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Been wondering what to use for this. Basically, have some Win apps that I'd like to run.

 

I'm not sure whether to use Wine, or whether I should purchase CrossOver Office and use that?

 

Does anyone have any experiences or preferences on what's best?

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Been wondering what to use for this.  Basically, have some Win apps that I'd like to run. 

 

I'm not sure whether to use Wine, or whether I should purchase CrossOver Office and use that? 

 

Does anyone have any experiences or preferences on what's best? 

 

my company uses a MS access custom made database using a front end ms db and a backend ms db

 

i completely hate the app for a variety or reasons . #1 being it forces me to buy office pro instead of standard . the crap costs alot even for the standard version . my users are not "power office users" they just need to use this custom app made with access . porting the app is logical to me but not to my boss .

at times i get crazy and convince a user or two and my boss to let me put the user on linux . my way around the "crossover" issue is to use a windows terminal server and connect the linux boxes via tsclient http://www.gnomepro.com/tsclient/ one icon on the desktop and they click it and you can set the term server to run just the app not a whole desktop for the client . they close the app the tsclient closes. now i can run ms access on linux . i don't think you can run ms access with wine or crossover . remember this app uses a frontend and backend database . I've been harping for years to port it to MySQL and use a browser for the frontend .

hey it's an option for some

Edited by ddmcse
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Cool, thanks for the info.

 

I'm basically just wanting to run them on my laptop, rather than dual boot to Windows. It's a pain, when I want to do something, and keep rebooting for one or the other.

 

I hear CrossOver office allows you to run Windows apps on Linux, albeit some work, some don't etc, etc. I was wondering if the installation of wine would do the same? That would save me having to purchase the software CrossOver Office.

 

I don't mind purchasing it, if it's better, but if it works the same as wine, then I'd may as well use that wouldn't I?

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wine can be used for quite a lot of windows apps (like photoshop) but some won`t work with it. those may or may not work with crossover-office (which is especially designed for microsoft office implementation, afaik). you can anyways try wine first and if that doesn`t work you can still take a look at other options like crossover.

just my two cents. :)

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Cool, thanks for that arctic. I take it wine and CrossOver are pretty much the only options? Or are there some more (not including running on Windows :P ).

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Nice one, thanks scarecrow. Is anyone out there using these, which do they like best in terms of stability/runability of apps?

 

I'll have a read-up on them, and see what I can find out about them.

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Funnily, you should mention this! Just been trying an eval of Win4LinPro, and I had a few probs.

 

First off, I loaded the media, and when completing installwinpro, it failed because I didn't have access to /etc/default - fixed this no probs.

 

Then it had problems with the media, erroring on a file, so I had to load it again.

 

Then it worked on the blue screen setup, but failed because it couldn't access the CD-ROM, which was supposed to be E:\I386 according to the install.

 

No idea where to go next, so am assuming that it won't work unless I patch. And I just want it to be simple to install really. Win4LinPro supports W2K and XP apparently.

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Crossover works for the apps I use (Macromedia Studio MX 1.1) which is good enough for me.

 

I did try Wine on its own, but lost patience with config hell. Crossover doesn't cost much (about 40 squid), I think it's well worth it for a user-friendly installer and UI integration.

 

You should note that Wine (and therefore Crossover) is limited to emulating Win9x, so apps that only work on Win2k/XP tend to be a non-starter.

 

You didn't mention which apps you are looking to run, but you should find all your answers here:

 

http://appdb.winehq.org/

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I do have a couple of W2K/XP apps that means Crossover wouldn't be able to run them, so I took a look at Win4Lin to see if it would work.

 

Just couldn't get it to install the OS, which is a pain, as it would have worked perfectly. The only thing is, you boot Linux, and then whilst in Linux you have to launch the Win4Lin which effectively boots W2K or XP within Linux so that you can do what you need, but still run Linux stuff at the same time too. At least you can do both at the same time, or in theory if it would install it!!! :P

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There's a little misinformation running around in this thread. I've used Win4Lin for a long time and know a little bit about it, so allow me to try and clear it up a bit..

 

For home use there are 3 versions of Win4Lin:

Win4Lin Home for Win95/98/ME $29.99

Win4Lin 9x for Win 95/98/ME $89.99

Win4Lin Pro for Win2k/XP $119.99

 

Win4lin Home and 9x are basically the same. You might say the Home version is a kinda Win4Lin Lite. It supports less memory than 9x and networking is more limited, but the price is right if it fits your needs. These are the versions that require a Win4Lin-patched kernel. A 2.4 or 2.6 kernel will work.

I've used Win4Lin 9x for over 3 years, since version 3 (it's on v5 now) on Mandrake 8.0, literally thousands of hours of use, and it's simply terrific. It's been around for many years and all that development shows. VERY fast, (boots Win98SE in about 10 sec) totally stable (Win98 has never crashed under W4L, I ain't lyin'), and will install and run just about anything that does not require hardware DirectX. It almost makes Windoze9x seem like a real OS. Even does cool stuff like copy/paste between Win/Linux. An impressive piece of software.

 

Win4Lin Pro requires no kernel mods whatsoever, unlike W4L Home/9x or VMware. It will install fine with your stock Mandrake/Mandriva kernel or any other kernel you might be using, no matter, but stay with a 2.6 version. Presently I'm using it with a Win4Lin-enabled 2.6.11-muiltimedia kernel from Cooker on Mandrake 10.1. Using a W4L-patched kernel, I can run either Win4Lin 9x or Pro, or even both simultaneously.

I didn't get in on beta testing for W4L Pro, but I've been using it since the the day v1.0 was released, about 3 months ago (at v1.0.2 now). It's totally stable, but not nearly as fast or capable as Win4Lin 9x. It's usable, but only about as fast as VMware (i.e. slow) and software installation is still hit & miss. Like W4L 9x, does not yet support DirectX.. W4L Pro has a long ways to go to rival Win4Lin 9x for speed, but then nothing else can match W4L 9x either, and improvements have already been made with more in the works. I feel pretty good about the long-term future of W4L Pro development and I intend to keep using it.

Hint: If you want to try W4L Pro, I highly recommend using it with kqemu acceleration - post here if you want to know how.

 

A little more should be said about Win4Lin-patched kernels. This is really not difficult to deal with. Some distros, like Xandros and some others come with a W4L-enabled kernel already installed by default, so there's nothing to do. Just install W4L and Windows and go. For those running Mandriva, Fedora or other distros that need a patched kernel installed, there are 3 ways to do it:

 

1. You can use the Win4Lin GUI installer to install a Win4Lin-enable kernel. This is click-click easy, but installs a Win4Lin-patched generic kernel. These are tested and should not cause problems, but since many distros these days use heavily-patched kernels (including the likes of Suse, Mandriva, Fedora - Fedora kernels in particular are a mess of patches) this is not a perfect solution.

2. Download a kernel patch from the Win4Lin website and follow their instructions to patch your own. Fairly simple. Most Linux users ahould have no trouble.

3. For Mandriva, you can download a pre-patched kernel rpm and install it with urpmi. This is very simple to do and trouble-free. These kernels are exact replacements for the Mandrake/Mandriva kernels - no changes at all except for the added patch. Most of these kernels are kindly complied by Buchan Milne and available from Contrib or Cooker and a couple of other places. Some are supplied by the Mandriva Team, like the Cooker kernel I'm using right now. Either way, these kernels even add an entry to your bootloader for you. I'm sure someone is doing pre-compiled kernels for at least some other distros, too.

 

Win4Lin is also well-known for terrific customer support, the best I've ever seen from any software company.

Main website: http://www.win4lin.com/

The brand-new W4L Forum: http://www.win4lin.com/phpBB2/index.php?si...9eee35ff4dc5d27

W4L mailing list: win4lin-users@netraverse.com

Edited by Crashdamage
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