[Fsf-friends] Re: [Fsf-india] GNOME and KDE desktops for MS-Windows users

[V. Sasi Kumar]

Nagarjuna G. wrote:

>On Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 11:41:11AM +0530, Ajith Kumar wrote:
>  
>
>>Biju G C wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>I wish, I could start using GNU/Linux, but plenty other reason make me stay in MS-Win. Previously
>>>I had dual boot PC, but found that is not a good solution.
>>>
>>>Finally I found Redhat's Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com), an open source UNIX emulation layer on MS
>>>Windows. And Cygwin/XFree86 (http://cygwin.com/xfree/) as its XWin.
>>>      
>>>
>>Sounds good technically but what is the advantage if you have o keep Windows with all it's problems.
>>In my personal opinion, we should switch over to GNU/Linux where it is possible and live with windows
>>
>>where there is no other option.
>>We have gotten rid of MSOffice, Explorer etc. but still living with some CAD software that has no
>>GNU/Linux
>>alternatives.
>>    
>>
>Did you try qcad?  Any reviews?
>
>Nagarjuna
>
>  
>
I am not an expert in CAD, but I feel that Qcad is good as far as it 
goes, but that is very limited. Most obvious limitation is that qcad is 
can do only to two dimensional drawings. There are other applications 
also where GNU/Linux has limitations, for instance, DTP. Scribus is 
devloping fast, and may be able to substitute for Pagemaker or Quark 
Express in the future. I am not sure about specialised applications like 
film and sound editing, although I think there are applications at 
different stages of development. I think even in GIS, although we have 
Grass, and a non-free (as in freedom) GIS called Spring (which is freely 
downloadable), they do not seem to be as powerful or as user-friendly 
as, say, ArcGIS. As GNU/Linux becomes more and more widely used, these 
proprietary applications may be ported to GNU/Linux, and continued to be 
sold and may still be popular. At this point, the quality of free 
software will have to start creating the demand. I think this will happen.

V. Sasi Kumar