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New Crossover Release With Improved Compatibility 104

Posted by kdawson from the lin-win dept.
solanum writes "On March 2nd Crossover 9.0 was released. CrossOver 9 features a new user interface that focuses on making installation of Windows software quicker and easier than previous versions. Another new feature is CrossOver's ability to download installation 'recipes' directly from CodeWeavers online Compatibility Database. 'If another CrossOver user has figured out how to use CrossOver to install a Windows application, they can upload that installation recipe to our database,' said Jeremy White, CodeWeavers chief executive officer. 'As we go forward, and build this online storehouse, CrossOver will begin to automatically install that same application for other users. This enables us to move closer to a world where CrossOver will begin to run the majority of Windows apps, and not just an officially supported subset. In other words, our diabolical plot for world domination is going exactly as planned,' he added. Early reviews and comments are positive, and my own experience is that many more Windows applications work in this new version than previously."
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New Crossover Release With Improved Compatibility More

New Crossover Release With Improved Compatibility

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  • Typo (Score:4, Informative)

    by LordAzuzu ( 1701760 ) on Friday March 05, 2010 @11:49AM (#31371640)
    CompatAbility? :)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by maxwell demon ( 590494 )

      How on earth could they misspell "combat ability"?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hduff ( 570443 )

      CompatAbility(tm) :)

      FTFY

      (Feel better now? There's a nap for that.)

  • Adobe.. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Any word on photoshop? lightroom?

    • How does photoshop (and the rest of adobe's suite) run in a VM? I know is horrifying to some to actually use windows, but if you need photoshop, and it runs fine in a VM, why not do that? At least it will work as intended, and you can nerf the outside world on that VM so windows doesn't catch anything.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by thzinc ( 679235 )

        I've run both Photoshop 6.0, Photoshop CS 3, and Lightroom in a VM running Windows XP. They work very well, given that the VM has enough memory allocated to do its job, and that the memory must not be swapped to disk by the VM host.

        (I'm a VMware Workstation user--versions 6 and 7.)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Geeky ( 90998 )

          Colour management might be a problem - I think the VMWare graphics driver is pretty basic, so I'm not sure it would work with things like colour calibration devices.

        • I've run both Photoshop 6.0, Photoshop CS 3, and Lightroom in a VM running Windows XP. They work very well, given that the VM has enough memory allocated to do its job, and that the memory must not be swapped to disk by the VM host.

          (I'm a VMware Workstation user--versions 6 and 7.)

          Did you test Photoshop CS3 using files that are multiple gigabytes in size and applying batch transforms to them? Print designers who need huge DPI detail need everything their system has available. I remember even CS3 was an issue while waiting for CS4, since CS3 for OSX wasn't Intel optimised.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by thzinc ( 679235 )

            No, I haven't worked with any files in CS3 over 1GB in size. However, I do regularly work with TIFF files in the 300-600MB range in Photoshop 6.0, but I'm also not a print designer, by trade.

            The biggest speed issue, I think, has mostly to do with disk I/O in the VM. There is a hit to that, and the more you have to do on the scratch disk or swap, the slower it will be.

            For web design and general photography, I find working in a VM is adequate.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
            But if your life and/or job depends on running photoshop, maybe you could just shell out and buy Windows. Why would you even want to put yourself through the pain of using a VM or Crossover. Just use windows. If it's your jobs, you should probably have a whole computer dedicated to only running photoshop. If you need Linux for some other task, just have a separate computer. Crossover is a nice thing if you're just running games or a couple simple Windows apps. But when it's part of your job, what exac

            • If you need Linux for some other task, just have a separate computer.

              Or simply dual-boot...

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Yfrwlf ( 998822 )
              Because they like Linux, prefer to use it, and may want to support it instead?

              Same reason any user wants a program to come to their preferred platform.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Yfrwlf ( 998822 )
              Oh, sorry for another post, but also they may wish to specifically not support Microsoft, too.

              There's all kinds of reasons. New to Slashdot?
      • I'm running photoshop and lightroom 2 on an xp guest under virtualbox. Works great.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

        Cost, not having to deal with the devil, did I mention cost?

  • User interface and easy installation aren't really that important to me... What is important to me is that it can actually run the applications, and can continue to do so. With a recent Wine upgrade, suddenly Age of Mythology couldn't run anymore, and when reverting back to an older version of Wine it works again.

    And when I reported that bug to the appDB, they didn't add it because I gave the Wine version number in a wrong format (while they could easily have converted it to the right format).

    Well, too bad

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jeng ( 926980 )

      I'm not sure how it works, but if you are submitting information electronically and it needs to be formatted correctly its probably not being looked at by a human in which case its vital that you format correctly.

      If you can't be bothered to give them correct information I can see why you have not gotten an acceptable response.

      • I gave a very detailed explanation, filled in all the fields. The version numbers of wine, I had given by giving the name the version number indication had in the packages of my distro (it were clear numbers, like wine-1.1.38 or so). The response seemed human, at least someone who indicated that these version numbers were incorrect...

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Then resubmit it with your errors corrected. Stop being a whiny lib and simply take responsibility for your mistakes.

          Sorry but that's how it works out here in the real world with grownups and stuff.

          Case closed.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by infinitelink ( 963279 ) *
        Mod down.

        If you can't be bothered to give them correct information I can see why you have not gotten an acceptable response.

        You see, this is the kind of snideness that turns people off of from [F]OSS types and the community: from the comment that "Jeng" replied to I wouldn't have assumed (as Jeng did) that the guy "couldn't be bothered" (as his reply, http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1572692&cid=31372116 [slashdot.org] reveals) but rather that because someone made a mistake the devs (or whoever is in charge of dealing with bug submissions) held the guy in contempt: that's the kind of bull for which people are no-gos to w

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jeng ( 926980 )

          I'm not in the FOSS community, but I tend to think of myself as a useful incompetent.

          My reply was based on an assumption I made from his comment. I knew not if it was right nor not, and prefaced it as such.

          I was trying to be helpful by sharing my opinion. Garbage in/Garbage out is a common problem anytime data is involved, especially so if it involves computers.

          It's not like I was saying to rtfm newb or anything close to that. Just trying to be helpful.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Belial6 ( 794905 )
          Actually, your response is MORE likely to turn people off of FOSS. You imply that an industry wide problem is only a FOSS problem. I generally don't report bugs to closed source projects because the response tends to be worse. The last one I submitted was several years ago to MS concerning a math bug in MS Money. It was easily reproducable. I took the effort to call their tech support line, and spent at least 2 hours getting through and walking they tech support person in creating the error cleanly on

    • Your laziness is someone else's problem how exactly?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Wine developers have a lot of work to do. Getting the version number correct is the least you could do. Submitting the bug to wine's bugzilla and not the AppDB is also very important. The AppDB is for the benefit of end users. Developers don't necessarily read the AppDB, they do keep up with the bugzilla.

      I can almost guarantee that if you submit a bug in the right place in the right format, you'll get a response. That response will almost certainly be a request for a regression test [winehq.org]. It doesn't take mu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Thing 1 ( 178996 )

        I can almost guarantee that if you submit a bug in the right place in the right format, you'll get a response. That response will almost certainly be a request for a regression test [winehq.org]. It doesn't take much skill, so better to have users do it than busy, highly skilled devlopers. When I have done this I have had very good results getting regressions fixed. Sometimes even in the same day.

        I agree. I've also found that using a "simple test format" for reporting bugs helps a great deal, both in getting service a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hduff ( 570443 )

      I'm not going through the pain to submit it again if that's the kind of people that processes my bug report.

      So the "pain" was caused by your failure to format a number to accommodate their bug report system and they should have be able to figure out your bonehead move and automagically fix it?

      Now, since it's clearly your fault, you will not only fail to participate in the community, but publicly embarrass yourself with insight into your arrogance and cluelessness?

      Sounds good to me.

  • botnet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dnwq ( 910646 ) on Friday March 05, 2010 @12:12PM (#31371940)
    I hope they check user-reported installation recipes, or people are going to find their instructions freshly packaged with Botnet 9.0 too...

  • Bummer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday March 05, 2010 @12:26PM (#31372126) Homepage

    Still wont run the only apps I need to ditch windows.

    Sony Vegas and a couple other video editing apps.

    there is NOTHING under linux that is usable outside very simple home movies. I'd pay 2X the price for Vegas retail if I could get it for Linux.

    And yes, I have tried everything for linux video editing, they all either completely suck [cinelerra.org] or are half done, or are designed for home users... OpenShot is nice for home use, sucks for editing a 1 hour TV episode with tons of composting and CG.

  • Just be careful with their Crossover Games product (Score:3, Informative)

    by laing ( 303349 ) on Friday March 05, 2010 @12:52PM (#31372432)
    I know this article is about CX Pro but I'm going to chime in about one of CodeWeavers' other products: CrossOver Games.

    I've been using CX Games on and off for almost 2 years now. The product is great if you are running a 32 bit version of Linux. However, if you are running a 64 bit distribution, you WILL have problems. My hardware is relatively modern (dual Xeons, 16G RAM, 9600GT video). The issues you WILL have on a 64 bit system if you try to play a Windows game are continuous random crashes due to running out of memory. I think CodeWeavers has good support as far as they can go. Their problem is that they are basically a 're-seller' of WINE and don't have control over that 'product'. I'm not going to bother submitting links into their support forums on this issue, if challenged I will link to the post where they admit that it just won't work right and there's nothing they can do about it.

    BTW, I also use Crossover & MS Office under Trusted Solaris and I think it's a vast improvement over the previous solution (Star Office). I'm not a big fan of Microsoft but when the application (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations) opens 3 times faster and is more responsive and reliable, I take notice.

    • Re:Just be careful with their Crossover Games prod (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nxtw ( 866177 ) on Friday March 05, 2010 @01:03PM (#31372566)

      The product is great if you are running a 32 bit version of Linux. However, if you are running a 64 bit distribution, you WILL have problems. My hardware is relatively modern (dual Xeons, 16G RAM, 9600GT video).

      That's weird. I have no trouble using Wine on 64-bit Mac OS X (both with the 32-bit and 64-bit kernels; not that running the fully 64-bit kernel matters, as the 32-bit kernel still supports 64-bit processes.)

      Their problem is that they are basically a 're-seller' of WINE and don't have control over that 'product'

      Wine is open source. They can change anything they want. CodeWeavers already does lots of wine development.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Their problem is that they are basically a 're-seller' of WINE and don't have control over that 'product'.

      Why do you have such a problem with them reselling their own work? Why don't you do some digging and find out where most of Wine development comes from? You are just another clueless user ranting about shit you know little about. Codeweavers represent much of the moving force behind Wine. Alexandre Julliard works for Codeweavers. Why don't you go figure out what he does for Wine.

      The relationship be

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by laing ( 303349 )
        I think you've misunderstood my position. I have no problem whatsoever with them reselling WINE. I'm a repeat customer of theirs. What I referred to as a problem was even though they are a WINE contributor, they do not have control over all of the changes which make it into the merge. Thus they don't have ultimate control over their own 'product'.

        Obviously a fork would solve that problem but they seem to be unwilling to go that route.

        • There's only one person that has control over what goes into wine and that is Alexandre Julliard who maintains the GIT repo.

          Also Codeweavers version IS a fork which includes all their own patches.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by laing ( 303349 )
            I suppose it depends upon your definition of a fork. I am quite aware that they have a set of patches they apply on top of the standard WINE distro. I could have been more concise.

    • I'm not a big fan of Microsoft but when the application (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations) opens 3 times faster and is more responsive and reliable, I take notice.

      I was amazed at the performance of Windows 98 when run under Win4Lin/Merge: fast and stable. If it offered 3D support it would have made a great gaming platform. And because it actually ran on a Linux filesystem rather than FAT, there were never any registry corruption or other file corruption problems and it was nice to be able to apply UNIX file permissions to the Win98 files.

      It did offer an explorer shell replacement that allowed you to boot directly into an app instead of the desktop. Anybody have a lin

    • However, if you are running a 64 bit distribution, you WILL have problems...
      snip
      The issues you WILL have on a 64 bit system if you try to play a Windows game are continuous random crashes due to running out of memory.

      You mean to say that those are the issue YOU have. I don't have those issues.

      Oh, and CodeWeavers is not a re-seller of Wine. If that is what you think, then I doubt that you are even a customer of theirs. Go buy your Wine somewhere else, if that is what you think.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by laing ( 303349 )
        You will note above that I put 're-seller' in quotes. If you have a better way to describe their business, I would love to hear it.

        • They sell a supported version of Wine that includes their own in-house developed tools for administering it. Sort of like what RedHat does with the Linux kernel.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by laing ( 303349 )
        Yes, I have issues. I am not alone. If you search their support forums for 'crahes' and '64', you'll see an abundance of posts. Some of them are quite detailed in describing the issue.

        I suppose I could have been a bit more specific though. The problems only occur if you are running a 64 bit OS and have more than 4GB of RAM. (There isn't much point to running a 64 bit OS if you have less.)

  • AOE II is the one app I have so far been completely unable to get running in VMs (VirtualBox: It crashes out on new game, VMWare: It can't even start Parallels: Unplayable slow + App itself brings processor to a boil) or the OS X .app of Wine - or the previous version of CrossOver in fact.

    Looks like it's time to try again...

    • Interesting, it actually starts up and runs. Just a shame it is unplayable: Huge delay every few seconds (seems to occur when buttons etc. change state)

      I'm guessing AOE uses DIBs. Either that or something else randomly creates delays.

      Well. They're getting closer at least...

    • I can get a new game to start in VirtuaBox, but the mouse pointer doesn't work. Too bad, it was a fun game, back in the day.

  • "Compatable" is a misspelled word. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/compatibility [thefreedictionary.com]

  • I picked up CX Games a few years back during that "freebie" promotion they had, but I had a few issues. I have never been able to correctly "uninstall" a windows program. I just have to completely nuke the bottle. And it ran Guild Wars beautifully when I was running 32-bit ubuntu, but on 64-bit linux mint, not so much. :P

    I've considered giving them another go (after all, it's been a couple of years) but I hit the biggest problem. I can't find any real feature comparison between the versions! What does Pro o

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hduff ( 570443 )
      IIRC, Games was tweaked for games, especiall Steam stuff. Pro has broader admin functions and can "save" a bottle as an .RPM to easily re-install it or install it on another machine (very handy).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kusmin ( 1247272 )
      About a year ago I paid for Crossover Pro, and was surprised: Crossover Games is included. I just checked: in My Downloads I can download CrossOver Linux Standard 9.0.0, CrossOver Linux Professional 9.0.0, and CrossOver Games Linux 8.1.4 . So, pay for the Pro and you have everything.

  • "Users of a certain proprietary software can now make eachother get Windows viruses on GNU/Linux and Mac OS X"

    • "Users of a certain proprietary software can now make eachother get Windows viruses on GNU/Linux and Mac OS X"

      You say that in a way that indicates that not only are you uninformed, but you wish to spread FUD. I hope that's not the case.

      WINE has progressed to the point where it can actually install and (kind of)run some viruses, but by using WINE instead of native Windows, there's little the virus can do in a malicious way. I have used WINE to "install" several infected apps that could easily be cleaned/disinfected and then run malware-free on WindowsXP.

      Windows malware really can't hurt a Linux system although it mi

      • I was just mocking the proprietary software fork - not Wine. Specifically, that was my critique of their "receipt" model, but I'm sure they'll subject the entries to revision (first?) - if nothing else, in an "open" manner. In so doing I might've shared some of my own FUD about non-free software.
        However, if people run Windows progs on GNU/Linux, it's logical to assume they'd want them to be safe. After all .wine is where their "My Documents" are.

  • Sounds to me, based on their description, like they've taken PlayOnLinux and rebranded it with (hopefully) substantial refinements.

    PlayOnLinux is a frontend installer for both WINE and Windows applications - specifically games, as one might expect given the name. It uses "formulas" to get proper application support. These formulas have specific WINE build versions (whether in CVS or not) which are known to work with the chosen application. It then installs the WINE version with specific WINE settings as wel

    • Well, you're wrong. It's got nothing to do with POL. In fact, Crossover predates POL. Codeweavers is basically the day job of several wine devs.

    • As someone else noted, that's not the case. Both Crossover Linux and Games are essentially frozen point releases of wine with a nifty installer and other stuff. But that's mainly because they're catering to the top applications like MS Word and the like. Intermediate wine releases would no doubt break something and that's not what purchasers of CX are looking for.

      I don't know if PlayonLinux uses the intermediate wine releases (?) but I've found it works better in many instances like Sims3, etc. In any c

  • Sure, and I run virtualbox because the two apps I like in Windoze don't run in crossover plugins. When crossover can handle Windows DRM, call me.

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