Huge Lack of Linux Developments for Office and Professional Activities
 

Hi Unix/BSD/Linux Guys,

Linux may look quite complicated and of course not made for everyone.

There are indeed cool desktops under Linux, games, Wayland might be cool and could replace X11 soon or later, Ubuntu gets more fans for Linux,...

The development is indeed a lot of fun in this area. But what's the point?

Although Unix systems are older than Windows and Mac, there are still almost no single choice in terms of office and professional softwares.

"Most" people (<- 95% PC's) like of course graphical applications and make the choice to use Android, Mac or Windows.

We may consider Libreoffice for office use, but well, it does not surpass Microsoft Office or other alternatives.

Windows and Mac have the highest number of softwares, here for instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_word_processors

Corel, Illustrator,.... Word, Excel,... and and... are of outstanding quality. Another example, just compare the very old MS Project 2000 with ganttproject.biz 2016, 16 years after. MS Money is awesome, compared to gnucash, and it is a such good software.

Most people would of course install Linux for professional activities, pay for it even, at least if they could use it well for daily work.

If Linux Development would care about getting on the market, next to Android, Mac or Linux, you need good Softwares, and of course, for professional activities.

Think about Softwares, users needs graphical good applications, and this may for a long term extend the interests for getting and using LINUX!

Have Fun with Linux, but also Work with Linux!

You already posted this joke thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ux-4175588028/

this was for Word Processing.

If you would like to work with Linux like you would do on Windows, maybe, for you it wouldn't be a joke.

Think about students and companies that may have great interests to use Linux.... you seems not to care about it.
Linux is a great idea, it can also be interesting for people who aren't rich and who cannot afford expensive hardware.

You may think about it more...

http://www.vim.org/

Here's a real life example for you:
At the company where I work, we use (on my initiative) Gimp instead of Photoshop, Inkscape instead of Illustrator, LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Word/Excel.

Not only do we use that software daily, it has saved the company a LOT of licensing money.

So, pardon me, but I thoroughly disagree with your sentiment.

Best regards,
HMW

Most companies that I know use MS Windows and Microsoft applications.

Maybe it depends on the area that you are working.

* roll eye

And what's so wrong with that? MS-Office is a fine suite of applications and they make a ton of money with it.

If Microsot ;) ever wanted to compile their stuff for Linux, they already have the means to do so.

I own a (small) company. The only OS used (and, for the last 14 years, permitted to be used) by this company is GNU/Linux (although I'm not averse to switching to one of the BSDs). We have no business requirement for Windows, and in fact consider it a liability.

As far as the comparison between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office is concerned - it depends on whether your requirements make you win on the swings or lose on the roundabouts; I have a preference for LO, but must admit that the MS product can be an almost adequate substitute.

I don't know a single huge or large company (corporate) using Linux. Maybe sometimes servers, but Microsoft Servers have a large use. <-- ups, ok, we talk about graphical office here !
http://www.4-traders.com/GOOGLE-INC-9469/


1) Google Office (word processing,...): Google "Empire" uses a something comparable to Linux, but of course won't use Fedora, Ubuntu or Debian in large extends. The Google Word is of course made to be used plugged to Internet.

2) MS Office: Microsoft is of course not going to port MS-Office to Linux OS, this would be taking too many risks.


-

I'm fairly sure Redhat and SUSE would have the occassional Linux desktop in their corporate offices :) Google is trying to get everybody onto the cloud and Microsoft is trying to keep its Windows users, so no surprises there - that's how they make their money.]

Sorry, this (and your other thread), are either trolling efforts, jokes, or just plain ignorant. I have used Linux as my ONLY desktop workstation for over a decade now. Libreoffice/OpenOffice have had ZERO problems operating with the MS products during all that time, either working with files FROM or sending files TO. The *ONLY* problems have ever been because the MICROSOFT PRODUCTS don't work well...because they have 'their standard', and don't obey the ACTUAL standards, from XML forward. Before Libreoffice, there were *STILL* stand-alone products (Gnumeric/Abiword/Dia/etc.), that worked fine for such things.

Either you're willfully ignorant, misinformed, or just plain trolling. Can't tell which; doesn't matter.
...and most companies are LEAVING Microsoft, and again, there are ZERO problems integrating in an MS environment.
Wrong again. The ENTIRE INTERNET runs Linux/unix, and for ANYTHING that requires stability and horsepower, *Nix is used, period. There are ZERO of the worlds fastest computers running Windows. ALL of them run *nix. Most large companies go FROM Windows TO Linux, and it's happening in droves, unless you are (again) willfully ignorant or trolling.
Trolling now, obviously...Google Docs works on ANY platform, and I use it on my tablets, and ANY PC I can get to. Zero problems, including Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, CentOS or RHEL. Do you not know how to work such things???
Oh, and why is that??? What 'risks'??? Or are you really that clueless to think that NO ONE can pirate a copy of Office using a Windows machine??? There is not ONE SINGLE THING you can mention that I can't do with Linux, from driving a 3D printer, real-time systems control, graphic design, movie editing, or just plain office work. I converted a small company here to Linux from Windows, and *AMAZINGLY*, there wasn't any problems doing so, and the users are pretty happy with not having blue screens, endless updates, viruses, and the $$$$ costs for Office and the associated crap. They gave up ZERO, and saved over $15k the first year alone.

Please, save your screed for a different forum.

IBM attempted this 10 years ago (Blue Linux) and failed to convert their own employees. The main thing preventing Linux adoption in the corporate world today is the higher IT cost per desktop. Figure that out and companies would be happy to switch.

I hate to disagree with you..BUT. :)

I don't think it's a higher IT cost per desktop; reusing the same hardware that Windows is running on is a zero-sum equation. The main things I see in doing such conversions, is user-reluctance and/or the 'learning curve', which is probably what you mean by the IT cost (support afterwards). But that's a temporary spike, until they learn the new system...same with ANY new thing, from copiers upwards.

They probably only have Windows at home, because it came 'free' with their computer. That's what they know, and that's ALL they typically WANT to know. If the higher-ups decree "You shall use this new system", that's that. I've found that if you pick your first users wisely (that is, those who learn things and aren't gigantic pains in the rump), and train THEM first, and CONVERT them first, the rest go easy. Like the company here we just finished. Took one month from start to finish, for about 50 desktops, but we dropped in 5 of our workstations first, on the 'power users' desks, to run side-by-side. A single-day training course took care of about 90%+ of the questions, which were trivial, like "Where is my C: drive?", and "How do I set the wallpaper?" types of things.

It's actually *EASIER* for them now, for pretty much everything. Simple cron scripts copy anything from the users home directory to the server every night...if their workstations die now, NOTHING is lost. Re-install OS, back up and running in about 20 minutes. A far cry from Windows. But if it hadn't come from the company director, it wouldn't have happened.

It's a legacy thing, like the qwerty keyboard. People use Windows because people have always used Windows. Switching to desktop Linux means retraining the office staff and that's a psychological issue.

It's also worth pointing out that most school leavers know how to use Word and Excel because they were taught them in their "IT" lessons. If your office uses Linux, you'll have to show new entrants how to use it. I can see why a lot of bosses might feel unhappy about doing that.

Absolutely. But more and more schools are using Chromebooks and/or Google Docs, so the 'Windows-Centric' ideology is going away. Plus, bosses are usually happy about it once they see the TCO of going the *nix route vs. Windows.