Alternative for acroread (Adobe Reader) in LINUX?

[Joachim Backes]

On 10/17/2014 04:30 PM, Bill Oliver wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Oct 2014, J.Witvliet at mindef.nl wrote:
> 
>> Funny, one sees these questions on the lists of all distros ....
>>
>> With regards to filling-in form, sometimes one can manage around it, like Silvia wrote.
>> But when it comes to official PDF's from (regional) gouvernements, TAXes, etc etc, that are digitally signed, only acrobats seems to work.
>> And forget about using wine.
>>
>> Only _really_ working solutions are either dual-boot, or a virtual-machine desktop.
>> Or perhaps a joined effort during Google summer event?
>>
>> Alas.
>>
> 
> 
> Yeah, I run into this a lot, being a guvm'nt official.  The Linux tools are pretty good for opening *most* things, but when it gets to these embedded forms and such they just don't work all the time.  I keep an old $15 copy of XP in virtualbox mostly so I can run Adobe Reader when I have to.
> 
> But, things have changed a lot over the years, so I'm still pretty happy.  I can remember a decade or so ago when you *had* to have a dual-boot machine because about half your stuff *had* to be done in Windows.  Then came virtualization, so you don't have to reboot every time.  Then, over the years, it became less and less necessary to use Windows for specific application needs -- the increase in availability and quality of open-source stuff on the linux side in the past decade is wondrous to behold.
> 
> Now, I only bring up Windows for four things:
> 
> 1) A few PDF forms.
> 2) To preview Powerpoint presentations to make sure the formatting will
> work right with the obligatory Windows machines at meetings
> 3) One specific statistics package that I use about four times a year
> 4) One specific 3D photogrammetry package that I haven't used in awhile
> 
> Basically, I crank up Windows about once a week now.  Quite the change from 1995.
> 
> But, I do it -- and this PDF thing is one of the reaons. If it weren't for PDFs, I'd run Windows just once every month or two...
> 
> billo
> 

Let me give a résumé: unfortunately, some time Win is needed, especially
for such PDF stuff. I thought I could forget my win7 virtual box, but it
seems sometimes even win has it's advantages :-(

-- 

Fedora release 21 (Twenty One)
Kernel-3.17.1-300.fc21.x86_64


Joachim Backes <joachim.backes at rhrk.uni-kl.de>
https://www-user.rhrk.uni-kl.de/~backes