LibreOffice 4.2 Busts Out GPU Mantle Support and Corporate IT Integration 192
Billly Gates points to this basic summary of the features of the recently released LibreOffice 2.4, writing: "In catching up with MS Office, the new LibreOffice 4.2 now has full Windows 7/8 integration including Aero peek, thumbnails, jumplists, and recent documents all from the taskbar. In addition, one weak area for LibreOffice has been enterprise network support and the lack of active directory tools: LibreOffice now has GPO and active directory support for system administrators to deploy and manage LibreOffice over corporate networks. LibreOffice also includes an expert configuration Window to assist power users and system administrators when deploying to hundreds of workstation at a time." Read on for some more details about the release, including some information about support for AMD's Mantle CPU acceleration support.
Also of particular interest is AMD/ATI is expecting to finally release Mantle in the next coming hours for games like Battlefield 4. Surprisingly LibreOffice also supports mantle as well according to the release notes. However you will need the 14.1 driver which is being compiled and uploaded at the time of this writing to utilize this feature. Mantle will accelerate lower-end CPUs by up to 300% in some tasks while having modest improvements for those with more recent powerful CPUs. Real niceties for those like myself on AMD phenom IIs with the later 7000 series cards.The only issue (some on Slashdot may say benefit ) is the lack of a ribbon UI. However, for recent articles about governments considering OpenOffice this release addresses shortcomings with the new active directory and GPO support."
Re:And for the rest of us? (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be unwanted bloat for the home user, but it's absolutely essential features in the corporate world. All it really needs is a decent component selection in the installer though to have it both ways.
Re:How compatible is it? (Score:2, Insightful)
logic fails you
if a business used LibreOffice, the board would be using LibreOffice Impress to view LibreOffice Impress documents and giving presentations with the PC hooked to the big screen running LibreOffice Impress.
Maybe some loaner using PowerPoint would have their slide looking like garbage in such a company....
Re:How compatible is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody can, at least until Microsoft opens up their entire API library. Until then, when someone gets close enough to endanger Microsoft's cash cow, they will change just enough stuff to keep them at arm's length. Repeat ad nauseam.
Re:And for the rest of us? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unclear if I can get a copy without all this unwanted bloat.
Yes, use vi for your documents. There's also a spreadsheet called sc, haven't tried it though.
Re:How compatible is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody can
Not even Microsoft, which is pretty funny. Transferring files between versions of MS Office or between Windows and Mac versions often results in garbage layouts/formatting. It's really quite sad on Microsoft's part. I worked years as an audio-visual tech to know that this is very true. When a client wanted do to a PowerPoint presentation with a laptop provided by us, we always had to ensure the versions matched.
Yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Universal Disgust (Score:5, Insightful)
So, click the button that hides the ribbon and gets it out of the way?
Re:Universal Disgust (Score:4, Insightful)
Sidebars are a much better idea on a widescreen anyway ; the ribbon just takes up valuable vertical space that's at a premium since people stopped making LCD panels for computer users.
Re:It still doesn't get the job done (Score:4, Insightful)
It took me 10 minutes of thinking and experimenting to figure out what you were talking about. Why would you have a phrase spanning a manual page break? Why are you doing formatting during authorship? Maybe your process needs to change to reflect the tools. Not the creative one, but the technical procedure you use to save, recall, and share your writing. And Word and Writer are both jack of all trades, master of none programs anyway. There's an article I can't find about how adding presentation features to the editor is a mistake. Not that your text shouldn't look pretty while you type it, but that you should never type extra spaces to make it look _just_right_. Or page breaks.
Re:OneNote (Score:5, Insightful)
Be honest... it will be something else holding you back once they have that.
It's a nice, moving, unattainable goalpost that people like to set up