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Running Windows Applications on Linux

Running Windows Applications on Linux. Using Wine By Patrick Berge. My Motivation. I personally don’t use Windows at home (Linux and Mac OS X for me). At work I use Windows, Linux and proprietary UNIX.

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Running Windows Applications on Linux

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  1. Running Windows Applications on Linux Using Wine By Patrick Berge

  2. My Motivation • I personally don’t use Windows at home (Linux and Mac OS X for me). At work I use Windows, Linux and proprietary UNIX. • I like to use the best software for the job, and in a few cases this includes non-free applications even from Microsoft. • I don’t hate Microsoft, but I do hate buggy insecure software. • OSes should never crash or hang due to a user application. This is true with stable Linux and UNIX OSes and recently maybe Windows XP? although I am not convinced… I still see the Blue-Screen-of-Death on Win2k at work.

  3. Two Simple Polls • Which category best fits you? 1) Windows or Mac OS only user 2) Dual boot Linux with another OS 3) Linux or GNU/Linux only user • How do you feel about running Windows apps from Linux? 1) Great. I just need < your favorite applications > working 2) Sounds interesting, but prefer to use free/open source 3) I am completely disgusted that anyone would want to do this

  4. Why Run Windows Apps? • Let’s be honest. Windows apps are commonly purchased in stores and used by more people than Linux or GNU applications. • You may already know how to use MS Office or Lotus Notes (Argh). • Some native Linux apps just don’t exist or are not as functional. 1) QuickTime 2) Flash • Open source developers have not organized development on many specialty applications like Street Atlas. • Solitaire is fun. (NOTE: Kpatience is much better!)

  5. What is needed with Linux to run Windows Apps? • All Windows applications are written to interface to the Windows OS using Microsoft’s Windows API (Application Programming Interface). • Linux has a completely different API so a software conversion layer is needed to convert Windows APIs to Linux/X APIs. i.e. Windows (draw box) --> conversion layer --> X (draw box) Windows (open file) --> conversion layer --> Linux (open file) Since ’93 the Open Source community has been developing this conversion layer which they call Wine.

  6. Wine • Wine Is Not an Emulator – www.winehq.org • Emulation implies each instruction is translated into native instructions. Bochs, Wabi and Virtual PC are emulators. • Wine is a Linux software conversion layer that allows some Windows applications to run native on Linux. • Since Wine is a user app, Windows apps or Wine itself will not crash a stable Linux kernel. • On the negative side, any applications that do direct hardware calls (via Windows .VDX drivers) will probably hang or crash the Wine app. • DEMO of Solitaire and Wordpad.

  7. Wine Alternatives • VMWare – www.vmware.com 1) Very good commercial product that allows many independent OSes running simultaneously 2) Very expensive ($299) and very resource intensive 3) May be cheaper to get a second PC with VNC 4) Great for Linux/BSD kernel debug! • Win4Lin – www.netaverse.com 1) Better application support than Wine 2) Reasonable price ($89.99) 3) Closed proprietary interface to Linux kernel 4) Non-standard scheduler in Linux kernel

  8. Wine Alternatives – Part 2 • DosEMU – www.dosemu.org 1) Very old DOS emulator for Linux 2) I have only used it to play Tomb Raider (’96) • Virtual PC – www.connectix.com/products/vpc5m.html 1) Run Windows apps on Win, Mac, or OS/2 ($129 - $249) 2) Real Emulation (Intel Architecture ops converted to PPC) 3) Now owned by Microsoft (2/19/03) 4) Again VNC with a second PC may be cheaper! • Bochs – bochs.sourceforge.net 1) Open Source attempt to mimic VMWare 2) Real Emulator so very slow but can work without x86

  9. Commercial Wine Derivatives • TransGaming – www.transgaming.com 1) Commercial Wine/DirectX support for Windows games 2) Very cheap $5 month subscription ($15 min) 3) Some games have faster frame rates than native Windows! • CrossOver – www.codeweavers.com 1) Commercial implementation of Wine targeting the most popular Windows apps. 2) CodeWeavers was founded by one of the Wine developers with the intent to make a simple install/upgrade interface to Wine no more difficult then a common Windows install. 3) CodeWeavers contributes many fixes to the open source Wine project in addition to providing excellent support (my personal experience).

  10. CrossOver Office • Allows user to install common Windows productivity applications on Linux without a Windows OS purchase ($54.95). • CodeWeaver’s installation tool makes Win app installs on a running Linux system as easy as installing the app on Windows. • 30 day free trial. • Support for: MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, IE) XP, 2K and 97 MS Access, Visio and Outlook (2K versions only) Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (just added) Lotus Notes R5 Quicken

  11. CrossOver Plugins • Allows user to run many Windows browser plugins on Linux without a Windows OS license ($24.95). • Free 30 day trial. • Support for common Linux browsers (Netscape 4/6/7, Mozilla, Galeon, Opera, and Konqueror). • GNOME and KDE file type support to transparently open plugins. • Supported Windows plugins include QuickTime,Shockwave, Flash, MS Office viewers and media player,Tillian, iPIX, eFax, and others. • CrossOver Plugins DEMO including MS Office viewers, QuickTime, and Flash.

  12. IBM Client for E-Business • Red Hat distribution with enhancements available for IBM employees (NOTE: This is not an IBM distribution of Linux but a Red Hat distribution). • Red Hat base with all the correct hardware configurations for supported IBM desktops, servers and laptops. • CodeWeaver Wine patches for registered copies of Microsoft Office, and Lotus Notes plus AFS, TSM, mainframe connections, etc… • IBMers should note permission granted from LinuxC4eB team to discuss and demo. • IBM Linux C4eB DEMO including MS Office and Lotus Notes.

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