Linux digest: Office apps comes to the desktop; emulators and Linux programs combine the best of both worlds.

While Linux has done extremely well in the server arena, it's had a harder time making inroads on the desktop against the formidable Microsoft Windows operating system. In addition to the dominance of Windows, a major obstacle to desktop acceptance is Microsoft Office, the product that has vanquished all competitors in the business world; it doesn't ship for Linux.

But there are ways to unite Office and Linux on the desktop. VMware is a commercial product that can run one OS atop another; with VMware, you run Office on Windows, which in turn runs on top of Linux. At only $299 for a full version and $99 for students or hobbyists, VMware can be a lifesaver if you need a particular feature of a Windows application.

A second option is Wine, which provides an environment for running Windows applications on Intel-architecture Linux systems. Recent reports show that Wine can now run Word 2000 and Excel 2000, among other applications, as described at http://home.twcf.rr.com/ischmidt/wine.html. You can download Wine from http://www.winehq.com/.

Aside from running Windows applications directly, you can choose from a number of Linux office applications. Here, the main issue is how compatible the Linux application is with Microsoft's file formats. In the word-processing arena, for example, Linux provides a rich set of choices.

Among commercial applications, the main choices are Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 http://linux.corel.com/, a Windows application that actually bundles WINE for running on Linux, and ApplixWare http://www.vistasource.com/, an office suite with a long history on versions of UNIX.

Sun's StarOffice suite runs on Windows, Linux, and Sun's Solaris operating systems. You can download StarOffice free from Sun http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice/ or download an open-source version http://www.openoffice.org. ThinkFree Office, a Java-based suite that you can run from the Web http://www.thinkfree.com/, provides a word processor that looks and acts like Word.

All of these choices provide good support for Microsoft's file formats. Once you go beyond these choices, support for Microsoft file formats gets a bit spotty, with most other word processors supporting Microsoft's Rich Text Format (RTF), a special format intended for file exchange. The main problem with RTF is that it is not Word's default file format, so Microsoft users must convert their files into RTF in order to share them with you. If you are a lone Linux loyalist in a Windows world, you'll have a hard time with this approach.

Two RTF editors are Ted http://www.nllgg.nl/Ted/, and Lexi http://lexi.sourceforge.net/, a new Java RTF editor. Other word processors include AbiWord http://www.abisource.com/, Lyx http://www.lyx.org/, Klyx http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/~jochen/, Kword http://koffice.kde.org/kword/, and Maxwell http://www.eeyore-mule.demon.co.uk/. Of these, AbiWord (which now comes with SuSE and Red Hat Linux distributions), is my favorite. Siag Office http://siag.nu/ provides a free office suite under the slogan "It sucks less." From this list, you should be able to select Office or Office-like applications on Linux that work for you. -Brent Baude

Mac digest: Apple rocks Comdex; QuickTime 5 is slow-footed; faulty G4 Towers and letters from MPEG.

Apple apparently threw a pretty cool party at Comdex 2000, and hopefully QuickTime Live headliner Joe Satriani made up for some of the disappointment that QuickTime 5, which was rumored to be ready for release, would only be available as an alpha--yes, that's right, an alpha--preview. Final Cut Pro 2, also said to be ready for release, relies upon the new version of QuickTime, so it won't be released until the final version of QT is ready. At the time we went to press, that was pushed back to early 2001.

Viva las vegas

Apple left Sin City with several awards in hand. Ironically, the Power Mac G4 Cube was said to be the best product for "competing with and beating big businesses," according to Home Office Computing Magazine. It named the Cube PC Product of the Year at Comdex based on its "ease of use, innovation, and suitability." Apple also pocketed silver awards for the Apple Airport, Apple Studio Display, and the Powerbook G3.

Towering inferno

If your G4 Tower is smoking, you probably have one of the early versions that Apple recently acknowledged as having a faulty power switch. The problem, which Apple said affects fewer than one percent of the G4 models with Gigabit Ethernet, occurs primarily when users strain the CPU with additional memory, extra peripherals, and additional hard drives. There have been numerous reports that this has caused the CPUs to emit smoke from the faulty power switches, but Apple has denied these reports, claiming that the problem has caused only a handful of the switches to burn out. (That's a problem for users of the new Pro keyboard: it's doesn't have a power-on button.) Users who have experienced such problems should contact AppleCare.

Not so fast

General Instrument Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., U.S. Philips Corp., Victor Co. of Japan Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Inc., France Telecom, and the Trustees of Columbia University--all licensors of MPEG-2 technology and part of MPEG LA--have filed a suit against Compaq for alleged infringement of patents related to MPEG-2 video compression technology. MPEG LA has sent letters to Apple on the issue, and the suit could fall into Apple's lap if the new version of QuickTime gains MPEG-2 capabilities and Apple is unwilling to agree to the license. Apple had initially promised to include the DVD playback technology with QT 5, but recently acknowledged that the licensing issue may create some problems for the inclusion. -Christy Mulligan

Windows digest: Teen, government, Europe take on Microsoft; Gates gets down to business at Comdex.

Less than two weeks after the Halloween Hacker spent a month snooping around Microsoft's network, the company got hit again. A 19-year-old IT student calling himself Dimitri snuck into Microsoft's server using a hole in Windows NT 4.0 and Internet Information Server 4.0 to post a Web page that read, "Hack the planet." Microsoft quickly responded to the attack with claims that they were already aware of the vulnerability, but had simply neglected to patch the hole. (Haven't we heard that one before?) When Microsoft stated that it had fixed the flaw after the break-in, Dimitri hacked back, posting a new page on the same server that read, "Patching your systems is very hard, huh?" The pages were only visible to Microsoft Web traffic, but Dimitri clued in fellow hackers and several reporters to the URL. Dimitri claimed he got a pretty good look under the hood of Microsoft's server structure, downloaded files listing administrative user names and passwords, and said that although he could decode the files, he did not intend to do so. But before things got any worse for Microsoft, it arranged a secret meeting with the Dutch hacker at the Microsoft office in the Netherlands. Dimitri told CNN shortly after the meeting that he was not allowed to say anything about his encounter with Microsoft, but that they had not yet filed any charges against him.

European campaign

In the meantime, the European Union Commission decided to wage its own war against Microsoft. The commission filed charges against the software titan for engaging in anticompetitive practices, alleging that Microsoft has extended its dominance in the PC operating systems market to the server operating systems market. And whereas the DoJ's case concentrates on Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, and their upgrades, the commission is specifically focusing on Windows 2000. Should the commission find Microsoft guilty of antitrust abuse, it could fine the company up to 10 percent of its annual global sales, or force Microsoft to disclose its interfaces to allow for interoperability. Microsoft has responded to the allegations, and the European Union Commission is reviewing those statements.

MS's side of the story

The Microsoft/Department of Justice case entered its first phase of the appeals process, with Microsoft filing a 150-page brief refuting U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's June ruling to split the giant into two separate companies. Microsoft claimed the proceedings were "infected with error" and that Jackson was biased against Microsoft. They asked the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn the ruling or send the case back to another judge at the district level. Microsoft lawyers had a bit more going for them this time around: Usually, only three jurists hear appeals, but Microsoft had the entire panel (most of them conservative) as an audience. The DoJ has until Jan. 12 to respond, at which time Microsoft will have one more chance to comment before attorneys present oral arguments in court in late February.

Bill wows 'em

The weight of the global gang-up against Microsoft didn't keep Chief Software Architect Bill Gates from touting Microsoft's latest tools for the next generation of the Internet during his keynote address opening night at Comdex/Fall 2000. Gates's two-hour speech focused predominantly on the.NET platform and Web Services built around Extensible Markup Language (XML). XML, according to Gates, will ideally become an industry standard, allowing cross-communication among servers, PCs, and personal devices in order to make information available anywhere, anytime, and on any device (for users, and for Microsoft). Gates announced the availability of a beta-1 version of VisualStudio.NET and the .NET Framework, which will enable developers to start building Web services on the .NET platform. They can be downloaded from the .NET Web site http://www.microsoft.com/net.

Gates was joined onstage by a small parade of Microsoft executives and representatives displaying other software breakthroughs, such as Microsoft Office 10, the new version of the Office suite, and a prototype Tablet PC that functions both as a notebook and a fully functional computer. The 3-pound PC, whose screen resembles a piece of notebook paper, can process and store notes handwritten on the screen with a pen-like stylus, as well as run all existing Windows applications. Sound cool? Gates said the PC, which will run on the next version of Windows (code-named Whistler), won't be available until 2002. -Christy Mulligan