So, a general open source topic.

You just chose an open source operating system such as linux that has a good office suite such as openoffice included with it. In total you have just saved ?500 by not buying XP Pro and Office Pro.

My question is... what would you do with the money?


Personally I would spend that money on buying a new mobo/processor/ram for my rubbish p4 system.

7800GTX and Athlon 4200+ (OK, so that's nearly 700 quid).

Or one of the above (CPU) and a custom watercooling kit.

in my case i would chose them because i didnt have the money but then if i did have that money and chose the free ones i would put it towards the computer i installed it on

Yeah, lots of people don't have the money, so get open source aswell. I think most people would spend the money saved on computer components or software that isn't available as frewware (well, decent freeware).

to revive this thread

i used a set of freeware programs instead of comercial ones so i could get some spare money to save for w/e i want later in the year

Ahh, cool. Which programs were they?

open ofice
gimp
winamp though the alternative was also free
avast
zonealarm
adawar
spybot
and some others i cant remember

good
good
good
dunno
good
good
good

And I'm guessing you use Firefox?

no i didn't cause it was a windows sys and i use explore even though firefox is better

:shock: (<- don't know if it's an emoticon). Firefox is an essential!

I can't stand OpenOffice; it's a horrible program. All the others you mentioned are bo-tastic though. And yes, everybody *NEEDS* Firefox.

Personally I've never used OpenOffice (just can't be bothered), but I've heard a lot of good things about it. Then again, if you're used to MS Office, you won't be as familiar with the interface, as you would be used to MS Office.

with a bit of fiddleing with settings it can be used by ne ms office taut person without them even noticeing the difference but true ms office is better but ive only got 1 vertion of it and it xp so even if i put it on more than 2 comp it would only work on 1

I've got a copy of Office XP that's been installed on atleast 5 different main setups, 2 of which have bing altered quite a lot. Still no probs. I would still be using 97 if we hadn't won that copy!

well the version iv got has an activation thing that automaticly discredits the previours instalation

Wierd, though it sounds like something MS would do!