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There's no shortage of other crippled features in the free version either, such as a maximum of 4x for burning CDs.

A quote from the Xandros website...Get full-featured Xandros for a fraction of the cost of Windows XP.

At $129 dollars per license...that's one helluva fraction!!!

Save your money! Use your fav linux distro and buy Crossover Pro for $75 bucks if you need that functionallity!

It's mostly not free due to the Crossover app that is included

$39.95 - $74.95 depending on which version you buy

And speed can always be better, and it continues to get better

First off , This is great that they have had the fore sight to include the drivers to read and write NTFS .It is also very nice that they have included code weavers cross over office.This is great for getting some people to switch to linux , shame they didn't include cedega as well , which could of really completed the package , though this is a business edition.

But credit where credit is due , the article summary makes it seem like Xandros was responsible for these things.http://www.codeweavers.com/ code weaver site , responsible of Crossover office and naturally a link to wine on which Cross over office is based http://www.winehq.com/.
A link to the linux NTFS project http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ (I assume this is the driver they are using , correct me if I'm wrong)
(Cross over office is a great product , It also has a rather pleasant installer in my experience.So you don't need to switch distros .)

Until Excel or an equivalent like Excel runs on Linux

That's been a reality for a long time now.

www.codeweavers.com

I've always had to own at least one additional windows box to do quite a lot of programming on windows. Well, it's all about JNI-Bindings in my case...

So -- A fast VirtualPC would be like a miracle, and I suspect VMWare guys will get into the ring. I really love Apple for this step, because I really enjoy Mac OS X. For me this means I can get a decent Apple-PowerBook with excellent performance and top notch Windows-compatibility!

I expect some more players getting into the game:

• Game industry - porting of OpenGL powered games gets easier (= cheaper) than ever, no more AltiVec
• Wine and (of course) CodeWeavers for Wine/CrossOver Office on OS X
• Lot of heavily optimized media-related stuff running exclusively on Intel boxes due to SSE, SSE2, MMX...
• Much more Linux-stuff due to easier compilation of "poorly programmed" software that doesn't respect endianess and other stuff

Now, if only eclipse got faster on OS X!

That, and the hundreds/thousands of Access/Excel/Word apps/macros/templates that a lot of businesses rely on. Yes, they can be recreated in other platforms, but it will take a significant amount of work to do so.

Power users with legacy applications and current Office licenses can be handled for $40USD or less in volume. The key is to make sure folks understand that path is deprecated.

The 9.2 pro came with it in the box (not downloaded). That cut went for ~99USD, the enterprise went for ~300-500. I'm running the SLES version these days, so did not try 9.3. The standard crossover cut is just fine for single users. Fantastic bit of kit. If you want media without the faf, the personal version comes in at $40 or you can do the free FTP install and then pick up crossover by itself. I assumed the parent was looking for support contracts rather than media, however.

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/pricing/

CodeWeavers is a company that is looking for some more people to buy their product. They will make the tweaks needed to get your software to work - for a fee of course. There are two advantages of buying Wine from Codeweavers, one is they will make the tweaks you need to make your stuff work, and the other is it supports Wine development, which supports linux.

CodeWeavers is not such a large company that they can afford to turn down money. They will be happy to discuss terms to get any application supported. And they will be honest about it - some things are a matter of the program is the only one so far using some API, so it hasn't been implemented, but once asked for they can do it in a day. Others require a few years of work yet, but they will tell you that it isn't worth the cost. (Unless it really is worth the cost to you...)

WINE/CrossOver uses the networked X wire protocol which can be piped through a encrypted ssh or a third party encrypt/compression system like the NX Terminal Server system. In combination with some of the newer dual/multi processor servers, a Office->WINE->NX pipe line can provide a better service to more people than the same hardware hosting Microsoft Terminal Server.

Its no stretch to say that the only win2k installs left out there are being used either on servers (why are you using a browser on a server??? Or even better yet, why are you using Windoze on a server??? :)

The other group (ans these are the ones Im talking about) are those that for one reason or another belive that win2k is the best Windoze OS (better than XP, better than 2003)...most of these will state stability as their reason for using win2k...others will say that XP has too much bloat and/or eye candy. What M$ is banking on is that these users will switch to a new version of Windoze (XP or 2003)...but what is keeping these users from switching to a Linux distro?

It pretty safe to say that the majority of these users will be looking for office support and not exactly games support...if the argument is that Lotus Notes doesnt work or I need M$ Office, you can always buy a copy of Crossover Office for $40.00...much cheaper than even an upgrade to XP/2003.

And for most Windoze apps, you dont even need to purchase Crossover Office...all you need is a script like This one.

They have played this move before, but this time it could come back to bite them.

You can just download it. Why make a big deal about shipping it?

Some people feel good about having a high-quality stamped CD, a printed manual, and a support contract.

Others just want to get a buzz :-)

Isn't this what Codeweavers does?

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/toplists/

Yeah I would definitely throw into the "kitty" for a feature

It's called OpenOffice... But if you really want MS Word working, get CrossOver Office. http://www.codeweavers.com/

I mean, really, otherwise you would just be an ignorant moron.

Although it's a commercial entity, they should have something like CodeWeaver's Compatibility database. This is the entry for MS Project 2002 and it has two pledges at $119 or so.

Crossover Office at least claims to have a working Active-X plugin. I have personally never had the need to turn it on (and it is turned off by default), so I can't comment as to how well it works. That might be a possibility for you. Of course, you have to pay something to use Crossover.

Although I exclusively run Linux, I'd have to say that Windows isn't alone in this respect. Almost every new version of RedHat/Fedora broke my CrossOver Office installation.

It's the real world that often slips in.

Photoshop fine, with a wrapper http://codeweavers.com/, though I far prefer Gimp for all my design and image processing. iMovie? i don't know what that is, though iTunes runs fine apparently.. most Linux users use gtkpod http://gtkpod.sourceforge.net/ as an iTunes replacement however.

Slightly off-topic, but interesting for a lot of people nevertheless: these two software packages run excellent on the commercial Wine version of CodeWeavers, named CrossOver Office.

Since the 4.0 version they lowered the price to $40. Well spent, since they have most of the Wine hackers on staff. Note that I'm just a satisfied customer.

Slightly off-topic, but interesting for a lot of people nevertheless: these two software packages run excellent on the commercial Wine version of CodeWeavers, named CrossOver Office.

Since the 4.0 version they lowered the price to $40. Well spent, since they have most of the Wine hackers on staff. Note that I'm just a satisfied customer.

Like Wine (The Windows API emulator for *nix variants) with Cedega (ex WineX) and CrossOver Office, there is always a space for the development over open source software from enterprises with restricted licences.

I just want to note that PhotoShop runs quite well on Linux with CrossOver; Disney uses it.

iTunes runs on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

iTunes in Wine? You fail it. How would you get iTunes to run in GNU/Linux?

...Right.

Nobody actually financially benefits from open source.

I'm sorry, I guess I didn't quite catch what you meant. Run that by me again?

According to Microsofts Tech Net (subsriber section only) MS has incorperated much Unix technology into it's new Longhorn OS.

That said, most current applications won't run on it. However it does state there will be a program to emulate older versions of Windows to allow those applications to run. Crossover Office anyone?

Just use the real Wine or, if you want to pay money, CrossOver.

My past experience is that the inherit problems with Windows makes it a less productive environment eventually.
Security problems, Corrupted irrecoverable files, viruses, trojans, worms, and a system that decays with time - becoming slower and slower. Pure paranoia.

In Linux, sure there will be a learning curve often a long one.
1 year (?) .. it all depends how persistant you are.
But after that - you just can't possibly go back to using just Windows.

Now if you work with Windows files (Corel Draw, Excel Macros) or even program for Windows like i do (Visual Studio, C#)
you can set an environment to make the best of both worlds.
I use CrossOver/ Wine (for the common MS apps), Win4Lin (for a cute embedded Win98) and Vmware (Windows XP).
This way I have what it's not granted to Windows users : much choice, security and flexibility.

Most of the time I am on Linux (95%) - as I have some bad memories of Windows, also find it very boring and featureless.
Take for example your Internet/File Browser.
Does it come with Newsfeed? A W3C Validator? And complete FTP capabilitities?
I can FTP to a site, open up a document, edit it and when I save it - it uploads the changes for me.
How convenient is that?
I can exchange documents between many FTP sites with much ease.
What about if I right click on a file I can navigate through a series of pop-up windows displaying directories so that eventually I can click "Copy Here" or "Move Here".
In Windows you have to either CTRL+C then fiddle your way through various folders and then CTRL+V
Or perhaps open two Windows and drag and drop between them? Kinda Clumsy.

So its like that - much power and a lot of flexibility.

Our version of "Notepad" is so powerful, it recognizes the syntax and highlights your code be it HTML, CSS or even C#.
If you are on KDE .. Kwrite allows for 80+ different language or script markups, with colour-highlight and silent error checking.
Not to mention the cascading indentation trees ..

Then you need Outlook to have Sticky notes.
Ours work independantly, and accepts Rich Text Formatting.

The convenience of Virtual Desktop can only lend to better productivity.

Sure you probably can (given the time and resources) download all these gimmicks and add-ons from freeware and shareware sites.
But God knows what you've installed with it as well.

Linux makes even Windows users more productive and they can use it for their advantage.

See it as a tool and powerful infrastructure enviroment, rather than abandoning Windows for good and joining a restrictive cult.

The possibilities are endless and I could go on and on ...

Linux is very stable, much faster, more secure
So don't just have Windows - have two operating systems (or more) in one.
If you truly care about productivity - of course.
(and security, and stability, and speed, and peace)

Jeremy White, the Founder and CEO of CodeWeavers

I wonder if I can run winamp under wine.

No they wouldn't. Linux people don't want to pay US$400 to use MS Office.

If you do want to have a Windows program ported to Linux you could try Wine, or you could hire us to do it for you (CodeWeavers don't just make products, we also do commercial consulting and compatibility work).

If you're a linux user, why don't you use WINE? Photoshop 6 (which is pretty nice) runs fine for me using it? It's a bit of a pain to install, since you have to modify your wine registry, and etc etc. I even got fonts and the eye candy filters working.

Alternately, you can go for the pay for play version CrossOver Office

Also, there's rumors of Adobe putting in Linux support for newer versions too

Quicken 2004 runs very well on linux, via CrossOver Office. In fact, I use it for my finances. And it is quite nice.

CodeWeaversHas their own version of Wine but almost all changes are rolled back in the main tree. I bought version 2, and don't need the features of the new version 4.1, but if I understand you, it's perfectly fine for me to save on the measly $40 and pirate this product?

Also, I'm a fulltime Linux user but whenever I encounter an IE-only site, I just fire up IE using Crossover Office, the Wine that works :D

I'm not sure how well the new quicktime 7.0 will work with crossover office, as I don't have access to the prereleases (I don't think it's been publically released yet).

But it does provide me with the option of using quicktime in linux, which is great. In addition to that, I use mplayerplugin with firefox, and that takes care of pretty much any media format the web throws at me, thanks to plf (I'm on mandrake).

I you want to run it with no hassle, you can purchase a copy of Crossover Office from here.

I can't find anyone who knows, and I've asked in all the right places. Did you ask here: http://www.codeweavers.com/site/compatibility/brow se/name?app_id=8;forum=1 ?

Funny, I can use flash with Crossover Office

Lot's of software isn't sold in the first place.

Quite a lot of people play games that are >12 months old. Breaking them isn't an option: they simply won't apply any more security updates from that point forward.

Welcome to the real world. I've already dealt with several in various test Linux migrations. One of them was written by a company that doesn't appear on Google and is apparently bust anyway. Actually this app was a Windows 3.1 program, from even earlier.

Linux is pretty much a textbook case of how not to maintain backwards compatibility. It's a serious problem. Some vendors are telling the LSB they won't start porting their apps to Linux until it becomes more stable (C++ in particular is an issue).

Due to the projects I'm involved with, I deal with the lack of stability on Linux all the time, and I can tell you it's one seriously fucked platform from that perspective. I've seen more than one open source developer get up and walk away (back to Windows) because the stuff they wrote simply didn't keep working.

It's easy to talk about source code escrow now. Too late, it's already happened. On a large scale. Deal with it.

That's why you don't work for Microsoft, and therefore have no say in the matter. You don't sell many operating systems by telling your customers that they're screwed but it's OK because "that's business, it's harsh". People will just tell you to fuck off, and they will give their money to people who care about their software investments (like Microsoft).

Photoshop 6 and 7 are both listed as "silver" applications on Codeweaver's compatibility database for CrossOver Office, which means they are very usable with a few bugs keeping them from running perfectly. If you want better support for those versions and support for CS and Elements, be sure to place a vote in the compatibility database. If it's worth some money to you, make a pledge. Pledges pay for development time, basically. The apps that get the most votes and pledges will be supported fastest. Looks like right now Photoshop CS is at the bottom of their list of the Top 25 Pledged Apps with $819.50.

Oh, and CrossOver Office is based on WINE, and all the bug fixes that Codeweavers find will eventually work their way back into the WINE source, so supporting Codeweavers is generally a good thing for Linux and the whole Open Source community.

ObDisc: Not associated with Codeweavers in any way, but I've used CrossOver Office and found it to be good software.

Photoshop 6 and 7 are both listed as "silver" applications on Codeweaver's compatibility database for CrossOver Office, which means they are very usable with a few bugs keeping them from running perfectly. If you want better support for those versions and support for CS and Elements, be sure to place a vote in the compatibility database. If it's worth some money to you, make a pledge. Pledges pay for development time, basically. The apps that get the most votes and pledges will be supported fastest. Looks like right now Photoshop CS is at the bottom of their list of the Top 25 Pledged Apps with $819.50.

Oh, and CrossOver Office is based on WINE, and all the bug fixes that Codeweavers find will eventually work their way back into the WINE source, so supporting Codeweavers is generally a good thing for Linux and the whole Open Source community.

ObDisc: Not associated with Codeweavers in any way, but I've used CrossOver Office and found it to be good software.

Bullshit. Maybe you're thinking of Codeweavers?

WINE is not an enemy to your desire to run iTunes under Linux

"with the exception of some designers that wanna use Dreamweaver for whatever reason"

Well, then get them crossover office from CodeWeavers. I paid the 40 bucks for it and I run Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, Photoshop 7 and IE on Linux for the occasional time that I actually need one of the above. As far as I can tell, they run flawlessly, and faster than they ever did on Windows XP or 2000, at least for me. I've been really happy with cxoffice and it's one purchase I heartily recommend to people who are candidates for switching to Linux but need their Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or Excel.

It's helped me convert plenty of Windows users who are sick of viruses but feel lost without Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, or who complain that such and such site won't work right without IE. It also allows me to design websites and test them in IE 6.0 without needing a windows machine soiling my home.

There's more information at CodeWeavers

-Jay

It's just too much of a hassle to use either Gimp or trying to run PS under WINE.

While I cannot comment on regular out-of-the-box Wine, I do know that IE runs on Codeweaver's Crossover version of Wine. I have two remote control apps that both use a bastardized Java applet that both require IE. They both work fine with Crossover.

I installed Xandros on my parents computer and haven't had to fix it since. I wrote about it for LinuxWorld. Yes, I know that switching OS seems like a huge step and frankly it is. But Xandros is the perfect distro for many computer users (basic office apps such as word processing, Internet, etc). The Xandros Deluxe edition includes Codeweavers CrossOver too so installation of things like Quicken and full version of Microsoft Office are possible, though Xandros includes OpenOffice.

It seems as though most Windows users that I've talked to don't care about the *name* of the program so much as they care about it just *working* and being compatible. OpenOffice is a great example of this. Show someone that they can read their old Word docs and that they can even save directly to PDF and they'll be an OpenOffice user. Yes, yes, yes. I know that there are things that OOo can't do but many (most?) users won't ever encounter those issues. Likewise, show someone that they can get their work done in much the same way and don't have to settle for IE's constant string of security holes, even post SP2, and Windows' poor performance and constant, never-ending critical updates and they'll be a Linux (and/or Xandros) user.

Since I installed Xandros on my parents computer I don't have to worry about my parents getting the spyware/adware/malware du jour or about the OS crashing for no good reason. They don't have to worry about clicking something they shouldn't or about their computer being "down" when they get yet another virus. I chose Xandros as an upgrade from XP Pro on their computer and it helped everyone concerned.

If I ever had to do tech support, which I'm just guessing I will at some point, Xandros is based on Debian which makes my life easier. At least I won't find myself in the position of having to tech support Outlook Express, a program I've never used, or any of the other disappointing, unconfigurable, security-hole laden programs that come from Microsoft.