[scribus] Linux vs Windows for Scribus ?

[jwminer at accessvt.com]

Sveinn í Felli wrote:
> But for a new (potential) linux user there are other issues
> which may be critical, I'm gonna raise a couple here:
>
> #1 Number of users -->Access to help/tips/information.
> Some distros are so marginal that info on "normal" usage of
> the distro may be scarse. Some distros are even so marginal
> that a newbie gets really a personal guidance from qualified
> enthusiasts. Quality (of information) is not equal to
> quantity, bigger userbase tends to have more solutions
> available to problems. VL does not seem to have easily
> obtainable info on many issues, unless you ask the right
> questions in the forums (my personal impression).

I must disagree with your personal impression. There is plenty of
information available for a VectorLinux user. If you participated in
the forum for any length of time, you'd see that every question gets
answered. Sometimes nobody knows the answer, or suggested solutions
don't work for a particular user. This is true for all Linux
distros. But nobody's question gets ignored and because many of us
read every message posted, you don't have to ask "the right"
question.

The VectorLinux forum (http://www.forum.vectorlinux.com) has well
over 100 "how to's" posted that can answer many user questions
without the need to post on the forum. New how-to contributions are
always welcome and will be posted if they pass inspection (nobody
wants wrong information to be posted). There are an additional 34
forum sections arranged by general topic and if someone can't find a
solution in how-to's, they can post in a section (you have to sign
up for forum membership in order to post; you won't get any spam and
can hide your e-mail address and other identity issues). The forum
search engine is not very good, but an advanced Google search
limited to forum.vectorlinux.com will usually turn up anything
relevant.

On the CD burned from the ISO there is a detailed manual describing
how to install and use the system. There are screen shots of the
text installation. A more recent online manual includes screen shots
and a step-by-step guide to the graphical installer. It's at
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/docs/vl60/manuals/vl6_installation_guide_en.html
. Most things a new user might wonder about are described in detail
in these manuals. They cover much more than just installing.

In addition, at http://www.opensourcebistro.com there are numerous
video tutorials on all aspects of installing and using VectorLinux.
This site is operated by one of our forum members and he is
continually adding tutorials. This is a wonderful resource and it
makes things easy for the newbiest of newbies.

Because VectorLinux is not hacked as much as distros like Ubuntu or
Mandriva or Fedora, general Linux solutions are likely to work if
someone comes up empty at the above three sources.

So I must disagree that "VL does not seem to have easily obtainable
info on many issues." On the contrary--info on many issues is
abundant and very easily obtainable.

> #2 Localization -->Language support.
> Some distros are better than others in supporting "foreign"
> languages, not only how well their package customizations
> are translated, but also how UTF-8 and RTL support are
> implemented. I've had to dump several distos (e.g.
> PCLinuxOS) due to such issues (garbled characters in samba
> etc.). This of course matters to users "from the rest of the
> world" - curiously the distros not paying much attention to
> l10n are american-based (PCLinuxOS seems to be Texan, VL is
> theoretically Canadian).

I have not had to deal with this issue, but VectorLinux does have
users all over the world and some run it in their language. I know
localization is a work in progress and is not where we want it to
be. There are entries on localization in the how-to's, this one in
particular:
http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=8331.msg56717#msg56717

Follow the links and also read the comments at
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/01/making-slackware-and-derivativ.html

I can't comment more on localization because it's not something I
know much about except that users do have VectorLinux running in
other languages. I don't know how many other languages or what
happens with Samba.

I don't think there is such a thing as "the right distro for
everyone" in Linux. That's why we have so many!
--Judy M.
  USA

Registered Linux User #397786
Being productive with VectorLinux 6.0 Standard, Deluxe Edition