Hi people,

I know the subject of running windows apps on Linux has been discussed before but I would like to personalise the question so to speak. I am running Red Hat 8 on two systems - a Tosh Satellite 4030CDS with 10gb hard drive and 64mb memory. The laptop is dual boot with Windows 2000. At work I also have a desktop pc - a Compaq Deskpro EP, with 10gb hard drive and 128mb memory, also dual booting RH8 and W2K. I would like to access Windows apps from the Windows partitions for both machines and wondered which emulators you guys think may be the best for my circumstances.
I would also need the easiest to setup too. VMware is the easiest option from what I can understand of emulators as I have used this and it was pretty easy to setup, however the cost of it does put me off. Does anyone know of an emulator that is reasonably priced or free that can emulate the Windows partition on RH8 and is pretty easy to setup? If anyone can help I would much appreciate it, unfortunately my work means I need to use Windows apps otherwise I would rather not run it at all. The main app I need to run is Lotus Smartsuite and Lotus Notes.

Thanks
atko.

Ye, there is an emulator called bochs. But it's not nearly as easy to setup as vmware.
Then there is wine.That is not an emulator but it can execute win32 apps. But many times it doen't work.

I've heard good things about Win4Lin - much cheaper than VMware.

Thanks guys. I did manage to setup Bochs (of sorts) but couldn't find an 'image' for Windows 2000. Those of you that know Bochs will know you have to load an image into it. I cannot find such an image and do not know enough to create one myself. If anyone knows of where I can obtain an image I would appreciate it. Win4Lin I tried to download but you need a serial number - I am still waiting for one from them to evaluate. I don't want to purchase anything before I know if it is going to do the job.

I'm not sure Win2K would run well in Bochs.
Loading an image is not the only way to install an OS on bochs. I installed DOS 6.2 from floppy images. It runs well for some things but locks up on others. The mouse behaves very oddly with my Win 3.1 in Bochs. It is not very usable. (No cracks about not being usable anyway, now.)

Thanks for your comments, 2damncommon. You have confirmed what I suspected after reading the Bocsh website. Just to let you guys know I have managed to setup VMware on my desktop PC at work. Initially, I tried to setup using a physical hard drive but I kept getting the Lilo boot loader, selected Windows and got error message 'NLDR missing' or something like that - forgot exact one. I then installed a virtual hard drive, installed W2K and was able to connect to the network. I have installed the software which was on my physical drive - namely, Smartsuite and Notes. These programs are run off the server anyway so technically I do not actually need to connect to the physical hard drive - my actual windows partition. As far as my laptop is concerned that is a different story, I need to access my physical drive on this one. Will keep you posted. If anyone can give any advice on this one or help on the error I got on the desktop this may help me. Thanks guys.