Hi All,

I'm thinking about my future 9.2 Pro software configuration and would like to ask for input and feedback.

I do wireless already off of my SONY Laptop, can do media with MPlayer, do the Bittorrents with Azereus, P2P with LimeWire, ftp, download management etc. I've pretty much covered all the basics and will trash the MS side of my box completely when I get 92 Pro. A lot of the apps that I've got running are non-native KDE or SuSE apps.

My question, which adds the most functionality to SuSE 9.2 Pro for the future:

1. Crossover Office
2. WINE
3. VMWARE

I have Crossover Office, which is great, but limited, I have never mastered WINE enough to work with the MS .exe files that I have on my Box, and never bothered with VMWare. I own a good deal of software that will end up lying around unless I can get some these MS developed programs going. Most are not MS programs, but have been developed only to run on the MS OS.

I'd eventually like to add another Linux distro to play with, perhaps play games and also have some MS programs loaded should I run into problems where I just can't do it / want to do it with SuSE.

I've a bunch of questions here and would appreciate the input / thoughts? I'm sure there are many things here that I've not addressed.

Hi Adler,
I'm a total newbie and I had these "MS Apps" fears from the beginning. It seems that everyone raves about all the free software that comes with the Linux distros but when push comes to shove I'd still rather use the MS programs. The only native linux software exception I have found so far is K3b, a no nonsense a CD burner that just flat out works without all the bells and whistles of Nero for example.

I have purchased a program called Win4Lin by Netraverse which does what Wine can only dream about. Wine is free, but I equate time with money and it just seems too esoteric and time consuming. Win4Lin costs around $100 but man it just works. It's not really an emulator but it seems to be more of a MS "translator". You actually have to load Win98 or WinME within a shell and once that is done you then load MS software directly within this shell. There are some serious drawbacks though:

1. Thus far Win4Lin only supports the dumber MS OS's like Win98 not 2000 or XP.

2. The Win4Lin Installer modifies your Kernel so you have to wait for them to supply the kernel patch each time a new kernel version comes out (the gurus won't like that at all). Not all kernels are supported right now (like P4 HT enabled kernels) but there is a growing list of supported kernels on their website.

3. You cannot run most sophisticated games or any other app that directly accesses low level machine resources like CD burning or defragmenters, but you don't need those anyway.

4. You actually do need to have a copy of Win98SE or Win95 or WinME as distasteful as that may sound but who doesn't have a copy lying around in a shoebox somewhere?

The advantage though is that you can run at least 90% of all MS Apps in their original form and you install them directly within the shell. This includes virtual private networking, Photoshop, Acrobat, MSOffice, - you name it, and they run faster (the limitation being that you can't run the latest and greatest versions because 98SE and ME are too dumb). Also, you don't have to worry too much about those endless security or code enhancement updates because you are running Linux. If there is an instability you don't reboot the machine, you ust reboot the "window" which is an exact replica of a Win98 desktop and it restarts in 9 seconds.

Check out their website at http://www.netraverse.com/

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

ceg4048,

Thanks for your input. My post is to gather others options and experiences.

I've no longer fears to do it all in Linux, but looking to see how others are addressing their computing options.

Thanks again.

Photoshop is the main reason why I'm still using Windows -- I need both the latest version of Photoshop (CS) and camera RAW conversions -- I don't shoot in Jpegs but use the native camera format --called RAW. I'm using professional Digital SLR's and I can only convert the camera RAW files via photoshop or Canon's software.

Without going into a lot of detail professional photographers tend to use the in camera RAW native format rather than jpegs since you can do a lot of adjustments and processing --with jpegs the camera has already done some processing which might not be what you like and it's a "lossy" compression format so you lose quality --for those interested there's data all over the web on this topic.

Ms office is still also way ahead of Open Office although open office is improving all the time --it's not quite ready IMO to repace Ms OFFICE completely yet.

I've junked ACCESS in favour of MySQL but EXCEL is still the nr 1 spreadsheet.

I use VMWARE -- I run a Windows XP installation on VMWARE with just these apps - Ms OFFICE, Adobe Photoshop CS, and Canon RAW camera conversion.

Once I can either run these under WINE or native Linux then it's bye bye Ms.

Open Office Word processing is also OK --but the spreadsheet IMO still needs work on and also I like MS Powerpoint for presentations.

VMware isn't that cheap but it works 100%.

1kyle,

Thanks for the post. You make a good point above digital photogtaphy. I'm still waiting for prices to fall, but they haven't seemed to yet.

Again, looking back to the bigger picture, VMWare seems to look good as the sort of back-up to getting it all done for those few nagging apps.

I have been using VMware on SuSE 9.0 Pro for a couple of years. Like others who've posted here, I only need that other OS for a very few apps. Win2K runs cleanly as a guest in VMware. I love it and recommend the combination to my colleagues, students, and anyone who will listen.

Beware, however, of moving to SuSE 9.1 (as primary OS) and then trying VMware! It's extremely difficult to install, if you can do it at all. After hours searching the various user forums, noting the problems others have had, filing many posts, and following the advice of thoughtful repliers, I abandoned the effort and went back to 9.0. I can find nothing in the forums, on VMware, or on the SuSE site to suggest that the problems Novell/SuSE created in 9.1 have been rectified. I'd love to have the capabilities of 9.1 or 9.2, but it's not in the cards until VMware can be installed easily, smoothly, and cleanly.

The last time my Windoze crashed, i never reinstalled anything MicroSquish related.

I am using SuSE 9.1 Personal and very happy with it.

MS Office has been replaced with the better Open Office.

AutoCAD has been replaced by Q-CAD.

Photoshop has been replaced by Gimp. (I will try to post a review from a PC magazine that compared the two)

Frontpage has been replaced by NVu, Bluefish and Quanta.

I E has been replaced by Mozilla and Thunderbird.

Kopete has replaced MSN messenger.

The list goes on.............

I have found a replacement for everything that i had on my Windoze.

So i dont see all the fuss about MS programs. There are equivalents. The only people who complain are the ones who own shares in MS or play games on their computers.

BTW i run a business and i use Linux only now.

jimaman,

You made some interesting comments about VMWare. I run SuSE 9.2 Pro.

Hmmm... I just did a 9.1 install on a dual Xeon... VMware 4.5.2 went pretty easily. One thing you have to do with 3rd party products with kernel modules is get your kernel sources prepped. Have to repeat these steps after ANY update to the kernel through SUSE's YOU.

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make cloneconfig
# make

That last make might be necessary in some cases, but is always a safe thing to do...

Then for VMware you'll have to:

# vmware-config.pl

to rebuild the vmware modules from source.

Back to the original question:

I use Cedega for games, CrossOver for fast MS Office and browser plugins and VMware for large things (running an Exchange Server under W2K3 for instance).

Cedega supports a limited number of games (though the list is actually quite large... just never the game somebody wants). I've run doom3, quake3, frogger2, alice, some of the Disney titles... with only a few problems. Doom3 actually seems faster than the native Linux one.

CrossOver support MS Office, but NOT Office 2003 (not yet). I have used Office 97, Office 2000 and Office XP as well as plugins for Quicktime and Shockwave.

VMware is the most complete, BUT doesn't support DirectX to the point of handling direct memory calls, so NO accelerated games... though 2D games work quite nicely (not DOS games though, unless text based only).

None of these are all-in-all solns. VMware did at one time promise to bring DirectX capabilities to their product, but I don't think it's a high priority (their market is NOT in the gaming arena).

Adler,

Are you running VMware with SuSE Pro 9.2? If so, was it a clean install this time or, as it was in 9.1, a journey around SuSE's renaming of the (normal) /usr/src/linux-obj directory to /usr/src/linux-<version>-obj?

I really just want it working without having to invest a lot of precious time manipulating through workarounds. Selfish, I know, but it's the way things must work if Linux is ever to take over the desktop.

jimaman,

I'm not running VMWare yet. I'm going to get 9.2 Pro when it hits the stores here and then rebulld my machinw with only one OS. I'm looking to see how others have accomplished this i.e. get rid of MS.

Adler,

I'll be watching this thread to see how your experience with VMware on 9.2 Pro works out. My fingers are crossed for you. Thanks...

jimaman,

I'll be back for sure.

Adler

You have had quite a few good replies already.

A short summary:

1)Crossover and Cedega are only improved versions of wine. They run some M$ apps quite well (Office, Photoshop...) and most poorly or not at all.
2)Win4Lin: I have managed to install only Windows 98. It doesn't run every MS app, though, the opposite might be true. VMWare needs a lot of resources and I have never got any satisfactory result.

What I have personally done: in the past I believed that I "needed" a MS partition, because of a few apps: IE (yes), because it was the only browser accepted by my bank, Getright because of the multiple connections and the acceleration...
Recently my bank changed policy and now it accepts Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape.
As to Getright after having a few corrupted downloads I felt that almost every linux downloader can do better.
Even so I still kept a small Win 2k partition just as an habit. Not any longer: wasted space, as I never booted into it.
Do I still dual boot? Yes, between SuSE and Debian!
As to Crossover and Cedega I still install them occasionally, just in case...But I guess that is an habit I am also getting rid of...
Concluding: Linux has almost any app I need natively, including a few good games.

jimaman

I run VMWare 4.5.2 on SuSE 9.2 pro...

I install win98 as the guestOS and its fast ...

I am new to VMWare and I can't setup the network... I setup but doesn't work
I can't ping the host from the guest or the gust from the host...

But the instalation of the VMWare was nice fast

regards,

Wagner