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Dapper Dan
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Post by Dapper Dan »

I've been using Mandrake 9.0 for about three weeks now, and it is not as buggy as some reviews would have us believe. In my estimated opinion, 9.0 compared to 8.2 is like the difference between Window 95 and XP!
Up until about 4 days ago, Iv'e been using KDE. I decided to give Gnome a try AND IT IS POSITIVELY SMOKIN'!! :D
Gnome seems to be more straight ahead and intuitive than KDE. It doesn't take nearly as long to load, and there is much more variety in how you can customize your desktop.
I think the thing I like about it most is Ximian-Evolution. I was using Mozilla Mail, but now I'm in love with Evolution!
Anybody here had a look at "Lindows" yet :?:
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Post by Sky »

I have been using KDE some time ago. Now I am using Fluxbox
This is *really* fast :)

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Post by Troodon »

I've had Gnome on RH 6.2; then KDE 1.1 on RH 6.2; then Gnome 1.4/Ximian Desktop on MDK 8.2; and now KDE 1.1.1 on MDK 8.2. KDE is more consistent but slower than Gnome. The KDE Office suite has a smaller footprint (both RAM and HD) than OpenOffice. Playing through Gnome Office AbiWord, Sodipodi and such requires skill and.. time. What neither the KDE nor the Gnome people seem to understand is that Microsoft Office is a standard, almost a culture; if your office package can't save/open at least RTF and XLS then you are marooned. Evolution looks nice but the main reason why I have Linux is to run a decent OS on my older hardware, which is not so performant, and Evolution eats up a lot of resources. I would like to have time enough to experiment with Lindows and BeOS but unfortunately that is not the case now. :D

Cheers!
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Post by Dapper Dan »

Fluxbox huh? I'll have to have a look at it. Troodon, I know what you mean about Microsoft office and being marooned. I looked at K-office, StarOffice, Gnumatic, OpenOffice and all of their offspring. Being New to Linux (about 4 months) I found out that Corel used to make WordPerfect Office for Linux. If I remember correctly, I believe I read where Microsoft stepped in and bought Corel because they saw WordPerfect Office for Linux as a threat, however real to them. I just bought two new Dells for my business and one came with XP already loaded with WordPerfect/QuattroPro. It took a lot of looking, but I finally found WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux and ordered two boxes. I really like the WP Word processor much better than the others and maybe slightly better than Word 2000. The nice thing is, all of our WP and QuattroPro files in Windows can be opened in WP for Linux and vice versa. I can open MS Word files with WP Linux and vice versa. QuattroPro, in my opinion, is a truely smokin' spreadsheet program that is much more versatile and user friendly that others I've used. My Secratary needs a browser, a mail program, a word processor, a spreadsheet program and Quickbooks. I have decided to change over to Linux at the office, going with Opera, Ximian-Evolution, WordPerfect Office and I've got Quickbooks and Internet Explorer, (Quickbooks won't work without it!:x) working flawlessly under Linux using CrossOver Wine! :D

I know I'm going to run into difficulties along the way, but I have decided it is time for me to get as far away from Windows as I can. I hold nothing against Bill Gates personally but I don't like the way Microsoft uses it's position in the marketplace to crush any and everything it sees as potential competition. I'm going down the Linux road come hell or high water! I'll still keep Windows as a backup and of course, for playing Trespasser, Half-Life and Team Fortress! :wink:
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Post by Sky »

but I have decided it is time for me to get as far away from Windows as I can. I hold nothing against Bill Gates personally but I don't like the way Microsoft uses it's position in the marketplace to crush any and everything it sees as potential competition. I'm going down the Linux road come hell or high water
thumbs up.

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Post by Dapper Dan »

Boy have I got myself in a mess! I'm using Windows to post this if that tells you anything! :cry:

See:

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/forum/showth ... adid=79418
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Post by Dapper Dan »

Sky, I had a look at Fluxbox! So, you are a "black screen" kind of guy! :wink:

On the one hand, it is kind of a blessing that Linux forces one to be more involved in the computing process. On the other, there are times when I say, @#$% LINUX! THIS IS TOO @#$%ING HARD!!" When I cool down, I always re-asert myself and have at it again. Like tonight. I was complaining to the wife about how difficult it was getting WordPerfect to run on Mandrake 9.0. Later on, I installed Word 2000 on the Windows side, which reaffirmed all of the reasons I want to get away from Microsoft. Just a couple of years ago, installing "Word" only took about 5 minutes. When I tried to install Word 2000 it must have taken 20 minutes!! At the end, they wanted me to register it either by internet or phone before I could use it without restriction!!! That's the way it is going folks! Microsoft DOES want to become "BIG BROTHER" and watch every move you make, and make you pay dearly for every machine you install their products on! Thank God for the Penguin! I am "Free At Last!!!" :wink:
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Post by Sky »

What is a
"black screen" kind of guy!
?
My english isn't that good ;)

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Post by Troodon »

Dan, the reason why you can't create that symlink appears to be that you started Linux in "safe" mode. Don't know about MDK 9 but in general, when the system boots like that is because there is a pb w/ the hard drive. For example, if you don't shut down correctly, it will try to run a checkdisk and, if it fails, it will boot the filesystem in ro mode and you will have to do a manual checkdisk. What messages do you get right before the prompt is displayed and you can use the keyboard to enter commands?

Another reason may be the shell under which you create the symlink. It could be "ln -s A B" or "ln -s B A", try both, the actual file will not be deleted.
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Post by Dapper Dan »

Sky, just joking with you that you maybe like typing commands on a black screen, rather than pointing and clicking like us newbies! :D

Troodon, thanks for your input. Since I got "froze" and had no choice but to reset, I'm sure that contributed to the problem since I didn't shut down cleanly. At any rate, I saved all the files I wanted and did a fresh new install. Turns out, the problem I've been having re-installing WordPerfect on my home computer has to do with my DVD Rom. It keeps shutting down at 3% then 5%, then 11%, etc. and I have to start over. Just to see, I re-installed WordPerfect-QuattroPro on my secretary's computer and had it up and running like a champ in about 2o minutes! It installed right through to 100% without any stall. My home box is getting really ancient..about two years old now! :wink: The Dell at the office is brand new.
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Post by Sky »

At any rate, I saved all the files I wanted and did a fresh new install.
Why don't you just make a new partition for /home? If you do it this way you can do your fresh install of your distro an just mount your home partition right into your new installation.
btw: ReiserFS rox :D

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Post by Dapper Dan »

I did find out when I was doing the new install that you could save hda 7 where my Home was and only do new install on hda 5. Since I had saved the files I wanted anyway, I just went ahead and formated both of them.
Question: If I wanted to take a look at another disrto, can something similar to this be done, saving your home partition and then using it with the new distro? Mandrake, and I am presume Red Hat, will allow you to save wherever home is, but I don't know enough about the others. I would like to look at Red Hat, Lindows, and Xandros out of curiosity.
Might be a few years before I'll feel brave enough to look at Slackware! :wink:
Troodon

WordPerfect 8?

Post by Troodon »

Dan, is there (still) a site where I can download the ol' WordPerfect 8 for Linux? Thanks.
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Post by Sky »

Every Linux distro will leave you home partition untouched. If you only tell your distro to install on hda10 it will be installed on hda10. If you want your home partition you use with mdk you can mount it to /home in your other distro.
(Or by simply editing /etc/fstab)

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Re: WordPerfect 8?

Post by Dapper Dan »

Troodon wrote:Dan, is there (still) a site where I can download the ol' WordPerfect 8 for Linux? Thanks.
Afraid not. At least, not that I know of. I bought two boxes of 9.0 here..

http://www.softwareandstuff.com/s_tech_ ... uxwp9.html

They,re kind of slack about letting you know when your order was shipped and when you will receive it, etc. but they DID have it in stock and it's really getting hard to find.

WP Office for Linux was a good choice for us, since we've been using WP and Quattropro under XP. A much less painless transition since we can access the same files through either!

Now if I could just get QuickBooks to work on the new Dell at work like it's working on my 2 year old home computer...
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