Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, James Miller wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, sindi keesan wrote:
>
> > I was not using Windows for anything else.  What do other people still
> > need it for that linux cannot do?
>
> Machine translation (Systran). There are languageA<->languageB
> dictionaries for Linux, but no machine translators that can provide a
> semblance of translation for discursive speech. WINE so far has not worked
> with Systran. I'm not speaking of BL here, so pardon the digression. But
> to speak of BL, one could use Altavista's/Babelfish's web translation
> portal: but it seems to use java or something so the place where you enter
> text won't display. Then, there's the problem of entering foreign

You are right, I cannot even SEE any place to enter using links2.
Is it cheating to use Mozilla instead after updating to glibc 2.2.5?
Or Opera?  (By the way, can I enter four dns numbers instead of two?  Mine 
seem to be down frequently so I end up using lynx or links via sdf, which 
by the way can now be direct-dialed for $84/year with ISDN or regular 
modem.  It is often quicker to download to your home account there and 
then ftp or kermit files at 1.8-2.4K when BL site is downloading via 
direct connection at 600 bytes/sec.)

You can probably enter 'foreign' characters by setting up to use a 
different console keyboard and screen font.  I think BL3 kernel allows 
this.  And there are other fonts for X - will Xvesa let you use them?

> characters. Other occasions when I need to resort to Windows: my
> university also has a printing system with which you can send print jobs
> from any machine on the campus network (including from your personal
> computer in your campus apt.) to central printers. The software it uses is
> called Pharos, and it requires Windows. And not just *any* Windows. It has
> to be Win2K or better (it's hard to believe that educational institutions
> allow themselves to become marketing arms for M$ like this. And this

Our university issues students CDs with the latest Windows programs for 
connecting to their internet but you can also dial in with a terminal 
program in text mode if you know how.   They use some form of unix.  What 
is the OS of your university?  Can it really be Windows?

> printing system is not the only place where this problem crops up: in
> order to use the campus-wide wireless network, you must have Win2K or
> better as well. A friend who was still using WinME got a wireless card and
> tried to connect and was unable because he was using an "outdated"
> version). Pharos uses ActiveX. I also would really like to have the option
> of using speech-to-text software (like Dragon Naturally Speaking) since I
> need to write long papers at times and typing can create a bottle-neck.
> Ironically, IBM produced a very capable speech recognition package for
> Linux. But they stopped development and no longer make it available for
> download. Bootleg copies can still be gotten. So, if I want to have this
> speech-to-text software and remain within legal/ethical boundaries, I
> would have to use Windows. I wish this weren't the case. But for some
> fields, like higher level studies in the humanities, Linux just doesn't
> provide everything needed. Sad but true.

I have not yet tried out a linux CAD program as we are happy with the DOS 
one.  Is there a linux text-to-speech program?


> James
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org