aGNUdomain.net unplugged

02/09/2013

Eric Finkenbiner: Microsoft Hints at Office 2014 for Linux, LibreOffice Comparison

By Eric Finkenbiner for aGNUdomain.net: A few days ago Michael Larabel posted on his Twitter feed that Microsoft is currently considering a Linux release of Microsoft Office in 2014.

He learned this while attending the Free Open-Source Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) in Brussels this past weekend. This rumor is welcomed by those in the Linux community who still rely on Microsoft Office for their day to day work activity.

While LibreOffice is great, there are admittedly some situations where you need the actual Microsoft Office program for compatibility purposes. Even if you needed to run Microsoft Office on Linux it was a fairly straightforward proposition using WINE, the popular Windows compatibility application.

I will admit that it is tempting to think of a world where I could install Microsoft Office without the need for another application, such as WINE. However I'm not sure that I am very interested in the idea. I have been very lucky in that my last two employers were participants in Microsoft programs which allowed me to get Office for the heavily-discounted price of $9.95.

If that were not the case, I would not have purchased it. I have long been a fan of OpenOffice, which is now LibreOffice, and feel that it fits my needs quite nicely. The only exception to this is the apparent lack of functionality of the LibreOffice suite when compared to Microsoft Excel. Even given that fault, at the low price of free I find LibreOffice to be a great value for the everyday user.

LibreOffice just happened to announce this same week the release of their next iteration, LibreOffice 4. With this version they have even announced support for Microsoft Visio and Publisher files.

If you listen to Attack of the Androids you are probably aware of the sad state of my home internet connection. This means that I am still downloading the latest version of LibreOffice and can't give you my full opinion just yet. However I still feel justified in saying that this rumor, while yet unconfirmed, just doesn't evoke the immense feelings of joy and relief that it may have seven years ago when I started using Linux fulltime.

What do you think? Is this just the news you needed to convince yourself to move to the Linux desktop? Has Microsoft just ushered in the long-awaited, never-fulfilled dream of "The Year of the Linux Desktop?" Leave a comment below or chat me up on Google+.

I'm +Eric Finkenbiner for aGNUdomain.net.

Posted at 06:08 AM in agnudomain.net, Eric Finkenbiner, FOSDEM, Libre Office, Ubuntu, Wine | Permalink | Comments (5)

02/08/2013

Ant Pruitt: Is Chromebook and Chrome OS For Everyone? My Take

The Chromebook has been an interesting topic of discussion in the mainstream world of tech. Why? First off, the price. Next, the hardware and software.

Image credit: Ant Pruitt for aGNUdomain.net

I personally would love to get my hands on one of the Chromebooks available on the market today. As a computer hobbyist, I would enjoy diving in and trying to discover more and more about the Chrome OS. What about you? Is this a great OS for everyone else?

For aGNUdomain.net, I'm Ant Pruitt.

Follow me on Twitter at @ihavnolyfe and on Google+

Posted at 09:42 PM in Ant Pruitt, Commentary, Video | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tags: aGNUdomai, aGNUdomain.net, Ant Pruitt, Chrome OS, Chromebook, Google, laptop, Linux

Hello World -- in Ubuntu: Write It in GNU C++ (video)

aGNUdomain.net unplugged -- It's official. The edit team at aNewDomain.net is spinning out its first new media site. It's going to be called aGNUdomain.net -- our co-founder John C. Dvorak gets cred for coming up with the name.

It'll be Linux news, views, reviews, teardowns, Android rooting, open source advice, all flavors of Linux for the geeks who love open source. And we have a ton of great ones on our team, founded by Dvorak, Gina Smith, Dr. Jerry Pournelle and 70+ vets of the edit team that relaunched BYTE two years ago and turned about to create aNewDomain.net.

Led by aNewDomain.net's Ant Pruitt and Eric Finkenbiner, aGNUdomain.net will be a total, unbridled geek fest. That's guaranteed, as you can see when you scroll below the fold in this post.

The site at the agnudomain.net url will be up soon. In the meantime, this aGNUdomain unplugged site will let you watch as we start putting material and staff together for our launch. And if you're interested in geeking up with us, shoot Ant or Eric a note on Google +. We're always looking for great writers, podcasters, and vidcasters who are open about their love of open source.

In the meantime, we thought we'd say, Hello World! Here's a tech tutorial we found on YouTube via JTRtoday on how to write a simple Hello World program using the GNU C++ compiler for Ubuntu. Enjoy. This tutorial employs an older version of Ubuntu -- 10.04 -- but it's still relevant. The narrator is using its nano text editor to do it. Great work from JTRtoday.

Video credit: JTRtoday YouTube Channel

Here's a video intro of Eric Finkenbiner talking Android and aNewDomain.net from Rangoon. It'll give you a flavor of what you're in for.

And here's an Ant Pruitt video hosting a bunch of smartphone photographers on his popular Google+ hangout show, Point and Shoot with Ant Pruitt.

Video: Feb. 7, 2013

Joining Ant above are a bunch of current aNewDomain.net (and former teamBYTE) editorial staffers, contributors and tech pro commentators and photographers. The lineup includes Chris Miller, Mike Sweeney, Joey Kelley, Mat Lee, Robert Knight, Kenny Lee, M. Dean Jones and Michael King. Here's a video from Ant demonstrating the original Kindle Fire running Android version 4.1.1 Jelly Bean with help from XDA-Developers Forums.