[Rule-list] Re:(the RULE project and) speed of applications

[Marco Fioretti]

Chris,

first of all, thanks for your interest in the project, and please
accept my apologies for answering so late.

Some comments on your original message (pasted below for the benefit
of the RULE list)

1) Congratulations for the TechKnowledgy initiative

2) We (Michael Fratoni, actually) are building an installer that makes
   *possible* to install on machines with little RAM: standard Red Hat
   product just doesn't do it, so it makes it impossible to place
   the sw in the PC and tune it later as you mention. The RULE
   installers make Free SW available to many more users

3) Everybody who wants something doing all MS Office does today, and
   in the *way* MS Office does it today, must do it on a latest
   generation computer, either locally or remotely. Period. It's just
   too big and pumped up, regardless of the incarnation (MS Office,
   OpenOffice, whatever). 
   We will focus on applications too, but on those giving the greatest
   real functionality with the lowest resource needs, not eye candy
   (see below for more) 

4) Your FAQ at www.tkgh.org says:
   Power-hungry applications such as accessing the Internet may
   require the provision of new equipment 

   The Internet was already accessible when 486 where top of the line,
   not to mention the BBS world. Browsing and email are still possible
   today on low end machines. Online gaming and bloated pages full of
   useless JavaScript and Flash toys are unreadable, but they often
   don't contain worthwhile info, at least from the point of view of a
   school teaching IT basis, do they?

5) Please don't educate to proprietary software and file formats. That
   only builds dependency and needs for uselessly powerful HW.
   Also, don't perpetuate ours (=western world) often flawed
   assumptions.	
   Remember that people who have never seen Windows have no false
   prejudices/expectations about what is really user
   friendly/intuitive. They are not spoiled by that, so they can
   afford, and should be helped to, not repeat our mistakes.
   I have seen similar projects where "let's give them a simple,
   really intuitive and friendly interface" often meant "the
   instructor is full of good will, but he knows little IT and has
   only seen windows in his life, so that it's everything he's able to
   teach"

   Developing countries should have WP/spreadsheet packages
that have the really necessary, always used features, open .doc / .xls
attachments and files with the conversion utilities available, and
(check on the GNU project site for a long explanation) reject .doc
and .xls attachments whenever they receive them, and never send them
around, of course (EVEN if they run Windows!!)
This is the kind of philosopy and applications that the RULE project
will try to package and make more accessible. Please let us know how
we can help. We look forward to any feedback

I sincerely wish good luck to Techknowledgy!
 	
	Best Regards,
			Marco Fioretti
			RULE project leader

P.S.: REMEMBER that you need to subscribe (even temporarily) to the
list before posting to it!

On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 13:47:13 at 01:47:13PM -0000, chris at tkgh.org  chris at tkgh.org  wrote:
> ** Long message warning **
> 
> I am involved in installing old PCs in schools in Africa, and would very 
> much like to use Linux. What seems to me to be the greatest 
> impediment is the speed of the applications.
> 
> The only package I have seen which seems to me to compare 
> reasonably with MS Office is OpenOffice. I have tried abiword and 
> gnumerics but preferred OpenOffice, although I cannot remember in 
> detail why. Perhaps I should check them out again.
> 
> Anyway, comparing speeds. Running "winword file.doc" on a P75 with 
> 64MB of RAM, running NT 4.0, takes 14 seconds from hitting enter to 
> fully loaded. Running "swriter file.sxw" on a P100 with 64MB of RAM 
> takes 20 seconds till the OpenOffice logo appears and a further 100 
> seconds until it is ready to use. The Windows version of OpenOffice 
> takes a similar time, so I don't think that my Linux configuration is to 
> blame.
> 
> Another comparison. Loading XWinPro, a commercial X-server takes 
> 10 seconds. Loading XFree with Cygwin takes 80 seconds. These are 
> like-for-like comparisons and suggest that for at least some unix 
> developers, speed is not an issue.
> 
> A lot of attention here seems to be being paid to producing an easy-to-
> use installer, but from my perspective this is barely an issue, although 
> the size of the installation is. It doesn't particularly matter if I have to 
> spend two weeks setting up a system as long as I can then reproduce it 
> quickly, but if I were to install OpenOffice on a 66MHz 486 then they 
> would feel that they were being fobbed off with an inferior product 
> before they looked at it, just because of the time it takes to load.
> 
> The only way I could consider using OpenOffice as it stands is on a 
> high spec. server with the old PCs just being used as X terminals.
> 
> I realise that RULE is not responsible for penOffice, but I feel there is 
> not enough emphasis on applications. My "clients" don't care how easy 
> it is to install the operating system, because I do it for them. What they 
> want is a word processor and spreadsheet that will stand comparison 
> with Word and Excel.
> 
> Regards,
> Chris.
> 
> 


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