From: mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) Subject: Re: WordProcessor (~=TEX) for Linux Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 12:43:44 GMT
ellis@nova.gmi.edu (R. Stewart Ellis) writes:
>mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) writes:
>>snail@lsl.co.uk writes:
>>>In article <1993Sep24.111523@cs.utwente.nl>, debruijn@cs.utwente.nl (Steef S.G. de Bruijn) writes:
>>>> |> a la WordPerfect for Linux.
>>>I think he means Framemaker for Linux, or 'Word for Linux' :-)
>>>> Wordperfert sucks (it's no misspell!)
>>>Don't u mean worddefect, as its know here. We have it one the Vomit Making
>>>System.
>>Kindly keep your personal and unproductive comments to your self. We find
>>the software to be extremely productive, flexible, cost effective, and
>>open. Perhaps you two should tell us which wordprocessors you use and like
>>so others can say yours suck.
>>Also, perhaps you should enlighten us as
>>to a better wordprocessing system under Unix? Framemaker isn't bad, but
>>TERRIBLY expensive.
>Starting with the recognition that WP is available on the widest range of
>systems, which gives it a tremendous headstart, it has a number of serious
>problems.
All software has its share of problems.
> I have seen signed postings from a guy who used truss on SVR4 to
>observe wp opening a config file 500 times while it was starting up. This
>is consistent with the startup speed under X.
All X software with the features and complexity of WordPerfect for X Windows
will take that long to load. Did you know that the current version of
Corel for X Windows takes a full 22 seconds to load???? Did you know that
that puts it more than DOUBLE the time of WP?????
And your complaint is only on the X version. This does not hold water at
all on the text version......
> Also WP fails totally to
>understand how X and UNIX printspooling are supposed to work. If you bring
>up a dialog box on the X version and then dismiss the box, it repaints the
>entire screen a couple of times rather than restoring the save-under
>region.
Then you have the very first release of the software. Those type of things
have been fixed in the 4/93 release which they will gladly give you for free
(although some of those things still remain). This is WordPerfects **FIRST**
piece of X Windows software. It is going to take some time to get it right.
> This is a dismal failure and really gets in the way of trying to
>use it. Three of us here with a total of over 20 years of UNIX experience
>still cannot get WP to print to all of our lpd printers after dozens of
>hours of effort.
We have over 40 printers in use with over 6 models. We have never had ANY
printing problems. (Use "Other Spooler", works just fine here for 1 year).
> That has been real productive. I now have the port on all
>my printers set to disk. At least I can print from the shell after I save
>them.
You are doing something wrong.
>The one thing that makes me support WP is that I can use it over a terminal
>and trade docs with the Windoze or DOS or VMeSs users.
There are SCORES of advantages to using WordPerfect besides that
The pricing is very reasonable compared to other packages. They have many
versions for many platforms. They include **BOTH** a text and X version
for Unix. They support every printer on the planet. It is a very
functional and robust wordprocessor. They have very good technical support
(AND AT NO CHARGE). Etc.... My hat goes off to WordPerfect Corp. for being
a long-term supporter of Unix. Their text version is EXTREMELY stable
and yes, they are having a few problems with their FIRST X piece of
software; of which 3/4 of the problems were corrected with the 4/93 release.
-- /--------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | Mark A. Davis | Lake Taylor Hospital | Norfolk, VA (804)-461-5001x431 | | Sys.Administrator| Computer Services | mark@taylor.wyvern.com .uucp | \--------------------------------------------------------------------------/