Re: January meeting

[Richard <nospam [at] zetnet.co.uk>]

Craig

> how about this for a small topic for discussion... How useful can
> Linux be, compared with Windoze, in an Office environment?
>

I've been using Star Office for more than a year and it's completely
compatible with MS Office.

> 2) Ease of use. Many people who I work with still only know as
> much as is absolutely necessary to run their PC's. To do something
> other than use a pre-configured spreadsheet or database, or type
> up anything other than the simplest document, they're stuck. Let's
> face it, EVERYONE who uses IT knows how to use Word, at least as
> far as to type a memo.
>

Star Office isn't much different from MS Windows stuff :-)

> a new operating system's methods, my job would be absolute murder
> (not least due to only two other people in the company, to my
> knowledge, even having a working knowledge of Un*x.)
>

All you have to do is teach them how to login with a graphical
login. The rest of it is point and click as well.

> 4) Speed of deployment. Put simply, build a PC, install Win95, and
> be on the network with Office97 and full network printer support
> in 3 hours.

What were you doing for the other two hours Craig ?

However, teaching a co-worker the most basic of
> commands (ls,cd,mkdir and the like) took more time than I'd like.
> Although this is not that far removed from MS-DOS commands, the
> fear factor prevents many people seeing how elegantly simply the
> whole thing fits together.
>

Why does anyone need to understand mkdir, cd etc ?? No one needs to
know that sort of stuff other than the system admin. You can just
blank off the terminal window from the average office worker and
they'll think that they are using MS Windows.

> Just a thought, anyway, to get the old ball rolling!

Hopefully you'll come over to Blackwell's on Saturday ?

Thanks

Richard
Sheffield UK

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