[wellylug] Microsoft At WellyLUG last night.

[Eugene Van Wyk]

Hi David

A number of unsupported, or badly supported applications:  Here is my
experience.  

PCB Layout and related CAD packages.  I am talking about a single
integrated solution.  If there is one point me to it.  I need something
decent right now, that will do at least 4 layer boards, and basic
simulation/modelling.

Development packages for various microprocessor platforms.  I use
Motorola, Zilog and Silicon Laboratories stuff at the moment.  In the
past I've run with 8 and 16 bit Intel platforms.  Most suppliers will
give you a reasonable IDE with some sort of C or C++ compiler.  Or you
can go buy a big gun such as Keil, IAR etc.  
Some of these things may run under Wine or crossover.  I don't know.
But there is no turnkey product for Linux.  Again, if you know any,
point me to it.

I use OpenOffice whenever I can, but we are a MS shop, and the MS
templates don't play with OO. (Running 1.9.100 at the moment).  This
means that to produce any corporate document, I have to use MS.

Visio - point me to a better alternative than Kivio, that can be pasted
into an OO document.

Development tools for FPGA's.  Again may work in Wine and related
frameworks, but I shudder to try.  Xilinx now has some support for
Linux, but I have not tried the package.


Programming environments for the platform.  I have not done anything
serious for Linux, but I'd like to try.  From time to time I sit down
with KDevelop and try and make small GUI apps.  I have yet to manage to
get any debugger to work within this framework.   I accept time and
practice may help, but with my experience in Delphi/C++Builder and even
some VB6, I could manage a lot more on very little knowhow.  

Again, if there is a programming environment that allows me to do
sensible GUI things, given that I do not know enough about this area of
Linux, point me to it.  I would REALLY like to do some SCADA type stuff
on the Linux platform.

By the way, I currently run Fedora 3.


Eugene van Wyk
Test Development Engineer
4RF Communications Ltd
26 Glover St
Ngauranga
Wellington
New  Zealand
 

-----Original Message-----
From: wellylug-admin at lists.wellylug.org.nz
[mailto:wellylug-admin at lists.wellylug.org.nz] On Behalf Of David Murray
Sent: Wednesday, 13 July 2005 11:26 p.m.
To: wellylug at lists.wellylug.org.nz
Subject: Re: [wellylug] Microsoft At WellyLUG last night.

On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 16:51, Jamie Dobbs wrote:
> > I have to take issue with that - I work in a business where
practically
> > everyone uses Linux desktops, and I know of several others on the
list
> > who also work for organisations where Linux on the desktop is the
norm.
> 
> But this is far from the norm for the vast majority of businesses. We
> cannot use Linux on the Desktop as too much of our day to day software
is
> tied to Windows, and this is unlikely to change.

Hi, Jamie.

In what way are your desktop software requirements tied to Windows
boxen?

What is it that your particular Windows applications do for which you
have found have no reasonable counterpart in GNU/Linux?

And why are you unwilling to change to good-enough alternatives to
Micro$oft software?

Are there any aspects to any Open Source programme that you feel you
would want to submit a bug-fix or a bug report or a recommendation for
enhancement? And if so, have you done so?


Warm regards,

David Murray