<> === Session Logs === {{{#!IRC [16:02] Next up is leogg to talk about Ubuntu Equivalent Programs [16:02] Leandro Gómez is a system engineer and free software advocate from Uruguay. He currentlly lives in Nicaragua and is one of the six members of the Ubuntu LoCo Council. [16:02] Thank you Pendulum! [16:02] Hello and welcome everyone! [16:03] My name is Leandro Gómez and I'm here today to talk about applications on Ubuntu that can replace commonly used applications on Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. [16:03] This session is aimed at users that have recently switched or are considering switching to Ubuntu. [16:04] Many of the applications I'm going to present today are cross-platform. [16:04] That means that they can be run on Ubuntu, or Microsoft Windows, or Mac OS X. [16:05] The cool thing about this (for those of you who haven't made the transition yet) is that you can try all these open source applications on your non-free operating system. [16:06] That makes a smooth transition from your proprietary operating system to Ubuntu. [16:06] I'm going to start with some basic applications included on a standard installation of Ubuntu. [16:06] OpenOffice.org [16:07] I'm sure most of you have used or heard of this office productivity suite. [16:07] OpenOffice.org (or OOo for short), was developed by Sun Microsystems and the OOo community. OpenOffice.org has been acquired recently by Oracle. [16:08] OOo is a modern, full-featured, free and open source office productivity suite, and a great replacement for Microsoft Office and iWork. [16:08] The suite includes a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation software (Impress), database (Base) and a basic drawing and vector graphics editor (Draw). [16:09] These applications are equivalent to Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. [16:10] One of the biggest fears people have when switching to Ubuntu is that their friends and colleagues at work won't be able to exchange documents with them. [16:10] OOo is able to read and write in numerous formats, including -of course- Microsoft Office propietary formats. [16:11] You can open a Microsoft Word document, make changes in it with OOo Writer, and save it as a Microsoft Word document, or as a standard OOo document (ODF). [16:12] ODF, or Open Document Format, is the default file format for all OOo documents, and approved as a mandatory standard by a significant amount of countries, including the USA, United Kingdom, many countries in the EU, Brazil, South Africa, etc. [16:12] OOo is included on the Ubuntu Live CD and is installed by default. [16:12] http://www.openoffice.org [16:12] Some derivatives of Ubuntu doesn't include OpenOffice.org. [16:13] That's the case of Xubuntu and Lubuntu. [16:13] Both of these derivatives are aimed at low-specs PC's, and requires applications that doesn't consume much RAM. [16:13] Two of the most popular replacements for OpenOffice.org are Abiword and Gnumeric. [16:14] Abiword is a word processor included in Xubuntu and Lubuntu. === shadeslayer_ is now known as evilshadeslayer [16:14] It's very fast and light and has some cool features such as collaborative edition of documents using TCP or Jabber/XMPP. [16:15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiword [16:15] Gnumeric is a lightweight, yet powerful, spreadsheet application. [16:16] It has most of the features included in Calc, and more. Gnumeric can export documents to OOo, Excel and LaTeX. [16:16] Gnumeric is famous for its precision. === lkjoel is now known as eviltux === eviltux is now known as eviltux2 [16:17] Gnumeric is part of the GNOME Office suite, developed by the GNOME community. [16:17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnumeric [16:17] Both of these applications are available in the official repositories and can also be installed in Ubuntu using Synaptic or the Ubuntu Software Center. [16:18] Another application that all (or most) users needs is a web browser. [16:18] In Ubuntu we have a lot of applications to choose from. [16:19] The default web browser is Internet Explorer in Windows and Safari in Mac OS X. [16:19] The default web browser in Ubuntu is Mozilla Firefox. [16:20] Firefox is very popular and can also be found on numerous Windows and Mac computers. [16:20] Many people complaint about Firefox being very resource hungry. [16:21] It may be true, but the availability of thousands of plug-ins that brings additional functionality to the Firefox web browser, is priceless. [16:22] If you want a lightweight web browser, you can always try Chromium, the open source fork of the Google Chrome web browser. [16:23] Other options include Epiphany and Galeon, web browsers for the GNOME desktop, or Konqueror, the KDE web browser and file manager (great choice if you're using Kubuntu). [16:24] You can also try Midori, a lightweight web browser based on WebKit, or Kazehakase, that can use either Gecko or WebKit as its rendering engine. [16:24] And if you feel super geeky, take a look at ELinks, a text based web browser for your terminal. [16:25] http://www.elinks.cz/ [16:26] And while we're talking about web applications, let's take a look at what options you have for instant messaging. [16:26] Ubuntu uses Empathy by default. [16:26] Well... not Ubuntu, GNOME does. :) [16:27] Empathy is an instant messaging application supporting text, voice, video and file transfers. [16:27] Empathy supports many different protocols, including: MSN, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo!, Facebook, ICQ, etc. [16:28] That means that you don't need to have multiple messaging applications installed for all the different protocols/services. [16:28] With a single application you can chat with all your friends and family. It doesn't matter what protocol they're using, you'll have them all in a single window. [16:29] Another excellent application for instant messaging in Ubuntu is Pidgin. [16:29] http://www.pidgin.im/ [16:30] If your contacts use the MSN network exclusively, you can try aMSN, or Emesene. Beware that these apps aren't multi-protocol, they only support MSN. [16:30] http://www.amsn-project.net/ [16:31] http://www.emesene.org/ [16:31] IdleOne asked: Could you explain the difference between Google Chrome browser and chromium-browser that is available in the Ubuntu repos? [16:33] IdleOne: Chromium is free as in freedom. [16:34] IdleOne: Google Chrome has a dual license. BSD with some proprietary bits. [16:35] IdleOne: I've only used Chromium, but AFAIK they both share (almost) the same code. [16:35] IdleOne: The proprietary bits aren't included in Chromium, of course. [16:35] ech0tk asked: Why choose Empathy over Pidgin? [16:36] ech0tk: It's a matter of choice. [16:36] ech0tk: I like Pidgin more, but I'm getting used to Empathy, so... :) [16:36] mohi57o9 asked: I am not able to change the status in pidgin. Is there any package error? I am using Lucid Lynx [16:37] mohi57o9: Please try the #ubuntu channel for support :) [16:37] Nandu201 asked: I am not able to transfer files using pidgin.Is there any solution to rectify it? [16:37] Nandu201: Same as above :p [16:38] Ok, let's move on... [16:38] Let's talk about software for more specific needs. [16:39] In almost every talk I have given about Ubuntu, people ask about applications for designing. [16:39] There's a common perception that Ubuntu (or Linux as a whole) is not suited for graphic design. [16:40] People that know their stuff buys a Mac, or install the latest Adobe design suite on their Windows box. [16:40] I'm not a designer, but I've made tons of stuff for my local community; [16:41] Web buttons, huge printed banners, t-shirts, stickers, CD labels, posters, flyers... all of it using only free and open source software on Ubuntu. [16:41] You can see some of my stuff at http://spreadubuntu.neomenlo.org/en/users/leogg [16:41] Feel free to download the artwork, improve it and pass it on! :) [16:42] The GIMP is an image editing and processing application equivalent to Adobe Photoshop. [16:43] In my opinion, The GIMP has always been underestimated. [16:43] It's not as pretty as Photoshop, but it's a very powerful tool with a lot of cool plug-ins. [16:43] And yes... it's cross-platform too! [16:44] http://www.gimp.org/ [16:44] Inkscape is a free vector graphics editor and the open source equivalent to Adobe Ilustrator or Corel Draw. [16:44] I must say that I just love Inkscape! [16:45] Inkscape is very intuitive and easy to use. There's also a lot of tutorials for Inkscape out there, so it's quite easy to learn. [16:45] I recommend http://screencasters.heathenx.org/ [16:46] Übercool! [16:46] The official website of the project is at http://www.inkscape.org/ [16:47] eviltux asked: Does linux software work on Mac? I have heard that Ma uses Unix. [16:48] eviltux: Most of the apps I've mentioned are cross-platform, so they will work on both Linux and Mac. [16:49] IdleOne asked: Can I get all these programs from the Ubuntu Software Center? [16:49] IdleOne: Yes! [16:49] I'm going to name a few more applications that I use on a daily basis, and that are pretty cool; [16:50] Synfig Studio, a vector based 2D animation package. [16:50] http://www.synfig.org/ [16:50] Scribus, graphic page layout and publication software. [16:50] There are are 10 minutes remaining in the current session. [16:50] http://www.scribus.net/ [16:50] Blender, for 3D modelling, rendering and animation. [16:51] Blender has a high learning curve, but it's extremely powerful, and the results are amazing! (Be sure to check out Big Buck Bunny at the Blender web site ;) [16:51] http://www.blender.org/ [16:51] Agave, a colorscheme designer for the GNOME desktop. [16:51] http://home.gna.org/colorscheme/ [16:52] Screenie, a small tool for composing fancy and stylish screenshots. [16:52] http://code.google.com/p/screenie/ [16:52] All of these applications are available in Ubuntu, and they're just a few clicks away! [16:53] eviltux asked: I couldn't use Scribus for some reason. But the last time I used it was on 2008. Was there an update after 2008? [16:54] The latest stable release is 1.3.3.14 [16:54] eviltux: January 2010 [16:54] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribus [16:55] regi asked: Is there an opensource alternative for MS Visio? [16:55] There are are 5 minutes remaining in the current session. [16:55] regi: Yes! There's a lot! [16:56] regi: You could try Dia, http://live.gnome.org/Dia/ [16:56] eviltux asked: Is there a development release channel for scribus? (channel such as repository) [16:57] eviltux: Yes. The development release is the scribus-ng package in Ubuntu. [16:57] Some useful links for finding free and open sources alternatives; [16:57] http://linuxappfinder.com/ [16:58] http://www.osalt.com/ [16:58] If you have any questions, this is the right place to be; http://ubuntuforums.org/ [16:58] That's all from me... thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the day! :) }}}