Win4Lin 5.0 Reviewed

uninet writes "About a month ago, NeTraverse contacted OfB Labs with an early release copy of Win4Lin 5.0, the follow-up to the already impressive Win4Lin 4.0 released in May 2002. Win4Lin, for those not familiar with it, offers near-native (or better) speed "virtualization" of a Windows box so that one can run Windows 9x (95/98/Me) inside GNU/Linux."

Comments

in other news

[pardasaniman]

Win4Lin 4.0 has been renamed to Win4Lin 5.0 Full-Speed!!!!

Re:in other news

[AntiOrganic]

USB1.1 wasn't actually renamed to USB2.0. That article was poorly researched, misleading, and in some instances just plain wrong.

Read my post on that, if you're confused.

Re:in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how long before this joke gets old, and starts getting modded redundant or offtopic?

Re:in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean "Super Win4Lin 5.0 Turbo".

Re:in other news

[Setti]

That means Windows will run at "Full-Speed" if we buy the cheaper version of Win4Lin4.1! This must also mean Win4Lin makes any version of Windows Backwards compatible all the way to 1.1!

Erm...

Re:Why?

[xombo]

Why exactly does one need to run Windows at all? It seems Linux offers everything the average user would need.
Games

Re:I fail to understand

[goldspider]

It's simple.

Creating a similar look-and-feel to the original, and using the actual code from the original are two very different things.

Re:I fail to understand

[Slashdolt]

"I fail to understand"
Yes, you do. And you fail miserably.

This is not about copying Windows, it's simply about running Windows.

--
Slashdolt

No 3D?

[Erwos]

I'm willing to pay for one of these windows-emulation packages when they finally get some 3D going, which is why I _really_ want Windows at this point. What's stopping them from doing this?

-Erwos

Re:No 3D?

[plcurechax]

get some 3D going, which is why I _really_ want Windows at this point. What's stopping them from doing this?

Direct access to the hardware via highly optimized video drivers and specific graphics libraries are very hard to virtualize with a level of performance that matches the "native" Windows running directly on the hardware.

First we have the simple fact that by running via the Win4Lnx you have an additional layer that does messages parsing and translation (from various Windows API including DirectX graphics API) to a native Xfree86/Linux function call, which has to then go through a network aware display system, and gets painted on your display using a video card driver not written in-house by the card manufactor, but a 3rd-party free software developer, who likely had less than full, to possibly no vendor documentation about the card and how to make full and optimized use of its capabilities.

So I doubt you will ever see a solution that provides full performance supporting the at the time current gaming graphics capabilities supported via a virtualizer (creates an additional virtual machine using special CPU instructions rather than emulator that emulates everything in software) because they are always playing catch up, and they add unavoidable additional layers of translation that negatively impact on execution speed compared to native running OS.

Re:No 3D?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are too critical of the Linux end, I think. You belittle its capabilities.

First... Being "network aware" as you say does not necessarily have that much of an impact on performance. In fact, I have done REMOTE OpenGL and still gotten an acceptable framerate! (It's nice how it works that way... Must be in the way GLX is designed.) If you are not satisfied with that annecdote, I will point out that for local hosts, we have things like zero-copy sockets, shared memory, DRI, etc ...

Second... In my case, my driver IS written by the card manufacturer: NVIDIA.

Re:No 3D?

[Qzukk]

which has to then go through a network aware display system

If your network-aware display system is using the network for local display, you've screwed up your configuration (try making sure your $DISPLAY is ":0" with no hostname). X uses shared memory for local work, and has done so for years and years.

Re:No 3D?

[Captain Rotundo]

No you don't understand the original post. When he said "network aware display system" he meant "I hate X for no reason and will blame any performance issues on network-awareness because everyone else does"

You clearly don't have your copy of the "Anti-X because it's a popular target, even though I won't do any contribution to change that to english" dictionary handy.

Re:No 3D?

[Cthefuture]

Wine already does this for some DirectX stuff, including 3D (Transgaming). I don't think it would be that hard to make VMware (or Win4Lin if you really feel that's what you want) do something similar.

The only reason I can think of as to why it hasn't been done is because the market is too small. Lets face it, this is really only for gamers and are gamers gonna pay $300 for VMware just so they can run games in Linux? Or even $100 for Win4Lin? Not likely. At least with VMware it's going to take a fairly large effort to virtualize an entire 3D accelerated graphics card. It's not impossible though.

I'd really like to have that functionality myself so I'm hoping one day we'll have 3D support. I'll continue to push the "VMware needs to support the 3D modeling and CAD market" suggestion.

And nobody ever said they wanted full performance in a virtualized environment. I mean there is some overhead, but even so, with modern hardware it's quite fast.

Virtualization is fine while we're in this transition state (you know, everyone transitioning to Linux ;)

Re:No 3D?

[plcurechax]

X uses shared memory for local work, and has done so for years and years.

Shared memory or UNIX sockets (as in not tcp/ip sockets)?

I assume you mean SysV IPC or similar by shared memory.

Re:No 3D?

[plcurechax]

You are too critical of the Linux end, I think. You belittle its capabilities.

I did not mean to belittle Linux or X11 / Xfree86. I was trying to explain why Win4Lnx is not too as fast as native Windows running 3D applications (aka high graphic bandwidth apps like games).

"network aware"

Grumble, I reget mentioning that now, but I was trying to stress that X11 is not focuses on 3D display, nor is it a simply fast access to the video card's framebuffers, X11 is a rich a complex display protocol, including supports for things like networking which you don't find in DirectX, Direct3D, or OpenGL for Windows.

Re:No 3D?

[Qzukk]

Well, I assume I mean that the MIT-SHM extension allows it to use whatever shared memory resources the host can provide, whether its SysV IPC, or whatever the OS you're using has for it. In SHM, you allocate a block of memory that is within the X server's address space as well as within its own address space, and fill it with your pixel map or whatever, and the X server transmits it to the display adapter.

Toughest?

[rwiedower]

one of the toughest challenges a piece of software ever faces, the upgrade installation mode

I can think of several stress filled things a program may have to do. I'm not sure the upgrade installation mode ranks as the "toughest". Maybe it's difficult to get perfect...

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[Anonymous Coward]

What SCOde is there?

Specifics, please.

Can I with sample with no strings?

[Rudeboy777]

I didn't have the patience to create an account at win4lin.com - is there a free downloadable version available?

Re:Can I with sample with no strings?

[a_timid_mouse]

But yet you had the time to surf on over to /. and post that comment, didn't you?

Re:Can I with sample with no strings?

[OneEyedApe]

Well, there is an $89.99 downloadable version, and a $99.99 Box Set version, but there does not appear to be a free version.

Re:Can I with sample with no strings?

[Anonymous Coward]

send email to sales@netraverse.com asking for 15-day eval license code

Re:I fail to understand

[sepluv]

I know do not feed the trolls but... GUI's cannot be copyrighted (only code).

(Incidentally, there is not really anything orignal in the MSW GUI - it is nearly all copied from elsewhere (e.g.: Apple).)

(I was going to mod this a troll but was not sure if it was, so replied instead).

Seems to be a legitimate question to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

why is it modded down?

Re:Seems to be a legitimate question to me...

[Slashdolt]

It's modded down because the question doesn't make sense.

It's like saying, "If it's illegal to steal gum from the candy store, then why is that guy chewing gum???"

Win4Lin will run Windows (98 it sounds like) under Linux. It runs Windows. It runs the Windows that Microsoft created, and that you already paid for (ideally). It does not emulate Windows other than a few things like passing of the clipboard, but even so, they're not using any Microsoft code, they are simply interfacing with Windows.

Again. In short. It runs Windows (TM) under Linux. They did not rewrite Windows, even though that would be nice.

Re:Seems to be a legitimate question to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's not a legitimate question. The presumption is false, and so is the claim of copyright.

Re:I fail to understand

[cheese_wallet]

yet you think it's unreasonable for people to criticize these coders who blatantly copy Windows

This is a virtualization program. A bit like VMWare... you still have to obtain (ahem) a copy of windows.

How is it pronounced?

[jeepliberty]

About a month ago, NeTraverse contacted OfB Labs with an....

NeTraverse...How is it pronounced?
Net reverse? or
Knee traverse?

Re:How is it pronounced?

[deaddrunk]

Of such things are flame wars born.......

Re:How is it pronounced?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pronounced "SCO's bitches"

Re:How is it pronounced?

[frause]

In one word I would assume

netraverse

net-ra-verse

Re:How is it pronounced?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are are the Knights of the Traverse that say NEE!

Re:How is it pronounced?

[osu-neko]

Rhymes with "tetraverse"...

Re:How is it pronounced?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is now pronounced ...

ecky ecky ecky pikang boing zoop zifflezousss...ni!

This is great news!

[Mensa Babe]

But the question is, if things like Win4Lin, Wine. Lindows and VMware, are not the very reasons, for which the game producers don't release their games with native GNU/Linux binaries? After all, why would they care to do so, if they assume, that GNU users can run Windows games... This is a serious matter, I wonder what people more familiar with the "gaming industry" think about it. Have anyone done any serious research about this subject?

Re:This is great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Win4Lin and VMware don't have 3d support - so most games are out. Lindows is just a linux distribution. Wine runs a few windows games on linux - but not many, and isn't a solution for most games.

So really, right now, none of these products are reasons for the gaming industry to not support linux.

Re:This is great news!

[deaddrunk]

Since you can't run the newest games on any of those, it's not really an issue. Native ports won't happen until there's enough of a market and there won't be enough of a market until there's enough users and there won't be enough users until there's enough apps and so on in an endless loop.

The above-mentioned apps are to break this unfortunate cycle and get people on to Linux, which must be a good thing.

Re:This is great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, shut, up. No one cares if you're a member of mensa. really. Many people here can qualify, but choose not to because most mensa wankers are pretensious snobs who equate IQ with value to society. In reality, most of the mensoids I've met are irksome, ill-adjusted freaks.

Re:This is great news!

[sepluv]

Quite a few games have been ported.

I doubt emulators are the reason game manufacturers are not producing for GNU (though it is an interesting idea and could be true in the future when GNU becomes more popular and/or these emulators work better).

I do not know anything about the games industry (I do not even play games much), but I would guess the reasons for this are the same reasons why commercial products are not been created in general (it is cheaper just producing for the most popular, Microsoft tools are used for development, M$ wants them too (and all that entails), &c).

Off-topic: From your profile:

I hate sexiest men

Hmmm...was that supposed to make sense (anyway..eye of the beholder and all)?

Re:This is great news!

[croddy]

alright, I'll bite. what's your ESL score?

Re:This is great news!

[Slashdolt]

Yeah, it's bad to comment on sigs, but I had to laugh...

"DISCLAIMER: The views expressed hereafter are not necessarily those of MENSA, which I am only a member of."

How about "of which I am only a member"?

LOL!

Re:This is great news!

[Zathrus]

Uh... hate to break it to you, but game developers aren't going to release their games for Linux regardless. The market is just too small. Every developer who has released anything for Linux has done so for one of two reasons: 1) to provide a dedicated server package only, since Linux makes an excellent server platform and you don't have to deal with graphics in a dedicated server, 2) Because they want to.

It makes absolutely no financial sense to release a game for Linux -- the market is too small, the market you're going after (individuals running Linux as opposed to corporations) is too hostile to commercial development, and the graphics support is generally completely different from what you have available in Windows (yeah, it's the same if you write for OpenGL, but there's a helluva lot more support for writing DirectX).

Yes, I run Linux. I also run Windows. Linux makes for an excellent server, an incredible development platform, and it's just fine for web surfing, but I still wouldn't recommend it as a desktop replacement to the average user, nor as a gaming box. Windows is a mediocre server, fine for web surfing, a decent development platform (obviously better than Linux if you're developing for Windows exclusively, but I'm a Unix coder so I'm biased), and a great gaming platform. Use the platforms where they perform well... if you want to use any single platform for all tasks, well, you're going to have gnashing of teeth whenever you hit the weak spots.

The obvious question is, how do you solve those weak spots, and I don't have a really good answer. But as far as gaming goes, I do suspect the answer will be improve Windows emulation, not try and woo developers over to Linux. It's a harsh reality.

Re:This is great news!

[EnglishTim]

There's a whole bunch of reasons why Games Developers don't tend to write Linux games, and they've got nothing to do with Windows emulators.

1) It's pretty difficult to get most games to run with Windows emulators anyway

2) There's hardly any market for Linux games. It's quite a lot of effort for very few sales. (You have to remember that it's very difficult to make a profit with Windows games, let alone Linux ones...)

3) Support is even harder than it is for Windows. There's just so many different distributions and configurations of Linux. If you look at the big 3D packages, for example, they'll often only support you on a couple of distributions - e.g. Redhat 7.3 or 8.

4) 3D and sound tend to be much harder to set up, and the drivers tend not to be supported by the hardware manufacturers.

5) The libraries are not as good. The SDL is certainly a step in the right direction, but it's just not as mature or well documented as DirectX.

Even if the windows emulators didn't exist, there'd still be hardly any commercial games written for Linux.

Re:This is great news!

[Slashdolt]

Oh... And it should be "heretofore", not "hereafter". LOL!

Ok, perhaps this whole MENSA disclaimer was completely dry humor and you were actually already aware of the two grammitcal mistakes...?

If that's the case, it IS funny. =D

Re:This is great news!

[micromoog]

"This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put!"
- Winston Churchill

Re:This is great news!

[untaken_name]

Ok, perhaps this whole MENSA disclaimer was completely dry humor and you were actually already aware of the two grammitcal mistakes...?

If that's the case, it IS funny. =D

Reading a few of mensa babe's other posts, I find myself concluding that mensa babe is a decent troll. Look, at the writing style, (s)he uses. (please don't correct that last sentance for me. I was emulating mensa babe's style) Commas all over the place...it's like kipling on crack. There seem to be many carefully crafted spelling and grammatical mistakes. If 'mensa babe' is either a member of mensa or a babe, I would be very surprised.

Re:This is great news!

[Uart]

bah. Mensa members aren't right in the head.

Disclaimer: I was a Mensa member. I am no longer a member.

Re:This is great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

If 'mensa babe' is either a member of mensa or a babe, I would be very surprised.

I wouldn't...MENSA is composed solely of pomous jackasses who delude themselves into thinking they're intelligent. I took their test and passed, but declined membership because the test was a joke.

Re:This is great news!

[berzerke]

...ame developers aren't going to release their games for Linux regardless.

Lately the trend seems to be, IMHO, to target games primarily for the game consoles, and not windows. Therefore, I would agree with the parent post, although for different reasons. The PC game market is shrinking period.

Re:This is great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD THIS UP!

AND MOST THE TROLL ABOVE IT DOWN

Dumbass must work for microsoft or something, trying to convince people we shouldn't have games on linux. As if a bunch of slow buggy emulation is going to prevent companies from making native linux ports...

Re:This is great news!

[SmallFurryCreature]

I think there may be one other reason why developers want to consider developing for linux.

In console world it is becoming more common for games to be released on more then one platform.

Why is this? Perhaps and I could be mistaken, because game developers don't want to be to tied to a platform owner who is often a direct comptetitor by developing their own games.

Produce a game for the DirectX platform and you are making MS more powerfull. MS who is directly competing with you for market share.

Furthermore MS has been found guilty of using secret parts of api's to boost their own apps over that of outsiders. Who can tell if the same is not happening with DirectX, if not now then perhaps in the future?

Cross platform coding, once you get over the initial hurdle is not as complex as you may think, lets not forget that game coders are pretty much at the top. Starting to get experience with cross platform issues now may safe you being locked in at a later stage.

Don't forget until windows 95 you always dropped out of windows when you wanted to play a game. And even with 95 it often paid to go into dos mode. (remember quake loosing half the available memory when run from windows)

It is not unreasoble to make sure that if something changes in the next 5 years (not long in game development terms) you prepare to be ready.

Re:This is great news!

[SmallFurryCreature]

Sorry I forgot one little thing. If linux has nothing to do with games. Then why did Sony release their own version of linux for their console? Surely they didn't do it just because they like the penguin?

Re:This is great news!

[osu-neko]

Hey, a preposition is a perfectly fine thing to end a sentence with.

P.S. Minnesota is a wonderful state to live in.

Re:This is great news!

[dR.fuZZo]

Yeah, it's bad to comment on sigs, but I had to laugh...

"DISCLAIMER: The views expressed hereafter are not necessarily those of MENSA, which I am only a member of."

How about "of which I am only a member"?

And how about "The views expressed above...?"

Re:This is great news!

[aliens]

True consoles are out there, but they've been out there for a very long time. The PC game market is not shrinking and neither are the consoles. The entire game market continues expanding period.

I don't see any trend targetting primarily for consoles, in fact the trend is to market to everyone I see more and more games that are availible for all platforms and consoles. I'll spare you a long list but here are a few, Splinter Cell, every movie based game, Hulk, Enter the Matrix, Spiderman, Midnight Club 2, Soul Caliber 2(no PC).

Then you have games that are on only one console and only the PC, GTA: Vice City, Halo (eventually).

The point is PC gaming is not going to diminish and neither are consoles. They both attract different gamers.

Re:This is great news!

[steveg]

most of the mensoids I've met are irksome, ill-adjusted freaks.

And this makes them different from slashdotters, how?

As far as that goes, I'm not convinced that it even addresses the issue of "value to society." An irksome, ill-adjusted freak may very well be more valuable to society than a "normal" person. Or not.

Individuals are different.

Re:This is great news!

[falsified]

Said the fabled Anonymous Coward.

Re:This is great news!

[ricosalomar]

I assume MENSA doesn't require proficiency in grammar. Ending a sentence with a preposition, as you did in your pathetic sig., qualifies you as a member of a much larger group, The Society of Simpletons.

Re:This is great news!

[mcrbids]

Perhaps I'm in the 2nd category - I'm finalizing development of a software application that's based on PHP-GTK and while we're targeting windows development, given the toolkit, there *will* be a Linux version as well.

Now, it's not a game, but it's production software targeting the education sector....

Guess I'm in the 2nd category?

Re:This is great news!

[foo4thought]

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed hereafter are not necessarily those of MENSA, which I am only a member of.

Don't you mean,
..... of MENSA, OF which I am only a member. ?

Re:This is great news!

[darien]

I love this, from their user page:

"I hate sexiest men, who are afraid of intelligent women."

Re:This is great news!

[darien]

It's also a fine thing to end a sentence about using prepositions to end sentences with with.

And a fine thing to end a sentence about ending a sentence about using prepositions to end sentences with with with.

And a fine thing to end a sentence about ending a sentence about ending a sentence about using prepositions to end sentences with with with.

And a fine thing to end a sentence about ending a sentence about ending a sentence about ending a sentence about using prepositions to end sentences with with with with.

etc.

(Ladies and gentlemen, generative grammar!)

The question is

[slimak]

why would I want to run the any of the 9x-based Windows? 95 is pretty aweful (compared to what is available now); both 98 and Me have a pretty bloated feel. Unfortunately, the article does not seem to mention any of the new Windows, XP and 2K, which are arguably the best and therefore most desireable. Does anyone know if 2000/XP can be run?

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

win 98 is the only one which will run the free protools.

Re:The question is

[wfrp01]

Legacy applications. There's still some crufty, yet well-worn and oft-used stuff out there that runs best on older OS's.

Re:The question is

[mfarver]

No.. supporting the "ring 0" windows versions is a much larger emulation task. WinNT/2k, and XP do not tolerate not having full control of the processor. VMWare can do this, becuase it emulates the hardware. Win4lin "shares" the hardware between Linux and windows (windows never has full control of the proc).

Rumor has it that netraverse is working hard on a Win2k version of Win4lin. Hopefully they will be able to produce a solution that is not as bloated as VMWare.

Re:The question is

[brucmack]

Well, personally, I still keep 98 so I can run some of my old games that XP doesn't support. For doing this purpose only, 98 is still on my machine. I know people that dual boot 98 with linux for this purpose as well, so this would be a great fit for them.

Re:The question is

[thegameiam]

Compatability with older applications, of course!

I know a lot of offices which use old or unsupported software, and are stuck with Win 9x for just that reason. Being able to upgrade to Linux, and still use that app when necessary would be a huge benefit.

-David Barak

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

why would I want to run the any of the 9x-based Windows?

Kazaa.

Re:The question is

[Randolpho]

why would I want to run the any of the 9x-based Windows? 95 is pretty aweful (compared to what is available now); both 98 and Me have a pretty bloated feel.

I'd rather run any Win9x GUI than any X-based GUI. Of course, I'd rather have *nix for lots of other things, but GUI? Give me a Windows PC any day.

Re:The question is

[SmallFurryCreature]

98 feels bloated compared to XP? Come again?

Anyway the answer is no since the 9x family is a totally different beast from the NT family (xp is closer to NT then the 9x)

But if you got a windows app you absolutly need to run on youre mainly linux machine then 98 will do for all but the most reasons of MS owns productivity apps.

The real question is, do you need office XP?

Re:The question is

[Laur]

both 98 and Me have a pretty bloated feel. Unfortunately, the article does not seem to mention any of the new Windows, XP and 2K, which are arguably the best and therefore most desireable.

Windows XP is less bloated than Windows 98? I've installed both. A fresh install of Windows 98SE takes up about 350 MB of space, and about 90 MB of that is just fonts. A fresh install of Windows XP Proffessional took up about 3 GB! I was amazed, I have no idea how they fit all that onto one CD. I don't have any info on 2000, since I don't own that.

I only use Windows for compatability and 98 is a better choice. All of my older software is suported on 98, a lot doesn't work in XP even in compatability mode. I also have yet to come across any new software which doesn't work on 98, although this will no doubt change in the future.

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

"A fresh install of Windows XP Proffessional took up about 3 GB! I was amazed, I have no idea how they fit all that onto one CD."

Compression, perhaps?

Re:The question is

[Laur]

Duh. I still thought it was impressive. When I did an "Install Everything" for Red Hat 8.0 it took about 3.5 GB and used three CDs.

Re:The question is

[Laur]

Office XP runs just fine in Windows 98SE.

Re:The question is

[kbielefe]

The only reason I have win4lin is to run 1 windows app that my wife uses frequently and 3 apps that we use only occasionally, but that don't have a good linux alternative (greeting card programs, etc). I think most people use it in a similar manner.

Win4lin only uses one set of well-tested windows device drivers. There are no weird third party drivers to make things unstable. The 4 apps I use run really well under win4lin/win98se.

Basically, win4lin is not for you if you want an enterprise quality windows installation like win2k. However, if you want a stable environment for a couple of apps and leave the enterprise quality stuff for the linux side, then win4lin is a great solution.

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

vi is the best.

Can we really trust anything this person says?

Re:The question is

[stan_freedom]

I spoke with a sales rep at NeTraverse yesterday. They are currently coding support for W2K/XP with release targeted for early next year. I am interested in this product because my small company has two apps (Quickbooks Pro and niche VB app) that aren't available on Linux. I would like to move our desktops to Linux. Win4Lin Terminal Server or a similar product might prove key in making that move. Pricing is $125 per concurrent user for the Terminal Server product. This would centralize my desktops on a couple of servers and allow me to go with diskless workstations, solving a number of my current management issues.

Re:The question is

[letxa2000]

Does anyone know if 2000/XP can be run?

No, you can't. I personally use Win98 under Win4Lin.

Say what you will but the only reason I ever used XP was because it came preloaded on my laptop. When I upgraded my laptop to Linux and purchased Win4Lin, I went with Win98 because it's what I had been using until I was forced to XP by it being preinstalled on the laptop. The following apps all run faster under Win4Lin/Win98 than they did on the same exact laptop running XP: Microsoft Office (Word specifically), Adobe, QuickBooks, DevStudio (VB and VC++ specifically). Basically, I got Win4Lin to support legacy Windows apps and I ended up getting better performance!

I don't miss anything from XP. I never had any problems with Win98 when I was running it native nor under Win4Lin. Of course, I never play graphic intensive games nor did I play them when I had a Windows box. I suppose if that's really what you use Windows for then you'd have to factor that into your decision. But for any business and most non-game users that want to move to Linux but have some Windows legacy apps, Win4Lin works great.

Now if they could just solve my "reset problem" that started two days ago.

Re:The question is

[letxa2000]

I am interested in this product because my small company has two apps (Quickbooks Pro and niche VB app) that aren't available on Linux.

Then why wait? I use both QuickBooks and VB under Win4Lin and they both work just fine. Granted, I don't know if QuickBooks Pro requires XP or something, but QuickBooks certainly works fine under Win4Lin.

Heck, even Goldwave (sound editing program) works great under Win4Lin. That surprised the heck out of me when I tried it.

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the XP compatibility mode doesn't work? (Right-click on the shortcut; Compatibility tab)

Re:The question is

[drinkypoo]

As bloated as vmware? VMWare GSX Server only takes up 103MB on an install. Overhead per VM is about 27MB. 27 megs seems like a lot of ram, but with 256MB PC2100 DDR available for around $35 these days, it isn't, especially if you're only running one virtual machine. The memory use doesn't add up until you get into multiple VMs, which is not what we're talking about here anyway.

Re:The question is

[molarmass192]

I assume they're approaching it via the HAL, at least that would appear to be the best way to avoid having to rely on a full VM. The HAL is still used for platform portability at least as late as W2K, given the MS literature.

Re:The question is

[benjamindees]

I'm interested in either Win4Lin or Crossover Office for the same reason: small business, two legacy apps, moving to RH9.

The terminal server sounds great, but I probably only need two concurrent licenses. Plus, someone else said that the terminal server is unusable a la VNC. Have you tried it?

Re:The question is

[Anonymous Coward]

Not for all programs.

Interstate '76 for instance. However, it runs under Wine (sorta..)

Re:The question is

[brucmack]

Sometimes there are issues with certain parts of the program... like multiplayer, for instance. Plus, I get better performance on 98 than XP with the games that run on both, probably because I kept the 98 installation as clean as possible.

Other way around

[DigiShaman]

How about running Linux on Windows? Then maybe people would be more inclined to test the waters of the Linux world. Think of it as a way to migrate users off of the M$ titty.

Re:Other way around

[cioxx]

How about running Linux on Windows? Then maybe people would be more inclined to test the waters of the Linux world. Think of it as a way to migrate users off of the M$ titty.

Virtual PC

Re:Other way around

[discogravy]

oh, you mean cygwin. or maybe knoppix

Re:Other way around

[REBloomfield]

WinLinux 2000, it's pretty appalling, but hey...

Re:Other way around

[OmniVector]

VMWare Workstation. Great program. It can virtually boot up windows inside windows, linux inside windows, windows inside linux, linux inside linux, etc. It supports Windows XP -> 95. It supports FreeBSD, Linux, and several other opearting systems to my knowledge as well.

Re:Other way around

[SmallFurryCreature]

1. cygwin

Re:Other way around

[danrees]

VMWare Workstation. Great program. It can virtually boot up windows inside windows, linux inside windows, windows inside linux, linux inside linux, etc. It supports Windows XP -> 95. It supports FreeBSD, Linux, and several other opearting systems to my knowledge as well.

Ah, but can it boot up Windows inside Windows inside Windows inside Windows? And what about Linux inside Linux inside Linux inside Linux (e.g. Red Hat running VM Ware running Debian running VM Ware running SuSE runnind VM Ware running Mandrake running VM Ware running Slackware)?

This post is redundant.

Re:Other way around

[drinkypoo]

Uh, no. Cygwin is a POSIX API for Win32, and a collection of bundled applications. It is certainly not Linux under Windows, it has nothing to do with Linux other than the similarity brought about by using a bunch of GNU tools.

Knoppix isn't quite right either, since unless you run it in a virtual machine, it consumes the whole system. Therefore it is not linux under windows.

Bochs can boot Linux, and can use plex86 to do virtualization rather than emulation, though I don't know if Bochs+plex86 exists on Windows yet.

Virtual PC will let you run Linux under Windows NT.

So will VMWare.

Re:Other way around

[Samrobb]

Uh, no. Cygwin is a POSIX API for Win32, and a collection of bundled applications.

Well, yah. You're technically correct... but, tell me: what is Linux, really, except a POSIX API (kernel) and a collection of bundled applications? To the vast majority of people, those "bundled applications" are the most important bit. What OS (or application layer or whatever) they're running on top of is a secondary consideration.

I've spent the last two years or so working on both Linux and Windows + Cygwin. Granted, a lot of that is command line work; but you can run XFree86 under Cygwin, you can even run KDE under Cygwin if you so choose. While it's technically not Linux, it's close enough that someone familiar with Cygwin will probably also be comfortable under Linux.

Re:Other way around

[drinkypoo]

Well, yah. You're technically correct... but, tell me: what is Linux, really, except a POSIX API (kernel) and a collection of bundled applications?

To pick a nit: The POSIX functionality is provided not by the kernel directly, but by libc, the portable C library. Actually, these days, it's glibc, the GNU portable C library, in every case of which I am aware.

The biggest difference from a user perspective between Linux and Cygwin is that almost everything compiles on most flavors of Linux without trouble, and almost nothing compiles on Cygwin without trouble. :P I've been using Cygwin since b16 or something like that and it's gotten amazingly better but it still has serious compatibility problems. I don't know if those are problems with autoconf or their POSIX compliance, but I'm guessing the latter.

Re:Other way around

[Samrobb]

The biggest difference from a user perspective between Linux and Cygwin is that almost everything compiles on most flavors of Linux without trouble, and almost nothing compiles on Cygwin without trouble.

Hmm. I'll admit that there are a couple of areas where Cygwin pretty obviously is lacking (IPC, for example). Still, my experience is that the majority of sofware that's been ported to run on more than one *nix platform (BSD and Linux, Solaris & BSD, etc.) tends to compile just fine OOB under Cygwin. In cases where I have run into problems compiling, it's either been because the software depended on kernel-specific capabilities, or because someone made an incorrect assumption about portability.

Most of waht I deal with is straight userland software, though. Where I've run into technical problems getting something to compile under Cygwin, the reason has often had more to do with platform politics than any shortcoming in Cygwin.

Re:Other way around

[demon]

Actually, VMware for Windows will ONLY run on NT-flavored Windows versions (NT4, 2000, XP, 2K3 server), not on the 9x varieties. It has something to do with the structuring of the kernel making it impossible, or at least difficult enough that they didn't think it worth the time.

Re:Why?

[jetkust]

Why exactly does one need to run Windows at all? It seems Linux offers everything the average user would need.

Except for Windows applications.

I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with Wine?

Re:I don't get it.

[tzanger]

Oh I don't know... better app support? The ability to access the printer port from win32 apps (Microchip MPLAB comes immediately to mind, doesn't work at all under WINE if you want ot use the expensive ICE you bought), Acrobat 5 or 6, IE for VoloView (AutoCAD drawing viewer)... Lots of little things.

WINE seems to be a very useful "meta project" -- take the bits of WINE you need to get the specific windows functionality you need, but you'll never get 100% of it. I'm not sure why.

Re:I don't get it.

[IamTheRealMike]

The ability to access the printer port from win32 apps

Well I'm pretty sure Wine has this ability. At least it can be used with scanners via the parallel port iirc.

WINE seems to be a very useful "meta project" -- take the bits of WINE you need to get the specific windows functionality you need, but you'll never get 100% of it. I'm not sure why.

-1 Myth. Of course Wine can implement 100% of the Windows APIs (or rather so much that nobody cares about the remainder). It's just a question of when. So, the number of people working on Wine increases roughly linearly with the growth of desktop Linux (and recently things like CrossOver have helped). There's no reason why one day WineHQ might not be moving faster than Microsoft do. Of course they'll always be one step behind the latest APIs, but that's OK because no apps immediately start depending on new functionality as soon as a new OS is released. In fact, it often takes years.

So basically Wine is The Right Solution(tm), as it means you don't need any legal ties to Microsoft. It also lets you do lots of nice integration. Its only problem really is being starved of manpower, and the fact that it's not yet perfect (but then again there are apps that Win4Lin won't run either).

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see one problem with WINE: Internet Explorer.

IE has become a ubiquitous part of Windows that really stupid programmers have come to expect. This means that every fucktard VB programmer is embedding IE into their app, using ActiveX or whatever the component model is this week. Sometimes, they base their whole GUI around IE. So WINE will not be able to run these programs.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like WINE, but it hardly runs anything well.

Re:I don't get it.

[IamTheRealMike]

Sometimes, they base their whole GUI around IE.

What, you mean like RhymBox?

So WINE will not be able to run these programs.

Are you sure about that?

Re:I don't get it.

[mark_lybarger]

Of course Wine can implement 100% of the Windows APIsbut that's OK because no apps immediately start depending on new functionality as soon as a new OS is released

continuing on. I believe that new apps from the os vendor do immediately start to take advantage of new functionality in the OS. it's other vendors software that might take time to get up to speed.

i believe that Wine is more a hack than a solution. if the problem is having a need to run windows applications, then the solution is to run windows. i couldn't imagine a production type environment where a linux user (server or desktop) were in dire need of a windows application that they wouldn't just run windows.

Re:I don't get it.

[IamTheRealMike]

i couldn't imagine a production type environment where a linux user (server or desktop) were in dire need of a windows application that they wouldn't just run windows.

Really? I know of many. I get paid by them to ensure their software works on Wine, WITHOUT Windows.

Why use Linux and Windows at the same time? You'd still need to pay licensing for Windows.

If anything, Win4Lin is the hack. An awfully good one, but still a clever hack regardless. Wine is actually a solid solution that actually poses a threat to Microsoft.

Re:I don't get it.

[kbielefe]

Nothing, except it's not done yet.

The 4 windows apps my wife and I still are dependent on do not work in wine yet. That's why we have win4lin. I'm subscribed to wine-announce, though, and try out every new release. When wine is better, I'll switch for good. Until then, win4lin is a fast, stable solution for my family.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Windows XP Home costs GBP 179.99 (that's over USD 302) at PC World. (Mail order suppliers might sell it a little cheaper, but one can still expect to shell out a hundred and sixty quid at least).

The "upgrade" price is no good, and nor is the student price (unless you happen to have an unused full copy of Windows to hand). Microsoft Windows is not transferrable so an OEM version is no good either (even if you can get one). Volume licences are also upgrade licences, so no cheating that way either.

So unless you want to pay GBP 160 or more per machine, Wine (or WineX etc) can be useful if presented with a Windows-only application. (There are a few circumstances when this may not be so; some Windows-only products require a Windows licence.)

I believe virtual machines are charged as if they were machines in their own right, so they also need a Windows licence even if the parent machine had one. See http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/downloads/virtu al_machine.doc; I know it's a Word file but at least AbiWord can cope. (If the versions differ, there is definitely a charge; I believe that there is also a charge if the versions are the same or if there is a Windows partition and a Linux partition containing a "virtual" Windows installation.)

Incidentally, GNU/Linux (or GNU/Hurd, GNU/BSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD) is not acceptable for an upgrade licence, but the Apple Mac is (on the same machine so this might be tricky!) and certain paid Unices.

I am not a lawyer, licensing officer or Microsoft Revenue Protection Inspector (tm) and the information above is given without prejudice or responsibility of any kind.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Really? I know of many. I get paid by them to ensure their software works on Wine, WITHOUT Windows."

Thank you for declaring your financial BIAS toward a competing solution.

"Why use Linux and Windows at the same time? You'd still need to pay licensing for Windows."

Hmm I can pay 89 bucks and use the windows license I already own or buy one and have a near perfect Windows environment without shelling out per app fees to consultants and programers to hack a solution out of bits of Wine that will constantly shift like sand in a wind storm.

"If anything, Win4Lin is the hack. An awfully good one, but still a clever hack regardless. Wine is actually a solid solution that actually poses a threat to Microsoft."

They are both hacks from my standpoint but for the most part Win4Lin delivers solid compatibility with no additional per app cost and at a more stable environment then Wine or even Windows itself.

Re:I don't get it.

[tzanger]

Ok, colour me impressed; what is involved in getting IE5.5/IE6 working under WINE? I am _very_ interested in this.

Re:I don't get it.

[tzanger]

I didn't say it didn't have the capability; What I was getting at was that in all my experimenting I have been unsuccessful ingetting Microchip's MPLAB-IDE working with the parallel-port ICE under WINE. Questions to the WINE list and IRC channel went largely unanswered. Win4Lin worked right out of the box and without any hassle whatsoever.

I didn't mean to imply that it was impossible under WINE, merely (very) difficult.

I know that WINE can hit pretty much every Win32 API call; the problem is that it takes so goddamed long to try and get it to work with some apps (Acrobat 5 and 6, IE, MPLAB-IDE, I could go on...) that it's largely just plain old not worth my time. I'm not a programmer (well I am, but not an application programmer) -- I don't have the patience to try and reverse-engineer the crap that Win32 is, and I am really glad that others do, and I support them. But when I need to get something to work, I am not going to spend wads of time doing so; I'll purchase a program that does it.

Hopefully someday I will be able to purchase a copy of WINE that does what I need it to do. I really do think it is the best solution for an MS-tax free computer, but it's not quite ready yet. That is also why I said it seems to be filling in a lot of little niche areas (winex, crossover, etc.) where the focus is getting a smaller set of apps functioning, but having them function 100% correctly. This is a good thing.

Re:I don't get it.

[IamTheRealMike]

Installing it is the hard part, once it's installed running it is pretty trivial and mostly works well. Suitable for light usage, for instance favourites doesn't work. The rest does however, as far as I know (not an expert on IEs features in depth).

Basically I use the CrossOver 1.3 config file and a few command line switches. Installing IE is something that should become easier to do soonish, it's definately one of the hardest apps to get installed unfortunately.

In brief, install DCOM (itself a bit broken, been meaning to fix that lately, there is a simple workaround though). Then install IE using the ie6setup tool. There will be a few errors along the way, but they are harmless. They are also fixed in CodeWeavers CVS apparently. Remember to run wineboot to simulate a reboot.

One tip, choose custom and uncheck everything except IE, Offline Browsing pack and VB Scripting support. Don't install Windows Media Player, it will try and install DirectX and stuff.

Once it's installed, running it should just be a case of wine "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe".

Like I said, IE is kind of an advanced app to run, though I do it all the time it's still a bit rough for newbies. I showed those screenshots because the AC seemed to think it wasn't possible :)

Re:I don't get it.

[IamTheRealMike]

Thank you for declaring your financial BIAS toward a competing solution.

My point is that while Win4Lin may be fine for home users, it's not fine for businesses. That's why I get paid to do it - they need a solution that integrates well with the desktop (things like system tray icons etc) and that frees them from Windows dependancies, and that also allows them to port parts individually.

They are both hacks from my standpoint

Well, Wine does what Windows does, ie load and relink the app to the DLLs that implement the APIs. The app expects this, it's how the system was designed to work. Win4Lin plays tricks with the kernels to run it on top of Linux, in a way that it was never designed to run, so in my view that makes it a hack. That's not to do it down, it's a very useful hack. But not a long term solution to the problem.

Re:I don't get it.

[IamTheRealMike]

Alternatively of course, buy CrossOver 2, in which it works out of the box. And you support the wine project as well :) For less than the price of Win4Lin you get hassle free emulation....

Re:I don't get it.

[demon]

Well, the trouble is, what is the Win32 API? It's big and amorphous, and it keeps growing to encompass different things - not to mention the apps that use API calls that are only documented in very, very expensive SDKs, if they're documented at all outside of Microsoft - in which case the Wine people only know them by number, which isn't very conducive to reimplementing them. And the calls that aren't quite exactly the same as what the documentation says (either args, or return codes, or something.) Or the ones that are implemented differently on different versions of Windows. Or the ones with bugs in them that developers discovered and worked around, so the Wine developers have to match the bugs, or break otherwise working software.

Wine is the Right Solution(TM), yes, but the problem is a big one, especially when you're aiming at a moving target like the Win32 APIs.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called "not reinventing the wheel" everytime you need a feature for your program. You really expect everybody to write their own HTML parser for each program? Especially if it's available to you for almost no extra work.

I agree that assembly is the most efficient way to do things, but we'd never had apps that we have now if everybody had to write that much code.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's okay. But most programs don't NEED an HTML parser. On Windows, it's quite common to hook into IE when it's not very necessary.

Speed?

[WIAKywbfatw]

...offers near-native (or better) speed "virtualization" of a Windows box...

Surely you're not suggesting that some tree-loving hippies can generate faster code than the world's biggest software maker? Quick, subsidise Microsoft so that it can compete more fairly! Better still, pass a law to make open source illegal!

Re:Speed?

[davecb]

Actually I got significantly better performance running Linux -> w4l 4.0 -> Win 95 -> MS Project on the same hardware that I previously ran just Win 95 and MS project on.

Seems like having actual memory management code and a file system was sufficient to speed up a P133 from 'unacceptably slow" to "pretty quick".

--dave

Re:Speed?

[HermanAB]

Yup, I've seen the same thing. WinME is perfectly stable and runs significantly faster on Win4Lin, than natively. Unfortunately there always will be business programs that only work on Windoze. Having WinME run in an X-window solves that problem beautifully.

Re:Speed?

[DoctorFrog]

Yes, think of the children of Natalie Portman making little Baby Jesus cry hot grits because they used

1)SCOde

2)from M$ to

3)???

4)profit!

(Phew! Been saving those up...)

Re:Speed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't tell me, this all took place IN SOVIET RUSSIA!

Re:Speed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? A company I work for just threw a bunch of PIII/450s in the trash (upgraded to 2.4GHz machines). How is anyone still using a P133?

Re:Speed?

[DoctorFrog]

Why, no... quite the opposite!

Re:Speed?

[meta.chris]

Where is your company located?
If it's near Philly, I'll be down there this evening, with my gloves and gear, checking through the dumpster.

Er, that, or hanging at a pub.

Re:Speed?

[datan]

my school is in Philly, and guess what? Today, I saw them replacing our Sun workstations with Redhat boxes...wonder what they're going to do with the Suns.

How does it compare to vmware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only used Windows in VMware in linux - which works well, but takes a while to boot up (and there's still no 3d support). How does Win4Lin compare to vmware for this... anyone?

Re:How does it compare to vmware?

[alienw]

It kills VMWare speed-wise. Boots up in about 15s on my old P-3 800MHz box.

Re:How does it compare to vmware?

[!Squalus]

Well, when I used Win4Lin (up to 3.0) it was fairly fast and efficient. The one concern was that it modified the kernel and that it was necessary to run this through a modified kernel in order to have access to your Win4Lin sessioms.

It performs well. I used it to have access to GUI tools on my Linux box then so that I could administer a DB on the Linux box through Samba (same PC w/GUI interface then on Windows). Windows acted like a different host on the machine and it worked flawlessly for me but, as always, YMMV.

It's a lot faster than VMWare, but only supports 98 and ME, whereas VMWare supports all of that and 2000, XP Professional.

For those who want that sort of thing, it can also fool your users into thinking they are running Windows through their terminal server sort of applications. No games - No 3D - No DistractiveX though. If you want that, you should dual-boot or better yet - buy Linux games and stop buying Win based stuff. ;)

Of course, games are what Windows was made for anyway - it doesn't really have the security needed to be taken as a serious business platform by anyone who really has to support their stuff. They would much rather have something stable and reliable that doesn't fall over quite so easily.

Just an honest opinion and my two centavos.

Re:How does it compare to vmware?

[Isaac-1]

We use it here at work (version 4.0) on one computer (its the only windows install we have on about 2 dozen machines in this small business). It runs great for our needs (a windows based payroll program, and a current copy of IE for those web sites that refuse to talk to Mozilla, etc.). When we decided we needed a virtual Windows machine here, I closely looked at both Win4Lin and VMware, and all things considered I choose Win4Lin because it did everything we needed, boots much faster than VMware, and is MUCH cheaper.

Ike

Re:How does it compare to vmware?

[LadyLucky]

Heh, Windows XP on VMWare.... you don't even see the scrolling status bar, it starts up that quickly. Seriously, about 2-3 seconds from start to login screen.

Of course, or VM server was a dual 2.4GHz Xeon.....

Any comparisons??

[dan dan the dna man]

We use VMware for legacy stuff - any hints as to how the two compare? If it's easier to install/deploy then I might migrate..

Re:Any comparisons??

[Kilbasar]

I've used Win4Lin 4.0 extensively, and I believe 5.0 isn't too different.

Pros:
VERY fast. About 95% of the speed of a real Windows installation. In some cases faster, such as startup/shutdown, both of which are near-instant.
VERY easy to install. Run the graphical installer, it downloads the neccesary kernel patch (needed to make Windows think its running on top of DOS instead of Linux), installs everything. Reboot, and you're done.
VERY compatible. I've yet to find a program that runs on a normal WinME box that won't run on Win4Lin WinME.
Good networking support. You can have your Win4Lin install connect to your LAN (via a virtual NIC).

Cons:
Programs seemed to crash more often in Win4Lin than in actual Windows. This may be fixed in 5.0.
Windows doesn't get to use a lot of your hardware. Mouse, keyboard, CD-ROM, sound (thru your linux drivers), printers (thru your linux drivers) and serial ports are accessible. Almost anything else (scanners, other USB toys, etc) are not. May be improved in 5.0.
Clipboard isn't consistent between Linux and Windows. May be fixed in 5.0.
No 3D, and only limited DirectDraw. Not much can be done about this.

Yeah, so it's not perfect, but it definitely beat the hell out of VMware or any other similar programs.

Re:Any comparisons??

[steveha]

Programs seemed to crash more often in Win4Lin than in actual Windows. This may be fixed in 5.0.

I believe 5.0 does run some software that 4.0 didn't run. 5.0 runs just about all Windows "productivity" software, including Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 (the reason I bought Win4Lin for my wife's computer).

anything else (scanners, other USB toys, etc) are not. May be improved in 5.0.

The hardware support is the same as 4.0; in other words, still no USB.

It's still useful, though. And FAST.

steveha

Re:Any comparisons??

[Cthefuture]

Yeah, so it's not perfect, but it definitely beat the hell out of VMware or any other similar programs.

Oh, so Win4Lin can run DOS, Windows 3.x, 95/98/ME, NT, 2000, XP, Advanced Server, Linux, and the *BSD's also (and other OS's)??

And it supports USB devices?

And it never crashes??

Win4Lin is available for Windows?

Wow, they musta made some serious progress lately. VMware just sucks I guess.

More info in the release notes...

[pen]

Win4Lin 5.0 Release Notes

It looks like one of the most important new features is Winsock 2 support.

Re:More info in the release notes...

[!Squalus]

I thought Winsock 2 was available in Win4Lin 3.0?

They called it vnet then - I could be wrong though.

Re:More info in the release notes...

[pen]

WinSock 2 support
Previous versions of Win4Lin only supported WinSock 1.1 (when the WinSock network option was selected.) Win4Lin 5.0 supports WinSock 2, allowing more network-enabled applications (such as Windows MediaPlayer) to function without the need for VNET.

VNET a kind of compatibility layer, but not actual WinSock 2 support. The neat thing about VNET was that it allowed you to assign a unique IP address to your Win4Lin session (differing from the IP address of the Linux box you were running it on.)

Re:More info in the release notes...

[Uart]

Winsock.. i haven't heard that word in nigh 4 years! They have winsock 2 now?

Re:More info in the release notes...

[!Squalus]

So, did they kill VNET? Now I have to go look at their site. That was what made it useful to me. Business apps with GUI tools running against a robust Linux DB. The damn thing just worked.

It was also nice to have that unique IP on the local machine for administration through Samba. A little quirky for sure, but it worked!

Thanks for the information. :)

Who the heck modded this down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question. Too bad you won't get it answered, except by the dolts who think it's ok to copy the look+feel+function.

Re:Who the heck modded this down?

[sukottoX]

I believe applications such as this do not include windows... they simply give you a virtual system where you can install and run windows on. no one is copying look feel or function, they are simply allowing you to run a licensed copy of windows on top of Linux.

Re:Who the heck modded this down?

[Celandine]

Correct, as anyone who'd actually read the article would have noticed.

Re:Who the heck modded this down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you won't get it answered, except by the dolts who think it's ok to copy the look+feel+function.

Like Microsoft copied Apple, and Apple copied Xerox? Seems to me like the practice has been accepted as "ok".

Re:Who the heck modded this down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple didn't copy Xerox. Xerox didn't want the idea so they gave it to Apple.

Re:Why?

[SirGeek]

Why exactly does one need to run Windows at all? It seems Linux offers everything the average user would need.

Why ? How about corporate mandated use of Outlook and Exchange ? (Exchange 5.5 so I can't use Ximian Connector for Ximian Evolution).

And there are other reasons too, for me, its the ability to use the phone.com WML/HDML simulator for testing my WML and HDML code visually and PL/SQL Developer for (WH)Oracle .

Others probably have their resons (besides games since it doesn't support the higher versons of Direct X yet).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems Linux offers everything the average user would need

No it doesn't.

1) Games. Ghost Recon and Operation Flashpoint are the reason why I spend more time in Windows than in Linux these days.

2) Applications. Windows has plenty of user-friendly programs for ripping CDs, burning CDs or raytracing nature scenes or apartment interiors to name a few. All installed with few mouse clicks by an InstallShield-like packaging system.

3) Familiar GUI.

weird

[Boromir son of Faram]

It's crazy how much time people put into making Windows emulators for GNU/Linux. I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer. For the cost of Win4Lin or Wine, you can get a whole nother hard drive to dedicate to Windows, and it will be fully compatible.

On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows? Is it because Windows has better alternatives to any Linux program, or is there some sort of GPL patent issue?

Re:weird

[rkz]

cygwin...! I use it everyday!

Re:weird

[Anonymous Coward]

VMware at least boots up a virtual machine (like another PC within your PC) that runs the OS. VMware runs on windows and linux and can boot many varieties of DOS, windows, linux and *BSD on either OS.

As far as running linux apps on windows without a VM... many linux apps are cross platform and can be run on windows with a recompilation, since tools like Cygnus have a version of gcc and the headers etc for windows. There's many examples - gaim, the gimp, etc etc. This doesn't work the other way as most windows apps are binary-only, and we don't have the source code in order to port/recompile them on linux.

There was even an effort a while back to allow linux binaries to run on windows by emulating the linux system calls (kinda like the opposite of wine). I don't think there's much point to this really though as most apps can just be recompiled as the source is available.

Re:weird

[beef3k]

What makes you think Windows comes _free_ with your computer? You pay for it like anyone else. Buying a computer with no operating system or building it yourself is cheaper.

What's the point in a Linux emulator for windows when linux is _free_ and can easily be installed on another partition?

Anyway, these issues are completely besides the point. Win4Lin, VMWare etc. are for people that wish to _migrate_ from a Windows to a Linux platform, i.e. they would like to run Linux without the need to dualboot just to use those few (still) needed Windows apps. If you want a Linux emulator for Windows it's because you would want to migrate from Linux to Windows (however unlikely). There's no point however, Linux and it's apps has the source code available so they can just be recompiled for the Windows platform - not so the other way around. This has resulted in nice things like Cygwin etc. (there's even windows KDE ports if you'd like to replace your desktop...)

Re:weird

[negacao]

Not GPL patent issue, and not because Windows has better alternatives.

(If I were in a worse mood, I'll call your post a troll.)

It's simply because: *gasp* no one cares. Those who want to run Linux do. Those who are forced to use windows (e.g. at work, like me) install cygwin [http://www.cygwin.com/] along with other tools. :)

Re:weird

[davecb]

No, not wierd. When moving from CP/M to DOS, you always needed to have an emulator around to run that "one last app" that was only available on CP/M.

--dave

Re:weird

[Anonymous Coward]

But you won't be able to run your legacy windows applications at the same time as your linux ones with your solution.

There are actually a number of alternatives for linux- and linux-like systems on windows. VMWare will allow a virtual linux box on top of WinNT (and vice-versa). Cygwin is a port of most of the GNU suite and X to WinNT.

A "linux emulator" for windows is kinda meaningless - linux is mainly posix-compliant, what you really want is a posix layer for windows. Guess what? It exists.

Re:weird

[cerberusss]

I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer.

Yeah, but then you'd have to reboot. I hate rebooting. And besides that, my company's laptop is too small to contain RH linux, Oracle 9iAS and a windows partition.

I bought CrossOver Office and it's $50. I think that's cheap if you are looking at buying another harddisk.

Re:weird

[jeffasselin]

I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer.

Free? as in beer or as in speech?

On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows?

Probably because the point in using Linux is in leaving the Windows world behind as much as possible. Using a Windows emulator in Linux is a small concession to the need to run specific software, it's only running when absolutely necessary, and you know it's not a real Windows. Running a Linux emulator in Windows would be essentially useless since you wouldn't gain what Linux gives you: stability, security, and openness. The underlying reality would still be Windows.

Oh yeah, and most emulators require a functional install of Windows anyway. So it's also about the convenience of not having to restart all the time, or having to use several computers.

Re:weird

[esarjeant]

The problem is that for anyone who does 99% of their work in Linux, the occasional Win32 app that requires a reboot can completely derail your environment. After the reboot, quite often you'll need other tools that are already configured under Linux (eg: development environment). Now what?

TBPH, I think that emulators are the death knell for an OS. A good example is OS/2; IBM was so focused on providing seamless Win32 support that they failed to deliver on OS/2.

It's to everyones benefit that rather than use emulators to get the last mile of app support, you should use whatever OSS solutions are available even if they are less capable than their Win32 counterparts...

Re:weird

[El Cubano]

I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer. For the cost of Win4Lin or Wine, you can get a whole nother hard drive to dedicate to Windows, and it will be fully compatible.

Are you trolling on purpose or are you just ignorant? First, Windows is not free. The cost is built in to the machine, so you pay for it one way or another. Second, I am not willing to waste 3 to 8 minutes every single time I need to bring up IE (to verify a page I am developing renders half way correct) or some other such thing, so I run IE and a couple of other windows apps (games that were given to me by a friend) in WINE.

On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows? Is it because Windows has better alternatives to any Linux program, or is there some sort of GPL patent issue?

OK, here you are showing just plain ignorance. There are machine emulators out there. Have you ever hear of Bochs or VMWare? Both of them are available for windows and Linux (and some other OSes) and both will emulate a machine well enough to run windows, linux, and some other OSes. Those just happen to be the two I know of the top of my head without searching, I'm sure there are others.

Re:weird

[gnuadam]

Does it do rootless X yet?

Re:weird

[praedor]

It didn't come "free" with the computer. You frickin' paid for it just like the PC supplier/builder paid for it (and passed the costs on to you). If you go for any tech support you pay for windoze there too as M$ is HORRIBLE in this regard. Pay for practically everything even when there is a problem that is THEIR fault.

If you are doing real work (science) you are not using windoze. It is handy to be able to fire up a windoze app from time to time when you absolutely must without having to reboot - plus you give your system the stability of linux while still running a safe, harmless windoze within a safe sandbox. It can do stupid windoze crap and not wreck your running system.

What is really pointless is to reboot just to run some windoze app for a few minutes before getting back to your productive os.

Re:weird

[Quixadhal]

I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer.

Woah! Windows came free with my home-built computers? All of them, even the Sparc ELC? Kick ass! I'm gonna run right over and install that on the sparc... I'm sure Warcraft III will be great on the 17" monochrome display, and the 75MHz Sparc CPU should be fine...

Not everyone who want to run windoze apps (or games) bought a Dell dude. (although at today's prices, I begin to wonder if I should -- before they get all the DRM hardware working!).

Re:weird

[Zathrus]

I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer. For the cost of Win4Lin or Wine, you can get a whole nother hard drive to dedicate to Windows, and it will be fully compatible.

Yes, but that means you have to dual boot... I stopped doing that a decade ago. It was a PITA, and you lose state -- if I'm working on something in one window, and need to work on something else, I shouldn't need to reboot. I often leave 3-4 windows up with development stuff (code, running programs, log files, etc) while going off to do other stuff. If I have to reboot in order to do "other stuff" then I have to quit out of any files I'm editing, close all my windows, and reboot... odds are I won't remember precisely where I was in the coding cycle when I come back to it unless those windows are still present.

It would be even worse if the documentation for the project (largely in Word docs, some in a wiki) meant I had to reboot everytime I wanted to view the latest copy.

Dual booting is a kludge IMO.

On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows? Is it because Windows has better alternatives to any Linux program, or is there some sort of GPL patent issue?

Nice troll.

It's because the Linux/Unix/POSIX APIs are clearly documented and well known (which is not true for the Windows libraries). In fact, Windows uses most of the very same system calls. Many Linux programs are portable and can be compiled not only on other Unix systems, but also on Windows. Cygwin is a port of the basic Unix libraries and a boatload of Unix utilities, along with an X/Windows Server, to Windows... there are also cross-compilable graphics toolkits like Qt that help in porting graphical apps.

The better bit is particularly funny... the best Oracle client I've used is TOra, which was originally developed for Linux and cross-compiled to Windows. The best MP3 tagger I've found is EasyTag, only available on Unix systems. Most of the better programming tools are Unix oriented, with backports to Windows (if ported at all).

Re:weird

[IamTheRealMike]

It's crazy how much time people put into making Windows emulators for GNU/Linux.

Why? The demand is there. We get a constant flow of people, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in #winehq asking about just this very thing.

The most important thing is that it's critical for businesses with custom apps to be able to run them on a Linux desktop without Windows licensing fees.

Re:weird

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, Wine and Win4Lin will also not run on a Sparc.

Re:weird

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

The issue isn't entirely about simply getting around the Windows license (that's part of it, don't get me wrong). The issue also includes the fact that I want to run some Windows apps while still doing Linux stuff. This means that some sort of sandbox/emulator is necessary (wine, win4lin, vmware, etc) so that I can run IE on rare occasion to test stuff while not having to reboot into Windows mode. As an added benfit, if the emulator is written correctly, my machine won't need a reboot simply because Windows crashes -- only the Windows apps would.

Re:weird

[stanmann]

Well, because linux is a Unix emulator.

OTOH, I can download windows versions of grep, vi, emacs, etc, and have my command line windows behave just like Unix, so...Oh, and winnt4/5/.1 is at least as stable as linux.

Re:weird

[stanmann]

Wow, you bought a Dell dude. COOL!

Did he come with a free bag of weed??

Re:weird

[Lumpy]

On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows?

because linux programmers are more talented and port the apps to windows....

Open Office, Perl, Python, apache, mySQL, all run natively under windows now...

It seems that either Windows programmers are not capable enough to do this task, or they just don't care...

Re:weird

[Solosoft]

Vmware was very slow for me and I am running a P166MMX with 128mb of RAM and Windows ME was killer slow in vmware. I know it's not my video card slowing me down since it's a GeForce2MX.
has anyone tried (on linux) to run linux in vmware ? or run linux in that vmware and so on :D

Re:weird

[HermanAB]

Well, just to give you some simple examples why Win4Lin is needed: WordPerfect only works on windoze. Most lawyers use WordPerfect. If you have 50,000 files in WordPerfect format, there is no practical way to change to another word processor, so the only solution is win4lin, with WinME and it works beautifully that way.

Another example is accounting. If you have your whole business history in some special accounting package, which is required by a regulating body, changing to something else is not an option.

Re:weird

[untaken_name]

Wow. I thought I was the only one who remembered CP/M. I dug the crazy filesystem. I think I still have a copy of it around here somewhere, on low-density diskettes.

Re:weird

[demon]

Actually, I think WordPerfect is still available for Linux. Why not just use the Linux version? Motif is a bit on the ugly side, sure, but it works.

Re:weird

[HermanAB]

Yes, WP8 runs on Linux, but it doesn't work well. OpenOffice.org should also have filters some time soon - well, it has been sometime soon for a year or more already, but development filters are now available, just very hard to install still.

Re:weird

[mvdw]

if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer

Couple of problems with that, at least for me:

• I can't run a windows app and a linux app at the same time if I dual boot
• I hate rebooting.

And that's just for starters. Win4Lin works for me, for the one application I use it for (EDA package). I use Linux for everything else. And I do mean everything.

Re:weird

[Ch_Omega]

"Yes, but that means you have to dual boot... I stopped doing that a decade ago. It was a PITA, and you lose state -- if I'm working on something in one window, and need to work on something else, I shouldn't need to reboot. I often leave 3-4 windows up with development stuff (code, running programs, log files, etc) while going off to do other stuff. If I have to reboot in order to do "other stuff" then I have to quit out of any files I'm editing, close all my windows, and reboot..."

Then use the windows that came with your computer in some kind of free virtual machine then.

Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[martinde]

Check out Transgaming. They support a variety of DirectX games, including some 3d games iirc. They do this through extending wine to support DirectX. What I don't know is if they feed changes back into the mainline Wine. I do know that CodeWeavers do, but they don't support DirectX...

On the other hand, the age old question is that if Windows emulation works SO well on Linux, then will there ever be a commercial market for native Linux apps? I'd rather see native ports of these various apps/games, and I hope emulation is simply a stopgap...

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Laur]

On the other hand, the age old question is that if Windows emulation works SO well on Linux, then will there ever be a commercial market for native Linux apps? I'd rather see native ports of these various apps/games, and I hope emulation is simply a stopgap...

I don't think there will be a native port of MS Office very soon. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac version's days are numbered, what with IE being cancelled. If you have a Windows app you can't live without (which you PAY for) then contact the vendor and ask when it will be ported to Linux. If you are a major corporate customer, they will listen. Even if you aren't it will still help. As far as commercial native games go, Linux is screwed until it amasses sufficient market share. Until then, WINE & emulation will have its place.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[ukyoCE]

Some trolls have been astroturfing saying that emulation is a bad idea and will prevent anything from ever going native.

This would be bad because emulation is almost universally slower and more buggy.

I think that proves it right there - emulation will create a market willing to buy the faster and less buggy linux version. WineX will tide us over only until our numbers are large enough to demand native linux apps.

Besides, emulation is important for legacy applications+games. I really don't think Blizzard is going to go back and make Warcraft2 for linux, but I got to play through it again on linux using Wine.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the "problem" is that there are open source or otherwise "free" alternatives to many proprietary Windows applications. For my purposes, the Gimp is more than enough for me to do any graphics work, (read: I'm not artist, but I have to make stuff look nice now and then) but it's very capable of some amazing things. Photoshop costs $609 according to Adobe...why would I want it ported? I still don't see a reason to use MS Office over OpenOffice.org. I don't need to write numerous documents a day and I barely touch anything other than word processing and spreadsheets in my own work, but neither do most of the people I know. I'll admit the UI doesn't offer anything unique or advantagous and that it's got it's problems, but I can't reasonably spend $400+ on an office suite I'll use for an hour or two once a week at most, considering my former experience with it. There are a few areas waiting to get ports or OS solutions, like CAD, and a number of games (keep it up ID, and stop slacking Atari, no Linux support for Unreal2 is not acceptable). QCad is good for 2D stuff, and Blender can render some amazing 3D, but there's still no well known professional quality 3D CAD suite that runs nativly on Linux. AutoCAD really should make a port, they'd probably own 98% of yet another market. There are a few other areas that still need work, but even still, emulation isn't for everyone. Companies aren't going to port unless it financially makes sense for them to do so. Even if they get hundreds of requests for them to because they either know emulation works, or they know there are alternatives that will likely win out in the typical Linux user's mind. I don't think it's really Linux marketshare as much as it is competition from cheap/free alternatives. Even if more people started using Linux as their desktop OS, if the same people are asked "would you prefer to pay 600+ dollars for this software that may have a few small features no other application has, or would you rather just download this for free and be able to do whatever you want with it?" I think you know the answer.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[FatherOfONe]

Ok, I am a transgaming member, and love the idea of the software, but I feel that anyone who thinks that this software will solve the issue of not being able to play most "new" games on Linux is not solved at all.

First be warned that you should have a Nvidia video card. If you have anything else (like a faster ATI card) you could be in for some issues. It could turn in to a real science project. If you plan on running RedHat and still getting support from them then you will also have issues.

In short this is great software; BUT in my opinion if you are a hard core gamer then you will be better suited with a Windows partition or separate hard drive. Removeable hard drive bays are around $20 and a separate small hard drive for Windows isn't that much.

To be honest even Linux ported games still seem to have major issues. It appears that you can get most to work, but I have found that there is almost always a "catch-22" with software, something you will need that breaks something else.

Now I need to say that my experience has been with only RedHat. It is possible that RedHat is the main source of the problems with games, but you would think that developers would focus a little bit of effort on that Distro.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[4of12]

Besides, emulation is important for legacy applications.

Bingo.

A lot of folks are happy as clams running their small business on 5-15 year old versions of Windows.

MS is using every means it can to force those users into buying new versions of the OS, new versions of applications, new subscriptions to ?

If a Linux box can allow them to extend the life of their legacy Windows system, that's a benefit to them.

Then, because the basic platform is Linux, they have the opportunity to write new apps on that platform, instead of being restricted to Windows only.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[codeguy007]

I don't think there will be a native port of MS Office very soon. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac version's days are numbered, what with IE being cancelled.


What you are forgetting here is IE was free. MS Office for Mac was never free. Microsoft is the leading software manufacturer for Mac and I doubt they would do anything to loose that market.

Microsoft may never choose to release MS Office for linux but that has nothing to do with their Mac Software division.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[codeguy007]

This would be bad because emulation is almost universally slower and more buggy.

If this were only true. Win4lin boots faster, runs more stable, and in some cases faster than running windows 98 directly on the machine.

If a crash does occur in Windows, only Windows crashes and you can restart a clean version of Windows in a couple of seconds. Man when my Win98 box crashes at work, I am waiting 1 to 5 minutes before working again.

Win4lin runs fast and stable because it provides Windows with simple emulated devices that Windows supports well. None of these crazy video drivers for Windows to worry about.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, wouldn't want to loose that market. Keep it nice and tight. That's right, girl. Aw yeah.

The shame of failure in Mahjongg on my Zaurus is second to the wincing grammatical pain of the message informing me that I "loose."

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[ball-lightning]

Man when my Win98 box crashes at work, I am waiting 1 to 5 minutes before working again.

Windows 98 is 5+ years old. If you haven't tried Windows 2000 or Windows XP, I would definitely suggest trying them, they're a lot more stable. My windows box almost never crashes, and the only time I restart it or turn it off is when I'm installing a new driver, or installing a new peice of hardware.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[letxa2000]

I've been using Win4Lin since about March. It works great is all I can say. I find myself in Linux about 95% of the time, except during some projects where I have to do Windows development when I enter Win4Lin and can do development under DevStudio or whatever. I also do my accounting using Quicken and QuickBooks, so that works too. And, of course, Word works fine so that helps when I need 100% compatability.

That said, just two days ago I decided my Win98 install within Win4Lin had gotten messy (Win4Lin works, but can't make Windows work any better than it would when DLLs start getting unorganized, etc.). So I decided to do a clean Win98 install. For some reason, since then, Win4Lin is causing my entire Linux machine to reboot. I have no idea why and it's very bothersome. I trust they'll answer my support issue soon because I can't use Win4Lin with the thing rebooting Linux. It's worked great for months so I'm sure there's just some paramter or something that needs to be updated. But the fact that anything within Windows or Win4Lin itself is causing a Linux reboot is worrisome.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Thomas A. Anderson]

To be honest even Linux ported games still seem to have major issues. It appears that you can get most to work, but I have found that there is almost always a "catch-22" with software, something you will need that breaks something else.

I would like you to provide a game related example of this.

I own a gentoo-based game center with both linux-native and transgaming-enabled games. I have about 20 major games and some 30 or more little games (the onles that come with most linux desktop installs). I have yet top see this problem occur even once.

I agree about needing an nvidia card - I couldn't imagine trying to do this with an ati card. I also agree that transgaming is a stopgap measure until more games are ported to linux nativly. The good news is some *very* important games like Half-Life (and it's mods), Jedi Knights 2, and Everquest work great in winex.

Support for battlefield 1942 still need a little work, but I have yet to test winex 3.1 yet.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[damiam]

On the other hand, the age old question is that if Windows emulation works SO well on Linux, then will there ever be a commercial market for native Linux apps?

Win16 emulation works SO well on Windows 95, will there ever be a commercial merket for native Win32 apps?

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[LDoggg_]

Some trolls have been astroturfing saying that emulation is a bad idea and will prevent anything from ever going native.

I think you may be slightly confused as to what trolling or astroturfing is.

Most people I know that have a dislike for transgaming do so for various legitimate reasons.

Transgaming directly competes with the few companies left that do native ports.
They provide forums for games like, Unreal tournamnet, Return to castle wolfenstien Majesty, and many many others which have native ports.
This has to hurt the efforts of companies like Linux Game Publishing and guys like icculus

And You have to wonder if companies like Epic, Id, and Bioware will continue to spend money on porting games themselves if people can play their games at 80 or 90 percent speed with winex.

BTW, if you want to support native ports for linux, here's a list of 282 free or commercial games out there that don't require winex.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[martinde]

When you figure out how to force Win32 users to move Linux, let me know. MS used illegal business practices to force Win32 on the world by making you buy it with the hardware. Apples/oranges?

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[FatherOfONe]

I hear about people with RedHat and ATI that actually have no problems. I and a bunch of other people can't get the things to work. As of the last version of Wine 3.x nothing works. Wine 2.x worked somewhat but SLOW. Their solution was to use a "generic" kernel and change the video driver. Well RedHat doesn't like it when you make your own kernel, and upgrading the video driver was a nightmare. After the "upgrade" I found out that now Wine won't run at all. After some more checking I found that WINE has a problem with the new ATI driver...

If you read their message boards you will notice that a ton of people have major issues with the software. Some even with Nvidia cards! Having said that the coders do seem to be working hard on issues and creating what will become a great product. The issue is that this thing is equivilant to "beta" code. Perhaps even alpha code.

People seem to fall in to three catagories with WINE.
1. Everything works great, and they love it. They are just waiting for more game support.
2. It works but with some issues. Those issues are bad enough that they still use a Windows partiion.
3. It doesn't work at all.

My experience is that most Linux people that are trying to switch over from Windows fall in to category 2 and 3. This generally frustrates them enough and they bag Linux and go back to Windows.

Most new Linux users tend to pick a "standard" distro. RedHat seems to be the largest choice. I believe that they own something like 75% of the market, and I would bet it is far larger for Linux newbees. WINE should work hard to support SUSE and RedHat. They should work hard to support ATI AND Nvidia. Again I am a huge fan of these guys and believe that their product is going to be great. I just don't want any other new person to Linux to think that running games on Linux is as easy as Windows or the Mac.

As far as native games go the issues I have seen is something like the following.
1. Xwindows version 4.x
2. GCC library
3. Video driver blows
4. Kernel needs to be recompiled

I have yet to even get a "good" native game to run on RedHat linux 9.x. I don't want to give the impression that I have tried 20 games like you, but I have tried Unreal demo , Quake III and a few others and have had no luck. Most lock at startup. Now the EXACT same system on windows I have had little problem. (One exception was Never Winter Nights, the game was buggy). This is with RedHat 7.x-9.x

I realize that the issue could be all RedHats fault, but my GOD if you have a native port of your game shouldn't you test it on RedHat?

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Laur]

If you don't need any Windows apps that's great but it doesn't change the fact that many people do (especially corporations). Besides, some people prefer Windows apps for one reason or another. There are Windows ports of both the GIMP and OpenOffice.org yet Photoshop & MS office haven't gone bankrupt.

but there's still no well known professional quality 3D CAD suite that runs nativly on Linux.

What are you talking about? AutoCAD is not a 3D CAD program (but AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop is). Most of the serious CAD programs I know about started on UNIX workstations long before getting Windows support (x86 boxes had nowhere near the power for solid modeling 10 years ago). I currently us CATIA on an RS6000. However, looking at CATIA's requirements they don't currently support Linux, although Pro/ENGINEER does.

Companies aren't going to port unless it financially makes sense for them to do so. Even if they get hundreds of requests for them to because they either know emulation works, or they know there are alternatives that will likely win out in the typical Linux user's mind.

I would think that if a company received a sufficient number of requests for a port (from PAYING customers) then that would indicate that there is a market for the port.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Laur]

Microsoft is the leading software manufacturer for Mac and I doubt they would do anything to loose that market.

I have a feeling that Microsoft could safely exist without the Mac market if they thought it was in their best interest. Besides, they don't seem to eager to cash in on the rapidly growing Linux market.

Microsoft may never choose to release MS Office for linux but that has nothing to do with their Mac Software division.

When did I say it did? All I said was that it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft canceled Office for Mac.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[msh104]

you can't say "don't buy expensive software" and "want autocad running in linux". my dad uses autocad 1 / week and it costs a fortune!, but me really needs it since everyone is using it. autocad should make a port but 5400 euro for a full version is far to expensive to legaly buy ( when working on your own )

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[codeguy007]

I have had both Windows 2000 and Windows XP Crash repeatedly. We have one XP box that crashes daily. Granted that is due to a specific program but that no different than any version of Windows. It's not neccessarily windows that causes the crashes but the awful software written for windows. Windows does not encourage proper memory management in 3rd party apps now or ever.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[codeguy007]

Microsoft is the leading software manufacturer for Mac and I doubt they would do anything to loose that market.


I have a feeling that Microsoft could safely exist without the Mac market if they thought it was in their best interest. Besides, they don't seem to eager to cash in on the rapidly growing Linux market.


Why would they drop it? The reason Microsoft doesn't care about Mac being an alternative is because they own that software market as well. A market that is big enough to warrant it's own version of Office.

Microsoft may never choose to release MS Office for linux but that has nothing to do with their Mac Software division.


When did I say it did? All I said was that it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft canceled Office for Mac.


You compared them. By doing so you are suggesting a simularity.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[wideBlueSkies]

Please give the parent a +1 insightful.

He's absolutely right about a win emulator on LINUX helping folks keep their old apps running.

MSFT has been getting away with forcing people to upgrade for far too long now.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Anonymous Coward]

You compared them. By doing so you are suggesting a simularity.

Apples taste better than oranges, you poor uneducated plebe.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Anonymous Coward]

... I doubt they would do anything to loose that market.

Loose?? LOOSE??? Go get an education, slash-turd.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[ball-lightning]

Your box must have been misconfigured then, or you must be using a really, really buggy program. If the problem is a really buggy program, well you can't blame windows. I've had programs hose the system under linux, too. (Konqueror!) (Now your probably going to say I set it up wrong,, and yeah, your probably right) You really can't blame an OS for someone else's software. I mean, I was just working on something, and some stuff I had written caused a page fault (one of those stupid mistakes). I can't blame the OS for that. I've kept a generally clean system, and its longest uptime has been 12 days, at which point a buggy driver brought it down. Up until that time, it had been working perfectly, and had the driver been working probably still wouldn't have crashed.


I've said this more than once, and I'll say it again: In order to acheive a stable system, you HAVE to configure it correctly. I have never gone over 2 days uptime with Linux, mostly because I honestly have no idea how to set it up correctly, I just click next in the RH installer, and let it go. Generally, however, XP and Linux are, out of the box, good enough for most general use.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[codeguy007]

Your box must have been misconfigured then, or you must be using a really, really buggy program. If the problem is a really buggy program, well you can't blame windows. I've had programs hose the system under linux, too. (Konqueror!) (Now your probably going to say I set it up wrong,, and yeah, your probably right) You really can't blame an OS for someone else's software. I mean, I was just working on something, and some stuff I had written caused a page fault (one of those stupid mistakes). I can't blame the OS for that. I've kept a generally clean system, and its longest uptime has been 12 days, at which point a buggy driver brought it down. Up until that time, it had been working perfectly, and had the driver been working probably still wouldn't have crashed.


I am a computer professional and am an expert in installing and configuring windows. The problem has nothing to do with the setup.


I've said this more than once, and I'll say it again: In order to acheive a stable system, you HAVE to configure it correctly. I have never gone over 2 days uptime with Linux, mostly because I honestly have no idea how to set it up correctly, I just click next in the RH installer, and let it go. Generally, however, XP and Linux are, out of the box, good enough for most general use.


I have a linux box that never crashes. It's been running for almost 2 years now and the only time it get rebooted is when the kernel is upgraded or there's a power outage. Now I have some non default programs on there but I did nothing special to set it up.

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[ukyoCE]

Quite an insightful comment.

Honestly, what has Microsoft Word added in the past 5, even 10 years? New file formats to force upgrades is the only thing i've noticed.

And so people are forced to punk down another 100-500$ to keep using the same program. Incredible.

No monopoly abuse here, no sirree

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of Windows XP's (arguable) stability upgrades, it still costs $$ to buy a new version of Windows every 2 years.

And I don't think anyone feels quite right having to pay even *more* money to Microsoft because their last product was shitty...

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[ukyoCE]

"Transgaming directly competes with the few companies left that do native ports."

That's plain BS. Maybe Win4L runs MS Word fine, but I haven't played a single game under WineX that doesn't have a 30+ percent performance hit. Not to mention numerous stability errors and difficulties in configuration. No one is going to buy WineX over an out-of-the-box solution.

Furthermore, no one has the choice. That's why WineX was created in the first place.

"They provide forums for games like, Unreal tournamnet, Return to castle wolfenstien Majesty, and many many others which have native ports."

Umm...and this competes, how? In these forums most questions are given a response of "dumbass, use the native version". Meanwhile the linux version of these games are FREE. IE: NOT COMPETING. People already paid the money for these games. If they're brain damaged enough to run the windows version under Wine, then more power to em.

I'm sure next you're going to be telling us that Microsoft would have made Office for Linux, but didn't because it runs under Wine...

Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"

[ball-lightning]

I do. Beleive it or not, people *work* on windows. They get paid, and then Microsoft charges for windows. Now, WinME was well, horrible, but WinXP is just fine, and I have no qualms about paying for it. (Same thing with Longhorn, now thats gonna be a great OS, DX9 accelerated, gonna be so pretty :D)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

All Windows applications will soner or later be broken and incompatible wiht the OS. No worry though Microsoft applications will work just fine, and new replicas of all applications and applications anyone else might think up will be realsed by Microsoft.

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[jkrise]

Here's the NeTraverse link- I've not done HREF yet - sorry:

http://www.netraverse.com/products/wts/technolog y. php?PHPSESSID=5ed8e1d8cb2384cbb6523ec150ee5779

Win4Lin Based on SCO Merge

[Ryanwoodings]

"The NeTraverse products are derived from a proven technology developed over the last 15 years for UNIX® based operating systems, notably SCO®'s, MergeTM technology, accounting for over 800,000 users worldwide."

Funny how the article didn't mention Win4Lin had any connection with SCO... probably because NOBODY wants to be associated with those money grubbers these days!

Homepage + Screenshot

[SonOfSengaya]

Here the homepage of NeTraverse: www.netraverse.com

...and a screenshot.

Buy it out

[Anonymous Coward]

Win4lin needs to be free, as it is important for people switching over to Linux. Something similar to the "free blender" campaign may be in order... I know I'd donate quite a bit to the fund.

Re:Buy it out

[coandco]

Hi, This is a great idea! I know a few people who would donate if a campaign like this were started... Clint

Re:Why?

[arth1]

Unfortunately, there's a lot of things people need Windows (or other specific operating systems) for.

There's no Linux equivalent to Microsoft Money, for example -- not something that can connect to my bank automatically and get statements and process transfers without having to import and export qif files. Same with Microsoft Streets&Trips -- there's simply no equivalent.
I can't connect a Linux box to my work's VPN either -- there's no working client.
And if I managed to do so, what would I use to connect to the Exchange server to get my emails and appointments?

Then there is, as the previous poster stated, the issue of games. Linux games are few and far between, especially 3D games.
Oh, and watching DVDs? (Legally, that is)

That said, there's similar cases where Unix-like systems can offer what Windows can't. cygwin helps, sure, but that's just like running a Windows emulator under Linux.

The real problem I see with the product is that Windows 9x isn't going to be supported for much longer, and new software more and more often require an NT5+ based OS (Windows 2000/XP/2003).
In which case Windows 9x compatibility won't help too much...

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:Why?

[Jim_Hawkins]

:: ahem ::

These newfangled games usually require Windows 98 or higher. (And games are sehr important.)

Oh yeah...I like Microsoft Office too. (Yes, I seriously do. Please keep all flames to a minimum.)

Linux Emulators

[ShieldW0lf]

On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows? Is it because Windows has better alternatives to any Linux program, or is there some sort of GPL patent issue?

You can run linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux.

And from what I understand, you can do this in windows too.

Re:Linux Emulators

[mccalli]

You can run linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows....

But not so with Virtual PC. Try running Virtual PC for Windows inside, err..., Virtual PC for Windows and you get the message: "Cannot run a virtual machine inside a virtual machine. You had to try, didn't you?"

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Linux Emulators

[TheMadReaper]

Actually, last time I tried, VMware wouldn't run in VMware. Maybe they have changed this in more recent versions, though.

Re:Linux Emulators

[ShieldW0lf]

I don't know if this actually works, I just thought it was funny...

Personally, I think multiple computers, a multi-monitor workstation, remote-x and/or terminal software is the best way to have linux and windows on the same desktop.

Re:Linux Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, last time I tried, VMware wouldn't run in VMware. Maybe they have changed this in more recent versions, though.

When I worked for the Big Blue Beast, some press kit came to us from the VMware guys with a picture in it of a linux desktop running VMware with win98 shown, which was running vmware with linux, running VMware with win98 again...I can't remember exactly, but I believe it was 5 levels deep, on a linux base machine. We didn't have any need for it (my product didn't run on linux or 9x at all, only windows it 'ran' on was NT, but that was less than 10% of our userbase. Mostly it was Solaris and AIX.) However I was impressed that they had it all running like that.

Re:Linux Emulators

[brakk]

I seem to remember a site that showed someone running windows on virtualPC for MAC on some MAC emulator for linux on virtual PC for MAC.

Or something like that. It's been a few years.

Re:Linux Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad thing is, that in the above setup, you still get better benchmarks then just windows alone.

Re:Linux Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it has been changed, just not recently. At one time, in the initial versions of vmware, you could run one vm inside of another, ad nauseum. Today, due to some of the advancements they have made, generally for performance purposes, VM's cannot be run inside of VMs.

Hope that cleared things up.

Re:Linux Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up

Actually...

[Prince_Ali]

It will be modded (-1 redundant high-speed).

Free with your computer?

[Slashdolt]

Unless you obtained an illegal copy of Windows, most of us actually have to pay for it. Last I knew, Windows wasn't free.

Yes, this is sarcasm.

Re:Free with your computer?

[calethix]

That would make an interesting poll...
The last time I paid for the copy of Windows I used:
1995
1998
2000
2001
I don't use Windows you insensitive clod
Huh? Pay for Windows?

Re:Free with your computer?

[stanmann]

Oddly enough, the answer would be 2000 for me. and previously NEVER. ANd yes I definitely used W2k Before I bought it. Oh, I downloaded it over a 33.6 connection.

Re:Free with your computer?

[Lord_Slepnir]

You forgot:

I use cowboy neil's windows longhorn cd

-or-

Cowboy Neil washes my windows

It makes one wonder

[SynapseLapse]

Why Microsoft hasn't sued them out of bussiness?

Sony succesfully sued Bleem out of bussiness...
Granted you need a win98 cd to get this sucker running (Which means they have to still buy windows from Microsoft.)
but conversly, it means more people like my mother could potentially use it as they would then still be able to use their old win apps.


Now all we need is to run WinLin with a Unix emulator running a Mac Emulator running...

Re:It makes one wonder

[mccalli]

Why Microsoft hasn't sued them out of business? Sony succesfully sued Bleem out of business...

Microsoft don't make PC system hardware. Sony sued for emulation of their entire platform, to which they own the copyright. Microsoft 'just' make the OS, which as you point out would still need to be legally aquired. Consequently, there's no basis for a case.

Well, in my opinion anyway. And yes, I'm ignoring all the MS-branded input devices...

Cheers,
Ian

Re:It makes one wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Or like this ? MacOnlinux
BTW, wasn't there some kind of competition about running as many emulators as possible on top of each other?

/peder

Re:It makes one wonder

[SynapseLapse]

I know, but they're still using reverse egineered codeing of windows.
Microsoft has no basis for the case and not much of a chance of winning.

But that wouldn't stop them from tying up the company in expensive legal battles.

Re:It makes one wonder

[Cerlyn]

Copyright of a platform? I think you mean their actual BIOS routines themselves. If they could copyright the actual platform, Compaq and Pheonix would never have been able to offer an alternative to IBM's XT. Intel's x86 CPU instruction likewise never could have been mimiced with independant code.

Rulings like the two above in favor of the clone makers allowed the PC clone market to exist. Otherwise, there would be no real competition nowadays.

Interestingly enough, bleem! was winning their court case at the time they decided to settle. They had won most of the preliminary motions, and were about to go to trial.

I personally do not know why bleem didn't just finish the case. It ended right before the jury was about to hear the case, just like Sony v. Connectix did.

(Disclaimer: I used to be close to some of the bleem people, although I haven't spoken to them in years.)

Re:It makes one wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Bleem sucked ass. I actually bought a copy of it from EB and it didn't run a _single_ PlayStation game of mine, including all of the ones that it claimed to support.

I ended up downloading ePSXe, which is free, and it blows Bleem away. It plays almost every single game I have flawlessly, with support for hardware T&L on my GeForce and anisotropic filtering...all running at 1024x768. You have no idea how good an old PlayStation game really looks until you play them on this emulator (it seems that many games used textures that were much higher resolution than the PSX could display).

Re:It makes one wonder

[bobv-pillars-net]

Why Microsoft hasn't sued them out of business? ... they have to still buy windows ...

Sounds like you answered your own question.

virtualization

[twoslice]

...offers near-native (or better) speed "virtualization" of a Windows box..

Alas, even linux can't really speed up Micro$soft software - it must alter reality and virtualize it for us...

requires a kernel patch

[pomakis]

"Win4Lin requires that a small Linux kernel module and patch be installed"

I stopped reading right there. No thanks. I left my kernel patching days behind me when I tossed Slackware in favour of Red Hat four years ago. I don't want to deal with that shit any more.

Re:requires a kernel patch

[Anonymous Coward]

"Win4Lin requires that a small Linux kernel module and patch be installed" I stopped reading right there. No thanks. I left my kernel patching days behind me when I tossed Slackware in favour of Red Hat four years ago. I don't want to deal with that shit any more.

Not to mention that I don't want any win98 code within 8 miles of my kernel data structures. Seriously people.

The usability of Linux with the stability of Windows!!!

Re:requires a kernel patch

[tzanger]

It comes with prepatched kernels for RH, SuSE, etc.. That was always one of my biggest gripes with W4L too; use a damned kernel module like VMWare. At the time I couldn't get the kernel patch to work with my (already patched) kernel.

Re:requires a kernel patch

[wbav]

Not to belittle your point in the slightest, patching the kernel is a pain in the a$$; however, to base you decision solely on the amount of work it requires seems a little silly. And you must admit, in some ways, patching your kernel is easier than installing 98 and creating a dual boot machine. Besides, I've found that if you don't build your own kernel with Red Hat, the performance loss is noticeable.

Re:requires a kernel patch

[Dot.Com.CEO]

For what's worth, the kernel patch is totally transparent and does not involve recompiling. What basically happen is Win4Lin downloads a Win4Lin enabled version of the kernel you are using (depending on your distribution) and installs that one. You still have the option of booting your old kernel in lilo, even. Very well done, very impressive...

Re:requires a kernel patch

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were just a module (like VMware) I wouldn't mind, but I don't want to patch the kernel itself for this...

I already have a careful assortment of patches applied.

Re:requires a kernel patch

[Tony Hoyle]

...which is why I can't use it - (a) I use debian, which they don't support, and (b) I like to run my own kernels (there's stuff I use that tends not to be in the default kernels). Win4Lin is useless to me as their kernel modules are binary only so you can't recompile them to work on your system - you have to be running a stock Redhat/Mandrake system to use it.

VMWare give the source to their kernel modules, which means you can adapt it to your kernel... much more useful.

Re:requires a kernel patch

[Anonymous Coward]

NeTraverse makes the kernel patches available in source from their web site for people hwo use non-standard kernels. There are pre-compiled kernels that work with the installer.

Debian works, but if you are happy with Xandros or Lindows, the hooks are already integrated. The same goes with Gentoo, Lycoris and a host of others. No Red Hat or SuSE yet.

Re:requires a kernel patch

[tarball]

Anyone who dumps slack for redhat is already 90% of the way to windoze mentally anyway. Glad to see you gone.

Re:Why?

[universalis]

Why exactly does one need to run Windows at all? It seems Linux offers everything the average user would need. Because I'm a web designer, who has to test everything in Internet Explorer (used by 97% of the population). With a product like this, I can quickly boot up a selection of IE versions in different MS OSs whilst getting all the advantages of Linux for development.

why

[minus_273]

an i say this in all seriousness.. why? why do you need this? seriously if you are going to use windows apps in emulation mode, either install windows or go for the better althernative OSX.
I switched to osx from linux 2 weeks ago, and it is wonderfult o be abel to use my linux apps under X11 while running word, ie and a bunch of commercial games. OSX is the best thing to use if you want unix and commercial app and game support.
Why emualate a third class OS when you have option of using it natively under *nix?

Re:why

[praedor]

It is not pointless. I use linux at work (university research) all the time. I also have vmware installed so that on rare ocassions I can fire up windoze and use some doofy app there that wont run in wine. I don't have to stop everything else I am doing that is more important just to use windoze for a few minutes. I just fire up windoze in linux, it is more stable as a result of being controlled by linux, and all is right with the world.

It is far worse to have to reboot to the other OS for a few minutes than to simply fire it up under linux just lik any other app.

Re:why

[minus_273]

i know what you mean, but my point is , OSX already has most of the commercial apps running natively. why not just use that. I know there is plenty of FUD about apple being expensive, but take a look at their site or just goto Ebay. I got a decent G3 with everything but a monitor for $120.

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

What if OS X does not meet my needs as a Unix?

Mac OS X is not consistent with other Unices. It is not consistently designed like a Unix. The pieces just don't "fit".

You have parts that are Unixy, parts that are NeXT, parts that are based on Classic Mac OS, and parts that are its own creature. The Unixy parts are clearly not that well thought out; they are just there to support the higher level parts. The user isn't supposed to care about them.

Re:why

[PolR]

For an individual, the choice could be a matter of taste.

For a corporation that has thousands of Intel boxes and wants to switch to Linux, OSX is not an option.

Re:why

[tarball]

I use it at work because I want as rock stable OS under me to do sysadmin. And I have to do my time card and trouble ticket system under win. This let's me do it without a second box, and I can cut and paste between them. If I had a choice I'd dump the win TT and timecard apps for unix based, but I don't run the company. I'm happy I can get away with win4lin.

I have to say that after several years using it, starting before 1.0 was released, that the product has always performed well, and, even better, been more stable than native windows. I am currently running 4.0, and have not decided whether I will upgrade.

tom

Re:why

[datan]

"I am currently running 4.0, and have not decided whether I will upgrade" An upgrade will only cost you $30. Has the convenience the product given you been worth more than that? If nothing else, why not just support the company?

Outdated

[beef3k]

This 5.0 release seem pretty pointless to me. Win95/98/Me has never been in use in any sane production environment. Either people are still using NT or they've moved on to 2000/XP a long time ago.

If this should have been useful it would have had to emulate 2000/XP as well. IMHO this is near pointless software.

Re:Outdated

[Anonymous Coward]

When Microsoft launched XP they released numbers that said 400M people boot up Win9x every day. 70M boot up WinNT/2000. Recently, I saw analyst information that over 1/3 of current enterprise users have no plans to upgrade to WinXP. That leaves a hell of a lot of Win9x out there to migrate over to Linux with something like this. They are not going to move to new apps. There needs to be a transition that brings users over with minimal disruption, but gets the sys admin and IT people using Linux under the covers. Eventually, open source apps will displace the user apps - its up to us how fast that happens.

And, WINE just doesn't serve the purpose. It is too much work to try and get reasonable compatibilty for the massive amount of third party, niche and custom applications that will need to be re-hosted or transitioned.

Windows is free?

[kevruse]

Since when is windows free? Last I checked XP pro was around $180 and XP Home was $100. If you building a $1000 machine that is roughly a 10% or 20% increase to the cost of the system.

Do you mean free as in if you buy a preloaded computer from a vendor then you don't see it factored into the price?

k

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The answer is SCO

[jkrise]

For some strange reason, Win4Lin gets mentioned several times at Slashdot. This uses SCO technology for the past 15 years. Here's a link:

http://www.netraverse.com/products/wts/technolog y. php?PHPSESSID=5ed8e1d8cb2384cbb6523ec150ee5779

Seeing MS is licensing SCOde, XP shouldn't be a problem - for now.

Re:Why?

[!Squalus]

Let's admit it, Gimp ****ing s***s

Hmm, not to kind to the GIMP development team and I happen to know a lot of GIMP users who disagree with that statement. It works for me and many others. Maybe you should read more, or just be happy with using your own tools, or in the alternative convince the software makers of the applications that you want them on Linux? Seems like that could get you what you want better than criticizing the GIMP team, which doesn't get you what you want.

Not a flame, just a comment.

Re:Why?

[cerberusss]

I like Microsoft Office

Try CrossOver Office. It's somewhat cheaper and runs the Office apps as plain normal apps instead of an application (office) in an application (the VM itself). OTOH it's more limited than a whole VM.

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[Anonymous Coward]

You've not done...what? Sorry? Hang on a minute, I have to dispare for humanity quietly...dispare

Now then, what was that you said? You...dispare

Look, there really isn't anything magical about an href tag. I mean, how much simplier can it be? Apart from the fact that there are thousands of Learn HTML tutorials which can teach you how to use href in about five seconds flat...dispare.

No, I give up. Humanity is a goner. We don't stand a chance.

Re:I fail to understand

[Waffle Iron]

yet you think it's unreasonable for people to criticize these coders who blatantly copy Windows

What coders who copy Windows? You do realize that to install Win4Lin, you need to already own a Win9X CD. You go through the entire Windows installation process, including loading the Windows CD and typing in a valid product ID code. An entire standard Win9X installation is created on your PC, it just happens to live in a Linux file system.

Funny that you bring up SCO. Win4Lin is based on a DOS-virtualization technology called "merge" that SCO has also used. Here is a summary I found of its very convoluted history. (Google cache; real page is broken.)

Not outdated - simply practical...

[aksansai]

Production environments moved to Windows 2000+ years ago because of operating stability issues encountered when running Windows 9x based systems. Nevermind the inherent security issues that plagued the operating system when the user is assumed to be the administrator of the machine.

Production environments that have selected Linux as their "host" operating system have already made a good choice in selecting a stable, secure operating system. Allowing their users to still be able to use "modern" Windows software (for various reasons) is priceless.

I used to work for a company which deployed Linux throughout. However, various assignments for software development required the use of Visual Studio, which runs just fine under Windows 98 - but, as you can imagine, has a difficulty running under Linux. I purchased Win4Lin 3.0 - and the flexibility (and speed), yet convenience of not having to install Windows was absolutely fantastic.

Re:Not outdated - simply practical...

[beef3k]

I've never even heard of a production environment employing Win9x - it's either WinNT or Win2000 (and I guess people for the most part have moved on to XP by now).

As I see it the whole point of creating a product like Win4Lin is to coerce the _currently existing_ windows user base over to something more secure and better in general, i.e. Linux. These people are not using a Win9x system (not counting people playing old games of 95/98, but they have no interest in this product anyway).

The point is, you're talking about the past yourself. I'm very much aware that VS 6 runs fine on Win98, but VS 6 is outdated as well. VS.NET (7.0 and the recent 7.1) is quickly becoming the development tool of choice for the VS 6 bunch (at least that's what the VS people I know tell me - I don't use it myself).

Enter Win4Lin 5.0 which does not support operating systems which have been out for 2/3 years and recent applications which will only run on these OS'es. I'd say my point is still valid.

You really don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wine runs apps, this is about running an OS

Speaking of GUI stupidity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft discriminates against differently-abled farmers!

So I took delivery of my shiney new 2004 John Deere tractor, and man is it nice! Everything's all automated now, you just work your field once, and it remembers the course so it can be played back at any time! Schweet!

Unfortunately, the microcontroller runs on Windows CE, and requires that your press [CTRL][ALT][TROLL] to login. Well, I'm an old farmhand, and needless to say, I've had my arm ripped off in a threasher accident (no shame in that, I mean, like, who hasn't?) Which leaves me with the problem of having to manage to press three seperate keys on the keyboard using only one hand. Saying that this is a difficult proposition is an understatement at best. How the hell did Bill Gates get to be so rich by being so damn stupid?!!

file under why bother...

[Cnik70]

to run win4lin you have to have a windows distro cd. at that point you might as well just run a dual boot system or even a separate box. plus, after using linux for years, i have yet to find a reason to have to go back to using windows (sure there are some win exclusive aps out there, but you can dual boot into those if you need to). all i see win4lin as is a nice hack, but a rahter bothersome and slow way to run windows if you honestly have to.

Re:file under why bother...

[greenskyx]

I agree. I just NVC into a Windows machine from my Linux desktop.

However, if Win4Lin is your thing that's fine with me...

Re:file under why bother...

[Anonymous Coward]

>is a nice hack, but a rahter bothersome and slow
>way to run windows if you honestly have to.

Bothersome to type 'win' in your terminal while it boots 98 in 4 seconds? Faster than native 98 speed is slow to you? Man, you must like rebooting, waiting, crashing, rebooting, waiting, crashing...

Re:file under why bother...

[Cnik70]

no actually i don't reboot at all, i just don't even use linux or win4lin.

Re:file under why bother...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that 9 out of 10 of my apps have no counterpart on Linux, that'd be a hell of a lot of dual booting for nothing!

Re:file under why bother...

[Anonymous Coward]

>no actually i don't reboot at all, i just don't
>even use linux or win4lin.

Then why the fuck are you commenting on win4lin and linux?

Re:file under why bother...

[davros74]

Oh please.

Perhaps I do have a dual-boot system, for playing Games, but when I'm in linux and I really need to open Office2000 I can do that without shutting down all my Linux apps, rebooting, work on the Excel file, then reboot to Linux, reopen all my files...

Furthermore, Win4Lin is more than just a nice hack. They way they integrated it into the linux kernel (for memory management support) and the fact that it just sits on top of your linux filesystem means that it integrates into a linux box fairly well. It uses your linux system for sound, and uses linux's networking. The only thing you can't get is direct hardware access except for COM and LPT1. (But that is nice for being able to run Palm Desktop directly in Linux and sync my Palm, since so many palm apps have conduits that only work in Windows). I don't want to reboot into Windows just to install some Palm program that the programmer only ships in a self-extracting .EXE file and requires Palm Desktop to be installed before installing just a .PRC nonsense (they do exist).

Yeah, Wine does most of this too, and I started with that, but since I already own a Win98 CD, I tried Win4Lin out, and found it's memory requirements and sheer speed (tight integration to linux subsystems) make it worth it. (And ZERO compatibility problems since you are in fact, running a real Windows install. I had a lot of problems installing some apps into Wine, but I'm sure Wine has improved since 3 years ago).

And lastly, probably a bizarre reason I like Win4Lin on my Linux desktop: it's a testimony to the good ol days of running OS/2 and Windows 3 apps seamlessly in windows on the same desktop. Any windows app i need i can bring up in its own little window, quickly, and i don't have to reboot the box just to read some Excel file that KSpread chokes on.

Re:file under why bother...

[Cnik70]

you apparently didn't read the whole thread. the reason i commented was that i see no reason to run win4lin. mainly since 1) a dual boot system is just as easy 2) wine doesn't require you to buy a windows cd 3) most windows aps have a Linux equivilent

Re:file under why bother...

[Cnik70]

1) no need for Office2000 when you can just as easily run OpenOffice 2) self extracting exe's for palm work fine under wine. and kpilot, jpilot, etc work fine beyond that. 3) if you really need Office2000, you can run Crossover Office which is much cheaper and requires less memory and hard disk real estate

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I am sorry for making it sound I was criticizing the Gimp team. I love them all for contributing their labor for free. This is not about that.

What I was trying to say is that Gimp does not compare with photoshop for people who are serious about graphic design. It works for the average user, but for users who are tied to such applications as PS, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.. it's too hard to make a transition into something on linux because the technology isn't geared towards professionals or even advanced consumers. When it comes to networking, servers and other backend stuff, linux completely kills windows. But for frontend visual development there are still MAJOR obstacles to come across.

I've tried to force myself and work with Gimp on multiple occasions, and it just does not compare to proprietary solutions.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gimp rocks. That's all I want to say.

Re:The answer is

[okvol]

Posix - all games should be coded to this standard, and they could run on any Posix compliant OS. (This ad sponsored by the UN. Please submit all comments in Esperanto.)

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[Anonymous Coward]

dispair

Mensa

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anybody with intelligence high enough to merit Mensa membership care about being valuable to a collective called "society"? If you're intelligent enough for Mensa, you're intelligent enough to grok that there is no society without a group of individuals. It takes at least three people to make a society: two to group together and make the third an outcast.

Re:Mensa

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anybody with ANY intelligence use an imaginary word from a Heinlein book, of all places, instead of the english word that means the same freakin thing.

Stranger in a strange land is an awful book. Here, let me summarize it for you:

The world is a bad bad place.
If we were all super-powered aliens the world would be a better place.
The End.

most retarded thing I have read yet

Re:Mensa

[p2sam]

And many would say that there would be no individuals without a nurturing society. Humans are inheritly social animals.

Not for too long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual PC is now owned by Microsoft, so I wouldn't count it on running Linux on Windows for too long.

Go for VMWare. They're still independent.

Re:Why?

[linuxkrn]

1) Unreal Tournment 2003, Enemy Territory, Quake3, Neverwinter Nights, etc. And much, much more with Wine such as Soldier of Fortune 2.

2) Grip, VERY good CD Ripping app. Will auto download CDDB, run the encoder of your choice, etc. As for raytracing Povray can do a lot too, but you just need a good modeler, such as Kpovmodeler. As for a one click installer, check out RPMs or RedHat's Package Management System, looks just like Install Shield.

3) KDE,Gnome,etc. You DO know that they can be themed to look just like the crappy Windows GUI too don't you?

What about Application TESTING...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you write a program for Win9x, in it's alpha stage you could bring down the computer.

Why not just bring down and emulator or three instead?

./ snobbery

[Anonymous Coward]

I am astounded at the backlash the readers of ./ have vented at Netraverse. You people have never tried the product, but are willing to make unfounded claims about its speed and ability. I have used Win4Lin since the release of version 4, and I can tell you why you would use it, how it runs, and why it is cool:

I use it to encode videos in DivX format. DivX.com is the partner with one of my clients, and they do not have a encoding app for my mac, and the linux version is not as flexible (CLI) as the windows codec. So I run Adobe Premiere, Virtual Dub, and DivX 5.0.2 from within Linux! Prior to Win4Lin I had to reboot my machine to get into win2k for encoding. This has saved me so much time and frustration it is amazing. Also, I can simply back up the windows related directories (which are installed in my home folder on linux) and then I never have to install windows again, I can just install Win4Lin and restore the directories complete with programs, file associations, and serial numbers!

Win4Lin is fast! I noticed an incredible speed difference with windows 98 on a PIII 533 with 512 MB RAM! The OS booted in seconds even with Linux running with all of the bells and whistles of KDE (most of them anyways). Windows 98 is much, much snapier. And if it crashes (win98), I can easily kill the process and restart it in seconds! No rebooting, no headaches.

Finally, if you, as a geek, can not see the inherent coolness of running a virtual OS at higher than native speeds from within Linux, then you are no geek of mine... I have messed with WINE for years, hours of frustration to get the most basic apps working... but for a nominal fee (sometimes closed source is okay) I can get more work done, spend less time in windows, save my uptime, and forget about rebooting headaches! Have you ever tried to emulate win98 with VirtualPC on a mac?!? If you need windows, and your apps require speed, Win4Lin is the way to go. Period.

Ideally, Win4Lin would be open source, but these people have coded an incredible piece of software which was, to me, well worth the licensing fee! I don't need the true bloat of win2k or XP (nor do I need the EULA headaches!) all I need is a few win32 apps (for encoding video) and win4lin pulls this off for me with relative ease. No you can't play games, but shouldn't you be working anyways? Honestly, the waste of doing this with win2k or XP is obvious. If you just need the apps, you usually won't need all of the services and overhead that come with the latest versions of windows. Win98 runs most programs (albeit somewhat unstable) very quickly, it is solid in the sense that Linux isn't going to be brought down with it, it boots like a madman, and it does just about everything I need.

Quit being cheap, buy a copy and try it out. The support is very responsive, they have an active mailing list, and it actually does what the company claims. A successful Linux only vendor who provides support, upgrades, and a useful product. This is a model for other vendors regardless of OS!

Re:./ snobbery

[dentar]

I have Win4Lin, but have found the company's web site and tech support to be kind of lacking. I had a problem with Win4Lin not seeing a second interface card. They tried to at least fix it. I found the problem myself after two days of looking for the proper config file. The location for the config file is a holdover from Win4lin's old "SCO Merge" days.

The product is useful and fast, though, when it works right.

Re:./ snobbery

[ukalum]

Agree completely. I purchased Win4Lin 3 and later upgraded to 4, and it is a ton more convenient than dual booting.

I do java and oracle (pl/sql) development. I run JBuilder natively on the linux side and fire up Win4Lin when I need SQLNavigator and Microsoft VSS (and yes, I've pushed for cvs, but the people at my office have refused to move to it for some reason).

Because my java and pl/sql code are so closely related, dual booting to work on one and then the other is not an option.

As noted above, the speed is great, and if something crashes Windows, you can reboot very, very quickly.

Having said all of that, the list of new features for version 5 is not interesting enough for me to upgrade; version 4 covers all of my bases very well.

Re:./ snobbery

[davros74]

Also, I can simply back up the windows related directories (which are installed in my home folder on linux) and then I never have to install windows again, I can just install Win4Lin and restore the directories complete with programs, file associations, and serial numbers!

I forgot to mention that in one of my previous posts. I LOVE this feature. Since it resides totally inside of the linux filesystem, I can completely backup my "windows" install during my regular linux tape backup. And if i hose the registry? Just restore that directory, from Linux. No longer the chicken-egg problems I had to trying to back up a real Windows partition to tape and actually be able to restore from tape without the damn registry still being corrupted or some other nonsense. Maybe I didn't try hard enough, but i could never get just a file-based restore to ever get a Windows partition fully working again. Win4Lin let's you backup your entire Windows system purely at the file level (and with full Unix permissions too!).

Re:./ snobbery

[brunes69]

I use it to encode videos in DivX format. DivX.com is the partner with one of my clients, and they do not have a encoding app for my mac, and the linux version is not as flexible (CLI) as the windows codec. So I run Adobe Premiere, Virtual Dub, and DivX 5.0.2 from within Linux!

Are you on crack??? MEncoder, Transcode, and other Linux encoding tools based on libavcodec/FFMpeg give way better preformance than their Windows counterparts, and also support more of the MPEG4 spec. If the CLI tools are too hard for you to use there is a multitude of GUI wrappers.

Touting Win4lin is one thing, but this has to be the most stupid use of running emulated windows I have ever seen in my whole life. Windows can't even approach the speeds of mencoder and transcode, nor can it approach the monolith of options they offer.

Re:./ snobbery

[Anonymous Coward]

I must have missed the point at which this became a discussion about the fastest way to encode a video file or what program most closely conforms to a spec. This _was_ about win4lin version 5.0 being released. As a note, I want to point out that divx.com now has a pro version mac client so I may no longer need windows for this "stupid" purpose, thank god... but even divx.com's own latest windows version does not work with their own DRM, so this new mac client may not work with divx.com's DRM! I must use the old 5.0.2 codec for my client's DRM needs (that's a bad divx.com and a bad client, but good money for me). But, to appease my own lack of reasonable sanity:

>Are you on crack??? MEncoder, Transcode, and other
> Linux encoding tools based on libavcodec/FFMpeg
>give way better preformance than their Windows
>counterparts, and also support more of the MPEG4
>spec. If the CLI tools are too hard for you to use
>there is a multitude of GUI wrappers.

No one said CLI was too hard for me, but if you can show me a video editing app for Linux that is equal to Premiere (sorry, Cinelerra ain't there yet for my purposes) then you can talk to me about the tools I need to do my job.

As for this being, "the most stupid use of running emulated windows" you have seen in your whole life then I beg you to a) get out of your house and take some fresh air in to see if you can deal with the insanity of my nefarious purposes for using a virtual OS b) realize that the DivX.com version of DivX has DRM capabilities which can only be used if you use their proprietary encoding software (with their viewer).

So I can't just encode the file into MPEG-4 and expect to use the DRM that my client requires from their main distributor. I get paid for this shit, punk, I've looked into my options.

This is exactly the kind of snobbery that has always plagued slashdot. Pompous ass readers who know nothing about someone's particular circumstance and then spam these forums with illogically harsh criticisms of completely peripherial issues.

Yes, your speedy encoding skills are god like... you must be the only geek that understands how to use CLI... blah blah blah. Now crawl back into your hole before slashdot confronts you with more stupidity than your trapped little mind can handle.

I shall cackle in maniacal glee each time I run win4lin whilst specifically thinking of you.

The Real Answer is Win98Lite

[JohnnySkidmarks]

It rules, no bloatware or crappy built in annoyances. But if you can't play 3D games anyway, then who gives a damn?

specific dates that Windows versions are obsolete

[calethix]

for anyone wondering
95 is already considered obsolete
98 receives no free support after the end of this month, none at all after the end of this year (basically)
ME is unsupported at the end of the year as well

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[Anonymous Coward]

Turns out we're both wrong.

despair

See, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about! Neither of us got this right the first time. Its a simple word! I am despairing for the future of humanity even more, now.

This is great...

[Obiwan Kenobi]

..but I still can't sell this to the Big Wigs upstairs.

Why? Because Windows 98 is on its way out. All of our proprietary software runs in Windows 95/98, but the new version coming out next month uses Windows 98 and up ONLY. I expect next year (or maybe 2005) it will be phased out much like Windows 95.

Let's face it, not one new machine built today comes with Windows 98 SE. And let's not get into the train wreck that was ME.

What I'm saying is we can't deploy linux on a large scale, even if it will run on our propriety software, until I know it will last at least 3 years (the usual PC-replacement development cycle).

So while I'd love to get this up and running for The Powers that Be, until something that's even more advanced and is guaranteed to support Windows 2000 or XP only apps comes along, no endorsement here can be made.

Of course, the irony is that were we to support this and purchase it for our organization that it would fund the win2k/xp only program support, however, just giving it the once over, what about USB devices such as WinCE devices (yes, a lot of execs do use them...my Tungsten T is the one palm of the whole place), printers, et al. Plus all the weird hardware that my org. relies on, such as high load scanners.

And if you've had any time in sys admining, vendors love to blame things like odd operating systems if their buggy software doesn't work the first time out.

Sigh. I push Linux every time I can around here (I'm the resident Linux Guy of the IT dept.), but it's just not there yet.

Re:This is great...

[davros74]

Do what my company does: One big ass Dell machine that runs Linux for engineering work. One additional big ass Dell machine running WindowsXP for the "corporate network" and EMail. Two monitors/keyboards/mice even, no KVMs. Very efficient, not! =-)

At least in our own little engineering group, we've started to use Wine when we can for certain vendors that refuse to port their apps to Linux. But for EDA tools, most of them are supporting Linux finally. But you'd think since IBM is such a big Linux backer, why we can't get Lotus Notes for Linux? That is primarily why I have a 2.4GHz WindowsXP box.

Re:This is great...

[dmnic]

"Let's face it, not one new machine built today comes with Windows 98 SE"

hm, maybe you should tell that to Dell(Business Division). we just bought 10 NEW machines with Win98SE factory installed

Poppycock

[delphi125]

First you say 'direct access' then you immediately follow it with 'drivers'. Which is it?

Almost all (Windows) 3D nowadays is either DirectX or OpenGL. I'll ignore the former for a moment and stick to OpenGL. How hard can it be to 'emulate' a glVertex3f call? Ok, I'm not saying it is trivial, but it must be a lot easier than the average Win32 API call. I mean, the function already exists anywhere you have OpenGL.

Back to DirectX or rather Direct3D... although this uses COM interfaces, the functions available are pretty similar to those in OpenGL. Now there will be a number of 'slow' functions (loading a large texture), but these will always be slow. A little more overhead won't make a huge difference. There are only a few functions (vertex, texture coordinates, normals etc) which get called really often. It is here that optimization efforts should be directed. Not easy, but should be easier than the entire Win API.

I will admit to ignoring the problems of X being a network protocol rather than a graphics one. I suspect that to reach optimal frame rates you wouldn't want to run DirextX games in an X window on another terminal over the network. But unix has always done well at allowing multiple 'terminals', so do it that way.

Re:Poppycock

[Elie De Brauwer]

OpenGL is only a 3d framework while directx also contains audio, network and input utilities. OpenGL was created like this on purpose just to keep OpenGL portable to other operating systems. Don't forget OpenGL was created by SGI for SGI systems / IRIX etc etc but now OpenGL is available on almost all platforms. So it shouln't be very difficult to port a 100% OpenGL application to another platform, (many OpenGL based games are ported to Linux like all Quake games, return to castle wolfenstein etc etc). That is also the reasing why OpenGl en GLUT are not together in one package.

Re:Poppycock

[Anonymous Coward]

" First you say 'direct access' then you immediately follow it with 'drivers'. Which is it?"

Both.
Win4Lin works something like so.

Linux to Windows

1) Linux OS
2) Linux Drivers
3) X Windows
4) Win4Lin Layer virtualizing hardware
5) Win4Lin Sandbox running Windows OS
6) Windows Drivers
7) Windows Components/Libraries etc.
8) Windows Apps

So now you have two sets of drivers to go through, two OS's etc and you wonder why it might be a tad difficult for this model to give you high preformance apps?

Re:Poppycock

[Anonymous Coward]

You're completely missing the point. You're talking about mapping function calls, which is what wine does. And yes, wine can support 3D stuff (just look at winex).

But this isn't even remotely what win4lin does. Win4lin actually creates virtual hardware devices under Linux which then allow you to fool windows into running under Linux. With win4lin you actually run a copy of Windows. It's more closely related to VMware than wine (though there are still big differences even between it and VMware).

Anyway, the point is that supporting 3D stuff is going to be nearly impossible because to run fast you need direct access to the hardware which is one thing that win4lin does not give you by its very natur

Re:Poppycock

[drewness]

I will admit to ignoring the problems of X being a network protocol rather than a graphics one
I, however, will not. X being a slow network protocol is largely a myth. Closer to the truth is that X *can* be a slow network protocol, but with the extensions in recent versions of XFree86 and a video card with a good driver (e.g. nVidia) X can be just as fast as Windows. This month's Linux Magazine has a couple acticles about it and one claims that in some benchmarks (on a local display) X is *faster* than Windows. And last year, Tom's had an article that showed that WineX was within a couple percent of Windows, and it was emulating the Direct3D calls.

Re:Poppycock

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you sound like Ralph Wiggum.

"OpenGL is a 3D framework called OpenGL because SGI, the creators of OpenGL, wanted it to be named OpenGL and have OpenGL portable to all other operating systems that needed OpenGL. OpenGL based games use OpenGL and are ported to other systems with OpenGL on them because OpenGL is cross platform."

Re:Poppycock

[zCyl]

Tom's had an article that showed that WineX was within a couple percent of Windows, and it was emulating the Direct3D calls.

By a couple percent you mean 50?

That article shows that X has comparable speed, sometimes a percent or two slower, sometimes a percent or two faster, than Windows 2000. The article also shows that the same games running under WineX are significantly slower than under windows. It goes on further to show that the slow down is not related to a delay in displaying graphics, and thus X is doing good, it's just WineX which is providing a bit of a bottleneck. This was one year ago, WineX may have improved since then.

Re:Why?

[endofoctober]

In which case Windows 9x compatibility won't help too much...

I'm one of the users who's decided not to upgrade to XP from Win98. Reasons may vary, mine being that I loathe the strongarm tactics MS used with XP registration, but I suspect there are others out there who hang on to Win98 just to run Windows-only apps like you describe.

That being the case, Win4Lin gives us an out, although you're spot on that Win98 support is dwindling. Maybe Win4Lin and similar emulators/software bridges will give users like me an offramp from Windows upgrades in future? I'd like to think so.

Re:Why?

[IamTheRealMike]

Silly troll. I can almost guarantee you don't need Photoshop. The Gimp does all our graphics work around here, and some of it is pretty advanced.

I mean, people like to rag on the gimp, like "oh we need photoshop, we are so leeeet", but 99.9% of the time they are just ego pumping I've found.

Re:Why?

[cerberusss]

There's no Linux equivalent to Microsoft Money, for example [...] Same with Microsoft Streets&Trips

Can't help you with those.

I can't connect a Linux box to my work's VPN either -- there's no working client.

The place I work at uses the cisco vpn client. Works like a charm on Linux.

And if I managed to do so, what would I use to connect to the Exchange server to get my emails and appointments?

I use CrossOver Office. Runs Outlook alright. And office too. At the moment there is no need for me to keep a Windows partition on my company laptop.

Aweful? I doubt it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows? 95 is pretty aweful

Personally, I was never filled with awe. I think that rest of the /. crowd would think that it was awful.

Re:Why?

[kahei]

Excel.

Note for those from academic backgrounds: Excel is not just a grid of numbers :)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either that or they need to use Industry Standard (*ahem* PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign, AutoCAD, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc.) authoring software to do business with their peers!

Or, just continue to use the programs they are familiar with (*ahem* Internet Explorer, Office, WinAMP, the enormous variety of Windows software out there, etc., etc.).

Could be that non-geeks might find this useful since they will likely upgrade to Linux FROM Windows! Then they will own a copy of Windows they can install with Win4Lin and just keep right on using their Windows software (and, hopefully migrate fully to Linux someday)! Oh yeah, and of course you can dual boot, but Win4Lin boots into Windows FASTER than Windows does on its own! It's quicker than dual booting and easier because they only boot into Linux, then can access both SIMULTANEOUSLY (and Windows WONT crash Linux!).

Not outdated

[fille]

It doesn't matter that Windows 98 is a bit old. I suppose most people only need one or two Windows programs on their linux box. In that case, Windows 98 is quite stable and fast. Much faster than Windows 2000, I think. If you install a dozen of programs, Windows 98 will become sluggish and cluttered (anyway, my copy does) so Windows 2000 may be better..

Of course, it depends on what you mean by 'production environment'. If it's a nuclear plant, I wouldn't trust Windows at all. And Windows in an emulator would even be less attractive.. ;)

Re:Not outdated

[beef3k]

The point is that new software/newer versions which people currently use don't run on Win9x. This is outdated software for outdated people at best, and you're pointing out limitations yourself.

By 'production environment' I mean more or less any company that depend on one or more computers to get their work done with as little hassle as possible. Home users don't mind _too_ much if they have to dual boot - in a company reboots equal lost profits.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wine

Ah... but does it work out of the box? If it doesn't, then it's useless for an average user.

I can't remember how many hours I've tried to get it to run even essential programs like Word or Excel and they still crash. It runs Minesweeper and Notepad just fine, but getting a 3D game to work must be a true nightmare.

RedHat [redhat.com]'s Package Management System, looks just like Install Shield.

Funny how RedHat 7.3 and 8.0 graphical package manager GUI crashes if it's not able to fulfil dependencies that span several installation CDs. If a CD change is required, it will crash without any error messages.

The command line version doesn't fare much better. You have to seek all the files out yourself and install them one by one in the correct order.

Re:Why?

[autechre]

I guess I never saw the need to directly connect to my bank with GNUcash, because I track every purchase I make as soon as I make it. I don't wait to update things from my bank; maybe I'm just obsessive. But really, I can't see saving a whole operating system just for THAT, since you can do it by exporting/importing files, which must take all of 5 minutes longer, so let's move on.

Never used Streets and Trips, just the free Mapquest online. Guess I can't comment, but does it run in WINE?

Assuming you could connect to your work VPN, several companies have solutions for connecting to Exchange servers. Ximian and Bynari come to mind. One wonders why your work is using a non-standard VPN instead of something like IPSEC, but I guess you probably don't have control over that. Are you completely certain that there's nothing to connect to it? A freshmeat search is sometimes enlightening.

For games, I decided to take the money I might have spent on Windows and associated software and buy a PS2. No crashes, hardware lasts for years without being "obsolete", and has more RPGs than I can reasonably play.

DVDs? I usually watch them on a DVD player, but I don't mind using DeCSS to watch them on my computer, as I don't consider any legislation against it to be constitutional. Maybe you don't feel the same way, but is your PC really your only DVD player? True, the fan noise from my PCs is less than the aquarium/central air noise downstairs, but I can't imagine that's true for most people (who don't have a 125 gallon saltwater tank directly behind their loveseat).

I use Linux for everything, and have for years. The one Windows-only program I wanted to run worked flawlessly with WINE, no setup required. Amusingly, there was a cautionary note that users of 95/98 might need to download some extra libraries.

Re:Why?

[Thorizdin]

Hmm

I can't answer to all of your issues, but you certainly can connect a linux box to an M$ PPTP VPN.
The project is open source and sponsored by HP.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, bad workmen always blame their tools don't they?

Lourens

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

[Dcnjoe60]

You've got that all wrong! SCO licenses the technology from NetTraverse, not vice versa. It doesn't use any SCO code and you do them a disservice for claiming otherwise.

Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong!

[Jahf]

Mod the parent UP ... it is the only post that seems to make this point and this thread is the top thread when sorting by relevance.

Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO licenses the technology from NetTraverse, not vice versa. It doesn't use any SCO code

Actually, since it runs on top of System V, it's therefore a "derivitave work", and thus SCOwned.

Ha! SCO 0wnz U!

Next up, the construction company that built the roads in your town claim that they own your car.

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[James Thompson]

As a user of win4lin I have to disagree.

Would people have felt this way about SCO technology a year ago? How about two years ago? I doubt it. So now I'm to punish Netraverse for not having the ability to forsee SCO's actions years in advance even though I myself didn't?

Thanks to Netraverse's product I now have 6 GNU/Linux ternimals running KDE where windows only boxes used to set. The users are doing less and less inside windows as they find *nix equivilents that work as well, if not better, than their windows counterparts. The installs under win4lin are more stable and require less support time. The product is solid and Netraverse's techincal support staff have been nothing short of amazing in dealing with issues that have cropped up.

While I have no desire to support SCO I have even less desire to punish a company like Netraverse for something that is clearly beyond their control.

Re:Why?

[autechre]

To add to the other reply:

1. I play mostly RPGs, and I have found all I need from console systems. They are designed to play games, and they are better at it. When something along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics or Xenosaga comes out for Windows and not the PS2, then maybe I'll worry. I submit that the "average user" is likely to have a console game system, as keeping up with the hardware/software for PC games can be intimidating and costly.

2. You really picked a bad example for ripping CDs, since nothing under Windows matches the quality of cdparanoia (unless it's been ported), and there are about 8 billion CD ripping/burning/MP3&Ogg encoding programs on freshmeat. Personally, I use abcde; one command contacts CDDB (or a Free clone), rips, tags, and names all of the tracks for me. Very configurable, very easy.

As for packaging systems, when InstallShield can update 99% of the software on your system with two commands, then I'll be impressed. Under Windows, I'd need to keep track myself of when each application releases a new version, then download and install them separately, from different locations.

3. No, the Windows GUI is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to me, as I don't use it regularly. It's harder to get work done. They also change it with every release. Finally, "familiar" does not necessarily mean "easiest to use" or "best".

There ARE still things which require Windows, but they're likely to be large, specific things like AutoCAD.

Re:Why?

[MoCycleGeek]

There's no Linux equivalent to Microsoft Money, for example -- not something that can connect to my bank automatically and get statements and process transfers without having to import and export qif files. Same with Microsoft Streets&Trips -- there's simply no equivalent.

Actually there is a great equivalent to Microsoft Mondey, it's called Moneydance. It does all the that MM does and it runs on Windows, Linux, MacOS, Solaris and many other platforms. Not only that, but the data files are transfurable between platforms (Quicken doesn't do that). Take a look, I recommend it.

http://www.moneydance.com/

(BTW, I do not work for, nor do I have a personal stake in the company that makes Mondeydance, I just like the product.)

Win4Lin and SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

The question about SCO and Win4Lin/Merge came up on the Win4Lin-users mailing list recently, and there were some interesting replies:

https://www.netraverse.com:9100/lists/win4lin-user s/Message/4749.html
https://www.netraverse.com:9100/lists/win4lin-user s/Message/4750.html

Win4Lin is based on Merge technology, which as also been licensed *to* SCO. SCO has never owned any of the Merge code - the just resell it in their Unixware package.

Re:Why?

[autechre]

Indesign is hardly an "industry standard", as many publishing houses still won't deal with it. The real industry standard for publishing is, tragically, Quark XPress. If you are the type of person who thinks Windows has gone bad due to a lack of pressure to fix itself because of its monopoly position, Quark will make you feel better about your life (unless you have to use it). Even at version 5, we are told that we cannot open files directly from a fileserver; we are supposed to copy them to the local machine first, and copy them back when we are done, because Quark "was not designed to operate across a network." What year is this again? 1980? Maybe if your software DIDN'T require gobs of memory and CPU, didn't corrupt files all too frequently, and didn't crash randomly, I might put up with your backwards attitude. Ugh.

(oh, and really, XMMS is pretty much an exact clone of WinAMP).

Win4Lin isn't the only option...

[aksansai]

So while I'd love to get this up and running for The Powers that Be, until something that's even more advanced and is guaranteed to support Windows 2000 or XP only apps comes along, no endorsement here can be made.

VMWare has been providing the ability to run nearly all modern OSes that are available for x86 - the caveat is in its virtualization of computer resources which leads to a performance hit; one that Win4Lin focuses on dealing with by utilizing the existing facilities in a Linux box for its actual Windows process.

I think as of 3.0 (3.2.1/4.0 are current), VMWare has the ability to access raw internal devices (IDE/SCSI) as well as provide support for external USB devices with excellent OS-to-OS transparency. You can find out more about their Workstation software by clicking here.

Most Windows applications have no problem running under Windows 9x (especially 98+). It is true that Microsoft is phasing out applications from running on their legacy Win9x operating systems, the rest of the world is still supporting Windows 9x+ and will do so when it because unfeasible to do so within their operating budgets.

Win4Lin allows people to run Windows applications at almost native speeds (if not a wee bit faster) than a true Windows 9x system, while still allowing their systems to be stable and Linux based. Where VMWare has the ability to run modern Windows operating systems (NT based), it does so with a penalty on performance and system requirements.

I can only assume that Win4Lin is going to pursue the same type of support for NT based Windows when Windows 9x is retired from the list of eligible operating systems that can run Windows software. But for now, it will serve to bridge the gap quite nicely.

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[Lord Kholdan]

What is news and what is not should be decided according to their own merits, not because the editors have (or should have) a political axe to grind.

Unless you wish to live in an imaginary bubble where everything is just the way you want it to be, instead of hearing how things really are.

WIN4LIN DOES NOT USE SCO TECHNOLOGY!

[Dcnjoe60]

Sorry for shouting, but this is getting crazy! People are slamming NeTraverse for using SCO technology and are even calling to boycott NeTraverse. That is simply untrue. Below is a quote from Jim Curtin, the CEO of NeTraverse: "Win4Lin is not built on technology licensed from SCO. SCO licenses technology from NeTraverse as an OEM and packages the technology on their UNIX platforms under our name "Merge". We do not license anything from SCO (nor do we need to)." People should check their facts before posting accusations and calls to boycott. They (the posters) have done NeTraverse and the Slashdot community a grave diservice. Instead of boycotting Win4Lin, maybe the posters should go out and by a copy to make amends for the mis-information they've spread and the harm they've done. Dcnjoe60 NOTE: I have no affiliation, whatsoever with NeTraverse, Win4Lin, Jim Curtin or SCO. I just think the record should be set straight on this one issue.

Re:WIN4LIN DOES NOT USE SCO TECHNOLOGY!

[Dcnjoe60]

Don't know what happened to the formatting, but this should be easier to read than the original post.

Sorry for shouting, but this is getting crazy! People are slamming NeTraverse for using SCO technology and are even calling to boycott NeTraverse. That is simply untrue. Below is a quote from Jim Curtin, the CEO of NeTraverse:

"Win4Lin is not built on technology licensed from SCO. SCO licenses technology from NeTraverse as an OEM and packages the technology on their UNIX platforms under our name "Merge". We do not license anything from SCO (nor do we need to)."

People should check their facts before posting accusations and calls to boycott. They (the posters) have done NeTraverse and the Slashdot community a grave diservice. Instead of boycotting Win4Lin, maybe the posters should go out and by a copy to make amends for the mis-information they've spread and the harm they've done.

NOTE: I have no affiliation, whatsoever with NeTraverse, Win4Lin, Jim Curtin or SCO. I just think the record should be set straight on this one issue.

win4lin VS Crossover Office

[mgrennan]

Before I toss down the change. I'm use Crossover office to run NOTES and IE at the office. (RedHat 9.0 as the base)

How odes Win4Lin compaire to it?

Re:win4lin VS Crossover Office

[benjamindees]

No replies? Come on, someone has to have used both of these?

Oh, well, here's a quote attributed to Romans Chapter 1, verse 27:

Likewise also the users, leaving the natural use of the computer, burned in their lust for Windows, even Windows on Linux, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was hangs, blue screens, and crashes.

Re:win4lin VS Crossover Office

[mgrennan]

So I purchased it. And so far I'm very un-satisfied.

Big probem! - It requires a network connection (witch I have) and validates your info (email address) as a requirement for the network install. I've sniffed the protocol (https and ftp) and don' see any connection probelms.

The installer connects but refuses to install! They don't provide phone support and they answer their email very slowly.

This companie requiers to much intelechual propertiy security to be worth it. I think they may be spy for Microsoft or something.

Watch for updates.

a PATCH, not a binary module

[steveha]

You are mistaken!

Win4Lin's kernel patches are not binary only, they are patches. Debian isn't supported, officially, but it works; I have two computers running Debian with Win4Lin working on them.

You apply two patches: the "MKI adaptor" patch, which just adds a new interface to the kernel, and the Win4Lin kernel patch. I just built a 2.4.21 kernel last night with the 2.4.21 version of the Win4Lin kernel patch. No problems.

The only regrettable part with Win4Lin: it doesn't work with kernel preemption, or with the low-latency patches. I hate it when my Ogg music skips on playback, so I always ran the low-latency patches before I got Win4Lin. Now I can't.

If you want to build a custom kernel with Win4Lin support, go ahead and do it. As long as you don't have preemption or low-latency it should work.

I look forward to kernel 2.6.x, as I'm sure Win4Lin will be made to work with it (Netraverse does a good job of customer support) and 2.6.x will have huge improvements with respect to latency.

steveha

Re:Why?

[brakk]

My only DVD player is in my computer.

But, consider that I live in a one bedroom apartment and my monitor is as close to the couch as the TV... and is bigger than the TV... and my computer has a better sound system... and I download most of my movies and only own a few DVDs.

Re:Why?

[DavidTC]

Anyone who say Windows has better burning applications is full of shit.

It cost money, or you have to use a POS shareware program with nags, to burn and manage ISOs under anything older than XP.

Whereas under Linux you just stick the stuff in a directory, run mkisofs on the directory, and run a program I can't think of the name of to put it on a CD.

You know, it's amazingly lame that Windows goes around including the kitchen sink, but doesn't do stuff OSes actually should do, like manage file systems like ISOs, and devices like CD burners. Device access and filesystem access are actually what OSes should do.

And, yes, I'm aware XP finally got CD burning tools.

Also, I'm not aware of how Linux's CD ripping tools are lacking. I remember having no problems at all with a crappy CD several years ago. Whereas I remember having to download shareware stuff for Windows. And yes, I know that Windows Media Player can now rip CDs, so basically I'd consider them about equal now. (Despite the silliness of having an MP3 encoder with the OS and no CD writer.)

.torrent maybe?

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehehe

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

No UDF in Linux.

NOT TRUE

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks,

Win4Lin is not built on technology licensed from SCO. SCO licenses technology from NeTraverse as an OEM and packages the technology on their UNIX platforms under our name "Merge". We do not license anything from SCO (nor do we need to). From time to time we have used wording on our web site and in our literature that is accurate but perhaps on a quick read might be misconstrued. The comment "Win4Lin Terminal Server 2.0 is derived from proven technologies developed for Unix® based operating systems over the last 15 years, most notably those of SCO® (Caldera®), under the product name of Merge(tm)" is meant to convey that our technology has been in use on SCO variants of UNIX for some time - not that it is based on SCO technology. SCO Merge (or Sun Merge, or whatever Merge) is our product.

Rather than try and clarify the language on our web site, we will be taking it off ;-)

I hope this clears up the misinformation.

Jim Curtin

CEO NeTraverse

Re:NOT TRUE

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop reading slashdot, slacker!
Your board members are watching you...

Re:NOT TRUE

[datan]

that was pasted from the netraverse mailing list ...

MOD PARENT UP

[ChrisCampbell47]

and get that +5 grandparent back down ...

That's why power users use VMware

[Anonymous Coward]

VMware works much better than Win4Lin. It's costs more but it's worth it.

VMware runs any Windows flavour, plus a bunch of other OS's (Linux, *BSD's, etc.).

Re:That's why power users use VMware

[letxa2000]

VMware works much better than Win4Lin. It's costs more but it's worth it.

Depends what you want to do. Win4Lin blows VMWare away in terms of speed. If you truly need to emulate your computer at the hardware level and need to be able to test stuff under multiple OSs, VMWare makes sense. If, however, you just need to run some Windows apps reliably then Win4Lin is the best choice. There is no comparison when it comes to speed.

Win4Lin runs my Windows applications (QuickBooks, Word, VB and VC++, etc.) *FASTER* under Win4Lin+Win98 than WinXP did on the same exact computer. I.e., my Windows apps run faster now that I use Linux+Win4Lin instead of WinXP.

Before purchasing Win4Lin I also evaluated VMWare and decided that for my needs Win4Lin made more sense. And was cheaper, too.

Would If I Could But I Can't

[__aamkky7574]

In my ongoing attempt to Learn to Love Linux, I tried installing Cygwin at home on my Windows XP. It crashed. No doubt this is due to some trojan planted by Bill the Gates in order to keep me from Linux rather than just a, uh, crap installer.

P.

Re:Would If I Could But I Can't

[drinkypoo]

Cygwin really has nothing to do with Linux. They bill it as a linux-like environment but it is instead a POSIX-like environment.

Re:Would If I Could But I Can't

[benjamindees]

Absolutely true. Cygwin has more in common with Windows than with Linux. Use Knoppix instead.

No it can't

[Cthefuture]

But Bochs can (very slowly, but still).

I love VMware by the way. It's one truely useful tool.

here's a link

[ChrisCampbell47]

http://216.239.41.100/search?q=cache:UIxZ_jqTcxgJ: www.mail-archive.com/gnhlug-discuss%40mail.gnhlug. org/msg03722.html+win4lin+merge+sco&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Could you do this little by little?

[MickLinux]

I'm just wondering: Couldn't you push Linux for the things that Linux is good for? Get two or three machines for starters, just running the servers?

Then get one to two for work, and on those put Win4Lin. Argue that as a supplement, it's better. Then when someone wants to be using MS Word, they'll think "Fast or slow? I'll pick fast."

Next, start pushing hiring decisions in favor of those who know how to use and program Linux, where their spare time could be used to help script and such.

Doing it this way, you could argue that the company depends less on any one system, and is more resilient for surprise customer requests.

Re:Other way around (KNOPPIX)

[jetmarc]

> How about running Linux on Windows?

Here it is:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Zealot go home!

[Anonymous Coward]

"This product uses SCOde"

Umm, I'm sure you realize of course that this is old SCO we're talking aobut for the original code... New SCO group doesn't look to me as being seriously interested in creating anything other than work for lawyers. But in any case NeTraverse licensed and paid for the code prior to all this occuring, advocating punishing them for things that are completely out of their control is wrong! Not only that, it is short-sighted. Irresponsible zealots, think about this: Netraverse could have come forward and did a MS. "Look, we respect IP, we paid for blah blah blah..." So, my short-sighted zealot, you want to give them a reason to provide bad press?

"and isn't suited for true Linux enthusiasts."

Which you sir most certainly are not. Isn't linux supposed to be about freedom of choice? Oh wait, or is that only so long as you don''t decide of your own free will to use commercial software? Or so long as yopu only use zealot-approved software?

Get real, your position is no more tenable than Microsoft's position. Open Source is not the one true way. Closed Source is not the one true way. They are polar extremes, and as in reality (the one the rest of us live in and my zealot friend denies) the real answer lies somewhere in the middle. Where in the middle is a function of who you are and what you want to accomplish. It is not a moral deficiency to use commercial software to accomplish a task. Further, using freeware to accomplish a task in preference to commercial software better capable of accomplishing the task is not moral, it is stupid, short-sighted, and counter-productive.

Allthough I use Linux for 90% of my computinbg tasks, I recognize that the other 10% my computing time is better handled by other platforms. On my linux servers are a variety of free and commercial products. Again, I use the best tool for me to accomplish the required work in the least time, with the least aggravation.

I am sick and tired of the Linux zealots though, Linux is not for everyone, it is not God's own operating system. The world doesn't need a Society of Linus (Linuits?) running around putting everyone who doesn't accept their perceived moral superiority to fire and sword.

Please be responsible in your advocacy.

Re:Zealot go home!

[rc.loco]

You sound like a very reasonable and practical person. Tell me this: if it came to light that a company whose products you typically relied upon was in fact determined to be guilty of a crime, would you stop patronizing that company? What about if the crime directly involved the use of their products?

Many of us "zealots" believe in NOT supporting criminal behavior. In this case, that means I do not purchase, use or encourage the use of any products of Microsoft Corporation. It has been 6 years and it has not been easy but definitely worth the effort. I sleep pretty well knowing that I haven't contributed to the benefit of the fudlicious Redmond juggernaut in a long time.

Win95 still used here

[psgalbraith]

Although a migration to XP is planned for sometime this year, Windows 95 is used here at the Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans, Govt. of Canada.

(I use GNU/Linux and have Win4Lin installed for the occasional corporate Word file.)

Re:I fail to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish people would stop saying this is something to do with SCO. Paranoia, mob-mentality, hysteria. SCO's only involvement here is that they license the technology from NeTraverse and sell it on their UNIX platforms under the NeTraverse name "Merge".

Kernel Modifications

[4pksings]

I have Win4Lin and will no longer use it.
The Kernel modifications necessary to run it are too much to keep up with. Everytime you upgrade you have to either wait on them to build a kernel or patch the kernel yourself. And they do not come out with new patches quickly. And they only seem to support the kernel that ships with your linux distribution.

It's a shame that they seem either not able to or refuse to incorporate their patch in the kernel. If they did then this would be a very cool package. As is, it works fine, just locks you into the shipping kernel or a home patched kernel to use it everytime you upgrade.

Re:Kernel Modifications

[davros74]

The required kernel modifications are not as difficult as you make them seem to be. Granted, I will agree with you that they are slow in releasing patches, but the patch itself is actually quite small.

First, there is the mki-adapter patch, and since it is fairly orthogonal to the kernel (adds non-existing functionality), it will have almost no chance of colliding with anything during a patch. The kernel patch itself can usually be applied to a fairly close kernel number, or with very few changes (if you know how diff/patch work). Since it deals with the memory management/paging, if there wasn't a major difference between the kernel you are compiling and the patch version, the patch will probably succeed. I'm using the 2.4.20 Win4Lin kernel patches with the 2.4.21 kernel right now, and it works okay.

Now, 2.5.x kernels? Well, really. Can you expect them to have patches for a development version of the kernel? Especially when it so closely connected to memory management? Since most customers of Win4Lin are probably in a SOHO or production environment, I'm not sure how many people are clamoring for 2.5.x patches from Netraverse. I'd say that if you want to run Win4Lin you have to live with a stock 2.4.x kernel. That's acceptable, i think. You can always have more than one kernel (dual-boot kernels!)

NeTraverse DOES supply vanilla patches for the stock linux kernels that you can download from ftp.kernel.org. You do not have to use their prebuilt RedHat/Debian/WhatEver kernels. I'm using a plain vanilla 2.4.21 kernel on RedHat 7.3.

But yes, if you are a 2.5.x user, you'll have to skip on Win4Lin. It's a little hard to ask them to support a moving target that the 2.5.x series kernels are. I wouldn't use 2.5.x in a production environment anyway.

Want Linux power in Windows?

[aliens]

Simple, X/Cygwin in rootless mode ssh -X over to a spare old box, start up your lil window manager (I like fluxbox) and boom! Linux on Windows.

(Don't start a 3D game while having an X/Cygwin session open though, you'll lose it for some reason, at least under XP)

Re:Why?

[_xeno_]

The GIMP does suck. It has an interface where the main toolbar is separate from the individual windows, where most of the feature set is only accessible through a "right-click menu" (sucks to be a Mac user, I guess), where the dialogs are normal "windows" and interfere with normal window flow (yay, I just started the Gimp and now have 5 windows in my task list!), where...

(Oh, and for the cheap shot, Scheme?! It's a graphics program! Er, anyway.)

Basically, the GIMP interface sucks, sucks, SUCKS!

The GIMP is very powerful and can probably compete with Photoshop based on the feature-set, but damn does its interface suck. I keep on thinking about writing a new interface that doesn't suck, but I just haven't had the time or inclination to really try. Maybe GIMP 2.0 will be better in this respect. GIMP 1.2's interface is a joke.

With all due respect to the developers :)

To try and bring in some constructive critism, here are some things to do for a new interface:

• Dock the various windows to individual images. They're important! People need to be able to maximize the GIMP window and not cover up the GIMP controls.
• Add a real menu to the image windows. Make it basically the right-click menu, but keep the feature set.
• Add the standard toolbar icons to the existing toolbar: New, Open, Save | Cut, Copy, Paste | (existing buttons)
• Make the toolbar customizable: there are some features people may want more than others.
• Use color toolbar icons. People distinguish icons by both shape and color. Leaving them all black-and-white makes it harder to see the individual icons.
• Split the "rotation/scaling/shearing/perspective" tool into separate tools. Yes, all four are matrix transforms. But when someone thinks "I want to rotate this" they don't think "matrix transform" they think "rotate tool."
• Don't have separate "tool command" dialogs when there already exists a "tool option" dialog. When choosing afore-mentioned tool, the way to change between the four options is through the "options" dialog, but the "command" dialog pops up and makes things confusing.

I'm sure there are other things, but this is a brief list to change this from a troll to critism :)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excel.

LOL

"Oh, I can't use Linux! Nobody's made a free spreadsheet program yet! The humanity!"

You need to get out more.

Re:Why?

[DA_MAN_DA_MYTH]

There's no Linux equivalent to Microsoft Money

Your right but GnuCash is pretty darn close... It now supports OFX imports, and the great thing about GnuCash... You don't have to pay for upgrades, as soon as there is an open source tax software, or plugin I think it will be better.

Same with Microsoft Streets&Trips -- there's simply no equivalent.

Use mapquest. No I am just kidding on that one, I don't know if there is an equivelant. That software came with your laptop / computer didn't it?

I can't connect a Linux box to my work's VPN either -- there's no working client.

We use Cisco VPN's they have a client for linux, the funny thing is that you can find them almost anywhere, especially around university's... Your work's configuration might be different, but there usually is good docs that you can follow For Example.

And if I managed to do so, what would I use to connect to the Exchange server to get my emails and appointments?

Ximian's Evolution is very outlook like, and Ximian Connector works with Exchange, I wouldn't say flawlessly, due to speed issues that I seem to be having, it looks like it connects to the Exchange server over port 80 but I could be wrong, however it works, to manage appointments, contacts, global contacts, and mail.

Linux games are few and far between, especially 3D games.
Oh, and watching DVDs? (Legally, that is)

Oh so watching DVD's on any Lindows box is illegal? And most of the extremely popular FPS games have a native linux port and if not come pretty darn close from WineX (I play WCIII on Redhat 7.1, can't play any Half Life game though)

What sucks is even though this is a rebuttle I agree whole heartedly. That is why open formats are so important, it allows consumers choices. The more consumers that make companies realize that they want open standards, the better it is for all of us.

You know why..

[msimm]

Because sometimes you need a 98 app and its convenient/better to use it under Linux. Like say web development with Dream Weaver or checking compatibility with Internet Explorer. There are numerous reasons.

I think a better question would be whatâ(TM)s with that OSX spellcheck?

I switched to osx from linux 2 weeks ago, and it is wonderfult o be abel to use..

;-)

& until there's a Linux equivalent to M$ Excha

[Anonymous Coward]

Windoze will be around.
There are too many folks hooked on Outlook & its kin.

Asumed Cleverness.

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably more like Ne-tra-verse.

They probably think it's a terrible clever name.

Re:Why?

[DavidTC]

Yes, that UDF support sucks, but isn't really relevant to the point at hand, which was disputing the claim that Windows had better burners and rippers than Linux.

And Linux does have UDF support, it's just not in the standard kernel. So I'd call it about 50% support, it's about as working as CD-ROM burning is under ME...you need to go get tools to use it.

I am so sold on this!

[getnuked]

I was using vmware, however it is so bloated and slow, not to mention the multi-hundred dollar US price tag (even for upgrades) that I am very happy there is a solution like win4lin!

To all of those claiming to be geeks (you are reading /. aren't you? ;) stop complaining about patching your kernels! Wow, I can't believe that Linux has become so popular that average pee-cee users are now using Linux (what other explanation is there for someone to complain about patching a kernel!). First there are binary packages for most distros, yet there is also source if you are a) using another distro, or b) too cool to not install from source. If you haven't YET compiled the kernel (or any other application for that matter) from source go back to native winblows or get a 'pretty' mac (isn't it cute)! ;)

Re:Why promote SCO now??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like this: LINK TEXT GOES HERE

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereas under Linux you just stick the stuff in a directory, run mkisofs on the directory, and run a program I can't think of the name of to put it on a CD.

Uhhuh?

# mkisofs -J -r -V Session2 -C `cdrecord dev=0,0 -msinfo` -M 0,0 /path/to/back/up | cdrecord dev=0,0 -v -eject speed=8 fs=16m -multi -

Is it any wonder that an average user will never want to burn CDs on Linux (which, I admit, is less prone to produce dead discs)? Perhaps, if the burning process were integrated into the system file manager it could work: drag, drop and click on "burn".

Lazy boy!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are on the wrong OS, slothful one. Go get a Macintosh.

I still have the same question...

[talks_to_birds]

...I first had.

"...so that one can run Windows 9x (95/98/Me) inside GNU/Linux..."

Why in god's name would you ever want to?

t_t_b

Re:I still have the same question...

[ChrisMaple]

To run hardware and software that doesn't run properly or at all under Linux, that's why.

I'm hoping for good performance with my Samsung QL85G laser printer, and Matrox PC-Remote.

I'd love to run Photoshop and LViewPro under Linux, too. And my WinModem.

Excellent Point

[Anonymous Coward]

The WordPerfect for Linux sucks. I havn't figured out how to get WP for Windows running on WINE yet but I'm close. I can install it OK, but when I try to run it, it suggests I register OLE2.reg which doesn't seem to exist. I did an install of dcom98 but that has seemed to work. I've been using WP since 4.2 and I won't switch to another wordprocessor until it supports all of the features I use and can import/export WP files. OpenOffice still has a way to go (and runs like a three legged pig).

VNC?

[bobintetley]

I personally use WineX for old Windows games, but stick to native Linux for newer ones - anything that isn't native I simply don't buy (I choose to vote with my wallet).

As for needing Windows, unfortunately, as a programmer I frequently get paid for writing software for Windows (you can only eat so much pride before you need some real food) - all I did was buy a crap low end box (P3 733, 256Mb RAM - cost me about £150), install Windows 2000 on it, run it headless with VNC and just control it remotely from Linux - perfect and all with free, open source software! (obviously excepting the Micro$oft bit but Win4Lin doesn't take away the need for that, does it?)

Win4Lin still sounds like a decent product - it just wouldn't suit me. My way, I keep the actual physical touching of a filthy Windows box to a minimum :)))

Re:VNC?

[Anonymous Coward]

What possibly quality could you impart on a Windows product with such an emotionally biased viewpoint?

Are you the reason ATI can't write a decent video driver? Thanks a lot!

Advice to you, I would never recommend anyone for hire that ever expressed to me that they "hated" any OS or hardware architecture. Viceral response to technical problems is completely unacceptable in the real world.
FYI.

Re:VNC?

[DrPascal]

While I am not knocking your idea of the computer with VNC, I can't see how this is a better choice than Win4Lin if you are just running an application. If you need to debug specifically against Win2K or need to write an NT Service, then definitely, but if it's just an application, why bother to have two machines sucking up your electricity?

You'd be considerably further than any "filthy Windows box" if you didn't have one in your house, and instead allowed Win4Lin to house your Windows apps. I mean, you -are- running Windows-in-a-window as it is (with VNC). At least this way you have local access to the files (no SMB needed), one machine to backup, less need for room in the office, less electricity, not to mention that Win4Lin is cheaper than the windows box (no matter how cheap it was).

Like I said already, your setup sounds like it works great, but I can't see how it wouldn't suit you based on your explanation of what you do.

*Only* windows?

[42forty-two42]

Or can I run Plan 9 or something in it?

Well...

[Mensa Babe]

Win4Lin and VMware don't have 3d support - so most games are out.

Really? I was sure they have, at least VMware. Is there any reason they shouldn't support 3-D?

Lindows is just a linux distribution.

Lindows is not "just a Linux distribution." It is meant to be a cheap Windows substitution. Most of the people without technical knowledge are sure that Lindows runs everything which is written for Windows. We all know how it is in practice, but most of people don't.

Wine runs a few windows games on linux - but not many, and isn't a solution for most games.

Have you seen this list? I would say that 150 screenfuls of games is quite impressive, in my opinion.

You are probably right.

[Mensa Babe]

You are probably right. I sometimes get a little bit paranoid, wondering if Wine might be a Microsoft conspiracy just to say to game developers: "Do you want your games to be portable? Then use DirectX and Win32 API!" You know what I mean... I'm just worried about Steve's and Bill's evil laughter while they think about us emulating their APIs, supporting their file formats, and otherwise getting dependent on them. But I'm probably wrong. Or at the very least I do really hope so...

I have to protest

[Mensa Babe]

Dumbass must work for microsoft or something, trying to convince people we shouldn't have games on linux.

I don't know what I find the most insulting: that you said I am dumb, that you called me an "ass," or that you suggested I might work for Microsoft. Do you think I would advertise GNU on my user informations page, if I worked for Microsoft? I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I don't even use proprietary software and I find it offensive, that you are implying I have no moral standards suggesting, that I could write such a software.

For the first time

[Mensa Babe]

I have to agree with you. Humans are indeed animals. I doubt they will ever learn...

Re:For the first time

[p2sam]

we, not they.

Of course

[Mensa Babe]

But you have to admit, that we are a little bit more intelligent, than they are.

Re:Of course

[p2sam]

I will admit no such thing.

And the answer is....

[fireboy1919]

...because they can work quickly.

Win4Lin is much faster than the other emulation layers. On my machine it runs faster than native Windows ever did. Also, you should keep in mind that the maximum amount of memory that Win4lin will allow is 128MB.

Even if this wasn't the case, the memory space for Windows programs is separate for the one for Linux, so it pays to have an OS that is slim. Win2k and XP AREN'T that. Windows 2000 and XP are arguably the best, but because of stability, not performance. In this case, the underlying OS can be stable.

Is it crashes you're worried about? It doesn't seem like as much of an issue when a "reboot" takes three seconds.

I just wish they'd do message passing between DirectX and DRI. Right now Win4Lin 5.0 has directX, but it's software based. I'm sure they're saving that for version 5.0 so that they can make more money.

Did you expect 24h turnaround for $50?

[Yahnz]

Get real - Netraverse keeps up rather well - you just need to check your expectations a bit.

I found that in general you can expect the newest kernel patch to be supported within a few weeks...
What did you expect for your $50 licence?

There is a tradeoff here, like with anything in life - get used to it, or pay them for faster turnaround - I'm sure they'd love to have those patches out the next day!

Jan

Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, SQL Server client...

[Yahnz]

Try getting these to run under Linux. Good luck.

When it comes right down to it, you can run VMWare or Win4Lin. No other choice is really viable now.

With Win4Lin & Samba I can run Linux on a corporate network, and not lose out on anything! When I need to do a PPT presentation - no problem, run Win4Lin full screen and you're good to go. My laptop gets an extra ~30 minutes of runtime under Linux, I get to use a sane development environment, and my co-workers don't have to worry about OpenOffice files getting garbled.

This isn't for servers, and this isn't for most end-users. This is for developers.

Jan

I bought it myself

[DrPascal]

I was a huge fan of Win4Lin 3.0, and I thought it was well worth the money. Over the course of time, I got frustrated with it because of a few problems I had with the printer port (probably my error, not W4L3), and Winsock2 based apps (like Kazaa Lite, etc). I didn't want to use Vnet and have a second IP in use.

Netraverse sent me an email with the $29.99 upgrade price, and I jumped on it once I saw the Winsock2 upgrade stuff. I wanted to note that for some reason, I had to uninstall Win4Lin 3.0 because it kept complaining that the code (Netraverse GAVE me) wasn't an "upgrade code", but a "full install" code.

I installed it fresh, and 'lo and behold, my printer worked flawlessly, and Kazaa Lite no longer hangs for indefinite amounts of time. It's just really fast and stable, and a nice thing to have in a time of need.

Nowadays though, I don't really run it that often. Its there in case I need to print something a boss sends in Office (that must LOOK IDENTICAL on the printed page, something OO can't mimic right), or for Kazaa or Photoshop (its what I am used to from school).

Bottom Line: Win4Lin 5.0 is the best route for perfect compatibility and speed of Win32 applications. I use WineX for the games (Diablo II in incredible with it!)

Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a cow

Re:I fail to understand

[TrancePhreak]

If a GUI cannot be copywrited, then why was Apple allowed to sue (and win) people over Aqua like Window Blinds themes.

Dear Mr. Jim Curtin...

[jkrise]

I guess my pointing out the SCO reference has helped your firm in that you've re-worded the page (sensibly, I might add). A casual reader is still left with the impression that your product uses (proprietary?, copyright? patented? trade secret?) System V code, currently being brandished as a weapon by SCO.

May I suggest you remove all Unix references from your technology page? BTW, seeing you don't license anything from SCO, do you have unbridled access to SysV code? A certain Eric Raymond might like to hear from you.

Thank you.

PS (to moderators): I see my parent post is modded down to -1 (Insightful). If it's modded back to +5, readers are bound to benefit when they read these clarifications - thanks.

Re:Why?

[linuxkrn]

Yes, Wine runs SOF2 out of the box, it's OpenGL game so yes it's 3D. Also, please get with the times. RH9 came out a while ago, nothing wrong with the package manager in it. Maybe you should run up2date and upgrade the older systems? You're sure right, the cli is very hard. You have to put the CD in and cd to the directory. Guess if that is too much for you stick to the GUI or windows.

Re:Why?

[DavidTC]

Well, yes, you can always put a bunch of pointless command line options and make it look complicated.

In reality, you can just use the defaults, which work perfectly fine for burning already existing ISOs, or generating simple 'CDs with a bunch of files on it', or you can just grab one of the tools designed to figure all that out.

Re:specific dates that Windows versions are obsole

[hozzies]

According to the link you provided, "Extended hotfix support ends 30-Jun-2003. After 16-Jan-2004, the product will be obsolete and no support of any kind will be provided." You still have a few months...