OOo really needs to speed up.

[Thetargos]

Actually I didn't have an objection, as such. It was brought to my attention while trying to help my father keep on his work from Linux, while he migrated away from the Microsoft ecosystem. However, I do reckon one thing: more new users are prone to notice this than us, old time users. Hell, I still remember that I had this wonderful network friendly Operating System sitting on my hard drive, without any internet connection, because I had a winmodem and I couldn't hop up to the Internet from Linux. Times have changed quite a bit since then, and I've had to develop a sort of patience for the system, hence small things like these don't actually bother me (another negligible issue being Firefox'/Thunderbird's start up times on cold start). What it might happen, though, is that this new crop of 'refugee' users causing a stir and building enough pressure to actually accelerate things up (at least a bit).

Don't get me wrong, though... With all and my indifference towards this, I was genuinely shocked to see MSO load so fast, and on wine! (BTW, has anyone else noticed the "Win2000" GDI color change in Wine 0.9.52? Is indeed much easier on the eyes!). I still like my Linux the way it is, I still, with all and its flaws, like quite a bit OOo as it is robust enough for what I need it to do, nice enough to be a comprehensible office productivity suite and fast enough for my needs. Just like with the printers issue you mention, all you have to do is figure out how to make things work, and when you do, it is like magic... It all works.

[JN4OldSchool]

You mention the other piece of software that is industry standard yet could be much improved: Firefox. We all use it (well, most of us) and we are used to it and it has many great features. But it is also flaky, sluggish and a resource hog. Much like OO.o. I always knew this but it didnt hit home till I started playing with my Xfce Fedora spin with Abiword and Dillo. It is a slick, fast, lite spin that is beautiful to use. But at what price? Would the average user make these compromises in these packages? I think not and I am still using FF and OO.o on my main computer.

[Thetargos]

Well, at least I KNOW that Mozilla is addressing the Firefox' issues in Firefox 3, it is MUCH slicker than it is now with 2.0. Not only is it more resource friendly and efficient, but it also has a much better rendering engine, more compatible and acid-approved, only time will tell how well it turns out to be and if it is not brought down by its extensions