Windows Interoperability in A Linux Distro

Magenta writes "There is a review of the Desktop OS Version 3 Business Edition from Xandros. This operating system is meant to allow users to easily move from Windows XP to Linux without the problems that can arise. Xandros not only can use Window's file system but it is able to run a great number of Windows programs using its CrossOver Office tool from CodeWeavers. This is one of the most accessible distros to come along in awhile and it marks a big step forward in the progress on Linux on the desktop."

Re:/shrug

[IamTheRealMike]

WineHQs game support has come on tremendously lately, it's not just for apps anymore.

Just for fun...

[Anonymous Coward]

Xandros' Windows functionality is OK for a demonstration. But its speed sucks for production environment.

BTW, Xandros isn't a pretty looking dektop. And, it is not FREE as in FREE BEER

Talk about advertising

[gilesjuk]

The original posting overstates the abilities of Xandros.

Crossover office is a product you can buy and install on most Linux distros. It's a nicely patched up and packaged version of Wine.

As for being able to access Windows filesystems, the Linux kernel contains drivers for FAT, FAT32 and NTFS. I would be very suprised if this distro can write to NTFS safely as this is something that is still being worked on.

Re:30 Great Number

[IamTheRealMike]

"Supported" means that if it doesn't run, you get tech support. It also means they will continue to run properly in future versions. There are plenty of other apps that are unsupported which work fine though.

Re:/shrug

[mahdi13]

not to mention that Transgaming's Cedega [transgaming.com] runs all the games the parent mentioned...

Credit where credit is due

[FidelCatsro]

First off , This is great that they have had the fore sight to include the drivers to read and write NTFS .It is also very nice that they have included code weavers cross over office.This is great for getting some people to switch to linux , shame they didn't include cedega as well , which could of really completed the package , though this is a business edition.

But credit where credit is due , the article summary makes it seem like Xandros was responsible for these things.http://www.codeweavers.com/ [codeweavers.com] code weaver site , responsible of Crossover office and naturally a link to wine on which Cross over office is based http://www.winehq.com/ [winehq.com].
A link to the linux NTFS project http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] (I assume this is the driver they are using , correct me if I'm wrong)
(Cross over office is a great product , It also has a rather pleasant installer in my experience.So you don't need to switch distros .)

Free version

[genericacct]

On their downloads [xandros.com] page, there is a link for the Open Circulation edition. Completely gratis if you use bittorrent. I'm considering trying it here at work.

Re:No wayyy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that parent is a JOKE -- obvoiusly minesweeper, solataire, and calc are among the classic screenshot examples for WINE.

Re:/shrug

[jiushao]

Everquest 2 appears to be unplayable according to Transgamings game database [transgaming.org]. Same thing [transgaming.org] with Battlefield 2.

World of Warcraft is apparently considered extremely playable. Unfortunately as is common with the Transgaming stuff that still means that the installer crashes (but has finished when it does), the graphic glitches in places and performance is lousy in some situations without a special hack. Overall it is a way to get to play games, but it is hardly the most user-friendly solution there is.

Re:Windows compatibility

[leonmergen]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought Wine used some sort of chrooted environment when executing Windows programs, thus only limiting the security risk to other Windows programs, and not your Linux OS ?

Re:Talk about advertising

[Hikaru79]

The Captive-NTFS project you linked to is a bit different than the linux-ntfs project the parent was thinking of. Captive-NTFS is an emulated version of Windows' own ntfs.dll . Linux-NTFS is a from-scratch implementation of the NTFS protocol, which is apparently quite well documented, so no reverse-enginnering was needed. The difference is like running Microsoft Office through Wine as opposed to using OpenOffice -- they both work, but you'd rather not do the former once the latter catches up.

Re:Jesus...

[FidelCatsro]

I use debian based distros , so this is the example i will use
dpkg - i package.deb
or apt-get install package (if its on a repository

Don't like the command line , then you have the choice of a GUI front end such as Synaptics for Apt-get , Im fairly sure there are also dpkg front ends , i have never looked though as I'm comfortable on the command line .

there you have a zero mouse click install ;) ,or one if you want to use front end . If there are no click installers for Debian packages then I'm fairly sure it would be very little work to make a script for it.

Effortless painless installations all most all of the time , occasionally we get the odd dependancy screw up , But I'm fairly sure this would not happen with commercial games.

have you tried installing UT 2004 on linux , Its very easy . A nice front end installer similar in style to the windows one

These things are really easy to make with a little knowledge of scripting , and if you want a GUI you can easily make one, as QT and gtk i believe can both be used with scripting languages such as ruby or python

Re:/shrug

[Hellboy0101]

You don't even need to go that far. Just encourage game developers (Id, Epic, Blizzard, etc.) that choose to program in OpenGL, or utilize other open standards, and the games port nearly flawlessly to Linux. Just have a look at UT2004, America's Army, and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Get these engines into the hands of talented people like Ryan Gordon at http://icculus.org/ [icculus.org] http://www.bluesnews.com/plans/477/ [bluesnews.com], and you can see that it looks very promising. BTW, WoW works amazingly well using Wine alone.

Re:Free version

[isolationism]

Also completely gratis is the trial edition of CodeWeavers' Crossover Office [codeweavers.com] that you can download [codeweavers.com] for free and install on whatever distribution you want, because according to the Xandros Desktop Matrix [xandros.com], only the Deluxe and Business editions of Xandros come with a full version of CXO.

There's no shortage of other crippled features in the free version either, such as a maximum of 4x for burning CDs.

What's the point?

[jleq]

Why would I want to pay $129 for a Linux distro that tries to emulate Windows when I can buy the current top-of-the-line version of Windows for $11 more [newegg.com]?

Xandros Vs. Kubuntu

[AVryhof]

Kubuntu + Crossover Standard Edition costs $10 less than XandrOS Standard Edition, and supports more. That is because

1. Xandros Standard includes Crossover 4.1 TRIAL
   
2. XFM doesn't fully support all the goodies you can get for Konqueror.
   
3. The Xandros Apt repositories don't have half of what Ubuntu/Kubuntu repositories have (and they aren't even FULL debian repositories)
   

Ease of installation? Gimmie a break Kubuntu is quite easy to install if you know:

• What Language you speak
  
• What Country you are in
  
• Your Time Zone
  
• What you want your username to be
  
• What you want your password to be
  

That is LESS than I needed to know when I installed Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, and MUCH less than I needed to install NT4 (concession: or Debian Sarge)

Since I'm a little more technical than a lot of people, I'm even trying Kubuntu with Wine and the Sidenet Wine Installation Utility to see if I can run the applications I need without buying Crossover.

Why am I saying this? Because I refuse to ever upgrade to Windows Vista. I don't need to buy software from a company that will treat me like a criminal every time I need a patch for their shitty software.

Imagine getting frisked (and not by your dream girl/guy either) every time you went to draw money from your bank account... would you be a member at that bank very long? I think not!

Imagine having to pay fees to run YOUR car (gas doesn't count, cause you pay for similar resources to run a computer...like electricity) and not even be allowed to fix it if something goes wrong.

It's riduculous, degrading, annoying, and just a plain shitty thing to do. I think Ubuntu and Kubuntu finally got it right, and I have tried Lindows, Xandros, Lycoris, Mandrake, and all the other "easy" distros. Someone finally got it right, make it work out of the box!

Bye everyone...lunch is over.

Re:Talk about advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Referring to a file system as a protocol is unusual but then the rest of the post consists of blatant factual errors, so I wonder about the poster's intensions..

Captive-NTFS does not emulate NTFS.DLL -- it uses a "captive" copy of the actual Windows code and emulates the rest of the Windows environment the DLL expects.

NTFS may possibly be well documented somewhere but you'd have to be at Microsoft or under NDA to tell. Microsoft has released no such information publicly. Outsiders have decoded parts of how NTFS works by reverse engineering or examining changes made in on disk file systems but still have trouble completely decoding the NFS log and figuring out how to safely do things like allocate new files on disk.

And then Microsoft extends NTFS in every new version of Windows..