The Linux User Show #003
The Linux User Show #003 (MP3 – 22MB – 48min 35sec)
This week we explore Windows ‘enablers’: those programs that allow you to run Windows applications in Linux. For some of us, we can’t move entirely to Linux because we have a mission critical application that only runs in Windows. Well, take a listen and check out what’s available to you for running Windows applications in Linux. You may find something that works for you.
Enablers:
June 24th, 2005 at 5:21 am
The last “Personal” edition of SUSE was 9.1, which is 2 versions back from the current version 9.3 Professional. If you’re testing Linux, especially on a laptop, shouldn’t you be using the latest version? Having said that, SUSE 9.1 Personal did find and configure my wireless network card automatically, a Netgear MA-401, 802.1b, with a Prism chip.
I’m using Win4Lin Home with Windows 98SE. It works great. I had no problems installing it, which took a very small amount of time. With MEPIS 3.3 there was no need to patch the kernal. With SUSE 9.2 Professional the patched kernal was downloaded and installed from Win4Lin without issue. In both cases Windows 98 starts up very quickly. Sound works. Office 2000, IE, Media Player, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 all run fine. The only issue I had with Win4Lin was changing the default memory max from 24 to 64 MB, which was very easy to do.
I’d be interested to hear about my current favorite desktop distro, SimplyMEPIS 3.3.1 and how it compares to Ubuntu, Xandros and Linspire.
Thanks for the show!
June 24th, 2005 at 5:58 am
Hi Jim,
Did I miss something? The most current version of personal is 9.1, no? I deliberately didn’t use the professional because I speculated that if I was a new Linux user and presented with the personal/professional choice - I would probably pick personal. Pure speculation, but that’s what I do best :)
If there’s a newer version of personal, can you point me to it?
That’s great that Win4Lin worked so well for you. I was really, really surprised to have problems with something as rudimentary as my CD drive. I’ve used Win4Lin off and on in the past and overall it generally behaves pretty well for me.
I’m currently playing around with putting together a test platform. I’ve officially decided there’s too much pain and grief involved with testing anything other than Live CDs on my principle machine so I’m not going to do it any more. If and when I get such a testing platform up and running I may start comparing distros.
I say ‘may’ because distro comparison kind of falls outside of the scope of what the show is about. I’m focussing on new Linux users and trying to provide information that will help them get up and running. Things like file management, getting around the system, where to find good resources, stuff like that. While I use Fedora Core 3 and that necessarily influences my processes, I try to give information that is applicable to all or at least the most popular distros.
Having said that, I’m chomping at the bit to play with a Debian based distro so you may see me playing with them in the near future. Linspire I’m probably not going to touch unless it all of a sudden becomes free.
Thanks for the information and I hope you like the show :)
Jon
June 26th, 2005 at 8:56 am
You need to try out linspire you hardware will work without tinkering including your wireless card.
June 26th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
What was the name of the pen device you were talking about in the show, got any details?
Congrats on the show, it’s great.
Mike
June 27th, 2005 at 2:15 am
Hi Craig,
I’ve heard good things about Linspire, but I have no intention of checking it out. I feel there are enough free Linux distros out there that I generally steer away from distros that companies are charging for.
Perhaps one day I’ll run out free ones and then I might check out Linspire :)
As for the wireless card - I’d be very surprised if it works out of the box on any distro. Texas Instruments owns copyright on the acx100 chipset (which is what my SMC 2435 wireless card uses) and they’re pretty much publicly said they’re never going to support Linux. I get it running via a third party project at Sourceforge (called the acx100 project, strangely enough).
I’m always trying out new distros though, so perhaps one day I’ll stumble across one that runs my wireless right out of the box :)
Thanks for stopping by!
Jon
June 27th, 2005 at 2:16 am
Hi Mike,
It’s a Logitech Personal Digital Pen. Here’s a link:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=1553,CONTENTID=6150
Thanks for the kind words about the show. I’m glad you like it :)
Jon
July 21st, 2005 at 4:04 pm
[…] If you recall waaaay back in the midst of time we did a show on ‘Windows Enablers’ which is what I’ve decided to call those classes of programs that allow users to run Windows programs on Linux. […]