven't really used Vista but with XP it can be customized quite a lot and most of the annoying bits can be turned off and redundant services stopped.
 
Hamish said:
Its hard to say what specifically is better about office, there's always little things that Office can do that OO.org can't. I'd say OO.org was about on par with Office 97 in terms of features.
Click to expand...

So what features do you require which office 2003/2008/whatever gives you over 97? I honestly can't think of anything I use on a regular basis office 97 or OO does not have.

Hamish said:
I haven't really used Vista but with XP it can be customized quite a lot and most of the annoying bits can be turned off and redundant services stopped.
Click to expand...

Yeah I know... I actually use around like 6 OS's (due to work :-) ) but my main system is linux. Customization wise, its things like syntax highlighting, file system coloured listings, being able to screen processes etc... I use openbox (lightweight, low memory usage) windows manager on linux... If you change the shell on windows a hell of a lot of stuff tends to break...

Development wise I find linux a lot quicker to code something up fast and test it... (Visual Studio is a nice bit of windows software, but its an overkill for small stuff and I have never found a text editor as good as VIM). Bash or zsh shells are much more flexible than cmd.exe (in my opinion - and yeah I know about powershell). I prefer using a terminal for 90% of my tasks (only gui app I really use is my browser) and in windows this is a bit of a pain. It's really designed with WIMP interfaces in mind.

End of the day its all personal preference.
 
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Well, I tried to use OO to open a Powerpoint file and when I viewed it in slide show mode, it was all over the place, nothing was where it should've been etc. Its not bad for free software, but since then I've used Vista/MS Office for all the tasks like that.
 
system specs are where linux should be trying to win the fight. the fact that you dont need cutting edge hardware just to run the os is a major bonus in itself.

btw those comparison things always annoy me. windows isnt linux and vice versa why do people compare them?
 
the reason i try get people to switch to linux is not only to gain support for this os but it is faster, more secure and doesn't get clogged up like windows does. secondly i believe that linux will become a major player in the os market in the near future so i want to get familiar with it now so that when it does i will be an expert
also the powerful command line is brilliant i couldnt live without it even if the entire system is t!ts up i can fix it
 
If OO is so pants, why do my winluser mates send me their .doc files that are all laid out wrong to fix......and I fix them by.........loading them into OO and saving them again, nothing more.
 
thegoonden said:
If OO is so pants, why do my winluser mates send me their .doc files that are all laid out wrong to fix......and I fix them by.........loading them into OO and saving them again, nothing more.
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Yer, i occasionally have formatting problems when using .docs between OO and MS Office, complete pain.

These days i have resulted to just running MS Office in a virtual machine as half my university staff like to send out .docx files :rolleyes:
 
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