on Sun, May 20, 2001 at 04:53:19PM +0000, joe golden (jg1024@hotmail.com) wrote:
> I am trying to switch our small (12 machine) NT network over to Linux.
> Some of the main computer applications at our school are web browsing,
> word processing and spreadsheets (MS Internet Explorer, Word and
> Excel).
>
> I am running Linux debian 2.2.18pre21 and just updated last week.
>
> Netscape makes a great replacement for Internet Explorer.
Mozilla, Galeon, or Konqueror, are better. If free software isn't a
requirement, Opera.
> Abiword seems to work OK, but sometimes appears to split lines and
> I've had problems importing an image into a document. I haven't used
> Abiword much, but have already seen these problems. What is a better
> alternative that isn't too bloated. This is the major application we
> need for the school.
Try a recent version of AbiWord. I've been very pleased with this tool
from the get-go, it's been usable at most stages of development. My
current 0.7 version is both pretty featre-complete and stable.
Alternatives: StarOffice, that bloated stuck pig of an office suite,
(OK, so you know what I think about that), the OpenOffice replacement is
supposed to address some core concerns including the monolithic nature
of the app. KOffice is interesting. For lightweight work, there are
any number of equivalents to Notepad or Write. I've got a version of WP
8/Linux rolling around somewhere, it's never particularly impressed me.
Lyx is yet another option, and introduces you to the world of LaTeX and
SGML markup, which is probably a good thing to consider.
> For spreadsheets in school, you need to make graphs. Gnumeric seems
> slick, but last time I checked, *no graphs*. I need graphical
> representation of data for test scores, etc.
'apt-cache search graph' returns 620 packages on my system.
Hmmm...'plotting' is a more useful search keyword.
There are a number of tools aimed at producing graphs, most of them are
lower-level scientific applications. gnumeric, r, sciplot1, among
others.
The Gnumeric project homepage provides a vague assurance that graphs
capabilities are under development:
http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/
> Is Star Office the answer? Can the huge Star office package be broken
> into smaller more manageable parts?
The answer to that question is OpenOffice. The interpretation of the
answer is not yet final.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal
http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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