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It's not the tool, it's the file format that the tool uses. OpenOffice 1.1 still can't flawlessly im/export MS Office 2000 which is 3 year old software

If your priority is opening MS-Office documents

For some people, OOo does the job just fine. For me it doesn't. So I paid $55 for Crossover Office.

If you want this (in geek circles there's a certain cool-factor involved with having a working copy of ie installed on your linux), just go to codeweavers' website and buy crossover office.

For me the most interesting component would be Crossover Office.

I wonder whether some distro (Fedora, Debian, Mandrake, etc) guys couldn't concentrate on getting Wine to run MS Office (or even only Word) flawlessly and then pass it along with the distro, with a big INSTALL OFFICE icon on the desktop.

I bought Crossover Office myself, because Wine just isn't stable enough for business use for me. But when I thought about it, I suspect the Wine guys of not concentrating on running MS Office on purpose. If it would, they'd lose their funding from Codeweavers.

Note that I don't have a problem with this, it just makes me wonder if there's some kind of Gentleman's Agreement.

Incidentally, if you are running Linux, you may be interested to know that Winamp 5.0 seems to work great under CrossOver Office.

> Do you work in an office?

Yes, but it's small and all engineers. All but one of us do use Linux on the desktop. I use CrossOver to deal with "real" .doc and PowerPoint, when it's required for electronic submission or whatever. (I'm just a satisfied customer, no affiliation.)

> Office workers use one or two applications all day long, every day.
> Everything else is a waste of space. Open sources vaunted "choice" is completely beside the point for them.

Actually, that was my point. For doing word processing, generating memos and so forth, OpenOffice is pretty much there. 1.1 has decent import of .doc files although it's still not 100%. The spreadsheet works great for me but I have not tried to do any real complex stuff with it.

KDE is close enough to Windoze for most people to acclimate, IMHO. Mozilla works well enough as a browser to replace IE for most apps. (CrossOver deals with IE well enough for the 1% that don't work for me.) I like Konqueror but it has too many rendering issues for me to use for real.

Some offices do thrive on Lotus Notes, although I think there's a native port to Linux from IBM. Others have lots of custom VB thingies, too.

> As for attaching a "randpm USB thing" to the boss's hardware...well, you must
> think that office workers can bring toys from home.

I don't think people can bring in random stuff, that's why I said it's a problem for grandma and grandpa but not your average secretary. Or are you saying people DO bring in their own stuff?

Since I started using MailWasher (free; Linux-compatible version info here), I haven't had any spam in my inbox. I realize that this doesn't solve the spam problem, but it sure does help out until the Spamish Inquisition comes along and puts things right.

Have you looked into CrossOver Office? I use it to run Outlook/Office XP on Linux. Beats Citrix.

Check out what CodeWeavers post on their site. Read both The Real Dirt and their EULA. It makes quite clear what you get (tangible and intangible), how well the product works, and the EULA isn't even evil and even has some humor in it.

Not to invalidate what you are saying, but there is another way to run Photoshop under Linux. Crossover Office allows some Windows programs to be run in Linux and it works quite well. It supports Photoshop, M$ Office XP and several other useful Windows programs. I assume it is faster than a Bochs setup also.

It's a bit besides the point, but I'd like to mention to everyone here that CodeWeavers sells CrossoverOffice, a version of Wine which, unlike Wine itself, runs MS Office flawlessly and stable as a rock. It's about $55, but sometimes they give discounts.

Where's his R & D coming from?

Maybe he's using CrossoverPlugin and Quicktime for Windows...

Crossover Office offers support for Dreamweaver under Linux. This page has a list of software supported; and for $60, I think its worth it.

I am beginning a migration toward Linux on my desktop full-time as well, and Crossover Office is the one tool that will make it possible.

I gave up trying to use Debian's installer long ago. I typically boot Knoppix and then do a network install using the debootstrap command. Although, I tried a debian-installer CD image lately (inside VMware -- VMware is great), and it worked quite well for me.

I'm still on windows though. Linux has other problems that need solutions before I move over (and I really wanna ditch XP.)

Ever considered buying the Crossover Plugin and either Win4Lin or VMware?

I have, and I can definitely say that, since I started using these three programs, I have never needed to boot Windows natively to do anything (though I don't typically play Win32 3D games, but I think VMware might support these now).

It involves shelling out a bit of money, but it's worth it!

I've used Linux exclusively since 1998, and I'm on the verge of giving up on it. There, I said it.

I'm tired of the trying ordeal it is to upgrade Linux distributions. For the most part I've stuck with Red Hat, which is known as a fairly stable release. Yet every time I upgrade from one release to another, at least a dozen applications are broken.

I especially remember my attempt to go from RH7.3 to RH9. There were a number of things wrong, but the most important was that my sound driver didn't work. I found various patches, and recompiled the kernel about ten times. At last it sort of worked, but somehow it stopped recognizing my USB mouse! Combined with everything else, I abandoned it and went back to 7.3. That's a weekend of my life I will never get back.

Most recently I upgraded to Fedora, this past weekend. I had Crossover and Real Player for Linux configured just fine before, but now neither will work. Annoying. Furthermore, the distribution "upgraded" to tetex-2.0.2, which contains a number of poorly documented changes in style behaviours. It took me a morning to figure out why; in the end I just used an old style file to make it work like before.

All I want is for it to just work. I don't want to suddenly find out that a driver is broken, or search around for six hours on Google to find a solution to some irritating problem with a package I use regularly. Until this happens Linux will not be ready for the desktop.

Linux has pissed me off for probably the last time. My next machine will almost certainly run OS X.

Of course, the problem with Wine is usability. It takes a good deal of learning to do it yourself. Linux PC sellers just need to provide a gui-based way to install pre-tested versions of Windows programs (ala Crossover Office). List the program versions that have been tested on the box. For programs that don't yet run under Wine, list superior alternatives that run natively.

I suspect the average person thinks that if they switch to Linux they will have trouble finding software for it. This is only true for a few applications. And that gap can be filled with Wine.

The list of Star Wars games that do work (if you don't mind a little tweaking) or have a chance to work are;

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Star Wars Insiders Guide

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns

The Phantom Menace

Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith

Galactic Battlegrounds

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2

Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast

Rebellion

The devil is in the details, so take a look before leaping.

Wine (main branch, not Transgaming's) has made some substantial updates over the past few months to support DirectX function calls.

In a k-12 school, we run many 3rd party apps that don't run on Linux

Have you looked at WINE and/or Crossover Office?

A lot of 3rd party apps work with it quite well, including Photoshop, FlashMX, QuickTime, etc. Microsoft packages like Office also work fine.

Hope that helps.

Here's what you do:

1. Buy codeweavers' crossover office.
2. Install quicken in linux
3. Uninstall Windows

You might also install MS office in linux if you're still using that, or photoshop, or dreamweaver, or any of the other excuses people use to justify their windows addiction. There is no such thing anymore as a lack of app support in linux. If you want to switch to linux, you can. Most people just don't want to.

Example #1, I needed full duplex operation of my soundcard. OSS and ALSA didn't do it. So I plopped down 20 something bucks for the OpenSound drivers. Worked right out of the box.

Example #2, I had to have Office XP for work because other people use macros in their Excel spreadsheets. OpenOffice/StarOffice don't do macros yet. So I bought CrossOver Office and Office XP works awesome, right from my Linux desktop.

There is a market for Linux software. I know, I buy them when I can.

I want to know when I can use Clippy in native Linux.

Now.

Have you tried it under Cross Over Office? I know that Quicken runs under Cross Over Office 2.1 very well.

Apple iTunes
iTunes currently does not work in CrossOver Office.
found at page 5 of the SUPPORTED apps section

I think it comes under their truth in advertising policy. But I can't check because it's slashdotted...

Bronze Medal The bronze is awarded to applications that install and run, and that can accomplish some portion of their fundamental mission. However, bronze applications generally have enough bugs that we recommend that our customers not depend on their functionality. The most important aspect of a bronze application is that CodeWeavers makes a firm commitment to bring all bronze applications to the silver level in future releases of CrossOver.

Excuse me, can I make that decision myself? And no, I don't have time to fiddle around with Wine, so I bought Crossover Office for only $55. I can then still run Linux with all the powerful (commandline) tools available, but nevertheless run all the Office apps, including IE. No fiddling, just rockstable.

Look, the im- and export filters from/to MS Office aren't perfect, but they're slowly improving. Try to download the most recent version.

Instead of pirating the [MS Office] software

There's a chance that your college has paid for a license where you are allowed to run a copy at home. This could be interesting. It was for me -- I'm now running a totally legal copy using CrossOver Office on my Linux laptop.

When Crossover Office and/or Wine supports it, I guess they will LOVE to leave this particular "feature" unported. :)

Yeah Microsoft really, absolutely misuses CodeWeaver's Crossover Office, the Wine derivative to make a quick and low quality Linux solution. :)

OpenOffice has been mentioned - and I like it. I've been working on a few documents at work recently while switching between OO1.1 and WordXP without any complaints. However, there are times where one still needs a full-on MS Office install.

That's where CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office comes in to play.

> This is just like the Wine project -- for years people have been promising that you'll just be able to install Wine and fire up any Windows app.

While it's true that you can't just fire up "any Windows app", I do have to say that my experience with Crossover Office has been pretty enjoyable. For any of the apps that they support, stuff "just works". (All of the Office suite works well enough I rarely reboot any more, in particular.) From time to time other applications will work as well. CodeWeavers seem to be very good about feeding their work back into Wine, too, which is important in being a good free software citizen.

I don't have any experience with TransGaming, but they seem to cover a different part of the Wine application space and what I've read about them has been positive - with respect to the technical half of the equation.

Anyways, Wine has been in development for years and I thought for a long time it would never get anywhere. I'm glad to see it's finally getting there.

This is what you are looking for. It runs windows programs on Linux! There is also Crossover office which can run Microsoft Office and games. Its shareware.

Also try OpenOffice 1.1, Its support for document format is very good, and unlike older versions its not slow.

Just remember, I made the switch, so can you ;).

Reluctant Doc files?
Use either
Crossover office to run Microsoft Office on linux
or
OpenOffice 1.1, now much faster, with improved Doc support. It seems to handle everything I chuck at it!

Games?
Use wine(x)! Severeal Game companies are contributing to it already to make it work with their games!

There is NO reason to use Windows these days, and Microsoft knows this, thats why its FUDDING linux to death!

Yes I am, but I didn't fund OpenOffice. Instead, I went here and spent $55 on a copy of Crossover Office. Works like a charm now and not in the nearby future.

You mean markup, etc? Well, it's just that we're currently in a project where we're cooperating quite snugly with the analysts of the client. They create huge word documents with huge tables in them. So those really have to survive. OOo sometimes barfs on them.

And if it bothers you and them that much, why can't you just mail your client a CD-R copy of OOo?

You can't be serious. Do you think when schedules are tight, you can bother clients and colleagues with a commodity thing like a word processor? Of course not. But because I want to run Linux, I bought Crossover Office. And the Office license is already paid for. Quite practical, all in all.

There's probably a very good chance that CodeWeavers CrossOver Office will run your software. I recommend giving it a shot. It's not too expensive and the money you pay to CodeWeavers is mostly for support and eventually helps the Wine project.

There's probably a very good chance that CodeWeavers CrossOver Office will run your software. I recommend giving it a shot. It's not too expensive and the money you pay to CodeWeavers is mostly for support and eventually helps the Wine project.

> Word 97 is a perfectly adequate word processor. So was Word 95 for that matter.

I have to disagree here. My experience with Word 95 was that it used to frequently write out .doc files that it could not read. This seemed to happen often enough that I ended up saving to a new filename every single time I saved. (Nice version control, huh?)

Word 97 was a dramatic improvement in this regard, but even still I see this occasionally with Word 97. The interesting thing is that sometimes once you've generated one of this "sick" .doc files, Word 2000 can read it in, and occasionally OpenOffice can too.

Admittedly my experience with Word 2000 is limited (and with XP nil), but Word 2000 appears to me to be better about reading suspect .doc files than 97 - hopefully it's better about writing valid files too.

For documents for internal use only, I generally now will use latex or OpenOffice depending on what the document is for. Unfortunately, the rest of the world wants the ubiquitous .doc format and OpenOffice 1.0 does not cut it for generating .doc files that can be read in and displayed correctly by the different versions of Word; hence the fallback is to use the "real thing" - albeit on Crossover Office.

How about WinMX w/ WINE? They say it works... http://appdb.codeweavers.com/appview.php?appId=288

can't reliably open a .doc

You have a really good point. I was there for a long time. I started with DOS, then Windows 3.1, made the jump to apple for a few years and then came back to Windows when W2K came out. For the last year or two I have installed and reinstalled various different version of RH and Mandrake, along with attempting to install PPCLinux (a RH distro). Each time I would be okay for a few days, and then I would find some major thing I couldn't do that I needed to... and back to Windows I went.

When RH 9 came out, I was really hesitant to try it as my main desktop, so installed it on my extra machine (I have two at work). There I messed with it for a while, making sure that I could do everything I wanted. There are tons of GUI tools built into both KDE and GNOME. Along with ton's of help groups.google.com. After a few weeks, I decided I was ready for the switch.

I have been using RH9 with Ximian (mod of GNOME) as my desktop (which you have to install separately). I have KDE installed so that I can use some of there apps for burning and media and such. I have Crossover Office installed to run Excel and Word. I will admit I am on my second install, don't know why, but the first one got hosed (I think it had something to do with recompiling glibc). But since the second install, I have been fine. There isn't anything I can't do that I could on Windows. It a bit faster, and I had no trouble with the worms that were floating around.

A couple things I can say are:

1) installing with a flat Workstation/Server/etc. install doesn't typically give you ever thing you need.

2) the groups are you friend. Every question you can think of has been asked.

While Redhat may not be the best distro (I personally couldn't say), there are a ton of people using it, therefore there is tons of support for it.

That's my 2 cents ... (** flame away **)

an x86 emulator like Boch

and a Win32 API like Wine

or Codeweavers?
It could beat VirtualPC:

faster (no Windows code to emulate)

and cheaper (no Windows license required)

You need Crossover office: http://codeweavers.com

(Dumb ass troll)

The link for CodeWeavers is wrong. It's www.codeweavers.com

Get Adobe and Macromedia to port to Linux and I think you'll see a major increase in usage

I don't necessarily think that will help. I pointed out to our company's graphics/design girl that PhotoShop runs under Linux quite nicely using the latest version of CrossOver Office last week. However, she likes her Windows and sees little reason to switch. She's gotten used to the way things work under Windows and has yet to see the smoking gun that will make her switch.

And on the point of pointing the apps to Linux, I think I'd rather see them at least contribute money or time to the Wine/CrossOver project to improve stability of apps like PhotoShop.
-dr

Crossover Plugin

Actually, MS Office XP runs perfectly under Cross Over Office. It also runs Photoshop 7 perfectly. Disney actually paid to have Photoshop 7 working since many more movies are being done with Linux and most graphical artists have Photoshop training. I just set this up for my brother-in-law who is a photographer and said he "needed" photoshop, I switched him to Red Hat 9 with OOo 1.1 (very good startup times) and Photoshop 7. It runs great. There is no slow down since Wine is NOT an emulator, it runs at native speed. I personally use Gimp 1.3.x and OOo-1.1 for all my needs. However, if you "need" one of these bigger MS Windows only apps, Cross Over works great for many of them. There is also WineX-3.x that runs more then 500 of the top games.

And sometimes, during in/export, stuff changes; it's not the same document anymore. That's of course logical, but not handy when you have to edit an existing document and then someone else has to edit it after you've done your share of work.

My solution is to use Crossover Office; works like a charm, for only $55. And the corporation paid for the Office license, so that's covered as well.

I had the same problem. Very frustrating, so here's what I did. I bought the commercial version (Crossover office) and yeah, it cost me some money (very little), but now I have Photoshop 6.0 and Office XP running. pretty cool actually.

It's ridiculously easy to setup if you get the CrossOver Office software (based on Wine technology but non-free) from Codeweavers.

I've been using Photoshop 7 on Linux for weeks now, and I've been using Internet Explorer 6 too (very handy for checking web development work).

Try the 30-day demo if you don't believe.