windows in linux??

[deiz]

Hi people,

 

I have seen screenshots of ppl running windows xp inside a windows in linux?? Am I right in thinking this is Wine at work? Or is it WineX or Win4Lin?? I'm slightly confused here. It would be great to run windows inside linux.

 

So what do I need?

And what is possible? Can I do anything that I could do with windows through that little program that runs windows as a program in linux? Would I be able to watch TV via my DVB card and listen to my WMA files through windows media player and use windows messenger to chat and view webcams in the windows running inside linux?

 

or am i thinking it's a bit unreal and make believe?

 

thanks

deiz

[Jet2k5]

Yeah I have seen screenshots too of people running windows inside of linux. However I don't know how they do it but it will be nice knowing. I tought that wine was just to let programs that usually are ment for windows run on Linux, I know that my friend has that to like play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. I don't think it's unreal it's possible, but to some of the screenshots that I saw I don't think they were Mandrake, they look totally different.

 

-Luis

[tyme]

win4lin and vmware will both run windows (the whole OS in a window, not just one program) in Linux. These are virtual machines.

 

There are also emulators, which you can use to run one windows program at a time. For regular programs, wine is good and if you want to play games check out cedega (formerly WineX).

[VeeDubb]

To expand on tymes response,

 

vmware, and win4lin, to put it very politely, suck. Well, they suck for most applications anyway) Basicaly, take all the specs for your system, cpu speed, ram and so on, then divide by four. That's how it will run on your system at the very best. This is okay for testing software and doing simple tasks, but for most games and most current office software, they're largely a waste of time. Also, they are not the easiest to run. They are basicaly for people who MUST use window but are too stubborn to just dual boot. They have their place, but it's not on the average desktop.

 

vmware, is by far the easier of the two to install, but it can be dificult to maintian a stable virtual machine.

 

win4lin on the other hand, is a bloody nightmare for those new to linux to install as it requires a special kernel and all kinds of nutty stuff. However, I'm told it is more stable once opperational and performs a litle better.

 

There is a third in this category called bochs (or something like that) It won't run anything like windows XP (as far as I know) but it will run some versions of linux in a window as well as DOS, win3.1 or win95) It seems very configurable and could be made to run reasonably fast but it's VERY complicated to configure. frankly it's well above my head.

 

 

The second option is frequently called emulation, though, that is not a proper name. Emulation is what vmware and win4libn do. It implies a virtual machine, and wine and cedega do NOT use any form of emulation. They work with a set of libraries that translate windows API calls to linux API calls, and provide direct access to your hardware. This is NOT emulation.

 

Wine is 100% and completely free. Current versions, with a litle tweaking to the config files, will run a large selection of non-3d software and a small selection of 3d games. Specificaly, it will run games that use older versions of OpenGL for 3d and DirectX for 2d such as Half Life.

 

Cedega, which was called WineX untill June 22nd of thise year, is not quite free. Cedega is based heavily on Wine, but includes support for most directX games all the way up to DX9. That INCLUDES 3d, so may new games run just fine, but as always, there a catch. There's 2 versions of cedega. The first is free. You have to use a protecal called CVS to download the source and compile and install it. Of course, this free version is crippleware. I does not include but half the 3d support, and none of the CD copy protection support, so it's basicaly worthless.

 

To access the download server for the other version, you have to subscribe to http://www.transgaming.com for $5/month and you have to pay 3 months up front. This version of course includes all the bells and whistles, and comes precompiled and packaged in a number of common formats including .rpm

 

I have a transgaming subcription and have had it for a some time now. Personaly, I think it's well worth it.

 

 

There are other programs based on Wine, including crossover office and one or two others.

[Darkelve]

Very nice explanation veeDubb!

 

Maybe you could also mention things like DosBox and NES/Gameboy/PS/ emulators?

Edited July 1, 2004 by Darkelve

[Gowator]

I never had perf probs with vmware except games...

Ive run win2k and Win98 and performance is fine for me.

 

This even on a duron 1300 and 1/2GB RAM ...and my laptop celeron 1100 with 328MB (- graphics)

 

 

its not just to prevent dual booting, you can network between them for instance i ran a Win98 with IE on VMWARE and IIS when developing some web stuff and porting from .asp to php

 

it sucks off horsepower and memory but thats cheap now....

Im wondering how it would be running win98 on a virtual machine on my 64 bit AMD with 2GB RAM....

 

 

its not that Im too stubborn to dual boot .... its just easier with a virtual session...

 

I found its a great place to test distro's too.

[Crashdamage]

No offense intended VeeDubb, but I gotta set this straight. This stuff gets out on the web, people Google it and get the wrong ideas...

 

VeeDubb said:

vmware, and win4lin, to put it very politely, suck. Well, they suck for most  applications anyway) Basicaly, take all the specs for your system, cpu speed, ram and so on, then divide by four. That's how it will run on your system at the very best.

This is simply wrong. It's true that vmware is slow, but properly configured, it's not THAT slow. Win4Lin is another story. It's FAST. It will boot Windoze in about 10 sec on any reasonably quick machine, say about a 750mhz processor and 256MB of memory. Once up, it runs 99.9% of ordinary Windoze apps at roughly native Windoze or even better speeds - yes I said or better! Some apps actually run faster under Win4Lin.

 

This is okay for testing software and doing simple tasks, but for most games and most current office software, they're largely a waste of time.

Both kinda right and very wrong.

To start with, vmware was written as a development platform, where speed was not the primary concern, but the ability to run multiple OS's was. As such, it has no real equal and is well-suited to the task. Almost any OS from DOS to Linux to XP can be run with vmware. Win9x under vmware is a little shakey - ie, normal - but Linux or WinNT etc are pretty stable.

 

On the other hand, Win4Lin was intended for regular, normal use, and as such is terrific for running M$ office, IE, Quicken, tax software, etc etc - any windows apps you feel you can't do without. They will run perfectly normally. The exception to this is many games, or the very few other apps that require Direct X. While vmware supports Direct X, it's too slow for gaming. Win4Lin is plenty quick enough for gaming, but has only software-level support for Direct X. The guys at netraverse are pretty sharp though, and hardware Direct X support is in the works.

Patience. I should mention that Win4Lin has the best customer support I've ever experienced from any company selling any product.

Unlike vmware, Win4Lin will only run Win9x (any version). Support for versions of WinNT is also under heavy development and I hear good progress is being made. It's only a matter of time. This isn't a big deal anyway, since most of the advantages of WinNT over Win9x don't apply under Win4Lin. Journaling file system? Win4Lin loads Win9x on ReiserFS, ext3. Stability? Win98/Win4Lin is rock-solid, unbelievably so. I still run my original Windoze installation, never needed to reinstall Windoze, even to update Mandrake. I've run Win4Lin daily for 3 years, several hours a day, and it has never crashed. Win4Lin makes Win9x act like a real OS. That's because Linux handles the hardware and Win4Lin lets Win "run" virtual hardware - but anyway...

 

Also, they are not the easiest to run. They are basicaly for people who MUST use window but are too stubborn to just dual boot. They have their place, but it's not on the average desktop.

True to a point with vmware, but Win4Lin couldn't be much easier, and definitely belongs on any average user's machine who needs it. I hated dual-booting. I ran Linux about a week before I went out and bought Win4Lin.

 

vmware, is by far the easier of the two to install, but it can be dificult to maintian a stable virtual machine.

No true. When I switched to Linux, I first tried vmware, and it was a little tough, but not that bad, and I'm sure it's gotten better since the last time I tried. It's been a couple of years. But even 3 years ago, Win4Lin was as easy to install as any Windoze app - click-click easy. Really, I just couldn't believe it! I was EXTREMELY impressed! And there are few things funnier than watching Windoze98 splash screens stupidly extolling it's questionable virtues as it installs on a Linux file system.

 

win4lin on the other hand, is a bloody nightmare for those new to linux to install as it requires a special kernel and all kinds of nutty stuff.

It does require installation of a Win4Lin-enabled kernel, yes. That's what makes Win4Lin so friggin' fast. But the GUI installer downloads, installs, and adds the Win4Lin kernel to your kernel boot choices automatically. I, at the time a total Linux idiot noob (well, still am), had no problem whatsoever - none - with my 1st installation! Small catch - temporarily, since the 2.6 kernels came out, the kernel has to be installed manually. There's some very simple instructions on the Win4Lin/Netraverse website that anyone can follow. However, the final testing of the GUI auto-installer to restore this capability is nearly done, and click-click easy auto-installs will be back very soon. For anyone interested, there is a Win4Lin-enabled version of the latest security-patched MDK 2.6 kernels (built by Buchan Milne) on the Contrib mirrors now. Win4Lin-enabled versions of the latest MDK 2.4 kernels will be there very soon.

 

However, I'm told it is more stable once opperational and performs a litle better.

You betcha! Win4Lin is amazing (so is vmware in it's own - expensive - way). It even does cool stuff like cut/paste between Windoze apps and Linux apps. It really has to be tried to be appreciated.

 

There is a third in this category called bochs (or something like that) It won't run anything like windows XP (as far as I know) but it will run some versions of linux in a window as well as DOS, win3.1 or win95) It seems very configurable and could be made to run reasonably fast but it's VERY complicated to configure. frankly it's well above my head.

I've not fooled with Bochs except a 15 minute attempt to install that failed, and I just didn't put more effort into it. I hear that at it's best, it can rival Wine, at least with certain apps.

 

Anyway, that's my $1.00 worth, obviously speaking as a well-satisfied longtime Win4LIn user.

[newbie4ever]

Wine is way too hard, I tried for years to get it to work at all. Last I downloaded a rpm and installed it, but now I don't know what am I supposed to do to get it to acctually run. It came with all thesse executable files, but when I click on them they don't do anything useful.

I am a transgaming subscriber and have Cedega too, but I didn't get it to work with ultima online. I had it for a while, last time I tried winex it worked, but the game ran too slow, it was almost to slow to collect bulk order deeds and impossible to hunt monsters with. Thats the only game I really play anymore.

[VeeDubb]

Gowator and CrashDamage.

 

 

I'm very glad to hear that your experiences with x86 emulation have been more possitive than mine. However, my experiences are far from unusual, let alone unique.

 

I recently tried the trial of VMware and after 4 days of tinkering, I managed to get an install of windwosXP that would boot into safe mode. WIndows95a AND 95b both failed entirely to reccognize all of the virtual hardware, even after installing the powertools. 98se refused to install all together, and XPhome isntalled fine, but config.sys magicaly dissapeared on every reboot. I don't currently have access to WindowsMe.

 

Win4lin, I have not been able to try, I am simply repeating what users have told me. As Crashdamage confimed, many people told me that it runs better than vmware, but having attempted to get it running, I hold fast to my assertion that it is not easy for new linux users to install.

 

Wine and cedega are also far from perfect. I my self have to run both of them to get all the windows apps I care about running under linux, and not all of them run well.

 

Crossover office, like all the others, falls far short of perfect. By their own admission it won't actualy run microsoft office, despite that being the primary focus of crossover. It will only run certain office components.

 

 

The real point anyone should take away from this thread with them is that running software made for one opperating system under another system is problematic at best, and is often simply impossible.

[Guest arn0ld]

just wanted to add a strong second to Crashdamage regarding win4lin.

 

I find it easy to start, fast, and capable of running all Win programs I have used - I am not a gamer.

 

I also have hight praise for the repoonsiveness of their tech support.

 

and, if you can bring yourself to actually pay(don't shiver)for Linux software,

the price is moderate and well worth it.

 

BTW, if you do not want to pay, no free emulator comes remotely close to dual booting.

[Gowator]

Yep running Win software under linux is always problematic but it seems alrgely how hard you wanna try the first time perhaps....

 

Ive used vmware a few times and recompile it every new kernel but Ive never had any problem installing stuff into it once installed.

 

Having said that I got as far as notepad running in wine....

 

VMWARE is actually rock solid for me....but the concept is very cool, I keep wanting to make a super computer out of it....

 

i.e run VMWARE on a cluster ....

[Crashdamage]

Just to update this a bit...the Win4Lin GUI installer will again do auto-install of a Win4Lin-enabled kernel. This makes installing Win4Lin about as click-click easy for Linux noobs as it can get. However, in accordance with Natraverse's recent decision not to continue to try and keep up with building Win4Lin-enabled versions of all the individual distro kernels (VERY time-consuming), be aware that this installs a Win4Lin-patched generic kernel. It is fully tested (Mandrake is one of the distros Netravese always uses for testing) and should work just fine, but if you want an *exact* replacement of the Mandrake kernel, (identical to the MDK original, except with Win4Lin capability added) it's necessary to download and manually install the Win4Lin-patched kernels in Contrib RPMs built by Buchan Milne.