PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE.....GROUP PROJECT?

[creedon]

quote:Originally posted by choasmaster:
and i noticed that you are going to use autocad r13, i noticed on www.winehq.com that r14 is rated better under wine then under native windows

Well, here comes the Debian freak again!!
As I was updating my apt sources today, I went to a site called UNOFFICIAL apt sources (applications that aren't included in Debians package lists).  While looking around, I found an app called LeoCAD.  Now, this isn't something that would work as a commercial-use application, and I want to stress that.  BUT, the groundwork IS done on a 3-D open source CAD program.  I know that a lot of basic CAD applications exist for Linux, but none of them are at a daily-use level that could be used in place of the current (and much more polished) Microsoft- based systems.  I'm not avocating starting an endless attempt to build a suite of seamless professional Linux applications that will work out-of-the-box like MS programs, but I would like to see an initiative that would allow us to incorporate native Linux apps to replace emulated MS programs as they become available.  This has been one of the areas of opportunity that has been ignored by Linux proponents as far as I can see.  As long as projects like this look at emulation of MS programs as an open-ended solution to the lack of professional-level technical applications, the basic attraction of Linux from a business viewpoint will remain un-attractive; what's the point of making the switch to Linux if you still have to maintain a library of Windows programs because Linux doesn't have comparable applications?  In business, the bottom line is ALWAYS the bottom line.  It's short-sighted to look at emulation as a long-term solution to a lack of applications.

[choasmaster]

but it is great for the shortterm. if you could only switch 90% of your app's to linux and could only emulate the other 10%, i still think that would be worth it. and have you ever looked into pro e/*probably not, its insanly expensive*/

[creedon]

OOPS, I don't want anyone to get the idea that I'm not 100% behind this poject, on the contrary, I think that it's a long over due idea; but I DO think that we have to look ahead; like Trotsky said, the revolution will never end, but must continue to evolve.

[choasmaster]

and for building and endless suite of linux applications, don't we have openoffice, its almost endless/*if your thinking about compiling it that is    */ and it supports lots of things. i think we need opensource analogues of this stuff. and who knows, someone might have phun writnig a cad program. and the opensource cad program might get so damned good major companinies might base there products off of it. kinda like the relationship between sun and openoffice.org. but then agian for this to happen, people are going to have to say "lets write a kickass cad program that can compete and beat autocad and maybe even pro e" and for cad workstations, the solarise admin/*atleast that's what his job sounds like*/ that lives down the street, i heard they bought a cad workstation from sun a bit ago and it cost them like $60,000

[Sleeping Dog]

I agree with the sentiments.

In this case, making PhotoShop 5.5 and AutoCAD 13 run under LINUX is akin to keeping the "Model C Supermicrometer" operational.  The words "software" and "tools" are synonymous.  I selected AutoCAD 13 because I happen to have a full copy of it on floppies and I do not personally own a later version.

High-end software has not, to date, been ported to LINUX for two reasons.  1. - The development community presently lacks high-speed, GUI type tools for doing the porting.  Most of work of that nature is still being done on a pure code (slower) level.  2. - Until there are A LOT more business people using LINUX as their PRIMARY DESKTOP AND SERVER OS solution, the economic incentives for transitioning will not be there.  Money moves the machines.

Therefore, a project like this one serves as a First Step in demonstrating that a transition to LINUX does not mean that a person or business has to "re-tool" and trash all of their existing software/tools in order to make the move.  You (and Trotsky) are right, Creedon.  "...the revolution will never end, but must continue to evolve."  Regretably, the evolution seems to me moving like a herd of turtles.

Rumor has it that ProE (a high end professional 3D
CAD)is supposed to be releasing a LINUX/UNIX version in late fall.  The five day intorductory course for ProE costs 15-Thousand Dollars(US) per person.  That does not include any software.  You can imagine what the software costs per license.  In these tougher economic times, you will not find a lot of business throwing bucks at new or updated software while the bean-counters are telling the managers to "keep costs down".

On a lighter note....Any more input on setting up/partitioning hda and hdb?  What do you guys think regarding the locations on those HD's of the boot, root, swap, etc. partitions?  Should the partition holding the Win apps be FAT 32?

Best To All Of You

Sleeping Dog

[choasmaster]

for the companies buy Pro e, price is not a concern. the bean counters are probably too busy cooking the books anyway

[creedon]

quote:Originally posted by Sleeping Dog:
I agree with the sentiments.

In this case, making PhotoShop 5.5 and AutoCAD 13 run under LINUX is akin to keeping the "Model C Supermicrometer" operational.  The words "software" and "tools" are synonymous.  I selected AutoCAD 13 because I happen to have a full copy of it on floppies and I do not personally own a later version.

High-end software has not, to date, been ported to LINUX for two reasons.  1. - The development community presently lacks high-speed, GUI type tools for doing the porting.  Most of work of that nature is still being done on a pure code (slower) level.  2. - Until there are A LOT more business people using LINUX as their PRIMARY DESKTOP AND SERVER OS solution, the economic incentives for transitioning will not be there.  Money moves the machines.

Therefore, a project like this one serves as a First Step in demonstrating that a transition to LINUX does not mean that a person or business has to "re-tool" and trash all of their existing software/tools in order to make the move.  You (and Trotsky) are right, Creedon.  "...the revolution will never end, but must continue to evolve."  Regretably, the evolution seems to me moving like a herd of turtles.

Rumor has it that ProE (a high end professional 3D
CAD)is supposed to be releasing a LINUX/UNIX version in late fall.  The five day intorductory course for ProE costs 15-Thousand Dollars(US) per person.  That does not include any software.  You can imagine what the software costs per license.  In these tougher economic times, you will not find a lot of business throwing bucks at new or updated software while the bean-counters are telling the managers to "keep costs down".

On a lighter note....Any more input on setting up/partitioning hda and hdb?  What do you guys think regarding the locations on those HD's of the boot, root, swap, etc. partitions?  Should the partition holding the Win apps be FAT 32?

Best To All Of You

Sleeping Dog

I'm in full agreement with what you said.  I don't want to give any kind of negative impression, I'm a Linux advocate to the core.  That being said, I do have a habit of acting as "Devils Advocate"; I think that all projects need someone to point out alternatives in choice- there's no plan that's set in stone, that kind of thinking will end up causing problems.  On the other hand, if someone can give me hard facts that convince me they're right, I'll give them as much co-operation as I can.
The one undeniable fact about open source software is that there are a tremendous number of really good people writing really good applications continually.  The other undeniable fact about open source is that, ever though the first statement is true, the information that an individual (or, in our case, group of individuals)needs may never reach their notice.  Finding specific open source applications is difficult; there's little commonality between the distributions, and the advocates of those distributions.  When you start talking source code, the situation becomes even more confused.
I firmly believe that there is a viable alternative to every MS-based program on the market today.  I also think that, reverting to our project, that practical implimentation of a pure open source suite of business/technical applications isn't possible AT THIS TIME.  I think that, in the interest of expediency, some of our applications will have to be emulations of MS programs, but I want to leave that open-ended: if one of the members of the project finds a suitable alternative to an emulated MS program, we should, as a body, review the alternative and using majority rules approve or disapprove it's use in preference to an MS program.
Well, I guess I've shot my mouth off enough (I do that, it's the old hippie activist in me).  I'm not really the overbearing asshole I seem to be, and I think I've wandered far afield from our original concept, but I'm just expressing things from my own limited perspective.
Sleeping Dog, the wheels are turning; you'll have the Debian set as soon as I can get it to you, I'll be in touch.
BTW: regarding partitioning, I think that the only thing that we should be concerned about would be /usr/local; that's where the most things we need to be concerned about reside: swap would be 2X the installed RAM.

[Sleeping Dog]

Hi Folks.....I'm back.  Had to go out of town for a couple of days and was unable to post.

An update on the Proxy Box.  64 MB of RAM is the best I can do for now.  I thought that I would be able to use a 64 and a 32 for a total of 96, but the 64 module has a bad chip on it.  Therefore, two 32's will have to do.

According to the BIOS, I should be able to boot from the HD, the flop or the CD.  I have DrDOS on it now for utility purposes, but it does not have to stay there.

Creedon is sending the Debian CD's to me.  I will let you guys know when they arrive so that we can start the load.  Again....I will need everyone's input on your partitioning plan.  (sizes, locations, etc. for hda and hdb)

Have a Great Week

Sleeping Dog

[Sleeping Dog]

Just A Note About PhotoShop

PhotoShop caches the images that are open into a disk area that they refer to as "Scratch Disks".  Because this is a "Windows" version of the software, it will be "looking for" this space using the DOS type C:\ file structure.  High res images can sometimes require as much as 400+ meg of "Scratch Disk" space while they are being edited.  Therefore, your formatting and disk structuring strategy will need to take this into account.

And A Note About AutoCAD

AutoCAD's auto-save (backup) function, by default, also looks for a DOS style path (C:\etc.etc)

I double-checked on the sizes of the two apps.  The AutoCAD program needs 300 MB of space and PhotoShop needs 100 MB (not including the scratch disk area).  A one Gig DOS style partition on the 1.2 Gig HD might be what is needed for the two apps to have all the room that they require.

Cheers and Beers

Sleeping Dog

[Sleeping Dog]

Hi Boys and Girls.

Can you spell "Plotter".

Very good....I knew you could....

For the Proxy Box we have a new (old) toy to add.  It is a Calcomp 1044 Plotter (pen plotter).

Be looking for LINUX or even UNIX drivers that will work with this dog.  I can tell you that almost all UNIX or even NT server based platforms will require a "plot to file" type setup if not a true spooler.....

but that is for later...

Creedon is sending the disks....once we are good and loaded, then the real fun begins.

(Isn't that what she always says?)

Keep it Close

Sleeping Dog

[Sleeping Dog]

One more note on the Calcomp Plotter.
The AutoCAD driver for it is stored and used within AutoCAD itself.  The only thing that might be necessary is to assure that the plotter's COM port on the LINUX box (in this case, COM2) is set up with 7,E,1 and Hardware.  (That's 7 Bits, Even parity, 1 Stop Bit and Hardware Control).  That is the only caveat that I have found so far.

Sleeping Dog

[creedon]

The Debian CD's are done; I'm checking them out before I send them, but we should be talking install in about a week.
I've been looking at a window manager called "Matchbox"; it's full featured , but it will run on a hand-held- VERY sparing of resources.  I've also been investgating Beowulf Clusters; some interesting stuff there.  
It's really amazing the applications that exist, yet get little or no publicity; sure, some of 'em are crap, but Richard Stallman's right about one thing- if a programmer takes the time to write an application that he KNOWS won't make him rich, but he writes it anyway, he'll do the best job he can, because he's writing it out of dedication, not greed.  
Het everyone: let's see some Googlesearch action; start looking for those applications; you know, the ones that are open source and perform better tha closed-source MS- based programs.  We can make a significant difference here: let's PROVE that Linux can be a viable business alternative to expensive, unreliable, intrusive Microsoft systems, and it will run on "obsolete" equipment and STILL perform.  We can do this!!

[creedon]

The Debian CD's are done; I'm checking them out before I send them, but we should be talking install in about a week.
I've been looking at a window manager called "Matchbox"; it's full featured , but it will run on a hand-held- VERY sparing of resources.  I've also been investgating Beowulf Clusters; some interesting stuff there.  
It's really amazing the applications that exist, yet get little or no publicity; sure, some of 'em are crap, but Richard Stallman's right about one thing- if a programmer takes the time to write an application that he KNOWS won't make him rich, but he writes it anyway, he'll do the best job he can, because he's writing it out of dedication, not greed.  
Het everyone: let's see some Googlesearch action; start looking for those applications; you know, the ones that are open source and perform better tha closed-source MS- based programs.  We can make a significant difference here: let's PROVE that Linux can be a viable business alternative to expensive, unreliable, intrusive Microsoft systems, and it will run on "obsolete" equipment and STILL perform.  We can do this!!

[creedon]

>OOPS!!< Sorry 'bout the double post; I got excited.  I'd like to stay and chat, but I gotta go change my britches. 'bye

[creedon]

quote:Originally posted by Ex Eleven / b0b:
Anyway the best office appliations are:

All in one: StarOffice, Open Office, kOffice
Typing: AbiWord
Spreadsheet: gNumeric
Finance: GNUcash

My favorite desktop is GNOME, I Like windowmaker and fvwm too, and love blackbox but Gnome is more configurable than KDE/qt and the same goes for swfish which is the best Window Maniger.[/b]

I like all your ideas; personally, I'm real impressed with OpenOffice.  The biggest hurdle that we have is the amount of RAM available; it used to be that 64 Mb was a shithouse of memory (I have a copy of Slack 2.03 that says it can run on 2 Mb!!)  Unfortueatly, the MS bloat philosophy has spread to Linux to some extent.  64 Mb will run a fairly fast home unit, but we're looking at a system that's going to be running some RAM-intensive business app's; short of a complete CLI system, I think we've got to forego ANY eye-candy, that's why I'm reccomending we take a long look at Matchbox 0.3x11.  Granted, it's beta software, but it's specifically built to be used on machines that have a limited amount of resources (RAM).  From what I've seen of it, I'm impressed.  I may D/L it today and give it  shot on my "testing" partition,  I will post my results.