... and so is my time spent with Open Office.
I've got an older desktop PC that I decided to convert to Linux. Linux was free and I was hoping I could use the machine as a host for multimedia files. While I was able to do this, the effort required to manage the thing was just too much. It's not that it was hard, it's that it was all a foreign language to me.
Many of the tools and applications I installed on the Linux machine were quick and easy to do. Just like a Windows machine, I could click on a few things and they would magically self-install. Yay! A few things required me to get into the command line prompt and compile packages of code. Ack! Do not want!
I used to know Unix moderately well as a programmer way back when. I haven't used it in years and I don't use it anywhere else right now. Every time I wanted to do something on the Linux box I found myself dreading it, wondering if I needed to get into the Unix command line and struggle to remember just what I was supposed to do.
So we're kicking Linux out the door and trying Windows 7 on the geriatric beast machine instead.
Meanwhile, being a total tightwad, I had eschewed MS Office in favor of Open Office because it was free. I'm done with that. While it's serviceable, it's not nearly as good as MS Office, even MS Office 2003 which is what I use. In particular, the spreadsheet program is a total pain in the neck. It just doesn't work the way I expect it to work and I'm forever trying to get it to do simple things and failing. Yuck.
So it's back to Microsoft for now. Yay?
14 comments:
The linux user experience is binary: either super simple or insanely complicated.
Amazing how often stuff turns out like this....
The windows suite is still the best collection of business packages out there - no matter what platform they're running on. No one still existing comes even close.
Ya, Linux still isn't quite ready for prime time. It seems that if W7 is what was released in the first place, vista wouldn't have gotten the horrible rep it did.
I'm looking to replace an aging machine with some bad hardware. I looked into the very cheap netbooks, because they were so cheap, and had the option of running either XP or Linux. All the folks reviewing the Linux machines, had nothing but trouble. And XP is light enough, that these minimal machines run just fine with it.
Kelly, you're right about MS Office. It's the best.
I went over to the MS website and browsed through their products recently to see what's new. I couldn't find anything I wanted.
Give me MS Office and Adobe Creative Suite and I think I've got everything I need. That still calls for at least one heavy computer in the house, but there you have it.
I don't know if the MS office suite is the "best" (it still periodically reduces me to fits of helpless rage because it won't let me do perfectly obvious things that I used to routinely do in other applications over a decade ago)[1], but unless one is working in a vacuum and never exchanges documents or files with anybody else, there really isn't a choice. Everybody else is using MS, compatability is imperfect, trying to get MS to play nice with other software is just one long string of petty annoyances, and the MS user on the other end generally (and quite reasonably) has no interest in making *his* life more difficult just because *I* want to use some other software. So, I grit my teeth and go along with it, while longing for the day when there is just one standard document format that everybody can agree on, and all office suites use that same format. Maybe I'll live to see that day, assuming that life-extension technology improves a lot, and the sun really does have 5 billion years before it blows up.
[1] "You can't always get what you want. Sometimes things don't work as planned. Things get lost and sometimes can't be found. Death can occur at any time, without warning. Microsoft. Sofware for the real world."
Unix underpinnings with a kick butt GUI? Sounds like a Mac! Not cheap though. Don't forget the MS site/organization license where you can get Office for $20.
I know that windows can be trying, but I've used open office and iwork and it just isn't the same. These are nice programs for personal work, but for a work environment, its just not worth straying from the word/excel/powerpoint universe.
KT, we got office 2007 because my wife is a student and frankly I agree there isn't much reason to upgrade unless you need to be able to work with documents using their new output format.
And Gee Why, I agree that if you need a Unix environment on a personal machine OSX is the way to go. On the other hand if you want computing performance, you can't beat Linux. Unfortunately the Mac OS doesn't come cheap since they completely ignore the low end market.
This doesn't prove you aren't ready for Linux.
This just proves that you tried the wrong distro.
Yes, even the most touted distro out there still expects its users to use the command line. I think about 80% of its howtos out there prove me right.
But sir, there are far better options out there.
Using windows on a test machine, fine!
Risking all my invaluable personal files on my main computer by using the weak-by-design windows? No way! Even if MS paid me for it, I wouldn't do it.
*dryly* Amazingly, some ten years, several cutting age gaming rigs (unstable because of new tech) and several machines that were altered at home, I do basic back-ups and have yet to lose precious data.
I don't mind folks pushing their favored platform, but I really must put my foot down when it comes to folks acting like basic safety measures don't exist!
Can't help but think of the times my relatives complained about losing photos, because they'd thrown the negative away after development..... Or the countless thousands who complain when World of Warcraft takes their servers down for maintenance for a few hours once every few weeks.
Windows' supposed "instability" is a side effect of the broad support it has for even legacy programs, the huge support for plug-and-play; the vulnerability is a side effect of the same thing, plus the simple popularity of the system.
It mightn't be to someone's specific taste, and there may be other options that suit some folks' demands better, but if someone is looking for a system you install, hand to your aunt the technophobia and can expect her to be able to send email and install annoying cursor animations, plus buy new software, Window's is that system.
Thanks, foxfier!
As for the doomsday scenario, been there, done that, lost nothing. I use Mozy to back up all my data and I love it.
As for the right package, I used Ubuntu. I understand that Linux is superior in many ways, but I need something that allows me to concentrate on my content, not my operating system.
Look, you just have to relieve yourself of "the Microsoft way"... I know you're used to things working a certain way, and whether you're switching to Linux tools or Mac OS, it's just going to be different. You have to accept that.
I've used Open Office for a couple of years now, and used Microsoft Office before that. At first it is different, but if your needs aren't something that a professional statistics person would use, Open Office more than suffices. After a while, you'll be used to it and you'll forget all about that insanely expensive other suite.
The same thing goes for Linux, in general. I, too, was a frustrated new user, and I started flirting with it way back when it was seriously more difficult to use. As time grew, I got more skilled at Linux, and Linux simply just got easier to use. Now, I use it for 98% of all my computing tasks. As a matter of fact, I now find Windows frustratingly difficult to use and keep working. When Linux gives me a hiccup, fixes are simple. When Windows hiccups...cryptic registry problems, and file left behind from older software that has since been removed are a complete headache. Not so with Linux. Configuration files are nearly in plain English, and I can easily fix problems usually in my /home directory in the hidden configuration folders. It's rarely a system-wide problem. Simply delete the offending app's hidden configuration folder, and it gets rebuilt using default settings (remember to backup important stuff such as email files and bookmarks!). I just reconfigure and it's usually back to normal. No command line, even...
As far as your command line usage, what distro were you using? I guarantee you that if you used Mandriva or OpenSuse, you'd never have to bother with a command line unless it was something very uncommon. Repostiories are huge and have just about all the software you'd ever want. so no compiling necessary.
Another option is to install Checkinstall, if you don't mind a little installation by compilation. You simply type "./config", followed by "make", followed by "checkinstall" and it'll make it into a binary and install it for you, and will even show up in your package manager. It really is a snap.
Linux software installation, IMO, complete beats the pants off of Windows wizards and installing apps one by one. A complete overhaul of my system with a newer release takes about an hour, with all software installed. Try that with Windows. You'll be there all night installing software one tile, one product serial number, one registration at a time.
I've got the much-hated Vista, and I didn't have to stay and install anything-- used their built-in transfer program, put it all on my external, plugged it in and went to bed.
Got up in the morning, and I had my email, Warcraft, pictures and internet favorites all there, with a pretty new layout.
The best of it all is that choices exist and we're more and more free to make our own.
My background is the opposite, grow up using only Windows but then started to adopt Linux about 2004. Even though administrating Windows servers I use Linux based computers even at work. Days I'm forced to use Windows desktops give me headache. I don't write this as an attempt to bash your article - or isn't it more like a small report from a day in your life? - it's more an addition on the same theme but reflecting another choice.
MS Office isn't bad, even though it breaks its own standards once in a while (OpenOffice is quite good at rescuing such files), but it's used way beyond what's efficient use. Word or even its OpenOffice counterpart isn't close to as good as LaTeX at producing documents. LaTeX works however best on *nix and hence Linux is a quite natural choice for a LaTeX user. I've noticed however that the new OpenOffice approach of using plug-ins just as in FireFox has made it well equipped for a lot of tasks, like synchronizing with Google docs and other services. So I'm not so sure which one is the better; probably it more and more depends on how you compute.
At home Windows can't, doesn't matter how good Win 7 might become, replace my Linux computers. Windows just doesn't have the software I use and doesn't allow me to do the configurations I need. I don't say Windows sucks, not at all, only that for me it doesn't work as more as a secondary system for games or the few odd proprietary dependent services still limiting our freedom on the Webb.
I think it's wonderful that a user today actually can pick and choose. The market isn't in balance and we're sill seeing how money twist things the wrong way from a user perspective, be it Windows, Linux or Mac, but it's a whole lot better than it used to be.
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PS. Linux isn't supposed and was never designed to be a Windows replacement. These systems reflect different approaches to computing. DS.
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