[mdlug] linux usuability (rant)

[Jeff Hanson]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Dean Durant <mdlug at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> What kills me is, and I know I shouldn't compain, but things like java for firefox on 64 bit linux are apparently not automatic.   And openoffice 2.3 isn't working either.   So, it makes linux look bad, and it makes me look bad too.   Me being a linux advocate.   Because, there's never an issue with office (or openoffice) for windows, and java doesn't seem to be an issue either, and of course, for lotus notes 6.5, there is a full-blown client for windows, but not for linux.    (no, we're not upgrading to a new version of notes anytime soon.)

The Sun Java plug-in for Firefox is 32-bit only and won't work with
the 64-bit version.  Here is some info:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=49779

I think Ubuntu uses a wrapper around Flash to get it to work with
64-bit Firefox.  You could also try the GNU gcj clone.

OOo 2.4.1 on Ubuntu amd64 works for me.  I'm not sure if it's 32 or
64-bit.  More info on the 64-bit version here:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Porting_to_x86-64_(AMD64%2C_EM64T)
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/openoffice_org_builds_for_linux

> So, sorry for the rant.    Just frustrating I guess.   These workstations are in production.  I could export the display and work from my laptop, but even enabling remote X on linux seems to be a exercise in a lot of setup, as I recall.

There are Linux RDC implementations that can provide access to a
Windows system remotely.  I've used the Gnome tsclient and the
rdesktop back-end on Ubuntu to access a Vista system.  The only issue
is that the Vista system has to be set to use the older protocol else
it won't authenticate.  I've also had some crashes with it (Vista
crashes and resets system, hangs rdesktop), mostly with Access.