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Yes, we've discussed migrating to native Linux video and audio apps. When you've got something that works, it is hard as a non computer geek to get excited about changing.

frankly im waiting for someone to give me the ability to "Alt Tab" between OSs. i'd love to run linux primary and just alt tab to windows when i need to do MS shit.

Win4Lin has been available for years. It started as SCO Merge back in the early 90s when it would run a real MS-DOS and Windows 3.x in a window on CDE. Later it could run Windows 95. Then it migrated to Linux and could run a copy of Windows 98. Current versions will run a copy of Windows 2000 or XP in a window on Linux.

With Win4lin the Windows file system is just a tree in your home directory so sharing files between them is easy. It also mostly runs faster than Windows by itself on the same machine.

Lots of stuff, some might not have what you are looking for... But hey, sift through these, and see if there is anything of interest :-)

Genuit's ThinWorx
Tarantella
Provision Networks
HOB
Prospero
Win4Lin
Konect
GraphOn's GO-Global

HTH :)

1. Solid reliablity.
2. First choice of corporate America.
3. You're in control. Windows 2000 doesn't talk to the Internet unless told to do so.
4. Works fine with Firefox and Thunderbird.
5. Fully supported by Dell
6. Runs under Xen, for casual Windows use in Linux shops.
7. Compatible with existing hardware.
8. No annoying update pop-ups from the operating system.
9. Interoperates well with Linux and MacOS X.
10. All files can be backed up to tape and restored.

Windows 2000 - the all-business operating system for the new millenium.

Also, don't assume that KDE and GNOME are the only options. I personally run Window Maker (with various dockapps), with fspanel, and KeyLaunch, with xtrlock (invoked via keylaunch) as my screen lock. On top of that, I use various shell scripts that I've written over the years.

Desktop systems, especially for certain classes of users, are highly varied. Good luck trying to study them!

is me.

Linux is not just about freedom and power.
It is about extending that freedom and power.
Encapsulating all.

Vmware, Win4Lin, Wine.
Now if only I could get round making PearPC work ...

I run my Windows legacy apps on it via Win4Lin on my Fedora Core 2 install and practically never have any trouble with it.

It such a joy using it.
It is very fast, it rarely crashes, runs on a mere 48Mb Ram, and I can run stuff unported software like Corel Draw 11, Macromedia Flash MX.
Never had problems with viruses, even though no AV is installed.
For me it is the perfect solution for many of my needs.
Brilliant stuff.

Random windows software -> prepackaged windows emulator (wine?)
Word documents -> openoffice works find with these, crossover office could be packaged with the system

Check their websites. They'll only work on a very specific and very small subset of Windows apps, the odds that WINE or Crossover will run a random Windows software app suck.

I looked at them when I was looking for a Windows emulator that would give me access to all the Windows apps that either have no Linux equivalents, none that don't suck, or in the case of Eudora, would take an inordinate amount of work to port gigabytes of mail files to a Linux mail client. For me. . . no Eudora, no PaintShopPro. . . no CorelDraw . . .no deal.

That's why I'm running Win4Lin and an actual copy of Windows on top of Fedora Core 2... so I can get access to all my legacy apps. It is NOT free, but it DOES work.

Plus, Windows is amazingly stable if one is only running 1 or 2 windows apps at a time with all the other customary desktops apps running in native Linux. Deciding to run it is probably the best computing decision I've ever made.

And guess what...

Win4lin already is sponsoring QEMU, and their latest release is based on it.

no.
Microsoft has a strong partnership with that company.
Microsoft strongest allies uses Vmware.

I wonder if Win4Lin will be attacked though.

By using the native Linux file system, and an efficient set of appropriate drivers for mapping to X, etc., I found they made Windows run much faster than Windows could on bare hardware, including boot times.

It's so deliciously ironic, using Linux to make Windows boot or run faster than otherwise possible.

VMWare is great for those that have to make their application work on different platforms. VMWare provides a great way to do that kind of testing without having to have a box (or a pluggable hard drive) for each platform. Just boot into Linux (or Windows, if that's your game) and then you can run entire operating systems within VMWare.

Win4Lin is EXCELLENT for those of us--and I think we're the majority of the emulation market--that just need to run some legacy Windows apps within Linux. I upgraded from WinXP to Linux for performances reasons in February and purchased Win4Lin for $89. It lets me run Windows under Linux and every single Windows application I've wanted to run has run fine under Win4Lin. That includes QuickBooks, Quicken, Microsoft Office 2000, VisualStudio 6.0, GoldWave, Paint Shop Pro, a number of 16-bit applications, IE, RealPlayer, etc. I have yet to find an application that doesn't work. Win4Lin does have limitations (USB support and you can't run XP within Win4Lin), but if you are really trying to migrate to Linux then this is not much of an issue. My USB devices work fine with Linux (scanner and camera) so I don't need them to work in Windows, and I don't have any legacy apps that require XP so that limitation isn't a factor either.

When I made my move to Linux I spent a week or two trying to decide which to buy--VMWare or Win4Lin. In the end, I went with Win4Lin. I just decided that what I really needed was some legacy Windows support and that's it. While I was tempted to get VMWare so I could do multi-platform testing, that was more of a "cool thing to be able to do" rather than something I really needed. So far I haven't needed that flexibility. And if what you want is to run Windows legacy apps in Win4Lin, you can't beat the speed. My Windows legacy apps run faster under Win4Lin under Linux than the same apps on the same computer under Windows XP!

Another factor is that Win4Lin uses the native file system whereas VMWare creates a "virtual disk" which ends up being a huge file on your drive somewhere. So Win4Lin runs out of a copy of Windows in my ~/win directory with a whole Windows file structure below it. I can copy/delete, etc. anything in my Windows installation from my Linux shell. And since it uses the native filesystem, it's fast. VMWare, on the other hand, creates a virtual disk which is a huge file somewhere in your filesystem. So you'll see your Windows installation as a 2GB file and the only way to get data out of it is to run VMWare, enter that environment, and then copy it out (using FTP, networking, etc.). Meanwhile, I can get to every file in my Win4Lin installation just by cd'ing to that directory. I don't actually have to run Win4Lin to get to my files.

Anyway, long rant... what I really meant to address is your statement "Why would they go to a subscription model? Because they CAN?" Well, maybe. But I think only a small percentage of the Win4Lin/VMWare market really NEEDS VMWare. For most companies migrating from Windows to Linux Win4Lin is a much cheaper, much faster solution. So I'm not so sure VMWare can really just decide to go subscription "because they can"--unless they plan on surviving on just the developer's market who very well may NEED VMWare. The rest of the market (which is huge) would be fine with Win4Lin.

They said that, but there was no indication that it was more than an estimate as they did not (apparently) try to make the switch. It's also not clear whether only 5% could make the switch because they were "intelligent" or "technical" enough, or because the other 95% needed software (QuickBooks, Win devapps, etc.?) that simply don't exist on Linux so it's not possible--in their mind--to switch.

Mostly, people are used to Windows. They think if Office or QuickBooks doesn't run on it then they can't use it.

I recently installed RedHat9 on my HP ze1230 laptop. It worked as soon as I installed, automatically detecting the internal network card, the integrated mouse pad (with scroll function), the PCMCIA LinkSys wireless network card, and my connected USB Microsoft keyboard and USB Wingman Logitech mouse. It just worked. Period.

Still, I couldn't go cold-turkey on Windows. I bought Win4Lin so that I could run my legacy Windows apps. It works great. It runs everything I need--Quicken, QuickBooks, Microsoft Office, and MS DevStudio6 for the occasional Windows development I'm still hired to do. Of course, I seldom need to enter Win4Lin but it's there when I need it.

I had been meaning, for months, to try using OpenOffice but just hadn't gotten around to it. I still ran Win4Lin and then Word when I needed to do some word processing. Just Friday I finally used OpenOffice Write to open an existing, large (1.4MB) MS Office document that I plan on publishing in PDF format. All I needed to do was some minor pagination adjustments--the rest of the document (tables, paragraph, footers, table of contents, graphics, etc.) worked perfectly. I saved it in sxw format and the resulting file was 170k. 170k instead of 1.4MB? I actually exited OpenOffice and reloaded the saved document to make sure it was actually all there. It was, it just took 170k instead of Microsoft's 1.4MB. I then proceeded to print to PDF format with no "Destiller" add-on necessary. Flawless.

So... scratch Microsoft Office from my list of legacy apps that I still need to run. OpenOffice works fine.

We have a long way to get Linux on the desktop big-time. But it's more an issue of perception, not that Linux isn't ready for the desktop. We need to convince users to try Linux without getting "religious" on them and rediculing them. Linux can do what 95% of Windows users use Windows for if we can just them to try it. Once they're hooked, they won't go back. Neither will the companies that have to pay for the licensing or hardware; and in an enterprise, Linux is obviously easier to admin than Windows.

When I got a new laptop last August it came pre-installed with XP. Despite everyone's complaints about Win98, I had had good luck with it on my previous 550MHz laptop. Anyway, when I upgraded to a 1.6GHz Athlon and found that VB, Word, and QuickBooks all ran SLOWER than they had run on my 550MHz laptop I decided it was time to make the dive. Not to mention my new XP machine was crashing quite a bit and the WinModem wasn't working even after a few driver upgrade attempts, alternately from HP and from Microsoft itself.

I bought a new laptop HD rather than risk the current XP installation. I installed RedHat 7.3 (because it was the same version as on my desktop server and on my dedicated hosting server). It worked great! Network card detected, USB mouse and keyboard detected. A few tweaks and my WinModem--which HADN'T been working under XP--even worked under Linux. I then went out and spent $80 on Win4Lin so I could still use Windows when absolutely necessary (I still do some VB/VC++ development occasionally). As it turns out, Word, VB, VC++, QuickBooks, Adobe *ALL* run faster under Win4Lin under RedHat 7.3 than they did on the exact same machine running XP. I couldn't believe it.

So... I switched to Linux for stability and security. And as it turns out my Windows applications actually run faster than they did with XP. I ain't looking back and I won't be running a Microsoft OS ever again.

That said, I can't say Linux is perfect. Kate seems to crash when I click the "Open" button so I have to have the "file dialog" window open and open files that way. Kopete (ICQ/MSN/Yahoo/etc. client) works fine but usually crashes when I shut it down, and doesn't support file transfers. So life is not perfect yet--but at least when these programs crash they don't take the whole OS down with it.

Anyway, I'm going to upgrade to RedHat9 so hopefully some of these issues will be handled. Even if they aren't I'll take the Linux problem to the Windows problems any day of the week.

You are making the big assumption SCO will win. That's hardly a given, let alone probable.

Ok, here is a Catch-22, hardware companies will never release their documentation for OSS programmers to write a proper driver because of trade secrets

That's an assumption on your part. Hardware companies make money by selling (drum roll) HARDWARE. There is usually little or no money to be made in driver development other than enabling more people to use--and thus buy--their hardware.

There may be some "old school" hardware companies that think the software somehow gives away trade secrets, but the real trade secrets of a hardware company are in the hardware, not the software.

The Problem is there will never be an overwhelming number of people using Linux until the Hardware & software "Namely M$ Office*" that they can use in Windows will be availiable for linux, and that will never happen until...

... Until more people learn about Win4Lin. I'm running all my Windows applications under Linux right now. Win4Lin is what let me migrate to Linux now without having to go cold-turkey on my existing Windows applications.

I think if more companies knew about Win4Lin they'd migrate sooner rather than later. A single outlay to get the Win4Lin license ($99) and you won't have to pay anymore Windows licenses. Just stick with what you have and upgrade to new Linux versions at your leisure.

I know that corporations have to please the stock holders, and the stock holders go after which can make the most money, and until it reaches 10-30% of the market "Which I Seriously Doubt will ever happen, because of that Catch-22" the Corporation Has to listen to everything Microsoft dictates

You forget the other side of the equation. While companies may currently have little motivation to support Linux, thousands of other companies that also have to answer to their stockholders are looking at and switching to Linux in an effort to reduce costs and increase returns to the shareholders. As you will see over the next couple of years, thousands of companies trying to save money by switching to Linux will be a much more powerful force than Microsoft can contain.

wait until Palladium & Longhorn is released.

So what? If Microsoft can write an OS that works under Palladium so can Linux. It's that simple.

OSS and Linux have become too large for Microsoft and Intel to just decide they're going to do Palladium. Entire governments will refuse the new technology now that they're on Linux. Even many American companies, such as IBM, will probably not support something that undercuts their support of Linux.

You also assume consumers will just accept Palladium. They might. But there's also a big chance that word of mouth will get around and common users will find out that they can't download MP3s and burn them like they're used to doing. So sales of Palladium systems will be less than spectacular, I bet.

Believe me, there's more to the economic puzzle than Microsoft dictating how it will be. Linux and OSS have lead to organizations that will not accept Microsoft-only hardware. Common users downloading and burning music has lead to users who will probably be less inclined to buy new hardware that lets them do less.

All in all, Microsoft's power is much reduced thant what it was, say, 5 or 6 years ago.

That's what I do--I close the window and look for another site. This is partially based on principle and partially based on my own convenience.

First, there are so many sites out there--some that look downright awesome--that don't require QuickTime, Flash, Java applets, or IE-specific nuances. I use the latest version of Mozilla and view virtually every site I want with no problem. I don't have Flash installed and don't plan to. If I get to a site that looks downright ugly because of plugins it couldn't load or because it demands IE then I'm going to go to the other hundreds of sites that provide the same information and conform to standards. That's my decision on principle.

Second, my decision is based on convenience. I am finally Windows-free. At least almost. I, too, sometimes need Windows: mostly when I do a consulting job that requires I develop in VB or VC++. For those cases I have Win4Lin which is awesome for running Windows applications under Linux. In fact, VB, VC++, and Word *ALL* run faster under Win4Lin than they did on the same laptop when it ran XP. Of course, IE is installed within that environment. The thing is, to get to IE I need to run Win4Lin which takes maybe 10-30 seconds to load initially. Unless I already have it running (which I usually don't), it's just faster for me to click "Back" and go to the next site on my Google search results page.

Try Win4Lin. This is what allowed me to migrate finally to Linux. Win4Lin is kind of like a "light" version of VMWare that only costs $89, and I presume there would be volume discounts available if you migrate your whole company.

Point is, Win4Lin lets you run virtually every business-critical Windows program there is. I use it to run Word, Excel, Powerpoint, VB6, VC++, Quicken, Quickbooks, PaintShopPro, Metrowerks Codewarrior (for Palm development). Multimedia apps, such as Windows Media and RealPlayer, both work under IE under Win4Lin.

Win4Lin is a great way to incrementally move away from MS. First you install Linux and Win4Lin throughout the enterprise, freeing yourself from Microsoft OS's. Then, as time goes on, you'll find that need fewer and fewer of the apps you thought you "needed" under Windows. I have Win4Lin for the applications I listed above but, to be honest, I use them very seldomly. But Win4Lin is a great idea for a company that would like to free itself from MS licensing but can't "risk" going cold-turkey.

Heck, try all your enterprise Windows apps on a single Linux machine with Win4Lin. If it doesn't work, oh well. If it does... Ready, set, deploy! :)

Linux works fine as a home OS, unless you try to make it be Windows -- which it isn't, and by and large isn't trying to be. It has its own educational apps (though mostly not of the same caliber), and a whole lot of childrens' apps are web-based and so should work just fine out of the box. Look at the native software available -- sure, it's not as pretty, but kids were using computers long before 256-color graphics (or even GUIs at all) were available. See a list of the educational games included in the the SEUL/edu (Simple End User Linux/Educational) project's index.

That said, if you still want to run your Windows-based apps, my vote is for Win4Lin -- it's cheaper than a new windows install (or running a separate machine), more reliable than WINE and will work with your existing win98 media and license. If it's strictly for your kids, you can call them and ask about an educational discount -- they've had those in the past, to about $40 or $50.

Finally, if you haven't used Linux before, go into this expecting an educational experience for yourself as well!

I've been using Win4Lin 3.0 (Win4Lin) by Netravese for a few months now, and find it to be completely awesome. Now it does cost money, but this is actually booting up a copy of Windows inside an X session. Now granted it only support 95/98, but the article mentions that WINE only supports that as well.

I highly recommend Win4Lin for those of you who are forced into using M$ applications at your place of work (Outlook, etc.). It is pretty fast, and supports everything from Windows networking to sound and primitive USB. I tried WINE before and after Win4Lin, and I know why I'm sticking with Win4Lin.

You need an Athlon 1.4 'just to run a web browser.' Mozilla is still slow, but for linux, the only browser that will properly work with 99.9% of sites out there.

I upgraded my box _just_ for the purpose of browsing the web while in linux without having to take coffee breaks between clicks.

MSIE in win4lin was almost fast enough btw (faster than native mozilla at the time).

BTW I think that Win4Lin is making a remote Windows app server which might be based on VNC.

VNC is like magic, man. That's where it's at. :)

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