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Playing Nice: Reviews of CrossOver Office, WineX 4
JimLynch writes "One of the more common questions experienced Linux users get asked by those considering migrating from Windows to Linux is, "Will my Windows applications run under Linux?" Thanks to the folks at CodeWeavers, the answer to that is yes--for some applications, anyway." And Dan Dole writes "Linuxlookup.com staff member Rich reviews Cedega (WineX 4.0), give it a 20/20 score & Editors Choice Award.
"The release of Transgaming's newest version of WineX, renamed Cedega, was met with considerable enthusiasm and interest in the Linux community last week. So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release. Cedega is claimed to be much improved, offering the ability to play recent games released for Windows "seamlessly and transparently" under Linux. They provided me with a copy, and I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype.""
... and now cedega. Gotta say, it's pretty painless on gentoo.
/usr/portage/distfiles, ran the emerge, then done.
:D
Per the ebuild instructions, I registered w/ transgaming, ponied up my 20 bucks (or whatever), downloaded the file, copied it into
I was playing American McGee's Alice 20 minutes after starting my first "run a Windows(tm) game on linux" adventure. Even impressed the Mrs.
1) They don't accept debit cards & thats all I have.
;)
2) They don't charge in . I'm sure my bank will charge me extra, for converting to a foreign currency.
Tell then I'm stuck with normal wine & half-life....well thats not too bad
Pick an application and you can get a more definate answer.
So you are a troll, and with qualifiers, the answer is yes.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
There's no reason for any software distributor to run away from Linux (with the exception of those in the OS market). Though Linux still represents a small portion of the desktop market, small enough that software companies wouldn't go out of their way to make their programs compatible, I also don't see any good economic reason why they would go out of their way to prevent use of their software on Linux. If Windows represents 80% of desktops and *nix 5%, these companies could now market their product to 85% of people instead of just 80%.
More importantly, the threat of unauthorized use is not any greater under Linux than under Windows. That's largely the point of Wine; the same programs run under Linux in almost exactly the same way that the run under Windows. I'll bet that the real threat of unauthorized distribution comes from little warez kiddies, most of whom run Windows.
This isn't true, it's never been true, and it likely will never be true.
Of course, the best answer, I think, is "try it an see." Without source code to see how tightly integrated a program is with Win, it is very hard to tell. When you do the experiment, sometimes you get a pleasant surprise.
I recently finally migrated my main office workstation to Linux, and am dual booting since there are a few things I still need Winders for. One such, I thought, was a program called MoluCAD by New River Kinematics, a molecule drawing program that I really, really need.
The other day, I tried it with wine, and BOOM! It worked!! Yeah.
It's important, too, to document when a program does not work.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
Review of Cedega (WineX 4.0) Category Linux Software / Applications Product name Cedega Version 4.0 (WineX) Manufacturer name TransGaming Provided by TransGaming Price N/A Review by Rich The release of Transgaming's newest version of WineX, renamed Cedega, was met with considerable enthusiasm and interest in the Linux community last week. So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release. Cedega is claimed to be much improved, offering the ability to play recent games released for Windows "seamlessly and transparently" under Linux. They provided me with a copy, and I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype. Cedega is available as an rpm, deb or tgz file. Point2Play is a graphical front end to Cedega and available in the same formats. Point2play comes bundled with all dependencies, a very nice touch, and includes the font installer program (also available as a separate download). I was installing on Slackware 10, so I downloaded the tgz files. A simple #installpkg for Point2play was all that was needed. Point2play retrieves and installs Cedega for you. It also downloads and installs Microsoft Core Fonts with the click of a button. Testing The first thing I noticed was a tab titled "System Tests". There are four tests that help to determine if your system is ready to run Cedega. "Test for Hardware 3D Graphics Acceleration" tests to see if your graphics card is capable of running 3D-intense games and if it has been set up correctly. I clicked, the familiar glxgears box opened, then I was greeted with two green graphs. They gave me an OK for OpenGL Direct Rendering and for 3D rendering speed. "Test for Sound Support" plays a sound, then asks you if you heard it. You are informed that Cedega uses the OSS audio device and told to consult your distribution's documentation if you didn't hear one. Thankfully, I did. "Test if POSIX threads (pthreads) are Required" gave me a confusing pop up box. It said "You are running a distribution of Linux on which Cedega requires the usage of pthreads on (ie. Very recent glibc). Unfortunately the maximum stack size on your distribution is not large enough for some games, and therefore you might have issues." I am then told, "When using Cedega 3.2 or newer, you may not need to use pthreads which can help avoid these problems." I admit ignorance here. I am baffled by the wording. I am being told Cedega requires pthreads, but with version 4.0 I may not need to use them, which can help avoid problems. My yellow graph boiled it down for me, saying "Some Games Might Have Problems". "Test CD/DVD Drive" checks the accessibility of the CD-ROM devices and if they are capable of supporting Copy Protected games. I got the green light showing my cdrom was available. The documentation is outstanding and will be a great help if yours isn't. Background Since I don't dual boot and lack free time, I haven't run Windows games in years. I have been happy with the standard Linux games, including Ksokoban, Kbounce, Ktron and of course Tuxracer and Tuxkart. Recent additions such as Frozen Bubble and the updated SuperTux have a modern feel. I haven't had much experience with Linux ports such as UT2004. I like that Cedega was giving me the opportunity to try out some modern games. Half-Life Uplink My first try was the demo of Half-Life Uplink, downloaded from the Nvidia site. I fired up Point2Play and clicked Install. A box opens asking for the path to the executable, the program title, the Cedega version to use, and two check boxes (big EXE and Run Directory). I found the path, named the program, left the default Cedega as my choice and clicked both boxes. Big EXE supports games packed as one large executable. Run Directory sets the current working directory to the game executable directory. You also have the option to mount and unmount your disk. I clicked continue, and I was transported back to the days of the ugly install wizards. The Wise Installation Wizard popped open, and the game installed without a hitch. The game icon now showed up in my main wi
I've tried cedega as well, and I must say I'm a little bit surprised on how well it works, at least with Debian Sid & new nvidia drivers. Configuration is a snap (just tell them the mount points & drive letters of your windos partitions), and you are pretty much ready to go. One less excuse to boot to Windows - and for many, the last excuse.
.iso's first... ;-)
Now what we need is a good daemontools-like utility that can mount non-iso images without converting to
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Its never talked about much, but CrossOver Office 3.0.1 does run games. I have been playing Half-Life, Max Payne, American McGees Alice, and Diablo II on it since about ver 2.0. Hardware Acceleration supported. So WineX is not your only choice here.
i have linux installed in my notebook. It is a rather old one, but still suitable for my needs.
I dont want to run win98 on it, much less pay $$$ for a windows xp upgrade.
All i need at work is a browser, ssh, sapgui and lotus notes.
I use wine daily at work to run lotus notes on it. it works flawlessly. actually, most of the time i forget that im "using" wine, as i have a icon shortcut that launches notes directly.
i dont know if wine will ever be "popular", but it is very useful for my needs, and i thank the developers for that
youre crazy. i can go from a fresh linux install to having Battlefield Vietnam running in under an hour, including the BFV install. install Point2Play, get latest winex version, install BFV. done.
When was the last time that you tried it? I spent last night playing City of Heroes on it. While there are some UI issues (it has a real problem of registering mouseclicks on certain menu options, though it will eventually get them), the game ran at pretty much the same framerate as it does under Windows XP.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I've played Armada under XP.
About a month after XP was released an update came out that specifically addressed compatibility with older apps, have you used it?
And do you know about the compatibility options? Checking a box makes the environment anything from 95,98,ME,XP.
I play a ton of old games, and have had no problem getting anything working under XP. I dont doubt there are some crappy old incompatible apps, but I don't know of any.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I purchased a license to Crossover Office several months ago. At first, I figured it'd run rather slow and wouldn't be good enough for production. I paid anyways just to try and support the programmers.
I installed Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop. Microsoft Office is practically transparent as to how fast it runs. It loads up very fast and runs very smooth. As far as Photoshop, it runs pretty good as well. There are little bugs with the different windows and the toolboxes, but it works. for the most part.
For production, I dont think Adobe Photoshop is ready yet (version 7 by the way). Office I think is more than ready. I also installed IE so I could preview websites I'm working on in IE natively without having to go to another windows computer. On top of that, I installed the Quicktime plugin and I watch trailers from Apple.com with no lag.
I give Crossover Office a 10/10. Well worth every penny I spent.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
I'll think you'll find that was the slashdotting they recieved.
RegardselFarto
So WineX puts some kind of software layer between the application and Linux? I hope game performance dosnt take a hit.
.dll, let's call it msfile.dll.
No that's not quite how it works. Applications contain calls to functions, something like OpenFile("C:\some\filename").
The code that implements OpenFile() would normally be in a Windows
WineX creates a Linux version of the msfile.dll, so the the application runs the Linux code instead of Windows code.
The speed could be faster or slower, depending on how good the WineX code for msfile.dll is versus the Windows code.
[In the example above, msfile.dll and OpenFile() are made-up examples to illustrate the principle of different implementations of the same API.]
I apologize for not keeping up with the requests, we never could withstand a thrashing from Slashdot. Perhaps it's time for me to look into a different CMS with fewer bottlenecks. So, if anyone in community/other site owners would like to share their solutions with me, I'd like to hear from you. Reached me at ty @ linuxlookup.com
Ahh.. try it and see. Yes... I had a Sony DVD/CDRW and it had only the initial bios. Downloaded the bios update utill... it was windows only... ran it under wine... and it worked flawlessly. But I don't think I'd do this with any REALLY critical part... not just yet.
I thought Win4Lin did emulate hardware. From their site they say that Win4Lin "provides a complete virtual PC environment for the Windows operating systems." Elsewhere it says that they provide a virtual network card. I may be wrong, however, since as I said I have never run the program.
Something comparable would be more like if FreeDOS could be made to run in userspace on Linux and then used it to run Win98.
DOSEMU sounds like what you are describing, and I know people have been successful running Windows 3.1 on it. No Windows 95 and above, though.
The real selling point about Win4Lin over VmWare is that, like WINE, it uses your local filesystem so there no disk image file. Now, I think (think) that the latest VmWare allows this too but I haven't tried it.
Yes, this is a convenient feature. Maybe the QEMU guys can implement it eventually. Right now it is still a fairly new program.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
This is a no-brainer. WinXP dropped support for a ton of 486 and Pentium-era stuff that was supported in previous versions.
No, it just got Slashdotted. :P
Unfortunately I've read some horrible stories on their own website (in the support section and new forums) about people having a bad time getting their already-working games working under Cedega. In fact, I've read an unfortunately large number of posts saying that they've downgraded to WineX because of the number of bugs. I'm not sure whether the editor noticed this but those facts certainly don't merit a 20/20 in my book...
The only difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits.
Civ: Call to Power has been ported to Linux by the now defunct Loki Games. It's quite easy to find copies of it online, however.
Their whole catalogue is also listed on their site, here.
--Jon
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
Win4Lin does not emulate the hardware (including mainly the CPU, as it's the hardest) but instead it maps Windows (or DOS) calls to Linux kernel calls. That's why it's blazingly fast.
Hmmm...
.cxoffice dir and some other related paths and after I tried to reinstall it from my Mandrake 10 Power Pack (retail), I decided to once again try WINE. Can I say "Wine is NOT Exemplary"?
/var/lib or other path that wine is expecting to find it in?"
.dll placements that I am EXTREMELY suspicious as to why this was done. Maybe in the old days, Lotus realized it was too easy to just take the wretched 28-floppy install of SmartSuite for windows 3.1 and w95 and copy the final image from disk to CD or to slave the source as a target disk and then copy the contents over. That is what I did when my machine would crash. I'd go to my backup disk and recover.
I am a Lotus SmartSuite fan and am deeply disappointed that there is not enough demand for IBM and Lotus to port it natively (nevermind the IP matters/excuses)
Growing weary of some "invalid license" rubbish from Crossdresser after I simply deleted my
I struck upon an idea:
"What if I graft my 'win' folder created by the Win4Lin install and place it in the
So, after running WINE and seeing where the config files want to find windoze98, I renamed the WINE-created folder and placed my folder that I have repeatedly used with mainly successful recoveries and reinstalls since 2000 or 2001.
The Lotus SmartSuite installer behaved very normally except for the EULA page and except for the "x" boxes being less than crisp. The features selections went fine, and the the install seemed at the end to hange and wait forever, doing the same in Crossdresser, but not in W4L or native windoze98.
SmartSuite DID install, but the result was a horrid, detestable, crying shame. There are soooo many convolusions of
However, it no longer is so simple, thanks to the damned mainly-anti-piracy registry. I honestly feel the registry is mainly to confound and confute app-snagging pirates. BTW, I PAID for my SmartSuite disks...
ANyway, Unless Lotus, IBM, & CodeWeavers get together and work this out, a LOT of IBM customers who probably would switch to Linux and want to drag along their year 2000, 2001, or 2002 SmartSuite investment will be furious-- furious at themselves for NOT generating demand, and furious that IBM wasn't proctive.
SmartSuite, if upgraded to 2004 standards, could trounce StarOffice and OpenOffice--if, iff, ifff you like Lotus Approach, the end-user, non-developer, non-geek WYSIWYG relational database front end, and if you like Lotus WordPro and Lotus 1-2-3. I do. Hence, I keep upgrading Win4Lin or figuring out a way to make my paid-for copy fo Win4Lin work across upgrades.
The complications with this upgrade hell between KDE, the Kernels and Mandrake and NeTraverse are making me VERY interested in finding out more about loopback or Linux-inside-Linux distros so I could avoid thinking about "which kernel, gcc, libthis.so, libthat.so, kde or whatever" anymore.
I can imagine the hell companies must be going through when they upgrade kernels and find out the one they chose was premature, and not supported by NeTraverse or that they should have been more connected to NeTraverse before choosing a kernel...
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"