On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:17:49 +0200
"David \(Normandy\)" wrote:

[]
I think open source / Linux is definitely the future. Microsoft's monopoly
can only last so long. I've recently got a copy of Linux Ubuntu and started
playing with that. Unfortuately I've not got it to recognise my modem yet,
so can't use it to access the internet. Linux / open source will definitely
take off as it becomes easier for people to install and get working. The
number of free applications available is also increasing. I plan to write a
few myself, time permitting.


David,

You might try Suse. Ubuntu is a bit gear head.

We now run Suse 10 on several PCs and a laptop. No problem interacting
with a Windows environment using Open Office (which is indeed free). All
HW recognized.

Suse is very touchy-feely and an easy transition for a windows user. It
is also free, of course, so you can buy a new machine without paying MS anything.

For Windows we have 2000 pro on a dual boot, but I can't remember the last time
it was used. The reason is that there is a very good utility called Crossover which
lets you run windows SW under Linux. We use this to run full Acrobat, as well
as Office when a comfort factor is required. (Crossover is not free, though).
You can also run VM, apparently but I haven't done it.

Open Office also works great on the Mac, as well as my Irix box. The average
user certainly will never need anything more.

On topic perhaps I should make a planter from old PCs... Or perhaps not.

-E

--
Emery Davis
You can reply to ecom
by removing the well known companies
Questions about wine? Visit http://winefaq.hostexcellence.com

On 23/7/07 12:12, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:13:59 +0100, Sacha
wrote:

snip
I've never even heard of Vista! Is it going to affect Mac users. Please
tell me 'no!

No!

Oh OK No!

Believe me, the emphasis was very welcome!
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

"Martin" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:19:59 GMT, Pam Moore

wrote:

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:08:20 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:

Thanks to a lightening strike I have had to replace one of our machines,
the
new one has "Vista" (I expect I will get used to it in time!)
The point of this posting is just to say that while much of my old third
party software has gone on without a murmur the same was not true of my
very
expensive MS Office (2000) and I thought people may like to know I have
solved the problem by changing to "Open Office" which so far seems
completely compatible in both directions with ms office and only costs
£6
!!!

Very useful info Charlie. We shall all have to face up to Vista at
some point, no doubt. Good luck!

Although I see websites trying to sell it, you may like to know you can
download
Open Office free.
http://www.openoffice.org/product/

"OpenOffice.org is free software

* you may download OpenOffice.org completely free of any licence fees
* install it on as many PCs as you like
* use it for any purpose - private, educational, government and public
administration, commercial...
* pass on copies free of charge to family, friends, students,
employees,
etc."

You can download it from here
http://download.openoffice.org/
--

Martin

Now he tells me :~)
I am not grumbling it was very cheap really at £5.86

--
Charlie, Gardening in Cornwall
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National collections of Clematis viticella
and Lapageria rosea cultivars

It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:17:49 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, David \(Normandy\) wrote:

"William Poaster" wrote in message
...
It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:57:48 +0100, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, BAC wrote:

"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
...
Thanks to a lightening strike I have had to replace one of our
machines, the
new one has "Vista" (I expect I will get used to it in time!) The
point of this posting is just to say that while much of my old third
party software has gone on without a murmur the same was not true of
my very expensive MS Office (2000) and I thought people may like to
know I have solved the problem by changing to "Open Office" which so
far seems completely compatible in both directions with ms office and
only costs £6 !!!


You'll be running it on Linux next ...

I've lurked in this ng for a while now, picking up some useful
gardening tips. :-)

I changed to using GNU/Linux 10 years ago. For me, it was best thing I
ever did. No viruses, not having to defrag etc.. And if I don't like
one distribution, I can change to another.

I think open source / Linux is definitely the future. Microsoft's
monopoly can only last so long. I've recently got a copy of Linux Ubuntu
and started playing with that. Unfortuately I've not got it to recognise
my modem yet, so can't use it to access the internet.

It depends on the modem. If it's what's termed as a "winmodem"
or"softmodem", then there are *some* which will work under linux:
http://www.linmodems.org/

There is a how-to here, which may help:
http://www.walbran.org/sean/linux/linmodem-howto.html

Hardware modems, such as ASDL modem/routers, are usually detected &
automatically configured by the OS as you install.

Linux / open source will definitely take off as it becomes easier for
people to install and get working. The number of free applications
available is also increasing.

Yes.Ubuntu is based on Debian, & at present there are around 18,700
packages/applications. There is a list he
http://packages.debian.org/stable/

I plan to write a few myself, time permitting.

There appear to be plenty of development tools. :-)
http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/

It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:20:35 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:56:53 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:


"Martin" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:19:59 GMT, Pam Moore

wrote:

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:08:20 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:

Thanks to a lightening strike I have had to replace one of our
machines,
the
new one has "Vista" (I expect I will get used to it in time!) The
point of this posting is just to say that while much of my old third
party software has gone on without a murmur the same was not true of
my
very
expensive MS Office (2000) and I thought people may like to know I
have solved the problem by changing to "Open Office" which so far
seems completely compatible in both directions with ms office and
only costs
£6
!!!

Very useful info Charlie. We shall all have to face up to Vista at
some point, no doubt. Good luck!

Although I see websites trying to sell it, you may like to know you
can
download
Open Office free.
http://www.openoffice.org/product/

"OpenOffice.org is free software

* you may download OpenOffice.org completely free of any licence
fees * install it on as many PCs as you like * use it for any
purpose - private, educational, government and public
administration, commercial...
* pass on copies free of charge to family, friends, students,
employees,
etc."

You can download it from here
http://download.openoffice.org/

Now he tells me :~)
I am not grumbling it was very cheap really at £5.86

Ask for you money back. Whoever sold it to you had no right to sell it.

It's perfectly legal.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/selling.html

Normally you are only charged for the cost of a CD, post & packing etc.

Martin" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:56:53 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:

Although I see websites trying to sell it, you may like to know you can
download
Open Office free.
http://www.openoffice.org/product/

"OpenOffice.org is free software

* you may download OpenOffice.org completely free of any licence
fees
* install it on as many PCs as you like
* use it for any purpose - private, educational, government and
public
administration, commercial...
* pass on copies free of charge to family, friends, students,
employees,
etc."

You can download it from here
http://download.openoffice.org/

Now he tells me :~)
I am not grumbling it was very cheap really at £5.86

Ask for you money back. Whoever sold it to you had no right to sell it.
--

Martin

I expect If I read carefully I would find I did not pay for it but something
else like a back up cd or some such, I take your point though.
More worrying is at the moment Vista is flexing its muscles and I have spent
the last 2 hours trying to recover from it freezing after a bit of software
it did not like was attempting to install. now working but I can see a lot
of unexplained activity from the hard drive so am expecting more trouble to
come :~(
Its more trouble than its worth, avoid it if you can, but they do not supply
you a system disc so you can change your mind in the future.

--
Charlie. Gardening in Cornwall
Holders of National collections Clematis viticella
and Lapageria rosea cvs

"Sacha" wrote in message
. uk...
On 23/7/07 08:53, in article ,
"David
(Normandy)" wrote:


"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
...
Thanks to a lightening strike I have had to replace one of our machines,
the
new one has "Vista" (I expect I will get used to it in time!)
The point of this posting is just to say that while much of my old third
party software has gone on without a murmur the same was not true of my
very
expensive MS Office (2000) and I thought people may like to know I have
solved the problem by changing to "Open Office" which so far seems
completely compatible in both directions with ms office and only costs
£6
!!!

--
Charlie, Gardening in Cornwall
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National collections of Clematis viticella
and Lapageria rosea cultivars


I'm avoiding Vista for as long as possible (I'm a professional software
developer) and the majority of my business colleagues are avoiding it
too -
other than to try it out and prod and poke it without using it in any
serious way yet. It is too slow, takes too much memory, has a huge amount
of
irrelevant bloat and has compatibility problems with numerous pieces of
software and hardware.
snip

I've never even heard of Vista! Is it going to affect Mac users. Please
tell me 'no!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'



what's a Mac............

"Yes Baby" wrote in message
...
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'



what's a Mac............

it's necessary for this time of year. you might also want to add an
umberella v.2.1 for overall protection.

Wellies may slow down performance

Sue
(using Vista)

It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:40:41 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:18:51 +0100, William Poaster
wrote:

It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:20:35 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:56:53 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:


"Martin" wrote in message
news On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:19:59 GMT, Pam Moore

wrote:

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:08:20 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:

Thanks to a lightening strike I have had to replace one of our
machines,
the
new one has "Vista" (I expect I will get used to it in time!) The
point of this posting is just to say that while much of my old
third party software has gone on without a murmur the same was not
true of my
very
expensive MS Office (2000) and I thought people may like to know I
have solved the problem by changing to "Open Office" which so far
seems completely compatible in both directions with ms office and
only costs
£6
!!!

Very useful info Charlie. We shall all have to face up to Vista at
some point, no doubt. Good luck!

Although I see websites trying to sell it, you may like to know you
can
download
Open Office free.
http://www.openoffice.org/product/

"OpenOffice.org is free software

* you may download OpenOffice.org completely free of any licence
fees * install it on as many PCs as you like * use it for any
purpose - private, educational, government and public
administration, commercial...
* pass on copies free of charge to family, friends, students,
employees,
etc."

You can download it from here
http://download.openoffice.org/

Now he tells me :~)
I am not grumbling it was very cheap really at £5.86

Ask for you money back. Whoever sold it to you had no right to sell
it.

It's perfectly legal.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/selling.html

Normally you are only charged for the cost of a CD, post & packing etc.

In that case why is the price of a Windows version substantially more
than the price of a Mac version in UK?

Ask M$, they bumped the UK prices for Vista up. Anyone using Windows in
the UK is paying almost *twice* the amount than someone buying it in the
US. http://news.com.com/Petition+demands...+price+cuts+in
+U.K./2100-1016_3-6161710.html

I know of one corporate accountant who's challenged MS on this, & so far
they haven't answered him.

I paid EUR100 for a copy of SuSE Linux, somebody is posting that that is
free too.

If you want to download OpenSusE, a community driven version, it's free.
However the only support would be from newsgroups & forums.
http://en.opensuse.org/Released_Version

If you buy a boxed version, you're buying the official Novell/SuSE
release, & probably would get some support when you register the product.
http://www.novell.com/products/opensuse/

I used SuSE Linux for 9 years, but changed to Kubuntu last year when
Novell signed a deal with MS.

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:42:45 +0100, Martin wrote
(in article ):

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:43:32 +0100, "Yes Baby"

wrote:

snip

what's a Mac............


a hockey puck between two slices of bun?


You're out of date :-)


--
Sally in Shropshire, UK
Burne-Jones/William Morris window in Shropshire church with conservation
churchyard:
http://www.whitton-stmarys.org.uk

It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:17:49 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, David \(Normandy\) wrote:

"William Poaster" wrote in message
...
It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:57:48 +0100, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, BAC wrote:

"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
...
Thanks to a lightening strike I have had to replace one of our
machines, the
new one has "Vista" (I expect I will get used to it in time!) The
point of this posting is just to say that while much of my old third
party software has gone on without a murmur the same was not true of
my very expensive MS Office (2000) and I thought people may like to
know I have solved the problem by changing to "Open Office" which so
far seems completely compatible in both directions with ms office and
only costs £6 !!!


You'll be running it on Linux next ...

I've lurked in this ng for a while now, picking up some useful
gardening tips. :-)

I changed to using GNU/Linux 10 years ago. For me, it was best thing I
ever did. No viruses, not having to defrag etc.. And if I don't like
one distribution, I can change to another.

I think open source / Linux is definitely the future. Microsoft's
monopoly can only last so long. I've recently got a copy of Linux Ubuntu
and started playing with that. Unfortuately I've not got it to recognise
my modem yet, so can't use it to access the internet. Linux / open
source will definitely take off as it becomes easier for people to
install and get working. The number of free applications available is
also increasing. I plan to write a few myself, time permitting.

Just another point.
Under the GPL you can install a linux distribution *on as many machines
as you like*, no licence restrictions. I have Kubuntu installed on at
least two of my systems.

On 23/7/07 22:42, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

snip
snip

I've never even heard of Vista! Is it going to affect Mac users. Please
tell me 'no!



what's a Mac............


a hockey puck between two slices of bun?

Sadly, you will never know.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

It was on, or about, Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:00:31 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:28:07 +0100, William Poaster
wrote:

It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:40:41 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:18:51 +0100, William Poaster
wrote:

It was on, or about, Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:20:35 +0200, that as I was
halfway through a large jam doughnut, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:56:53 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:


"Martin" wrote in message
newsqr8a313jeenq4hs8e9vqubutu8m6b5geb@4ax. com...
On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:19:59 GMT, Pam Moore

wrote:

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:08:20 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:

Thanks to a lightening strike I have had to replace one of our
machines,
the
new one has "Vista" (I expect I will get used to it in time!)
The point of this posting is just to say that while much of my
old third party software has gone on without a murmur the same
was not true of my
very
expensive MS Office (2000) and I thought people may like to know
I have solved the problem by changing to "Open Office" which so
far seems completely compatible in both directions with ms
office and only costs
£6
!!!

Very useful info Charlie. We shall all have to face up to Vista
at some point, no doubt. Good luck!

Although I see websites trying to sell it, you may like to know
you can
download
Open Office free.
http://www.openoffice.org/product/

"OpenOffice.org is free software

* you may download OpenOffice.org completely free of any
licence fees * install it on as many PCs as you like * use it
for any purpose - private, educational, government and public
administration, commercial...
* pass on copies free of charge to family, friends, students,
employees,
etc."

You can download it from here
http://download.openoffice.org/

Now he tells me :~)
I am not grumbling it was very cheap really at £5.86

Ask for you money back. Whoever sold it to you had no right to sell
it.

It's perfectly legal.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/selling.html

Normally you are only charged for the cost of a CD, post & packing
etc.

In that case why is the price of a Windows version substantially more
than the price of a Mac version in UK?

Ask M$, they bumped the UK prices for Vista up. Anyone using Windows in
the UK is paying almost *twice* the amount than someone buying it in the
US. http://news.com.com/Petition+demands...+price+cuts+in
+U.K./2100-1016_3-6161710.html

I know of one corporate accountant who's challenged MS on this, & so far
they haven't answered him.

I paid EUR100 for a copy of SuSE Linux, somebody is posting that that
is free too.

I'm talking about Open Office for WinXP on a CD, nothing to do with MS
pricing policies AFAIK.

Ah, I see. Well you can still download OpenOffice for Windows for free.
But there's nothing to stop someone putting it on a CD & charging for it,
& if someone pays their price.....

If you want to download OpenSusE, a community driven version, it's free.
However the only support would be from newsgroups & forums.
http://en.opensuse.org/Released_Version

If you buy a boxed version, you're buying the official Novell/SuSE
release, & probably would get some support when you register the
product. http://www.novell.com/products/opensuse/

No, I bought it before Novell got their hands on it.

So you bought it from SuSE? This was before Novell released it into the
OSS community, & the only way you could get a copy was to buy
it....though some people copied what they'd bought, & sold copies on ebay.

I used SuSE Linux for 9 years, but changed to Kubuntu last year when
Novell signed a deal with MS.

I'm quite happy with Win XP.

Reading all the gripes on the SuSE newsgroup makes it look worse than
anything MS can throw at you.

SuSE Linux used to be *very* good when it was a German company, but went
downhill after Novell acquired it IMO (& some others). The last version I
had was SuSE 10.0, which had a lot of bugs. It's something which wouldn't
have happened under the original SuSE company IMO. Then Novell signed
with MS, & I decided to move on to another distribution.

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:53:59 +0100, Sacha wrote
(in article ) :

On 23/7/07 22:42, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

snip
snip

I've never even heard of Vista! Is it going to affect Mac users. Please
tell me 'no!



what's a Mac............


a hockey puck between two slices of bun?

Sadly, you will never know.


:-)

--
Sally in Shropshire, UK
Burne-Jones/William Morris window in Shropshire church with conservation
churchyard:
http://www.whitton-stmarys.org.uk

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:52:20 +0100, "Charlie Pridham"
wrote:


More worrying is at the moment Vista is flexing its muscles and I have spent
the last 2 hours trying to recover from it freezing after a bit of software
it did not like was attempting to install. now working but I can see a lot
of unexplained activity from the hard drive so am expecting more trouble to
come :~(
Its more trouble than its worth, avoid it if you can, but they do not supply
you a system disc so you can change your mind in the future.

Charlie, you could try asking about your problem on uk.comp.misc; I've
always found them a very helpful lot.

I have no experience of Vista, but when it first came out there were
some adverse comments on the above NG, among which was that it needed
1Gb of memory to run well (AIUI MicroSoft suggest a minimum of 500Mb,
which is technically correct but cripplingly low, although many
machines with that bare minimum were advertised at the time),
otherwise it would be forever swapping stuff between memory and the
hard drive, which slows things up significantly.

If your machine only has 500Mb, increasing it to 1Gb is pretty simple.
On a quiet day, PC World in Truro would probably do it for you while
you wait. Whether it would solve your MSOffice problem is another
question....


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net