On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 07:46, you wrote: > Folks, > With all the MS problems/virus as well as Exchange problems I have been > having, I am keen to try a Linux option at our high school. > I have RH 9 Web server that performs great, no downtime. > I have spoken with our board chair who is also on my side. > > > For workstations and server what OS and Apps should I use? Personally I like the KDE desk running under Linux and the applications which go with it.
> We need 'Office', Koffice, works pretty well. Kword is the word processor. http://koffice.kde.org/ The other alternative is OpenOfficeOrg, which is a much closer look-alike program to MSOffice, but it is a memory and processor hog of the first water. I won't work in any acceptable way on a processor much slower that a 600 or 700 MHz with _at least_ 128Mbytes RAM. As I'm sure you know MS go to considerable trouble to make interoperability with their products as difficult as possible, if not complety impossible. They have succeeded admirably in so doing, and imho all claims about other programs interoperating with MS products should be taken with a heafty dose of 'caveat emptor' 'Corel', I'm not sure what you mean here. There are a number of Draw programs to choose from. The one in the KDE stable is called Karbon14. I don't need or use a drawing package so cannot comment in depth. You might care to look at:- http://koffice.kde.org/karbon/ 'Internet', Mozilla, and Konqueror are the standards complient browsers for Linux. The latter is much better on slower hardware but Mozilla is more successful at rendering pages which make extensive use of Microsoft's 'extra features'. http://www.mozilla.org/ http://konqueror.kde.org/ The major advantage of Konqueror is that it is fully integrated into the desktop and functions as the file manager. The fish:// protocol is particularly useful to access remote directories and move files about using secure protocols. 'E-mail', I use Kmail. While it may not be the most 'glamourous' gui mail user agent. It is easy to use and does what's I need very well. Full cryptographic features are included. A very valuable present to the world from the German government. Kmail interoperates well with Konqueror. http://kmail.kde.org/ 'Publisher'. Kword is a dual function package which has both "Word-Processing" and "Publishing" modes. It works well using the paradigm of FrameMaker. http://koffice.kde.org/kword/ There is also Scribus which works quite well especially for a program which has only just achieved the 1.0 level. The printout is much better than the interactive screen presentation. http://web2.altmuehlnet.de/fschmid There is an interesting review of Scribus at: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4064 > I want to put a small network together to show the staff. To show off Linux to other staff members the easiest method is to get hold of a Knoppix disc, shove it in a PC's CD drive and reboot. You will be able to demonstrate almost all of the above. For your network server you will also need packages such as:- the Postfix mail transport agent A pop3 or IMAP local mail server The Common Unix Printer System ( CUPS ) A network file system such as NFS or AFS. The Samba program for interoperating with Windows file shareing. etc. etc. Lastly but probably the most important of all is a firewall to keep the nere-do-wells out of your network. IPCop is wholeheartedly recommended. > Any suggestions would be great. You might care to have a look at this document I prepared about 6 months ago. http://berty.dyndns.org/KdeApps.pdf It's just over 3 Mbytes, and was prepared using Kword. -- Sincerely etc., Christopher Sawtell
