Going MS Free (under XP) - wish me luck!

Mize

Mize

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I had so many headaches with Outlook 2k3 (memory leak) and frustrations with Word's "features" like auto format, etc. that I've decided to go Microsoft free for my apps on my new laptop (HP nc8430). I know it sounds almost as crazy as going with Linux but I'm 2 days in and all is good.

Office Suite: OpenOffice 2.0
Mail client: Thunderbird (though I did install Outlook 2003 so I could import my old mail)
Browser: Firefox
Calendar: Palm Desktop (I have a Treo 650)
html editor: Dreamweaver (though I installed FP2k to support one older site :( )
Terminal: Teraterm

Fingers crossed that I don't have PowerPoint compatability problems at my next presentation!
 
I feel the role of an OS is to let me run apps, not provide me apps! (I use notepad, though)

before the internet, PC were essentially gaming machines for me. then when we got the net, I used IE5, WMP6 and MSN Messenger but never felt that I had to. (I thought I should use Netscape, but it was a piece of crap)

Those were replaced by firefox, media player classic (which is a WMP6 clone ^) and Gaim (or AMSN if Gaim doesn't work)
 
Thunderbird is the weak link. I had to install Outlook 2003 to import my old email and address book. It didn't do the address book right and didn't like the 3+ GB of old email but it seems to be working now. Apparently it's really key to keep your inbox small and compact folders regularly to prevent database corruption. Not good.

Haven't played with the win32 Evo client yet as I have actual work to do (as my partner has emphasized numerous times since seeing the new laptop arrive)...
 
Mize said:
Thunderbird is the weak link. I had to install Outlook 2003 to import my old email and address book. It didn't do the address book right and didn't like the 3+ GB of old email but it seems to be working now. Apparently it's really key to keep your inbox small and compact folders regularly to prevent database corruption. Not good.
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That's odd, I have 6 years worth of mail from my current workplace, 11GB in total in 90+ folders. My inbox held 5000+ emails until last monday, when I finally cleaned it up and distributed up to 4 year old emails in to folders (took the entire day!).

If you ever have to move your mail to a unix system you will appreciate the regular mbox files Thunderbird holds its contents in.

Come to think of it, the first time after an install it crunches forever, I'm guessing it's producing index files for all those mails/folders.

I'd say the weak link is the presentation software in OpenOffice (Powerpoint clone), at least if you have to author them (it can present decently as long as no fancy animations/transitions are used).

Edit: Firefox is almost in every way superior to IE. The only exception is that all sessions are shared across all windows (or tabs), which can be a problem if you try to eg. log in as two different personas at some website.

Edit2: Check out putty for a good terminal/ssh client.

Cheers
 
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Gubbi said:
That's odd, I have 6 years worth of mail from my current workplace, 11GB in total in 90+ folders. My inbox held 5000+ emails until last monday, when I finally cleaned it up and distributed up to 4 year old emails in to folders (took the entire day!).

If you ever have to move your mail to a unix system you will appreciate the regular mbox files Thunderbird holds its contents in.

Come to think of it, the first time after an install it crunches forever, I'm guessing it's producing index files for all those mails/folders.

I'd say the weak link is the presentation software in OpenOffice (Powerpoint clone), at least if you have to author them (it can present decently as long as no fancy animations/transitions are used).

Firefox is almost in every way superior to IE. The only exception is that all sessions are shared across all windows (or tabs), which can be a problem if you try to eg. log in as to different personas at some website.

Cheers
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There are quite a bit of lost email threads and corrupt database threads on the Mozilla boards re: Tbird. I hope you're right though. In all I probably have close to 8 GB of email but the fact that they're in pst files really sucks.

I don't actually care for powerpoint. I usually do my slide graphics in CorelDraw and then paste them into PP using PP just for the bullets. I hate animations because they're version and fonts installed dependent. If you use Pack and Go they work okay but too many people want the PowerPoint file and suddenly your animations are totally different because they're still running PP97. Anyway, I still have many copies of Office2k3 (20 or so between all the computers at my company) so I can preview there or - god forbid - do it at home where I still have O2k3 installed.
 
The only time I use IE is when a site requires it. Otherwise FF is great even if it tends to hog memory. I'll give putty a whirl. Tera Term Pro seems fine though.

I swear I'm going to try a linux desktop on one of my employees soon...my new ERP system (abas out of Germany) runs on linux (client and server) and we've incorporated everything but office apps into it (product testing, RMAs, customer complaints, ECRs/ECOs, etc.). So I can do a linux client with abas, Oo_O, Evolution/Tbird, Firefox and Gaim no problem.

Of course my engineers are on Inventor so they are bound to XP. :(
 
Mize said:
Haven't played with the win32 Evo client yet
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I forgot to add that, apart from the Exchange client compatability, the reason I thought of Evolution, was that you mentioned the Treo 650. Evolution is supposed to support synchronization with Palm OS devices. I've been planning to find a Palm-based gizmo at work and spend some quality time checking out the Windows version, but I haven't gotten around to it yet, so I don't know whether it works or not.
 
Gubbi said:
The only exception is that all sessions are shared across all windows (or tabs), which can be a problem if you try to eg. log in as two different personas at some website.
Click to expand...
Set the environment variable MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1 and run Firefox with the -p switch to create/choose a different profile for the separate sessions.
 
Evolution installed on my home PC (didn't try at the office yet) but won't launch. The error refers me to advice that says to run bonobo-slay...oh well?
 
Mize said:
Didn't work for me. Maybe it's not playing nicely with Kaspersky KIS6...
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Did you reboot before you tried the older one? The one that didn’t work for me left stray processes behind (past the uninstall) keeping the new (older) version from working again until I killed them.

At the time, it doesn't look like getting Evolution to work will always be easy. Sadly, Novell pulled funding from the Win32 port after it was 'finished'. The main porter is still working on it in his own time (as a user and self proclaimed coding addict), but he has said that packaging for user friendliness and compatibility testing is going to have to be a community effort.

It doesn’t seem to be quite there yet, which is too bad, because the program itself seems quite feature rich and powerful.
 
Zaphod said:
Did you reboot before you tried the older one? The one that didn’t work for me left stray processes behind (past the uninstall) keeping the new (older) version from working again until I killed them.

At the time, it doesn't look like getting Evolution to work will always be easy. Sadly, Novell pulled funding from the Win32 port after it was 'finished'. The main porter is still working on it in his own time (as a user and self proclaimed coding addict), but he has said that packaging for user friendliness and compatibility testing is going to have to be a community effort.

It doesn’t seem to be quite there yet, which is too bad, because the program itself seems quite feature rich and powerful.
Click to expand...

No. I haven't rebooted...I'll give that a shot shortly.
Novell is being short-sighted. An alternative to Outlook is desperately needed.
 
Mize said:
An alternative to Outlook is desperately needed.
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Definately. Lightning will get there in due time, but until then, Evolution is much closer to Outlook feature-wise. It's apparently just too rough around the edges to win mass-market acceptance (beyond dedicatded administrators or determined end-users) on Windows at the moment (in that regard, I have little doubt that Lightning will eventually do just fine). Novell got quite a bit of good press when they threw some cash at the porting effort early last year, so it seems a bit strange that they'd 'abandon' it when it's already so far along.

Edit: Perhaps not so strange.
Novell's strategy behind the port is to ultimately drive sales of its set of Linux client software, Friedman said.
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I did say 'if you're feeling adventurous', didn't I? ;)
 
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Zaphod said:
Definately. Lightning will get there in due time, but until then, Evolution is much closer to Outlook feature-wise. It's apparently just too rough around the edges to win mass-market acceptance (beyond dedicatded administrators or determined end-users) on Windows at the moment (in that regard, I have little doubt that Lightning will eventually do just fine). Novell got quite a bit of good press when they threw some cash at the porting effort early last year, so it seems a bit strange that they'd 'abandon' it when it's already so far along.

Edit: Perhaps not so strange.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/01/19/HNnovellemail_1.htmlI did say 'if you're feeling adventurous', didn't I? ;)
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Yeah, I'm anxious for Lightning, but will have to stick with Palm Desktop for my calendar for now since Lightning is only early beta. Might take a hard look at Groupwise for the company now that it supports so many OSs and clients and runs on SLES 9.
 
Your initial list of programs is what I use as well. Works much better than their MS counterparts, IMO. And I do sometimes need to use those for my job (programming, business apps mostly). The only exception I would make would be MSSQL. Not better, but very good and convenient. And I never had those problems with Thunderbird. I guess your mail archive got broken.

Generally, nowadays the OpenSource products are almost always on-par and often superior to the commercial products, it just takes some time to find the right one. I always end up using an Open Source one as the best choice, even while my boss would pay the bill. And as for servers, I think it's really no contest anymore. Linux rules.

If you seek something specific, post it.
 
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