Hello,

I am new to the Linux environment and am currently running Redhat 9 on a Dell PC 2.0 Intel Nvidia Geforce card. I'm tossing out some system specs because I am unsure how much it will affect my questions.

I have looked around a bit, dabbled in some programs (Firefox, Showeq, Star Office) I've managed to get them all to work.
I've been browsing these forums and are finding them great for basic information pertaining to the look and feel of the display settings and configurations.

However, I'd like to know if anyone has any referrences they could share that would deal with the using of windows's programs on Linux. I have heard of a program, WinE I believe, that will allow you to run windows programs in a linux box.

Basically I'm a gamer, I do a lot of Warcraft, MMO's and occasionally I do some writing on the side. So if anyone can share some information that would help tweak the system or programs you would recommend.

- Alex

Most modern programs won't run under Wine. Many older ones will, though. See winehq.com. Many distros have Wine already installed, but it's a moving target and you'll probably want to install the latest version.

There is a project offshoot of Wine by http://transgaming.com They've modified Wine to support many games, including Warcraft.

But if you're a serious gamer, you'll need a Windows partition Personally, I'm so fed up with Windows that I wiped my Windows partition the other week. Sure, I miss gaming, and am often tempted to re-install, but that's how much I hate Windows, that I even hate everything that even RUNS only on Windows, so much so that I'll give up even Windows games.

Of course, with only a 600 Mhz P3, I can't run much that's on the shelves now, but still, I've got about a hundred great games I've bought over the past ten or so years that I'll just have to wait to run.

But I can still play the worlds greatest text adventure game. Linux.

a commercial off-shoot of wine is a program called crossover. It allows you to run some windows applications over linux and works very well for me. It has a gui to set it up. It's not free though. It's about $40.00 for the download standard version. I use it to run microsoft office and itunes on my linux PC. It supports many windows applications. Check it out at crossover.com.

There is also VMWare, which is actually quite amazing.

VMWare is software that simulates a PC. You have to actually boot that simulated machine, install Windows on that simulated machine, and from what I hear, can run any PC software, within Linux. It's expensive, though, over $200 I believe, and slower than a non-simulated machine, but it has got to be one of the coolest pieces of software I have ever seen. www.vmware.com

One other thing. Check out http://www.happypenguin.org/ for thousands of Linux games. I just discovered that site tonight. I think I have to work on getting OpenGL working properly on my box now

Thanks for the replies.

So I guess I'll be keeping a windows partition, blasted Blizzard for making addicting games =/.

Plus im digging the happy penguin site.

Thanks again.