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Windows Interoperability in A Linux Distro
Magenta writes "There is a review of the Desktop OS Version 3 Business Edition from Xandros. This operating system is meant to allow users to easily move from Windows XP to Linux without the problems that can arise. Xandros not only can use Window's file system but it is able to run a great number of Windows programs using its CrossOver Office tool from CodeWeavers. This is one of the most accessible distros to come along in awhile and it marks a big step forward in the progress on Linux on the desktop."
The only question that comes to mind is:
When do these Windows compatibilites start to become security issues in Linux? I mean I am all for having some Windows apps run in Linux. The main reason I use Linux at home was because things like IE and other security ridden problems in Windows arent available in Linux.
Just my $.02
From Crossover's website:
CrossOver Office currently supports more than 30 of the most popular windows productivity applications
Well, that's quite an acheivement but 30 productivity apps isn't "a vast number of Windows programs".
The original posting overstates the abilities of Xandros.
Crossover office is a product you can buy and install on most Linux distros. It's a nicely patched up and packaged version of Wine.
As for being able to access Windows filesystems, the Linux kernel contains drivers for FAT, FAT32 and NTFS. I would be very suprised if this distro can write to NTFS safely as this is something that is still being worked on.
"Supported" means that if it doesn't run, you get tech support. It also means they will continue to run properly in future versions. There are plenty of other apps that are unsupported which work fine though.
not to mention that Transgaming's Cedega runs all the games the parent mentioned...
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Lets say that it succeeds and you get a few hundred thousand moms and pops pulled over to Linux to run their Windows apps on this distro.
That is a few hundred thousand people who will eventually run into application support issues, driver issues, printing issues etc that they won't be able to turn to friends for help with.
That is a few hundred thousand people who will tell their friends that they tried Linux and it sucked.
The Linux community needs to concentrate on driver support, end user support and encouraging developers to migrate native applications to the platform. Anything else is just inviting failure.
Wow, what a tremendously dumb comment.
/. mods to mod the parent insightful.
So here we have a linux distro that according to the review is very easy to use and on top off that even offers the possibility to run many Windows programs out of the box.
Now what does the average slashbot have to say to that?
But I want to run my Windows(tm) games. As long as my Windows(tm) games don't work on linux, linux isn't for me.
Finally, as if this comment hadn't been dumb enough, he tells us that linux has to become more user-friendly in order to gain more market share, so that more games will be available for linux.
The funny thing is that just before that he told us that linux wouldn't gain any market share even with a userfriendly distribution (remember the review?) that runs many windows programs out of the box, because he couldn't play Everquest on it.
Needless to say that it only took seconds for the famed
Impressive...
I don't get this. Firefox and OpenOffice and the OpenCD and running Apache or MySQL or whatever from Windows are universally considered to be Good Things, because they encourage people to run free applications on an unfree platform, and hook people onto free software from the application end.
However, allowing people to run unfree software on a free platform using Wine or Winex or Crossover Office or whatever is Evil and Wrong and encourages people to forever be trapped by Bill Gates.
How come you guys think that people can only migrate from the applications downwards, rather than from the OS-up?
I'd have thought once you got people to switch the Operating System, your job's mostly done, and getting them to switch applications would be relatively easy - people install and uninstall applications all the time, compared to their OS, after all....
On their downloads page, there is a link for the Open Circulation edition. Completely gratis if you use bittorrent. I'm considering trying it here at work.
The idea that making Linux more compatible with Windows will make it "more ready for the desktop" is just plain wrongheaded. Linux as it stands is more than ready for the desktop. I use Debian on my desktop at home, and have never needed to boot into Windows to get anything done. Neither has my far-from-technophile wife. I actually find Debian to be much more user friendly than Windows and have been able to show several nontechnical people how to use it without problems (once it is set up and installed). Sure, people might miss the ability to play their favorite first-person-shooter, and openoffice.org or the gnome office tools might take a little getting used to for a Windows user, but this is a minor (and passing) inconvenience. The general feeling I get that making Linux act like Windows will make it ready for the desktop just makes me scratch my head in wonder. Are you all idiots? Linux is better than Windows. That's the whole point. Why try to make it act like an inferior system? Why even bother switching to Linux at all if you're just going to turn it into a poorly behaving Windows wannabe?