Description:
There are two major complaints concerning Linux distributions: the immaturity of the productivity software and the break with the familiar Microsoft Office products (and the files they've produced). SuSE Linux Office Desktop addresses both of these. First, it includes Sun's commercial quality StarOffice 6.0 office suite, which provides word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, Web-page editing and vector drawing applications along with remarkably complete support for MS Office file formats--which means you can continue to use your existing files. StarOffice's native file formats are all XML based for compatibility with any XML-based applications. The second string to SuSE Linux Office Desktop's bow is Codeweaver's Crossover Office, which enables you to install and run MS Office under Linux (apart from FrontPage) along with other Windows programs. This is impressively efficient. To further make migration easy for end users and companies SuSE includes new software assistants that make networking a breeze. Installation on either a clean PC or alongside Windows is simple. On a Windows machine you can resize partitions--including under XP--without losing data. Internet setup via modem, ISDN, DSL, and LAN is part of the installation process along with establishing network connections, or, as with everything, you can do it at any time using Yast2. KDE 3 is the default desktop, but the Gnome implementation is also excellent. SuSE Linux Office Desktop isn't quite as polished as Windows, but most PC users could make the swap with little trouble. If you're one of the vast majority of word-processing, Internet-accessing PC users you can do more for less with SuSE Linux Office Desktop than with a basic Windows system. --Steve Patient
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