Published at LXer:

I didn't want to write this column. I live as Windows-free an existence as most people can these days. Of course I have to run Windows as part of my job, in order to make sure that Samba, the software I write, will interoperate correctly with all the multiple Windows versions out there. I also have to install some Windows applications using the Open Source Wine project, which emulates Windows on Linux well enough that some binary Windows applications will install and run straight off the DvD. Like most people, there are some Windows applications I just can't do without, although in this case it's my three year old son who finds an amazing amount of joy in his toddler games, none of which have yet been ported to Linux. Wine works amazingly well these days for this sort of thing, well enough that my wife no longer complains about the computer "being hard to use".

[What part of (W)ine (I)s (N)ot an (E)mulator - WINE, do people not get? Call me a stickler but if its not an emulator, then why do we let people get away with saying it is? - Scott]

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