[oclug] Good Point

[David F. Skoll]

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Jon Earle wrote:

> - No full-featured email client to rival Eudora (or Outlook, Calypso, etc.
> as other examples)

What features are missing from the various Linux clients?  Seriously,
when people say "full-featured", I read "bloated and complex."

> - No full-featured newsreader to rival Agent (or newsXpress, etc.)

What features are missing from (for example) knode?

> - Nothing to really come close to CD creating software such as Easy CD
> Creator, etc.

What's wrong with GCombust or all the other cdrecord front-ends?

> - Visio equivalent?  Likely difficult since it's owned by MS.

Here, you are right.  Dia is nowhere near as sophisticated as Visio yet.

> - Tax prep software (forms acceptable by CCRA)?

There are Web-based tax prep services which work with Linux.

> Aside from sound, which I have great trouble getting running at all under
> Linux (older Soundscape Elite card which I can't replace 'cause all my PCI
> slots are full) but which works perfectly in full duplex mode under
> Windows,

ALSA (www.alsa-project.org) probably has a fix for that.

> and that my mouse wheel doesn't work as a wheel (works as a 3rd
> button),

XFree86 4.0.3 probably has a fix for that.

> that covers the main stuff.  Other little things like instant
> messaging, search wrappers like Copernicus, archive management, etc are
> nice, but could be given up.

Konqueror has excellent search wrappers.  What do you mean by
"Archive Management"?

> I'd also have to investigate what, if anything, would play Quicktime, mpg,
> avi, etc media files, VCDs, and locate flight planning software for Linux.

Proprietary multimedia files are a problem, and always will be on Linux.
There is little incentive for Apple or Microsoft to port their offerings
to Linux.

For flight planning, there's http://www.ibiblio.org/fplan/.

When you choose Linux over Windows, you have to give up some apps.
However, the same thing happens when you choose Windows over Linux.
Frankly, given the lack (until recently) of meaningful corporate
support for Linux, I'm quite gratified by the wealth of applications
which are available.  And I'm willing to trade away the ability to
listen to .ASF files or watch DVD movies in return for gaining
freedom.

--
David.