[H-GEN] applixware

[Paul Gearon]

> From:          Bradley Marshall <bradm at humbug.org.au>
> On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Raymond Smith wrote:
> > On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Chris Ryan wrote:
> > > Potentially Wine, et al might provide the alternative to having to
> > > reboot to Windows.
> > Now this is closer to the ideal (BTW, I think Sun have a product like
> > Wine for Solaris). Even better would be to get apps for UN*X systems. 

Windows emulation sounds OK, though clumsy.  I don't know of any 
emulators which can handle MS Office however.

> The product that Solaris has is, I believe SoftWindows - which I posted a
> url of a petition to get it ported to Linux a little while back
> (http://www.mr-hankey.w1.net/advocate/ for those of you who weren't
> following)

Unless Solaris 2.6 has changed to SoftWindows then the product in 
question is Wabi.  Wabi is _great_ but it only works for 16 bit 
programs.

> > Ease of use and lack of applications are the two bugbears of UN*X. We UN*X
> > supporters should at least attempt to address the criticism.

I think that ease of use has _definately_ improved.  I wouldn't even 
consider moving Wifey onto Linux if that weren't the case.  After 
seeing KDE in action on David Jerico's computer I figure I might have 
a chance convincing her.

Applications is the other big one, and the whole thrust of my initial 
query into Applixware.  Wifey won't be interested if she can't do her 
work on it.

Much as I hate MS, I have to admit they have the apps.  (they just 
crash all the time)

It's a shame I can't run anything on my ss2, so I guess I will just 
have to keep using it as a postgres-server/xterm.

As for addressing the criticism, someone mentioned that Applixware 
can be extended to include new filters.  Does anyone have a pointer 
to the development effort on this?  We have MSDN Universal here, and 
it may be possible to use it to work out what is stored in a Word97 
file and hence contribute to the effort.

TIA
Paul

Paul Gearon
gearon at computer.org

"How should I know if it works?  That's what beta testers are for.
I only coded it."
(Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting)

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