[K12OSN] Linux cut off
Henry Hartley
henryhartley at westat.com
Fri Nov 19 19:34:59 UTC 2004
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "Terrell Prudé, Jr."
>> Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 1:13 PM
>>
>> Gladly. The jobs that I have to accomplish are as follows:
>> 1.) MS Exchange email.
>> 2.) Web browsing.
>> 3.) Office automation.
>> 4.) Router/firewall management
>> 5.) Accessing Windows shares: smbmount
The one thing I go back to Windows (dual boot) on a regular basis for is
Photoshop. I'm using a relatively old version 5.5 and I still don't find
GIMP as capable. Don't get me wrong, GIMP is great and it has come a long
way. I use it when I can. But when I'm doing serious work with lots of
layers (particularly text layers), it just isn't as good. I don't find the
UI as easy, either, although I'm sure at least some of that is just a
training/practice issue. The scanner I use isn't supported by SANE but the
next one I own will be.
I have an old-ish version of AutoCAD (14) that I would have a hard time
leaving, also. It's been a while since I looked for open source CAD but a
few years ago, anyway, there wasn't much to brag about. There are
commercial packages that run on Linux/Unix. So, if I ever decide to pay for
an upgrade, I'll look long and hard at Linux capable alternatives. But as
far as I know, there's nothing close to AutoCAD in the OS world.
Also, my daughter has Windows-based games and she boots back to Windows for
them. For all I know they will run under WINE but I've not tried.
But I DO NOT use Microsoft Office or IE. Even on the Windows boot, I use
OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird. My wife complained for a while and
still, when she helps someone out with an MS Access project, the lack of
that has caused some friction. But for the most part, for web-browsing,
mail-reading, and paper-writing, there is absolutely no need to run Windows.
Oh, and for my taxes, I go to http://www.taxactonline.com/ and do it in
Firefox. Not free but not very expensive, either.
--
Henry
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