libre office is killing my computer

[marbles]

its using 1.3gig..way too much that my hardware can handle

there has to be alot of unnecessary crap turned on. what should i turn off

i have to babysit linux and libre. i am not a software user. i am software babysitter

 

[kc1di]

Which distro and desktop are you using? Please give us a little more info to go by.

 

[Terminal Velocity]

Marbles has a point sometimes but he doesn't understand that free software is as good as the devs willing to make it and there is none to complain to because it is free, and you are free to choose if you want to use it or not.

In some serious jobs that I was depending on Linux and FOSS sometimes it did the trick sometimes not, Microsoft teams doesn't worked for me when I needed them to, but it is Linux and they are Microsoft, so expected result and I haven't lost my faith yet

Now I need ZOOM to work on Linux, will it work? Will see. Having a Windows machine backup for the serious works is somewhat uncomfortable I have to admit

 

[kc1di]

Marbles has a point sometimes but he doesn't understand that free software is as good as the devs willing to make it and there is none to complain to because it is free, and you are free to choose if you want to use it or not.

In some serious jobs that I was depending on Linux and FOSS sometimes it did the trick sometimes not, Microsoft teams doesn't worked for me when I needed them to, but it is Linux and they are Microsoft, so expected result and I haven't lost my faith yet

Now I need ZOOM to work on Linux, will it work? Will see. Having a Windows machine backup for the serious works is somewhat uncomfortable I have to admit

Zoom appimage works fine here for me.

 

[Condobloke]

free software is as good as the devs willing to make it

That would make Linux Mint devoid of good software, according to that statement,......whereas that is obviously not the case as the vast majority of Linux Mint users will attest to....myself included.

The entirety of Linux Mint is Free software

 

[Terminal Velocity]

That would make Linux Mint devoid of good software, according to that statement,......whereas that is obviously not the case as the vast majority of Linux Mint users will attest to....myself included.

The entirety of Linux Mint is Free software

I mean as opposed to a corporate environment, none will lose their job or ruin their life if something doesn't work in a FOSS. The Devs of proprietary software are under pressure and that shows in the result product. There are exceptions of course in both sides, excellent FOSS and crappy proprietary software do exist but it is not the rule

 

[marbles]

so nobody is using libre office on this forum. got it.

good choice everyone as its horrible

 

[kc1di]

Libre Office work just fine here. I don't know what your seeing but with your not willingness to share information about your system we can not be of any real help. Either your just trolling or you don't really want help.

 

[wizardfromoz]

If Libre Office Writer is all you need, try Abiword

GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris (7,8,9), AIX, HP/UX (10.20, 11.0):

• GTK+ 2.0 (2.2 recommended)
• At least 16MB RAM
• PPC, Intel (Pentium or better preferred), Sparc (UltraSparc preferred), RISC, or MIPS processor
• Optionally GNOME 2.x (GNOME-Print >= 2.2)

To install, open Software Manager and in search box type abiword

HTH

Wizard

 

[MikeWalsh]

In some serious jobs that I was depending on Linux and FOSS sometimes it did the trick sometimes not, Microsoft teams doesn't worked for me when I needed them to, but it is Linux and they are Microsoft, so expected result and I haven't lost my faith yet

Now I need ZOOM to work on Linux, will it work? Will see. Having a Windows machine backup for the serious works is somewhat uncomfortable I have to admit

@Terminal Velocity :-

There ARE several options nowadays. As @kc1di says, you've got the Zoom AppImage. There are also the .deb & .rpm packages.....from here:-

Download Center for Zoom Apps and Plugins | Zoom

Download Zoom apps, plugins, and add-ons for mobile devices, desktop, web browsers, and operating systems. Available for Mac, PC, Android, Chrome, and Firefox.

zoom.us

Ignore what it may say above. They DO offer a Linux client.

If it was me, however......since I don't know how much RAM you have to play with.....I would be inclined to give this a miss. In recent years, they've added the Electron framework into the mix, along with turning what used to be simply a video-chat client into a fully-featured "Workplace" app.

Zoom was always quite a size; the older packages used to run out around the 220 MB mark, and around 500 MB installed. The current packages, however, are now over 700 MB.....and that's just the compressed .deb. Installed, it's probably nearer 1.5 GB.....which for a video-chat/meeting client is absolutely frickin' ridiculous.

Despite having ample resources here, I don't bother with either of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Zoom has always had a 'webapp' version, which is the online version, directly accessed from the website. For a long time, it was an awful piece of software; camera recognition was sketchy, video reproduction was slow & juddery and the audio quality was absolutely dreadful. However:-

Since the re-hash into the "Zoom Workplace", they've also completely re-built the webapp as well.....and you know what? It's every bit as good as the desktop client now, if not in some respects better. And running it via your browser means that everything's a lot more lightweight, since the average browser is around the 300-350MB mark installed.

There IS one "quirk". For some reason, the webapp does NOT offer the option for screen-sharing. If you rely on this, you would need to stick with the far bulkier, official desktop client.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

I script a lot, and have long made use of the ability offered by the Chromium-based browsers to turn any website into a webapp.....which you can then "detach" from the browser, and send to any other workspace and use AS a 'desktop client'. I have my Chrome browser set up with several 'custom' launchers to allow me to launch apps individually without opening the browser itself. This also lets me add individual Menu entries for these webapps, and launch them AS desktop clients.

Indeed, the Zoom desktop client and webapp are absolutely identical these days - the desktop 'client' IS essentially the webapp transposed to the desktop; both use the same identical code underneath - and both work just as well. This should take you direct to the webapp:-

Zoom

pwa

app.zoom.us

Having got it up, you can of course resize the browser window to make it smaller....if you wish. For lower-resource machines, this helps keep the graphics chip cooler since it's not trying to render the full screen all the time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Microsoft also have a fully-functional webapp version of the Teams client. You no longer need to install the desktop version, which I believe only comes as a Snap package now.

This is accessible from the Office365 website. Sign-in (you can use a Skype or Teams login, it doesn't matter which), then select it from the sidebar.

https://www.office.com/?auth=1

Hope that perhaps helps.

@wizardfromoz :- Sorry for derailing the thread, Chris. But I felt some of this stuff would benefit Terminal Velocity......and Marbles's threads are never useful to anybody due to his refusal to "share" information. At least this way, the thread has been "useful" to someone (I hope)!

If you feel it should be split off into a separate thread, I'm fine with that.....given that so many individuals/organizations seem to rely on Zoom these days, in the way that they once used to insist on Skype.


Mike.

 

[GatorsFan]

so nobody is using libre office on this forum. got it.

good choice everyone as its horrible

I use it all the time and have no issues, but I have 16GBs of RAM as well - There use to be memory settings in LibreOffice but they were removed when 6.0 came out - with that said there is a misconception that there is a limit of memory that LibreOffice can use, and that limit is configurable. In fact, there are several caches in LibreOffice graphic managers, and they control OLE objects and images, allowing to swap those that are unused; in some corner cases, tweaking those expert settings could make a difference - but in general, the tweaks only make things worse. Those tweaks are now located here if you feel adventurous

The reason the old memory tweaks were removed is here - https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=110448
Also if you use tables or frames for layout or formatting? That’s will slow down LibreOffice as well - use .odt format as well since using .docx will cause it to slow down because now LibreOffice has to convert one format to another and then display it

 

[MikeWalsh]

@GatorsFan :-

I use it all the time and have no issues, but I have 16GBs of RAM as well

I, too, use it. Never had a moment's trouble with it. Alongside OpenOffice (its 'parent'), OnlyOffice, FreeOffice.......and a stripped-back build of Office 2000's WORD, running under WINE - I always have this installed - which I use as a 'standalone' word-processor. A task at which it's still pretty good, despite being almost 25 years old!

(I'll 'fess up. I AM a bit of a software 'hoarder'. Can't deny that.! )

But your statement above is of course the key to all this. LibreOffice IS getting decidedly "chunky" compared to its svelte younger self.....but so is everything else. Dependencies perform many more functions, so naturally they're getting bigger.....and so on. That's without all the extra functions being crammed into the individual app's own code......and the current generation of coders/developers no longer seem to take pride in keeping code, lean, mean & tight. They all use what I term 'lazy' languages, and some even let AI generate it all for them, then take the credit.

Everything is getting so it requires more in the way of resources to function as intended. You have 16GB there; I have 32GB here. These sort of amounts have been considered 'standard' options for PCs for a while now. I don't know what setup Marbles is using, but it's a fair bet he's using some older, relatively low-spec'd hardware.....probably 4GB or less.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

TBH, it really won't be so much longer before 64/128 GB will be considered 'standard' now that DDR5's here......with 32GB being considered 'barely adequate'! And of course, ridiculous amounts like 256GB, or even half-a-terabyte, will be the province of the 'ubergeeks' and tech enthusiasts......who love nothing better than bragging about their hardware, regardless of whether they NEED it or not.

I still remember back to when we got OUR very first computer, all the way back in late 2001/early 2002. It came with all of 128 MB of RAM, which we thought was a HUGE amount at the time. Mind you, I don't to this day know how Win XP managed to run on it; the pagefile was in constant use, and the tiny 20GB HDD thrashed continuously. The 'culprit' was, of course, the Pentium 4 it came with. Frankly, watching paint dry was more exciting.....and as for being "optimised" for multimedia..? Don't make me laugh...(snigger...)

I always remember the day I installed the SP3 upgrade. It took all of 4.5 hours to get there, redlining at or just under Tcase_max all the way. But I'll give those old P4s one thing; the hotter they got, the more they seemed to like it..!

Even if they were as slow as a slug...... At the time, none of us knew any better; the CPUs of today were a 'pipe-dream' back then, and geeks could only fantasize about what MIGHT be around the next corner.

@marbles :-

If you want a fairly lightweight, yet full-featured office suite, take a look at Softmaker's 'FreeOffice'. It's still fully compatible with M$'s .docx, despite being well under half the size of LibreOffice.


Mike.

 

[Terminal Velocity]

Once I was preparing for some exams and I had to constantly edit a 250 pages document, Libreoffice did the job but with some glitches, it is not MS office but it's an effective tool if you don't need a perfect looking document, or perhaps you don't have the time to make it look perfect

 

[marbles]

hi g - thanks for staying on topic unlike the others;

for writer i'm only using odt format
for calc i'm only using ods format

1. on that image - which setting do u want me to change

2. i don't think i'm using "tables or frames for layout or formatting". but to be sure - how to turn them off

16gig - damn you're rich. why not use a real os? you can afford it

 

[GatorsFan]

2. i don't think i'm using "tables or frames for layout or formatting". but to be sure - how to turn them off

They are not on by default you have to enable them

16gig - damn you're rich. why not use a real os? you can afford it

I do use a real OS, my own - if you mean Windows -not in this life-time

1. on that image - which setting do u want me to change

Expert Configuration

help.libreoffice.org

 

[CaffeineAddict]

hi g - thanks for staying on topic unlike the others;

Others have asked you several questions in hope you help you, but you so far answered none of the questions and provided zero information about your computer.
So why should anyone take your issue seriously when you're not serious your self?

16gig - damn you're rich. why not use a real os? you can afford it

lol

 

[Terminal Velocity]

16gig - damn you're rich. why not use a real os? you can afford it

In my area a brand new laptop with windows 11 starts from 300 euros and a product key for win 11 costs 7 euros. I'm sure if you do a fundraiser explaining your situation, people will fund you more than enough to ''break free'' of Linux

@f33dm3bits also have expressed his willingness to buy you a win product key, I would too but I'm not comfortable with digital transactions

 

[f33dm3bits]

16gig - damn you're rich. why not use a real os? you can afford it

Because Linux is better than having to run an os infested with spyware or constantly phoning home and other places.

@f33dm3bits also have expressed his willingness to buy you a win product key, I would too but I'm not comfortable with digital transactions

Yes I have, so OP has no reason to complain if they don't take me up on my offer. My guess the hardware OP uses won't even meet the minimum hardware requirements to run Windows 11.

 

[vs2-free-users]

so nobody is using libre office on this forum. got it.

good choice everyone as its horrible

Hi,

i use libreoffice since years without any problem.

 

[marbles]

hi g. thank you again for staying on topic (unlike the others)

1. maybe those things got turned on. how to turn off

2. clearly i'm no expert, so sending me something called "expert configuration" is useless. please just tell me what to do

there should be a "stupid configuration" option for people like me

3. libre is a liar and a cheater. somebody needs to tell them to stop lying about the minimum system requirements - i have exceeded those and it slows down my computer

System Requirements | LibreOffice - Free and private office suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

www.libreoffice.org