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1 • Linux Lite 5.0 (by Az4x4 on 2020-07-20 01:14:05 GMT from United States)
I've used Linux Lite in the past. Reading Jesse's review reminded me of all the good things that Linux Lite brings to the table. I'd still use it if it was possible to install a desktop environment other than Xfce. Nothing wrong with Xfce, don't get me wrong. Just that it's a long way down the list for my choice of DEs.
Originally I installed Mate using Synaptic. The installation went fine, Synaptic reported no problems. But when I rebooted and looked to select Mate at the login screen it was nowhere to be found. Turned out the developer makes it impossible to replace Xfce with any other DE. That narrow minded approach turned me away from Linux Lite and I've yet to go back. Too many other distros to choose from that don't impose artificial limits on what users are able to do with their desktops like Linux Lite does to mess with it any longer.
2 • Linux can be a circle (by Roy on 2020-07-20 01:21:02 GMT from United States)
When Ubuntu gave back to Debian it was Utnubu. When Android came from Linux kernel and now there is an OS trying to run Android on Linux. I just bought a Chromebook with the option to run Beta Linux. I remember when Chrome browser could be run on Linux.
3 • LibreOffice voted unsure (by zippitey on 2020-07-20 01:22:35 GMT from New Zealand)
On the one hand charging money would bring income, one the other hand it may push users who want everything always free (the majority, I'm guessing) towards 'lesser' office suites. Then you have the option the free vanilla and a paid premium version. But over time more and more standard features creep over the line to the paid-only one. It opens Pandora's Box. Maybe they can make more noise for donations and keep it free? Or follow the Ubuntu model with paid support for corporates.
4 • Pay for LibreOffice? (by DaveW on 2020-07-20 01:39:11 GMT from United States)
I have been making annual donations to The Document Foundation, so the answer would partly depend on how much they were charging. Would the fee be for maintenance only? Would it be for a premium version? What features would be restricted to the premium version?
Impossible to give a definite answer without knowing the exact terms.
5 • Linux Lite, @1 (by Iamgroot on 2020-07-20 02:54:17 GMT from United States)
Installing Mate on Lite is a simple procedure, just like any Ubuntu-based distro. Takes a few minutes and works fine:
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-mate-desktop-on-ubuntu-20-04-focal-fossa-linux
That said, the Lite devs have taken pains to make XFCE usable and elegant so why install it to change desktops. Why not Ubuntu Mate, or Linux Mint, or any other that has Mate as default. Lite is just Ubuntu all dressed up, so what's the advantage?
6 • Paying for LibreOffice - yes! (by Eric Yeoh on 2020-07-20 02:57:17 GMT from Malaysia)
LO has been good to me all these years. The software and code might be free as in tea/beer/coffee/water - but the time and skills of the developers are not - so far, these costs have been borne by their respective companies - isn't it time for us as a community to grow up and understand that time and efforts should be rewarded - preferably through monetary means? Who's going to be doing things free all the time? There are bills to be paid and bellies to be filled!
7 • Do YOU contribute to LibreOffice? Why? (by R. Cain on 2020-07-20 03:07:35 GMT from United States)
"Companies toiling away the most on LibreOffice code complain ecosystem is 'beyond utterly broken' “
The Register, Thu 16 Jul 2020 // 09:26 UTC
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/16/libreoffice_ecosystem_beyond_utterly_broken/
”...Michael Meeks, managing director at Cambridge-based Collabora...has set out the situation in...detail..."Words fail me to express how beyond-utterly-broken the existing TDF / desktop model is for the ecosystem around selling desktop LibreOffice," he wrote...
”...Meeks believes "LibreOffice is at serious risk," though the matter is complex. TDF has around €1.5m in the bank, Meeks said, but something that may surprise outsiders is that THE FOUNDATION CANNOT AND DOES NOT USE THAT MONEY TO EMPLOY DEVELOPERS...
”...Vignoli [TDF’s Italo Vignoli] confirmed that "TDF has a large cash reserve" but is constrained in how it uses it...”
********************************************
Make certain you read *all* of the 113 comments, not a few of which can be charitably characterized as pure outrage at feeling they have been duped into contributing to ‘The Document Foundation’, to find that these contributions go only to pay the salaries of the “managers” of TDF and maintenance of its slick web-site; and NOT, in any way, shape, or form TO OR FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIBREOFFICE.
8 • Pay?.. for LibreOffice?! (by dave the slave on 2020-07-20 03:37:02 GMT from United States)
Sorry but LibreOffice is bloat; one of the first preinstalled things I uninstall. I think maybe 2-3 times in the last 10 years have I run in to a situation where I 'needed' Writer to open a MS .doc file and even then, it wasn't really something I 'needed' to do.
I can understand why people get pressured in to using this sort of thing, but if you're going to live/work/play in a world dominated by MS Word and/or Excel, you should just roll over and install Windows and use that instead of some janky 'free' alternative.
Where I have on occasion, worked with some people who were natively using Gimp's .xcf and not Photoshop's .psd, I've never, ever, ever encountered someone who wanted to share native LibreOffice files, so in my experience, the *only* reason to have Writer installed is to work with the occasional MS Word .doc file and in those cases there are almost always formatting glitches.
Years ago, I tried to convert a friend to Linux and LibreOffice made a fool out of him when it came to collaborating with coworkers who were using .doc files. I would never recommend LibreOffice again after that and I certainly wouldn't recommend paying for it unless there was a gigantic sea change, in which one could expect a considerable percentage of people 'in the wild' to also be using LibreOffice. Until then, no way.. unless it's SUPER cheap.
Since they're currently getting $0 from 99% of users, it shouldn't be expensive, but as someone else already said: I would want more details on their business model before I gave a definite answer. If you've got an entire office setting mandated to using it, maybe that would be the lone acceptable 'paid' scenario.
If 'premium' LibreOffice is expecting to go toe-to-toe with MS Office, they will need a boatload of cash to stay afloat. If they are just trying to keep their heads above water, they should be modest with their 'premium' price and shoot for pity purchases. In that case, even people who rarely touch it might feel like buying it, just to help out. Again, to echo a previous comment; if they are hurting for cash, maybe they should just get pushier about donations, instead of jumping ship and burning the 'free' users. (because that's what will happen once there is a 'free' and 'premium' distinction)
Last year, I stumbled across my dad's old copy of Office 97. I installed Word and ran it with Wine, just to see how it would run and it generally performed 10x better than LibreOffice. Started instantly, felt more responsive, etc. Maybe what we really need is to bring back WordPerfect.
In my opinion, the world would be better off if people used unpretentious plain text, or learned to compile their work from plain text in to .pdf, than to continue monkeying with these ever-growing WYSIWYG menaces. LibreOffice keeps getting bigger and slower. Trying to chase or outmaneuver MS Office simply isn't a viable business in the real world.
9 • No play? No pay! (by the ber on 2020-07-20 04:11:27 GMT from Germany)
I happily use LibreOffice at home. It has a lot going for it, but the deal-killer is the non-compatibility with MS Office. True, you can open and edit WORD documents in WRITER, but forget about using Styles in your documents. Especially forget about sending an edited .docx document back to the office that sent you the original document created with WORD.
On the other hand, I would certainly donate some money if they would fix up the BASE component. But that part seems to be dead.
10 • LibreOffice (by Cor on 2020-07-20 04:44:37 GMT from United States)
I use the suite exclusively. I have introduced others to the benefits of LibreOffice and they all have switched. Why would anyone use an expensive and proprietary office suite, which isn't available for Linux? That doesn't make any sense.
11 • Pay? for Libreoffice? (by unixoid on 2020-07-20 05:54:17 GMT from Tajikistan)
Re: 8
I agree with you. Even though I am a hard core linux user, .doc compatibility
is essential if you are even doing something as simple as mailing a resume. Yes, using pdf format can help but still..
The thing is there is also Freeoffice, that other suite from China and
more recently I have discovered Onlyoffice.
Though not as featureful as Moffice, it seems to offer 100 percent compatibility with .docx files and can be installed as an Appimage. Download, chmod to make it executable and double click. It is the best alternative for those who dont want a clone but clearly an impostor.
To me this kind of thing removes one important barrier to Desktop Linux use in the real world. Unfortunately, it seems that only one obscure Spanish linux distro has adopted it.,
12 • Libreoffice Pay (by Hank on 2020-07-20 06:58:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
I would contribute more/pay for a Libreoffice which does not have the compatibility issues that have gotten me in trouble on several occasions. At present even the distinction Personal edition on LO 7 is going to make it far harder to introduce in schools and university environments. Sounds like a function reduced release for the poor. Compatibility does the rest, and yes I do appreciate MS puts as many stones in the way as possible but also that some other free to use office suits fare better than LO in respect to document exchange.
13 • LibreOffice (by Romane on 2020-07-20 08:20:19 GMT from Australia)
I answered 'unsure' to the survey. It depends if it fixes its underlying problems.
I have run LibreOffice for quite a number of years. My main requirement is to open a large (currently 166 pages, 1Mb and still growing) .docx file to make updates from the author into the HTML version. So far, it has proven suitable to my need, regardless it changing some formatting from Word to LibreOffice. Until...
My distro updated to LibreOffice 7 a week or so ago (Debian Testing). This update has completely broken the search capacity. In trying to locate items in an alphabetically sorted 166 page listing, the search functionality is essential. So far, have been able to work with it, but still frustrating. I suppose if I am going to run the development version, I should expect the odd bug or three :)
@11, thank you for the reference to OnlyOffice. The package is available via flatpak, and I will give it a try. If it suits my needs, great, it will replace LibreOffice. If not...
There is another suite which claims 100% compatibility with MS Word - do not remember the name. I did try it briefly, but it wanted to take up my entire screen. Could not be adjusted, so it was removed in less than 5 minutes. MS Word compatibility - dunno, it didn't survive on my machine long enough to find out.
Also tried OpenOffice - sorry, OpenOffice developers, good as it may be, LibreOffice still trumped.
14 • Pay for LibreOffice? (by OstroL on 2020-07-20 09:13:04 GMT from Poland)
I voted no. There was a time, I needed a word processor and a spreadsheet, and tried to use LibreOffice for that, trying hard to believe in the open-source idea. But, I had to clear lot of format problems, before sending the files to others, who used MS Office. And, when I get a file from them, I had to go through the same trouble. Today, of course, I don't need those apps every single day, (and sorry to say,) whatever I need can be done with MS Office online.
What the open source people should've done is to create something new, rather than running after MS Office, trying to catch up. It is different with WPS, or some other proprietary office suites, for they are trying to earn money offering a cheaper suite for Windows.
Running after, trying to catch up, but never over taking won't bring the desired results.
15 • Paying for LibreOffice (by Trevor on 2020-07-20 09:24:54 GMT from Canada)
I wouldn't mind paying for LibreOffice on a monthly basis, provided the developers make it worth my while to pay (ie:extra features, 100 % compatibility with Microsoft Word, all features enabled, etc). Maybe another option would be doing a scenario such as Fedora/Red Hat has right now. Corporate pays for their support (Red Hat), while the rest of us beta test new features to help the commercial version (Fedora).
16 • LibreOffice (by Roger on 2020-07-20 12:00:59 GMT from Belgium)
For years now I am supporting LibreOffice with donations, but I am not going to buy.
I prefer my method of support because it is on a voluntary basis what is to whole idea behind open standards and free software.
People know that I regularly post here and know that is the way I support and promote GNU/Linux and FSF.
When LibreOffice want a commercial basis as well I wish them good luck and all the best, maybe it's the way to go like Red Hat is doing.
The danger is that they are maybe swallowed up by ....? Like Red Hat was.
Is Canonical on the right track with there profile, only the future will point that out.
17 • Libre Office (by Tim on 2020-07-20 12:25:49 GMT from United States)
I voted No, because I am just a casual home user. However, I am all for the idea for people and businesses that need it.
18 • Two things that = no. (by Friar Tux on 2020-07-20 14:04:38 GMT from Canada)
Linux Lite... as others have said, if they would drop XFCE, I may consider it. But then, why? There are always other Ubuntu derivatives that have the DE of your choice.
With LibreOffice, I voted I would pay in a company/business scenario, but to qualify that, only if compatibility with Microsoft's office suite improved. HOWEVER, I do have to say, I rarely use LO even though it came default with my distro. Between Google, Dropbox, and/or Microsoft's online office suites I haven't needed LO on my system in a few years - and I do a lot of writing. Basically, I do most of my writing on my laptop (using Cherrytree) and then copy it over to whatever office suite I happen to feel like using online. It seems quicker that way, and less of a hassle. As for trying to send someone a document in THEIR MSOffice format, think again. I'm a cantankerous, 68 year old geezer, and I won't do your work for you. I'll send you that document in whatever format the particular office suite I'm using will save it in. OK, 'nuff said.
19 • Nobody seems to care about SoftMaker Office (by Ludditus on 2020-07-20 14:05:16 GMT from Germany)
After years of enthusiasm regarding Linux, I took it much lighter for 4-5 years; among others, I never bothered to comment on DWW (I've been banned in the past).
Now I can see people are still, sorry to say, relatively unsavvy and idealistically naive.
I never cared about the split OpenOffice / LibreOffice. To date, they're both pathetic failures, and bloated like hell. One must believe in the magic of open source and of ideologically pure licenses to use such craps.
SoftMaker Office is around since circa 2006; I guess in 2008 they made the version 2006 free, and then they keep offering a free older edition (so far their only versions are 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2021, and the free one is FreeOffice 2016).
There is NO OTHER office suite that is so snappy and with such a clean output and good MS Office compatibility than SoftMaker's.
I just tried both FreeOffice 2018 and the trial edition of SoftMaker Office 2021 (each as a simple .deb or .rpm, no AppImages, FlatPaks or Snaps) on Neptune 6.5 (which means Debian Stable), and everything is perfect.
Meanwhile, millions of ██████ are using LibreOffice, fighting with its idiosyncrasies and bloat. They even want to pay for it.
Wanna pay? There is SoftMaker Office for that.
Don't wanna pay? There's FreeOffice for that. Oh, not FLOSS? Only an █████ would prefer an ideologically pure product to one THAT WORKS, and works well.
20 • @19 Softmaker Office (by OstroL on 2020-07-20 14:59:52 GMT from Poland)
SoftMaker FreeOffice TextMaker cannot open MS Word files in the correct format and the fonts. And, tells the story of all "free" office suites. :)
21 • LibreOffice & Softmaker Office (by fox on 2020-07-20 15:30:52 GMT from Canada)
@19 - I would happily pay for LibreOffice, Softmaker Office, WPS Office or any office suite that runs native on Linux and provides 100% compatibility with Microsoft Office. None of them do, and which is closest seems to depend on the document you are reading with it. Unfortunately, I need that level of compatibility because I collaborate with others, mainly on word processing documents. I use LibreOffice for my own unshared documents; it certainly works well enough for that. But when it comes to collaboration, I use Microsoft Office 2010 running on Crossover Linux. This old edition of MS Office is inexpensive to buy, you get a legitimate license, and it runs perfectly on CrossOver, which I'm happy to pay for. Unfortunately, newer versions of MS Office do not run so well, but 2010 has all I need to collaborate on documents produced in newer versions of Word. I would still prefer to run one of office suites made for Linux and would gladly pay for it if it was compatible, and I constantly test new versions of these when they come out.
22 • Open Office (by David on 2020-07-20 15:31:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have a portrait-mode monitor which I bought specifically for word-processing. The latest LibreOffice seems to be designed to run on wide-screen monitors specifically bought for gaming. The result? I went back to OpenOffice. I might pay Apache for that, but not TDF for LibreOffice.
23 • @20 Softmaker compatibility (by Johns Twain on 2020-07-20 15:32:35 GMT from United States)
This straight from Softmaker web site:
"Skip the annoying import and export: SoftMaker Office uses the Microsoft formats DOCX, XLSX and PPTX as its default file formats."
24 • Office options (by John on 2020-07-20 15:37:13 GMT from Canada)
Hi - both WPS Office and OnlyOffice Desktop Editors work perfectly with MS Office file formats. Used both for years and will never go back to the problems of LibreOffice.
25 • @20 Softmaker Office (by Ludditus on 2020-07-20 15:40:05 GMT from Germany)
Sorry but, TextMaker can open most .doc et docx files with the correct formatting. When was the last time you tried it?
LibreOffice can make a mess out of a beeped-up WinWord document.
More often than not, the people who create the documents are the culprits. The INTELLIGENT way of creating a document is to define styles and apply them. Instead of setting in 3,000 places in the document "here I want this typeface," "here I want this size," "here I want bold italic," applying styles such as Heading1, Heading2, TextStandard, TextSmaller, TextBoldItalic allows you to change the styles across an entire document by making a single change. In real life, people select a string every single time and change its formatting. When they want to change it to something else, very often the respective text will carry an entire string of formatting (bold, not bold, italic, 16pt, 24 pt, actual_text, end-24pt, end-16pt, end-italic, end-not-bold, end-bold), instead of a unique style name. Then think of indentation and other paragraph spacing--this is what people ALWAYS make a mess with! With such messy documents created in WinWord or LibreOffice Writer, nobody can deal properly.
26 • Paying for Office (by curious on 2020-07-20 16:43:46 GMT from Germany)
Purely from the end user perspective: If I have to pay for the "full" Office experience, then I might as well get MS Office which ist the "industry standard".
27 • @ 25 (by OstroL on 2020-07-20 16:53:20 GMT from Poland)
"Sorry but, TextMaker can open most .doc et docx files with the correct formatting. When was the last time you tried it?"
Few minutes ago. :)
@23
Oh, sure, everyone advertises. :)
28 • This or that office/word, etc (by Otis on 2020-07-20 17:23:46 GMT from United States)
We tested a lot of them, two side by side and it became apparent to us that Libre and Microsoft are quite similar, with the obvious notable exception of price.
Support to us meant whether or not we'd need to contact techies about this or that hole in our understanding of the use of the software, and so was not needed, thus we felt it not necessary to make a purchase when there are free fully functional versions. This is our mantra about (most) distros, as well; we get to donate as much and as often as we see fit, no licenses to buy.
The other factor that is interesting and huge with some open source users, not us, is that you can modify the code to your needs if you see fit and know how; legally.
As we see it, it's a no-brainer on the choices out there as to "office" types of software.
29 • Linux Lite (by Rick on 2020-07-20 17:45:58 GMT from United States)
I agree with the first of today's comments. The LL creator/developer has a very narrow approach to desktops. It claims to be based on Debian/Ubuntu with DEB package management but installing any other desktop is discouraged and a no-no. You might as well just pick another distro with the Xfce desktop and then install any other desktop as needed. With MX Linux one has at least 5 other desktops to choose from to install in addition to the default Xfce. Linux Lite is a poor choice for people who desire freedom of choice.
30 • Unsure - LibreOffice (by Linux Revolution on 2020-07-20 18:11:35 GMT from United States)
I chose Unsure because of just that. Depends on support they would offer. The only drawback that I would see is the incentive to go the Nextcloud route. First let me state that asking for paid support is not an issue at all and should be an avenue to support DEVS. With that said, much like Nextcloud, hording any useful documentation and support tips, and putting them behind a paywall, would be borderline insidious. Or having support staff lurk in community forums and offer links to individuals seeking support to your paywall resolutions (again, like Nextcloud) would be a problem as well. Stay away from that type of model and I would no problem TDF offering paid support.
31 • LibreOffice (by Dan on 2020-07-20 18:26:48 GMT from Israel)
I don't understand why all of you understood it in this way. It says that the paid version of LO would be optional, and commercialization is different than making the software proprietary. As I understand it, the vote was on whether it's a good idea for TDF to make available a copy of LO identical to the one available at no cost, with standardized/consistent billing (instead of arbitrary choice of sum of money when donating) and commercial support. I usually only use freeware, but I voted "Yes - for personal use" since I know LO is developed for an idealistic goal, and would still be a libre office suite regardless of price.
32 • Libre Office (by user15 on 2020-07-20 18:33:53 GMT from Spain)
I like LIbreoffice (and I have set it to look like MsOffice -with the ribbon and the icon theme-), but despite the fact it has improved over the last years, it is not 100% compatible with MsOffice, and as long it is not 100% with the most popular formats, it not woth paying for it
If you need to edit a MsOffice file without any issues, and you don't want to change your Operating System nor paying for Ms Office, the only way is using Office online, in fact you can create a web app with Chromium to access easily to Office Online from the menu.
33 • @27 (by Corentin on 2020-07-20 19:16:08 GMT from Republic of Moldova)
Sorry, but I confirm what I was saying 25, it does it perfectly, including on Windows. I use it regularly.
34 • LibreOffice (by Rev_Don on 2020-07-20 21:59:12 GMT from United States)
I wonder how many people know the history and foundation of LibreOffice. It started in 1985 as StarWriter and only available as a PAID product. Sun bought them and released a free version for Personal use, but still required a business to purchase it. The free version eventually became OpenOffice and was forked into LibreOffice. So LibreOffice is essentially wanting to return to it's roots.
35 • LibreOffice (by M.Z. on 2020-07-20 23:04:34 GMT from United States)
I used LibreOffice throughout my college years & had no trouble a tall with simply exporting my documents to .pdf files 99% of the time. It also pumps out excellent resumes doing the same export method & was what I sent to get my current job. My problems have been very few & far between, though I suppose other may have issues related to needing to share documents far more often than I do, which has largely been uneventful most of the time I've had to do it.
I would be happy to do more to support LibreOffice, it just depends a bit on the model. It does seem as though the document foundation needs some better form of business plan that keeps some reliable revenue coming in, while also respecting home users & encouraging them to give what they can in a way that creates effective support. That being said tearing them down the way some here have seems not only counter productive, but also deeply misleading.
LibreOffice is a very solid product in me experience, and is only need of a better direction to fix internal problems.
36 • Rich text vs. plain text, WYSIWYG (by msi on 2020-07-20 23:26:35 GMT from Germany)
@8:
"In my opinion, the world would be better off if people used unpretentious plain text, or learned to compile their work from plain text in to .pdf, than to continue monkeying with these ever-growing WYSIWYG menaces."
Rich text and WYSIWYG are actually good things for "word processing."
The problem with "unpretentious plain text" is that it relies on hacks (in the form of additional characters) for fake formatting because, well, there are no actual formatting options. It's plain text. And those hacks are ugly and hurt readability because they introduce noise. Just compare _word_ and *word* for emphasis to italics and bold text.
Now, I could, of course, use some form of markup language. That might make the result of my writing look pretty, but it doesn't help me in the writing process – quite on the contrary. I don't want to write markup, or look at markup, i.e.: code, when I write an essay. That's just plain distracting. I want to look at rich text and be able to format and manage it as easily as possible so I can focus on the content of my work.
For example, I make extensive use of footnotes, comments, and color whenever I write longer, non-trivial texts. And using a WYSIWYG word processor is, as far as I'm concerned, the only sane "framework" (for want of a better word) for working that way.
37 • LibreOffice (by Newby on 2020-07-21 01:15:26 GMT from Canada)
For those who just need a basic linux word processor for personal use, and without the "bloat", check out "focuswriter" from https://gottcode.org/focuswriter.
Nice small package that focuses on doing one thing and doing it well.
At least you know any donations going to the author will be directly useful for maintaining the program, and not lost in some huge organization.
PLUS, it not only supports txt and rtf, but also odt formats.
This does bring up an interesting problem. The odt format is now a recognized "standard" format. As such, any program supporting the format should (presumably?) be able to exchange documents without loosing "formattng".
Supposedly then, the formatting problem lies more with the Microsoft docx format, and evolving changes with that. If it keeps changing, is it correct to be calling that format a "standard"?
It was actually Microsoft that released the rtf format. Being a "standard" format coming directly from Microsoft, you would expect some sort of consistency within their own range of products (rtf and docx), to be able to maintain formatting.
I am obviously not a programmer, but perhaps comments from @25 and @36 above, may provide some insight about the problem migrating data across different formats?
Aside from Focuswriter, there is also a nice program called Ted. It does not appear to support odt, but does support rtf and pdf.
For anyone interested, there was an older compact office suite called siag.
Personally, really liked WordPerfect 6.1 for DOS, and Quark Express 3.3. Sort of makes you wonder how much we've actually progressed over the years.
38 • @29, Linux Lite (by Iamgroot on 2020-07-21 04:13:48 GMT from United States)
I wish people would at least try something before disparaging it. I installed Mate on Linux Lite, just for the hell of it. Here are the steps:
sudo tasksel install ubuntu-mate-desktop
password
Enter
Wait for it to finish
Reboot and choose mate at login.
Same applies to other desktop environments available in Ubuntu repos. So unless you can just wish a desktop installed in MX and it just happens, how is it easier?
As earlier, I would advise anyone desiring a particular desktop to choose a distro where it is installed by default. Avoids duplication, menu and other clutter, and extra configuration.
39 • libreoffice (by unixoid on 2020-07-21 05:16:46 GMT from Tajikistan)
@25
Softmaker or the free textmaker is OK . It was about three years ago that someone sent me a complex .ppt presentation in MSoffice format. I didn't have
Moffice, on my computer and OnlyOffice was not released at that time
So I tried opening it with libreoffice, softmaker and WPS the office suite from Deepin linux., The only one that could open it correctly was WPS
As a teacher, we get stuff like this with complex formats and weird macros in MSoffice format all the time and we don't have time to muck around. If LO cant deal with this stuff it is useless in a business environment.. Might be fun to see
if comparability has improved though.
@37
I also miss the speed and responsiveness of WP.- too bad they never got around to making it Unicode compliant. However it does run OK in linux DOSbox.
40 • Nothing has changed--eleven years later, and still waiting... (by R. Cain on 2020-07-21 05:40:09 GMT from United States)
“LibreOffice 6.3 - Waiting For A Miracle"
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/libreoffice-6-3-review.html
“...LibreOffice 6.3 is a powerful, rich office suite...But it is not enough. Simply isn't. Functionality is what matters, and if the program cannot satisfy the necessary needs, it's not really useful...you still don't get what you require.
And in this regard, LibreOffice 6.3 doesn't quite cut it...working with Office files is pretty much a no-go, the style management is inefficient, and the UI layouts are somewhat clunky...the momentum has slowed, and the great, amazing hope that was there when LibreOffice was born is just a thing of mildly apathetic momentum now. True, this ailment grips the entire open-source world, and Linux in particular, but it doesn't change the fact that the hope is slowly dwindling. All in all... a solution to all office problems, LibreOffice 6.3 ain't.”
41 • pay for libreoffice...? (by sweaty on 2020-07-21 09:03:54 GMT from Canada)
I dropped libreoffice for openoffice due to the bloat; even if the distro I install comes with libreoffice it gets replaced with openoffice...and I dont donate to openoffice either!
42 • @37 FocusWriter (by OstroL on 2020-07-21 09:29:56 GMT from Poland)
Thanks for the link to FocusWriter. It is created by the same person, who created the very useful WhiskerMenu.
43 • LibreOffice poll (by Pete on 2020-07-21 10:47:09 GMT from Poland)
I voted Yes - for personal use.
LibreOffice is fine, in some areas better than MS Office. One thing almost everyone is complaining about is compatibility with MS formats. Well, it is a different program with it's own formats, not a replacement for MS Office.
@35 I agree 100%
44 • LibreOffice compatibility again. (by fox on 2020-07-21 12:09:14 GMT from Canada)
My experience with MS Office alternatives was similar to that of @25, except that which of the three (LO, TextMaker, WPS) rendered an Office document most faithfully depended on the document. For simple, straight text documents, all three generally rendered them correctly, but add line numbering, tables and figures and this changes. LO never rendered documents with line numbering correctly; it always smooshed the numbers right against the text without any space between them. Vertical spacing was often a problem; a page in MS Office might have one less line in one or more of the others. For most people these are no big deal but for me, collaborating with other people and sending the document back and forth, this is a no-go. LO generally did as good or better with figures than the other two. But for most peoples' needs, either of the three would suffice.
45 • Libre Office (by dragonmouth on 2020-07-21 12:25:37 GMT from United States)
One, simple native Linux word processor nobody has mentioned is Abiword. It may not be a replacement for Word but for simple tasks it suffices.
The problem with Free and a Premium versions of LO is that slowly but surely the Free version will be eviscerated and emasculated by removing features in order to "encourage" users to move up to the Premium version. Eventually, Free version of LO will become something akin to KWrite and virtually useless.
46 • making libreoffice great again (by fonz on 2020-07-21 13:53:11 GMT from Indonesia)
i actually voted for nope. im not picky when it comes to office-ing, just send it via gulag drive/doc/whatev and hope for the best (im an architect btw, my uncles the contractor). with the way things are currently, most of our workers are getting used to the whole IOT (internet of things? seems fishy to me) and sending everything via gulag. hell, we even made a few deals via gulag hangout/chat/talk(?) as well. ironically im trying to avoid gulag in general, but yeah -_-
i do hope libreoffice does succeed, because a long time ago i heard about libreoffice online, guess its probably deadish now.
good news for those wanting to try opensuse, but wanting an easier time setting things out (media codecs, drivers ETC). geckolinux was recently revived. id recommend the static editions since tumbleweed was a hit and miss for me. debian sid and arch never gave me kernel panics before, but tumbleweed gave me 1 at least once a year.
47 • LibreOffice poll (by Alex on 2020-07-21 14:01:37 GMT from United States)
The current crop of commercial LibreOffice/LibreOffice Online offerings (e.g. Collabora, CIB, Kopano, IceWarp) seem primarily targeted at enterprises, small companies, and institutions. Most home users don't need that level of support (if any) or a "Still" version. Like RHEL or SLE, home users aren't really their target market, so I voted no. I wouldn't be opposed to donating to The Document Foundation, but I don't use LibreOffice. I have paid for things like CrossOver (in addition to donations to the Wine Development Fund) and Fluendo Codec Pack (back when Fluendo employed a lot of GStreamer developers).
48 • LibreOffice - vinyl in the era of streaming (by CS on 2020-07-21 15:32:27 GMT from United States)
LibreOffice is always the first thing I uninstall in a new Linux install -- I've got no interest in several multi hundred MB updates per year to something I wouldn't touch. People who say it's better than Office must be thinking of Office 2003, to which LO bears some resemblance.
Google Docs is more than good enough.
Heck even Office 365 sort of works these days.
Are these Libre? Free as in beer? Water? Mountain Dew? You know I can't find enough free time in my day to care, when it comes to this I have to get stuff done and fast.
LO is frozen in carbonite, a holdover from an earlier, darker day of computing before cloud ubiquity. Adding a few more widgets to their antiquated software delivery form factor isn't going to fix anything.
49 • LibreOffice vs OnlyOffice (by James H on 2020-07-21 21:18:47 GMT from New Zealand)
Has anyone tried OnlyOffice? How does it compare to LibreOffice? I'd be interested to hear what others had to say. Especially on compatibility with MS Word etc
50 • Abiword (by hotdiggettydog on 2020-07-21 21:52:56 GMT from Canada)
@45
As I was scrolling through the posts I was wondering why Abiword was not being mentioned, and then yours.
First thing I do is uninstall LO and install Abiword. It works fine for what I need as a home user.
51 • Libreoffice (by Andy Figueroa on 2020-07-21 22:11:57 GMT from United States)
I voted no, even though I use Libreoffice extensively in cross collaboration with Windows Microsoft Office users and except with regard to Power Point or those using Word to pull off a desktop publishing experience no formatting or compatibility issues. I have used Libreoffice since about 2000 when I first installed StarOffice from a German company when they made it free. Until Libreoffice, I used OpenOffice. I do deploy Libreoffice as the only office program at a small school, and they have used it happily under Linux since 2006. I'm amazed at the number of Libreoffice haters who have posted here.
52 • Libreoffice (by Andy Figueroa on 2020-07-21 22:16:29 GMT from United States)
Act 2. What I meant to write was that selling support is NOT the same thing as having commercial branch of LibreOffice. Selling support is a tried and true way for open source projects to raise money.
53 • Abiword and collaborative work. (by Friar Tux on 2020-07-21 23:39:35 GMT from Canada)
@45+@50 Regarding Abiword. I used to use Abiword, a while back, as it reminded me of an old Windows program I loved to use - the Atlantis word processor. Anyway, as of a couple of years ago, Abiword started acting up to the point that I had to drop it. The main issue, for me, was that the GUI appeared all scrunched up to the left, with a lot of the text overlapping the icons. Weird, to say the least. Also, I could not get rid of that stark, bright white background.
As for collaboration work with others on the same document, a few years back I was working with someone in Winnipeg (I'm in Regina) on a MSWord document. I can't remember the format but we collaborated through Google Drive and Docs and it all worked quite beautifully. When we were done we simply downloaded the final result - me to LibreOffice, my co-worker to MSOffice.
Also, I always set any word processor I use to save only in the RTF format as ALL word processors seem to be able to handle that without issue. I learned this early in my writing career. (This works especially well if you don't know the format the receiving program uses.)
54 • I chose "no" (by Andrew on 2020-07-22 04:06:59 GMT from Japan)
I think LibreOffice is great software for its intended function, but generally after a fresh Linux install it is software that I delete and replace with Abiword.
For the purposes of my system use, a full productivity suite such as LibreOffice is overkill and I just prefer a simple word processor instead.
55 • Paying for LibreOffice (by TheTKS on 2020-07-22 16:10:43 GMT from Canada)
I voted no to paying for LibreOffice, because while not necessarily against the idea, the poll doesn't make clear exactly what I would be asked to pay for. An interesting poll, but that's just a limitation of polls - they have to be brief.
I have supported through donations, because my wife and I get value out of LO for personal use. In fact, the suite (mostly Writer and Calc) is one of my most used applications.
I would like LO to stay available. Now, I'm not sure what those donations have been for, and I would like to hear that some of the money will start to go to developers, otherwise I will have to reconsider donating to the project.
TKS
56 • Compatibility of office suites (by TheTKS on 2020-07-22 16:15:32 GMT from Canada)
Compatibility of LO with MS Word (and others in the suite) is getting a lot of negative comments. It's not perfect, but good enough for my personal use. I haven't and wouldn't try it for work, since I'm at a dedicated MS shop.
But compatibility of MS Office with MS Office isn't perfect, either. Some old .doc files open up a mess in newer Office. I've tried in Office as old as 2010 or 2013 through up to date Office365. Excel has been even messier, to the point of some spreadsheets being non-functional for some users, both internal and customers.
There was a guy generating compatibility tables LO Writer version to MS Word version. He claimed very high compatibility between the corresponding versions on his list, increasingly worse as you moved away from those. I don't have the link handy, don't know if he still does this and publishes, but if anyone is interested I can try to find it. Otherwise, Google it if you want to try it.
TKS
57 • Light but capable, low-distraction word processors on Linux and Windows (by TheTKS on 2020-07-22 16:46:08 GMT from Canada)
At home on Linux and OpenBSD I use LO, Kate or Mousepad, depending on the need.
At work I only get to use Windows. I was looking for a single application lighter, faster and less distracting than MS Word, FLOSS if available, that could do this:
- Personal meeting note taking, end of day activity reports... light word processing
- A bit of formatting capability, inlcuding hypertext
- Configurable as I like it, more or less
- Minimize distraction
- Save in a common file format, preferably rtf, but doc would be ok
WordPad was closest stock application, but I found I have to fight it in some cases. Notepad is missing some capability. OneNote is a confusing jumble, slow to start, too feature rich, and I had to fight it even more than WordPad.
There were some good suggestions in earlier comments. I've installed FocusWriter, which looks the closest, along with a few others.
Too bad none quite does it. WordPad wins, or maybe loses the least badly.
Back to alternative word processors and compatibility for a bit.
Abiword I've found good as a standalone and lighter word processor, but compatibility with MS Word not as good as LO. There's no longer a supported Windows version, so I couldn't install it at work.
Calligra Words is another word processor not mentioned in earlier comments. Same comments as for Abiword. But it works differently enough from MS Word and LO Writer that I didn't want to have to get used to yet another set of actions to use it on Linux, and there's no Windows version.
TKS
58 • Libreoffice is essential (by Matt on 2020-07-22 20:01:01 GMT from United States)
For a lot of people, there is no getting around working with MS office files, and nothing beats Libreoffice for import/export conversion of these files. I have used it since the Staroffice days, and I donate to the Opendocument Foundation. Linux on the desktop would not be a viable alternative for many people without Libreoffice.
Libreoffice is bloated, but nothing beats it on Linux. Writing is a big part of my job. I use LaTex for a lot of publications. When a LaTex upgrade is pushed out, I have to download and install about 2 gigabytes of software. Even though LaTex is a text-based format, it is far more bloated than Libreoffice.
The future is probably some type of open source markup language that will handle complex formatting and make documents portable and intepretable by a number of different applications. I have used ReText for creating ReStructuredText documents, which is close to what I think the future will be. However, ReText won't help me when someone emails me some crappy docx file that I have to open and edit.
59 • Libre Office (by GWJMateo on 2020-07-23 04:36:47 GMT from United States)
All this discussion around Libre Office misses the fact that Google Docs, ZoHo, Pages/Numbers/Keynote and MS Office (a version of it at least) are all available via any Browser.
I don't currently have any Office Suite installed on either my Windows or Linux machines because other than the rare instance I need to modify a macro, there's simply no need to install one. The Browser versions work just fine, and the compatibility is better than Libre Office.
The whole "Office Suite" model is a relic of a prior age and has no place in the OS-less world we are increasingly living in.
60 • @59 "no place" (by curious on 2020-07-23 08:35:17 GMT from Germany)
So, because you embrace the always online, cloud based way of doing things, everyone has to follow that? I think not.
Some kind of Office software that works offline has its uses - except for those who always follow the newest fads.
Its fine if you have a certain way of doing things and like your work to be owned by some cloud entity. But I resent the attitude that everyone has to follow these models.
61 • Installed office applications as relic of a prior age (by TheTKS on 2020-07-23 15:03:12 GMT from Canada)
@59 if that's the way you want to and can operate, then be happy with that, although you should think about what @60 wrote.
To believe that everyone can and should operate that way shows an application of arrogance, stupidity and lack of imagination.
Take a few moments to think about what use cases there might be other than yours. Someone smart enough to write what you did, is smart enough to get out of themselves for long enough to come up with a few ideas. If you still can't mange to do that, Google it.
TKS
62 • Not-so-"Libre"-Office (by Sam on 2020-07-23 15:55:22 GMT from United States)
1. I've heard elsewhere that the majority of donations made to "support" LibreOffice actually end up in the coffers of the foundation that "supports" LibreOffice - with almost all development contributed by developers who work for other companies. So where would a "paid" revenue stream end up? Will the foundation use some of the money to hire some poorly-paid call center workers in Mumbai?
2. LibreOffice is a jumbled mess of bloat and a UI that takes a reasonably competent user hours to reconfigure in a way that is usable. Softmaker and other "Free" office suites have long ago figured out how to present a streamlined UI. I guess I'm saying I don't see the paid-for-value in a cruft-filled and clunky office suite.
3. MS Office compatibility - would this new revenue stream help LibreOffice at least not screw up the fonts and formatting of MS Office documents? I understand the challenges of , say, getting VBA-coded scripts in Excel sheets to play nicely with an opensource office suite, but in the year 2020 I should simply be able to open a .doc or .docx file and not have all the fonts turn to crap, and in the year 2020 I should not have an option to save a document in LibreOffice in .docx format only for whoever I send that document to open it up and see crap formatting.
63 • LibreOffice Size (by vern on 2020-07-23 16:35:21 GMT from United States)
I was curious about how much size LO uses. I ran this from my Kubuntu:
$ dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Installed-Size}\t${Package}\n' | sort -rh | head -25 | awk '{print $1/1024, $2}'
...
>> 122.267 libreoffice-core
...
>> 53.8262 libreoffice-common
...
>> 37.4385 libreoffice-writer
...
As you can see, it takes up over 200 MB of space. Google Drive here I come.
64 • LibreOffice (by Jesse on 2020-07-23 17:00:43 GMT from Canada)
@62: I think you may be misinformed about LibreOffice and how The Document Foundation operates, and LibreOffice's features.
1. Rather than following baseless rumours, why not read the Foundation's accounting pages which outline their spending? Theyre completely transparent about their income and expenses: https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/financials/
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Ledgers
2. I disagree with your view on the interface. I find LibreOffice' user interface to be much more consistent and easier to use than most other suits. I much prefer it to MS-Office, Calligra, or WPS, mostly because I find it so easy to navigate.
3. I've been running Star/Open/LibreOffice for nearly 20 years. In that time I've run into two, maybe three documents that had trouble with MS-Office compatibility. That is about a tenth of the number of times I've run into compatibility issues between versions of MS-Office. In fact, I used to use OpenOffice to repair corrupted MS-Office documents when they had issues between versions. If you're seeing font issues it's more likely an issue with the fonts installed on the system, not an issue with reading the document format.
65 • @62 Sam: (by dragonmouth on 2020-07-23 21:20:25 GMT from United States)
"2. LibreOffice is a jumbled mess of bloat and a UI that takes a reasonably competent user hours to reconfigure in a way that is usable."
Thank you for the implied complement. I guess I must be a genius, I found the LO UI usable out of the box. If by "streamlined UI" you mean looking and working like MS Office, then that is your personal opinion. I prefer the LO UI to MS's by far, but that's just me.
66 • @49 • LibreOffice vs OnlyOffice and @63 • LibreOffice Size (by Rev_Don on 2020-07-23 21:30:59 GMT from United States)
OpenOffice used to be the defacto standard Open Source office suite until development and maintenance stalled out several years ago causing it to have numerous security issues. That's when LibreOffice stepped in and forked it to bring it back up to date security wise. To date openoffice is a pale remnant of what it used to be even after Apache finally got off their butts and started maintaining it again. While there are some people who prefer it over LibreOffice, anyone who needs more than simple documents will quickly find themselves disenchanted with how poor OO is today.
As for 63 • LibreOffice Size stating that LO takes up 200 megs of space on their hard drive. Sorry, but 200 megs out of 8 terrabytes is insignificant. I wouldn't even notice that. If you have to worry about 200 megs of hard drive space you have bigger issues that need to be attended to.
67 • Re: vinyl in the era of streaming (by msi on 2020-07-23 23:21:29 GMT from Germany)
@48:
I.
"LO is frozen in carbonite, a holdover from an earlier, darker day of computing before cloud ubiquity."
Mind you, "cloud ubiquity" plays a considerable role in making present-day computing "dark". Only thinking for a second about how the distribution model of "software as a service in the always-on Internet" compares to a mid-2000s Linux desktop in terms of users being able to have a say in how they (don't) want to do their computing is mind-boggling.
The usual counter-argument to that – with a Linux desktop back then you weren't able to do all those things we're able to do now – is flawed in two ways:
1. The argument against "cloud ubiquity" (which is an illusion, by the way) is not one about features. It's about the social cost of a computing model: near-total loss of users' control over how things are run on their personal machines(!). And it doesn't stop there.
2. The features "cloud ubiquity" offers are simply implied as universally good or "have-to-have".
II.
"LibreOffice - vinyl in the era of streaming"
So, what you're suggesting then, in terms of vinyl vs. streaming is, basically, that now that we have (the illusion of) the questionable opportunity to listen to any music anytime and anywhere as long as we opt in to the surveillance-capitalist way of running things, there's really no place for a way of consuming music that doesn't require that. Well, I really think there is.
II.
"Google Docs is more than good enough.
Heck even Office 365 sort of works these days.
Are these Libre? Free as in beer? Water? Mountain Dew? You know I can't find enough free time in my day to care, when it comes to this I have to get stuff done and fast."
And that is, of course, first and foremost an argument against a certain piece of free software that doesn't suit your particular need, and not, maybe, against how your boss runs things or, more generally speaking, the way things work "in the marketplace".
68 • Paying for LibreOffice (by Name Required on 2020-07-24 01:45:36 GMT from United States)
I voted no, mostly because I rarely come across a case where I need the LO. I rarely get sent .doc files anymore and switched to writing in LaTeX or (more commonly) groff years ago for the documents I produce myself, making Writer effectively worthless to me. Present is also not something I really use, and any presentations I need to make (pretty rare) I just do in beamer. The only LibreOffice Application I use that often is Calc, and I'd like to get away from it in favor of sc-im or something. It's not that Calc is inherently bad, but it feels bloated compared to how I usually operate. I'm thankful to LibreOffice for getting me through university, but I no longer really have a use for most of it.
69 • @64 (by Akoi on 2020-07-24 06:42:35 GMT from United States)
"I've been running Star/Open/LibreOffice for nearly 20 years. In that time I've run into two, maybe three documents that had trouble with MS-Office compatibility."
Well, there might have been not much MS documents overall for those 20 years. :)
70 • @8 +1 for using plain test (by Andreas on 2020-07-24 12:09:28 GMT from Austria)
@8 : Agreed. People should use plain text wherever feasible, and use "more" than that where strictly necessary. Markdown, restructuredtext, asciidoc (and the likes) are more than enough for a significant number of cases. You can convert most if not all of them to pdf, and once you have pandoc, you have more than enough conversion power.
Kids should learn basic markdown (and basic html) in school, converting markdown documents to pdf or odt, then the curious ones could learn the more advanced markup languages like asciidoc. It would be way more useful than learning any kind of "office suite" -- not just in itself, but because it positively affects your viewpoint and thinking.
71 • Linux Lite (by Joseph on 2020-07-24 13:25:58 GMT from Canada)
Used to use Linux Lite for a few years (I think it was version 4). Unlike with other distros, I couldn't get the Terminal launcher (the .desktop file) to launch the terminal with the desired geometry, even though the *exact same* method worked in several other distributions. (I checked multiple times, and the command I tried to use was correct.) There was a post reporting that particular issue on Linux Lite forums. Followed it for like half a year, it didn't get a single response. It wasn't easy to leave Linux Lite behind after that.
72 • Cloud stuff (by Cheker on 2020-07-24 14:04:14 GMT from Portugal)
Reminder that you don't own anything that's in the cloud and you have zero control over it.
73 • LIbreOffice (by Name Required on 2020-07-25 02:33:38 GMT from United States)
@72
I always like to tell people that the cloud doesn't exist. It's just someone else's computer. I am required to use Google drive for my job, but that is where it ends for me.
@70
I really wish I had learned something more useful than an office suite in school. It would have made things a lot easier when I finally ran into a wall and basically HAD to learn something else (in my case, LaTeX) just to get anything done. If you've ever tried to write a document longer than about 100 pages in any office suite with multiple pictures and diagrams, you know exactly what I mean. That being said, so many jobs require familiarity with Office that it becomes an chicken and egg problem. If schools don't teach Office, kids won't be ready for the work force, but if they do learn Office, nobody is willing to change.
74 • @73: (by dragonmouth on 2020-07-25 13:57:44 GMT from United States)
"I really wish I had learned something more useful than an office suite in school. "
How would you have known exactly what would be useful to you in the future? Hindsight is always 20/20.
"If schools don't teach Office"
If schools don't teach HTML, Java, or hundreds of other subjects, kids won't be ready for the work force. How does a school or a kid know what skills (s)he will need in real life? With people changing jobs every couple of years, they can't be relying on what they learned in school. They need to be able to learn new skills on the fly.
75 • If only … school … (by Somewhat Reticent on 2020-07-25 16:18:05 GMT from United States)
By using several spreadsheet apps, a school can teach the difference between the task and the tool - a valuable lesson.
…
A more valuable thing to teach is all ways to learn, and how each works for you.
76 • Schools (by Name Required on 2020-07-25 20:56:19 GMT from United States)
@74
I'm not implying that I should have known it to be useful. That wasn't the point of my post at all. The difference between Office and programming languages is that the former is in use in a much greater share of jobs. That's why the incentives lean more towards that side. Obviously programming classes should be (and are often) offered, but it is no where near on the same level of necessity. Of course students need to be able to learn on the fly, but they also need basic skills that they can use as something to build on. If you have nothing to compare a new skill to, it becomes much harder to adapt and learn. The point of learning something like Office is that when you have a new job and have to adapt to a great number of things, you can still at least have something you are fairly competent with, which can help with confidence and ultimately adapting and learning.
@75
This is more something I can agree with because you want to be able to generalize skills beyond a specific context. This makes what you learn in school more relevant, addressing the "Office problem." The problem with this solution has more to do with considerations of time and technical knowledge of the teacher in charge, who has probably also spent all of his or her life using Office. It really comes down to pushing for more technology training for teachers, which then turns into a question of money, which means nothing ever gets done.
77 • Learning Office in schools (by Friar Tux on 2020-07-25 23:43:37 GMT from Canada)
Schools taught what was, at the time, most used because of, as comment 76 said, money. Also, schools only gave a cursory course, to interest the student. I remember, way back in school, we had 'drivers ed'. EVERYBODY took drivers' ed. Yet, only a limited few actually took auto mechanics. By the same token, EVERYONE was taught 'word processing' but very few took coding (modern word, it was called 'computer programming, then). If my grandson isn't pulling my leg, he tells me that, today, they teach you how to learn to use an interface - not a specific GUI.
Number of Comments: 77
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| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Zevenet
Zevenet was a load balancer and application delivery system based on Debian. The Zevenet platform provides HTTP and HTTPS connections for web applications as well as load balancing services for TCP and UDP traffic. Zevenet was available in community and commercially supported editions.
Status: Discontinued
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