What's available for Linux in word processors, e-mail and other software categories

Reliable software is more important than it seems, once we break out of the pattern that Microsoft has imposed on the world.

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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

What's available for Linux in word processors, e-mail and other software categories

Oct. 13, 1999

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©1999, Al Fasoldt

   Yeah, but. If only.
   Conversations with Windows users sometimes seem full of phrases such as these. They're worried about what happens if they switch to Linux.
   Yeah, it's great to have an operating system that won't crash, but what about my e-mail?
   If only Linux had a good personal information manager, I'd switch tomorrow.
   Yeah, but I watch TV on my PC while I'm cruising the Web, and I've got to have Windows to do that.
   If only Linux came with Microsoft Word. If only Linux had all those great screen savers I get with Windows.
   The facts are going to surprise a lot of Windows users. Sure, there are programs you can buy for Windows that you can't get for Linux -- can't get yet, at least -- but there are thousands upon thousands of Linux programs that do the same things that Windows programs do.
   And I need to add one thing. Experienced Linux users would never forgive me if I didn't mention something else: There are thousands upon thousands of Linux programs that do things that Windows programs will never be able to do. That's because Linux is different from Windows. It's not just another computer operating system. It's a different operating system, without all the Windows bugs and Windows failings, without the crippled memory management and all the rest. So if you are a Windows user interested in running Linux. You need to understand that Linux is not "like" Windows at all. It's as different from Windows as a pop-gun is from an Atlas Centaur launcher.
   This is important not just for technical and historic reasons -- not just because Linux grew out of an attempt to allow anyone to use a good operating system without cost while Windows advanced out of an attempt by one company to control the world PC market, and not just because Linux is cool. It's important because your choice of software sometimes comes down to intangibles. If I have two word processors that do the same kind of thing and the only difference is a feeling I have that the bugs in word processor A will never get fixed while the ones in word processor B probably will be fixed, I'm dealing with an intangible asset that the second word processor has over the first.
   This example is taken from a real situation: Microsoft Word is a wonderful word processor, yet Microsoft has never been able to fix some of the bugs in Word. Rather than fixing the bugs, Microsoft instead comes out with a new version every few years, expecting all of us to switch to the new one. But of course the new one is buggy, too, and we all know -- or will soon know, after dealing with such flaws -- that Microsoft will once again decide to let most of the bugs go and while introducing yet another new version we should switch to. And it, too, will be buggy.
   The cycle never ends in such an environment, because the software is under the control of a company passionately interested in profits and concerned very little with repairing the faults of current products.
   Fixing things doesn't bring in money. Selling new products and then still newer products brings in money. And this means the intangible aspect becomes more important than would otherwise be the case. If you had a choice between making $900 a day working for a nasty boss or $800 a day working for a friendly one, you might choose the nasty boss just for the extra cash -- once. Or maybe twice. But you'd learn your lesson at some point.
   A good working environment is more important than it seems. Likewise, reliable software is more important than it seems, once we break out of the pattern that Microsoft has imposed on the world.
   But I'm digressing. Software that is not currently available on the Linux side falls into three categories, so let's deal with those first.
   The first is software that can't be rewritten for Linux because of legal restrictions -- because the people or companies owning the copyrights won't do it, can't do it or won't let someone else do it, or because the copyright holders (of older software still covered by copyrights) can't be located to get them to approve a Linux version coded by someone else.
   Microsoft Office is in the first part of this category, although no one who knows the way Microsoft operates can doubt that a version for Linux is being worked on. Where there's a market, there's a Microsoft dollar waiting to be picked up off the floor.
   The second is software that relies on functions or features in Windows that are not in Linux. Device drivers -- small programs that let the operating system handle physical devices -- and programs that rely on them are in this category. Modems that are designed to be used only with Windows are becoming common in cheap PCs, and they're not usable under Linux or any other non-Windows operating system. (I'm confident a Linux program can be devised that fools these modems into working with Linux, but that may take time.)
   The third is software that copes with specific failings of Windows or of DOS, the older operating system that Windows is based on. Examples would be utilities that try to keep your PC from crashing -- all the Linux users who are reading this should please stop laughing; it's not polite -- and programs that provide ways of editing such things as the Windows Registry. (Linux does not have a Registry.)
   Software that is now available for Linux can be either native to Linux (or to its older cousin, Unix) or ported to Linux from other platforms. (A "platform" is the combination of a computer and its operating system. Windows is a PC platform, for example.)
   There are hundreds of thousands of Linux/Unix programs -- the number probably can't be given accurately -- and many of them are simply utilities, programs that help you (or the computer) do small tasks. But an increasingly large number of Linux and Unix programs are top-level applications. The software that Web sites use to send out Web pages (Web server software) is more often than not running on Linux, for example. This software is called the Apache Web server. (The name, by the way, does not come originally from native Americans but from software that was repaired so many times that it took on a "patchy" nature, so this "a patchy" job of fixing the software in the early days suggested a name that stuck.)
   The software that thousands upon thousands of computers use to send e-mail from one system to another is typically a Linux (or Unix) program called Sendmail.
   But regular users like you and me don't care about this. We want word processors and games and Web browsers. Let's take a look at what's available.
   In word processing, Linux users have good choices. There are hundreds of text editors -- programs that work like word processors but don't have a lot of extra features -- and a lot of powerful old-style word processors that are hard to use. (Emacs, which can take a year or more to learn how to use well, is the perfect example of a hard to use but powerful word processor. Linux users have said for years that Emacs could do everything except make your coffee, but an enterprising Linux programmer rigged up his coffee maker to his Linux PC and got it to turn on when he typed a command in Emacs, so even that's possible these days.)
   Among the choices for the best word processors for Linux are WordPerfect 8 from Corel, StarWriter, part of the StarOffice suite from Sun Microsystems, and Applix Words from Applix Inc. They each do everything a word processor is supposed to do. They come with good spelling checkers and can handle Microsoft Word documents easily. WordPerfect 8 and StarOffice are free. Applix Words is part of an "office" suite of programs for Linux. The suite costs less than $100.
   Other word processors to consider if you don't want a big program are Ted, a promising newcomer that works very much like Microsoft's WordPad, and kwrite, a word processor that comes standard with the KDE desktop environment. Both work the way standard Windows or Macintosh word processors work, have good spell checkers and can handle huge documents easily. They're both free.
   For e-mail, the most modern software or Linux probably is the e-mail program built into the free suite of programs called Netscape Communicator, although both StarOffice and ApplixWare have their own e-mail software, and you might prefer it.
   Anyone who has used a modern e-mail program for Windows or the Mac would find Netscape Mail a delight. It can handle only one mail account at a time, but that's not a drawback if you're willing to go to the extra trouble of setting up a program called fetchmail. If, like me, you have a bunch of e-mail accounts and want to use Netscape Mail, get the free fetchmail program. (If you have Linux, you probably already have fetchmail anyway.) It goes out and picks up your mail at any number of accounts and delivers it to the appropriate mail directories on your Linux PC. Netscape Mail can then pick up all the mail from every mail account you have as if it were coming from one account. It works great.
   Netscape's Web browser, Navigator, continues to be the champ among all Linux browsers, and it's part of the free Communicator suite. You can't get Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Linux yet, but you'll have an alternative to Netscape Navigator in Opera, a fast browser from Opera Software. Opera is a commercial browser, but the cost is minimal. (Opera Software was still working on the Linux version in early October 1999.)
   There's good news and bad news in one aspect of Web browsing under Linux.
   The good news first: Netscape Navigator will be joined soon by Mozilla, a new browser designed to replace Netscape Navigator. Mozilla is a volunteer effort with strong emphasis on the Windows and Linux versions. (There will be versions for the Mac, of course, and for many other computer systems.)
   More good news on the browser front: The Real G2 audio and video software works very well on Linux, so you can play the latest stereo audio and high-quality video over the Web. (It's a so-called helper application, not a plug-in at this stage. When you set it up in Netscape's options, be sure to put "%s" after the name and location of the Real Player so that it will automatically play audio and video. Without the "%s" it won't work.)
   And now the bad news on the Linux browser front: Most plugins don't work. This will change before long, but as of the fall of 1999 most plugins that are available for Netscape in Windows are not available for the Linux version. As I wrote this article, Macromedia released a free Flash plugin for Linux -- it works very well, with what appears to be higher performance than the Windows version -- so things are looking up.
   What about audio? There are a wide range of audio programs and utilities, from state-of-the-art CD players to all the latest MP3 gear. You'll find good MIDI players and MOD players, too, as well as software to create and mix both MIDI and MOD files. (MIDI is the standard non-vocal digital audio format for personal computers, and MODs are multitrack digital recordings of pop, funk and "techno" music.)
   But notice the qualification. Linux has to be able to deal with your sound card. Sound Blaster AWE 16, AWE 32 and AWE 64 cards work perfectly, so if you have a Sound blaster AWE card you'll have no problem. If you have a Sound Blaster 16 you'll be OK. If you have a card that is fully (and I mean "fully") Sound Blaster compatible you'll be OK. Linux works with many kinds of sound cards, so don't assume yours won't work if it's not a Sound Blaster card; search among the Linux sites for information on sound cards and Linux and see what others say about various cards before you install Linux.
   Note, however, that the latest cheap Sound Blaster cards might not work right or at all with Linux. These are the Sound Blaster Live cards. The Sound Blaster manufacturer, Creative Labs, makes cheap cards as well as good ones. (The SB Live cards are cheap and bad.) You might be able to get an SB Live card working with a little help -- a driver seems to be available -- but I'd recommend an AWE card, period.
   Video players on Linux are far behind corresponding players for Windows, but they will catch up before long. The fact that a working Linux version of the Real G2 player exists as a beta test version is good news, of course, because it means the final version should support more than just the RealAudio and RealVideo formats, just as the Windows version does. This will give Linux users a good quality MPEG and AVI video player that works. (There are MPEG and AVI players for Linux already. On my 464 MHz Linux PC, the MPEG player that came with my Mandrake Linux installation is so abysmally bad that I don't dare run it. Judging from the performance of the Real G2 player with Real-format video, the release version of the Real player should be spectacular.)
   But in one video area, Linux shines. Software that controls TV tuner cards works very well. Most of the cards that are listed as compatible are European models -- don't even think of using them in North America -- but a project called "Gatos" has come up with Linux software for the popular ATI All in Wonder card (including the All in Wonder Pro), and Gatos works very well. In fact, it has features that the Windows ATI software does not have. This means if your PC has an All in Wonder card, you can watch TV or video tapes in a window on your Linux desktop -- or, as you can do under Windows, you can make the TV or videotape signal the entire background of your desktop. It's amazing, and I use it on two of my Linux PCs.
   But I can't do without Windows yet. At this time, my digital camcorder's pictures (both still and video) can't be extracted from the camera except through the Windows program that came with the camera, a JVC model. I don't expect JVC to come up with a Linux version, but I do expect to be able to use a Linux program to handle this. A very active Linux project has been adding camera models to its list of supported hardware every month -- sometimes every week -- and I should be able to avoid Windows for this chore before long.