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Crossover Office 2.0 Released
freakyfreak2 writes "Crossover Office 2.0.0 was just released. Finally can get Office XP apps to run. Here's from the announcement. "The changes in this release are as follows:
Support was added for Photoshop 7, Access 2000, Word XP, Excel XP, and
Powerpoint XP. glibc 2.3 issues were fixed. The setup GUI was
dramatically improved. Tablet support for Photoshop was added. File
locking and file change notification support were added. Scripts were
added so that the technically inclined can have Windows applications
open specific file types using Unix applications, for instance,
opening PDF fies with the Unix Acrobat Reader. Many other cleanups
and bug fixes were made. "
Here's the homepage and here's the change log. I'm still waiting on getting Dreamweaver MX to run."
"Crossover Office" sounds like a building full of transvestites.
Trolling is a art,
They are freskmeat.net links but they just redirect to codeweavers actual site.
<conspiracy>
OSDN is keeping track of our clicking habits
</conspiracy>
my other penis is a vagina
Only vaguely, in as much as it's WINE related. Crossover produce a very good product though, and I'd love to see them succeed. Also, unlike TransGaming, they contribute all their changes back into the main WINE tree, thus earning them huge kudos as good citizens of the open source community.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
this is pretty nifty, but i think I'll stick with openoffice. I won't have to pay $100 to upgrade it when the next version is released and it's interoperable with MS Office.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
You can install other things under CrossOver Office fairly easily, and a lot of them actually work, but in this case "support" is thorough testing and hacking the WINE codebase to make sure everything works with whatever the application is.
:-)
For instance, Photoshop 7 doesn't run under current versions of WINE, WineX, or CrossOver Office 1.2. I'm happy about this.
it has been my understanding that there's a really great program-loader for Windows applications. It has native window management support, vendor device support, and lots more!
It's called Windows.
I always thought that WINE was a stopgap, a thing to tide you over until your users were comfortable with OpenOffice or whatever. Now we can run tomorrow's Windows apps today. I can't seem to shake the idea that by running Windows apps on Linux waters down the latter and strengthens the former.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Why? So you can have huge chunks of javacript that sucks embedded into every single page? Or perhaps you want your HTML to look like it was laid out by a deranged monkey?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Not exactly. In principle, Wine is being used a general tool that can run Windows apps. In practice, there's little things that go wrong and keep say Publisher from running correctly. If Codeweavers has a lot of demand for Publisher to work, then they concentrate on fixes that allow that app to run. Fixes that allow that supported app to run will probably help out some other apps too. Of course, what fixes Publisher may well break something else...hopefully something that isn't too popular.
Basically, it's your second idea. They're claiming to have fixed up Wine so it will run particular apps. They make no claims about other apps that may or may not run.
...not yet - give it time.
Dude, where's my Karma?
before i get flamed or trolled, there are lots of great apps that run on windows, apps that don't come from microsoft. if a company can keep their same apps, running atop linux, then it will make migration much easier, even possible. then, when the install base of linux goes up, companies will offer commercial apps on linux.
the problem that linux desktop adoption has is not quality nor quantity. there are plenty of both. there is always that one app that can't be replaced. microsoft's hold on the desktop is tenuous at best. they do know this. why else all the EULA fuss over foxpro. they have traction, but they don't have momentum. they have a base that HAS TO use their products, but many don't necessarily choose to. this gives businesses one less reson to not look into linux.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
There is a review here.
Yeah, sure. If you want to run openoffice, more power to you. If there are EQUIVALENT programs that are linux native, I'll use them. However, I don't see any programs equal to Photoshop 7 that are Linux native, and Adobe has stated that there won't be a Linux port of Photoshop.
The GIMP is nice, but it isn't Photoshop. Also, the Crossover office tools are wonderful for those of us in Windows shop who need Outlook, but run Linux boxes for development and just cause we can.
Hitomi Ikazuchi Dragon Clan Barbarian Monk
Seriously, a stock wine install (03-2003 here) should work fine. In my case I'm using Office 2000 under FreeBSD. Yes, it even runs the installer fine (make sure it doesn't use built-in CAB extractor but the one on the O2k CD), you do NOT need any "native" Windows partition/system binaries/DLLs to get most functionality. Exceptions are OLE stuff for Word saving, which needs native DLLs, and Access/IE is pretty much broke (but Crossover before version 2 didn't officially support either anyway).
Ah, Linux, where customizability is key. As longs as you don't make it like windows.
God forbid people get to run the programs they like and make their computer look and act like they want.
How DARE they!
Hitomi Ikazuchi Dragon Clan Barbarian Monk
"Hello, Jim? This is Bob in the 'Office' department. Can you fax over that Visual FoxPro EULA? I think we might need to include that verbiage in our products too now. Sure, I'll be looking for it. Thanks!"
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Many Linux advocates just don't get it. On the desktop, Linux is simply not going to move beyond being a niche environment until it becomes easy for average people to use the Apps that they today. Crossover Office has great potential as a tool to help accomplish this.
I have no idea what this story is about. It's traditional to make the first paragraph of a story a summary of what the rest of the story is about. In fact, when /. was established someone understood this fact and so had the idea of putting the first paragraph of each story on the front page with a link to the rest of the story. But that seems to have been forgotten over the years. This reads like someone just figured something out while sitting on the toilet and couldn't wait to run to his PC to tell his friends about it. It isn't even in complete sentences.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I strongly disagree. There were two big hurdles to getting VFP working. First was a mouse click bug. Duane Clark (IIRC, can't seem to reach the arcives) fixed that. The second was file locking. File locking is a BIG issue for any program that wants to be multi-user friendly (such as FoxPro or Access). Alexandre Julliard did that work, and is DIRECTLY related to Codeweavers being able to say they support MS Access.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
It may not be fully supported by Codeweavers [yet?], but you can already install and run Dreamweaver MX in earlier versions of Crossover Office/Wine.
You just need to add a simple script that gets over the "required resources" warning by moving the user into the same directory as the executable before running it.
At least, it works for me. I do database hookups, PHP coding, etc.
--- Man hands on misery to man....until http://www.samsource.com/
In a strange ironic twist, those go away when you do pay..
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Well, I won't touch anything with the letters "XP" voluntarily, but if I might substitute Office 2000, then it's simply because, overall, it's better than OO *now*. No, this isn't a flame or a troll...simply the result of struggling and fighting with OO for months before deciding that it gave me more headaches than MS.
To disclose, I'm not a Stallman disciple - I would prefer an Open alternative, but really I'm going to use the best tool for the job. Right now (and yes, I'm obviously talking 1.0) OO isn't it. Open anything reasonably complicated (things embedded, complicated formatting, etc) and OO pukes. The UI is a joke, even compared to MS, and that's hard to do. Opening ASCII datafiles is a pain in the ass. It's way too bloated (easily rivals if not beats MSOffice), and actually too integrated for it's own good. I could go on...
Now, I would rather have Office running on linux than on a separate box (I can't dual boot my linux box, I use it as a server too). I tried xoveroffice 1.0, and found it to be exceptionally buggy. Things would occasionally hang, and worse, sometimes the hanging would necessitate a complete reinstall of xover. Not good! Then I tried vmware, and had some issues there too (it doesn't like slackware's startup scripts, so I had issues getting modules to restart on reboot).
So far, my solution is to avoid Offices of all kinds. I use Matlab for my data analysis, and I do as much in that as possible to avoid excel. I can do a lot in that, but I would like a decent spreadsheet too, and one that doesn't hang at inopportune times.
So, bottom line, 1) OO is a mess, and 2) I haven't found a great way to run MS Office on linux yet. So, at the office, we have a linux box, a mac(OSX), and a windows box. Between them, at least one does any job reasonably.
Two words -- Microsoft Access.
Yes, I know that OO.o has some sort of database support, but many companies have invested in extensive custom apps in Access, and rewriting these using OO.o's feature-poor database tool is a non-starter.
And yes, I know that Access has a lousy native database, and that postgresql/mysql/firebirdsql can slice & dice those fries for you... or gnoda, or rekall... but serious Access apps have backends in Sql Server or Oracle or some real database. And it's still much cheaper & simpler to buy Crossover office & run the existing app than to rewrite everything (especially if your mickey geeks don't know python or tcl).
I do have hopes that eventually mono will provide a seamless way to port MS Access apps to a native linux app -- and I hope someone on the mono team is working on an application porter for Access apps -- but in the meanwhile Crossover Office is a huge step forward. There really isn't a good replacement for Access on linux yet. Really. But thanks to codeweavers, it's actually possible despite that lack to ditch Windows, switch to OO.o for word processing & spreadsheets, evolution for email,, etc, and run that legacy Access app too.
Mock if you will, trolls, but this is a watershed moment for linux. This frees many companies who are tied to Access but hate Microsoft. It'll be cheaper for IT departments to hang onto their Office 2000 licenses & port the desktop to linux than to upgrade to XP & licensing 6. Then they can migrate the applications at their leisure.
One really cool use would be a web-server based file translator from Microsoft Word format to other formats (say, .rtf) using Microsoft Word as the engine to do the translation. It could filter your email, and automatically translate those Microsoft Office documents into something readable. Perhaps it could even brute force some files (power point, for example) into screen captured graphics files.
But using the actual Microsoft software to do the translation would ensure that at least the file was read in correctly.
That way you'd only need one copy of office for an entire office.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
I saw a project once (can't find it now or remember the name of it) which was a script that goes on a Windows server.. you email it a doc file and it automatically converts it to some other format using MS Word and sends it back to you. Since that would obviously handle any .doc, it would sure be nice if someone would set up a publically accessible server that does that.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!