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I'm a huge fan of Linux and want to see it succeed but it still has a ways to go for the enterprise desktop market. The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office

by pwelch 16y ago

I'm a huge fan of Linux and want to see it succeed but it still has a ways to go for the enterprise desktop market. The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office. I use OpenOffice on Linux and iWorks/NeoOffice on Mac often but I still find myself using Microsoft Office or Visio when I have a lot of work to do. There are just so many things that can be done quickly in Word or more advanced in Excel that I have yet to find in the other options despite all my googling. Regards of how you feel about Windows, IMHO Microsoft still has the edge when it comes to Office Suites.

trezor 16y ago
The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office. I'd say Microsoft Office, everything else Microsoft which integrates seamlessly and most of all Active Directory. Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up. That's really not a user- nor computer-management strategy that scales.
- pwelch 16y ago
  I agree. I actually meant to say the biggest hang up for the enterprise to switch over to Linux is finding a good replacement for Office. However, you absolutely correct about how easy it is to get a Microsoft AD up and running. Though I am sure there is a way to do it in Linux if you have all the experience, sometimes when a System Admin has to get an environment up and running it is easy to get it done with Windows and AD.
- drdaeman 16y ago
  Maybe that was because you were trying to apply AD ideology to GNU/Linux, i.e. do things in "Active Directory-way"? I don't know about AD, but implementing a single sign-on authentication on GNU/Linux is simple. Just configure PAM and roll the configuration to all machines (with rsync or whatever you prefer). I've never tried authenticating against a LDAP database, though. However, I believe if I'll see a Windows machine and be asked to set up a simple SSO configuration, it would take ages to understand (not just step-by-step copy some tutorial from the net).
- munchhausen 16y ago
  > Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up. I feel that your account of making a Linux machine play nicely with AD deserves a 'YMMV' addendum. In my experience it is not common that this should be so difficult to implement with a reasonably up-to-date Linux system. It also doesn't hurt to use a distribution that has undergone testing for this usage scenario, which is definitely true for the "enterprise" distros - both RHEL and SLES should give you very little trouble when it comes to joining a domain and authenticating against AD. It is indeed mostly a "just works" type of thing in the majority of cases.
rbanffy 16y ago
> The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office I agree. Office is the problem, not the solution. The solution is to avoid using it.
- Maro 16y ago
  I disagree. I have tried using lots of other office software like OO, more lightweight text writing apps, and of course online apps like Google Docs. In the end I'm back to using MS Office (both on my primary Macbook and the secondary WinXP), even without the interoperability issues it still easily beats all other solutions. Also, as another commenter noted, if they can get them $10-100/yr, there's really not much to think about. The truth is, Office software is hard, and even though the MS product has a lot of suck, the others are much worse. Finally, the new 2010 version of MS Office actually really good.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    I keep hearing this - the things only Office does for you, but often with little detail on what would it be. What are the must-have features of Office?
    - mkr-hn 16y ago
      It's the UI, not features. I made this the other day: http://imgur.com/63zCP http://imgur.com/63zCP You can add and remove things on the ribbon if the defaults don't fit your usage.
larrik 16y ago
It's funny, Excel was the reason I switched to OpenOffice. 1) Closing one Excel windows closes ALL of them. Often I (or other people I was supporting) would be working on an important Excel file, and then open another one temporarily, close the 2nd one, and then unthinkingly say "no" to the "Do You Want to Save" dialog that you THINK is for the 2nd file, but is actually talking about the very important original file. Oh, and Word (which also has a separate window per document) doesn't act this way at all. Oh, "save more often" you might say? Well.... 2) Excel doesn't let you Undo past the last save. This is annoying for a lot of reasons, but is completely terrible when you opened a file with the intent of saving your changes as a copy. Oops, you "saved" instead of "saved as"? Your original document is gone, and pretty much unrecoverable. OpenOffice just works. (I don't know if the latest versions of Office addressed either of these issues... and I don't really care)
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Closing one Excel windows closes ALL of them. No it doesn't. At least not for the past two versions of Excel (I can't remember Excel 2003). But there is a button to close the current window or specific window. Excel doesn't let you Undo past the last save. Yes it does. At least it has for the past two versions. I don't know if the latest versions of Office addressed either of these issues... and I don't really care Honestly, did you really ever? Those were the only two reasons you switched to OpenOffice?
  - larrik 16y ago
    I never worked at a place willing to put up with supporting the 2007+ versions of Office. Those were certainly the "I can't take this anymore" reasons, yes. OpenOffice also read the new XML-based file formats better than the older Offices with the converters. Since then I've also switched to Linux, which simplifies my decision.

by pwelch 16y ago

trezor 16y ago

The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office. I'd say Microsoft Office, everything else Microsoft which integrates seamlessly and most of all Active Directory. Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up. That's really not a user- nor computer-management strategy that scales.

pwelch 16y ago
I agree. I actually meant to say the biggest hang up for the enterprise to switch over to Linux is finding a good replacement for Office. However, you absolutely correct about how easy it is to get a Microsoft AD up and running. Though I am sure there is a way to do it in Linux if you have all the experience, sometimes when a System Admin has to get an environment up and running it is easy to get it done with Windows and AD.
drdaeman 16y ago
Maybe that was because you were trying to apply AD ideology to GNU/Linux, i.e. do things in "Active Directory-way"? I don't know about AD, but implementing a single sign-on authentication on GNU/Linux is simple. Just configure PAM and roll the configuration to all machines (with rsync or whatever you prefer). I've never tried authenticating against a LDAP database, though. However, I believe if I'll see a Windows machine and be asked to set up a simple SSO configuration, it would take ages to understand (not just step-by-step copy some tutorial from the net).
munchhausen 16y ago
> Getting anything equivalent to Active Directory up on Linux is an absolute nightmare, or at least so it was last time I tried. Making something as basic as making a Linux machine join a domain and authenticate against the DC work cost me a full weekend, and yet in the end I just had to give up. I feel that your account of making a Linux machine play nicely with AD deserves a 'YMMV' addendum. In my experience it is not common that this should be so difficult to implement with a reasonably up-to-date Linux system. It also doesn't hurt to use a distribution that has undergone testing for this usage scenario, which is definitely true for the "enterprise" distros - both RHEL and SLES should give you very little trouble when it comes to joining a domain and authenticating against AD. It is indeed mostly a "just works" type of thing in the majority of cases.

rbanffy 16y ago

> The one biggest problem is Microsoft Office I agree. Office is the problem, not the solution. The solution is to avoid using it.

Maro 16y ago
I disagree. I have tried using lots of other office software like OO, more lightweight text writing apps, and of course online apps like Google Docs. In the end I'm back to using MS Office (both on my primary Macbook and the secondary WinXP), even without the interoperability issues it still easily beats all other solutions. Also, as another commenter noted, if they can get them $10-100/yr, there's really not much to think about. The truth is, Office software is hard, and even though the MS product has a lot of suck, the others are much worse. Finally, the new 2010 version of MS Office actually really good.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  I keep hearing this - the things only Office does for you, but often with little detail on what would it be. What are the must-have features of Office?
  - mkr-hn 16y ago
    It's the UI, not features. I made this the other day: http://imgur.com/63zCP http://imgur.com/63zCP You can add and remove things on the ribbon if the defaults don't fit your usage.

larrik 16y ago

It's funny, Excel was the reason I switched to OpenOffice. 1) Closing one Excel windows closes ALL of them. Often I (or other people I was supporting) would be working on an important Excel file, and then open another one temporarily, close the 2nd one, and then unthinkingly say "no" to the "Do You Want to Save" dialog that you THINK is for the 2nd file, but is actually talking about the very important original file. Oh, and Word (which also has a separate window per document) doesn't act this way at all. Oh, "save more often" you might say? Well.... 2) Excel doesn't let you Undo past the last save. This is annoying for a lot of reasons, but is completely terrible when you opened a file with the intent of saving your changes as a copy. Oops, you "saved" instead of "saved as"? Your original document is gone, and pretty much unrecoverable. OpenOffice just works. (I don't know if the latest versions of Office addressed either of these issues... and I don't really care)

kenjackson 16y ago
Closing one Excel windows closes ALL of them. No it doesn't. At least not for the past two versions of Excel (I can't remember Excel 2003). But there is a button to close the current window or specific window. Excel doesn't let you Undo past the last save. Yes it does. At least it has for the past two versions. I don't know if the latest versions of Office addressed either of these issues... and I don't really care Honestly, did you really ever? Those were the only two reasons you switched to OpenOffice?
- larrik 16y ago
  I never worked at a place willing to put up with supporting the 2007+ versions of Office. Those were certainly the "I can't take this anymore" reasons, yes. OpenOffice also read the new XML-based file formats better than the older Offices with the converters. Since then I've also switched to Linux, which simplifies my decision.