Hi Charles
On 27/11/11 18:07, [email protected] wrote:
Despite those review assurances, compatibility with Microsoft has not
been good. A lot of time is needed to edit Microsoft-created files to
get them to work properly in Ubuntu/LibreOffice and vice versa,
especially with fonts that are so incompatible that a file created in
Powerpoint, for instance, cannot be presented in Impress, and vice
versa, without extensive changes each way. This also applies to my
Excel-created business forms and carefully layout-crafted Word documents
and literature.
You may like to install the Microsoft core fonts package. This should
overcome virtually all of your font issues. I open Office files in
OpenOffice as a matter of course, and very rarely need to go to a
Windows machine - but I do have the MS core fonts installed.
Stability of UNITY 11.04 has also been disappointing, with spurious
defects occurring such as self-replicating of USB icons all along the
top menu each time a USB device is inserted, and frequent refusal to
allow a cut folder from desktop to be pasted into my Home folder.
Productivity; limited by lack of familiarity, but reasonably good.
Downtime rising.
For most of my work I need just a few applications running on a reliable
PC and OS. The Linux applications must be compatible counterparts to
Microsoft's Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Photoshop Elements.
I need to get immersed in my work to be productive, and not be
continuously distracted by OS/Application/Hardware problems, but
problems are on the rise.
Above all, I believe in what Linux stands for, and I want to stay with
Linux.
But which way to go? I feel tempted to backwards to Gnome (10.10?),
which high-stability claims seemed to be based upon, rather than risk
going forward to 11.10 and into unproven territory.
Ubuntu has always tended to be at the bleeding edge end of the spectrum
- great for getting to use the latest versions of software (but also
means you'll be more likely to see new bugs). There are lots of
alternatives, and using an "old" version of a distro is not a long term
proposition, as support for it will peter out that much sooner.
Debian is an ultra-consersative distro (on which Ubuntu is based) -
approx 24 month upgrade cycle, emphasis on stability etc. Each release
has undergone a lot of testing (the penalty is that a Debian Stable user
will be running three or four year old applications). Even then,
problems can arise. I run Debian on four or five boxes. At each upgrade,
I'm likely to encounter an issue on one of those. It's a fact of life I
accept, given my propensity to running modern Linuxes on totally
antiquated hardware. But on new hardware, your chances of a smooth
install with any current Linux distro is very good.
Cheers
Tim
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