Slashdot Mirror
Windows Compatability on the Linux Desktop
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...
Run it under Linux and win4lin, and never venture onto the Windows desktop at all.
Except, like, every time you run a windows application through win4lin. win4lin is just a virtual machine! You still need to install an authentic copy of Microsoft Windows on your machine. Although there is a big usability difference, there is not philisophical difference, as the summary seems to imply.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I've been playing around with several different solutions for this. Personally I have no need for any of them except when coding microcontrollers at my robotic's competition once a year or so, in which case I just use some makefiles that act as the interface and run the compiler with wine for me. It worked totally fine.
Other than wine however, QEmu (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/) is a nice speed driven emulator that will do full on emulation of a system. It recently became able to emulate a system well enough to install and use all versions of windows up through XP. Quite a neat thing actually. It's much faster than boches, which I've also tried, and it has a fairly complete feature set. (Though obviously is for a slightly different purpose than boches, as boches is being mostly used as an operating system development tool now.)
Wine, WineX and Crossover all also work for even faster results but of course don't emulate the entire system. The apps integrate better of course though, due to the fact that wine will go ahead and put it on your desktop for you so you don't have to know the difference.
I touch computers in naughty places
I'm not trying to start a big flame war here but my killer Windows app is Visual Studio.NET 2003. If Microsoft put half as much work into their OS as there is in Visual Studio the computer usability world would be a much better place. And if there was a Linux app that had comparable features I would switch over completely in a second (even if I had to pay for it).
Chaos will always win out over order because chaos is more organized
WINE wouldn't support MS Project, which was specifically what the author was trying to run.
licet differant, aequabitur
And yes, Linux is ready for the desktop. I switched my own firm PC to Debian/testing last October and I use it for the daily work stuff without any problems. Even being a small island in a Windows-focussed infrastructure doesn't give much trouble.
The trick is not to try to be a 100% compatible to Windows. No, I rather prefer to be compatible to open standards and so I'm sharing my documents not in *.DOC files but in *.PDF and originally they are written with LaTeX. You can't convince a bean counter that switching makes sense if you just want to do the things the same way like before, because then nobody sees some "added value". If you do things different and even more successful then people start to think about the why...
I don't think they are talking about this kind of software.
Some company release their software only for Windows, and if you really need this software and nothing exist to replace it, it can be a good solution before they release a Linux version (or someone else do).
wtf.n0x.org
The reason people still use Outlook, is multiple.
It syncs with most things, no lets rephrase that, most things sync with it. Phones, pda's etc, all will come with some way on syncing with outlook. Until all the Ximian's etc, can say the same, people will want to use Outlook. The other reason is group calendaring, there are alternatives to Exchange, but getting big corporates to move to them, is another matter. Getting small company's who already have a license for exchange 2000, to move to xxx product, which is going to cost them money, and can't be shown easily to offer real world benfits, is REALLY difficult.
Same with Project, same with Visio, same with SolarWinds Engineers tool kit, now I'd love open source versions of these, especially the last (and no, nmap and mrtg don't quite do the same) then I can use FreeBSD or Linux 100% of the time.
The solution that I introduced to the company I work for a few years ago was to run an old box with Windows 2000 Server on it as a terminal server. We had a guy running VMWare and putting up with trying to get it to work again with every kernel update and this eliminated all the hassle.
I'm sure there are commercial terminal services clients for Linux, but we run rdesktop. Since we started using it rdesktop has included support for RDP5 which supports 16 bit colour, so with a Windows 2003 server ( we have upgraded ) you get a reasonably nice looking windows desktop. Audio seems to go mostly too, not that its needed for a couple of minutes worth of checking some html renders in IE or talking someone through how to setup outlook express.
If a windows only accounts package or similar is keeping you from running Linux on your desktop this could be a good solution, the only negative is possibly the Windows server licensing is a bit steep for some situations.
I am a lawyer and this constitutes legal advice and I shall indemnify you against any losses arising from taking it.
Without attempting to go off on a Stallman-esque rant, "proprietary" and "free as in speech" are contradictions in terms. The software *is* "free as in beer", but without the source code and permission to modify and redistribute it, it cannot be considered to be free software.
Yeah, linux is very fashionable for the technological elite to use, but what actual benefits do you get from using it as a Windows replacement.
Freedom. People like to talk about technology but forget why the whole thing started.
I'll try to answer this from my own experience:
1. Is it really more stable? Sure has been for me (though I don't run XP... I've got a bit of a beef with their "Product Activation," since I change out hardware almost as often as I change my socks).
2. More secure? Oh yes... I'd say definitely fewer attacks. You can argue whether there's a selection bias with the number of windows systems out there, but the vast numbers of attacks/viruses/worms still stands. Besides, even if some 1337 linux worm comes along and compromises your unpriviliged user account, so what?
3. Aggravation? What aggravation? I've got a bunch of neighbors, friends, and family members running redhat and mandrake linux. Setup these days is no problem... and once installed and configured, you don't have to do too terribly much.
I don't think linux is perfect for everyone either... but the look of wonder on a win98 or winME user's face once they start using a nice KDE desktop under Mandrake warms my heart, particularly once they find out that they don't have to sweat the lastest windows Worm-du-jour.
After I've rescued/recovered someone's hosed windows system a few times, they always ask me what I use. I hand them a knoppix CD, tell them to try it out for a few days, and let me know if they're interested. You'd be surprised what an eye-opening experience that is for many windows users...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Your post seems thoughtful, so I'd like to give you a point by point response.
Windows certainly has gotten faster and more stable, to the point where its just installed performance is no longer an issue. However, under use by normal users, it seems to pick up a variety of little applications, which eventually interact poorly. The registry is not your friend. The response is to lock down XP sufficiently so that users can't install anything, but I wonder what other problems this would incur. It certainly wouldn't work well in most home environments.
Linux is only fashionable in Linux friendly circles, like Slashdot. People who have choosen other OSes usually think you're weird for choosing something else. I also use XP Pro, not for my primary system, but so that I can gain familiarity with it, to better support my clients. I prefer Linux for several reasons, including:
*) Apps are easier to install (config && make && make install) and easier to obtain in that I can always download the app I need, for instant gratification.
*) Better logging when things go wrong. When Windows apps fail, I frequently get no error message, or a useless one. Not long ago I had problems with a sound card in Windows. It was in Device Manager, it was in the list of sound cards in the Multimedia config panel, but when I went to the pick list in the Multimedia panel to choose it as the device to output sound to, it didn't appear. Huh? In Linux, at the absolute worst, I can use sh -x and strace to find, at a very low level exactly what is going on. This shows me what I need to know to fix the issue suprisingly frequently, as I'm not a systems programmer.
*) Superior flexibility. There are many small tools that do one thing well. I can glue them together in spontaneous shell scripts to extract information from large numbers of files. Recently, I attempted to help a coleague to do a similar analysis on information contained in Word files. No similar solution was found. Lots of nuisance manipulation by hand. I prefer to make the computer do the mindless work.
*) Text file-centric configuration. A simple SSH session (from my T-Mobile Sidekick, a great sysadmin tool!) can configure nearly any app, and run most of them. Also, since I can grep/sed/awk I can mangle them with easily. If I'm really stuck for where a config option is, I can grep the entire file system. It's not a great option as it takes a long time, but when other options fail, it's there. I can't grep config dialogs in Windows.
*) Support. Suprised? Don't be. Does Microsoft even offer "free" support with a purchase? When I do call support, I get the annoying level 1 tech that is employed to keep the idiots away from the techs who know something. Depending on their training, I may or may not get passed to level 2 quickly. When I post to the mailing list for a given app, the developer and several people who have dealt with the same issue usually see it almost immediately, and give me the help I need, immediately.
*) Simplicity. I never have registry problems under Linux. Uninstalling an app is a simple matter of deleting the files. I don't have the sort of application interaction issues I see in Windows.
*) Security. Yes, it really is more secure. There have been viruses for UNIX, but they have not propigated well. There are technical reasons for this, and at least a couple of papers written about it. Google is your friend. Patches come out more quickly. Common client apps tend to have fewer issues, and do fewer things on behalf of the user without consulting them.
*) Freedom. Can't underestimate this one. It's just nice to really own my system.
To your numbered points:
1) Yes. No BSoD so far, but I've seen XP lock cold and less dramatic failures. Yes. Yes. Yes.
2) It is really more secure, see above. It is more secure considering only the core system, not to include apps. It is also more secure considering apps. Considering system secur