Hi, anna. As to your questions again Red Hat comes with Emacs and so does most other distributions. that will be enough to get started with. As for Word/Excel document converters those usually need to be grabbed extra from other web sites. ----- Original Message ----- From: Anna Schneider <annas@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 8:08 PM Subject: Re: Questions about programs under Linux. > Okay, I'm going to try and cut and paste a little bit which gets messy. > > On Sat, 9 Mar 2002, Yvonne Smith wrote: > > > > > > 2. I want to get the Emacs editor. When I read some info on the > > > Emacspeak site, it sounded like there are a couple of different Emacs > > > packages available depending on what sorts of things I plan to do with > > > Emacs. Do I have to go find the package I want and download it? And > > > then, if I want to fill out my Emacs package even more, with the Dismal > > > Spreadsheet for example, do I have to go download it too? > > > > > Ok, emacs I'm better at, since I'm running emacspeak most of the time, > > not speakup. Once you've installed emacs itself, depending on what you > > want to do, you might not have to go any further. If you just want to > > use it as an editor, what comes with it by default will do fine. But > > there are a lot of emacs packages you can download to make the editor do > > different things. Yes, you'll have to download dismal. There's a > > sofisticated calculator called calc. There're two web-browsers native to > > emacs. That's only the tip of the iceberg. > > All the stuff above you'll have to download and install, but unless you > > need any of those things immediately, you should probably cross that > > bridge when you come to it. Install emacs first, and then try to figure > > out what else you want it to do, and we can probably give you pointers > > to emacs packages. Although you'll probably be best to ask on the > > emacspeak list or even a general emacs list for that kind of information. > > > Insertiont the first. I'm guessing that Emacs is going to be my oh way of > doing lots of stuff. Writing documents, doing spread sheets, who nows > what all else. I don't want the fanciest package around, I'd just get > confused, but I do want a fairly flexible one. I won't worry about it > tons until I do get my computer and install Emacs, but is there an place I > could look to start reading up on it? > > > > 3. Are there ways to open Word > and Excel programs in Linux? > > > > Umm, that kind of depends what you mean. If someone sends you a word > > document, there are a couple of programs to turn it into text or > > html. Catdoc, antiword and wordview are the three that spring to mind > > off the top of my head. > > > > excel spreadsheets are a bit more of a problem. I'm pretty sure I saw > > something to turn them into html or something like that on the wordview > > page, but I'd have to go do some more research, since I haven't really > > looked in a while. > > Okay, do these programs to open/convert Word documents come with > distributions generally speaking, or will I have to go dig them up > somewhere. > > > > 5. What is the most recent version of Lynx? Is it considered to be > > > equivalent to Internet Explorer 4.0 or better? This matters quite a bit > > > actually. If I need another web browser in addition to Lynx, do any exist > > > for Linux? > > > > > Umm web browsers under linux for console users are a bit problematic. I > > don't think there's anything we can use under linux that I'd consider > > equivalent to ie4 or above. The things that are impossible for us under > > linux that you're likely to encounter are javascriptand activex. > > > > Javascript would be useable if we could use x-windows, but we > > can't. Activex will probably never be useable, since it's a microsoft > > scripting language. I don't know if this answers your question. Again, > > you'll need to be a bit more specific about what you'll want to do. > Well, here's the thing. I've just become a Mary Kay consultant, and if > you go to the Mary Kay web sit, (www.marykay.com) there is a section > called Intouch all one word, and this section has information under it for > consultants, but I can't get in with lynx. This is a problem. Material > such as an online version of the product guide are there. In fact, I find > several parts of Mary Ky's web site to be not easily lynx accessible. I'm > not sure why. Maybe someone on this list could look and tell me. > > > > > > > > 6. And last I hope and this is just a point of clarification, when you > > > all talk about telnetting and ftyping and all that, you are doing from > > > your machines right? Do you have to dial in first to do those things from > > > your machine or how does that work? > > > > > Telnet and ftp are generally used to connect from one machine to > > another. Almost certainly you'll want to be connected to the internet, > > unless you've got a network at home, and need to talk to other machines > > on your own network. > > > > > But see this is where I'm confused. I've worked off of machines on a > network with a couple different operating systems and you could ftp and > telnet between some of those, and I've worked off of my old DOS computer > at home where I have to dial up, but I haven't worked off of a linux > machine that isn't hooked into a network. That's why I'm confused. If > I'm not on a network but I have a Linux machine, do FTP and telnet come > into play at all and if so how? > > And thank you. The answers were quite helpful. > > Anna > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
