Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Linux and winning

Author:Kurt Granroth
Posted:3/10/1999; 6:20:36 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 3/5/99
Msg #:3876 (In response to 3867)
Prev/Next:3875 / 3877

[the] lack of a couple of applications (Word,Excel,Powerpoint) [is] driving me crazy, especially when someone sends a "Word Memo" attached to an e-mail.

I have the same problem as you with the "Word Memos" at work... and I'm not even running Linux! The company I work for has "standardized" on the full set of MS products (i.e., everything is MS). However, I work in a development environment with Solaris workstations.

My solution to this was to setup an IMAP server on my Unix box. The server was simply looking at my regular mailbox. Whenever I got a Word document (or Powerpoint or Excel or other MS-only format), I would simply go to my NT box that I use for it's cooool screensaver, connect to my IMAP server, and read it from there. It's a little inconvenient... but it works.

If you are more flexible than I, you might want to try StarOffice. Supposedly the filters are quite good.

I agree that the lack of familiar applications is frustrating when trying to use Linux in a production environment. For instance, when I tried to bring Linux into work, the idea was nixed because we use FrameMaker for our documentation and there is no FrameMaker for Linux.

My reaction was that Frame is the Wrong Way to go, anyway. We should be doing all of our docs in SGML or XML or some other open standard.

What it came down to, though, was even if I could find something in Linux that did the exact same think as Frame, they still wouldn't go along with it because our standard for development work is FrameMaker. Period.

*sigh

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