Linuxtutorial: Office suites, word processors and spreadsheets

Working with Linux - First Things First

When you work as root

You have now installed Linux and the first thing you did was login as 'root'. Then you provided a password so that you and ONLY you could login to the system as 'root'. When you decide to work as root, you had better go into a phone booth first and change into a blue suit with a big 'S' on the front because 'root' is known as the 'superuser' (you can skip the red tights if you want).

That's really not meant to be just a witty reference to the Man of Steel. Actually, it is much more glamorous to be 'Superman' but root is actually more like the 'janitor' of the Linux system. Root has the keys to everything. He can shut off the lights, shut off the heat, lock you out of the building; he has to clean up the system and in the end make sure everything runs. And the most important thing about being a janitor - he sees everything.

'root' is not for routine work

As I mentioned, Linux makes your computer a true multi-user system, which means that besides root, you can and should work as another person. I say 'should' because doing routine work as 'root' could be hazardous to your health. When I first started using Linux myself, information was not all that readily available and I still had that 'one computer- one user' concept in my brain. It was after I had trashed all of the files and programs that make Linux run that I realized that working regularly as root wasn't a good idea.

Frequently Used Shell Commands

cd' command

To show the student the basic uses of the 'cd' command The first command you'll use is 'cd'. We talked about this in a previous lesson, so let's review the basics.

'cd' means 'change directory'.

The 'ls' command

To show the student the various variations of the 'ls' command 'ls' is another command that we've discussed a bit before. Let's go into some more detail.

Typing 'ls' will list the contents of a directory with just information about file names.

You can use 'ls a*' to list the names of all the files that begin with the letter 'a' and so on down through the alphabet. Please do not use the cuneiform alphabet unless you're from ancient Mesopotamia.

more' and 'less'

To introduce the student to these commands 'more' is a command that you can use to read, for example, what's written in that 'stuff' file that Tony sent you.

You would type 'more stuff' to see the jokes.

Press the 'q' key to stop viewing the file

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Office suites, word processors and spreadsheets

StarOffice

StarOffice is a complete, full-featured office suite on the idea of Microsoft Office. It comes complete with word processor (of course), spreadsheet, database interfacing, presentation software plus it offers web browsing and email and a few other features. Originally developed by StarDivision, StarOffice was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999. The current stable version of this suite is 5.2 at the time of this writing. However, Sun has announced that they plan to charge for downloads of StarOffice version 6.
KOffice

KOffice is the KDE Project's offering for desktop productivity. It includes all of the standard office suite applications. The software is offered free of charge.
VistaSource's Anywhere Desktop for Linux

This suite was formerly known as ApplixWare. Once again, all the standard office suite tool are offered here. This one boasts a Microsoft Office look and feel. This is not a free product. It cost 99 US dollars at the time of this writing.
Siag Office

Don't let a name like Pathetic Writer dissuade you from checking out this office suite for Linux. The word processor part of the suite can open Microsoft Word format (*.doc) files. The project started with the Scheme in a grid spreadsheet. Now you know why it's called Siag. Another free offering in the office category.
HancomOffice for Linux

Hancom Linux of Korea has developed this commercial full-featured office suite for Linux. Provides compatibility with Microsoft Office formats and smooth integrating into the KDE desktop. An evaluation version is available for download, but the software must be purchased in order to continue to use it.
GNOME Office

GNOME office should actually appear in quotes, because this is not an office suite in the classic sense, but a set of applications that are often associated with office suites, as a package deal, so to speak. Some of the high-lights include:

* Gnumeric, a spreadsheet application
* AbiWord, a word processor (it even runs under Windows and MacOS)
* Gnucash, a personal finance manager
* GNOME-DB, database connectivity software

If you download the Ximian Desktop, you'll get these applications plus the other productivity tools associated with the GNOME project.

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'mv' command for renaming files

Let's go back yet again to Tony's file, 'stuff' again. 'stuff' is not a good name for a file just as 'book' isn't a good name for a book. Just imagine: "The number one bestselling book this week is 'Book' by John Author.

You should probably re-name this file to something meaningful. I would suggest doing something like this:

mv stuff tonys_jokes

The 'mkdir' command

mkdir' is the command for making directories. 'mkdir' may be familiar to MS-DOS users out there. As you have noticed, the people who wrote these programs tried to give them names that described what they do more or less, not as long as 'makemeadirectoryplease' and not too cryptic like 'xr77b'.

Using the 'mkdir' command

To create the directory 'my_friends' that we talked about in the last lesson, you would type:

mkdir my_friends

There are no whistles or buzzers. If you'd like some sort of acknowledgment, you could type

mkdir --verbose my_friends

and it will tell you that you created the directory.

The 'rm' command

cdrom	home	opt	tmp
dev	lib	proc	usr
bin	etc	lost+found		root	var
boot	floppy	mnt	sbin

Linuxtutorial

Working with Linux - First Things First

When you work as root

'root' is not for routine work

The basic directory structure in Linux

The /bin directory

The /etc directory

Frequently Used Shell Commands

cd' command

The 'ls' command

more' and 'less'

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