BW and Linux

[mwPaul]

OK. Thanks for the input. I guess that I get to play...
I'll report back what I find. If anyone can give particulars on the problems that they have seen with the ABCD options (e.g., I opened this, clicked this, entered this, etc.), then I'll see if I can find a solution for you in my travels.

BTW - I love the Windoze spelling .

Windoze, it's not an OS, it's a sub-strait for growing viruses.
Hmmmm - is my Unix slant showing?

Hi DPeloquin, I would be really interested in what you found, please ket us know.

Thanks

[dhave]

BW7 runs just fine under VMware Workstation for Linux 6.x. My guest OS is WinXP Pro. I also sometimes dual-boot into "real" Windows XP Pro, and on my system there's no performance difference between BW7 on VMware (with Windows as guest) vs. BW7 on Windows.

[mwPaul]

Thanks dvave. I don't have a windows license, so I'm mostly interested in emulation like Wine and CrossOver. From what I've been reading here, bw7 works with them with only one minor issue, a popup message at start/shutdown. Can anybody confirm that this is the only problem and otherwise everything works fine?

[frankschutz]

Hi, I just joined the forums primarily for this section on Linux. I have been with BW since version 4 and first began (trying) to run it on Linux since version 5. It was at version 6 that I got it to work pretty well with Crossover Office and then with Wine by itself. That is when I gleefully put Windoze behind me for good, except at work where I support it - I'm in IT to make a living.

Anyway, I just upgraded to BW7 and installed it, so far everything works fine. I did not receive any error on starting it. The only glitches I have seen so far, are the two I have always had in Wine - when scrolling back in displayed text, the newly visible text is garbled. All it takes is to select some of the text, minimize and restore, or just about anything to force a screen rewrite and it is good. I can live with that. And the second is when resizing a screen, it lags and looks funny while it tries to catch up, but works.

I am running openSUSE 10.3 (which I love) and wine version 0.9.53.

I hope this helps!

Frank

[frankschutz]

VMWare is great, but i find VirtualBox to be much easier to work with. There are 2 versions - an OSS (Open Source) version and a proprietary version that is free for personal use. I have run BW 6 perfectly under it on openSUSE with a Vista guest OS. I have not tried BW 7 - I prefer not going into Vista! The only reason I have it at all is for WordPerfect X3. WordPerfect is by far the best WP out there and I have not been able to get X3 to run under Wine. But most of the time I just use WordPerfect 12 in Wine and leave Vista (and any Windoze) alone!

Cheers

Frank

[united_by_truth]

For those who use virtualization, I agree with Frank. I thought VMware Player was outstanding and it is good, but I started playing with VirtualBox about Christmas time and now I find I never use VMware Player. VB was easy to set up and configure, has a detailed manual, and I really like the seamless windows. My host is Mepis 6.5 on my laptop and 7.0 at the office and my guest is Win 2000. I am using BW 7. The laptop is a secondhand 7 or 8 year old Dell 1.0 GHz processor with 512MB Ram max. I split the RAM 256/256 and everything runs fine.

Actually I started with VB on the laptop. I just cloned my virtual hard disk and sent the clone to my desktop and vola! a full blown working install with BibleWorks, Libronix Theological Journals, and all!

[united_by_truth]

Frank, I couldn't help but finding your WP comments interesting. Apparently I am not a WP connoisseur and I realize that there is a lot of personal preference and familiarity issues in this area, but what do you see as major drawbacks to OpenOffice? Especially since you do not normally run virtualization.

[frankschutz]

Hi UBT,

I like that moniker!

Well, I don't have a lot of time right now, but here are a few things. There are a lot of little features in WordPerfect that really make working in it a pleasure rather than a chore as in virtually all other WP's. For example, you are writing along and you want to center one line of text. In OOO you simply grab the mouse and click the appropriate button. Hit enter and grab the mouse again and hit the right aligned button. Not bad, but in WP, in a fraction of the time and effort, I just hit F7 type text and hit enter (it reverts back to right aligned at the enter key.

Or say you are writing up a bulletin and you type "Scripture reference" and now you want the actual reference to be left aligned and why not have dot connecting the 2 ends of text. In OOO you have to set a tab (and maybe clear all other tabs) and you have to change the tab to left align with dot leaders. Oh . . . be carful not to get that tab too close to the left margin! I call that a bit, not a big, but a bit of a pain. In WP, I just type "Scripture reference" and hit ALT+F7 twice, hit tab and type the reference -- all done.

Now you are in a footer and you want to have the Scripture reference on the right, the date in the center and the page number on the right (my sermon notes). In 000 you . . . whew . . . tabs! you get the idea. In WP I type the Scripture reference hit ALT+F7 and type the date (or insert with Ctrl+D) hit F7 and put in the auto page numbering of choice.

One other real problem I have is that I do my sermon notes as half sheets. In OOO I have to use columns on landscape and it works ok, but then when I try to put page numbers in a footer . . . I have not found a way for it to count pages by columns! I have googled and searched and asked people (Word has the same problem) and I have not found a way to do it. If you can, let me know. In WP I just use landscape and subdivide the page with 2 columns - done!

Just a few examples. Don't get me started on "sections!"

Well, gotta go back to work . . .

[frankschutz]

OOPS! I just reread my post and realized I reversed the ALT+F7 and the F7 in the 3rd paragraph.

[ingosorke]

. . . and those Reveal Codes in WP, oh those Reveal Codes (alt F3). Makes editing so much easier and precise (esp. with biblical languages and accents).
Web page rendering is better in Word and OOo though.
And I'm afraid for WP's future; read somewhere that market share for word processing has dropped below 10%.

Ingo