Office

[Colin McDermott]

Michael Moore wrote:
>> I understand the need to stick with apps that perform well on older
>> machines, but OpenOffice is the cross-platform standard these days,
>> and I think it should be included with any install even though it will
>> be slow on older machines.
>>
>> Just $.02.
>>     
>
> Have you used OO.o on an old machine? If so, what was your experience,
> and how old was the machine? On PIs, I find that programs like Firefox
> are barely usable, and I know OO.o uses a lot more memory than
> Firefox.
>   
I have. Just to note I sincerely doubt that Xubuntu will be able to run 
on a p1 espeshilly if it has an average amount of ram (ie 32mb). I doubt 
that it will perform well at all on a 64mb machine (more then happy to 
be corrected on this). I have found that Ram is the determinate of speed 
and not the processor. Also I have found that to get a p2 300mhz 
processor is allot easier then getting say 64 or 128mb of ram.


> Note that it's not as much a processor speed issue, but rather how
> much memory they use and how slow old disks are when you start
> swapping halfway through the program startup.
>   

I agree memory is the big issue. Namely Openoffice takes forever to 
start. I have seen it take up to 5 minutes on an older system (running 
ubuntulite). I did other tests using ubuntu lite (which is icewm based.) 
I found that once loaded performance was useable.

64mb of memory. 3 minutes to load (1 with preloading).

128mb of memory 1 minute to load (14 seconds with preloading).

(all tests done on a ibm 300mhz pii).

So with Xubuntu it would probably be a slower loading experince.
> While I would consider OO.o to be part of a good distro for modern
> machines, if PIs are prevalant in Xubuntu's target audience, I don't
> think it's inclusion by default would be a good idea.
>   
Personally I think that it should be like inkscape. On the CD but not 
installed by default (or comes with a prompt during installation).
> --
> Michael Moore
> -------------------------------
> www.stuporglue.org -- Donate your used computer to a student that needs it.
>
>   


-- 
Colin McDermott
Reboot Computer Reuse centre
Ubuntu Lite
http://groups.google.com.au/group/ubuntu_lite

BTW by run I mean run at a slow but useable level.