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My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

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Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#351

Post by Mikeb85 »

Herald_MJ wrote: post #349
Mikeb85 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are better things than Excel, Gnumeric for example. The main issue is that there is no drop in replacement for Excel. There are spreadsheets that do calculations, statistics, scripts, etc... better, but there aren't any that can perfectly replicate Excel and perfectly read XLSX files right now...

Are you sure Gnumeric is better than Excel? Excel is really stupid fast. There are old stories of the Excel team at Microsoft being the most performance-obsessed group around. Excel really is a very great product. Can you demonstrate equivalent performance with Gnumeric?

Haven't seen any benchmarks, but tests have proven that Gnumeric is more accurate, and it certainly has more functions (especially for statistics). It's also extensible with Python (and I've seen plugins for other languages), which IMO is preferable to VBA. Python of course also has some pretty good statistic and scientific computing libraries, which are quite performant...

If you're really performance obsessed, a spreadsheet isn't really the best solution anyway...

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#352

Post by Herald_MJ »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #351
Herald_MJ wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure Gnumeric is better than Excel? Excel is really stupid fast. There are old stories of the Excel team at Microsoft being the most performance-obsessed group around. Excel really is a very great product. Can you demonstrate equivalent performance with Gnumeric?

Haven't seen any benchmarks, but tests have proven that Gnumeric is more accurate, and it certainly has more functions (especially for statistics). It's also extensible with Python (and I've seen plugins for other languages), which IMO is preferable to VBA. Python of course also has some pretty good statistic and scientific computing libraries, which are quite performant... If you're really performance obsessed, a sp…

> If you're really performance obsessed, a spreadsheet isn't really the best solution anyway...

I agree with this, but tell that to the millions of non-programmers the world over (including almost exclusive use in the finance sector) who use spreadsheets for, well, programming.

I have heard it's not unusual for huge spreadsheets that take upwards of 15 minutes just to regenerate all the calculations and VBA macros it contains. Yes, this is horrible, but it's absolutely ubiquitous and so performance does matter. VBA support also matters for backwards compatibility with these monolithic, battle-tested behemoth spreadsheets. Python support is a great extra, but drop-in VBA support is the feature Gnumeric needs to find widespread use.

I can't fathom what you mean by "more accurate". Accuracy is binary. Are you saying Excel is inaccurate?

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#354

Post by mfincham »

rsl7 wrote: post #305
carl-platt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Dad has been begging me to install Ubuntu on his MacBook Air. I think it's time I did.

but why? if you paid for Apple hardware, OS X is ten times nicer than ubuntu.

Ubuntu's not the only choice, though.

Apple has a hard time matching the speed and flexibility of a lightweight GNU/Linux distro (presumably because OS X's focus on polish, integration and aesthetics means they want to tip the scale of compromises back in that direction, and that's fine). Some of us don't mind not having drop shadows and pervasive "cloud" integration if it means we can have full control over our own computers :)

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#355

Post by undergroundhero »

ilyanep wrote: post #122
hnriot wrote: post #87

I think this, and the rest of the comments have missed the point, It's not linux or windows really that's going on, but that "computing" for the masses has shrunk down to the browser and Office (or it's clones) - the operating system these days has become marginalized for most people. the File Open dialog is about as far as they interact with it, along with CTRL P and the dock. Linux is perfectly capable of this. I r…

Nope, and (to contradict your point a little bit) I pretty much refuse to do development tasks on Windows because it's the one remaining OS on which I find it impossible to be productive. Have you ever tried working in a Windows command line compared to a UNIX terminal? Yes, I can install cygwin, but I really feel like I shouldn't have to.

If you're doing any work at all with .NET, Visual Studio is the greatest IDE in the world. Believe it or not, people can be productive without a command line--especially if you can use VS to automatically generate thousands of lines of code.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#356

Post by hatsix »

dublinben wrote: post #38
hatsix wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support for Optimus is horrible. Even if you get it all working, you still can't use both the LCD and an external monitor seamlessly. (i.e. you can see a desktop on both, but you can't move windows from one to another) You CAN do this if you turn off Optimus and just use the NVidia card... but it cuts battery life down by 40%... :-/

That's really nVidia's fault, for not providing proper drivers. Intel and AMD's integrated GPUs are well supported with few issues.

Absolutely, but it is a counter-example to the "runs great on modern hardware" statement.
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