By: conz@cyber.com.au
Created: 1998-10-10
Modified: 1998-10-27
You may have heard recently that Linux makes an excellent file-server, web server and Internet Gateway. What you may not know is that Linux also makes a great personal workstation operating system, which often has advantages over its rivals like Windows, NT & MacOS. Most people need a core of perhaps a dozen major application types (word processors, spreadsheets etc) available on a platform, for it to be of use. It's probably been a well kept secret, but Linux has probably all the serious business and personal productivity applications you may ever need. What's more, quite often these are available at no cost and in open source format. Here's a rundown: Office Suites Office suites are perhaps the most common requirement of most people who use computers as personal productivity tools. Linux currently has four main office suites from which to choose from. The main contenders are: Linux Office Suite 99 (incl. Applixware 4.4.1) Priced at USD$79.95, the suite includes a spreadsheet, word processor, presentation graphics, database, fax program and is designed to enable document exchange with Microsoft Office 97. The core of this suite is based on the mature Applixware product range, which is reliable and and efficient, although not as polished as MS-Office 97. For more information, check http://www.suse.com/ Corel Corel WordPerfect for Linux (List CDN$85) will perhaps become the most popular office suite for Linux, due to its brand-name recognition. If you've ever used any of the modern Windows or Macintosh word processors, you'll be right at home. This version has all of the features of WordPerfect for other platforms, including drawing and charting modules, auto-correct and spell-as-you-go highlighting, spelling and grammar checking, tables, mail merge, outlining, lists and style sheets. WordPerfect for Linux is the beginning of a full featured product range that Corel is releasing for Linux over the next few months. Eventually, they have committed to ports of all their mainstream apps like CorelDraw etc. WordPerfect for Linux is down-loadable from http://www.sdcorp.com/ StarDivision's StarOffice 5.0 StarDivision is perhaps the 'slickest' of the office suites for Linux, and of considerable interest to many potential users due to its 'no-charge' licence for personal use. Perhaps due to this slickness, it requires more resources than the aforementioned competitors. The product is also available for the Windows platform, and has garnered a substantial following in Europe (it's written in Germany.) It too has all the main apps you would expect from an office suite, and is down-loadable from http://www.stardivision.com/ KOffice from KDE This is a new application suite, with spreadsheet, a couple of word-processors (general & scientific/document layout) personal organiser, presentation slide-show system and more. KOffice is open source freeware, and is targeted primarily for the KDE desktop environment (one of several for Linux.) It's perhaps the newest (and thus least complete) contender, but as with many open source software projects, holds solid promise for rapid improvement. Download from http://www.kde.org/ Email and News Many of the office suites (Applixware, KOffice) come with their own email clients (POP/IMAP) which are quite useable. Alternatives are plentiful on Linux, which isn't surprising, as it's the first OS built via the 'Internet.' Many people use text based mailers like elm, pine and mutt, which are powerful, but complex for beginners. One of the more popular GUI mailers is the IMAP/POP client that ships with Netscape Navigator. Netscape also provides for a convenient Usenet news-reader too. Web Browser Netscape Navigator has been on Linux for a few years, and from the sounds emanating from Mozilla.org (the central development site for Netscape Navigator) Linux is the development platform of choice for developing new versions of Navigator on. Navigator looks and works the same on Linux as on Windows, and just like on Windows, it's open source and free. http://www.netscape.com/ for the latest versions. Specialised Apps Graphical Manipulation Apps The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, a freely distributed application suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. In short, it has pretty much all the capabilities of Photoshop 5 for Windows/Mac (minus some features like colour separations) and it costs nothing to acquire. Details at http://www.gimp.org/ Another site with plenty of useful pointers to Linux based graphics apps is http://www.graphics-muse.org/linux.html/ Scientific Applications on Linux It wouldn't surprise anyone to find out that there are literally thousands of scientific applications available for the Linux platform. In fact, there's a whole website devoted to the area. Scientific Applications on Linux (http://sal.kachinatech.com/) is a collection of information and links to software that will be of interest to scientists and engineers. Amongst the major applications areas it covers are: array-oriented & linear algebra systems, statistics, number theory, numerical analysis, parallel computing, visualization, electrical, chemistry, biology, artificial intelligence, physics & astronomy. A quick search with your favourite websearch tool will reveal several major sites which list thousands of general and special purpose Linux apps. Furthermore, the Linux space is undergoing explosive growth, and the number (and quality) of these apps keeps improving at a rapid rate.