Running Windows Applications on Linux Using Wine By Patrick Berge

My Motivation I personally don’t use Windows at home (Linux and Mac OS X for me). At work I use Windows, Linux and proprietary UNIX. I like to use the best software for the job, and in a few cases this includes non-free applications even from Microsoft. I don’t hate Microsoft, but I do hate buggy insecure software. OSes should never crash or hang due to a user application. This is true with stable Linux and UNIX OSes and recently maybe Windows XP? although I am not convinced… I still see the Blue-Screen-of- Death on Win2k at work.

Two Simple Polls Which category best fits you? 1) Windows or Mac OS only user 2) Dual boot Linux with another OS 3) Linux or GNU/Linux only user 3) Linux or GNU/Linux only user How do you feel about running Windows apps from Linux? 1) Great. I just need working 2) Sounds interesting, but prefer to use free/open source 3) I am completely disgusted that anyone would want to do this

Why Run Windows Apps? Let’s be honest. Windows apps are commonly purchased in stores and used by more people than Linux or GNU applications. You may already know how to use or (Argh). You may already know how to use MS Office or Lotus Notes (Argh). Some native Linux apps just don’t exist or are not as functional. 1) 2) Some native Linux apps just don’t exist or are not as functional. 1) QuickTime 2) Flash Open source developers have not organized development on many specialty applications like. Open source developers have not organized development on many specialty applications like Street Atlas. is fun. (NOTE: is much better!) Solitaire is fun. (NOTE: Kpatience is much better!)

What is needed with Linux to run Windows Apps? All Windows applications are written to interface to the Windows OS using Microsoft’s Windows API (Application Programming Interface). Linux has a completely different API so a software conversion layer is needed to convert Windows APIs to Linux/X APIs. i.e. Windows (draw box) --> conversion layer --> X (draw box) Windows (open file) --> conversion layer --> Linux (open file) Since ’93 the Open Source community has been developing this conversion layer which they call Wine.

Wine Wine Is Not an Emulator – Emulation implies each instruction is translated into native instructions. Bochs, Wabi and Virtual PC are emulators. Wine is a Linux software conversion layer that allows some Windows applications to run native on Linux. Since Wine is a user app, Windows apps or Wine itself will not crash a stable Linux kernel. On the negative side, any applications that do direct hardware calls (via Windows.VDX drivers) will probably hang or crash the Wine app. DEMO of and DEMO of Solitaire and Wordpad.

Wine Alternatives VMWare – 1) Very good commercial product that allows many independent OSes running simultaneously 2) Very expensive ($299) and very resource intensive 3) May be cheaper to get a second PC with VNC 4) Great for Linux/BSD kernel debug! Win4Lin – 1) Better application support than Wine 2) Reasonable price ($89.99) 3) Closed proprietary interface to Linux kernel 4) Non-standard scheduler in Linux kernel

Wine Alternatives – Part 2 DosEMU – 1) Very old DOS emulator for Linux 2) I have only used it to play Tomb Raider (’96) Virtual PC – 1) Run Windows apps on Win, Mac, or OS/2 ($129 - $249) 2) Real Emulation (Intel Architecture ops converted to PPC) 3) Now owned by Microsoft (2/19/03) 4) Again VNC with a second PC may be cheaper! Bochs – bochs.sourceforge.net bochs.sourceforge.net 1) Open Source attempt to mimic VMWare 2) Real Emulator so very slow but can work without x86

Commercial Wine Derivatives TransGaming – 1) Commercial Wine/DirectX support for Windows games 2) Very cheap $5 month subscription ($15 min) 3) Some games have faster frame rates than native Windows! CrossOver – 1) Commercial implementation of Wine targeting the most popular Windows apps. 2) CodeWeavers was founded by one of the Wine developers with the intent to make a simple install/upgrade interface to Wine no more difficult then a common Windows install. 3) CodeWeavers contributes many fixes to the open source Wine project in addition to providing excellent support (my personal experience).

CrossOver Office Allows user to install common Windows productivity applications on Linux without a Windows OS purchase ($54.95). CodeWeaver’s installation tool makes Win app installs on a running Linux system as easy as installing the app on Windows. 30 day free trial. Support for: XP, 2K and 97 MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, IE) XP, 2K and 97 (2K versions only) MS Access, Visio and Outlook (2K versions only) (just added) Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (just added) Lotus Notes R5 Quicken

CrossOver Plugins Allows user to run many Windows browser plugins on Linux without a Windows OS license ($24.95). Free 30 day trial. Support for common Linux browsers ( ). Support for common Linux browsers (Netscape 4/6/7, Mozilla, Galeon, Opera, and Konqueror). GNOME and KDE file type support to transparently open plugins. Supported Windows plugins include and others. Supported Windows plugins include QuickTime, Shockwave, Flash, MS Office viewers and media player,Tillian, iPIX, eFax, and others. CrossOver Plugins DEMO including CrossOver Plugins DEMO including MS Office viewers, QuickTime, and Flash.

IBM Client for E-Business Red Hat distribution with enhancements available for IBM employees (NOTE: This is not an IBM distribution of Linux but a Red Hat distribution). Red Hat base with all the correct hardware configurations for supported IBM desktops, servers and laptops. CodeWeaver Wine patches for registered copies of andplus etc… CodeWeaver Wine patches for registered copies of Microsoft Office, and Lotus Notes plus AFS, TSM, mainframe connections, etc… IBMers should note permission granted from LinuxC4eB team to discuss and demo. IBM Linux C4eB DEMO including and IBM Linux C4eB DEMO including MS Office and Lotus Notes.