Re: For The Gamers

On 2024-12-27, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:

On 2024-12-24 04:39, RonB wrote:
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Well, I can tell you that there are certain advanced features people
need in Microsoft Office which seem to be unavailable to LibreOffice
users. Of course, they might just be somewhere else in the open suite,
like when I received a document with forms in .DOCX and had someone here
convert it to the equivalent in .ODT. At the same time, I don't use any
of the advanced features so LibreOffice has always been more than enough
for me. The only reason I use Microsoft's suite is because I got a
license for cheap. I can also use the 365 license I get from work for
free. Since I routinely receive documents from them to fill out, I have
no proper use for Libre.

 
I guess I've never had any use for these advanced features. All I know is
that, when we would get Word Documents at the print shop, we had a heck of a
time cleaning them up for Desk Top Application. Lot of hidden code.

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I believe that is part of the reason why legal offices still prefer
WordPerfect Office over Microsoft's software.

I think WordPerfect also has special templates for lawyers. And, I'm
guessing, it's inertia thing again. WordPerfect got popular for lawyers, so
they keep using it.

In my opinion M$ Office is bloated crapware that tries to "think" for you.
But I was only occasionally forced to use it so I never got in stuck in the
"inertia loop."

>
I would extend that to Windows itself too. The way it has implemented AI
makes it clear that they don't want you thinking. Of course, there are
certain places where I appreciate the AI like in Brave Search or Bing
Search. There, if there is a certain technological question like what is
the benefit of one monitor over another, the engine quickly scours the
web for information and summarizes the data for me. That is much easier
than navigating to a bunch of websites which cannon a series of ads at me.

 
I turn off AI in my searches. I don't know about Brave or Bing, but in
Firefox you just add the udm14 add-on and AI results are gone in Google.

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I'm a big fan of Brave's AI, to be honest. When I was looking up the
fTPM problem I mentioned in a previous post, it saved me a lot of time
by telling me what people were saying, how to fix it, whether or not
Linux is affected and so on. Had I been forced to read all that content
on my own, I'd probably get discouraged. In fact, I might never have
learned that the Linux kernel actually addresses the problem and allows
you to circumvent the issue entirely.

I've been using Firefox for so long that I don't think I would want to move
away from it. I can customize so it's very minimal and that's something I
_do_ do on new installs, get Firefox working the way I like it.

My impression of AI is just not very good. It always sounds like an
informercial to me. And it pisses me off that these AI server farms use as
much power as whole cities and not a damn peep (or very muted whining) about
it from the climate screechers — who keep trying to get us (personally) to
use less and less power. I guess the AI server farms are more important than
people.

My wife uses Power Point. She originally used it because a template she
purchased only worked with Power Point. Now she's used to using it, so
she'll probably keep using it as long as she needs to prepare classes. Just
the way it works. People use what they're used to using. Inertia.
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That's why so many still use the inferior Microsoft Windows crap OS.

>
I can't argue that habit plays a big part in what people choose to use.
At the same time, that's why I usually load Linux Mint for whatever user
I help: it's not that unfamiliar.

 
Linux Mint is often suggested for those moving from Windows because it does
work similarly (at least at the Desktop level). I'm sure that design is not
by accident.

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I chose Fedora this time around because www.asus-linux.org offers a
comprehensive guide for the distribution to make sure that everything
you want works as it should on your hardware. I chose the KDE flavour
and it more or less behaves like a snappier Windows.

I could use Fedora (especially with the Cinnamon spin) without much trouble.
Synaptic is better than Fedora's install application and Linux Mint has nice
little utilities built-in, but (for when it matters) you're trading "cutting
edge" for a little more convenience. (A trade I don't mind making.) In
Linux Mint, if I install EasyEffects (for example), I'll have to use FlatPak
instead of the repository (at least in version 21). So there's pros and
cons.

--
“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy
what has been invented or made by the forces of good.”  —J.R.R. Tolkien