Running Windows Applications on Linux

The perceived inability to run windows applications on Linux is what keeps many individuals from trying Linux. It turns out that it is possible to run many popular Windows applications on Linux PCs using one of several software technologies. Products that will allow Windows applications to run on Linux include:
Cedega from TransGaming Technologies Inc.
CrossOver Office for Linux from CodeWeavers Inc.
QEMU from Fabrice Bellard
VMware from VMware, an EMC company
Win4Lin from Win4Lin Inc.
Wine from the Wine Project

Cedega
TransGaming Technologies bills themselves as “the global leader in the development of software portability products for cross-platform gaming”. Their flagship product, Cedega, allows games originally created for Windows to run on Linux.

CrossOver Office
CrossOver Office from CodeWeavers allows many popular Windows applications to run on Linux. The list of applications that CrossOver Office allows to run on Linux is quite extensive and includes applications such as: Microsoft Office, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Project and Visio, and graphics applications such as Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, and Adobe Photoshop, and much more. CrossOver Office also allows individuals to use many Windows Web browser plugins, such as QuickTime and Shockwave. CodeWeavers uses Wine technology in its CrossOver Office Products (see the Wine description later in this article).

CodeWeavers maintains an extensive list of applications that can run on Linux using CrossOver Office with a ranking of how well they run. The list can be accessed on their web site.
CrossOver Office has been tested on many Linux distributions. The complete list may be found on the CodeWeavers web site.

CrossOver Office is available in two versions, Standard and Professional. The Standard version is intended for home users and Linux enthusiasts, while Professional is more for commercial users and builds on the functionality of Standard by adding enhanced deployability features, as well as the ability to run CrossOver Office in shared mode from a single machine.
A 30-day trial of CrossOver Office is available from CodeWeavers and may be obtained from their web site.

QEMU
QEMU is a generic open source processor emulator that was developed by Fabrice Bellard. It is available for free. QEMU allows a user to run one operating system, such as Windows, within another one, such as Linux.
QEMU is available for Free and may be downloaded from Fabrice’s web site.

VMware
VMware comes from VMware, Inc., an EMC company. VMware allows users to to run multiple virtual machines on a single PC. Each virtual machine can run a different operating system. The net result is that VMWare allows a user to run multiple operating systems on a single Intel-based PC. Using VMware, a user can run a Windows virtual machine and Windows applications on a Linux PC.
VMware Workstation supports a long list of Linux distributions as the host operating system. You should check with the VMware web site for the specific releases and kernel levels supported.
A free 30-day trial of VMware Workstation may be downloaded from the VMWare web site.
VMware also provides the VMware Player for free. The VMware Player can run virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server. Pre-configured VMware virtual machines may be obtained from the VMWare Virtual Machine Center.

Win4Lin
Win4Lin from Win4Lin Inc. provides a Windows virtual computing environment that runs on Linux allowing Windows applications to run on Linux. Win4Lin comes in three versions that would be appropriate for the home user:
Win4Lin Home, which is targeted for the home or small business user.
Win4Lin 9x (Formerly Win4Lin 5), which is targeted for the home user/hobbyist, or business users who do not require Windows 2000.
Win4Lin Pro, which is targeted at power users who require Windows 2000 or XP.
Win4Lin runs on most 2.4.x or 2.6.x Linux distributions. Win4Lin 9x and Win4Lin Home require a modified kernel to work. For most users, the Win4Lin graphical installer will select, download, and install the appropriate binary replacement kernel, making patching the kernel unnecessary. However, there are some distributions that may require users to compile a vanilla kernel from source. Such distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4, and Fedora Core 3 and 4. Some Linux distributions include Win4Lin support in their default kernel or make a Win4Lin enabled kernel available, including: Gentoo, Linspire, SimplyMepis, and Xandros. Win4Lin Pro does not require kernel modification.

Wine
Wine, which stands for Wine Is Not a (CPU) Emulator, is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API (application programming interface) that runs on Linux and POSIX compatible operating systems. Wine is a compatibility layer that allows Windows programs to run on Linux. Wine is still under development, and it is not yet suitable for general use, however, many individuals use Wine to run Windows applications on Linux. WineHQ maintains an Application Database of individual’s success and failure reports running Windows applications with Wine. Other products mentioned in this article are based on Wine, including CodeWeavers CrossOver Office, and Cedega from TransGaming Technologies.

CodeWeavers boosts Mac-Windows compatibility

CodeWeavers released Version 9.0 of CrossOver, the software that lets Windows applications run on Mac OS X without requiring a copy of Windows.

The update features a new user interface, a new easier application installer and an online installation database with what the company calls “recipes” or C4 Profiles. Users will be able to contribute to this recipe store, which over time should boost the number of applications supported by CrossOver.
On MacWindows, John Rizzo said CrossOver 9.0 improves support for a number of Windows applications.

It improves in running Internet Explorer, particularly Internet Explorer 7. The company said that improvements to Microsoft Office for Windows were “major,” adding support for Excel Macros, which are not current supported in Office 2008 for Mac. Word for Windows clipart now works, and Outlook is more stable. CrossOver 9 also adds limited support for Quicken 2010.
CrossOver ranks its compatibility like the Olympics. The company says that Gold runs on an everyday basis with good results, and only minor bugs; Silver runs well enough to be usable but in its testing, it finds that these applications have bugs that prevent them from running “flawlessly;” and Bronze applications that “install and run, and that can accomplish some portion of their fundamental mission.”

However, Bronze applications generally have enough bugs that we recommend that our customers use them with caution. Save early/save often, and don’t be surprised if there are some bumps along the way.

In its Compatibility Center, the company lists 670 Gold applications.
CrossOver requires an Intel-based Mac. The Standard version of the product costs $39.95; the Pro version costs $69.95.

Putty for Mac

$15.00

Developed by CodeWeavers

Developed by CodeWeavers, CrossOver Games is a commercial, game-optimized version of the Wine project, whose goal is to allow non-Windows systems to run Windows software without installing the OS. CrossOver Games is not an emulator, and it needs to run on an Intel Mac; it won’t work on a PowerPC-based machine.

Like any gaming environment, it benefits from more horsepower; we tested it on a MacBook Pro maxed out with 4GB of RAM. While looking through CodeWeavers’ list of supported games, Valve’s titles stood out as ones that Mac gamers have been yearning for. Our tests focused on Portal and Half-Life 2.
Installing CrossOver Games was easy, but game installation was fraught with more difficulty than we would’ve liked. We had our install disc ready, and everything seemed to be going well, but after the installation completed, we couldn’t find the installed games in CrossOver’s menu. We had to quit and relaunch CrossOver Games for the titles to appear.

But once we launched Steam, Valve’s gaming client, it immediately started downloading updates to the installed games, and generally behaved as it should have. The only other significant glitch was that it took some work to figure out how to run games in windowed, rather than full-screen, mode. It turns out that for most of Valve’s games, you have to set the in-game preference and then quit and relaunch CrossOver Games to make the change take effect.

The strongest game by far is the hidden picture and item mixing game with Miracle Max. Each stage is a two-fold affair. You must first find all the ingredients he requests from various rooms around his shop. Most hidden item games suffer from using grainy, blurry rooms filled with equally grainy items to obscure them.

This game features a well-drawn and crisply animated room, that just happen to be very cluttered. It works very well overall. The mixing portion involves taking potion ingredients to combine and form a potion that matches the one in the book in front of you. It starts out simple and then quickly layers on all types of mixing things to consider and becomes a pretty engaging little game.

Putty for Mac

$15.00

Install Windows Applications in Linux (Ubuntu Debian Fedora Madriva Gentoo) with Crossover 9.0

CodeWeavers latest version of CrossOver for Linux and Mac has been released. . CrossOver 9.0 (codenamed Snow Mallard) is a commercial software that helps installing Windows applications via Wine easily for Linux users. It is a well tested software. But it is not a free software. CrossOver costs $39.95 for the standard version, or $69.95 for the pro version. But it is worth for your money.

The new CrossOver Linux 9 UI

CrossOver 9 has a very good user interface. It help you to install your windows applications in a few clicks. CrossOver also downloads and installs any needed frameworks, fonts, and plugins. It has a feature "Community Supported Applications" , this will help you to install unsupported windows applications with the help of a growing community support.

Putty for Mac

$15.00

MicroOLAP Database Designer for PostgreSQL with enhanced WineHQ support released

MicroOLAP Database Designer for PostgreSQL is an easy CASE tool with intuitive graphical interface allowing you to build a clear and effective database structure visually, see the complete picture (diagram) representing all the tables, references between them, views, stored procedures and other objects. Then you can easily generate a physical database on a server, modify it according to any changes you made to the diagram using fast ALTER statements.

Full changelog:

[!] WineHQ support enhanced
[+] DEFERRABLE clause now proccessed for FOREIGN KEY by SQL Reverse Engineering
[*] SQL Reverse Engineering: function now created if specified in CREATE TRIGGER and "Create nonexistent references object" checked
[-] "After changing interface language Object Tree View not refreshed immediatly" bug fixed
[-] "Cannot add object through Object Tree View popup menu after interface lanuage changed" bug fixed
[-] "Cannot delete all tablespaces from model" bug fixed
[-] "Cannot save Begin and End Scripts using Database Editor" bug fixed
[-] "Command 'wine PgMDD.exe' fails in the shell" bug fixed
[-] "Modify Database duplicates FOREIGN KEYs sometimes" bug fixed
[-] "Width for stored routines calculated wrong sometimes" bug fixed

You're welcome to download the latest release from our website at:

http://microolap.com/products/database/postgresql-designer/download/

Please don't hesitate to ask any questions or report bugs with our
Support Ticketing system.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.