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Review of Hancom Linux 2.01 Standard 81

Posted by timothy from the but-there-are-no-apps-for-linux dept.
ELQ writes: "The Korean-based Hancom Linux announced that the professional version of Hancom Office Suite 2.0 is canned, but the standard version has just been released, four days ago. It seems to be a capable alternative to Star Office, for a very reasonable price. It includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation app and a rasterized painting app. OSNews has the review."
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Review of Hancom Linux 2.01 Standard More

Review of Hancom Linux 2.01 Standard

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  • ...about this one being called Linux and not GNU/Linux as it seems stuffed full of very unfree software.
  • Hancom Office when I tried it 6 months ago.. sucked royally. They could have spent the time making a product that people would have bought up readily and fast...

    Import filters for Open Office that correctly import/export Microsoft file formats.

    I know I would pay $79.95 for such a beast.
    Open office feels and works well.. the only place it's lacking is the import/export... and Hancom could have made a TON of money making those tools.
    • That is a good point, there is a huge stack of "almost there" office products, it would be nice to see some of the organizations with the recourses to put them out combine efforts for a main stream product.
  • Ummm... isn't Star Office the 'alternative'
    to MS office, (and free)? So this is a non-cost
    effective alternative to an free-alternative? It truely is the end of the world. I'm going back to vi. :)

    • Actually, Sun isn't releasing StarOffice v6.0 for free to the Linux or Windows crowds anymore. And my own experience with StarOffice was that it was rather slow, and left behind a lot of zombie processes that defied even the almighty "kill -9".

      What I'd like to see is Hancom Word compared against KOffice and AbiWord, which are still very free and fairly high-quality products. Of course, I'm still waiting for someone to port Bank Street Writer over to Linux. There have got to be a few loose cannons out there who are willing to give that a shot...

      /* Steve */

      • Re:Alternative??? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Russ Steffen ( 263 )

        Just for future reference, you can't kill a zombie process, no matter what application creates it. A zombie isn't actually running, or consuming any resource beyond the process table entry - its executable has been unmapped, its file descriptors closed, and its memory returned to the system. It's only purpose at that point is hold the exit status until its parent process examines it. And, a zombie will never be left behind when the parent process exits, as they will be inherited by init, which will reap them immediately.

        A programing keeping many zombies around is bad ettiquite for sure, but not really a problem.

        • A programing keeping many zombies around is bad ettiquite for sure, but not really a problem.

          Well, unless it's Solaris 2.2 which as I recall used to keep zombies around for no reason at all, eventually filling up your process table and forcing you to reboot, if something else didn't take the system down first. Which was also not exactly unheard-of. And to think, with that ... unillustrious ... introduction to Unix - I still turned out a Unix weenie.

      • Perhaps he meant OpenOffice which is still Free in both senses of the word. StarOffice has extra bells and whistles but at core they're the same. For features OpenOffice blows away KWord and Abiword. For stability and speed, well, I'm told OO is much better nowadays.

        Anyway, LyX beats them all hands down. If only it didn't depend on XForms.
        • If you consider speed, stability and simplicity features, well Abiword wins hands down. If need frames or insert alot of pictures, well Kword works very well.
          • LyX has all those! You need to put the MS Word mindframe to one side, of course, but LyX can produce any kind of document under the sun with great efficiency.

            One thing I like is that LyX can do equations very, very well. Much better than Word, even, and I respected Equation Editor when I used Word 2.0. Show me formulas working properly in Abiword (not there yet) or KWord (severely broken).
            • Lyx does not have simplicity. Trust me I know. I am using it to write my thesis. If you have not fully learned how to use Lyx, and yes I know about the tutorial, Abiword is a much better choice for small documents.

  • Sharp Zaurus (Score:2, Interesting)

    by l810c ( 551591 )
    Scaled down versions of the Hancom apps are on the new Sharp Zaurus. Played with on the other day and they seemed to work as well as the MS apps on Compaq etc.
  • Listen, I prefer to send my docs out as pdf files or rtf if I can get away with it.

    However, I have been asked more than once to send a document in the dreaded .doc format. I rely on OpenOffice at this point to do that job for me on documents without a great deal .doc style voodo and formatting going on inside. (I have only had one doc that refused to convert correctly with some very nasty embedded graphics by the way.)

    Unless a word processor can save in the dreaded doc format I am not about to chunk OpenOffice for all its speed issues anytime soon. It is a sad thing that corporate america has hinged most of its documentation onto this standard but they have.

    I don't mean this as a troll because anytime a commercial software company releases software for linux its nice in terms of having options. I just hope they get their filters straight for the next release.

    ________________________________________________ __

    • Re:Can't save .doc? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      save as your .RTF and then rename it as a .doc

      Office will happily open the rtf file misnamed as a doc and the brain-dead user is none the wiser.

      anyone that asks for it in .doc format is an indication that they are pretty much clueless.... the .doc rename end-runs these dummies.
      • That's basically how it works. But if you don't want to waste your 10 seconds renaming a file, Microsoft Word defaultly handles RTF and the icon is similar to the Word Document icon. Hopefully the same cluelessness would lead the individual to not pay attention to the RTF in place of DOC - Lord knows they don't pay attention to EXE, PIF, and COM ...

        ~LoudMusic
        • you would be suprised... there are HR people out there that whine,cry and have fits if they dont see .doc

          They dont even TRY to open it... they just act like the big babies they are and throw a fit.... saying "NO, we only open .doc files."

          I find it humorus.. and fire back.."Our company doesnt allow .doc files as they carry and propagate viruses through email and other means." I usually dont get a complaint back and they actually open the rtf I sent after that.
      • At the risk of my karma, I reply...

        This is fine and I have done this same move for simple docs.

        However, when the project manager sends complex doc based templates expecting you to edit these for the task and then send them back you are stuck. Why? Because the rtf format can't handle the formatting and embedded images and other noise they send in these documents.

        When the docs have tables, images and funky formatting that even Abiword sees as odd symbols then you are shot and have to use OpenOffice and save in a .doc format or even worse I go over to my NT compile box and open it there. God, I hate windows but simplistic solutions only work for the simple.

        There are a lot of people that live and die by the hand of MSOffice and do all kinds of unexpected overly complicated documents and spreadsheets with these tools probably to impress their bosses with their 'puter skills.

        In these cases the wonderous .rtf format won't cut it.

        But, I am still open to suggestions.

        ________________________________________________ __ _
        • However, when the project manager sends complex doc based templates expecting you to edit these for the task and then send them back you are stuck.

          No, you're not stuck...you're a MS-Word user.

          Other word processors makers hope to create a product that is compatible with MS-Word, not a product that is MS-Word. If your project manager is demanding that level of MS-Word-specific stuff done, then use MS-Word or tell him/her that you don't work that way.

  • An UPDATE was just released.. 2.0.1
    Pro is still planned *someday* according
    to their last user emailing.. not 'canned' (yet)

  • If you want linux to be the OS of the elite it makes perfect sense to bash this product. User friendliness (or an OS being picky about its friends) is undesirable and annoying (who needs a mouse anyway...).

    If however, what you want is more OS variety worldwide (read open market with no barriers to entry) products like this will help a lot. I think that because I believe so strongly in open source OS's I have to support these kinds of suites. They will increase the likelihood of open source OS reaching the general public. I know, there are a lot of people here who feel a lot closer to that first paragraph.

  • Not a raster painting app?

  • Another review (Score:3, Informative)

    by alewando ( 854 ) on Monday April 22, 2002 @04:38PM (#3390202)
    Applelinks had a preview [applelinks.com] a few months ago, and it's worth noting the differences between that review's projected features and the ones revealed in today's review [osnews.com].

    But even more important than that is to remember that this Office suite isn't only aimed at Linux. It's also aimed squarely at the MacOSX crowd, which could help expand its market penetration. (Businesses that are slow to adopt Linux [washingtontechnology.com] on the desktop are often less tentative about permitting MacOSX installations.)
  • Serious competition to The GIMP, no?
    • Sure looks better than Gimp for the paintbrush type things. It is probably pretty quick for doing little tiny simple stuff, and Gimp can be overwhelming.

      I prefer Gimp anyhow, but it is nice to see something that can compete with pbrush and "photo editor".

      -WS

  • does all this stuff, saves files to .doc, .xls, and .pdf and is due out for linux Real Soon Now(TM). oh yeah, it also costs the same right now. and also the license that comes with Gobe Productive is much more user friendly. apart from the fact that this is out for linux now, it doesn't seem all that impressive.

    FYI: Gobe's website [gobe.com].
  • I went out and bouth Hancom Office when I read that the Visio clone had scripting. But it's just like KOffice -- some APIs exposed to Python, and undocumented APIs at that. I gather you can at least figure out the KOffice API if you know Python, but Hancom doesn't even provide that much info.
  • Hmm.. lets see

    Hancom Office costs $59.95 [hancom.com], cannot export to Word .doc format, cannot do fonts anti aliasing, and works only with standard (RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake) Linux distributions.

    On the other side - CrossOver Office [codeweavers.com] costs $54.95, and it's running your own copy of Office 97 & 2000 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, even Outlook and Explorer!), does fonts anti-aliasing, runs on all Linux distributions, reads/writes .doc formats perfectly, and your money supports the biggest code contributions to WineHQ tree.

    Now - could someone explain to me why would I need to buy Hancom Office?

    • On the other side - CrossOver Office costs $54.95, and it's running your own copy of Office 97 & 2000. Now - could someone explain to me why would I need to buy Hancom Office?

      Errr, ummm... maybe because I don't own a copy of MS Office 97 or 2000???

      • Come on...

        Lets face it - check almost any Windows user - and you'll find the 2nd most installed application on his/her windows after windows itself - is office. Whether he/she buys it or warez it, or copied from work, or loaned from a friend. Lets be real here - I know it, you know it, MS knows it pretty well...

        Also - when you buy a Dell, HP, Gateway, Compaq - 90% chances is that if you bought it with Windows installed - then you got office also in a special pricing deal with the machines - go check some OEM deals how Microsoft "encourage" OEMs to sell Windows+office aggressively.

        • No! (Score:3, Interesting)

          by autechre ( 121980 )
          "...almost any Windows user...a Dell, HP, Gateway, Compaq...90% chance..."

          To mangle a metaphor, what does this have to do with the price of dried plums in Korea?

          I am not "almost any Windows user"; in fact, I'm not a Windows user at all, except for a few rare instances where I have to use one of the university machines to get around truly horrible Windows-isms in some important (for 2 seconds) Web sites.

          I didn't buy my computer, unless you count the fact that the floppy drive came with the 486 SX-22 that my parents bought years and years ago. I guess I still have a valid license for Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Works.

          I'm not "90%", I'm a Linux user. I don't steal commercial software, and I don't want to buy Microsoft Office...not even from UMBC for $20. I don't want to run emulated software; I want a Linux office program that does what I need.

          The ironic bit is that I agree with you; this doesn't look to be worth the price. OpenOffice does everything I need, apparently better than this, and it's free (in both ways). Why would I buy this?

          That said, it's good to see people trying, though it would also be nice to see them work to improve existing implementations (this is all mentioned above by other people). Someone else above mentioned the Korean car industry, and this ties in with what I've been saying about Asia: this is where the "revolution" will occur. People who can't afford Micrsoft prices, or don't want to give that much money to (or trust) a shady United States company. There are LOTS of people in Asian countries, and most of them aren't nearly as firmly stuck in the land of Microsoft and consumer culture as the majority in the U.S.

    • Also you can now get the Mandrake 8.2 Powerpack CDs with full StarOffice 6.0 here [mandrakestore.com] for $65 (shipping included). StarOffice 6.0 is really *great* for import/export of MS files and font rendering. And it's a bit lighter than StarOffice 5.2.

    • Re:Does it worth it's price? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A.D. 2002
      Hancom was beginning
      HeUnique: Does it worth it's price ?
      AC: What you say ??

      You know the rest...

  • It seems good from the screenshot. If the import/export is as good as hancom described. I don't care the price.
  • Hopefully this will offer better results with Asian language word processing in OS X. Appleworks looks fine on screen, but refuses to print Chinese properly and has problems understanding cut and paste in Chinese. Office X allows you to write and print in Chinese just fine, but ONLY after running a conversion app that causes many of your menus to mutate into Japanese.
    • Appleworks looks fine on screen, but refuses to print Chinese properly and has problems understanding cut and paste in Chinese.

      I have trouble understanding Appleworks, what makes you think the Chinese are any better at it?

  • ...spamming software too. How else will the propogate the good will of people like Alan Ralsky and Empire Towers?
  • Does this thing run under Wine? I think it was demo'd at Linux World as a Wine application.

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