Why Munich Will Stick With Linux 185
Jason Hibbets writes: "There are many solved problems in open source. Groupware is not one of them," Georg Greve, co-founder and CEO of Kolab System starts off his post highlighting recent features of the latest release of the Kolab groupware project. He calls out a few newly elected politicians that don't like the current set-up, but says that thousands of users don't have the same experience. "Until today, the city of Munich is using the same stand-alone calendaring and email systems it had used when it was still fully operating on Windows. Updating these systems had a lower priority than the migration to LiMux then. But an upgrade is underway now. And, the solution they chose is agnostic to the desktop platform and will service LiMux and Windows alike. The primary difference made by another migration would likely be due to the perils that come with any migration, such as additional costs and delays. In other words: The very problem used to criticize the LiMux desktop is already being solved."
Slashvertisement for Kolab? (Score:2, Informative)
It all reads like an ad for Kolab.
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It is and Ad for Kolab... If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck.... Shoot it!
Re:Slashvertisement for Kolab? (Score:4, Funny)
I tried to, but I missed.
Then this stupid dog started laughing at me.
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Submitter is a Red Hat Corporate Marketing manager, what do you expect.
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At home too (Score:5, Insightful)
They should teach these people how to install linux on their home computers too. It's less confusing to have one os (all linux) than two (linux in the office, windows at home). Maybe even give them a free linux laptop for the home. They can afford that because of the license fee savings for not using windows.
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That's fine as long as everything is done for the user. There's nothing easy about getting various H/W setup on Linux even with the best distro.
And this is an option that is only valid if they want to do the same things they do at the office which is probably not the case.
Re:At home too (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing easy about getting various H/W setup on Linux even with the best distro.
What era do you live in? I've been using Ubuntu since inception and, since the second or third release, it's been better with hardware than Windows. I never really look at the HCL. This is distinctly different from Mandrake 7.2 trying to figure out if I need ALSA or OSS and then not getting either to actually play sound (and then sound suddenly stops working why?).
And this is an option that is only valid if they want to do the same things they do at the office which is probably not the case.
How do you think Windows became the de-facto home operating system?
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What era do you live in? I've been using Ubuntu since inception and, since the second or third release, it's been better with hardware than Windows. I never really look at the HCL. This is distinctly different from Mandrake 7.2 trying to figure out if I need ALSA or OSS and then not getting either to actually play sound (and then sound suddenly stops working why?).
3 different laptops (within 5 years of age), and 2 desktops (also within 5 years of age). Not one was Ubuntu install was good enough for using as a daily computer. Some didn't install network drivers, some were slow due to graphic drivers not being installed. Top that with the update manager failing to install updates and just stopping mid session. Add to this random exceptions popping up when left idle for a long period of time. In every single case these were clean installs on a clean drives. I then got t
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I think so, because I've never had a machine fail to load Ubuntu - and I've done many dozens of them over the years. Most of the install failures I've experienced were from Fedora, and not Ubuntu. But somebody has to be at the end of the bell curve, and it looks like you were unlucky enough to be that guy. I would not have guessed five laptops existed that couldn't run Ubuntu!
I've haven't installed Windows 7 on any machine that didn'
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I'm just curious. Are you telling me that Ubuntu installed with no additional configuration? I have friends that eat Linux for breakfast and they do not hesitate to tell me there is no straight forward installation. Sometimes it's easier but if you want a smooth running machine you need to do a little bit of tweaking.
I guess my point is that even if the ideal drivers aren't installed on Windows 7 in every case, at least it runs enough to get going where as Ubuntu I had to use the terminal to get the OS full
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Yep, on the Dell laptop I did a couple weeks ago for my daughter, and the last two LTS releases have installed clean out-of-the-box on my Dad's desktop that I built for him from generic parts. Hmm, I should probably note that I often use the disk partitioning tools during installation rather than letting the install choose its own layout... but I didn't do that on the laptop.
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What era do you live in? I've been using Ubuntu since inception and, since the second or third release, it's been better with hardware than Windows.
Pretty much this. I use a lot of relatively obscure peripherals, like USB to serial converters (before the haters chime in, there is plenty of professional level equipment that uses serial yet) and I've found that a lot of the less common stuff is uspported in Linux, but not Windows.
I think that the problem that some people have with Linux installs is that they try to impose Windows upon Linux. Whe it's running, its running, but you aren't going to ge tvery far looking for the registry, as I've seen some
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Yep, and just when they got everything working they switched to Unity. :-(
Re:At home too (Score:4, Insightful)
Experiences vary.
My most recent attempt to use Ubuntu on my Thinkpad resulted in me using an external wifi dongle because the internal one wouldn't work, and then after getting things the way I could use them, and accepting that sleeping was risky, my hibernate wouldn't restore, and all the other bugs I could fix later... I settled down to get some work done and I learned that my system randomly would lock solid without error.
I had to get some work done and I already burned 20 hours troubleshooting, so I put my Windows disk back in and loaded Ubuntu on VirtualBox for my Linux stuff.
n.b. I've administered Linux systems since 1995.
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My experience was identical to yours. With the amount of troubleshooting and driver research I had to do I could have purchased 10 copies of Windows 7.
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And before someone comments on "Macs are so expensive", if you're productive with it and you command a reasonable salary then it's not expensive at all. It's worth your sanity to go with good ha
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I completely agree with you. It used to be that Macs had an unreasonable price premium, but now PCs as a whole (Mac and non-mac) have dropped so much in price, that $1500 on a laptop can buy you an amazing machine.
They are IMHO, by far the best laptops out there right now, and their price is perfectly reasonable. I ran MacOS as my primary desktop a few years ago, and I used a 2012 MBP as my work machine at my last gig.
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Yes, they do. Some years ago, my daughter was abroad and she managed to completely destroy the hard drive in her Thinkpad. She is not a technical person. She had been running Ubuntu, which I had installed.
I told here where to find an Ubuntu ISO, a friend downloaded it for her and burned a CD. Using the CD, she did a basic installation, which was fully working.
I then got her to ssh into one of my servers, with a reverse tunnel configured. Using that tunnel, I was able to ssh back i
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"dump the drive and pop Windows back in"
dump the drive
drive
I.e., Two hard drives.
Remember, "professional"?
I would be an idiot to waste my customer's time to save $100 on a disk.
Which means you don't actually konw how one could possibly reproduce such an issue, but you're going to offer your opinion that I don't know what I'm doing.
It'
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Get with the program. The parent post said: "I defected to Ubuntu 8 years ago because I saw it "just work" on some random laptop. "
Linux systems make amazing servers, amazing development platforms and are vital for learning how unix-like OSes work. I never recommend Linux systems as a deskop environment to anyone who isn't a programmer. Even then, they'd be better off on MacOS and use VMs to launch Linux and Windows instances.
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It's called "being a professional"
The machine was an x120e. The Thinkpad X series has a good track record for well-supported hardware.
I was loading Ubuntu because I was working in a role where I was administering Ubuntu servers. Working in the same environment as the target environment helps you learn more about the systems you're administering.
As a professional, my goal is to be productive for the client during working hours. Mysterious hardware failures on an Ubuntu load on my consulting laptop
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"Ubuntu? And you've 'administered Linux systems since 1995'? Bullshit."
What are you? Anti-knowledge ?
If you've never run Ubuntu, you don't know anything about it. If you're faulting somebody for loading Ubuntu, you're faulting them for learning about Ubuntu.
You think you know more than Canonical because you don't like the color brown or something?
...and you have no idea why I was running Ubuntu. But again. Your response is predictable. Have a look at my other answers.
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I've been on Linux Mint since 6 and the only issues I had was with Dell laptops and Broadcom wifi chips. It was annoying to have to hook up wired to get the drivers but only took 5 min to get it going other non Dell laptop and wifi cards in desktops worked out of the box.
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Happy that worked for you. Wasn't the case for me or anybody in my entourage. Don't take me wrong, once working it works but getting there never seems to be a straight line.
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I've had the same problems with windows, wireless or even ethernet not working out of the box and having to hunt around for drivers (and they don't even make it easy to work out what chipset your card has)... Usually this is down to windows being much older than the hardware and having no drivers for it by default, and its often possible to boot a much newer linux livecd and use it to download the drivers.
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Your information is dated. I had Knoppix and Ubuntu boot disks both "just work" on a laptop with windows at least as far back as 2010.
Other than office, email, and browsing, you really only need Minecraft to work anyway.
Re:At home too (Score:4, Insightful)
My information is not dated at all actually. Check my other post. I'm 0/5 with Ubuntu (that's version 12 and 14) and 5/5 with Windows 7. I must be the luckiest person when it comes to Linux failure. Don't take me wrong. I can go in terminal mode and get things working but do you expect home users to do this? I'll be happy to post a video of the two laptops I still have at home since they aren't being used. I'll image them and re-install Ubuntu 14 and you'll see. When it takes you 30 seconds between clicks because the generic video drivers aren't good enough, the user says F*** IT!
The other argument here is that NOBODY cares. The home PC era is dying. Linux or Window won't matter anymore. If you don't see this then I'm the one who has to call you dated.
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I still mostly use windows myself.
You may be unlucky.
Every time I set up computer devices at my house it goes flawlessly. When I set them up at a friends house- it turns into a multi-hour nightmare. Last night I tried to set up a wireless router that worked fine at my house. At her house, it simply wouldn't work. And the ailing router I was replacing was the SAME FRIKKIN MODEL. We bought identical routers 5 years ago.
Never got it to work. Finally went back to the ailing router and we'll probably have
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"Get off my lawn!"
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That's hilarious. I just got a call from my niece because she started school and she is running a ASUS laptop with Ubuntu. She needs to put Windows on it because the online tools used at the school are only IE compatible due to Active X.
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winetricks ie6
or 7, or 8
And what century is her school in using ActiveX.
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That's fine as long as everything is done for the user. There's nothing easy about getting various H/W setup on Linux even with the best distro.
My Daughter's Talking Barbie Agrees with you.
Seriously, a person who cannot install and use linux today should not be allowed to use a computer.
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A person who assumes anything computer related is easy for a non-technical users should not be allowed to make suggestions on what is right for home users.
I consider changing disk brake rotors, pads and calipers easy. Can you give me the steps? Please don't skid any because I'm going to call you on it.
Re:At home too (Score:5, Informative)
A person who assumes anything computer related is easy for a non-technical users should not be allowed to make suggestions on what is right for home users.
I consider changing disk brake rotors, pads and calipers easy. Can you give me the steps? Please don't skid any because I'm going to call you on it.
FIrst thing you do is raise the vehicle, and remove the wheel or wheels depending on the proficiency of your setup. Let's assume you do one side at a time., so I'll go singular.
Remove the bolts that hold the caliper onto the wheel.
Remove the caliper assembly from the wheel and rotor.
Remove the rotor
Troubleshooting steps if not just replacing the rotor:
Before removing the rotor, check for runout. Best way to do this is with a dial gauge. If out of spec, replace. Symptoms that there might be excessive runout or warpage would be if the brakes were pulsating when you were coming to a stop. Remove the rotor. Inspect the rotor for grooving from the pads.
If you will resurface the rotors due to grooving, measure the thickness of the rotor using calipers. There is a minimum thickness allowable depending on the vehicle.
Replace or reface as needed.
Replacement of pads
Remove bolts holding caliper together.
Remove old pads and discard or return to parts jobber. Some pads will have anti vibration shims. Do not discard unless your replacement pads include them.
Compress the caliper piston. I use a small chunk of wood and a C clamp to do this. Place the wood on top of the piston, and the c clamp on that. Open the brake bleeder valve, tighten the c clamp and place a can to catch expelled brake fluid.
After compressing the caliper piston, note the apparent condition of the piston by how it felt during compression. Inspect the brake fluid. If dirty or burnt smelling, or possible water contamination. replace the brake fluid.
Install new pads into caliper, and anti-vibration shims if used.
Install refaced or replacement rotor. Some shops I have known use a sort of hone on new rotors. Since most shade tree mechanics don't have these, it's optional. I haven't seen much of a difference.
Using a torque wrench, reinstall the caliper onto the wheel.
When finished, and using a helper, bleed the brakes. I've always pumped the brakes a few times, then opened the bleeder valve, allowed any air to escape, then shut the valve before releasing the brakes. Replace the fluid you removed during caliper compression. When only fluid comes out, tighten the bleeder valve, and move to the next wheel as needed. Brake bleeding is finished when the brakes have normal travel when pressed. Top off the master cylinder as needed with fresh brake fluid.
Give it a final inspection, then reinstall the tires.
Take a test drive to be certain the brakes work correctly.
Obviously during the process you look for worn or leaking hoses, brake lines, or vacuum lines for power brakes as needed, and during the bleeding process you note if there is any apparent pedal fade, which might indicate the need to replace the master cylinder.
I've done this a few dozen times. It is easy, and installing linux is a fucktub easier than changing out rotors and calipers.
Re:At home too (Score:4, Interesting)
1. I know you've never done a brake job because you wouldn't have had to copy this off a web site
Bullshit. Tell me the website I copied it off of. Can you tell me the site? Because I'm going to call you on it.
2. Would you expect any car user to do this themselves?
That's your argument not mine. It's two different skillsets, and is more difficult than installing Linux. It takes some amount of strength, and some amount of trusting your own work.and the results of a mistake are a lot bigger problem than a bollixed linux install.
But your comparison is specious, and while we are in the accusatory mode, you hardly know a fucking thing about Linux installs.
Burn an .iso of the distribution, choose a partition size and if you want dual boot or not, and it installs. You need a network connection, and it installs according to the devices you have. Much easier than Windows installs in fact.
3. Some of the simpler but critical parts of the procedure are missing
One very important step missed in the procedure:
Bullshit. Everything should always be cleaned.
Waiting for that URL.
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There's nothing easy about getting various H/W setup on Linux even with the best distro.
I disagree. I have a standard Dell laptop, I put linux on it, no problem. Same with previous three laptops, various makes, never an issue.
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Good for you. Not my experience on many more computers than what you've done and many other users seem to share my experience including some users on /.
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Okay well let's look at this objectively. When installing Linux, what could possibly go wrong? You need support for:
- The CPU, which is x86. No problem there.
- The graphics card, which is one of Intel, AMD/ATI, NVidia, or Via. No issues there. You don't even need proprietary drivers anymore except for games.
- The WiFi card. Because of Android, Linux wireless support is now a given.
- The wired Ethernet card. Hasn't been an issue for over a decade.
- Keyboards and mice. USB or PS/2 and have been since
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The last time I had any trouble with Intel graphics was with kernel 2.2 on a 700MHz Celeron with an i810. It was right after I first got into Linux, and I needed to compile an external kernel module for it or something. I think I still have the printout of Intel's mini-manual on how to do that somewhere. That computer came with Windows Me; XP might have been too much for it.
Broadcom turned over a new leaf four years ago: http://www.pcworld.com/article... [pcworld.com]
I've never had any problems with touchpads. Don't
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I've never had any problems with touchpads.
I have had problems with the touchpad being extremely sensitive out of the box. Also Linux does not have a good graphical settings tool for touchpads. KDE's comes closest but still lacks the richness of the Windows counterparts.
Don't they just look like USB mice to the OS if you don't take advantage of Synaptics-specific features?
Basically yes, although they are PS/2 devices.
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Re "what could possibly go wrong": it was a combination of a nod to the common humorous expression and a serious question I meant to answer, the answer being historically graphics cards, etc., and now, I asserted, being mainly printer stuff.
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Good for you. Not my experience on many more computers than what you've done and many other users seem to share my experience including some users on /.
Yes, because you have found out that it's all a big scam Linux simply does no t work. At all. Ever. And it never will. And the people that say it does are just lying things that pop up on your computer screen for you to fight with..
Umm, seriously, if you've tried to put it on a lot of computers, and it doesn't work, it really isn't Linux that has the problem. Just sayin'
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Setting up windows is not easy either, in many cases its more difficult than linux. The only difference is that windows usually comes preinstalled, and with a recovery partition that is configured for that specific hardware. If they supplied hardware preconfigured with linux there wouldn't be any issues.
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Surprisingly Firefox and Thunderbird etc. work the same on Linux and Windows.
You can not really give a free laptop for use at home.
The employee would be taxed for it.
They can afford that because of the license fee savings for not using windows.
How do you know that? AFAIK they never disclosed how much they save. What do you think other bureaucracies would yell if some get a free laptop and others not?
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They should teach these people how to install linux on their home computers too.
Which distro?
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Why, GenToo of course. Go whole hog here... Make them build everything from scratch...
[Yes, I'm joking..... ]
Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat/CentOS, Debian, BSD.. You name one.. I'd bet that any of them would work for 90% of what desktop users need. Unless you are a gamer, or need compatibility with Office on all fronts, Linux will do just fine. Personally, I'd send them home with a USB stick that has a live image of something configured to run like things at work....
Yep. Work, home, phone, server, router, pbx, NAS.. (Score:2)
> It's less confusing to have one os (all linux) than two
Yep. Pretty much everything I own runs Linux, so no matter what device I'm working on the shell interface is the same. On my phone I use the graphical interface most of the time, of course, but I _can_ open a command line and find out what's using al my storage space it just the same as I would on my work desktop, my laptops, my server, my NAS, my PBX, and anything else I own.
At my 8-5 job, the company-owned machine has the same bash shell, which
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Kolab charges a license fee.
Bull Roar (Score:2)
They can afford that because of the license fee savings for not using windows.
The geek has been running this tired old nag around the track since 1995. It was a bullshit argument then and it is a bullshit argument now.
The price of the mass market OEM system install is and always has been a trivial part of the expense of owning a home PC. There will be the monthly bills for broadband services, the expense of consumables like ink and paper...
It's less confusing to have one os (all linux) than two (linux in the office, windows at home.
The home user has different needs and values than the office worker --- to say nothing of the office manager. These markets began to diverge a
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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There is actually one problem with opensource (Score:4, Insightful)
Then these tactics need to be published so that other organizations can watch for these fifth column attempts and whatnot.
Often with these situations the company will have salesmen who have commissions well in excess of 1%. So if they can lie, cheat, bribe, or blackmail their way into a organization-wide sale then they could be looking at commissions well into the millions.
And this is where Open Source generally has a huge weakness; no sleazy salesmen. But that is also where it is very attractive. Most heads of organizations hate how much time they have to waste fending off sleazy salesmen doing underhanded attempts to end run them. Either through the ground floor (converting some IT people) or going over their heads through a board of directors. And never mind those situations where one company will insist that in order to do business with them that they are a "Microsoft Shop" only. So they will do something like insist on work orders be placed through an outlook only system or some stupid sharepoint crap.
If I were in charge of something like the city of Munich I would put out a memo that says, "If you talk to a large software vendor then your continued employment is unlikely."
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If I were in charge of something like the city of Munich I would put out a memo that says, "If you talk to a large software vendor then your continued employment is unlikely."
Yes, because threats to a person's means of feeding themselves and their family are great motivators that generate high morale and happy employees in any organization.
It would be more effective to require that software procured, deployed, maintained and used by the organization be accompanied by a business case that thoroughly explains all alternatives which were examined, in terms of functionality, cost, ROI, training costs, etc. That document needs to be reviewed and signed off by appropriate managers and
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If I were in charge of something like the city of Munich I would put out a memo that says, "If you talk to a large software vendor then your continued employment is unlikely."
Wow, I would never want to work for you. I mean I love Linux and open source. Heck, don't even have Windows installed on any of my PCs, but to say no proprietary thing ever.... There are really neat things and software packages out there. Sure they cost a fortune, but the Open Source versions are crap in comparison. Then you have to deal with industry standards / common training. This is where Microsoft has traditionally won, but their ribbon interface and Windows 8 threw those advantages out the windo
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There are FOSS versions available, but proprietary versions, like Eagle, are significantly easier to use.
I like and use Eagle. However, have you seen the push routing in KiCad? That looks really, really nice. Of course I haven't switched because I now have my nice component libraries. KiCad is beginning to get very positive opinions.
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I've prototyped a few boards with KiCad and didn't even know about it. I'm going to spend some time trying to find it now. Honestly, it's great software, but even after memorizing some of the shortcuts I feel like Eagle is faster and easier to use. Plus the inconsistent naming with footprints being called modules, and other small UI usability issues are annoying. I guess it's a familiarity issue, but once again a commercial company has become something of a hobbyist standard. I'm still using KiCad t
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then there should be a thorough investigation as to how they have been turned,
Initiated by whom? If the salesman has the mayor in his pocket (or the CEO of a private company), who investigates?
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The people who actually are in charge have to do due diligence. You want to bring in an open source solution that competes with a $2.5m proprietary system you better know the advantages of the proprietary system and have a business case that makes it clear why those advantages aren't worth the $2.5m or have clear advantages for the
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Certainly I agree enterprise software vendors will go after non-fits. And the better ones absolutely try and develop relationships outside IT. I'm not sure that's quite as unfair or unethical as you make it out to be. IT's interests are quite often different and sometimes opposite of the strategic interests of the company. IT management can often be interested in maintaining expensive legacy systems with lots of embedded business knowledge because it helps them maintain headcount. People like the CFO n
Can we have a [credible] MS Access equivalent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas I appreciate the beauty of OpenSource, I am yet to find a compelling MS Access equivalent in the Linux world. Yes, I know about Kexi, MariaDB, OpenOffice Base and the like.
But let's face it: There's nothing in the Linux world that can compare to MS Access. Nothing! I am not just trolling. I have developed hundreds small scale MS Access implementations for many clients.
VB, even with its quirks, does well. I would like a front-end, in which business logic can be programmed. Logic placed right there on the form...Logic and parameters that can be passed to the DB engine. Nothing friendly exists in Lunix, or should I say, "I haven't found one yet." Am I wrong?
Re:Can we have a [credible] MS Access equivalent? (Score:4, Funny)
No one who uses VB and likes it can be trusted.
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This is especially critical when you work with ad-hoc data sets that are somewhat or completely different from job to job, client to client, so putting that data into a proper database and writing proper SQL queries to massage it or slapping a
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It's a VB6 programmer's wet dream, done the right way. The ease with which you could make a GTK or QT app with database I/O would shock you. I'd install from the daily or stable PPA if you use an Ubuntu-based distro. The repo builds are outdated.
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What particular about Access do you need that doesn't have it's like in the OS world?
If you need a single-instance, single-writer database, SQLite is your friend and there are a handful of GUI's. You've heard of Kexi and MariaDB and OpenOffice, so what exactly is it missing that MS Access has?
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Well, strictly speaking, I am talking about is its integrated programmable GUI script-able via Visual Basic.
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No you aren't wrong. Used to be much worse before Base existed. Access is a very good product that is under appreciated. Though it has been going out of fashion now for almost two decades. The Linux community always had access to server class databases so the culture around desktop databases never developed.
One more OS alternative I'll throw out there you didn't mention: http://www.glom.org/ [glom.org]
MS Access is a nightmare to support (Score:2)
Somebody creates some MS-Access app that the company comes to rely on, then that person leaves.
Nobody knows the code, or even the password. When you have to upgrade that desktop, you may find yourself in a difficult situation.
You are going to have issues with setting up access rights, and many other problems.
IMO: put databases on the server, where they belong.
That said: it's true, MS-Access is a much better desktop database than anything offered in Linux.
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No real comparable thing exists, and to expect it is to think in the MS single-microcomputer-on-every-desk mindset. We're networked and clouded these days, so every program is a server which can interact with any other program (or should be) and a single-lump tool is limited to its black box. In the Free/Open Source world, you can get full SQL DB's or NoSQL storage engines free-at-point-of-use, so why would you grab a single solution when you can pick the components which best fit your needs?
I think you've
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That's true. However, Access and C++/Java aren't anywhere near equivalents. One is a database and a front end that most people can have working in minutes. One is a programming language, that somebody may be able to use to develop a database front end after a few years of training.
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Look, I am not saying that MS Access is all that great. All I am saying is that it does its job well; if an appropriate job is thrown at it. I will give you an example: My current project is to develop something that simply matches what vial type to use for a specific test plus costs involved depending on urgency/volume/customer type etc. There are thousands of metrics to be tested and some of them share vials. Basically, it is just a front end to read data off a union query.
Guess what: All logic was progr
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If you're using MSAccess for that complex of a job, you're doing it wrong. Once SSN's and presumably HIPAA or otherwise private, protected data become involved, MSAccess or any home grown solution is the wrong solution, if not because it doesn't HAVE data protection, because it WILL eat up your database (once it grows beyond the 2GB data limit or has 2 people accessing the file at the same time)
Use a proper database on a properly managed server with properly managed controls. I'd say use FileMaker Server or
Face Saving (Score:2)
I'm sure they have made provisions for people who absolutely need to use MS products. If they ever want to go back to windows, they will expand the use-case requirements for a windows PC until over time, it becomes a checkbox on a form f
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
> You can't easily exchange documents with GNU/Linux and expect it to work.
Sure you can. Or at least you can as much as you can expect this to work with random versions of office itself. This problem is so pervasive that you won't even get blamed for running a deviant word processor if there are problems.
msoffice based document interchange is so problematic that some people/industries just gave up and defected to PDF.
Like anything else, you have to focus on actual real world requirements and use cases and not the most obscure corner case that you can concoct. The same goes for "groupware". I am not convinced that this is a big problem.
Again... what people actually use versus someone's chosen bullet points.
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Yes but you usually don't run into this problem when using MSOffice because everyone in the office has the same Office. Of course this is not a problem after the migration as long as you migrate everyone to the new format.
One of the many reasons these kinds of migrations fail is because they don't think about these kind of details, using windows everyone just saved their documents in the default format of whatever office version they are using. When migrating some people will save their docs as .odt, some a
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Informative)
Yes but you usually don't run into this problem when using MSOffice because everyone in the office has the same Office....
Not all offices have the same version of MS Office installed throughout the office. I've been at companies that have had three different versions of MS Office installed, and they did have issues with exchanging documents. The easiest solution was just to tell everyone to "save as an old MS Office format" when a document needed to be shared.
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Moving form office to office, I've found that LibreOffice does better than MS Office at properly importing office documents from various versions of MS Office. YMMV.
Re:Compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes but you usually don't run into this problem when using MSOffice because everyone in the office has the same Office....
Not all offices have the same version of MS Office installed throughout the office. I've been at companies that have had three different versions of MS Office installed, and they did have issues with exchanging documents.
It's called the "No True Microsoft Office" fallacy.
Re:Compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
Moving form office to office, I've found that LibreOffice does better than MS Office at properly importing office documents from various versions of MS Office. YMMV.
Yes, I totally agree that importing is rarely a problem. However LibreOffice fails in many aspects. our publishing house made the switch to LibreOffice early this year after basic testing.
For a simple example that Writer is not fit for businesses: it cannot properly handle even basic tasks such as working with templates. Without an add-on it is not possible to change the template. Yes that's right. Only documents that are created based on templates are coupled to that template. The available add-on (templatechanger ) to change this is only available for the latest version via a user that added it to a bug report (many thanks for that btw) and only works with Writer. For Calc changing templates is simply not
Another function that is sorely lacking as an editor has been in MS Office since version XP, around ~2001 I think. If you receive a document from a freelancer it often has the wrong styles in it or only a few. To change this quickly in MS Office you load the tempalte you want. Select the style that is wrong, click select all instances followed by a double click on the style you want. This way you can quickly fix documents.
I find the default colors of LO's panel dreadful. There are better colors available though, such as http://extensions.libreoffice.... [libreoffice.org] Why are these not used or given as an option?
If you save a file on a NAS and select Tools/Share Document so more people can simultaneously work in it, often the formatting of the file changes randomly between saves. Old formatting often re-appears.
Calc cannot properly handle conditional formatting. This morning I created a Calc document with a cell that could have one of three colors based on the content of three other columns. I then copied the formatting to more cells in the column. After saving the document only the first cell formatting is kept, the formatting in the other column cells is lost.
For our publishing house LO mostly suffices, but there are many ways in which it has to improve for other business to even consider it.
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What kind of publishing house uses a word processor rather than a typesetting or design program for output at all?
Re:Compatibility (Score:4, Informative)
You should get an account. The reason is that Word isn't designed for publishing. Word is just beginning to handle ligatures in English, it is far from handling them in complex languages like Arabic or Hindi. Office 2010 and 2013 have made huge strides in this regard. Word doesn't handle spacing between lines, letters and words entirely properly for readability. Certainly, kerning, tracking and spacing are screwed up. Here is a classic text only image of Word (left) vs. InDesign(right) http://www.thebookdesigner.com... [thebookdesigner.com]
Take a look at the 3rd paragraph spacing. That's what's wrong with Word for text.
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Wrong, there is a compatibility pack that can be installed. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... [microsoft.com]
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And 2013 vs 2007 is awful also... conditional formatting is problematic among other things, and the compatibility info workaround doesn't usually tell you specifically what to change or where to change it.
Strangely enough, LibreOffice / OpenOffice have better compatibility with Office files, especially with damaged files.
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Re:Compatibility (Score:4, Informative)
"Yes but you usually don't run into this problem when using MSOffice because everyone in the office has the same Office. "
No, no they dont.
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The only time I've ever had a problem opening anything in Office from someone else (regardless of version) was when the person sending it uses a non-standard font. Office doesn't embed them by default. So that's the only reason I ever ask for a pdf. But unless LibreOffice or OpenOffice embed non-standard fonts by default, they aren't going to help with that.
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Yes but you usually don't run into this problem when using MSOffice because everyone in the office has the same Office. Seriously? No shit.
And if you send your standard document to a Mac Shop using Microsoft Office. No
And if you send your document to another place using a different version of Office?. No
Not very useful to have a gold standard that cannot leave your office.
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To convert World (old) to Word (new), use OpenOffi (Score:5, Informative)
My experience is that when new versions of Word have problems opening a file created by a previous version, the solution is to open them in OpenOffice and use OO to save to the newest MS Word format (or leave them as odt).
In that way, OpenOffice has BETTER compatibility with various types of MS Word documents than MS Word itself does.
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I'm all for GNU/Linux as much as everyone else, but Windows still has the compatibility card. You can't easily exchange documents with GNU/Linux and expect it to work. Fonts will be different. Style sheets will be different.
It's funny but Android is actually a better option since Office is available for it.
Windows isn't even compatible with itself. I wish people would stop that old lie. Take Microsoft office documents between Mac and Windows.
And if you cannot take a document made in Microsoft Office and open it in another computer in Microsoft Office, you are not in any way shape or form compatible.
On th eother hand, libre office PC Mac or Linux? Yes.
Despite your compatability meme, Microsoft Office is becoming the outlier, the incompatible suite.
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thought programmers just liked to make things worse.
No, not programmers, politicians are the ones that make it worse. If they cannot accomplish that, they just try to claim that's it is worse than it is so they can claim responsibility for the eventual improvements.