Questions about programs under Linux.

[Thomas Ward]

Hi, anna. As to your questions again Red Hat comes with Emacs and so does
most other distributions. that will be enough to get started with.
As for Word/Excel document converters those usually need to be grabbed extra
from other web sites.

----- Original Message -----
From: Anna Schneider <annas at drizzle.com>
To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 8:08 PM
Subject: Re: Questions about programs under Linux.


> Okay, I'm going to try and cut and paste a little bit which gets messy.
>
> On Sat, 9 Mar 2002, Yvonne Smith wrote:
>
> >
> >  > 2.  I want to get the Emacs editor.  When I read some info on the
> >  > Emacspeak site, it sounded like there are a couple of different Emacs
> >  > packages available depending on what sorts of things I plan to do
with
> >  > Emacs.  Do I have to go find the package I want and download it?  And
> >  > then, if I want to fill out my Emacs package even more, with the
Dismal
> >  > Spreadsheet for example, do I have to go download it too?
> >  >
> > Ok, emacs I'm better at, since I'm running emacspeak most of the time,
> > not speakup. Once you've installed emacs itself, depending on what you
> > want to do, you might not have to go any further. If you just want to
> > use it as an editor, what comes with it by default will do fine. But
> > there are a lot of emacs packages you can download to make the editor do
> > different things. Yes, you'll have to download dismal. There's a
> > sofisticated calculator called calc. There're two web-browsers native to
> > emacs. That's only the tip of the iceberg.
> > All the stuff above you'll have to download and install, but unless you
> > need any of those things immediately, you should probably cross that
> > bridge when you come to it. Install emacs first, and then try to figure
> > out what else you want it to do, and we can probably give you pointers
> > to emacs packages. Although you'll probably be best to ask on the
> > emacspeak list or even a general emacs list for that kind of
information.
>
>
> Insertiont the first.  I'm guessing that Emacs is going to be my oh way of
> doing lots of stuff.  Writing documents, doing spread sheets, who nows
> what all else.  I don't want the fanciest package around, I'd just get
> confused, but I do want a fairly flexible one.  I won't worry about it
> tons until I do get my computer and install Emacs, but is there an place I
> could look to start reading up on it?
>
>  >  > 3.  Are there ways to open Word
> and Excel programs in Linux? >
> > > Umm, that kind of depends what you mean. If someone sends you a word
> > document, there are a couple of programs to turn it into text or
> > html. Catdoc, antiword and wordview are the three that spring to mind
> > off the top of my head.
> >
> > excel spreadsheets are a bit more of a problem. I'm pretty sure I saw
> > something to turn them into html or something like that on the wordview
> > page, but I'd have to go do some more research, since I haven't really
> > looked in a while.
>
> Okay, do these programs to open/convert Word documents come with
> distributions generally speaking, or will I have to go dig them up
> somewhere.
>
> >  > 5.  What is the most recent version of Lynx?  Is it considered to be
> >  > equivalent to Internet Explorer 4.0 or better?   This matters quite a
bit
> >  > actually.  If I need another web browser in addition to Lynx, do any
exist
> >  > for Linux?
> >  >
> > Umm web browsers under linux for console users are a bit problematic. I
> > don't think there's anything we can use under linux that I'd consider
> > equivalent to ie4 or above. The things that are impossible for us under
> > linux that you're likely to encounter are javascriptand activex.
> >
> > Javascript would be useable if we could use x-windows, but we
> > can't. Activex will probably never be useable, since it's a microsoft
> > scripting language. I don't know if this answers your question. Again,
> > you'll need to be a bit more specific about what you'll want to do.
> Well, here's the thing.  I've just become a Mary Kay consultant, and if
> you go to the Mary Kay web sit, (www.marykay.com) there is a section
> called Intouch all one word, and this section has information under it for
> consultants, but I can't get in with lynx.  This is a problem.  Material
> such as an online version of the product guide are there.  In fact, I find
> several parts of Mary Ky's web site to be not easily lynx accessible.  I'm
> not sure why.  Maybe someone on this list could look and tell me.
>
>
>
> >
> >  > 6.  And last I hope and this is just a point of clarification, when
you
> >  > all talk about telnetting and ftyping and all that, you are doing
from
> >  > your machines right?  Do you have to dial in first to do those things
from
> >  > your machine or how does that work?
> >  >
> > Telnet and ftp are generally used to connect from one machine to
> > another. Almost certainly you'll want to be connected to the internet,
> > unless you've got a network at home, and need to talk to other machines
> > on your own network.
> >
> >
> But see this is where I'm confused.  I've worked off of machines on a
> network with a couple different operating systems and you could ftp and
> telnet between some of those, and I've worked off of my old DOS computer
> at home where I have to dial up, but I haven't worked off of a linux
> machine that isn't hooked into a network.  That's why I'm confused.  If
> I'm not on a network but I have a Linux machine, do FTP and telnet come
> into play at all and if so how?
>
> And thank you.  The answers were quite helpful.
>
> Anna
>
>
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