Why isn't Gnumeric included in the default Ubuntu install?!?

[ycason]

I have just finished battling with the very nasty graphing in Openoffice and finally gave up and had my friend with Excel do it for me.

That being said, I needed to find another spreadsheet program with decent graphing. Then I found gnumeric in the repositories and I'm blown away. This is by far the best spreadsheet program I've used. Upon further inspection, this fine piece of software is usually included in a default Gnome install. Why do we have to put up with Openoffice spreadsheet when there's gnumeric right there? I'd say at least include both in the default install.

end rant.



I'd like to hear about other people's experiences with Openoffice and gnumeric. :)

If you haven't yet, give gnumeric a shot... especially look through the very organized graphing utility.

[M7S]

Out of pure interest and not in any way to criticise you, I have to ask, what was your problem with graphing in openoffice. I have had no problem with the new chart engine in openoffice 2.3, but on the other hand, I've only done basic stuff.

[osxcapades]

OpenOffice is simply one of the greatest failures that FOSS developers have ever produced. Microsoft Office can run so many circles around that garbage (without even trying) that it would be an embarrassment to even include it in the Ubuntu repositories.

First, you have to wait for the hideous thing to load. By the time that's done, a new version of Microsoft Office will have been released, for crying out loud!

Then, you will have to torture yourself with OpenOffice fonts. Simply disgusting. I have seen higher quality typography in a terminal.

And then, you have the bugs. It couldn't possibly have been ten seconds after I opened Calc when I realized that flickering was occuring when I trying to resize a column.

No respectable professional (or user, for that matter) would ever consider using this...thing. With office software like this, no wonder Office Open XML is getting support. OpenOffice, do the Linux community a huge favor and die a slow, painful death. Please?

Edit: I agree with you, by the way. Gnumeric should be included by default.

[Tomone]

what was your problem with graphing in openoffice.
I know that my problem with the graphing in calc was that you can't add a trendline to your graph, and that's essential for me. Before I knew of gnumeric, I would have to do any spreadsheet stuff, or at least all of the plotting, at school.

[conehead77]

Hm, Gnumeric uses the .gnumeric file format. Isnt there a ISO standard for spreadsheets like odf is for documents?

I couldnt open a .gnumeric file with open office...

[koleoptero]

Gnumeric is obviously not included in ubuntu by default because openoffice can handle m$-office formats, which is a huge plus when you want to work on documents that others have created (not everybody uses linux unfortunately).

But indeed the fonts in OO look too pixelated (both in ubuntu and windows), as if it avoids antialiasing.

I'm thanful I don't need advanced features from such programs, so I use google docs.

EDIT: The loading times can be dramatically reduced if you enable the quickstarter (make sure that you have ram to spare though)

[rliegh]

But indeed the fonts in OO look too pixelated (both in ubuntu and windows), as if it avoids antialiasing.


It's quite likely that they have to in order to avoid software patent litigation. I don't know that that's the case, but it would in no way surprise me.

Welcome to computing in the 21st century.:mad:

[eljoeb]

Out of pure interest and not in any way to criticise you, I have to ask, what was your problem with graphing in openoffice. I have had no problem with the new chart engine in openoffice 2.3, but on the other hand, I've only done basic stuff.

One word: HISTOGRAM. Freaking amazing. I've found plugins to do it, but why the heck isn't that default? Is it so hard? Office is pretty much what my dual boot is for. Well, and work.

Gnumeric is nice though.

[eljoeb]

Hm, Gnumeric uses the .gnumeric file format. Isnt there a ISO standard for spreadsheets like odf is for documents?

I couldnt open a .gnumeric file with open office...

Something about ISO standards for computer documents always bothered me. I use what my customers use. Period. I don't need ISO telling me what I should use. Besides, I thought gnumeric could save .xls. At least, I remember saving something in Puppy Linux and being able to open it in Excel. Weird.

[Phil Airtime]

I've had all sorts of trouble with OpenOffice Calc. A set of data I use regularly is sent in Excel format, for some reason, and if I do something as simple as select a column by which to sort the list, I get flickers and all-sorts. Does Gnumeric open Excel files?

[bruce89]

Gnumeric can save to a variety of formats, and is part of GNOME office. I personally use it as it is nicer using proper GNOME programs than Firefox-like OO.o.

Gnumeric has the ability to import and export data in several file formats, including CSV, Microsoft Excel, HTML, LaTeX, Lotus 1-2-3, OpenDocument and Quattro Pro; its native format is the Gnumeric file format, an XML file compressed with gzip. It includes all of the spreadsheet functions of the North American edition of Microsoft Excel and many functions unique to Gnumeric.

The 1.7.x series can load/save to OOXML.

In fact, Gnumeric has a huge number of functions, many more than OOo. It has 519, 154 of which are unique to Gnumeric (http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/functions.shtml).

I would like the replacement of OO.o by Gnumeric and AbiWord, but I don't see this happening.

[starfry]

Don't forget, there's a feature that MS Office has that is missing from OpenOffice: a £360 price tag (source www.dabs.co.uk) :)

That said, it is lacking in some areas and I;ve experienced OpenOffice Calc locking my desktop. But we should give the thing a chance....

[eljoeb]

Don't forget, there's a feature that MS Office has that is missing from OpenOffice: a £360 price tag (source www.dabs.co.uk) :)

That said, it is lacking in some areas and I;ve experienced OpenOffice Calc locking my desktop. But we should give the thing a chance....

We shouldn't give it a chance if it doesn't have features you need. Make it known what you want and leave it for alternatives that provide it.

[bruce89]

You certainly can't beat Gnumeric's 2 second cold start up time.

[popch]

We shouldn't give it a chance if it doesn't have features you need. Make it known what you want and leave it for alternatives that provide it.

It is all right for you to shop for features.

Personally, I am quite happy that OO exists for the simple reason that it allows me to save my sheets and documents in open (i.e. reasonably documented) formats. I do not care at all about 'features'. The great value of my documents and sheets lies in their contents, not in any fancy processing. Storing my contents in Excel or Word format is too great a risk for me.

[jimrz]

To answer the original question.
1 - Ubuntu is committed to keeping the install @ 1cd, so there simply is not enough room for it.
2 - Since having a full office suite is advertised and pretty much required, OOo is currently the correct choice.

I, too, use gnumeric for spreadsheets and abiword for most word processing and do not see that installing via synaptic or add/remove is that big an issue.

[eljoeb]

It is all right for you to shop for features.

Personally, I am quite happy that OO exists for the simple reason that it allows me to save my sheets and documents in open (i.e. reasonably documented) formats. I do not care at all about 'features'. The great value of my documents and sheets lies in their contents, not in any fancy processing. Storing my contents in Excel or Word format is too great a risk for me.

Again, it depends on what you use it for. A lot of professional applications require statistical analysis that Open Office doesn't seem to be made for. Gnumeric and Microsoft Office support these well. These 'features' are NEEDED for my job. And to require some silly bootstrapped solution that Open Office forces on you is silly.

[bruce89]

To answer the original question.
1 - Ubuntu is committed to keeping the install @ 1cd, so there simply is not enough room for it.

If OO.o was replaced with GNOME office, there would be a lot more space available for other things.

Kubuntu are considering replacing OO.o with KOffice, but KOffice has better coverage than GNOME Office does.

[DoctorMO]

You should be taking into account the current politics surrounding OpenOffice; it's derived from Sun's Star Office that they acquired a number of years back. They open sourced the code and it didn't surprise anyone that the code was a complete and utter mess, it took until version 2 before the code was even a big mess instead of the complete mess it was before; then you've got the problem that Sun has historically been keeping the development very close to it's chest, recently saying it'll open the process out more so the real open source community can be more involved.

The only problem with Gnumeric is that it doesn't have a big company behind it, name brands sell unfortunately.

[FuturePilot]

I know that my problem with the graphing in calc was that you can't add a trendline to your graph, and that's essential for me. Before I knew of gnumeric, I would have to do any spreadsheet stuff, or at least all of the plotting, at school.

Ah, I have run into the same problem. Why can't OpenOffice do that?:confused:
I'm going to have a look at Gnumeric.

[santiagoward2000]

Gnumeric is included by default in Xubuntu, because it's lighter than OpenOffice Spreadsheets. So is AbiWord. They are really good, specially if you have an old computer...

[vexorian]

OpenOffice is simply one of the greatest failures that FOSS developers have ever produced. Microsoft Office can run so many circles around that garbage (without even trying) that it would be an embarrassment to even include it in the Ubuntu repositories.

First, you have to wait for the hideous thing to load. By the time that's done, a new version of Microsoft Office will have been released, for crying out loud!

Then, you will have to torture yourself with OpenOffice fonts. Simply disgusting. I have seen higher quality typography in a terminal.

And then, you have the bugs. It couldn't possibly have been ten seconds after I opened Calc when I realized that flickering was occuring when I trying to resize a column.

No respectable professional (or user, for that matter) would ever consider using this...thing. With office software like this, no wonder Office Open XML is getting support. OpenOffice, do the Linux community a huge favor and die a slow, painful death. Please?

Edit: I agree with you, by the way. Gnumeric should be included by default.
Sorry, I am not impressed by your statements, in fact they just sound crazy to me.

It is simply easier to me to make my homework with open office thanks to its math formulae stuff, I think it is quite lame from you to insult me and many other openoffice users just because of your personal experience.

And your statement about OOXML... please you are almost forcing me to flame you.

And no, gnumeric isn't necessary when you have oocalc (since we want to save space), if you like it a sudo apt-get will do it.

If you prefer excel, just use excel, it is possible to run it on WINE but it is also pretty easy to run windows inside of Linux, so no biggie.

Edit: All right your FUD about OO fonts is ridiculous, it uses the same fonts as ubuntu man, what's wrong with you?

[bruce89]

It is simply easier to me to make my homework with open office thanks to its math formulae stuff, I think it is quite lame from you to insult me and many other openoffice users just because of your personal experience.

Edit: All right your FUD about OO fonts is ridiculous, it uses the same fonts as ubuntu man, what's wrong with you?

Well, it doesn't respect the hinting settings, and uses monochrome smoothing always.

[vexorian]

Again, it depends on what you use it for. A lot of professional applications require statistical analysis that Open Office doesn't seem to be made for. Gnumeric and Microsoft Office support these well. These 'features' are NEEDED for my job. And to require some silly bootstrapped solution that Open Office forces on you is silly.What I saw about the professional world is that they use actual statistics software rather than MSexcel...

[bruce89]

What I saw about the professional world is that they use actual statistics software rather than MSexcel...

That's because Excel is crap in this regard.

Gnumeric's accuracy (http://www.csdassn.org/software_reports/gnumeric.pdf) has helped it to establish a niche among people using it for statistical analysis and other scientific tasks.

[osxcapades]

It is simply easier to me to make my homework with open office thanks to its math formulae stuff, I think it is quite lame from you to insult me and many other openoffice users just because of your personal experience.

Three things:

1. If you are going to do your math homework on a computer, at least use LaTeX. Using a word processor to display your math is not the most effective way to do things. See this document:

http://www.math.usf.edu/~eclark/elem_num_th_book.pdf

which was developed with TeX. Experience the joy of using real software to do your homework with.

2. You should probably just do your math homework on paper. In high school, I used to type my algebra homework myself. This has its advantages and all, but it doing this way takes years, word processor or no word processor.

3. The interface used for the OOo equation editor is disgusting and cannot even compare with that of Excel. Excel's equation editor is far from perfect already. Don't even get me started on OpenOffice's excuse for a "feature".

[ycason]

Out of pure interest and not in any way to criticise you, I have to ask, what was your problem with graphing in openoffice. I have had no problem with the new chart engine in openoffice 2.3, but on the other hand, I've only done basic stuff.

I've had many many crashes, trendlines are a mess, the solver never works and half the time just crashes. All in all, if ooCalc could perform it's current functions without crashing I think I'd be alright with it. I'd still use Gnumeric because it has functionality that ooCalc has never thought about, but I like the rest of the Open Office suite.

[qazwsx]

Gnumeric is one of the best gtk apps out there. I think it has better .xls support than calc but produces crappy .odc. I use calc more for calculating and produce graphs with gnuplot. OpenOffice is a very big package with tightly integrated apps. It is pretty lean once you get it running :).

[Erik Trybom]

As jimrz pointed out, the reason why OpenOffice is default in Ubuntu is because it fits so well in the Ubuntu philosophy. A Windows user should feel pretty much at home with the new stuff. Examples:

Internet Explorer - Firefox
Outlook - Evolution
Notepad - Gedit
MS Office - Open Office

Editors like Vim or Emacs may be great, but they're not what a new user would expect so Gedit is the Ubuntu choice. Likewise, a user comfortable with the MS Office suite sees there's a suite called Open Office in Ubuntu that does the same things.

I still think, however, that apt-get makes all "this should be the default app"-discussions pretty useless. If you like Gnumeric, it's just one line or a couple of clicks away.

[Warpnow]

OpenOffice is simply one of the greatest failures that FOSS developers have ever produced. Microsoft Office can run so many circles around that garbage (without even trying) that it would be an embarrassment to even include it in the Ubuntu repositories.

First, you have to wait for the hideous thing to load. By the time that's done, a new version of Microsoft Office will have been released, for crying out loud!

Then, you will have to torture yourself with OpenOffice fonts. Simply disgusting. I have seen higher quality typography in a terminal.

And then, you have the bugs. It couldn't possibly have been ten seconds after I opened Calc when I realized that flickering was occuring when I trying to resize a column.

No respectable professional (or user, for that matter) would ever consider using this...thing. With office software like this, no wonder Office Open XML is getting support. OpenOffice, do the Linux community a huge favor and die a slow, painful death. Please?

Edit: I agree with you, by the way. Gnumeric should be included by default.

*boggle* Seriously?

I'd say the exact opposite...that openoffice is the greatest achievements of FOSS developers. Its amazing. I've never ran across a bug. I just timed them for you, and all of the openoffice programs open in under 3 seconds.

I've introduced many windows users to Openoffice and have not had a single complaint. Its easily as good as MS office. They tend to be amazed when I tell them its free.

[hutxubix]

I still think, however, that apt-get makes all "this should be the default app"-discussions pretty useless. If you like Gnumeric, it's just one line or a couple of clicks away.

The problem about this is that a new user can take too much time to discover gnumeric.

I discovered it very recently and, before that, I had to CHANGE AND BOOT WINDOWS to use Excel and Word everytime I needed it. So I really think that the community should think about this.

[Mary.Riley]

I really prefer Gnumeric, primarily because it's lightweight and runs faster on my sloooow machine. That being said, I haven't had any problem with OO.org

[regomodo]

i too prefer gnumeric. In all, i've given up with Oo in Linux using Abiword, Gnumeric, and Dia instead. Its nice to have a full FOSS office suite but i just feel it's flawed.

[aivars]

Gnumeric is included by default in Xubuntu, because it's lighter than OpenOffice Spreadsheets. So is AbiWord. They are really good, specially if you have an old computer...

I love Xubuntu only JUST because of Gnumeric and AbiWord are ther by default!!

[Oxwivi]

In fact, Gnumeric has a huge number of functions, many more than OOo. It has 519, 154 of which are unique to Gnumeric (http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/functions.shtml).
Both are open-source so why are features not ported?

[koleoptero]

Zombie thread, RUN!

Oh no it's got my leg!

[czr114]

Gnumeric really should be included. While some people might complain about too much diversity overwhelming new users, or that the desktop experience should be emphasizing the use of the most popular software suite, the limits of OO are there and are real. Too many users are vulnerable to wasting too much time with OO before discovering Gnumeric.

The best thing which could happen is for OO to be fixed, but the project has been forked and gone into limbo. I don't see a massive overhaul happening any time soon.

[linuxforartists]

i too prefer gnumeric. In all, i've given up with Oo in Linux using Abiword, Gnumeric, and Dia instead. Its nice to have a full FOSS office suite but i just feel it's flawed.

Agreed! I mostly use Abiword these days because it loads almost instantly. One tiny issue is that it opens as a small window, and I always have to expand it to take up the screen. I'd like it to just open at full screen by default. Anybody know a fix for that?

[madjr]

you guys noticed that this thread is really really old? :P

i dont think openoffice calc is that bad anymore.

However i like gnumeric being lightweight.

Might even still be better than calc, but i dont know..

[cariboo907]

This thread is over 2 years old. I'f you want to discuss the merits of Gnumeric, please start a new thread.

Closed.