Linux in the Enterprise: Application Reviews

Applications on Linux

If the lack of office productivity software or unfamiliarity with Linux held you back, here are some software packages that could help change your mind

Office Suite

OpenOffice
www.openoffice.org
Windows/Linux/Solaris

OpenOffice is the leading open-source office productivity suite. The software was released under the GNU General Public License by Sun after it acquired StarOffice from the Hamburg, Germany-based Star Division in 1999.

OpenOffice includes key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. OpenOffice software runs a little bit slower than Microsoft Office but gives you most of the features at an unbeatable price! OpenOffice also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office.

Available in 25 languages with more being constantly added by the community, Open Office runs natively on Solaris, Linux (including PPC Linux), and Windows.

Written in C++ and with documented APIs licensed under the LGPL and SISSL open source licenses, OpenOffice.org allows any knowledgeable developer to benefit from the source. And, because the file format for OpenOffice.org is XML, interoperability is easy. File sizes are also much smaller! OpenOffice also comes with a built-in PDF writer.

Previous versions of StarOffice/OpenOffice were criticised as being sluggish, but subsequent versions have been improved upon.

From version 6.0 onwards, Sun began selling StarOffice as a priced product. However, OpenOffice remains a free product and can be downloaded from the Web. It is also usually included in Linux CDs distributed by PC magazines.

As compared to OpenOffice, StarOffice has some additional features. These are third-party products included by Sun to provide a more comprehensive offering for different markets. The additional features include some Asian fonts, the Adabas personal database, clip art and some filters for importing files from other software products.

Sun also promises that once a new version of the software is released, it will continue to support the previous version for five years.

Linux Demo CDs

Knoppix & Morphix
www.knoppix.org
www.morphix.org

Want to try out Linux but are too afraid to install? For such souls, Knoppix has come to the rescue. Knoppix is a ‘live’ Linux CD that you can boot off the CD-Rom and try out without having to install it. Set your BIOS Boot option to ‘Boot from CD’, insert Knoppix into your CD drive and you can test drive Linux without messing around your hard disk.

Morphix is a more modular version of Knoppix and has been designed to make it easy to add and remove programs. Thus, to give an example, an educational institution can add educational software to Knoppix/Morphix and users would be able to use these simply by running the software off the CD drive.

Knoppix (and by extension, Morphix) has terrific hardware detection ability built-in and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. Knoppix can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2GB of executable software installed on it.

The Knoppix CD is a great example of the kind of innovation that open source fosters. The CD was created by 33 year old Klaus Knopper, a computer consultant and teacher. In an interview, Knopper explains why he created the Knoppix CD: “Knoppix was started about three years ago as an experiment for personal use (learning how el torito boot works, and how to get access to a whole CD from a minimal RAM disk system). My friends from the LinuxTag association convinced me to make it an open project, and provided mailing lists and a forum for this purpose.”

Having created the CD, Knopper then put it to some practical use. “When you are teaching computers, the PCs for students are not always installed in the way you need it. So, having a bootable CD with me with a complete installation, made a lot of things easier. Also, considering the fact that notebooks can get stolen or broken easily, carrying a bootable CD around is way less of an effort.”

Ximian Evolution

www.ximian.org
Linux/Unix

Ximian Evolution comes very close to matching the features of Microsoft Outlook. This personal and workgroup information management solution is available only on Linux and Unix-based systems. The software integrates e-mail, calendaring, meeting, scheduling, contact management, and task lists, in one powerful, fast, and easy-to-use application. Ximian Evolution is also powerful collaboration software that connects to popular corporate communications architectures like Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and other messaging systems. Ximian Evolution supports a broad range of leading Linux distributions and Unix variants. With the additional purchase of Ximian Connector, Ximian Evolution functions as a Microsoft Exchange 2000 client, with access to scheduling, mail, and global address book features.

Ximian Evolution is fully supported on a broad range of distributions, including Red Hat, SuSE, Solaris, and Mandrake.

Evolution works with a broad range of corporate messaging environments such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino using IMAP, POP, SMTP, and Authenticated SMTP protocols. It can also import and read mailboxes in common mailbox formats, such as Eudora, Unix mbox, MH, Maildir, Netscape, and Outlook Express.

The e-mail function of Evolution allows users to view and send e-mail in either HTML or text formats and include embedded images or attachments. It has an on-the-fly spell checker and allows users the ability to colourise messages according to the priority attached by the user.