Maximum PC

I apologize if this is the wrong forum, I couldn't decide whether here or the Windows one. But you guys are the open source experts so here goes.

Can you tell me if, generally speaking, open source programs such as Foxit, Gimp Shop, Open Office, etc are being updated for Windows 7. Because, after using Foxit and playing with Open Office briefly, when I build my new comp and move over to it there is going to be damn few "mainstream" programs bought and loaded in.

One last question directly related to this forum, which video platform best supports open source, nVidia or ATI? I ask because I plan on setting up a dual boot and trying some open source prog's and playing arround with trying to get some mainstream games to work in Linux. If it matters at this point I have down loaded 2 or 3 distros for testing. I have no idea which is best for me but based on MPC articles I am leaning towards Ubuntu to start with.

Ubuntu is indeed a good place to get your feet wet.
All of those programs you mentioned seems to work just fine in my Win7 installation. (I havn't tried Fox-it yet though)
ATI/nVidia.... I think nVidia is the best bet at this point. I've experienced less hassle getting the drivers to work well.
Ubuntu has a setting that will activate the drivers easily called "Restricted Drivers"
It may work with ATI as well now but nVidia for sure.

Mainstream games?
Well you should do a bit more research on that before you dive in.
Linux isn't a gamers choice operating system. Some will work, most will not.

thanks for the response. That answers everything.

I think its a shame people don"t get on the bandwagon getting the word out to the mainstream. Especially commercial sites like MPC. Every where you turn we are told that we MUST down load and install Adobe for PDF programs for example. Who's paying who off. And it sounds like a justifiable law suit for the likes of the folks at Foxit. The wonder is that one of the open source big guns, Mozilla Firefox, aren't in there fighting it.

After looking at Open Office I can't believe I have been faithfully paying for M$ Office. Ore that people are stupid enough to pay for Adobe. Including Photo Shop With Gimp Shop out there for free

Not to chase you away, but you really have a diluted sense of reality... I really don't think that I appreciate you insulting my intelligence because I pay for MS (and other proprietary / closed source) software. I make a living by writing software and unless somebody buys the software more often than not the people who wrote it don't get to eat.

I don't mind F/OSS software and I do use a fair bit of it. However I absolutely hate delusion F/OSS zealots who really don't get it (not saying you are one, but you imply that you are).

For as much as OOo has come in the past few years it isn't MS Office and it can't do everything the MS version can. As far as foxit goes it is decent software but I am not sure it offers all of the features that the Adobe Acrobat professional application does. I don't work with PDFs on that level so I can't really say which is better but I am sure AAP offers more robust features.

Also, I am not even going to address your Photoshop / GimpShop delusion other than to say GIMP is simply NOT a replacement for Photoshop. Period. I can't believe that people really think this crap.

I do have to say, I dumped Outlook completely. Absolutely hate the way MS decided to make it imperative to upgrade every few years.
Newer versions of Outlook wouldn't connect to our older version of Exchange etc...

Now I use Thunderbird exclusively and love it. Much more customizable updates easily and many more "add-ons" and themes.
All around much more friendly.
It doesn't connect to Exchange either, but at least I didn't have to go out and spend another $3000.00 for Exchange again.
I found what I needed to do with calendar and contact sharing using open source products that actually work better for us.

Maybe some day I'll consider MS again, but it won't be any time soon.

IIRC, you were using a dinosaur Exchange from pre 2000? There is something to say about using what works, but after a number of years you have to move on.

As you said though you have had to make some sacrifices. What exactly do you do if you can't connect to exchange? You have to get your mail through POP or IMAP?

Honestly, sometimes just paying the money is worth the lower hassle of integrating several other applications. Not that the F/OSS solution you have doesn't work (and I am curious) but I sometimes find it hard to believe that there was a cost savings. Especially if you have to work with 3 or more applications to accomplish what one application did previously.

Honestly, I love Outlook 2007. It is everything I need and does it very well. It just works with my stuff.

First, don't get me wrong. I'm not an MS hater. I'm just disappointed in the way MS Office is handled.
That being said, yes we use POP at individual work stations. We never really used Exchange for anything more than sharing contacts and calendars. As Outlook advanced to 2007, we could no longer connect to Exchange. For what we used Exchange for, it would be ridiculous to spend that kind of money. Outlook 2003 couldn't do what 2007 does with Google Calendars and so it came down to either having to upgrade all of our clients to Outlook 2007, downgrade everyone to 2003 or older, or upgrade Exchange.

Or.... just find another solution entirely. Which we did for the most part.

Our outside salesmen have Blackberrys. uggh.... So they need Outlook to sync with. Everyone else in the office is using Thunderbird and loving it.
I have a shared calendar and contacts on Google and Thunderbird syncs with it.
Of course Outlook doesn't play well with this so...

Again this is one reason I can't stand MS. It's partnership with certain companies really screws with users options. (Blackberry)

I could go on..


I do like Excel and Word but to be honest, at home I use OO. It's does what I need it to.

Ooooh and another thing.

I'm VERY impressed with Window Live Mail and some of it's options.
Just got done playing with it an hour ago. (set it up on GF's lappy)
It's free and it's MS. We'll see how things go with that.
When I heard MS was going to Web based this and that and was worried, but I'm thinking maybe it's the way to go eventually.

As much as I HATE (HATE HATE HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE) Adobe Framemaker, I've yet to find an OSS alternative ... and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to use it at work.

There is FAR more involved in software than just 'does it work'? 'Cause when it doesn't, I can't waste my time at work fixing it. That isn't why I'm paid ... that is why we pay Adobe, Quadralay and others for a service contract so that they can sort that shit out.

I use F/OSS software almost exclusively at home (with the exception of twriting contacts) and paid/licensed software almost exclusively at work (with the exception being Mozilla's Composer ... still the best simple WYSIWYG HTML editor I've ever used).

Without having read the rest, this is probably why you had problems. I mean when it is all together, exchange is pretty sexy.

I know you aren't a hater, so it is cool.

Framemaker does what exactly? Video? F/OSS video stuff is total shit IMO. No where near as good as proprietary stuff.

Yup. Cuz we can easily yell at somebody else when shit isn't working and put the pressure on them to fix it.

I used to try to do more free stuff, but I always found myself hitting walls with "this app can't do that, without you doing a b and c". I got tired of switching for games too. ::shrug:: I honestly just prefer MS stuff to most everything out there. It isn't even a comfort level thing it just find it easier to use nearly every single time in every single case.

There is a lot of nice F/OSS that I use. But I am a Windows and MS Office guy.

There is/was an application that hooks up to Outlook 2003 to sync google calendar. It worked great.

I guess I don't follow the problems you had with synchronizing with Google. Blackberries, are as you know, an entirely different animal.

I don't think there are explicit partnerships so much as it just makes sense to work with MS because of a large target audience.

I have used OOo but not too lately. I just like the way Word and Excel work. I like being able to program against them.

It is an 'authoring and publishing solution.' Think of it as Word with a strong focus on publishing rather than writing. The tools are geared to designing and formatting publishable documents. It is generally used to create printed docs, PDFs (it exports directly to PDF, since it is an Adobe product), HTML help (aka, F1 help), and if you are tricksy like me, it can be used to create context-sensitive help.

At some point though, one realizes that people use what they're familiar with, which begs the question, which is more important, the skill (say using the aforementioned Framemaker) or the trade or task (publishing in general).

Obviously your end project dictates to a degree what you'll want to use, but I tend to believe a true craftsman will be able to use pretty much anything that's put in front of them. Which is where I believe the OSS world focuses with what product they churn out..and where they somewhat lose out.

That is a nice thought, but I can't use a hammer to turn a screw. There is absolutely no F/OSS product that comes close to what I need. I've looked ... extensively.

You're using the wrong tool for hte job though in that example. You a give a painter paint, and he'll still paint, regardless if you provide an air gun or brush. You don't give your carpenter a screwdriver to build your house and you don't let them use their hammer when they're hanging kitchen cabinets.

I guess a different example, although not exactly open, you provide the same application, say again Framemaker, on Mac, most people probably wouldn't use it because it's on a Mac. The converse seems more obvious if you put a Mac person on a PC with the same app.

I agree that most (if not all) times, the F/OSS apps are lacking Heck, I doin't know anyone that uses GIMP on a regular basis to make is exceed Photoshop. Until development here becomes I guess sales driven, I can't see how the apps will improve or at least reach the scale that it can compete with a mainstream product anytime soon and I certainly don't see any type of trickle down effect from the guys selling enterprise products (your Redhats and SuSEs)

You sir just identified the problem with F/OSS. There isn't an incentive to go beyond "eh... good enough".

While good enough works in most cases, I don't want to settle for good enough. I have tried GIMP and so on many times. With and without GIMP shop. You can do much more and you can do it better with Photoshop, IMO. So that is what I use for a lot of my photo editing and design needs.

eh..I suck at photo editing in general, so things like GIMP and photoshop have the same uses to me At least with GIMP, I don't spend $300 so I know I suck

Yeah, I agree.

I use the Gimp exclusively because I can't afford a Photoshop license for personal use .. I just don't use it enough (nor well enough) to justify the expense. In this case, for me, the Gimp is the ideal tool for my job. (Like furball).

For publishing, though, I've yet to find a F/OSS product .. must less a good one. Since my livelihood depends not only on producing top-quality docs but also making the source available (I use single-sourcing documentation techniques, for those in-the-know) is also a priority. I can't send files to my clients that can only be opened by a piece of software they've never seen.

Sometimes, you are stuck using the industry standard. Sometimes, you prefer the industry standard. In my case, I'm graced with both of these situations.

This is a slightly different rant, but I don't feel like giving it's own thread...


I love how Ubuntu's idea of LTS (long term what?) is ~ 4 years.

I don't feel like upgrading my whole sever just because the repos aren't going to be actively maintained, or even become unavailable.