10.04 here I go

Latest Articles

10.04 here I go
Page Previous 1, 2, 3 Next

Downsizer Forum Index -> IT Matters

Author

Message

Ronnie

Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 73
Location: Highlands

Posted: Mon May 03, 10 7:31 pm Post subject:
OK, Linux freaks - is open office really as good as MS Office or Apple iWork? Can I mess with pictures as well as I can on Photoshop? Do the media players work as well as iTues or VLC? I love the idea of unshackling myself from transnational corporations and running fast and light on a cheap machine, but will it be as good to use? Thanks for your time in answering this

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35934
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Mon May 03, 10 7:52 pm Post subject:
In short, yes, pretty much . I am about to do the 10.04 thing, so if I'm around tomorrow you will be able to infer that something went wrong

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 7826
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Mon May 03, 10 9:13 pm Post subject:

Message from Osian:-

Open Office is better in my view. I used to use Lotus SmartSuite until I was on to Windows2000 - Lotus wouldn't work. After 6months using MicrosoftOffice on computers at school I'd had enough and went to find an alternative. I found OpenOffice. A bit like the first time I found Linux. BLISS!

There are programs which are alternatives to Adobe - GIMP = Photoshop, InkScape = Illustrator.

I'm struggling to find out how to do things using GIMP. A simple filtering down from the RGB colour range to a 10 or less range took 5 hours for a friend to find how. Then when he had done it I had to spend an extra 10min getting it exactly how I wanted it. It could be that I'm so used to using Adobe for my graphics that I can't work out these new things but I find even jumping on to a CS4 from CS2 easy.

iTunes can be made to work on Linux but RhythmBox Is an alternative. VLC works on Linux like it would on any other PC.

The only thing that might confuse regular Windows users is the window buttons being on the left instead of the right. But there are themes to be downloaded easily (not sure where from as I'm happy with them) apparently 'Clearlooks' is a nice one that does this.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21300
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Mon May 03, 10 9:26 pm Post subject:

Ronnie wrote:

OK, Linux freaks - is open office really as good as MS Office or Apple iWork?

Can't vouch for iWork but I find MS Office much more to my liking than Open Office. I used to have Open Office on this machine but installed MS Works instead as it neither had the complexity I needed for office work or the simplicity of MS Works when I don't need the features of MS Office. However, that's just my take on it. I'm a dyed in the wool Windows user and I have yet to persuaded otherwise.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 8:59 am Post subject:
Being a bit retro here - I'm just upgrading to 9.04 A. Ooh, the download only took 6 minutes...

oldish chris

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 4148
Location: Comfortably Wet Southport

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 9:36 am Post subject:

Ronnie wrote:

OK, Linux freaks - is open office really as good as MS Office or Apple iWork? Can I mess with pictures as well as I can on Photoshop? Do the media players work as well as iTues or VLC?

I love the idea of unshackling myself from transnational corporations and running fast and light on a cheap machine, but will it be as good to use?

Thanks for your time in answering this

We Linux freaks are way ahead of you here. When you create a CD by downloading Ubuntu (or just about any other version of Linux) what you get is a "Live CD". So you put the CD in your drive, reboot, and Linux is loaded into RAM and onto a bit of swap-disk. You can then see for your self. Rebooting will leave no trace of Linux (although Vista gets upset if you've edited Windows files!)

The next stage for the wary is what is called "dual-boot", so that on start-up you can choose either Linux or your existing OS.

A lot depends on your comfort with changing from one application to an analogous, but slightly different one. TBH - that sort of thing gets up my nose. I don't think that we can help you with that one.

If at the end of the day you decide against Linux, a fresh install of Windows will remove Linux (I gather that Windows gets re-installed every year or so anyway).

Most importantly (IMHO), this experiment would have only cost the price of a blank CD.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21300
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 9:42 am Post subject:
I can't quite equate "this experiment would have only cost the price of a blank CD" and "If at the end of the day you decide against Linux, a fresh install of Windows will remove Linux"

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 9:54 am Post subject:
Ooh, I'm so cutting edge - 9.04->9.10 upgrade commenced. A.

Emyr

Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 210
Location: Down some dark dark stairs.

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 10:24 am Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

I can't quite equate "this experiment would have only cost the price of a blank CD" and "If at the end of the day you decide against Linux, a fresh install of Windows will remove Linux"

You can also remove linux partitions using the Disk Management bit of Windows XP or higher, then restore the normal Windows Bootloader using FIXMBR on the Windows install CD.

Or just set Windows as the default in GRUB and forget you installed it.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21300
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 10:42 am Post subject:

Emyr wrote:

vegplot wrote:

I can't quite equate "this experiment would have only cost the price of a blank CD" and "If at the end of the day you decide against Linux, a fresh install of Windows will remove Linux"

Or you could just leave Windows as is and leave Linux for those times when self flagellation doesn't quite hit the mark.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 1:39 pm Post subject:

Hmm. I was going to upgrade to 9.10 and leave it there, but of course the sound was bu66ered and I couldn't be bothered to fault-find. So I've since upgraded to 10.04.

All seemed to be going OK. Except that I rebooted, a scheduled fsck was needed, and it's taking *an age*, with a heavy loading on two cores of the host machine.

More important things to do than fault find, so if it seems a bit iffy I'll revert to 8.10 and worry about this some other time.
A.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 27567
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 1:45 pm Post subject:
Apart from the scanner being bust again it all seems fairly smooth here.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 1:47 pm Post subject:
Hmm, it's definitely not happy about running in VMware. Bugrit. A.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 1:53 pm Post subject:
Hours to get from 8.10 to 10.04; seconds to make the reverse journey. A.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21300
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Wed May 05, 10 2:09 pm Post subject:

Barefoot Andrew wrote:

Hmm, it's definitely not happy about running in VMware. Bugrit.
A.

But it can support 16 million processors.

	Downsizer Forum Index -> IT Matters	All times are GMT Page Previous 1, 2, 3 Next
Page 2 of 3

View Latest Posts