wine + free softmaker office suite fast/uses low resources

Word processors, spreadsheets, presentations, translation, etc.
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jakfish
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#21 Post by jakfish »

Thanks for the tip about the large icons. Can I assume that menu font, etc. remain fixed?

Jake

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chrome307
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#22 Post by chrome307 »

I think so, not sure how to change the size of the menu fonts.

jakfish
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#23 Post by jakfish »

Running SM 2008 through wine (as done in the beginning of the thread) is far more flexible, visual-wise, because wine is so flexible. Just don't print :)

Jake

mcewanw
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TextMaker viewer 2009 reads docx

#24 Post by mcewanw »

@jakfish

I also noted with interest the following linked from the Linux softmaker office 2006 link you provided:

http://www.officeviewers.com/

It's a link to TextMaker viewer 2009. The interesting thing about that is that it views docx format files too (presumably SoftMaker Office 2009 will do that too when it comes out...).

I rather like using the versions of these products over wine (rather than native Linux), particularly if they run as portable apps, because that way I can carry them to windows machines in, for example, my local library too (as well as having Puppy Linux on the same usb stick for those occasions I can boot into it).

I'm surprised that Textmaker 2008 isn't printing properly for you (just don't have a printer to check that myself) since you say the other softmaker 2008 apps print okay. Just wondered if your downloads were okay.

Here are the md5sums for the install files I downloaded, in case you want to check that:

# md5sum ashampoo_office2008_310_fm.exe
d1dad0069dcb96b56848364c51d43f0f

# md5sum ofw505.exe
d6d7964ce5969dbac0e8bcd41015b793
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jakfish
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#25 Post by jakfish »

Hi, mcewanw--

Aren't you having the same problem printing, albeit CUPS-PDF? If I'm not mistaken, aren't you freezing as well?

Since I can print via current 2008 install in XP, and intermittently (though rarely) in puppy/wine/TM, it'd be strange if it were a bad download, though stranger things have happened :)

Jake

jakfish
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#26 Post by jakfish »

Thanks for posting those md5sum's--I checked mine and mine are the same as yours.

Jake

mcewanw
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don't have a printer to try that

#27 Post by mcewanw »

jakfish wrote:Hi, mcewanw--

Aren't you having the same problem printing, albeit CUPS-PDF? If I'm not mistaken, aren't you freezing as well?
No, as I've mentioned above somewhere, I don't currently have any printer so I couldn't test that part of the functionality.

What I did have trouble with was exporting to pdf, but that was what I solved by telling wine (via winecfg) to use the native windows version of t2embed.dll instead of any wine built-in one.

As far as printing goes, I have tried "printing" out to a file (there is a checkbox in the print dialog for that) and that seemed to work fine for me. Perhaps you could try that on your system. Perhaps that file version of the print could subsequently be sent on to the printer itself as a workaround to the print problem? (perhaps piped through some other program?)

By the way, I finally managed to download the Linux version of Softmaker Office 2006 and registered it (via my slow dialup modem!). Good to have, though I do agree that the fonts are terrible in that version; I much prefer the windows versions running over wine.
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jakfish
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#28 Post by jakfish »

I had forgotten to include results of print-to-file, which works for me as well in SM 2008/wine. Rather than the hassle of a print-to-file, another way would be to work on SM 2008/wine, but print out on SM 2006/linux. Or print out on MS Word 97.

Yes, it's a bummer that SM/linux menu bars, etc. are so hard-wired. Funny, since that goes against the inherent flexibility of linux.

Jake

mcewanw
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#29 Post by mcewanw »

Something very odd going on for me when it comes to the print function of Textmaker 2008. Print to file did work, but it isn't now! Yet export to pdf works everytime. I'm pretty sure if print to file is consistently working so should CUPS printing (though I could be wrong about that). I need to find out when and when not print to file works - for a moment I thought it was something to do with ownership or permissions, but I can't fathom what is going on at all right now. I fired up Abiword and tried out all the combinations: since I don't have an actual printer it successfully prints to different file types (PS and PDF). So why not Textmaker 2008 I ponder...
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playdayz
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#30 Post by playdayz »

Thanks for some fun for a rainy day. I was able to get a free full copy of Ashampoo Office 2008 for Windows with this link from early in the thread and also upgraded to SP505.
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/07/1 ... ey-number/

I was also able to get a free full copy of Softmaker Office 2006 for Linux through this link from earlier in the thread. One should note that the url where the software ultimately resides is named "pirateladds" but on the other hand, one *is* registering the software.
It's a legit, free copy of softmaker 2006 for linux in deb (I've registered it through the app's registration link, and softmaker automatically sent me a key; the same deal as ashampoo, et al). I used deb-to-pet, then pet-to-sfs. THAT version prints fine, though it's 2006 vs. ashampoo's 2008, and 2008 has Presentations, which 2006 lacks.

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=73036

I have dealt with Ashampo before and the marketing is very creative. I find it amusing. They give away a freebie and/or a free 30 day trial, and then they email you about registering or upgrading with the price going down with each email. I think I bought their Burning Studio for 7.99. I remember I could have bought Office for 4.99 but I didn't need it. I remember wondering where they got their software.

Office 2008 seems to run fine in wine, after copying the program folder from Windows. It is running as win98 for what that might be worth, though it also ran as XP. It is not especially light though, because of wine, TextMaker is 22 processes and about 20MB. OpenOffice Writer, for comparison, is 6 processes and 17MB. Additionally 2008 in wine does not open any faster than OpenOffice--2 years ago that would have been hard to believe, but OpenOffice has gotten a lot faster (I am using Ubuntu go-openoffice in Puppy 4.3.2). I have not tried to do any printing which I can see is a problematical.

Textmaker 2006 for Linux also is running nicely. It is very light, only 2 processes and about 6MB. For comparison, AbiWord is 1 process and about 5MB. I am sorry to say that AbiWord has never worked for me. Every time I try to use it, it does something so stupid that I give up; for instance, last time i tried, I saved an html document from AbiWord and then AbiWord would not open the very document it had saved, saying it was corrupt! I am hoping that maybe Softmaker does the same kind of marketing as Ashampoo and they will send me emails lowering the price for Office 2008 to something reasonable, given that AbiWord and OpenOffice are both free. Even if all I can get is 2006 for Linux, that is a competitor to AbiWord, imho; I would just have to see how it held up under use

jakfish
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#31 Post by jakfish »

I'm intrigued by your numbers on the processes, etc. Though SM 2006 isn't as easy on the eyes, your research shows it may be easy on the CPU.

I'm typing this on SeaMonkey 2.0, a very fast browser, but with equally unattractive fonts and menu bar. Whatever it is, it's catching :)

Jake

mcewanw
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TextMaker 2008 plus wine - how many processes does it use?!

#32 Post by mcewanw »

Running TexMaker Office 2008 using wine-lite-1.1.30 on Dell CPx laptop with Pentium III, 450 MHz CPU and 256 MB RAM on Puppy 4.3

Prior to running Textmaker 2008:

From output of top (since like better free it shows buffers and cache being used) ->
Mem: 125784K used, 128716K free, 0K shrd, 17828K buff, 76232K cached

free memory + buffers + cache = 128716K + 17828K + 76232K = 222776K

tail of ps command showing current highest process numbers:

6271 root 0:00 top
8567 root 0:00 sleep 2
8568 root 0:00 busybox ps

After starting up Textmaker 2008:

From output of top ->
Mem: 178000K used, 76500K free, 0K shrd, 18712K buff, 113452K cached

free memory + buffers + cache = 76500K + 18712K + 113452K = 208664K

So TextMaker running uses: 222776 - 208664 = 14112K RAM

tail of ps command output showing the new processes after top (6271):

6271 root 0:01 top
8750 root 0:05 TextMaker.exe
8754 root 0:01 /usr/bin/wineserver
8760 root 0:00 C:\windows\system32\servi
8762 root 0:00 C:\windows\system32\wined
8797 root 0:00 C:\windows\system32\explo
8800 root 0:00 rpcss
10039 root 0:00 sleep 2
10040 root 0:00 busybox ps

Ignoring the sleep 2 and busybox ps at the bottom of each ps output (since occurs both before and after running TextMaker), it can be seen that TextMaker 2008 with wine is only using an extra 6 processes.

Immediately after a reboot, Textmaker loads in twelve seconds on this old Pentium III 450 MHz, 256M RAM machine, and in eight seconds when then closed and restarted. IMO there is no way Open Office would come anything near to that! (even the go-OO version) But I'll try OO again sometime to be sure.

TextMaker subsequently runs fast and smooth on this old clunker of a machine (OpenOffice was always very slow and stuttery when I've tried it in the past, and Abiword on here still is - though less I think than OO used to be).
Textmaker 2008 quite accurately (it seems to me) also displays the complex MS word formatted documents I've looked at (Abiword certainly struggles there and OO is far from perfect I think).

I thus doubt OO will be anything like as "good" as Textmaker 2008 on an old machine like this, but I hope I'm wrong.
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mcewanw
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Re: TextMaker 2008 plus wine - how many processes does it u

#33 Post by mcewanw »

mcewanw wrote: So TextMaker running uses: 222776 - 208664 = 14112K RAM
Of course, the above is arguable! I'm working on the assumption that the OS itself will take and allocate buffers and reserve as it sees fit - I'm not sure how much in the way of buffers and cache the app itself actually "needs" (for simplicity, I'm presuming it is a dynamic factor such that the app itself will actually keep running with very little in the way of buffers or cache). But if you have a better tool for measuring all this sort of thing, I'd be happy to know, particularly happy to know how it does its calculation (I guess they all rely on /proc/meminfo figures).

But at the end of the day, the important thing for me is that Textmaker 2008 runs quite well on this pretty slow and low resourced machine. Will Open Office? I don't know (but rather expect it to be much less satisfactory). Definitely would like to try the go-OO version since it is supposed to be at least a little faster and lower on resource demand than standard OO.
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A few of links on free, htop, RAM and swap

#34 Post by mcewanw »

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... =209643808

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 712#215415

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 982#154307

http://sourcefrog.net/weblog/software/l ... e-mem.html

freeupram script attached (just a one line shell script as described in the first link above). Use at your own risk (I've never had any problems with it though...:-)
Untar it into /bin

Usage:

In a console (i.e. command line), run free and observe the results.
Run freeupram
Then run free again and see the difference
Attachments
freeupram.tar.gz
regains RAM used by cache and buffers
(165 Bytes) Downloaded 810 times
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playdayz
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#35 Post by playdayz »

Ignoring the sleep 2 and busybox ps at the bottom of each ps output (since occurs both before and after running TextMaker), it can be seen that TextMaker 2008 with wine is only using an extra 6 processes.
This is interesting . It looks like we are getting different results depending on our method of measurement. I am using htop which I should have said. Lots of people have prepared htop for puppy it looks like, I think this one might be the pet I am using -> http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 80&t=43022

I start htop and see how many processes are running and how much memory is used and then I start the program and see what the changes are. (I am using Puppy 4.3.2 the uPup build, so the Processes and RAM usage are higher than usual to begin). I wait a bit for things to settle after starting a program.

Code: Select all

            Processes      RAM
Idle                  26         70

2008 Wine        44         89

2006 Linux        28        78

AbiWord  Linux  27        76

Go-oo Linux      32         90

2008 Linux        27        79
It is too much to hope that these columns will come out right. The real winner, imho, is Softmaker Office 2008 for linux, it starts up like lightening and has a small footprint, but US 79.95/Euro 69.95??? No way. I wish Ashampoo also sold Office 2008 for Linux because Ashampoo is having a sale until OCT 31--anything for $10.00, just in case someone wanted to buy the Windows version.

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vtpup
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#36 Post by vtpup »

Has anyone created a test .doc in their version with tables of different column and row sizes, margin changes, font changes, and changes in justification and opened it up side by side with say MSWord 2000 to see if the formatting is screwed up?

It happens with Abiword and Open Office 3.

I find I can't trust docs prepared for professional, publication, or resume use on any of the secondary word processors.

Nothing like sending in a resume via email with blank pages, table formatting and fonts mixed up -- but which looks "fine" in the program that created it. You just never hear back, and are none the wiser. The place you applied to just thinks you can't read, or don't care what nonsense you mail in.

Opening up .docs is easy for these programs, and they read their own versions properly. It's just the people in business you send them to who end up scratching their heads.

To be honest, I don't understand the purpose of a .doc which isn't compatible. Why have it as a feature of the word processor at all? Just use a native format and leave it at that.

An approximate .doc is worse than no .doc, since the only real purpose of writing a .doc is to interchange with proper formatting with MSWord users. If formatting is screwed up, it would have been better to have sent a .txt.

Anyway, if this program can actually compose an accurate .doc it's worth the charge -- nothing else can.

Michalis
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#37 Post by Michalis »

mcewanw thank you very much for the info about this program.

Indeed is very fast and light weight. Whoever doesn't believe it I made my one test in my old dinosaur a pentium II celeron at 366MHz 256Mb ram. Does anyone believe that can't find out a light weighted program in this pc? :twisted:


First of all I used the 2006 and 2008 linux versions, not wine.
Actually didn't really had to do anything in order to test it, it was obviously working fast without any problem (almost check later).

Textmaker rendered anything and was scrolling faster than both abiword and open office (the latest compiled by Barry).

To check planmaker, gnumeric and open office calc I opened a big .xls file. Gnumeric was hardly usable, calc was rendering and scrolling ok but very slowly, planmaker was fast and perfect, only had to change the font to dejavu as also the others.

If you still don't believe that is the best I've ever seen up till now think that I used textmaker and the same time I had opera 10.01 running in puppy forum, I was listening an online radio from aqualung and had also transmission running 8) I'm not planning to give any number is more than obvious to me that is the fastest yet low resource demanding office suite in linux.


Moreover I didn't even had to install them, I just extracted them to a folder outside from the puppy save (I keep it small) and just located the executables and worked out of the box.


Everything perfect? Unfortunately no. I couldn't use accents in greek and also there isn't any greek dictionary, so for me is useless except for english since almost all greek words need accents.

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playdayz
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#38 Post by playdayz »

Yes, I agree completely there are many considerations other than speed and footprint. I also have gotten mad at OpenOffice for not showing me exactly what the person who made the file saw. For some people it may also be a factor that Softmaker/Ashampoo Office is proprietary rather than free and open source. It looks like we have some people looking at speed and footprint, others looking at compatibility, others at function. Maybe we will get some consensus, or at least some solid observations.
Anyway, if this program can actually compose an accurate .doc it's worth the charge -- nothing else can.
I am afraid I have found the same--and I keep versions of both Word 2003 and 2007 ready to run in Crossover. i am thinking that 100% compatibility is not possible--given that the "secondary" word processors are constantly having to play catch up with a moving target. But it's fun looking, huh?

If anyone is interested I made an sfs of go-openoffice. The hype is that it is faster starting up (it is fast in my experience), lighter weight, more compatible with microsoft office documents, and with a less cluttered interface. There is also controversy: that it is a way for microsoft through Novell to gain leverage in the open source software community (specifically, by using the language "mono" to write scripts or addons). On the third hand, Sun has not been notoriously successful in bringing openoffice along on its own or incorporating code from the community; specifically, all code in Sun OpenOffice must be copyright by Sun. Novell, however, has a more open policy. How many hands are we on now? About the last thing I know is that the go version is the one that Ubuntu includes.

Go-OpenOfice 3.1.1 -> http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/go-00432.sfs 170MB
md5sum - 63c6a76d95a806c4c8ca9fc802585b35

This is No frills. I made it for myself so there are no menu entries or other conveniences. The desktop files for each program are in /opt/openoffice.org3/share/xdg, and you can drag them to the desktop for convenience. To use it, download it and place it in /mnt/home, then go to Menu -> System -> Bootmanager configure bootup -> Choose which extra SSF... and Add it to the Right Side. Then, next boot, it should be there in /opt so you can click the desktop files to run the programs. I made it from the version distributed at http://www.go-oo.org/. I used the script available there to download the rpm files and then used a loop with unrpm to unpack them all, then used mksquashfs to make the sfs. I'll be testing but I would appreciate it if anyone who tried it could let me know if there was a problem. Thank you.

I have moved this to a new topic in Additional Software. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 673#356673

Michalis
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#39 Post by Michalis »

playdayz You definitely have a point about being proprietary but unfortunately sometimes some open source programs are so bad written and bloated that is hard to not choose a proprietary one.

I always look for programs that are snappy, use low resources and do what they're supposed to do. That's the main reason I keep this old machine, to be able to easy identify them (it's my fetish :lol: ). And I'm telling you for sure that many times programs much bigger in size 20, 30 times are snappier and much better than the opposite.

The reason why I did my post is that truly I haven't found any writer program or spreadsheet program so fast and usable up till now. I'm totally amazed. Unfortunately as I wrote in my previous post I can't say that I found my holy gray since I can't use it for greek.


I'm downloading now your go-openoffice sfs and I'll test it tomorrow and respond in the go-openoffice thread. As long as it is not based in the very bloated java it will be faster than open-office for sure.

If anybody knows also any other alternative office suite please write it here in order to check it.

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playdayz
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#40 Post by playdayz »

You definitely have a point about being proprietary but unfortunately sometimes some open source programs are so bad written and bloated that is hard to not choose a proprietary one.
That is not necessarily my point--but I know it is important to many people. Personally, I am happy to reimburse a programmer or set of programmers who make good, useful software, the same as I would buy a finely crafted tool that felt good in my hands and worked well. Usually I have found such programs as shareware--which is fine with me. As I said I have bought from Ashampoo before and I had a chance to buy Office for 4.99 but I can't find the email!!! I also like to use software to explore theoretical ideas about computing, so i am enjoying this thread quite a bit. I am interested to know how go-oo does for you.

At the Softmaker web site I see they have an academic pricing of teachers and students: € 20 | US$ 25

$25 for Office 2008 for Linux is starting to seem closer to reasonable ;-) They say: "Nearly 40% of all public schools in Germany have already ordered SoftMaker Office."
Last edited by playdayz on Sat 31 Oct 2009, 01:10, edited 2 times in total.

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