Author |
Message |
WillE
Joined: 19 Jun 2013 Posts: 6 Location: Harrogate, England
|
Posted: Wed 19 Jun 2013, 18:48 Post subject:
At last! |
|
I love my puppy! Unlike the canine variety it generally does as it's told and costs me nothing. Sorted.
As a professional writer and musician I use my computer for the basics: word processing, web and email. The Puppy experience is fast and stable. It does what I need and runs like shit off a shovel in the RAM of my modestly-specified netbook, doubling its battery-life against the clunky, hard-drive-hogging Windows 7 installation I have. Indeed, the only reason I haven't sacked the latter is on the principle that I paid good money for it (including an upgrade to 2Gb of RAM in order to run the Home Premium version, more fool me).
Sure, Puppy isn't perfect. Firstly, and most important to me, I find AbiWord rather buggy. It does the job but occasional glitches piss me off. Not as much a M$ Word pisses me off, but I still see room for improvement.
Yes, I could install Open/Libre Office, but since I have no need for the rest of the suite beyond Writer it would kinda defeat the Puppy principle. Is there a more stable but still fully-featured stand-alone word-cruncher that anyone could recommend? (I grew up with Locoscript and still yearn for it!)
Then there's that email client that sounds like a sexually transmitted disease. It does that job and I love not having to rely on webmail. I also love the way it sets up your Googlemail account automatically, But it keeps telling me that an upgrade is available; when click on a link, I get a page in Japanese (I think: it could be Manderin for all I know) so I daren't click on anything.
Finally, epdview. I tried opening a pdf file in full screen mode today and the only way I could get out of it was by holding down the reset button on my computer, with l the consequent problems of losing my current session and damaging my file system. I'm not stupid but I really couldn't find a way out.
But hese are minor niggles. Congratulations on the best OS since RISCOS
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Burn_IT

Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 3006 Location: Tamworth UK
|
Posted: Wed 19 Jun 2013, 19:15 Post subject:
|
|
I use Softmaker Office, which can be run from a USB stick as a portable app. as well as having Windows and Linux versions. It is not free, but is cheap and has interesting licence terms (very open) About £20.
I also have a copy of Kingstone Office free which is Windows only. There is a pro version which costs around 60 dollars/Euros
Both the above will read and write? MS Office formats as well as the usual formats. Both are fairly similar to Office to use but are far smaller installs.
_________________ "Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
WillE
Joined: 19 Jun 2013 Posts: 6 Location: Harrogate, England
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 05:37 Post subject:
|
|
Thanks, Burn_IT. I'll give them a try.
BTW, searching this board I note that there's actually an SFS avaiable for Kingston Office at http://www.adrive.com/public/85NbyD/kingston-9-0.sfs
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
slenkar
Joined: 10 Jul 2009 Posts: 228
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 11:38 Post subject:
|
|
ive been using puppy only, for several months, havent had any problems, very pleased
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
666philb

Joined: 07 Feb 2010 Posts: 3169 Location: wales
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 12:25 Post subject:
|
|
hi WillE
what puppy are you using? as the problem with epdfview is a bug with JWM (joes window manager) that affected some puppies. it affected the fullscreen option on all apps. This shouldn't be a problem in later puppies.
also instead of resetting the computer, you can press 'ctrl, left alt and backspace' to drop to a prompt, then type xwin to get back to the desktop
_________________ Tahrpup, built with trusty tahr packages http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=96178
Xenialpup64, built with xenial xerus packages http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=107331
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
linuxbear
Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 623 Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 14:48 Post subject:
|
|
There are other writers using Linux as well .Some of them are using writer's apps which allow them to keep their drafts, research and final versions all in one place. These apps often have the ability to save in HTML as well as formats like doc, kindle and epub. Cory Docterow uses Ubuntu, but I think he writes his books with VI or some other text editor
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
DaveS

Joined: 09 Oct 2008 Posts: 3726 Location: UK
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 16:33 Post subject:
|
|
I think that might be KINGSOFT Office. Use it all the time on my Android devices. On Puppy it renders fonts light years better than Libre Office. Which is nice . . . . . . .
_________________ Spup Frugal HD and USB
Root forever!
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Burn_IT

Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 3006 Location: Tamworth UK
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 18:06 Post subject:
|
|
Quote: | I think that might be KINGSOFT Office | Indeed.
_________________ "Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Dewbie
Joined: 15 Apr 2010 Posts: 1779
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 19:35 Post subject:
|
|
WillE wrote:
Quote: | Then there's that email client that sounds like a sexually transmitted disease. It does that job and I love not having to rely on webmail. I also love the way it sets up your Googlemail account automatically, But it keeps telling me that an upgrade is available; when click on a link, I get a page in Japanese (I think: it could be Manderin for all I know) so I daren't click on anything. |
I prefer this older version of Sylpheed.
It works with many Pups, and has never given me that problem.
Burn_IT wrote:
Quote: | I use Softmaker Office, which can be run from a USB stick as a portable app. as well as having Windows and Linux versions. It is not free |
These versions are:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=82904&search_id=1478753533
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?search_id=1182176712&t=72301
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
raffy
Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4839 Location: Manila
|
Posted: Thu 20 Jun 2013, 22:32 Post subject:
FreeOffice |
|
Also there:
FreeOffice (English only) in sfs format for Puppy Linux
_________________ Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? Get the sfs (English only).
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
rokytnji
Joined: 20 Jan 2009 Posts: 2287
|
Posted: Fri 21 Jun 2013, 00:53 Post subject:
|
|
Shoot if just wanting a writer with some features instead of a office suite.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=78199
Unless docx is a requirement that was not mentioned.
Edit: for mail if not using seamonkey mail I use
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=73939
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Bananarama
Joined: 17 Dec 2012 Posts: 5
|
Posted: Fri 21 Jun 2013, 08:58 Post subject:
SoftMaker Office / FreeOffice |
|
According to my experience SoftMaker Office is unrivaled: slim, fast, highly compatible to all kinds of Microsoft Office formats, comfortable UI, free support. Costs you $69 for three licenses, or ~$40 as upgrade. You can try it out free for 30 days, have a look at the SoftMaker website.
They also offer a lite version for free, which has less features and can only read, but not save docx, xlsx, pptx, but if you need an office suite for basic use, FreeOffice is great, and compared to LibreOffice it has only 57MB instead of ~200MB size.
freeoffice.com
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Dewbie
Joined: 15 Apr 2010 Posts: 1779
|
Posted: Fri 21 Jun 2013, 18:35 Post subject:
|
|
Bananarama wrote:
Quote: | According to my experience SoftMaker Office is unrivaled: slim, fast, highly compatible to all kinds of Microsoft Office formats |
Indeed.
But beware of M$' scare tactics.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
WillE
Joined: 19 Jun 2013 Posts: 6 Location: Harrogate, England
|
Posted: Sat 22 Jun 2013, 07:27 Post subject:
|
|
666philb wrote: | hi WillE
what puppy are you using? as the problem with epdfview is a bug with JWM (joes window manager) that affected some puppies. it affected the fullscreen option on all apps. This shouldn't be a problem in later puppies.
also instead of resetting the computer, you can press 'ctrl, left alt and backspace' to drop to a prompt, then type xwin to get back to the desktop |
I'm using Slacko 5.4, which is fairly recent. But there are plenty of other PDF readers out there, so it's not a problem.
I've installed Freeoffice Text Maker, thanks for the pointers. I'm so delighted with it that I've also installed Planmaker and sacked both AbiWord and Gnumeric (though I'm aware that some open source diehards may regard this with scorn). FreeOffice is, indeed, lean, mean and as fully-functioned as I need.
As regards LibreOffice, I have that on a Mint 15 installation on my desktop. Having been using OpenOffice (and before that, Sun StarOffice) as a M$ Office alternative for many years, I don't think Libre measures up at all. I'd go for OpenOffice all the way, but FreeOffice does me fine for my Puppy netbook.
Thanks to all for your help and advice.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
WillE
Joined: 19 Jun 2013 Posts: 6 Location: Harrogate, England
|
Posted: Sat 22 Jun 2013, 07:35 Post subject:
|
|
PS I did consider the sfs version of FreeOffice, which is fine if you want the whole thing. But you have to install it to select the components if, say, you just want to install Text Maker with en_gb dictionary.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
|