[sf-lug] help with the Microsoft Windows virtualization

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Christian Einfeldt (einfeldt at gmail.com):

> hi
> 
> Rick Moen had some good suggestions about using Adobe software under Linux
> that I thought should be posted to the list, particularly since Rick
> requested the same.  Thanks, Rick, for your suggestions!

No problem.  Here was a recent follow-up:

 Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:39:55 -0700
 From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 To: Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com>
 Cc: Daniel Mizyrycki <mzdaniel at gmail.com>
 Subject: Re: help with the Microsoft Windows virtualization

Quoting Christian Einfeldt (einfeldt at gmail.com):

> Yeah, and just today at the end of the day, I was speaking with the
> science teacher, and he has decided that he is not amused by Adobe,
> and so he is going to cut back the work to only Photoshop!!  So we are
> going to be able to use Wine, most likely.  Woohoo!!

Good news.  Again, it's pretty important to get the version number, if
you (or people helping you) want to look up the known level of support
in recent WINE code.

> AFAIK, Crossover is not free as in beer, as you indicate below, and we
> have no budget, so we are not going to be able to use it.

Sure.  A couple of points on that:

1.  It's said to be sometimes useful to check compatibility using the
30-day trial copy of CrossOver Linux, _because_ it's a good indicator of
what might well be do-able with WINE given some extra work.  Basically,
CrossOver Linux is said to be just WINE with a few relatively modest
improvements, notably in the area of improved installer routines for
both WINE itself and various applications.  (There are probably some
other areas of difference, but I'm just not briefed on that.)

To get the trial copy, you have to supply a deliverable e-mail address
with your request, so probably you end up (in effect) using up one such
address for each time you need a 30-day trial.

2.  It's also said that you can make WINE a bit more compatible if you
happen to have MS-Windows, by letting WINE use certain of MS-Windows's DLLs
instead of its own.  See:
http://www.winehq.org/site/docs/wine-faq/index#MY-APP-DOESNT-WORK-WHAT-CAN-I-DO

(I should stress that I've personally never used either WINE or CrossOver
Linux.)