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The GNU/Linux thread

Dr_Grip said:
Currently sitting through a Debian reinstall. Used the testing installer nightly, seems to work fine.


30 minutes to go for the initial software download....
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...and we're back to normal!
 
narf said:
That's computer science, yeah - it was the norm there :D same in maths though, and not uncommon in physics.
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Don't have any physics/math friends nor anyone with CS masters but the ones with bachelors never had to use LaTeX to my knowledge.
 
We first used LaTeX for the documentation of our group project, because chapter-wise plain text files (which .tex files are) under version control is just the most sensible choice if several people work on the same large document, possibly using different operating systems and editors.
The output looking awesome and the superior handling of mathematical formulas, tables and listings of source code obviously played a major role.

And most journals and conferences in the field (that I know) expect entries to be submitted in .tex form too, for easy integration into the journal or conference proceedings, which are again - LaTeX.

But then again, I've majored in CS and most of my friends from university are from CS, Math, or Physics. It's of course a completely different story in the computer-averse fields and the ones being content with being nothing more than a training camp for the private sector (engineering, business studies).
 
prizrak said:
I can't speak for all colleges but all the ones I know (either going myself or know people who went) pretty much expects a .doc(x) for all submitted papers. I've not met a single person who used LaTeX or similar to do papers in school and that includes people who have gone for master's degrees in science (as in actual science not just MS degree that covers just about any sorta tech subject here).
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I had to submit my undergrad thesis in pdf made via LaTex. In fact, a majority of my professors (physics) used LaTex...
 
In my field (Philosophy/Social Science) and circle of friends, LaTeX has become a running gag - two friends of mine who both got a physics degree before switching to advanced logic and philosophy of science, respectively, use it. And everyone else knows it's superior, but postpones the switch to "the next project" forever because of the learning curve.

In unrelated news, I'll have to hang my head in shame: I just solved the "over-sensitive motion sensor" problem that plagued my ThinkPad for months and led to a friendly IBM service person swapping almost every part of the computer to no avail: You can simply turn down the sensor's sensitivity in a config file.

weeping_angel+facepalm.jpg
 
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Yeah, I'm sorry but if your platform's preeminent fucking word processor corrupts not one but two goddamn documents it makes someone with shit that needs done on a deadline to lose faith.

Not. Fucking. Happy.
 
Did you use "track changes" in a .doc file?
 
Dr_Grip said:
Did you use "track changes" in a .doc file?
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Negative. I worked on the file solo last night, saved it as a .docx, then uploaded a copy to my school's file server. I needed some clarification on a question I had so I didn't print it last night as I needed to finish it.

Today I attempted to open it on a school machine and got a corrupted file error. Even worse, when I clicked "attempt to recover" or whatever, word said something like "can't open file, need converter."

So I go back to my laptop and check the file...looks good, I re save it, thinking that the upload got messed up. I then proceed to e-mail the file to myself, and return to a different lab.

Same issue: "the file is corrupted/contains unreadble content"

It's cutting it really fucking close now so I run back to my dorm again and look at the file. The character "&" is in the filename but windows opens files with "&" just fine.

Desperate, I end up cutting and pasting the text of the file into a .txt and screenshotting my table and scatter plot, sending the files to myself and then reassembling the document in Word on a lab machine.

I'm at a loss as to what could have caused the corruption: I added a small table and opened a .xlsx in Calc that a group member created to copy-paste the scatter plot from that file into the Writer document. The scatter plot copied perfectly into the document and I was able to edit it fine.

I suspect that the scatter plot was causing issues...its the only "semi-exotic" part of the document.

Still though, that doesn't inspire confidence, and I'll need to see if I can get my codeweavers credentials to work so Office can be installed before my next project.
 
Can't you also install Office through WINE? Or is that outdated? (haven't been in Linux for some time).
 
thevictor390 said:
Can't you also install Office through WINE? Or is that outdated? (haven't been in Linux for some time).
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WINE sucks. What I do when I really need an MS Office document is to fire up XP in VirtualBox. But once you get 'round the quirks of LibreOffice's export filters (i.e. use .doc or .rtf instead of .docx, never ever use track changes, kiss your footnote formatting goodbye) that's only in the very few cases where, at the same time, formatting is important and PDFs are not accepted.

And, rick, as a general note (not only for the Linux/Windows, LibreOffice/MS Office divide, but for computing in general) always use a program's native format for saving your working copy and only use the target format to export the finished product. That'll save you a lot of headaches. And if you really want to be thorough, next time you need to continue working at an Uni computer (our computer labs have LibreOffice installed as well, I guess cause it's free) save the file as a .doc and a .rtf, to be on the safe side.
 
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I know WINE isn't great, but I remember it working with Office specifically as that is obviously one of the most desireable Windows programs to have. No idea if it has kept up with Office versions though.
 
chaos386 said:
Rick, try saving it as an .odt and opening that in Word (yes, it has .odt support, surprisingly enough).
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prizrak said:
It's a plug-in one needs to dl IIRC, might not be able to do it from the lab
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corrupt_zpsbaf0bb5f.png


That's what I got when I tried that with a totally different document saved in .odt from the start. This was just text, no charts or graphs. Luckily I remembered to copy and paste the contents. *eyeroll*

EDIT: WordPad supports .odf and opens it fine. Wiki says that .odf was built into Office 2010 w/out the need for plugins. I opened the file using Office 2010.
 
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rickhamilton620 said:
EDIT: WordPad supports .odf and opens it fine. Wiki says that .odf was built into Office 2010 w/out the need for plugins. I opened the file using Office 2010.
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So something might be broken with the Office install on your lab computers...
 
I just upgraded my debian installation to sid. It is a major disappointment so far: Everything works as expected, absolutely nothing is broken or in need of attention.
 
Dr_Grip said:
I just upgraded my debian installation to sid. It is a major disappointment so far: Everything works as expected, absolutely nothing is broken or in need of attention.
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I know Debian really sux in that regard.
 
prizrak said:
I know Debian really sux in that regard.
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The whole idea of upgrading to sid was that with wheezy already being in the Release Candidate phase I felt too far away from the bleeding edge running testing.

What happened to the good old days when running unstable meant that each time you ran dist-upgrade something major would stop working?
 
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