4 ms·

LibreOffice isn't exactly lightweight, but it is a Free (as in beer, and as in speech) local alternative. https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreof

LibreOffice isn't exactly lightweight, but it is a Free (as in beer, and as in speech) local alternative. https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/ https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/ edit: Huh, it's even less lightweight for Windows. The Linux downloads come in around 200-220MiB, but the Windows downloads are around 320-350MiB. Weird.

spirit557 3y ago
i was going to suggest abiword but even their website is gone now? first itunes apple movie trailers and now wordpad
- niutech 3y ago
  You can still download Abiword from other websites e.g. https://filehippo.com/download_abiword/ https://filehippo.com/download_abiword/
alexvitkov 3y ago
I'm not sure if that's the case for LibreOffice, but it's common for FOSS projects to have fatter binaries for Windows, since they're often using a bunch of wrappers to get POSIX-y things to work Windows. In this case they're also shipping rpm/deb packages, it's likely that on Linux they use your system's GTK and in Windows they bundle it.
- Karellen 3y ago
  > it's likely that on Linux they use your system's GTK and in Windows they bundle it. They have their own toolkit - VCL - which has GTK and Qt backends for Linux, and a native Windows backend for Windows.
  - alexvitkov 3y ago
    thank you for correcting my misinformation!
cesarb 3y ago
> The Linux downloads come in around 200-220MiB, but the Windows downloads are around 320-350MiB. Weird. I think I can guess at least part of the reason: MSVC redistributables. On Windows, each program is supposed to distribute a copy of the installer for the standard C and C++ library runtime corresponding to the MSVC version used to compile the software; unlike on Linux, these don't come by default with the operating system, and unlike on Linux, each new MSVC version came with a new and incompatible version of these libraries (the exception is very old or very new MSVC versions, which used/use a common version for more than one MSVC version; but even then, you're still supposed to distribute the installer with your software, since it's not guaranteed to be already installed).

spirit557 3y ago

i was going to suggest abiword but even their website is gone now? first itunes apple movie trailers and now wordpad

niutech 3y ago
You can still download Abiword from other websites e.g. https://filehippo.com/download_abiword/ https://filehippo.com/download_abiword/

alexvitkov 3y ago

I'm not sure if that's the case for LibreOffice, but it's common for FOSS projects to have fatter binaries for Windows, since they're often using a bunch of wrappers to get POSIX-y things to work Windows. In this case they're also shipping rpm/deb packages, it's likely that on Linux they use your system's GTK and in Windows they bundle it.

Karellen 3y ago
> it's likely that on Linux they use your system's GTK and in Windows they bundle it. They have their own toolkit - VCL - which has GTK and Qt backends for Linux, and a native Windows backend for Windows.
- alexvitkov 3y ago
  thank you for correcting my misinformation!

cesarb 3y ago

> The Linux downloads come in around 200-220MiB, but the Windows downloads are around 320-350MiB. Weird. I think I can guess at least part of the reason: MSVC redistributables. On Windows, each program is supposed to distribute a copy of the installer for the standard C and C++ library runtime corresponding to the MSVC version used to compile the software; unlike on Linux, these don't come by default with the operating system, and unlike on Linux, each new MSVC version came with a new and incompatible version of these libraries (the exception is very old or very new MSVC versions, which used/use a common version for more than one MSVC version; but even then, you're still supposed to distribute the installer with your software, since it's not guaranteed to be already installed).