Slashdot Mirror

Note that CrossOver has a free trial version. So the simplest way to figure out whether it's worth it would be to try it out.

you're funny, people waste hours and days trying to twiddle and fiddle and solve wine issues, if they're solvable at all. If you want to play games from the 90s, install an old windows version and have a stable platform for playing with no fuss, the installation only needs to be done once after all.

Or support open-source and buy a support license from the commercial version of Wine - Crossover from Codewavers. These guys have made WINE setup and installation pretty damn easy. And they actually support the WINE project too, so it's all on the up and up.

Everybody in this thread keeps talking about Wine, but everybody seems to forget about the paid, heavily-developed port of Wine called CrossOver. Sure, its not free, but since its not, and has a bunch of developers constantly working on it, it runs a LOT of Windows software, quite a few that won't run on the "free" Wine.. https://codeweavers.com/ .. I gave up on Wine a few years ago, and now pay to use CrossOver for the several Windows apps I need to run, and flatly *refuse* to dedicate a machine to Windows to run...

I can't let a mentioning of Wine slip by without also pointing to the commercial version by CodeWeavers. I'm not currently running Linux on the desktop, but if you're a freelancer like me, it's VERY helpful to have Microsoft Office running reliably and out of the box.

No shares in the company, just love their product and the fact that they heavily commit to Wine.

No it isn't. A Win32 application running over wine involves more context switching and memory contention due to wineserver and other libraries eating up resources.

It is the wineserver that handles all accesses to the registry. For that reason and many others, there is no way you're going to start a Wine or WineLib process without it. So it really makes no difference either way.

Once compiled there is no more difference between a WineLib process and a Wine one than between an a.out process and an elf one. Probably even less since in both cases you have all the PE structures (since some applications access them directly), only in the Windows executable file the PE-stuff is all alone, while in the WineLib case there's an extra ELF wrapper.

In theory a natively compiled Win32 exe might be more optimal if MSVC ran more efficiently than gcc / clang but these days that's unlikely.

Another point for just running the regular Windows executable.

So the rest of the Wine runtime is superfluous bloat. Compiling and linking against winelib saves space on disk because the code that is unused will not be linked into the executable.

WineLib is not something distinct from Wine. Rather it's just the source-level compatibility aspects of Wine: are the functions definitions in the right C header files, do they use the right types, can we produce PE executables, etc. WineLib does not have its own libraries: it uses the Wine dlls. So if you package your application with a self-contained Wine environment you can of course pick and choose which Wine dlls you want to package it with. That requires a non trivial amount of work though and it's not going to impact performance, just disk usage which nobody care much about these days. The latter is particularly true for games since they are typically multi-GB beasts these days while a full Wine is under 0.15GB.

It also means the game can ship only things that it needs to work and can tested to within an inch of its life against those things instead of some random Wine on someone's machine.

The things you care about for games are the X and OpenGL libraries, and graphics driver (including the Linux kernel part) and you cannot package those with your game. Also, as stated before there's no difference between Wine and WineLib there.

Thirdly, a game running on Linux might have to disable or modify its copy protection, change or remove certain texts and assets, interact with Linux in certain ways (e.g. disable screensaver, input devices), interact with other software such as Steam on Linux, or use different file paths.

True. The ISV would typically do that by modifying the source code and producing a Linux-specific Windows binary thus side-stepping all of the toolchain changes. He would then package the resulting Windows executable with Wine as stated before (or have someone like CodeWeavers package with CrossOver). In some extreme cases he may end up developing a Wine dll (i.e. a WineLib dll as all Wine dlls) to interface in some way with Linux and use the API provided by that dll in his game. That's pretty rare though.

Yes you could run a game on Linux through Wine and that's the fallback situation you'd still be running the Windows game. You wouldn't even register as a Linux user on some spreadsheet of the company that produced it.

You're mixing up buying the standard Windows game and running it through Wine with no involvement on the part of the game studio, and buying a Linux or Mac game that has been ported using Wine rather than WineLib. Of course in the first case the game studio is not going to know you're running their game in Linux or Mac since, as far as they know, it only runs on Windows. But if they made a port with Wine it's up to them to decide

My wife needs microsoft office applications for compatibility with her students and colleagues. Can i point and click install that? Is it as easy to crack on linux as windows (autoKMS).

Libre Office may work for her. Perhaps not for every feature in MS Office, but it is worth a try. Besides, it is legitimately free, no crack required ;-)

My wife uses quickbooks to do some accounting for some companies. Has linux started supporting quickbooks now?

Are you talking about Intuit QuickBooks? If yes, they are currently trying to convert their customers to Software As A Service. I could not even find a purchase option for a traditional application anymore, just for QuickBooks Online. Who knows how long the offline version is still supported. And I guess with QuickBooks Online the OS won't matter anymore.

And please don't say "just run wine". Number 1, it costs money and 2 is an emulator, so is bound to have issues.

Um, which version of "wine" are you talking about?
The version on winehq.org is open source and free to download.
There is also a commercial version by Codeweavers (https://www.codeweavers.com/), which is called CrossOver.
I dimly remember that there was a time where "Wine" by Codeweavers was not so clearly distinct from the open source version, but these days even the name is different.

This said, I agree that Microsoft's attempts to push people to upgrade suck. I intend to keep my own copy of Windows 7 until 2020, when the supply of security patches runs out. After that, Windows MAY be allowed to remain on a gaming partition without Internet access.

one word, though:

MSoffice

Until they hear about Wine or Crossover. MS Office seems to have high compatibility ratings on Crossover.

A less palatable alternative but one which produces better results is to port each application with winelib or some commercial derivative so it runs natively on the host OS even if its internally using Win32 APIs. It requires somebody to have the source for the application but they can compile, test, debug and if necessary, modify the code to make it work on the host, e.g. commenting out copy protection or some feature that isn't supported.

None of that requires recompiling the source code with WineLib. All it requires is cooperation of the game editor to get modified binaries that play well with Wine. Note also that WineLib is no more native than Wine and will not provide better performance.

This is how most Windows games get ported to OS X or Linux - some 3rd party does a port using Cedega or similar.

Really? So then why does Wikipedia say about Cedega that "In some cases it closely mimics the experience that Windows users have (insert disc, run Setup.exe, play)". Clearly not every Cedega port is a source port. Furthermore isn't Cedega a bit dead nowadays? Anyway, even if you don't go through the standard setup.exe that does not mean you have a source port, as demonstrated by CrossOver's many ports.

Android devices don't have hard disks, don't have virtual memory, don't have much RAM, don't have have very powerful CPU or GPUs, don't have sophisticated support for input devices or controllers.

Did you miss the part where the article said CodeWeavers got Steam running on Remix OS, a version of Android that can run on regular PCs, which, if you so desire can be cnfigured with hard disks, gigabytes of RAM, top-of-the-line i7 CPUs, GPUs, real keyboards, mice, etc?

Windows applications & games also have dependencies on runtimes like DirectX, .NET, COM / ActiveX controls, proprietary fonts (even Arial is proprietary) etc. so it's not enough to fool the game but also satisfy these dependencies. And many games would use copy protection libraries that require drivers or background processes to function.

Wine provides DirectX, .NET, COM, ActiveX and event lets you install the freely downloadable Arial fonts. In fact CrossOver, which is based on Wine, already runs many of the games you say it cannot run.

But then again, what's to stop Valve just throwing streaming onto their existing Steam app for Android?

The goal of Remix OS is to replace Windows, Mac OS X and Linux on regular PCs by providing users with the Android GUI they are already used to on their smartphone. They cannot do that if buying a second PC with Windows and streaming is their only answer to providing compatibility with legacy applications.

WINE isn't an option either, because it is unsupported. If an app doesn't work in WINE the vendor probably won't be interested in fixing it.

CodeWeavers sells a supported version of Wine called CrossOver. They will also make almost any Windows application work on it if you cover development costs.

WINE isn't an option either, because it is unsupported. If an app doesn't work in WINE the vendor probably won't be interested in fixing it.

CodeWeavers sells a supported version of Wine called CrossOver. They will also make almost any Windows application work on it if you cover development costs.

I never really had the use for an tablet and hence don't own one, except a old B&W NOOK ebook ready with Android.

Now, what I would really like is to use

1. [Preferably] Ubuntu on a tablet to run wine and use RosettaStone for language learning

2. Use Windows to run Rosetta Stone.

This may be an option in the future: https://www.codeweavers.com/po...

But currently, what are the options for CHEAP x64 tablets?

I wish I could buy the cheap AMAZON Fire but RosettaStone won't run on it. The Web Version (Android/iOS) does not compare to the computer version.
Any suggestions highly appreciated. I am willing to root the device.

For business use, it must support the latest version, which it does not: https://www.codeweavers.com/co...

"It gets harder and harder for me to understand why so many people stay on Microsoft operating systems.

Because half your software not working is better than 99% of your software AND some important hardware not working?
I got fed up with the malware and advertising bullshit MS was pushing this summer and installed Linux on one of my machines, with the intention of going full Linux in the near future.Two months later and I was back to Windows. Wifi problems, video problems, a more limited application selection..."

Seriously, it is kind of a cool anecdote, because it shows how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You basically didn't stop to think: Hey, is this fair? Is this a fair comparison?. Of course, it isn't. Not at all. Allow me to elaborate.

A professional installed and configured a customized version of Windows on your system (Maybe you didn't know that an engineering team configured a custom version of Windows with all the right drivers, etc?.) Then an amateur tried to installed and configure Linux, and not surprisingly was unsuccessful (thus the WiFi and video "problems", and inability to run your Windows applications with WINE/Codeweaver Crossover.) It boggles the mind that you think that could pass as a fair comparison. True, there are some Windows applications that won't work with Crossover, but it is highly unlikely you use those, or you never would have made the switch (e.g. You' would already know Photoshop and AutoCAD aren't available for Linux.)

My assumption is that you are a troll (who else would claim that 99% of your software won't work if you use Linux?), but maybe I'm wrong, and even if I'm not at least other people can learn a little something (like the existence of Crossover) as a consequence of your post now, whereas there was absolutely nothing to learn from yours directly, and a significant danger someone would get a tingle in their confirmation bias gland.

Agreed. I can't move my wife to Linux simply because she's an accountant and needs access to Quicken/QuickBooks and others tools (MS Excel) that are pretty much industry standard for her. It would be great to have those all ported to Linux, but you'll have to convince a lot of corporate oriented software development houses (f.e Intuit) to do so. It's a big chicken-vs-egg issue - corporates won't move over unless there's software and the software devs won't make the software without the corporates.

Note that recent versions of Quicken should be quite usable on CrossOver and maybe Wine too. Same thing for Excel 2010 or older. Unfortunately it's not the case of QuickBooks :-(

Agreed. I can't move my wife to Linux simply because she's an accountant and needs access to Quicken/QuickBooks and others tools (MS Excel) that are pretty much industry standard for her. It would be great to have those all ported to Linux, but you'll have to convince a lot of corporate oriented software development houses (f.e Intuit) to do so. It's a big chicken-vs-egg issue - corporates won't move over unless there's software and the software devs won't make the software without the corporates.

Note that recent versions of Quicken should be quite usable on CrossOver and maybe Wine too. Same thing for Excel 2010 or older. Unfortunately it's not the case of QuickBooks :-(

Agreed. I can't move my wife to Linux simply because she's an accountant and needs access to Quicken/QuickBooks and others tools (MS Excel) that are pretty much industry standard for her. It would be great to have those all ported to Linux, but you'll have to convince a lot of corporate oriented software development houses (f.e Intuit) to do so. It's a big chicken-vs-egg issue - corporates won't move over unless there's software and the software devs won't make the software without the corporates.

Note that recent versions of Quicken should be quite usable on CrossOver and maybe Wine too. Same thing for Excel 2010 or older. Unfortunately it's not the case of QuickBooks :-(

Just something to keep in mind: SolidWorks 2014 seems to work in Wine and/or CrossOver. Whenever OpenGL is involved this can depend a lot on your graphics card and driver. Word 2010 or older should definitely work just fine.

Not sure why this hasn't been mentioned yet, but depending on what version you want to run, Photoshop runs quite well on Linux under WINE depending on what version you need to use, including CS6 and Creative Cloud versions. If you require support, Code Weavers packages a popular and easy-to-use version of WINE with varying levels of technical support available for purchase. (No affiliation with Code Weavers, just a happy customer.)

If you want to get fancy (i.e. complicated), you can probably set up some sort of application server that will allow you to limit the number of Photoshop licenses you need to purchase, but that's a bit out of scope for a simple Slashdot comment. :)

- Dave

https://www.codeweavers.com/pr...

Did I mention that for 99% of the business use cases Libre Office is actually a better tool than Office? For the few who absolutely need Office, and they are few indeed, there is Crossover.

Do you find CrossOver unacceptable, then?

or they'll have cratered and release MS Office for Linux.

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/search/?name=microsoft+office&search=app

if you use a compatable release of Office.

My copy of MS Office 2003 works good enough I've never had any problems.

> Until I can run Photoshop and Illustrator natively,

Good news: You can: http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=8077

Troubles I had that made me consider just recompiling were with the ptrace issue described here: http://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/linux/faq/ubuntu1204 but that was even before that bug report and not for codeweavers just regular wine, way back in like 2004 or something. I don't quite remember the details. I know it was slackware and I didn't have the knowledge at the time to fix it without editing the kernals configs, patching the module and recompiling, I learned alot about setting up all the other fancy tweaks I could in my kernal that day though so it was no big deal. I may have been able to just recompile the individual module, but I'm not sure on that at the time it was all all or nothing fix I think for me. Depending on the kernal flags set it can be tricky to get patched modules to work right. But like I said its like a decade gone by. I think its much easier to deal with that stuff now probably.

However I can completely understand from a developer perspective the maddening fustration that they might have tweaking their software around issues like that. Which crop up allot more frequently in linux. And allot of times tweaking your software is not the solution, fixing it in the kernal, module, OS, or graphics lib is the solution.

When I look at the Planescape page at GOG, it doesn't show a Mac option. Did I miss something? I'd give 'em $9.99 in a heartbeat.

The GOG version works well in Crossover, and probably other versions of Wine as well.

When I look at the Planescape page at GOG, it doesn't show a Mac option. Did I miss something? I'd give 'em $9.99 in a heartbeat.

The GOG version works well in Crossover, and probably other versions of Wine as well.

You have to look pretty hard at particular niche markets to find examples, as you have shown. That being said, there are numerous alternatives, though much like Photoshop there will certainly be some who just have to use AutoCAD. I've never heard of LaCerte, but it most likely runs just fine on Linux using Wine or Crossover.

Turned out there was a bug in WINE that was found and fixed the next day, based on my report and others. However, the WINE developers were extremely arrogant, and accused me of slacking because I didn't have a full development environment and couldn't get the compiles to work correctly. Turned out to be an issue with multi-architecture setup under the current Ubuntu 64-bit release, trying to compile Wine for 32-bit use, which was required for LOTRO to work correctly. This was not a 10-minute fix. It took several days of work trying to get the Ubuntu system working under multi-arch, and I finally just gave up. How many days can you go telling a small child she can't play her game? So I installed Win8 and she's happy again. My office comp still runs Linux, but I refuse to recommend it for less-than-knowledgeable users.

Ongoing breakage is a real problem with Wine. Wine needs to define a packaging system that installs an independent copy of Wine for each game. Let those that want to test the general purpose Wine continue to run their software in a system wide install. Let those that want a specific game/application to run install the version that is tweaked to run the specific application 100%.

Users should be able to launch the installer, select the specific application that they want to install, and point to the Windows install files. What they should get is an application that just works. An application that has no connection to any other windows applications that are installed.

If this is a concern, I would suggest paying the $35 or so a year to buy Crossover Linux which is exactly that.

Codeweavers repackages WINE (they actually actively support WINE development - several WINE developers are actively employed at Codeweavers) to make it really simple to have specific environments for specific apps, and because you're paying for support, they're damn friendly as well.

Had you used it, they probably would've got LOTRO working pretty damn fast with packages available easily.

Yes, you can get WINE for free (and Codeweavers puts all their WINE changes back into the tree), but Codeweavers has made it really easy and simple to use.

Not an employee, just someone who uses it and while apt-get'ing wine is easy and cheap, sometimes it helps to pay. And you're helping fund open-source development as well, never a bad thing. Even the WINE guys recommend them if you want paid support.

By all means, help yourself.

Giving out the links is kinda dumb when you could have the registration link and one year support and upgrades for free as well.

http://flock.codeweavers.com/

Codeweavers Crossover Direct Downloads 10/31/2012

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

Codeweavers Crossover Direct Downloads 10/31/2012

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

Codeweavers Crossover Direct Downloads 10/31/2012

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

Codeweavers Crossover Direct Downloads 10/31/2012

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

Someone verify these are correct:

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

Someone verify these are correct:

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

Someone verify these are correct:

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

Someone verify these are correct:

64 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/ia32-crossover_11.3.1-1_amd64.deb

32 bit Debian / Ubuntu
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover_11.3.1-1_i386.deb

32 or 64 bit Red Hat (Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva)
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/crossover-11.3.1-1.i386.rpm

Installer for all other Linux distributions
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/cxlinux/demo/install-crossover-11.3.1.bin

http://flock.codeweavers.com/

What it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrossOver_(software)

"CrossOver (a.k.a. CrossOver Office before version 6.0) is the collective name for two commercial and proprietary programs developed by CodeWeavers that allow many Windows-based applications to run on Linux and Mac OS X using a compatibility layer. The programs include CrossOver Mac and CrossOver Linux.

The programs are modified, proprietary versions of the public Wine source tree with various compatibility patches added, more user-friendly configuration tools, and commercial support. CodeWeavers employs several Wine developers and contributes code back to the free software/open-source software Wine project as per the GNU LGPL, although CrossOver is proprietary software."

On October 31, 2012, CodeWeavers will have a second software giveaway, this one entitled "Flock the Vote." CodeWeavers promised to have such a giveaway if 100,000 American voters would promise to vote on election day, in a nonpartisan bid to encourage activism. 100,000 people have pledged, so CodeWeavers will allow any person in the world to download and register a copy of CrossOver Linux or CrossOver Mac; the offer includes a year of support.

http://securityflakes.livelyblog.com/2012/10/31/get-crossover-for-free-now-today-only-oct-31st-2012-another-non-security-post-but-if-you-use-linux-or-mac-you-should-really-try-this-out-now/

There are both Linux and Mac versions of Crossover, which runs thousands of applications, including games, MS Office, and many other things. Here's the compatibility list. Check the WineHQ AppDB too if you don't see it listed. Codeweavers contributes heavily to Wine, too, and the projects are closely related. They're not just a paid fork of Wine like Cedega was.

Wine (and Crossover) have really progressed far since they started. I play games as well as run more serious applications, and I haven't booted up my Windows partition in months. I haven't had the need. This giveaway comes with a year of support, too, which is very nice.

There are both Linux and Mac versions of Crossover, which runs thousands of applications, including games, MS Office, and many other things. Here's the compatibility list. Check the WineHQ AppDB too if you don't see it listed. Codeweavers contributes heavily to Wine, too, and the projects are closely related. They're not just a paid fork of Wine like Cedega was.

Wine (and Crossover) have really progressed far since they started. I play games as well as run more serious applications, and I haven't booted up my Windows partition in months. I haven't had the need. This giveaway comes with a year of support, too, which is very nice.

"If you think this is the only issue, you've never seen an accountant freak out when you tell them, "Well, it's LIKE Excel...""

Hey! You know what else is a lot like Excel on Linux? Excel on Linux!

While I was not aware of this particular software, you've kinda missed the point. That point being accountants here seem to hate change, ANY change. It would be yet 'more software' I would have to convince corp. to allow us to install. Then there's the added cost of buying said software for all the accountants (Hint: This isn't a small shop). Plus, from the forums and rating system, the flavor of Office in use here (Office 2010) gets a bronze rating while Office 2000 gets a gold, understandable given it is 12 years old. The comments on using the add-ins system Excel uses with Crossover have me a little nervous given that the solution to many of the problems experienced are 'disable them'. Add-ins are somewhat vital to these accountants. There are some that actually ARE tech savvy. Then there are most of them who panic if a particular window does not look exactly like they remember it. I'm sure all this has been covered before in many many many previous posts of others who have juggled a similar idea.

I do appreciate knowing this exists though, thanks.

"If you think this is the only issue, you've never seen an accountant freak out when you tell them, "Well, it's LIKE Excel...""

Hey! You know what else is a lot like Excel on Linux? Excel on Linux!

If Office was available on Linux, I'd be perfectly happy on Linux.

How about Crossover? http://www.codeweavers.com/products/

I believe you need a VM if you are running the latest version 2010 as most of the applications are only rated bronze. And as far as I can tell, you cannot purchase an older version as is it no more available.

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=7437;details=1

I don't believe it works with WINE. You can use it with Crossover Office, though. http://www.codeweavers.com/