Ditching Micro$oft

Hello all,

If I where to get rid of Windows and Office XP and use a non-Microsoft OS
and office suite, would one of the variations of Linux and Open Office be
adequate (or an equivalent of Microsoft's products)?

 

www.freebsd.org would be a great option. Takes a little
under-the-hood-work, but once set up, you're golden!

 

Oh yes. More than adequate. No need for anti-virus software though. Or
AdAware. Or disc defragmenters. Or tweaking tools. Or registry editors. Or
product activation. Or hard drive 'cleaners'. Or expensive upgrades...

http://tinyurl.com/yt38f
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://koffice.kde.org/
http://www.google.com/linux
http://www.linuxiso.org/
http://tinyurl.com/3g6wv

Try a 'live' Linux CD first. Go ask at alt.os.linux.mandrake and see what
reaction you get.

 

It was on Tue, 20 Jan 2004 22:41:07 +0000, just as I was halfway through a

It should be. You can download & try an Open Office windows version free,
to see what you think of it.

 

Just done a job where the copy of Office 97 I was to put on a new
replacement PC had gone walkabout .

Suggested they try Open Office 1.3, which opened Word docs and Excel
spreadsheets apparently ok.

Unfortunately the macro's in Excel spreadsheets would not work, in fact from
what I could see they hadn't even been recognised as being in the file.

They didn't have any macros in their Word docs so can't pass comment on Word
macro's.

The macros concerned came from a third party and ran to some 3 or 4 pages
long. To long to analyse and convert, so of to the MS shop and shell out
$$$$$

Sooo if your doc/sheets rely on macro's be wary they may not work.

Cheers
Paul

 

ComputerWorld publication Jan 2004.
In the last 4 months of 2003, Red Hat released 42 secuirty fixes for it's
popular distribution.
I have no interest in getting into any kind of MS Vs Others thread.... but
it seems *nix users only paint half the picture.

Jay

 

Hats off Mr Poaster, it is refreshing to hear a non-MS user give practical
advice without feeling the need to put the boot in.
Open Office is a good piece of software. Bare in mind that you may
experience problems with .docs, .xls's that have macros etc.
ok WP, I just saw your signature and take it all back

Jay

 

It was on Wed, 21 Jan 2004 20:55:51 +1300, just as I was halfway through a

I haven't had any problems at all.

ok WP, I just saw your signature and take it all back

Fine. At least the OS I use doesn't tie me in to it, nor do I need
other programs to prop it up, as I had to buy when I used windows.