Hi NoOp
So my question to OOo (and the list): how is it that a 75Mhz/32Mb/2.3Gb junker running Win95 and MSOffice97 can kick the crap out of a linux 450Mhz (or 733Mhz or 2.5Ghz - I tested on all)/256Mb PC running OpenOffice?
I reckon my old DOS software running on an original XP with 512 KB or RAM would leave your Pentium in the dust!
And I remember when I used to run GeoWorks Ensemble (an alternative to Win 3.1) on my 386 with 4 MB of RAM would leave Windows in the dust, even on a much faster computer. The original GeoWorks was written in assembler. In fact, you can still get if for older machines today (it's now called BreadBox).
It's funny that you've mentioned 75 MHz Pentiums. My usual computer is in the shop getting repaired (a destroyed hard drive), so I've been playing with my old Libretto 50 CT, which is a tiny laptop with a 75 MHz processor, 16 MB of RAM and 800 MB hard drive. It's still running Windows 95, and has both Lotus Ami Pro and Lotus WordPro installed. I was playing around with those programs and remembering the good old days. In terms of speed, they used to leave MS Office in the dust way back in 1992. And Windows 95 still boots in around a minute on this machine!
I put Vector Linux on an old 32 MB of RAM desktop for a friend a few years ago. I found that the fastest Linux word processor for a computer with that much (little) RAM is TextMaker. Very responsive, and very compatible to Word (and now also OpenDocument). Too bad it's not open source.
Have you tried running Microsoft's latest office (2007) on that old computer? Hopefully that should change your perspective a little! You're comparing the latest version of OpenOffice.org (which was never designed for computers that slow and with that little RAM) with a ten year old version of Word. If OpenOffice.org is to take advantage of modern hardware, it can hardly be expected to run no old computers too. (Although it could always be faster! ;-) ) But I agree it would be fun to explore which open source software works best on old machines like that.
Have fun! Adrian Try Another Angle www.tryanotherangle.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
