domingo, 28 de noviembre de 2010

An Environment to Test Linux and OpenOffice? What about an Academic Dissertation?

Many say that Linux is good to play with but never to be used in a serious work environment. Also, Microsoft said in a video that OpenOffice is "unprofessional."

Is that true?



Of course, I made all my documents through my major with OpenOffice, but I decided to put both Linux and OpenOffice to a very serious test. Which one could be better than my academic dissertation for my Licenciate in Education?

Yes! If Linux does NOT work, I'll be put to shame not only in front of those who attended the public defense, but also in front of the examining tribunal. How about that? Does that sound serious enough?

My dissertation was today.

I was the only one who used Linux (Mepis Linux 8.5) and OpenOffice Impress while all the others used Windows XP (Why not Windows 7 Starter? Someone brought a netbook with it!) and MS Office 2007.

Interesting detail: XP refused to show the presentations on the wall and the netbook's screen at the same time. No function keys worked. The presenters had to read from the wall when changing the slides.

Interesting detail 2: One candidate who had made her presentation with an earlier version of PowerPoint had a problem: her titles and subtitles got somewhat garbled. What happened to the great compatibility of MS PowerPoint 2007 according to the video from Microsoft?

What happened to me? Could Linux do any better than that?

Well, I could use both the screen and the wall without pressing any special keys...Thank you, Linux!

Along with my presentation, I could even open 2 more programs and several different windows without my modest netbook getting stuck. Oh, and the audience was very impressed by Kwin and its desktop cube, which let me organize all my windows without cluttering.


What about Open Office? Both the audience and the academics judging my work showed me in their faces they were greatly impressed by this software and its OpenGL 3-D effects that PowerPoint cannot mimic.


The members of the tribunal were very satisfied...I ended my degree in Education successfully thanks to Open Source. THANK YOU, LINUX; THANK YOU, OPEN OFFICE!

Did I mention my topic? It was the inclusion of Open Source Software in language courses at the university. Yes, Linux is dead! :P

4 comentarios:

  1. Congratulations on your experiment, your success, and your graduation!

    ResponderEliminar
  2. Good deal wrote a technical engineering dissertation (auto indexed equations, figures, and tables and more) using OO_writer and this month will be giving the defense using Impress. I have OO to be up to the challenge so far and more. This FOSS software rocks.

    ResponderEliminar
    Respuestas
    1. FOSS is very flexible and you don't have to worry about software expiration, as it is commonplace with "evaluation" software. Good luck with your defense!!!

      Eliminar