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This page will give you some tips concerning programs
which might be useful if you are using Linux and MS Windows.
(Note: This is only about emulators which run DOS/Windows.
There are lots of other
emulators for Linux which emulate a vast number of operating systems.)
DOSEMU
You can use DOSEMU
to either run single MS-DOS apps (using so-called '.dexe's') or to boot some
form of DOS, like MS-DOS, FreeDOS or
Caldera's (proprietary) DR-DOS.
Note that running MS Windows 3.1x will not work.
You'll find it on your Mandrake CD.
VMware
VMware is a commercial
PC-emulator. It allows you to install many operating systems that run on
the Intel architecture in a 'virtual machine'. All releases of MS Windows
and Mandrake Linux are currently supported as guest systems. You can run more
than one virtual machine at the same time. All virtual clients are network-capable
(TCP/IP, SAMBA, NFS).
How fast is it? I run VMWare on a PIII 866 MHz with
900 MB RAM and the speed differences between a virtual system and a native
system are noticeable, but not annoying.
Caveats:
- Updating the kernel requires rebuilding the VMWare
modules by running the 'vmware-config.pl' script (as 'root'). You also have
to run this script once before trying to start VMware after initial installation
via RPM. In order to run 'vmware-config.pl', make sure you have the packages
'kernel-source' and 'gcc' installed. You can uninstall them once the script
is finished.
You will get a message complaining about the compiler version when running
the script, but you can safely ignore it.
- DirectX support is poor. This is for professional
use, not gaming ;-).
- If you install Linux client systems in VMWare on
Linux hosts, make sure you do a 'text' (i.e. non-graphical) installation.
The VMWare graphics device seems to get screwed up majorly if it encounters
a framebuffer. This does not apply to Linux guest systems running on Windows
hosts.
- If the screensaver on the host machine doesn't go
away despite of you hitting mouse buttons and keys on the keyboard, turn
your monitor off and on again.
- It - naturally - requires a lot of RAM to
be useful. Don't even think of using VM if your machine has less than 128MB
of RAM. The more the better.
You can download a 30-days test version from their website.
If you've bought the Mandrake PowerPack, you'll find it on the 'Commercial
Demos' CD.
Win4Lin
Win4Lin, a
proprietary application by NeTraverse (former TreLos) runs Windows 9x on
Linux. Due to tighter integration into the system, it requires considerably
less system resources than VM. It is also much cheaper ($80 compared to VMware's
$300).
There's a time limited test version available from NeTraverse's website (requires
registration). The packaged versions of Mandrake Linux 8.x also contain a
demo.
Notice that Win4Lin does not support DirectX.
If you are not sure which to choose, reading this comparative
review on VMware Workstation 3.0 and Win4Lin 3.0 might help.
plex86, bochs
plex86
is an Open Source project to build a virtualizer for as many host and guest
operating systems as possible. Currently dormant.
bochs is a
PC emulator and the 'father' of plex86. Since it emulates a PC as a whole,
it is very slow, but runs on a variety of hardware and operating system platforms.
WABI
WABI was Caldera's commercial Windows 3.1x emulator.
It was discontinued in October 1998, but may still be available in some places
(ebay, for example). Be aware that this product has some limitations (8 bit
colors only) and is no longer supported by Caldera.
WINE
WINE Is Not an
Emulator. WINE aims to be an Open Source reimplementation of the MS Windows
3.x/9x API. You use it to run single MS Windows applications in an X window
and not the whole operating system. You do not need any MS Windows license,
but you can configure WINE to use installed MS Windows libraries.
The project has been around for quite a while now, but
WINE releases should still be used by experienced Linux users only,
although a 1.0 version is expected to be released this year.
Offshoots
The WINE projects has fathered (rather unwillingly in
some cases) some commercial projects:
-
Codeweavers' CrossOver Plugin
andCrossOver Office.
CrossOver Plugin allows you to run some MS Windows only browser plugins like
Quicktime and ShockWave Director and viewers for MS Office formats on Linux.
CrossOver Office adds Microsoft Office 97 and 2000 and Lotus Notes.
A demo version of CrossOver Plugin is included in the box version of Mandrake
Linux.
-
Transgaming's
WineX aims to bring MS Windows games to Linux. There's been a Gaming Edition
of Mandrake Linux 8.1 which included WineX (and the game 'The Sims').
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cygwin
The aim of the free Cygwinproject is to port as
much of the Linux operating system to MS Windows as possible (yes, even graphical
applications). They even provide a complete compiling environment so that
you may try to port applications on your own.
They offer a net installer, which makes installing the environment very easy.
RPM has been ported to Cygwin, too, so installing additional software is quite
easy.
As for graphical applications, you will need the ported X server (XFree86
4), and of course you'll have to download quite a bunch of files ;). WinME
or Windows2000 or better are recommended. Here's a screenshot
of an X server running on Windows2000.
Unix for WINdows
UWIN is similar to
'cygwin', but not that ambitious. It provides some 200 utilities from Unix,
though. A major drawback might be that it uses the 'korn' shell instead of
'bash'.
Applications & Environments
The list of UNIX/Linux applications includes:
Using the free of cost 'Active' product line, you
can write your Perl, Python or Tcl scripts in Windows.
You can find more information on ports on the Virtual
Unix web site (notice that this is a link to a version on archive.org,
you will need JavaScript to browse the site there).
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PowerQuest Partition Magic
Partition Magic
is the best partition resizer available. Since version 4 it is also able
to create and resize Linux partitions. One remarkable thing is that you need
the Windows program just to create a bootable floppy, starting from version
5.0 you can even create the needed floppies directly in Linux. You can then
run the entire program from these floppies ... 'Partition Magic' is commercial
and proprietary software.
Notice that Partition Magic does not support journaling
filesystems like ReiserFS, XFS or JFS currently.
Mandrake Linux includes 'diskdrake', which can perform
most of PM's tasks. It doesn't handle NTFS partitions, though.
Explore2fs
Explore2fs
allows you to browse your ext2/ext3 Linux filesystems from within Windows.
The interface resembles the MS Explorer and it even features 'write' support
(though I would be careful with this one). It's freeware.
LTOOLS
The LTOOLS
are a set of command line tools to access ext2 formatted partitions from
DOS or Windows (3.x, 9.x or NT) running on the same machine. Also includes
a graphical, Java-based interface and the ability to use a web browser to
access those partitions.
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