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Public Betas For CrossOver Mac and Linux
Jeremy White writes, "I am happy to announce that we have put up a new version of our public beta of CrossOver Mac as well as an equivalent public beta of CrossOver Linux. For Mac users, this release includes fixes to Internet Explorer, fixes for many cases where programs would crash when run (e.g. Microsoft Office 2000 and similar older applications), fixes for Outlook 2003, and a range of other improvements. For Linux users, the big highlights are support for World of Warcraft and many Steam based games (including Half Life 2 and Counterstrike), as well as support for Outlook 2003. Version 6 also represents a major improvement in the core of Wine since version 5 of CrossOver, so you may be pleasantly surprised as you try running unsupported applications."
... when Parallels just works.
:)
(see, I can do a Slashvertisement too)
As complicated as Valve's anti-cheat system is (checking various dlls, etc.) I'm not willing to risk testing my Steam account on Counter-Strike Source until I know for sure I won't get banned for "hacking" because of a bug in the compatibility layer. I can't find any info on this offhand.
Internet Archive: Live Music Archive
It seems that Crossover targets people already running windows apps, and thus already with a windows license (okay, not all people have one, but go with me on this). So, if I have a Windows license (and I do), what would be the incentive to go with something like Crossover, when I can use VMWare or Xen for zero cost, and not worry about compatibility of any of my applications?
Well, why don't you find out and post back to the compatibility database?
Didn't you read the "im not willing to risk my account to test this" bit? If they think you hax0red their servers, they may or may not be willing to return your account to you - many gamers value their accounts more than they value contributing to some company's compatibility database.
Version 6 also represents a major improvement in the core of Wine since version 5 of CrossOver, so you may be pleasantly surprised as you try running unsupported applications.
With all these improvements, I would have guessed we'd see the end of wine, not just an improvement.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Disreguard parent post - I'm an idiot and thought the GP was replying to a different post than he actually was.
I don't know why people bother ...... when Parallels just works.
...Half Life 2?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
For instance, would Ritual's Sin: Emergence work with this? Sin uses the same gameplay physics and engine as HL2 as far as I know... How about HL2 Episode one? And why only Steam/Valve games?
I see WoW, but that's about as entertaining as watching the State of the Union address...
Come on. It's Slashdot.
I'm sure he'll be happy to once he finds out an answer. Comments like yours aren't helpful here. I too would like to know the answer to this question.
OK... games. That's one place the Mac seriously lacks. But having been a Linux geek for years before becoming a Mac geek this year, I've found the game situation to be almost a smorgasbord compared to what I had under Linux. Plus, of course on my MBP I can use BootCamp if I really get a hankering for Windows games... and it works damned well.
I also use Parallels for those 1 or 2 Office type application I have left that I need Windows for.
Which brings me to the part I don't get. Office? Why? When you're got Office 2004 (slow on the Intel architecture in my opinion), or fantastic and well-rounded free solutions like OpenOffice... why on Earth would you want Office 2000 running on your Mac? Besides, that'll just look UGLY on OSX compared to the rest of the desktop.
If you're determined not to pay for Office 2004... great... NeoOffice is compiled for OSX natively, looks native and runs well (slow to start, but about the same startup time as Word 2004 but with all the apps there). If you're using Office 2000, then document compatbility is not a problem. Hell, if you've migrated to Mac then honestly the hard part of transitioning is over; learning the new OS. Apps are easy by comparison.
Sorry... I do see a need for this for the gamer... but this is one Mac user who won't be buying.
Come on, what do you expect? Of course it won't work on G4's. Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator.
Mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
"its just wine on iFBSD .. so what?"
Question asked, question answered. Very useful if you have an Intel Mac.
WINE is a program that re-implements the windows system libraries, allowing you to run unmodified windows programs, without owning a copy of windows. It is not a hardware emulator, and therefore only works on the platform that the original program was compiled for. And they can't recompile the source to WoW, or MS Office, or any of the other apps, because they don't have the source to those apps. There are people that have gotten WINE to work inside an emulator, but at that point you are better off just running windows itself inside an emulator (like Virtual PC).
It's not just for Office or for games. I've used Crossover for years and it lets me stay under Linux yet run applications that may never be ported to Linux. There are a lot of applications that work great - and it sounds like that list just got even bigger. Stuff that isn't even listed on the Codeweavers website.
I agree witht he other poster about OpenOffice - it works great. But there are also some occasions (more rare now than before) where running a real MS Office app was required. Not having to reboot into Windows (I run dual boot) was very very nice.
Just my two cents. I think Crossover Office good stuff and there are lots of other reasons to run it besides MS Office, Internet Explorer, or games. The same will hold true for the MacOS.
You could check the Wine Application Database and see if it's listed. Not sure if Crossover has an equivalent.
If you hate waiting to boot a whole other OS from inside your OS, then Crossover is the way to go. If you just need a couple of apps to run under Linux, and really don't need the memory overhead associated with running more than one OS at once, then Crossover is again the way to go.
And let's not forget what's mentioned in the post...gaming! Wine/cxoffice/cedega have gotten good enough to where you can run most popular Windows games under Linux with few issues. Last I heard, DirectX with a Windows guest OS under VMWare was still a very sketchy proposition. You certainly can't run most modern 3D games under VMWare.
Music studio software requires the lowest audio latency possible. You can achieve low latency by circumventing the built-in sound system in Windows using ASIO or Jack under Linux. One small problem with the Linux kernel is that its task scheduler isn't exactly optimized for low latency work. But, people have contributed to the kernel to make low-latency audio feasible (Con Kolivas, Ingo Molnar, et al.) so that issue is becoming less and less important.
While I think that Wine is able to run those audio apps, I don't think it has implemented interfaces for ASIO and other low-latency sound APIs. Give it a try and report back to the Wine Application Database on WineHQ.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Rather than answer post random requests on random forums, the Wine and crossover people nicely organised a database of what works and what doesn't. Every program that people who care about sharing have tried is in that database. If your program is listed there you can look it up and if it isn't then it means nobody only lazy bitchers care about your program.
./, then you and maybe a few others you tell or who happen to read the ./ article will know. Alternatively, I could post it to the place where it belongs and everybody who comes along afterwards will get to see if it works or not. What do I gain out of doing that? A little Karma for helping my fellow man. What would you gain from doing the same thing? The same Karma, and you'd have a working program if it works. Plus you'd get the whole job done faster than me since you already know how to use the program.
If I spent my time looking up a program I don't care about and tried it out for someone like you who is too lazy to try it yourself, and I then post it on
I contribute a lot to open-source projects. I do it by sending patches when I fix a bug, by entering things into compatibility databases when I try them out. I do not do it by looking for people bitching on public forums and helping them out. For a minimal amount of extra effort when I do a job, I help a number of other people. Sometimes just one or two, sometimes hundreds.
I don't know you and I don't owe you anything. You've asked me and everybody else -- out of the kindness of our hearts -- go and try a program for you so that you won't have to bother. I suppose you'd like someone to go to work for you so that you won't have to too? Do you need your backside wiped? I'm sure we could find somebody here who won't mind doing it.
This program, whatever it is called, matters to you. So how about you contribute a bit by seeing if it works just like thousands of people before you contributed by seeing if the programs they care about work. Or the other thousands of people contributed even more by getting their programs to work. You might even see some contributions of mine there while you're at it.
Open Source saves me a shitload of time and money and it is going to continue to do so. If you want to save a shitload of time and money, you can join in. Alternatively you can go to hell as you so eloquently put it.
I just tested it under Wine 0.9.21. The install went very smoothly. But launching the application fails on a "page fault" error.
:-)
Note that Wine 0.9.21 is not the lastest version, it may work in newer versions, but there is no guarantee.
The answer of course, is 42. ;)
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Crossover office and Linux... together making undereducated windows admins STFU once again when they say "but you need windows to run the important applications!"
:-)
Under 5.0 I ran EVERY vertical application we had at work perfectly. I demonstrated a 100% functional and far lower maintaince + TCO laptop to management that gained applause and support from everyone except the CTO... he nixed the project claiming compatability issues...
Compatability with his friends who still worked for Microsoft and were his technical advisors.
Oh well, I was able to prove to several people that linux was viable on the desktop
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As I said to him. Find out, post the answer to the compatibility list, and we'll all know.
If you care about this program, it is what - 20 mins work - to run the installer in wine and see. Add in 5 mins for adding it to the database and you've spent half an hour finding out something you wanted to know, and helped your fellow man and that anonymous coward.
Now, I have better things to do with my time than trying out programs I don't use. For the programs I do use, you'll find my compatibility reports listed along with everybody elses. There is what, about a million windows programs? I can easily enough blow half an hour on the half-dozen I care about and if everybody else does the same then we'll cover every program.
I'm actually going to try to run wine on a G4, at some point. The plan is to install a Linux and get that working first, then qemu. I believe qemu can emulate a CPU for user-level apps, thus meaning I should be able to run an x86 wine, under qemu, under my ppc Linux. And then run a Windows app under that.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'm assuming (for this discussion) that you actually want to run Linux/OSX in the first place. [After all, you could just use that Windows license and run Windows (e.g. in dual boot); for running Windows applications, that works pretty well! :-)]
With that said, if you are going to run Linux, the biggest advantages of CrossOver/Wine are:
1) 3D Gaming: Xen/VMWare don't support 3D graphics hardware. (The latest version of VMWare has an unsupported switch you can turn on, but it doesn't work too well.) If you want to use your fancy 3D graphics card in your Windows games under Linux, you'll need CrossOver or Wine or something like it.
2) Performance: CrossOver doesn't emulate or virtualize anything... as a native implementation of the Win32 API, it performs at native speeds. (In some cases, it actually performs faster than real Windows.) This is especially important for gaming, but other applications can also benefit.
3) No boot times (I guess this is just another aspect of performance)
4) You don't have to waste time transferring files from your VM to your real box; one filesystem means the files are right there on your hard drive.
That's the gist of it. Crossover lists out their key differentiators in a much longer table that basically says the same thing.
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
Ever hear of Darwine? It was to port wine over to the G series. But it lost steam when jobs moved to the dark side and sold out.
Oh, and i could care less what the f-ing acronym means.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, i dont. I wont, so its a totally useless product.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't know if Wine has implemented ASIO (as on Windows), but it does have a Jack backend.
Regarding music studio software, why not just use a free one for Linux in the first place?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
uh-huh. Thing is, maybe someone else has already tried; there's no harm in asking, and possibly saving oneself the half hour that someone else already put into it. Nobody was ordering you to do it. If you don't use Live, he wasn't asking you to try it just to answer his question.
You are aware that other people in the world have different hardware configurations than you do, right?
Consider the possibility that Crossover isn't intended for you, but for other people. (Yes, they really exist. I mean, Slashdot can't be entirely computer-generated, can it?)
It's funny!
In other news, gasoline is a totally useless product, because I don't own a car.
Good luck with that. IF, and that's a big IF, you ever got that to work, it would be slower than molasses rolling up hill.
:q!
No question was asked, legitimate or otherwise. What was posted was dismissive and sarcastic. It was subsequently demonstrated to also be ignorant. Apparently a moderator or two took that to be willful ignorance, which would indicate trolling.
Hey, has anyone tried the Windows version of Skype under Crossover? Skype for Linux sucks - it is ancient and is missing certain features. I use Skype daily for my work, under both Linux and Windows, and I'd love to get the Windows version running under Linux. Does anyone know? I checked the Crossover database, and it's not there.
But still faster than running Windows under qemu. Also, if OpenGL worked (also a big if), I could play games which are graphically intensive but light on the CPU.
And it was a pretty old game I wanted to make this work for.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
No.. Really? Other people actually exist?
Well, regardless they are worthless waterbags to me, so who cares if they have chosen to use a flawed configuration? I dont care about them, and I am all that matters.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Actually the Darwine project already has a lot of the PPC/qemu stuff implemented.
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/ (opendarwin is shutting down, so I think most of their docs are being merged into the winehqwiki, http://wiki.winehq.org/ )
I didn't even think to start investigating wine on a mac until after my iBook g3 died and apple announced the Intel macs. I got a MacBookPro back in March and it was not a trivial operation to get regular wine compiled. But crossover is a simple to install as dragging the application to the you harddrive. Halflife 2 works, although I didn't try to playonline, but I did install via steam and it is playable.
WINE doesn't work on PowerPC machines because WINE doesn't translate instructions, only function calls.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Now that the gents at Codeweavers have done such fabulous work (and believe me, running x86 Office natively on a Mac is a HUGE deal for me since I still make lots of money doing Access programming), I wonder if we will see any companies using the OS X port of Winelib. I know that there were a trickle of Windows vendors porting to the Linux version of Winelib (Corel comes to mind), but let's face it: OS X has a vastly larger chunk of the desktop market than does Linux. (No criticism here from me; I use all three all the time.)
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
This only works on Intel macs, which means that everyone else with a PPC mac is screwed.
I used to have a powerpc G4 untill the motherboard died before that I ran Yellow Dog (basicly redhat for the PowerPC mac). Virtual PC the app I needed that was Windows only, Arc GIS ran at nearly native speed. Then again since ArcGIS is so slow anyway I probably didn't notice . You might also want to checkout http://www.maconlinux.org/ internet is a known area they have some tricky issues-but so many other things worked I was fine.
Such as Publisher and Access (not that I WANT to run them, but I getr the need to from time to time at work.)
I filed
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6373
for this.
Because there arent any good ones?
Come on, seriously - wheres the Reason, Cubase or Pro Tools equivalents under Linux? And don't bother saying 'Ardour', because theres no way its ready to take on any of those 3 mentioned apps. I'm not saying its bad, its just not done yet, and when it is, it'll still be less polished and accessible than those apps.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
You mean to tell me you bought a Mac KNOWING it didn't have an Intel processor ...
... ;-)
As someone who develops for Windows and Mac I can't help but be amused by the Mac users new found love for Intel (deja vu for when IBM moved from satan incarnate to PowerPC partner a decade+ ago). Straining to keep a straight face at every "OMG, this is so fast ...".
"Knowing" is such an understatement. They bragged about it, revelled in their architectural superiority,
However, Qemu only emulates a 12mhz CPU. I don't think that meets the minimum requirements for Windows!
I can do things with that which are impossible in MS-Office.
And on almost any platform.
Why would I want to kneecap myself (and bankrupt myself) by picking up MS-Office again?
Oh... that's right! I wouldn't!
Yes, that would allow me to run OS X and Linux simultaneously, which is kind of what I want, but I doubt I'd boot it much if I had Linux working well enough to try. There aren't many Mac-only apps I need, and if there were, I'd hate MOL because of no GL acceleration for OS X.
Sadly, while my wireless seems mostly OK, I'm still having huge issues with my trackpad.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Who gives a s$$t about game support or MS Office support. I can run OpenOffice on Linux just fine, the better solution is to run WP. Until that happens it is a waste of time to use Wine.
love greg
It's at least as accessible to me as Pro Tools. I can't speak for Reason or Cubase, but Pro Tools wasn't too obvious. Are you sure you aren't just used to these tools?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It seems that Crossover targets people already running windows apps, and thus already with a windows license (okay, not all people have one, but go with me on this). So, if I have a Windows license (and I do), what would be the incentive to go with something like Crossover, when I can use VMWare or Xen for zero cost, and not worry about compatibility of any of my applications?
The computer I'm typing this on now is an HP PC running Windows ME, so it's old. I recently bought a new PC running Linux and I plan on getting a MacBook Pro when Apple releases it with the Intel Merom Core 2. With CrossOver I will be able to run my Windows apps if I wanted, the only one I know of I want to run is XMLSpy. Now if there were a Linux and a Mac app that is comparable I'd get them but I've searched and haven't found any so I can run XMLSpy in CrossOver without buying Win200 or WinXP. In case you say I could just use WinME in an emulator, I couldn't as the PC came with a recovery disk and not WinME. Also with CrossOver I don't have to deal with Activation, which is why I decided to get the Linux box and a MacBook instead of a Windows PC, or WGA, or my computer phoning home. Another thing with CrossOver is that there isn't as much a performance penalty with CrossOver as there is running Windows in an emulator. Or at least I wouldn't think there were, I haven't seen any stats comparing them so I don't know, but with CrossOver besides the app there's only CrossOver and the host OS whereas running Windows in VMWare or another app you're also running Windows.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yes, Crossover Office also has an application database, although it's called a "Compatibility Center".
I also use Parallels for those 1 or 2 Office type application I have left that I need Windows for.
Why run Windows in Parallels for one or two Windows apps when you can run those apps in CrossOver? I'm using Windows now but I recently got a Linux box and am planning on getting a MacBook Pro soon. The only apps I know I will want to run on both are XMLSpy and IE so it's easier and cheaper to run them in CrossOver than in Windows running in Parallels.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Windows USED to run on other architectures, but nobody cared, so it was dropped.
Also Windows apps weren't supported on other systems. I got a DEC Alpha running NT 4 and the only commercial app I was able to install was Borland C++ Powerbuilder. I found it weird I got more shareware apps installed than commercial apps.
FalconShould there be a Law?
'darwine' ( go look it up ).
Codeweavers could have tried the same concept, instead of forgetting about a rather large potential user base.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
WTF dude. Ardour in no way, shape, or form compares to Pro Tools. It can't even do everything Cubase can do. There's a reason why almost every professional studio uses ProTools. I've never heard of a single one using Ardour. I'm sure it will be a neat little package a few years down the road, but it just doesn't compare favorably to a $50,000 one.
So have a brand new Intel-based MacBook work gave me, partly so I can consolidate my workstations. The number one Windows program I need to run is Adobe Framemaker. My options seem to be CrossOver and Parallels. Crossover, at first blush, looks ideal for me, since I don't want the overhead of a full Windows install, or the expense of another Windows license (sure it's the company's money, but I have stock options to think of). Also, Framemaker is on the very short list of programs actually supported on the mac version.
So I download both solutions as trials and set them up, or try to. You see, Crossover claims support for Framemaker 7.1, but Adobe only sells version 7.2 these days. Well, will that really make a difference? Apparently so. It fails to install in a bottle designed for Framemaker 7.1. It fails to install in generic bottle for either Win98 or WinXP. The support forums don't have any info and no one else seems to have tried this yet. I'd submit my own comment there, but who wants to make an account for software they aren't even going to use?
Option two was Parallels which seems to be working just fine, on the other hand. Maybe once Crossover is out of beta I'll give it another try, but my brief trial does not fill me with hope. Oh, and another thing, Crossover seems a bit too intrusive for me. Even after I quit it, a process was left running that brought up a dialogue whenever I inserted a Windows CDROM (until I killed it). For some reason that sort of thing really bugs me.
A call is supposed to behave as it is documented to behave. Any programs that rely on undocumented features are just asking to break.
So? I'm not the poster you were replying to but, how does this help me, the end user, run the software I want? I tried Crossover the other day and I'm not using it because the software I need to run does not install. I don't care if it should work, I care if it does. In Parallels, it does.
Do you run all your native Mac software in little OS X sandboxes as well, just in case they go all "rogue" on you?
I do run one or two in sandboxes, but in general I don't. That does not mean I would not prefer to do so if it were convenient. That does not mean I'm not even more motivated to run Windows applications in a sandbox, since they are more heavily targeted.
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6373 now has an easy
workaround that lets the app run.
I had great success with Visio 2003 and Outlook 2003 running in Crossover on my MacbookPro. But I could never get any of the application service packs to install. Anyone have any success in getting Outlook service pack working? I need it becuase it fixes rpc/https issues which is required for my office. Also Visio service pack is a major plus if I can get it installed.
It doesn't have to. The question is, can it do everything you need it to? Or close enough that you want to save yourself $50,000? Close enough that you could spend $25,000 to hire a programmer to add the functionality you need?
I realize it may not even be at this point yet, but saying it has to do everything Pro Tools does is like saying MySQL has to do everything Oracle does in order to be useful.
Oh, and note I said "more accessible", not "better". You said it would never be as accessible as the tools you mentioned, I'm suggesting it already is more accessible than one.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
No, Darwine is a port of WINE to OS X in general. In fact, the Intel version was first; the goal to add QEMU for PPC support came later.
Darwine is a direct competitor to Crossover Mac in the same way that normal WINE (plus a GUI frontend) is a direct competitor to Crossover Linux.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"The Darwine project intends to port and develop WINE as well as other supporting tools that will allow Darwin and Mac OS X users to run Windows Applications"
Does a user care it runs thru QEMU along the way ? ( aside from the speed issues of course ). They see 'windows' applications on their OSX desktop, using wine.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't know exactly what you are doing with Visio, but in general, there is a mac-based solution to it: "OmniGraffle" (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle /) works great. It even has Visio im-/export and is not as expensive as one could think. All my windows-bound colleagues envy me.
The Gospel according to lolcat
I doubt codeweavers will be as well recieved by the OSX crowd as by the Linux crowd. The OSX crowd likes Mac because it is cool looking and everything works out of the box, the Mac way. The linux crowd likes to tweak and adjust and fine tune their software, and many know a great deal about PCs, and like to do stuff like this. Wine is still early in development, and many Mac users wont like the fact that OMG, you must change a few settings and perform DLL overrides to get some things to work and it wont have a nice aqua feel to it. Many linux users will happily do this. Thus I bet WIne will fair better with Linux than DarWine will with OSX.
The Gospel according to lolcat
People that offer Omnigraffle or ConcpetDraw as an alternate solution to Visio simply have NO CLUE what Visio does, nor how strong an application it is.
Believe me I have tried many times to live within the confines of OmniGraffle or ConceptDraw and both apps are absolutely horrible to use in comparison to Visio. Visio is a fact of life for people like me. There is nothing out there that comes close to its abilities and its ease of use. As a network docmentation tool, or as a project documentation tool for a Pro-Services delivery consultant there is nothing currently on the market that comes close to visio. Another point that many people seem to ignore or forget is that Visio files are often required by my clients. I cannot send them OmniGraffe or ConceptDraw files. They all use Visio. I need to be able to provide them work product in a standard format that all my clients use daily. Visio is it!
The good news Visio works GREAT under CodeWeavers Crossover for OSX, but I do need the SP's installed and they are not currently able to install properly.