STOP THE DESKTOP INSANITY 
 
Posted at July 6, 2001 01:01 PM PST Pacific 
 
 
I AM TRULY encouraged by the number of letters calling 
for me to continue to debunk the recent rash of "Linux 
is not for the desktop" punditry in the mainstream 
media. It appears more people are considering the move 
to Linux on the desktop than I had imagined. So here's 
more ammunition, as requested. 
 
One of the most oft-cited arguments against Linux on 
the desktop is there aren't enough productivity 
applications for Linux. What people usually mean is 
that Microsoft Office doesn't run on Linux. 
Technically speaking, Microsoft Office runs on Linux 
fine if you use Win4Lin (www.netraverse.com), but I 
recommend it only as an interim solution while 
migrating to an all-open-source desktop. (VMware also 
works for running Office, www.vmware.com.) 
 
Many pundits contend that office applications for Linux 
aren't as feature-rich or sophisticated as Microsoft 
Office for Windows. They're right, but so what? Most 
likely, your users spend most of their time using an 
e-mail program, a browser, and a word processor. 
Others may use spreadsheets and presentation programs. 
Powerful open-source versions of these applications 
are available. 
 
The lean word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation 
programs in KOffice 1.1 include far more features than 
most users will ever need. If you can't live without 
bloat, try StarOffice 5.2 (www.sun.com/staroffice) -- 
the Defense Information Systems Agency at the 
Department of Defense recently standardized on it -- 
or try OpenOffice 6.0 (www.openoffice.org). 
 
Linux also has stable, powerful browsers coming out the 
wazoo now. There's Konqueror 2.1.1, Opera 5.0, 
Netscape 4.77, and Mozilla 0.91, among others. There 
are several e-mail clients, but few are better than 
the one you get with Mozilla 0.91. 
 
Nevertheless, be concerned more about defining what you 
need than how Linux applications compare with 
Microsoft Office. Remember the smash hit PFS:Write for 
DOS? Its features barely exceeded cut, paste, and 
print. I taught PFS:Write to a class of Ph.D.s who 
barely grasped the concept of word wrap, but it didn't 
matter. When they needed fancy formatting, they gave 
the work to someone who knew how to create those kinds 
of documents. KOffice is just as easily learned as 
Microsoft Office. 
 
You want to save real money? Fire the guy who convinced 
your company to take your employees away from their 
work to endure torturous training to learn Microsoft 
Office features they will never use. 
 
If, after considering all this, you still can't let go 
of Microsoft Office, then by all means continue to 
lock yourself into enterprise software designed solely 
for Microsoft to milk its cash cows when it can no 
longer sustain its upgrade model. Natural selection in 
business is a wonderful thing. Your smarter 
competitors can move to Linux on the desktop and spend 
their money expanding their own business instead of 
Microsoft's. If you ask me, that's the competitive 
edge I'd care about. 
 
Nick is the founding editor of VarLinux.org 
(www.varlinux.org). Reach him at nicholas@petreley.com