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Posted on 11/23/2004 1:10:09 AM PST by Eagle9
Linux operating-system producer Linspire Inc. has found another way to challenge Microsoft: it's offering its OpenOffice.org product suite and the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser in a single package in retail channels.
Linspire, formerly called Lindows, positions its OOoFf package to directly compete with Microsoft Office. The OpenOffice.org product enables users to create spreadsheets, presentations, and documents using files in popular formats, including .doc, .xls and .ppt. The Linspire product also enables users to utilize the PDF format.
"Our goal with OOoFf is to help get OpenOffice.org and Firefox into every possible distribution channel," said Linspire CEO Michael Robertson in a statement Monday. "As users grow comfortable with these high-quality open-source products, it makes the migration to desktop Linux a much more practical transition."
The combo OOoFf consists of an installation CD-ROM, documentation materials, and Flash tutorials. The software is compatible with Windows 98 and higher and Mac OS X 10.2 and higher.
Firefox has been downloaded by more than 10 million users, and the browser has taken some market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The Linspire Linux-based operating system has been designed for desktop and laptop computers, and the firm said the new Firefox- OOoFf package should help spur the growth of its Linux operating system.
IT does revolve around typing memo's and browser internet on Google.
Well if you're talking IT alone, your right. Their world essentially revolves around servers: file/print, database, mail and web. Gee, Linux doesn't do *any* of that, right? As for the end users, a majority of their world *does* revolve around typing memos/e-mail, spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations. All of which OO handles quite well. Works could handle all that but M$ sold the non IT types that they needed the 90% of crap in MSOffice that people don't ever use.
Firefox not blocking popups? On what planet are you living? Any Mozilla based browser (Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape 7.x) blocks popups quite nicely. Manages cookies too.
OCX... OCX!? You mean ActiveX, Microsofts great plan to deal with Java by giving it full and complete access to the OS/filesystem (no sandbox). That was bloody brilliant. Give every script kiddie access to the OS via IE/ActiveX.
Firefox is behind with CSS (cascading style sheets)? Well CSS is a W3 invention not M$, so if anything is wrong with CSS it it M$' implementation of it. Just like they've screwed with everything else that wasn't invented/bought/stolen by Micro$oft.
Did you bother to tell it to BLOCK popups?
What we REALLY need is a good open source version of JAVA so people can do a workaround on the sites that use
(spit) Active -X (spit).
Our office would have already moved to Linux completely (small insurance brokerage) were it not for the folks coding web pages for Farmers, Progressive, and GMAC. They LOVE sticking those little scripts in there, and the pages won't load without it.
We are one of the largest area producers in all three of these markets, and I have asked them if it is legit to demand that their agents use products that are the equivalent of leaving their front door unlocked. Response is the typical bureaucratic posturing of "keep your virus software up to date, install anti-adware, and it is secure." Nevermind the fact that sp2 won't even work with their sites and we can't install it on our machines at the office.
by the way, Firefox doesn't not effectively block pop ups. Just go to drudgereport.com. you will get popups>>
pure horsesh!t. I am in Mozilla right now, drudge is my first hit of the day. NEVER any popups.
so, you think
convert $img $img-.gif is more convinient.
Let's see.. you open command prompt
then go to the directory..
hopefully the convert is within the global path but sometimes you don't so, you have to know where it is...
In Windows/GUI, you go to the application, select all the images, right click, select convert.
you don't have to remember all those commands. because there are too many commands. and if you miss type, you have to type them again. that's why we use word processor instead of type writer.
you just need to know how to do things because most of these tasks are very intuitive.
If your assertion is true about Windows vs Linux, We would be using Linux. The fact and reality speaks for itself. It's self evident. Linux hasn't cracked any dent on Windows market share.
Menu's are hassle? you must like to do things hardway. I guess that's interesting. I don't have time to remember all those keystrokes. there are too many applications to remember all the keystokes. you equate harder way of doing as interesting.
do you walk to your work since it's harder. I mean, why ride a car, bus, plane,... why don't you just walk all over the place. In fact, why use computer. why don't you just use paper.
No, I don't fool.
I work for IBM.
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Microsoft outsells Linux for the same reason that Krispy Kreme outsells spinach health shakes.
you are just talking about the BackOffice.
In the FrontOffice/UI, Office is just more than typing memo's. Just because people buy it and not use it to it's fullest capability, it doesn't mean its functionality is invalid by calling them crap.
that's like, calling car body panel is a crap. many of the car's features aren't necessary. Yet, they are there and you pay for them.
Firefox doesn't block popups. I am just telling you that it is a fact. It doesn't block 100%. I go to the drudgereport.com and i get popups. I have all the popup block option checked. I get popups. In IE, I have set drudgereport.com as untrusted site, where Javascript isn't launched.
What people decide to do with the OCX is their thing. Microsoft gave a powerful capabilty to its developers with OCX. Microsoft made is more secure but again, it's difficult if one is always in defensive mode. Therefore, i think Microsoft preemptively strike against the mal-coders.
Hey, if firefox can't do the CSS, and all the applications are developed with XSLT and doesn't display properly, firefox has a big problem. It is what it is. Firefox has a problem. Therefore, i know what sites i shouldn't go to when i use firefox, period.
LINUX = COMMUNIST
I'm failing to understand that one.
I'm not the original poster, but you missed the point. You've got many files to convert, let's say 100. How do you use what comes with Windoze to convert each one without having to click on each file in turn?
I had a similar issue at work (defense contractor). We had dozens of log files that were the outputs from several runs of our software, all stored in a directory structure based on machine name and date. I needed to extract a particular set of log messages from each file. With a GUI it would have been a several day project: first run a find to locate all matching log files, then open each file in turn and search for the particular log messages, highlight them and copy & paste into another file. Repeat thousands of times. Instead I used a combination of bash shell commands, grep, awk, and sed and completed the task in one hour.
Sometimes the command line is a much more powerful tool than the GUI.
P.S. Running FireFox 1.0 and default settings: I get no pop-ups from drudgereport.com
I think both Firefox and IE do an adequate job of blocking popups. I will use either depending on what I want to do. Because here's the deal as far as I'm concerned: Firefox's beauty lies not in what it does, but in what it doesn't do by default. Finally, I can have an El-Strippo browser without the features that slows IE down. When I want information fast, I use Firefox. When I want bells and whistles, I use IE. Fully loaded, Firefox isn't any faster than IE. It's not necessarily slower, either -- I don't count Firefox's slow load-time against it because that browser's code isn't baked-in and preloaded into the OS like IE is.
Alas, these things alway degrade into Microsoft vs. Linux rock-throwing parties. Some pretend there's room for both, but most of those folks eventually out themselves as anti one or the other. The fact of the matter is that both DO have a place.
I work in a place that has every OS imaginable. From Windows 4.x and 5.x to Solaris, HP-UX, RH 7.3, RHAS 2.1 and 3.0, Z/OS...the list goes on. The point is, that as an engineer for the Windows platform, I've got more instances of Linux running than my cohorts in the UNIX world do. I use Linux for file services. I use Linux for IM. I use Linux to run ESX server (allowing me to run even more Windows and Linux). OS is like any other tool. You reach in and pick out the one you need to do the job the best. It doesn't matter that right now Red Hat is a more expensive tool to implement than Windows. It doesn't matter that I'm just as sick of installing OpenSSL and Apache patches as I am of installing Windows patches.
So more power to you running SuSE and XP. Personally, I only run Linux for server applications because I don't think it's ready for the desktop. I've got an RH 9 box at home and I don't like the UI of either Gnome or KDE. I especially don't like having to switch between the two depending on what I want to do. For example, I love MMS for playing media. Unfortunately, it runs well under Gnome but wrecks X in KDE.
Bottom line is, I think this sort of competition is good. It makes both OSes better. Even the Microsoft guys that I interact with think so (off the record, of course).
I have been in Microsoft-Hell for weeks.
But I got Firefox yesterday, and the system works great today.
I gather you work for Gates. LOL.
I wish Linux well, after to fruitless attempts to use it as a desktop over several years. I would love to switch over, but I'm not going to beat my head against a wall again.
But OOo and Ff are already two excellent programs. OOo, in its beta 2.0 versions, is becoming very powerful. Ff with extensions is too. And both have just begun to fight.
ideablitz has the quaint idea that anything that isn't the proprietary property of a big corporation is somehow anti-capitalist.
Linux and open source generally are a threat to MS not so much by head-to-head competition, but because they represent a competing view of software. MS sees software as analogous to a piece of machinery, and would dearly like to be able to patent their products, but since they can't, they rely on secrecy, narrowly drawn licenses, and a huge legal department. Open source sees software as analogous to a mathematical proof which gets checked and refined by peer review (a surprisingly reasonable view given the Curry-Howard isomorphism between valid programs in an programming language and proofs in a related formal system).
The truth lies somewhere in between the two starting assumptions: software is in some ways like a piece of machinery, and in others like a mathematical proof. We can hope that market competition will eventually lead to business models for software development which adequately take both aspects into account.
The 'not ready for the desktop' problems with open source are due to the open source model not adequately addressing software as a product people use. The problems decried by MS-haters are due to either taking that aspect too seriously (the idiotic 'helpful' default settings) or not adequately addressing software-as-rigorous-proof (stability problems).
Linux = communist. well thats a bit of a leap dont you think? considering Homeland security moved to Linux, hardly a bastion of COMMUNISM!
okay you are on a conservative website but my understanding of communism is only ONE choice..I wonder who offers that?
as for Linux hasn't cracked any dent on Windows market share.
hmmmm, well i beg to differ. I think if you check your facts on market share of servers, Microsoft are and should continue to be concerned. As i recall Bill Gates emailed a note stating this fact. As for front end market share, yes it is low, but it is low for exactly the reason of this post..there was limited offerings. it is still in the early adoption stage for client side usage.
The issue of Linux is perception and market clout. Microsoft spend BILLIONS on marketing each year. that is difficult to beat.
as for your comment about working for IBM...i am quite suprised by that but i will take you at your word
however...
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/
strikes me as peculiar but whod a thunk it!.
and yes i realise that they work with microsoft but it
seems like and certainly my experience of working with IBM and i do that quite a bit is that they are very positive on linux. Are they not one of the major companies pushing it? In fact did they not collaborate last year on trying to push LINUX on the client side?
the harsh facts is that linux is percieved as difficult to use. that is a perception and incidentally one touted my microsoft at every available opportunity.. if we asked people here what they think the interface is like.. i suspect the majority would think that it is command line prompt. as you well know this is NOT the case.
frightening people with popup stories is also something i think you should retract. The reality is IE is much more vulnerable to attack then mozilla or firefox. If you care to analyse most of the problems people have it is IE hijacking. Personally i think this is to do with IE being forced and due to limited choice...something i think a second offering will help solve.
Sure, microsoft is huge. personally i think , like all companies, they develop some good software, and some very poor software. the manner in which they try to dominate a market segment is not good for anyone and in a perverse way i dont believe its good for microsoft in the long term..
Personally, i think you have an axe to grind here, jamming an opinion like LINUX=COMMUNIST is a very poor way of doing it.
if you want to start trading facts then lets roll...if you want to trade insults then dont bother replying to this.
Netscape 7.2 is AOL's rebranded Mozilla browser. AOL was supposed to incorporate it into future AOL releases but stuck with Microsoft. They really missed a chance to go the open-source browser route. Their loss.
Try Mepis. People have been raving about its easy usability. If you like to get your feet wet in Linux, go Debian. http://www.mepis.org
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Well, now we know what happened to Golden Eagle. Microsoft has outsourced its shilling to Indonesia or someplace.