Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX
What *can't* you do in Linux?
Faust:
Taxcat sounds like a money program right? (sorry but I dont have much to go on...) Have you tried gnucash?
billy_gates:
quote:Originally posted by Faust:
All the newer distributions are implementing schemes like Debians apt-get, and personally I think apt-get is simpler than Mac OSX method. So software installation is now covered.
Apt-get process:
Go to big menu of software
Choose software you want
Click install and all the config is done for you
Mac OSX process:
Go to big download site / store
Find software you want in invariably poorly organized menus / shelves
Download software / buy software
Unzip/extract
Drag to relevant location where you have space
(Then I guess you need to set up shortcuts too? Or do you just put it in a central location and it runs?)
I mean I don't even need to know where the binaries go because my path handles that all for me. Why are you people still using Macs??? :confused:
--- End quote ---
You can set up shortcuts, but its definitely not needed. I don't use shortcuts. They would just clutter up my desktop.
However, the apt-get thing. You are assuming idealism. First the program has to be in the list, if its not its back to rpm's and source. Second, I messed it up. It wasn't even hard. I went into Synaptic to install Ogle, mplayer, etc. I also decided to update my out of date stuff. Worked perfectly. Then I decided I wanted to install something (can't remember wut it was) So I went to the Red Hat Package Manager. Selected my shit. Clicked next. Dependency problem. Can't find blah blah version whatever. I checked in synaptic. had the package installed. I figured out what was wrong. Synaptic had updated the package to a newer than redhat version. So it decided I had a dependency problem. I posted for help in the linux forum, here. No help. No one could fix it. Then I reformatted that partiton for Windows and sacrificed its swap for BeOS. My computer is much happier now.
I don't know about you, but I'm a control freak. I have to know where my files are. Its just me. I have to know where they are, and control over them is also good. So on my mac, I can have a program wherever I want. I don't want it there any longer. Move it. it still runs perfect, with all my prefs and everything. And most OSX programs are packages. They are folders that the system thinks are files. This is good, because they look clean. There is only one file that could possibly execute it, the package file. And all of the code files and picture files and shit are hidden away until I want to see them. And of course seeing them is easy. Right click "Show package contents." Through all my using Linux, I could not say that any part of its installing things is easier than a mac.
emh:
Yet you said in the aforementioned thread that the stuff you wanted to install installed just fine. What happened?
spencerpi:
quote: I agree with you, most of the office suite applications are full of features that we just don't have a requirement for. Hence, M$ bundles "Works" with their "OS". Excel is a hugely powerful application but most of the advanced features are left alone where I work.
--- End quote ---
That's ok for you then. But keep in mind that there are about 6 billion other people out there. Amongst these there *are* people that use the specialties that MS Office offers. Again : if OO claims to be compatible, it has to be compatible 100%.
quote: I myself use Office 97 a bit at work. I also use Star Office for documents and spreadsheets too and nobody has spotted the difference when I publish them. Star Office cost me, NOWT ! So that's a good deal.
--- End quote ---
Well, I don't know about you but I certainly don't care if my boss has to pay for the Office products or not. All that matters is that my boss gives me the tools I need to get the job done and I get my paycheck every month. If he wants to cut costs and go to OO then fine, no problem.
About the backwards compatibility problem ... I understand what you mean and yes : it *is* harsh that you have to have the latest version of Word or whatever but that's not an MS only problem. Think Oracle, think other db providers. These products grow, every version has new features that the previous one didn't have. I'm a fulltime software developer and heck, even *our own* software is not always backwards compatible. For software companies maintenance contracts with customers are a *very* important part of their income.
I *do*, however, acknowledge that there is a difference between a "healthy" maintenance contract and the knife-against-throat contracts that MS uses.
spencerpi:
There's another reason why we continue to work on the Windows platform at work : our applications "talk" with Office. We create Reports from our applications which automatically start up Word, run Macro's, blabla. You know : the entire DDE and/or ActiveX automation story.
The good news is a lot of people here experiment with Linux after hours. One of them just gave me a bootable cd of Vector Linux 3.2, based on Slackware.
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