The first pre-alpha Linux version of gobeProductive 3, the popular office suite, is now available for download. Read through for installation, other information and the download URL, along with a message for the OSNews readers, directly from Gobe.
Dear OSNews Readers,
We are making available a pre-alpha preview of the Linux version of gobeProductive. We hope you can help us by providing general feedback, especially regarding interoperability with Linux, the X Window System, window managers, and Gnome (but please don’t send bug reports yet). If you would like to try this preview product please read the information included below.
Thank you,
The Gobe Team
http://www.gobe.com
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The download link is located at the bottom of this message. This message contains important information so please look it over.
You can pre-order gobeProductive for Linux for the introductory price of $74.95 by ordering the Windows version.
After installing, please visit gobeProductive Online (via gobeProductive’s Help menu or on the web), especially Tips & Tricks. For continuing announcements of preview or beta versions, please sign up for our Announce Mailing List, accessible under Mailing Lists at gobeProductive Online. There is a Linux version discussion area on our gobeProductive forum, also accessible from gobeProductive Online.
About this version:
This is the pre-alpha 1 preview release of gobeProductive 3.0 for Linux. We would like general feedback, especially regarding interoperability with Linux, the X Window System, window managers, and Gnome. We are currently considering switching to using Gnome 2.0, which is nearing release. Please send your feedback to [email protected]. We are not currently seeking bug reports so please don’t send them.
For system requirements, please see the bottom of this document.
This software is not yet beta quality and is intended solely as a preview. Pre-alpha means that there are areas of functionality which are not yet usable and that the user interface will change before the final release. There are several known bugs which cause crashes.
That being said, much of the application is quite usable. It is mostly areas like dialogs and floating palettes which are unfinished. We are currently in the process of reimplementing the dialogs and palettes using Glade, a GUI construction tool for GTK and Gnome. Interface objects such as the Preferences Dialog and the History panel (palette) are examples of dialogs which have been converted. Dialogs which have not yet been converted may exhibit problematic behavior (e.g., the Bullets and Numbering dialog has overlapping OK/Cancel buttons), and in some cases, crashes.
Other known problem areas and some remedies:
If you are using Sawfish as your window manager, you may encounter non-modal dialogs (such as the dictionary and thesaurus) which have no close box. To dismiss these dialogs, you can usually use the ESC key or the Sawfish window menu (typically invoked via right-click on the window title bar). Alternatively, the ‘Sawfish Appearance’ preferences has an option “Decorate dialog windows similarly to application windows” which will generally cause dialogs to have close boxes.
If you are using KDE, many panel/palettes will sink below document windows rather than float. The window appears to disappear, but you should be able to find it behind the document window.
The ink popup menus will not go away unless you select something.
Currently, the Alt key is used for menu key equivalents, and there is no user preference to change this.
Image Processing plugins do not work yet.
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Licenses:
This installation includes the library libart, which is covered by the LGPL.
This installation includes libGL and libOSMesa, which are covered by the XFree86 license.
Copies of these licenses are installed in /usr/share/gobeProductive
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Installing:
To install, expand the download file: gobe_install.tgz, and run the installer:
$ tar -xzf gobe_install.tgz
$ cd gobe_install
$ ./install_gobeProductive
You will be prompted for the root password (if not already root), and then asked to read and agree to the end user license.
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System Requirements:
gobeProductive requires the following software already be installed:
gnome 1.4.1
gnome-print 0.35
libglade 0.17
Freetype 2
This list is preliminary and may be incomplete.
gobeProductive does not require any particular Linux distribution, and should work with most x86 versions.
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This pre-alpha preview version of gobeProductive is available at: http://www.gobe.com/downloads/gobe_linux_x86_install.tgz
Can’t wait to look at it. I really liked it under BeOS.
But can’t find the beta download link on the site.
ciao
yc
> But can’t find the beta download link on the site.
No, because only OSNews carries the announcement atm. Read the story to find the download link at its bottom.
Glad to see the promised Linux version is coming =)
<insert obligitory comment about a BeOS version here>
I am very glad to see that GoBE is actually going through with their promised version for Linux. I sincerely hope they polish off the look of it from how it looks now. I think a Commercial lightweight office app is a great addition to the list of available software for Linux. I know its commercial and closed source but there is a nice feeling knowing a company is actually trying hard to make a product that feels finished and works under Linux and windows.
The word processor crashes each time I tried to start it. Also, the [email protected] is a bad address..their mail server bounces it.
It looks very nice in Screenshots. Hope it works well when out of alpha.
I also hope it’s not married to Gnome…otherwise StarOffice gets my $100.
Although the code is Alpha-ish, the software shows very high quality across Windows and Linux. The interface will be much nicer and easier to use than OpenOffice.org.
Looking forward to more betas leading to the released version.
ciao
yc
Where???
Why does it REQUIRE gnome and gnome print (what ever that is)? This is absolutely the stupedest thing I’ve heard in the hour that I’ve been awaike. Dont they realise that Gnome is a big steaming pile of poopy? If they tie it to one desktop enviorment the product will fail. KDE has more users and they’re not a bunch of slack-jawed faggot M$ sell outs.
This isn’t a flame to the product (just my consumer oppinion), But I won’t use it if it requires gnome. Gtk is fine, Just don’t want to mess with the mess of gnome.
I am very glad to see that GoBE
It’s Gobe, not GoBE. It’s never, ever, been GoBE.
I guess it requires gnome-print to do decent printing, and it works very well here. I very much doubt you need the whole of gnome installed, just the libraries (if it was an rpm/.deb then you could use red-carpet from http://ximian.com/products/ximian_red_carpet/download.html and let it get the dependencies for you (choosing install local package from the menu) it’s all statically linked so can be installed easily in kde). So I think the real problem is that it’s a tar.gz – but it’s an alpha version so i expect that kind of thing.
It’s an alpha version and it seems to work reasonably well – and i like the fact that they’ve used gnome libs rather yet another printing thing etc. It doesn’t stop kde users from using it, and it works great under gnome too.
I have my system set up -just so- with Lycoris Desktop/LX, which uses KDE. Frankly, I’m not bummed because it requires Gnome in and of itself; I’m bummed because I’m a fan of D/LX, which is focused on a user experience that is Windows-like for newbie users.
Let’s face it, asking newbie users to install Gnome binaries to run a word processor pretty much guarantees that newbies won’t use it. That would be a real shame, because the program itself is powerful and easy-to-use.
Hi…
I didn’t try Gobe yet, so I may not be right. But using gnome-libs is not that bad. Even if you’re running KDE, gnome-lib is installed on major distro. And btw, if they choose KDE, all the gnomers here would need QT. So one way or another, you need the infrastructure installed.
QT/KDE or GTK/Gnome is a choice…
I have it installed on VMware running RH7.3. Open a few files in word and excel and it runs just fine. I haven’t tried anything fancy yet. I don’t see an option to sort by column when working w/ spreadsheet. There is sorting by cell but not by column. May be I just need to play more
Can’t wait for the release version….w/ Access compatible on my wish list
-Larry
If an app is statically linked to GPL libs, then doesn’t the entire app become subject to the GPL?
I’m thinking seriously about buying this. Have the BeOS version, but no use for the Windoze version.
Just so there is no confusion, we use he GTK+ libraries, however, you don’t need to be using Gnome. I use KDE 3.0 myself. Gnome is not required.
–BQ
I don’t think there are any GPL libraries involved here. The libraries used by Productive are mostly LGPL. That means they have to provide ELF objects if they don’t use dynamic linking, so that the user can re-link if necessary. There is no obligation to provide source to anything but the library itself even if it is linked statically.
The Gobe people seem very co-operative, if there are any oversights I’m sure they will correct them when notified.
Productive will run under any desktop environment so long as the libraries and support code for GNOME are installed on the system. It will interoperate with other applications, but due to a bug in old versions of Qt the copy/paste behaviour between Productive and KDE 1 or 2 will be a bit… interesting.
A modern Linux system with KDE 3 and default install settings should run this very smoothly (once it has been polished for final release), but then that modern Linux system will also come with a variety of Free Software office productivity software which you might want to check out before giving Gobe your credit card number.
I still use GoBe 2 under BeOS, C’mon GoBe… get real, do you think everyone ditched BeOS just because Be Inc. went belly-up?
I don’t really plan on running linux again until it has the user friendliness of BeOS.But I would upgrade my BeOS version in a heartbeat if it were available.Windoze? No way Will I Buy the Windoze version(mainly because I hold M$ responsible for the death of BeOS and Be Inc.OpenBeOS and that atheOS,BeOS,linux hybrid project are coming along,and BeOS will live on thru them,so I think an update would make good sense.
well, *I* like that it is Gnome (or at leased GTK+) based, because I ONLY use GTK+ apps, so Gobe won’t get my money if it was QT based. And other people won’t buy it since it is GTK+ based.
So the problem in Linux world is really inconsistency of various toolkits. This is not a big problem for open-source/free programs since they don’t depend on people BUYING it. But e.g. Opera: I would probably buy it, if I were using KDE but as a Gnome user I am lucky with the GTK+ interface of Galeon. So you see, it probably is a problem on which toolkit commercial apps depend, since it will exclude many users (no matter if they use QT or GTK+).
I understand why (a bit, I think) they chose to go with GNOME libraries. I personally am a fan of KDE (been following them since before 1.0), but I was wondering why they chose gnome-print, as opposed to CUPS. CUPS seems to have a lot going for it. Just a thought, that’s all.
— Rob