From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 28 08:14:27 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 69F4616A400 for ; Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:14:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from chris@hier7.com) Received: from smtp109.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com (smtp109.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com [68.142.225.207]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 25D9013C448 for ; Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:14:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from chris@hier7.com) Received: (qmail 73443 invoked from network); 28 Apr 2007 08:14:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?172.27.1.5?) (cms.kw@rogers.com@74.109.56.227 with plain) by smtp109.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Apr 2007 08:14:26 -0000 X-YMail-OSG: ErXYiDYVM1lyDBoVwVKsFeYPv_aSXX9l3dqJuyhg1ht5RKYYbWY913wjdZaU3ItJKw-- Message-ID: <46330264.2080301@hier7.com> Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:14:28 -0400 From: Chris Slothouber Organization: hier7 User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (Windows/20070326) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: james thompson , FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.org References: <4632AF6B.3020500@tampabay.rr.com> In-Reply-To: <4632AF6B.3020500@tampabay.rr.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: 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 08:14:27 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2007-04-27 22:20, james thompson wrote: > How difficult is FreeBSD to use in place of MS windows, say compared to > Apple OSX? I believe it may be able to run Offide 98; can Office 98 > with Publisher be ran on FreeBSD? I want to use FreeBSD to compose > articles, and combine them into a Book for publication, as a Home Office > Operation by a person with little experience beyond windows. In 1995, > I took a MicroComputer Operating Systems course in Windows 3.11 and DOS > 6.22. I have used Windows 95, 98, and XP Home & upgraded to Media Edition. Hi James, As far as being able to easily create articles, create a book, and publish to a website, IMHO Apple OSX's ease-of-use and seamless design takes the cake. All new Macs (including the iMac) come with a very easy to use (and powerful) set of applications called 'iLife'. Included is the 'iWeb' application, which makes the task of creating and updating an attractive web space quite simple. More information on this 'iWeb' app can be found here: http://www.apple.com/ilife/iweb/ On top of this, a 30-day trial for the 'iWork' bundle, which includes a word processor/desktop publishing app called 'Pages' and presentation software called 'Keynote' (basically PowerPoint on steroids, this is what Al Gore used to create his much-ballyhooed 'PowerPoint' presentation with). If you want to keep using it, it's only $79 (versus $200+ for the basic MS Office Suite for Windows). Pretty good value for software that fuses simplicity and power. It can also import all of your old MS Word documents without too much fuss. Here's some info on that: http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/ I really don't mean to sound like I work for Apple, but since everyone has given the opensource/FreeBSD side of your questions a fairly good beating, I thought I'd present the other end of your email a fair treatment. All of this can be done very well on FreeBSD (or Linux, or Windows) just the same, but as far as what you're asking, OSX truly does make the whole job a heck of a lot easier, without sacrificing much functionality. I hope this information helps! - - Chris - -- Chris Slothouber (chris@hier7.com) -=- Mercenary Sysadmin BIZ: http://www.hier7.com -=- building.better.ideas PGP: 7A83 F021 5AC3 4BD7 6738 21D8 B348 0B16 79C0 C27F -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGMwJks0gLFnnAwn8RAr2AAJ45Eh92jVzp4hDnZj9+82FoIaJlTACeMT7O zCmBRFqiOuFBbpFHGXz8aOo= =lyJs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----