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Windows Compatability on the Linux Desktop

Posted by michael on from the avoiding-temptation dept.

davecb writes "O'Reilly has been kind enough to publish one of my how-to articles, Windows Compatability for the Linux Desktop, about dealing with that 'one last annoying program than only runs on Windows'. The answer? Run it under Linux and win4lin, and never venture onto the Windows desktop at all. Especially don't run programs via dual-boot, which tempts you to stay and use all those other wonderful programs like Outlook...

1 of 626 comments (clear)

  1. Heh. Not until games are 100% under windows by carrus85 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    While I may be a programmer, I'm really into games. Linux is great; don't get me wrong. There are 100x more things you can do under linux. But until someone can implement all of my favorite games on linux, and make them work on linux, I'm kinda stuck with windows. Also, I happen to have some ATI video cards, some of which don't have the best linux support. So, I'm kinda stuck. MAKE BETTER DRIVERS FOR LINUX, ATI!!! Although, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible just to write dll replacements or something, and whenever a windows program refrences a dll, you refrence the equivalent library on your linux box. I mean, you could just write a simple DirectX dll translator that takes all directX calls and translates them directly to the equivalant linux command. True, this approach would require a lot in the way of reverse engineering (if we don't want copyright infringement to kick in) and a lot in the way of work (I mean, how many different versions of dll's are there out there? Seriously, it is rediculous).