From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 28 06:20:23 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46AEA16A476 for ; Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:20:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rsmith@xs4all.nl) Received: from smtp-vbr5.xs4all.nl (smtp-vbr5.xs4all.nl [194.109.24.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D711713C459 for ; Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:20:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rsmith@xs4all.nl) Received: from slackbox.xs4all.nl (slackbox.xs4all.nl [213.84.242.160]) by smtp-vbr5.xs4all.nl (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l3S6KKcr086223; Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:20:21 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from rsmith@xs4all.nl) Received: by slackbox.xs4all.nl (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 7735DB854; Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:20:20 +0200 (CEST) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:20:20 +0200 From: Roland Smith To: james thompson Message-ID: <20070428062020.GA51905@slackbox.xs4all.nl> Mail-Followup-To: james thompson , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, JamesThompson65@yahoo.com References: <4632AF6B.3020500@tampabay.rr.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4632AF6B.3020500@tampabay.rr.com> X-GPG-Fingerprint: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 X-GPG-Key: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/pubkey.txt X-GPG-Notice: If this message is not signed, don't assume I sent it! User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15 (2007-04-06) X-Virus-Scanned: by XS4ALL Virus Scanner Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, JamesThompson65@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:20:23 -0000 --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 10:20:27PM -0400, james thompson wrote: > How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to= =20 > Apple OSX?=20 Setup is difficult to compare, since OSX always comes pre-installed, and has a limited range of hardware to contend with. FreeBSD is more difficult for a novice, because you have to learn a lot before you can use UNIX effectively. OSX hides all the gory details that FreeBSD administrators have to deal with. OTOH, FreeBSD (and UNIX in general) is a very powerfull toolbox. OSX hides this toolbox under a lot of eye-candy. Mastering that toolbox takes more effort that dealing with the eye-candy, but it is well worth the effort, IMHO. Windows OTOH comes with an empty toolbox. > I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 with=20 > Publisher be ran on FreeBSD?=20 Maybe it can be run under the wine emulator. See www.winehq.com. But there is an excellent free alternative: http://www.openoffice.org/ (which incidentally runs on a lot of operating systems, including Windows, FreeBSD and OSX) > I want to use FreeBSD to compose articles, and=20 > combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office Operation by = a=20 > person with little experience beyond windows. For you it would probably be best to stick with OSX, because it it a good combination fo ease-of-use for a novice and powerfull tools that you can learn at your leisure. But beware that office suites might not be the best tool for writing a book. MS Word ('97 and 2000) has trouble with large documents. Adding lots of pictures will make word extremely slow and will crash it and corrupt your file at some point. For books and articles I can recommend the TeX typesetting software with the LaTeX macros. I've written a 300+ page book with 100+ figures and tables, and several 40+ pages reports with dozens of pictures, tables and mathematical formula in LaTeX. Comparing LaTeX to Word/Writer is like comparing UNIX to Windows. The former has a steeper learning curve buyt is much more powerfull. Roland --=20 R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFGMuekEnfvsMMhpyURAqArAJ9jL2/D7xv422atd5bAzcW0kL/6XwCfeQP9 qJ+Ywu1kHDuwiex4qzE9Vsk= =CNlU -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7--