Window$ free office environment

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Dapper Dan
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Window$ free office environment

Post by Dapper Dan »

Well, we finally did it! We are now running our office completely free of a native Window$ operating system. I won't tell you that it's been easy, because at times it has been very difficult, but in the end, I finally managed to make it happen!

The hardest part was getting our Accounts Manager to switch from QuickBooks to Appgen's MyBooks. We are not fully transported over to MyBooks yet, but are certainly headed in the right direction. Appgen makes myBooks avaiable for Windows, Mac and Linux!

If you have not yet checked it out, I must tell you that Win4Lin is positively outstanding! With Win4Lin, you can install Windows 98 right on your Linux desktop, and it works as fast and more stable than if you were running Windows 98 natively!

Aside from DirectX gaming, Win4Lin has so far, run EVERY Windows based program I have installed perfectly! Win4Lin is an excellent way to transition from Windows to Linux and, one day, we hope to be completely free of Windows altogether.

To give you the rundown, we are using Mandrake 9.0 with a Gnome desktop environment. For the word processor, we are using WordPerfect 9 from Corell WordPerfect 2000 for Linux. WordPerfect 10 runs swimmingly under Win4Lin but, I would rather run as many programs from Linux as possible. For our e-mail and browser, we are using Ximian-Evolution and Galeon. Evolution will interface with Mozilla, which is what Galeon is based on, but it was just simpler to use Galeon and Evolution together, since they talk to each other with a minimal amount of problems. QuatttroPro, which comes with WordPerfect 9, is an excellent spreadsheet program that is handling all out spreadsheet needs. I have MyBooks from Appgen, installed in Linux/Gnome, and in Windows 98 using Win4Lin. Presently we are using the MyGooks under Win4Lin, but will transfer over to Linux as soon as we have it figured out completely.

I cannot say enough about how impressed I am with Win4Lin! It downright beats the pants off of Wine, Codeweavers Wine and Crossover office wine. With Win4Lin, you do a full install of the Windows 98 operating system from your Linux desktop and it is disturbingly easy to install!

http://www.netraverse.com

Win4Lin is also handy in that, installs of gaming like Half-Life, Team Fortress, Counter Strike and Starcraft install completely without a hitch, You can't run games with Win4Lin though, but rather can run them with Winex from Transgaming.

http://www.transgaming.com

I've been playing TF classic with Winex and have been getting pings superior to what I got with Windows!

There is no turning back for us now. For our Radio Station, the Penguin now rules supreme! Window$ will soon become a memory..
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Post by Sky »

For our Radio Station,
This would be interesting to me: Where are you working, because i do not know many companies who have switched from windows to linux.
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Dapper Dan
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Post by Dapper Dan »

Sky, we are a small town FM radio station about 12 miles away from a much larger town. We broadcast at 6000 watts, so we cover both communities quite well, with a good audience in both.

http://www.hometown.aol.com/z93wzla

We have switched our office over to Linux, but as far as radio automation software goes, it is a little more complicated. We are presently using an old "Smartcaster" system which is Dos based, thus extremely stable. Smartcaster used to use Antex sound cards, but since Antex is going out of business, Smarts has gone to their Dos system on top of Linux to enable them to use off-the-shelf plug and play sound cards. I may upgrade to their new system, but it is very expensive. The best thing I've seen out there, as far as low cost, and high reliability is the "Tunetracker" which operates on the Be operating system, (BeOS).

http://www.tunetrackersystems.com

BeOS has been bought by Palm, and no one knows it's future. However a German company is expected to come out with an open source version called "Zeta."

http://www.yellowtab.com

The only problem with Tunetracker, (and it is a big one), is that they do not yet offer an interface with popular traffic and billing software.

We rejected Windows based radio automation software due to reliability problems, however, since I am now seeing Windows programs run almost as reliably and as fast as Linux programs under Win4Lin, I'm going to start experimenting with Windows based automation systems using Win4Lin.

There are a bewildering number of systems out there, the newer Windows based systems are cheap, unreliable and mostly come from net radio applications. The old tried and true Dos systems are extremely stable, very expensive and are made for broadcast radio stations. It is a difficult choice that essentially comes down to cost vs. reliability.
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