Office alternatives

I write this email having trawled through your November 2014 issue ( LXF190) and the DVD, but so far, I have still not found the relevant answers to the obvious difficulties that flow from changing operating system from Windows [to Linux].

As I have in the past tried to find these answers in the ‘Linux press’ with the same result, I suspect that the answers are either buried beneath the innumerable thickets of impenetrable jargon (isn’t anything related to Linux written in plain English?) or that nobody has asked the questions before.

I’m looking for alternatives to the following: MicrosoftOffice 2000, MicrosoftAutoRoute, MicrosoftPaint, AdobeReader XI, BBC iPlayer, Wi-Fi for the broadband hub and an image library. Is one able to reliably run these programs on Linux, or are there reliable Linux equivalents?

Yes, I have already tried the Windows version of LibreOffice 4.2, but that doesn’t have a database that can output the selected data in a way that’s readable in the Windows world. The prospect of having to re-key in over a dozen databases with over 20,000 records each doesn’t exactly fill one with joy.

It may be that some of the programs are buried within the Linux operating system, but inserting your DVD results in a directory list including documents that are selfevidently not on the DVD, but elsewhere. This does not fill one with confidence to start any of the OSes from the DVD. AndrewProcter Neil says: It sounds like you haven’t booted the Linux Format DVD, which is how it’s designed to be used. This will usually take you into the Live CD version of the