Running commercial Windows applications in Linux.

kolla · 07-20-2007, 11:05 AM

My name is kolla, and I am a total newbie to Linux and would like some advice.

I run a small Tax Return & Bookkeeping business, and I use a lot of Income Tax Preparation commercial software written for Windows OS (XP & 2000 & older programmes that run in Dos).

I would like to run these programmes in the Linux environment!!! Is there a way to do this? For example, I hear there are programmes written for Linux that would allow Linux to use Windows Applications.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

acid_kewpie · 07-20-2007, 11:43 AM

your first port of call is crossover office which is a commercial package to run a subset of packages as well as possible. it is likely that you software of choice is outside of the formally supported packages though. if it doesn't work you can then try the wine project as a whole (crossover office is a heavily developed branch of the free wine project) which can run more programs but with less direct focus and guarentee of performance.

lazlow · 07-20-2007, 11:43 AM

You are looking for wine. It is a chance thing as far as what runs and what does not. What Distro are you using? Most have it available via package manager.

hand of fate · 07-21-2007, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acid_kewpie

your first port of call is crossover office which is a commercial package to run a subset of packages as well as possible. it is likely that you software of choice is outside of the formally supported packages though. if it doesn't work you can then try the wine project as a whole (crossover office is a heavily developed branch of the free wine project) which can run more programs but with less direct focus and guarentee of performance.

I would say try Wine first. There's no point paying for the commercial package if it runs perfectly well with the free one.

mrclisdue · 07-21-2007, 07:20 AM

edit: removed suggestion because it didn't fall in line with what a mod determined was the only viable solution.

cheers,

acid_kewpie · 07-21-2007, 07:31 AM

that's not the solution that was asked for. he might as well just run windows natively, and his experience will be even better...