On Wed, Apr 12, 2000 at 10:44:11AM +1000, Simon Bryan wrote:
> I need WP, DB, SS, Presentation Software, Graphics Manipulation Software,
* StarOffice, WordPerfect, Applixware, MS Word under Wine
Several free SQL systems, several commercial, some built-in to
the above.
* StarOffice and Applixware have spreadsheets, Gnumeric's getting
there, there are a host of other freebies, some even run in
text/curses mode.
* StarOffice can handle power-point files, I'm sure Applix can
too, and Corel Office 2000 (soon to be released) can too. On
the other hand, there are good arguments that power-point
inspired presentations are fundamentally crap, and you'd do
better with an ordinary word processor or LaTeX.
* Graphics I know less about, but Gimp seems pretty well regarded.
StarOffice, corel and Applix all have graphics things too, of
course.
> CAD, Web, E-mail, Web design (not a text editor!), Appointments Manager -
* CAD I know even less about. Bound to be something, though.
Web: what's wrong with Netscape? (There are lots of others,
too.)
* E-mail: if netscape isn't your bag, then StarOffice and Applix
both have integrated e-mail clients, and there are more
character-mode high-function mail clients than you can poke a
stick at. This is Unix, after all.
* I don't know what "web design" consists of beyond vi and image
editors, but if there's anything else, there's probably a Linux
version.
* There are a bunch of planner/appointment manager things. I
use "plan", which is a motif gizmo. KDE and Gimp have
similar/better things.
> Scheduling etc.
I don't know of any.
> Oh did I mention the curriculum software for Maths, Science,
> English, and all the other subjects.
No idea. Maybe it runs under Wine these days?
> Ummm what else, Encyclopedias,
> Historical databases.....plus many more
Ditto? Many of these things are HTML-based these days, aren't
they? If there's a lynch-pin to the argument, it's here, rather
than in the productivity software.
> and oh by the way the data files created really need to be compatible with
> something the students have at home, other wise they have trouble doing
> their technology based homework.
A plain text file with a ".doc" extension is compatible with
word. Beyond that, lots of things can produce rtf, everything
can produce .pdf, and a few (notably the commercial office
suites listed above) can produce Word documents.
> Now I don't need all these on every machine but I do need them all.
Maybe you have to stick with an "encyclopaedia server" somewhere.
> Remember I am not arguing about the merits of the software / OS just why
> schools use MS etc.
No argument with you there. We don't have to like it, but the
reasons that that's the way things are are mostly good, and the
decisions that got them that way are mostly level-headed.
The times, they are a-changing, though.
--
Andrew
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