A 6-page review on the state of KOffice and plenty of screenshots.
The State of KOffice
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
A 6-page review on the state of KOffice and plenty of screenshots.
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
While I appreciate the time the author spent to write this review, you have to ask how much he really used the software if he hasn’t even printed anything. This appears to be another review in a long line of people who dabble in this software and that software without actually using on a daily basis for at least a couple of weeks.
I don’t see that as anything to note. I haven’t printed anything from my laptop all summer, and I’ve been using it heavily at work. Often, especially in a university setting, one does his printing from office or school computers.
Personally, I’ve diddled with KOffice for the last 3 years. Now, I’m hardly a “power user” in that most of the productive “office” work I do, I do at work (on a Windows system…..boo!). Anyways, I’ve found KOffice more than powerful enough for what I want from a suite, and use it usually before clicking into OpenOffice.
Just my 2 cents
Thank you to the author for the work of putting together this “state of the union”. I think it was much needed.
I have a feeling that real life use of KOffice is neglible and maybe even decreasing because of OpenOffice. Sad. I’d like to see it succeed.
The entrance to the heart of the corporate desktop is… Office. Nothing else matters. The OS, the web server, file sharing, multimedia, graphics, etc can all be great, free and opensource. It does not matter if Office is not up to par. If on the other hand Office is up to par then the rest will come by itself.
I don’t know the answer to get some traction. But I like to see the world without proprietary secret formats – especially when there is no other reason for them being secret than just that. I feel concentrating on open source formats is the way to go e.g. web formats. I just tried saving a KWord doc as html and get a message popup saying some formatting might be lost. Spending the effort on fixing that appears more important to me than maintaining a filter for for example abiword. But then again KOffice is a not a commercial but do-what-you-like project as is much of the rest of Linux.
Why are conversions from one format to another called filters? A filter is something that splits something into two or more piles. They should be called converters instead.
I saw that the City of Paris is considering doing what that of Munich is doing e.g. replacing Windows with Linux. Instead of sinking a lot of money into Windows why not instead spend some of it on helping out KOffice?
Hey, if I were using Linux and KDE, I’d definitely give KOffice a try. But from looking at the screenshots, it’s pretty horrible-looking. But I mean…look at the fonts in KWord. They’re anti-aliased, but the font kerning is terrible — letters all smashed together and hard to read. And the scaled-down graphic he embedded in the document is so blotchy and pixilated that it’s unintelligible.
I hate to say it, but after using MS Office on OS X, or even Windows (*shudder*), KOffice’s visuals seem pretty poor. If I were they (the developers), I’d make the UI and rendering of KOffice my #1 priority. Normals users understand “pretty” more than anything else. Apple knows this.
Don’t be offended, please. I salute the KOffice developers for their huge achievement. I just wish they’d make the graphics look better!
Cheers,
Jared
But from looking at the screenshots, it’s pretty horrible-looking. But I mean…look at the fonts in KWord. They’re anti-aliased, but the font kerning is terrible — letters all smashed together and hard to read.
That’s because the author used a crappy font. With good fonts, it looks just fine.
And the scaled-down graphic he embedded in the document is so blotchy and pixilated that it’s unintelligible.
That has nothing to do with KWord, and everything to do with the fact that the author, as you said, embedded a *scaled-down* graphic in the document. Of *course* it’ll be pixilated!
“Why do we need KOffice when OpenOffice is available? I believe competition is good.”
I do not see KOffice and OOo competing with each other, even though it may appear this way with a casual look.
For some people OOo is simply too large or too slow etc… (i.e. does something they don’t like.). In this case KOffice may be ideal for them. Rather than competing I think they complement each other, and the best thing is that they will share the SAME file format. This will give KOffice a lot more traction, because people will know that they can work with KOffice AND OOo interchangeably. (This is powerful!)
Rather than look at different applications and compare them, I think the point being missed is that they share the same file formats and can therefore be used together.
Each application must find their “niche” and catter to it. For example Gnumeric is very strong in the financial and statistics fields, and will be a great ADDITION, when it adopts the OASIS file format.
The only way small (or larger projects) will survive is if they unite (i.e. use the same file formats) and target a niche market. By this I mean each application could have different features targeting different users.
Hope this all makes sense. It was not super obvious to me at first but the more I think about it the more I am convinced it is the way to go… and hopefully soon MS office users will start complaining because MS Office doesn’t have filters to import OASIS file formats 😉
“Fire up VIM, and write it yourself. I’m so sick of ungrateful open source users who just take and take, and never give anything back.”
Well aside from your *personal* issues. I didn’t see anything demanding. Unless questions are now *demands*?
(Anonymous (IP: —.bchsia.telus.net), Anonymous (IP: —.eds.co.nz))
Your post is the answer to the question: “Do you hear what I hear?”
(Anonymous (IP: 61.95.184.—) )
“not every office suite requires 3d charting capability. maybe there are concentrating on a particular class of users. people need to understand that not everybody wants to clone ms office.,”
Example from earlier today. I needed to plot census bureau data. 3D is more required than you think.
Let me clarify something.
I believe competition IS good, but I don’t think one app should rule all the others. Rather, the best features of each FOSS should be integrate into each other. However this does not mean they should copy each other blindly.
They should share a core (standard) feature base and then each app would specialise in a given field (One could be lightweight and fast. Another will be larger but will do more etc…). With Millions of computer users I am sure there is a big enough market for everybody.
I want an MS clone! So speak for yourself.
Sorry Andre, that first post was an intentional kick to the groin by someone with a need to feel superior.
I totally agree. The reply might have been rude, but the original post was very aggressive. If anyone is going to criticize attitude, then they have to criticize that of the first poster too.
KOffice is coming on nicely, but I don’t understand why they just don’t use OpenOffice’s MS import filters…they’re open, right? Then again, I’m not a coder, I’m a user, so I don’t pretend to tell the KOffice guys how to do their jobs.
“Fire up VIM, and write it yourself. I’m so sick of ungrateful open source users who just take and take, and never give anything back.”
Oh suuuuuuuure… everyone has that ability. You should really learn to respect people, Mr. Faure, if that’s who you really are.
“I want an MS clone! So speak for yourself.”
i said not for everyone. i didnt say nobody wants a MS clone. so dont bother
“KOffice is coming on nicely, but I don’t understand why they just don’t use OpenOffice’s MS import filters…they’re open, right? ”
they do that now.,
Please, no more off-topic anti-GPL posts!
Incidentally, if you’re going to take the user’s side, then the GPL is better than BSD, because the GPL ensures that the program will stay free. There’s no advantage to users to have software that can be made unfree.
Meanwhile, in the real Open-Source world (not the imaginary one you so darkly paint), a lot of developers listen to what their users ask for. Just subscribe to a couple of OSS project mailing lists, and you’ll see for yourself.
Also, remember that developers are users too. The problem is more one of time and manpower. If the project is small, then users shouldn’t expect features to pop up overnight. Programming isn’t always a piece of cake…
Finally, if commercial software can’t find a way to compete with Free software, then it means that its business model is flawed. Sorry.
“they do that now”
Ah, sorry, I haven’t checked the latest version.
“Oh suuuuuuuure… everyone has that ability. You should really learn to respect people, Mr. Faure, if that’s who you really are.”
Yeah, I doubt that post was from the real David Faure. I’m not a KDE developer, but I’ve read the KDE mailing lists on and off for years, and David Faure seems like one of the most level headed guys ever. Also, as far as I know, David Faure lives in France, and Cableone, whom the “David Faure” posted from, is a US ISP.
I have no idea what frikken filter you’re running things through, but you’re the one who made the statement “relating MS office clone to 3D” I said that it’s a more necessary feature than you think, regardless of it being a clone or not. GOT IT?
(Anonymous (IP: 61.95.184.—))
“i said not for everyone. i didnt say nobody wants a MS clone. so dont bother”
Take a nap dude. I’m not him.
If you are THE David Faure then it must be frustrating having spent probably countless hours and long nights on development of KDE just to see some smartmouthing. But deep down I’m sure everybody including the unpolished ones appreciate the tremendous efforts by the developers of OSS. Because we identify with it. It’s like a pet. I’m a taker too except I do file bug reports.
Just ignore it – it doesn’t matter.
So why waste your time?
If you can’t use the software effectively, you can’t use the software effectively – either wait till ‘it’s done’, or go find something else. Warez some commercial software or something. Whatever makes you happy.
KOffice isn’t the be-all and end-all of office suites, and it doesn’t try to be.
It is what it is, bugs, omitted features and all.
If you don’t like it, don’t use it, theres no point whining about it.
Actually, whining about it on the developer mailing lists might get some attention, but whining about it on OSNews almost certainly won’t.
The only people who can help are the people who do understand how to use vi and hack in a feature they require.
Instead of banding together as users and using your combined financial base and user-oriented feature requests to guide development, as a community, what do you do?
“Windows is better than Linux Linux is teh suck” time and time again.
Your opinion, as a ‘disinterested user who just wants perfect software for free’ means absolutely nothing. KOffice doesn’t need you. Nobody needs a disinterested user for anything, only your money is important to commercial software companies.
Nobody is going to get financially hurt if you don’t use KOffice, and nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to use or like KOffice. It’s not like KOffice’s market share could get lower.
You can choose to help make KOffice better, or you choose to make no difference at all.
Choose the second, by all means, but for the benefit of those in the first camp, why not just do it quietly?
“So why waste your time? ”
Why indeed? Obviously you can’t read. But boy you sure can rant. Get back to me when you’ve actually said something that applies to what I’m talking about.
Openoffice’s interface is a separate XML document, meaning a GTK+ interface and a QT interface can be written. If OO.org looks just like a native application, why bother making another office suite?
KEnough with the K’s kallready, kit’s starting to bekome kreally annoying and konly makes it sound more kgeek…
..and thanks for a thoughtful review. To me KOffice is very much the Microsoft Works of the Linux world – it does what most people want most of the time. OK it isn’t an Office Clone – thank heavens – but rather than pointing at OO as the only other solution, why not look at Textmaker and Planmaker?? OK they’re not FREE but they work very well and without the bloat of OO.
Seems to me that moaners want all the features and functions and then moan about software bloat – somethign about eating cake and having it springs to mind.
Chill out guys – it’s only software.
In the Linux test some years ago, the Dutch “Consumentengids” recommended KOffice instead of OpenOffice for the average home user, as it is simpler and easier to use.
The graphing engine is a little annoying though, but that of OpenOffice isn’t really much better. Suppose you added extra rows to a series of data, I haven’t found another way to include them in the graph, other than deleting it and creating it again.
Btw. I doubt if that second posting was really David Faure, as he is French and lives in Brittain, while it was posted from the US. Besides that, I’ve never seen any important open-source people post in the OSNews comments, especially not about the first post. And no, SkyOS isn’t open source thus Robert and Hexeydes don’t count.
The article was suprisingly good. I myself haven’t played much with koffice in the last year, and prior to that it was simply to unstable for me to use. And even though the author describes his bias he was sufficiently criticial to actually write a good reveiw. I am glad to see the progress that koffice is making-it seems that is slow, but surely is becoming useful. Prior to Openoffice comming out I watched Koffice and Gnome Office (Abiword/Gnumeric/Gnucash/Sodipodi/Inkscape) religously looking for new developments.
In hindsight somethings are becomming clear: Linux suffered for many, many years do to a lcak of “productivity” software. “Office” software is the prime example of “productivity” software. Although the predecessor of Sun’s StarOffice/OpenOffice, Star Division’s Star Office, was available and quite good it simply didn’t catch on in any big way-it’s biggest deficit was that it wasn’t a community project. It was simply a propietay app free as in beer which commanded little in the way of community involvement and dedication. And it integrated poorly into existing Linux distributions. The same goes as well for the sorry attempts of WordPerfect to enter into the Linux market-a lesson which they have still failed to learn from in their new offering.
When I first started using Linux there was the Andrew Project software-ouch what painful memories. Or the old Abiword which looked just outright horrible. Applix was also around but I only saw demos of the software-I could not afford the license. As time went by most of these software titles receded into the void of computer history. At the time OpenOffice went open source Koffice and Gnome Office were the only native projects left vying for producing “productivity” suites. And OpenOffice didn’t suddenly change much of anything-they existed for over a year before really becomming part of the community. But all of a sudden we in Linuxland woke up and realized, well, we also have a “productivity” suite.
Now if the truth be known this dawning awareness was made posssible by Keith Packard’s RENDER extension and the integration of Anti-alaised fonts into X windows(Freeytpe/Fontconfig). Finally the windowing system used in Linuxland was capable of displaying good rendered fonts on the screen. Of course people worked with text on Linux prior to this-but there is a fundamental distinction between “it works” and “this looks good”-which is a real, measurable
factor in “productivity”. At any rate inside of two years after the debut of OpenOffice no one is complaining about a “lack” anymore. Yet Koffice and Gnome Office are still around.
I can’t remeber when Abiword became a true community project-but since it has the prgress has been amazing.
With the introduction of Abiword 2.0 the UI finally broke into the usability scene. Gnome Office has gone litteraly nowhere because Openoffice, at once, just obviated the clear need for Gnome Office. Unfortunately, the applications which make up Gnome Office, which belong to some of the best in Linuxland, do not integrate well as a cohesive whole-and that is the “magic” of OpenOffice.
I suspsect Koffice is in a similiar boat. It was clear that KDE needed it’s own Office suite to compete with the native GNOME apps(Abiword/Gnumeric etc.). But yet again the “need” for Koffice really didn’t materialize-or more to the point-didn’t remain palpable. OpenOffice 2.0 will offer, at least superficilliay, integration with both GNOME and KDE. What always frustrated me about Koffice is why so many things which worked so well in other open source applications simply failed miserably in Koffice-of course much has probably been improved since I last used it. After all the idea of open source is that applications can share code.
As to the future of these projects some things seem obvious. Gnome Office will continue in it’s development and probably never recieve the title “Gnome Office”-this title is know by those who have followed the developments but users are unlikely to ever hear about it. The applications are great standalone applications -yet they offer little in the way of integration. Improvement will be made in terms of HIG compliance and better integration with GNOME apps.
But it seems as if the niche market these applications have already created will continue indefinitely. For older, less powerful machines, Gnome Office is just perfect- but if not for “perception” the same holds for the modern desktop machines and uses. These applications are simply first-class.
Regarding Koffice-it is unclear to what extent this suite already commands a niche market(in the same sens as Abiword users or Gnumeric users). I see little likelihood in Koffice winning over many new users-they will be doing good to hold on those which they currently have. The biggest weakness of Koffice is that it struggles to fofer everything under the sun and fails to deliver much of anything really usable-if the goals weren’t as high, the disappointment would be much lesser-ie. the percieved discrepency between promise and results would be more easily swallowable. Perhaps Koffice could make real headway by delimiting exactly what target usages should be striven for- and focusing exclusively on developing good apps for these usages.
In fact I believe this is the only way forward for Koffice-the goals which were once pursued in writing Koffice have become passe-Linux already has a producitivity suite- what special capbailities and functionalities can Koffice offer which the other Office applications don’t offer ?.
Abiword has the distinction than many people actually prefer using it over OpenOffice even given that OpenOffice is available-and not just Linux geeks-many windows users love the simple Abiword interface. If Abiword keeps progressing at it’s current rate it may one day be the equivalent of Amipro-which once was very,very successful despite it’s lack of “features” in contrast to Microsoft Word.
What i really hope will happen is that each of these applications will target each others file formats-and that OpenOffice sxw format will be universally used in all of these applications. I also wish to see more work at unifying all of the work which has gone into all of the different format filtering software-ie. libwpd should be equally integrated in to Koffice, Gnome Office and Openoffice. Abiword still has the best html export utility in Linuxland-I hope to see this integrated into Koffice and OpenOffice.
Spell-checking “as you type” is available with the unbiqutous wavey red line appearing below mispelt words.
Spot the mistake. Is that how good KWord’s spell checker is? Sorry, just wanted to point that out
Perhaps the “unbiqutous wavey red line” did not appear there 
Just to add to it: “A theasurus is also provided, at least for the English language”
Ok, If the article is written in KWord, it tells me how good the spell checker is. I didn’t even do a spell-check, I spotted the mistake by simply reading the article.
Not much to add. KOffice will come along when it’s due to.
Agree with most that have said about the demand on time and need for skills to code. And in response to Software, FYI, KOffice is NOT just an office suite for GNU/Linux users, by GNU/Linux users, and of GNU/Linux users. It is cross plaform (i.e. it is supported by FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc) that even those on Windows can enjoy. It is so easy to dismiss David as just another of your typical ubergeek but sometimes one has to take it all with a pinch of salt i.e. David like all of us is only human and humans are subject to mood swings.
Probably not a very excuse for what he said but as Open Source/Free Software users, we are ALL responsible for its (i.e. the OSes e.g. GNU/Linux,; the *BSDs, etc and apps) continued relevance and improvements. Do what we can i.e. submit bugreports, forward ideas on improving the suite or become a beta tester maybe even help in its developmet for those who have the time.
In my very humble opinion,
I think KOffice looks like a toy, something kids would use. It doesn’t look as professional as OpenOffice.org or MS Office 2000 do.
No offense though, I feel the same about MS Office XP and MS Office 2003. However, they were targeted for kids (or Microsoft’s employees intelligence has dropped significantly). But I don’t believe this to be the case for KOffice, is it?
Hello,
this is the real David Faure speaking… The comment at the top of this page is *not* from me. I don’t speak to people that way. Someone is simply trying to launch flamewars, and obviously succeeded.
I think this site should have some authentication ability (the usual sending of a password to the email address) to ensure that people can’t just assume someone else’s identity.
David Faure.
KOffice is great when you want to do something for yourself only. Comparing with OOo its light, fast and do practically everything what I want. Plus feel of integration with other kapps. Today I have no need to use ANY gapp with heavy exception for OOo.
Printing? KOffice use kprinter which is hands down the best interface for printing in Linux world. The only more reliable thing is localhost:631
Ah, yes. I miss one thing – differentiate printing on right and left pages.
Reviewer forgot about one great , lifechanging feature of KWord – import of pdfs. Not perfect but can save lot of time and hassle. This one deserves at least +1 for KWord.
Connected with pretty print to PDF/PS from kprinter it should be even +2
Real problem begins when cooperating with world. Import/export filters for MS-Office aren’t reliable (at the moment). In best case I can write something in KWord, save as OOo, open oowriter and export as MS-DOC. Same for KPresenter. Reviewer criticize usability of KPresenter but this is piece of cake comparing with Impress. But only Impress gives me guarantee it will work with PP (or PPViewer).
>> I think this site should have some authentication ability
Agreed, the “identification” features of this site are totally useless, from concept to implementation.
If I can simply make up any ID i want at any time, what is the point?
I agree.
Where does Koffice fit in? Right where it was intended to be: KDE’s office suite.
OpenOffice is nice. However, it is noticeably slow on practically anything I use it on. Koffice is faster, and in some ways nicer. It certainly looks & acts more like my chosen Desktop. It uses the icons that are consistant.
Similar to that one must ask Where does Konqueror fit in? Mozilla was to be the next big thing… and only now is it really starting to be fast & usable in the form of firefox (which IMO does some stupid things usability wise). At one point people kept going: why is KDE developing what in version 2 became known as Konqueror. Later, when gecko was getting plugged, Konqueror (possibly KFM? before that) could use the gecko engine… it worked, but khtml simply got to be working better, and was near par with it at the time… (in other words, some of the sites that one couldn’t render the other could.)
I see the same thing happening with Office suites, but this time, there won’t be a break off the bloated program that runs most places (OpenOffice), as there exists a standalone program that’s fast & works on windows (AbiWord) and KDE is doing it KDE’s way, kparts/easy embedding, consistant with KDE…
I expect that in a little bit, they will be at near the usability levels of the mozilla, firefox, and konqueror browsers, which frankly pretty much work fine.
KDE is probably the most or 2nd most consistant DE/OS (ie, Macintosh, Windows, GNOME, CDE…) because it has basically been all the types of programs written for KDE & not repackaged/redone separate applications. *GNOME Office* That’s not to say everything is consistant. Macs are the other contender, and not everything is consistant there either.
Basically, KDE writes stuff from scratch or rewrites stuff to be KDE stuff. GNOME tries to combine separate applications, that have been developed independently & not designed for being together. KDE’s philosophy allows things like Kontact. KDE-Pim has existed for quite a while, so has kpilot, kmail, etc. All done with kparts & KDE. Evolution took a LONG time to be written, while Kontact, because it built on the stuff that was already being developed in KDE, came pretty much out of nowhere very rapidly. So far, it’s been out in 1? release, and using a cvs version (yes, I like KDE & I’m also the go-to person for KDE specifically, plus it is pretty stable… when it builds that is
.) Now, kopete is pretty nicely integrated, so you have (potentially) email, im, and web addresses right in the addressbook… Also, note that this also works for the stand-alone address book, because it’s the same thing as kontact’s.
So, I hope KDE keeps writing things that may seem to not have a use, because there is a ‘better’ application somewhere, be it Evolution, Mozilla, or OpenOffice. I personally think they do a better job of usability than most other projects, but that’s my opinion, and I thank them for providing me with the choice. Just as I thank the GNOME people for doing the same thing, even if I think the ‘simplicity’-is-everything is a stupid goal.
Thanks for bothering to read my rambling comment/rant on the subject.
“OpenOffice is nice. However, it is noticeably slow on practically anything I use it on. Koffice is faster, and in some ways nicer. It certainly looks & acts more like my chosen Desktop. It uses the icons that are consistant.”
I totally agree. The speed difference between the two is huge: OpenOffice for Linux[1] is too slow to be usable on my Pentium II 350/128 MB, yet KOffice 1.3 works fine on a Pentium 180/64 MB.
For the rest, Gnome itself seems clean, but I don’t like its attutide: “GTK+ == GNOME, so if we take OpenOffice/Mozilla/Whatever and let it depend on libgtk2.so [2] and add ./configure –with-gtk=YES, then it becomes a Gnome application so that we can put it on the front page of http://www.gnome.org.”
[1] Strangely, it works fine on Windows but unusably slow on Linux.
[2] Go look at Firefox and count the number of GTK+ controls that don’t only look that way, but also feel like GTK+ controls, that means that pushbuttons, radio buttons, checkboxes and the like are ruled out. I’d guess that only the scrollbars remain.
Well I’d say we should support KOffice, because unlike OO it is not a bloatware. Infact this is true for konqueror too it has a fast khtml engine. I hope both these technologies evolve to make KDE great.
I like OO though. It has a lot of features.
“Hello,
this is the real David Faure speaking… ”
Whew! Had me going there for a second.
Seriously I appreciate your work, and I apologize if anyone got that impression.
KDE’s no bloatware. It’s complete-ware
Well, near complete, anyway. There isn’t much I can think of that KDE doesn’t already offer.
Granted, it comes with a price… I wouldn’t run KDE on a machine with less than 256MB RAM. But that is the case for all modern operating systems.
KDE isnt bloatware. Fire up icewm – yep, its faster than KDE. then fire up a an email client. and an webbrowser. and an wordprocessor. and an graphics program. then do the same in KDE, with KDE apps. guess what uses the most memory, with (almost) the same features? compare Kontact/evolution, firefox/Konqueror, its all faster and lighter if you go the KDE way.
Gnome has LESS features, but uses way more memory and is slower. (open ALL gnome-office apps, galeon, evolution, then try the same under KDE with Koffice, kontact, konqueror. check speed & memory usage…)
of course, that’s because KDE loads lots of libraries when you start it, even if you don’t need them, they still load.
And yes, KDE is bloated with tons of options you will never use and nobody needs..
Gee gee, the two mexicans (or is it the same person?) here on OSNews are rabid anti-KDE zealots. Perhaps they take as much national pride in the fact that GNOME was founded in Mexico like the German t-online folks take national pride in KDE.
Either way, it’s annoying. There isn’t a KDE or GNOME article that goes by without these anti-XXX zealots. I beleive it’s really just one or two people.
And yes, KDE is bloated with tons of options you will never use and nobody needs..
Yes, KDE is bloated. There are many, many, many options that I will never use. But, for me, KDE (and its suite of applications) is definitly more usable that Gnome. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gnome. Love the look, love the looking-forward attitude of the developers. I think Gnome has the brightest future.
But for now, it dosen’t help me get my work done as much a KDE does. Just because something has a lot of options dosen’t make it un-usable.
Gee gee, the two mexicans (or is it the same person?) here on OSNews are rabid anti-KDE zealots. Perhaps they take as much national pride in the fact that GNOME was founded in Mexico like the German t-online folks take national pride in KDE.
Either way, it’s annoying. There isn’t a KDE or GNOME article that goes by without these anti-XXX zealots. I beleive it’s really just one or two people.
And tell me smartass in what part of my two comments did I mention GNOME? none? please read before you make a post.
and what is that “gee gee” thing?, this is osnews not some online gaming forum.
“Gnome has LESS features, but uses way more memory and is slower. (open ALL gnome-office apps, galeon, evolution, then try the same under KDE with Koffice, kontact, konqueror. check speed & memory usage…)”
Did this.. KDE was slower
if KDE/Koffice wants to compete with Windows and Office then it has to offer more features and more speed. If it’s a nice hobby then that’s something else. But it’s hard for me to switch to linux when the apps don’t compare to what you get on Windows.
At least macosx has apps I can switch to without feeling deprived of what I can get on Windows…question is are they good enough to justify getting a whole new computer and apps over again?….
Which switch campaign are you talking about?
Who’s suggesting that you switch to Linux?
Don’t switch – Stay with what works for you. You’d have to be an idiot to accept less functionality for benefits that don’t matter to you.
If you feel, as I do, that freedom to modify the software and the ability to learn in depth how computer hardware software work, without a ‘glass-ceiling’ beyond which you are fobidden to go, and the ability to work in a ‘transparent’ software environment – where problems aren’t hidden, but can always be found and fixed if you have the motivation – is what is really important, then Linux is a no-brainer, and you wouldn’t even have to ask rhetorical questions like ‘why should i switch if the apps aren’t there’
I’m a programmer and network admin, and I use linux simply because it offers the best environment and tools for my needs. I also have a MacOS X laptop, which I only bought because its a nice way to get a ssh, X server and vnc client over wifi in a portable package – I could pretty much take or leave the rest of OS and apps bundled with it.
I’m not an average user, and don’t want to be one.
Nobody is selling Linux as a general-purpose desktop OS, if you got the wrong idea by reading the posts of the ever-growing legions of linux supporters, then thats unfortunate, but nobody in the linux camp puts an overriding priority on seamless desktop functionality, and thats just the way it is.
Maybe you’ll be that one special person with the vital creative and motivational spark needed to turn that around, and maybe you’ll just not bother. It’s your choice.
Linux will probably get to the point where it meets the requirements of most people soon enough, you can either help out and make that day come faster, or you can wait ‘until its done’.
Getting a desktop that meets your needs is not what drives anyone except you. You have the tools laid out on a platter in front of you with Linux, youcan choose to make use of them if you want to.
Anyone that doesn’t have at least some of this attitude is not going to have any success with Linux, and is better off with a commercial alternative.
Linux isn’t free. You pay for it with your attention, time and effort. If you can’t afford to invest those things, you can’t afford the price of Linux
“Fire up VIM, and write it yourself. I’m so sick of ungrateful open source users who just take and take, and never give anything back.”
Right. I know this is all sounded unfriendly but maybe the person who stated he/she needs feature X is willing to donate something (not necessarily code)? For example pay for the development of the feature in the form of a donation. Or a bounty. To the people who really need this feature: how about setting up a bounty program?
Yes, it does. I just had to say it.
Of course it’s not totally mature yet, but I love it.
It’s pretty obvious that the font problems aren’t problems of koffice. The reviewer isn’t using the bytecode interpreter in his freetype system-library, which takes care of font hinting amongst other things. You get the exact same fonts as on any windows (not using cleartype) with this enabled (and anti-aliasing disabled, though things will be nice with it enabled too). Providing you use the same fonts of course.