Linux - the adventure begins...

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Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #30 on: July 25, 2014, 01:07:56 AM »
Back in the saddle...

Discovered Play on Linux. Installed and successfully ran Powerpoint 2007 and Word 2007. According to their website, Office 2010 might work too. (As far as I know, Play on Linux is basically Wine, but with assorted tricks built in that I'd have to find for myself otherwise.)

Issue: can select and embed images in a ppt, get error messages when trying to embed video.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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BrandeX

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Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #31 on: July 25, 2014, 04:18:11 AM »
Try this instead, for whenever LibreOffice is not suitable:

https://office.live.com/start/PowerPoint.aspx

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #32 on: July 25, 2014, 02:03:00 PM »
Online tools, eh? I am suspicious and mistrustful. I suppose with always-on, reasonable speed internet, "the cloud" is the way. I don't know what's in it for "the cloud" though.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #33 on: July 25, 2014, 11:30:31 PM »
PlayOnLinux:

Office 2010 (specifically Powerpoint and Word, and possibly other elements of the suite but I didn't try) will install and, as far as I can tell, work. However, embedding video in that installed Powerpoint doesn't work, and is hard if not impossible to fix.

Wine + Winetricks

Using (most of) this guide (I used a different version of Wine), once again Office 2010 (specifically Powerpoint and Word) will install and, for the most part, work. Also once again, embedding video in a ppt fails.

However, if via Winetricks one also installs wmp10, then embedding will succeed. The embedded file will "play" inasmuch as Powerpoint will wile away the time required for the file to play doing nothing. No audio will be heard, and no picture displayed. Presumably this can be remedied by installing further codecs, probably via Winetricks. But I have had enough for today. Helpless reader, you are on your own.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #34 on: July 27, 2014, 01:50:55 AM »
So, installing whatever random codec I could find in Winetricks actually broke whatever progress I had yesterday. Now Powerpoint force closes when I try putting video on a slide. The Linux adventure may have to wait on whatever it is in LibreOffice that doesn't export Impress slides with embedded video to Powerpoint slides with embedded video. (Technically they do export - the video slide in Impress becomes a static image in Powerpoint of whatever is the first frame of the video.)

I have seen suggested an alternative solution: LibreOffice Portable. You carry it with you on USB and run your presentations from there. One would, I suppose, have to love Linux, or LibreOffice (which, by the way, should be called "Office Libre" - what are these programmers, not Spanish?)
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #35 on: July 27, 2014, 02:59:39 AM »
Embedded video is a long-standing issue apparently. It would seem the agreed-upon solution is wait until Open Office and/or Office Libittilater dethrone Microsoft Office. And that isn't going to happen until someone huge does for Linux what Google did for Android.

Nifty case study for monopoly environment competitive behaviours, anyway.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #36 on: July 27, 2014, 06:08:58 PM »
Freakin' learning curves...

Microsoft Word 2007 and Powerpoint 2007 can be installed and used, complete with working enbedded video in ppts, if you perform a modest tweak in Wine:

Run Wine Config > Libraries



In "New override for library:", look for, select, and add "riched20.dll"

Once it is added to "Existing overrides:", select Edit and change "(builtin, native)" to "(native)"

Press OK.


After that, Word and Powerpoint will run. I haven't tested extensively, but I have embedded video without issues. Three hour cruise, my arse.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #37 on: July 29, 2014, 10:46:01 PM »
Using (most of) this guide (I used a different version of Wine), once again Office 2010 (specifically Powerpoint and Word) will install and, for the most part, work. Also once again, embedding video in a ppt fails.

Not mentioned in the guide but, as it turns out, necessary anyway is: winbind. Whatever winbind is, it is available through the built in Software Manager. When it's not installed, installation of Office 2010 (Word and Powerpoint) fails with a "setup encountered an error" message. (And even so, I still don't know how to make videos work.)

In other news, KDE is more pretty than Cinnamon, but also, to my mind, more full of stuff and management by obscure settings. I might switch back to Mint with Cinnamon (and to Office 2007) and leave it at that.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #38 on: October 08, 2014, 06:47:28 PM »
Do we suppose there will come a time when LibreOffice gains on Windows Office? I still have Linux Mint 17 w/ Cinnamon running on my number two laptop, and I think, all in all, it's not bad. There's a learning curve, and a lot of not really very newbie friendly screwing around to do, but it could all be okay if somebody, somewhere could do away with the clunkiness. In this it seems I have a view somewhat akin to the Apple user's view of Android. I think for as long as Linux is a patchwork of enthusiastic develop of this and disinterested abandonment of that, it may wind up being freaking everywhere but it's not going to be the best available. If, in particular, LibreOffice could eventually do something it can't do, jump ahead of Microsoft Office, then Linux would be the place to be. I don't really see how it can though.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #39 on: October 12, 2014, 10:16:35 PM »
To my grave technological embarrassment, I just spent the afternoon using the old Thinkpad SL400 to surf the web, look up Linux stuff, check out some movies, download utilities, have torrents seeding in the background, and etc, all on a 22" external monitor, and ye olden machine never broke a sweat. I had a temperature monitor running the whole time and it rarely hit even 80C inside the box. If 80 degrees Celsius seems high, for this computer it's not. It didn't even trip the fans once. This is the same old laptop that three days ago got so hot it froze after only five minutes running the external monitor. The difference? A couple of days ago I finally got up the nerve to remove the fan assembly. Once it was out, I was able take a makeup brush to the vents and puff away a few too many years worth of accumulated dust (and coincidentally bang a lot of dust out through the keyboard).

I still have peeves about Linux - screen dpi, mouse wheel settings, weird window handling, goddamn LibreOffice, the fact that Windows 7 just is less eye-aching on the very same monitor - but I might put an ssd in that old SL400 and see what happens then.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #40 on: October 15, 2014, 04:09:17 AM »
So... Linux and SSDs... what's the rumpus?

One tiresome aspect of working out how Linux works is "Googling" your problem - or deploying some other search engine if you are in China - frequently yields answers that are years old and for some Linux version 2 or 3 iterations out-of-date. For instance, Linux and SSDs... You have to set up your own TRIM and/or insist on an ext4 filesystem?


Linux, I've been seeing other hobbies. I don't even know if we can be friends.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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El Macho

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Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #41 on: October 15, 2014, 02:31:02 PM »
Have you played with Chrome OS? I've used Chromebooks before and they were great.

Looking to get Ubuntu Kylin loaded on my wife's old iBook soon, been having problems making a bootable USB image.

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #42 on: October 15, 2014, 09:56:18 PM »
I've considered Chrome OS. Haven't tried it. I do more or less have always on internet, but I'm, perhaps needlessly, suspicious of the always online. I have the vague suspicion that no one really has developed good on-demand services, and that cobbling together an offline capability (eg download a movie and watch, don't stream, etc) is still better.

Then again, this is China. The internet here isn't (somehow) what it is elsewhere. Maybe elsewhere the always-online would work out fine.
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #43 on: October 19, 2014, 02:55:45 PM »
Well, this is embarrassing... a fresh install of Windows 7 on this same laptop is quicker and more responsive than Mint 17.


/Thinkpad SL400
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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Tree

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Re: Linux - the adventure begins...
« Reply #44 on: December 14, 2014, 12:45:48 AM »
I made the jump from windows to linux this past week. So far so good. I'm a really light computer user these days so haven't noticed any issues in terms of accessibility.
The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.
- Jung