I'm sure my experience with platform-dependent apps as an impediment to
moving entirely to Linux is not unique. I have spent plenty of time
playing with Linux at home, but have always had to deal with
platform-specific needs of employers, etc., so I have never been able to
completely immerse myself in Linux. I'd still like to use Linux as my
primary platform, but I have to deal with having to run quite specific
apps in different environments. So, I'm looking to begin a discussion
about how to set-up a home environment that is as much Linux-based as is
possible while providing for the realities of platform-specific
requirements. Of course, this is as much a discussion of applications
as it is about platforms.
I have 3 systems and 1 laptop at home, all of which are Pentium IIIs,
one as fast as 800MHz (imagine that!), that are available for use in my
home network. I must be able to run Internet Explorer 6.x (required for
several web-enabled apps I must use on a regular basis), Word, and
PowerPoint. My wife has a Pentium III laptop that must run XP because
of her work, but it would be nice to have her access a linux file server
for backup and such. (She also likes Linux games!) Also, I have a
couple of laser printers and an ink jet that I would rather hang off of
one print server.
With an eye toward a home network that must include Microsoft and access
to Macs at work, here are some questions to start this discussion off:
Q1 - OpenOffice versus MS Office:
I will need to be reading/editing/creating Word and Powerpoint files (as
most of the world do). I will be getting files to edit, and be creating
others from scratch. I teach, so the results are intended for display
on an ActiveBoard with the expectation of touching the board (or
clicking from the console) to follow a link embedded in a powerpoint
slide yielding a movie clip, or web page, or whatever. I'm told I have
control over the department's files, but not to the extent of choosing
something other than MS, so I'd like to use OpenOffice as my primary
environment and then generate MS files for use at the school. I assume
OpenOffice can do what PowerPoint can do (within reason), but I can't
afford the time to "fix" generated MS Office files to work in a Mac or
XP environment. Are the any OpenOffice users out there that can comment
on this?
Q2 - Heterogeneous access:
I want to be able to access any file created in any of the three
environments. I'd like to move files between the Macs at work and one
or more of my machines at home without using Email (I want to avoid any
constraints like size limitations on attachments). I want to be able to
pull and push those files to whatever platform is needed for whatever
needs to be done with them. I assume VNC is available on the Mac, and
that I would probably need to run SAMBA, but what are the options these
days? I suppose I could set up a FTP server... I'd also like to drop
the static IP because of cost, and have already moved the web site to a
commercial provider...
Q3 - Email:
Of primary concern is moving existing email from the MS environment
(laptop) to Linux. I am trying to find a way to export all of my email
from Mozilla 1.6 to a file or files that can then be moved to a Linux
box and imported/read by a mail reader there, but I can't seem to find a
way to do this... There is no export function in Mozilla 1.6 and the
mail files are not consistently ASCII (at least from what I've seen). I
have even tried to use other mailers' ability to import from their
competitors, in the hopes that one of them can do the export, but I have
had no luck with any of them knowing about Mozilla. Does anyone know of
a way to get email out of Mozilla into an ASCII file-based structure (or
something equally vanilla) that can be read by a standard Linux reader?
Beyond that specific issue, what would be the best way to handle email?
Right now I limit myself to using one platform and POP only from it.
This is because I can travel with the laptop and not all the servers I
access allow IMAP. I retrieve mail from 7 different accounts and
forwarding is not allowed (nor do I want to have to keep track of
that). I don't mind having to do this, but I'm wondering about other
options...
Thanks for your sage advice!
Steve
