[KLUG Members] run windows within linux

[Bruce Smith]

> A free alternative to VMware is BOCHs.  I don't know what the current
> state of that project is,  but rumor was awhile ago that they could host
> NT4.

I heard awhile ago that BOCHs was horribly slow.  So much that an
average typist could type faster than BOCHs could keep up with it.
Good for testing purposes, but not for running day-to-day stuff.

> > Wine, OTOH, is free (like Linux), it uses less memory/resources, and it
> > runs just the applications (no Windows OS required).
> 
> I view wine as pretty much not even worth attempting.  I hear good
> things, see "this app works perfectly", etc... But every time I try it
> close to nothing works as expected.  IMHO the Wine project has a been a
> catastrophic failure.

I don't have much experience with Wine (other than the kind that comes
in bottles), so I don't doubt that.

The only Windows program I have to run is so old it's actually a DOS
application, and Wine doesn't run DOS apps.  Dosemu doesn't run it
because it requires a dongle, which I can't make work in dosemu.  
VMware runs it, but very slowly.  :-(

> > The disadvantages of Wine is not all applications run in it, and it can
> > be more difficult to get working.
> 
> Is there an application that does work?  For cyring out load even
> POLEDIT.EXE kills it.

Solitaire works.  :-)

> > Personally I would stay away from both of them unless absolutely needed.
> 
> yep.
> 
> > I'd rather find native Linux applications to replace the Windows apps. 
> > i.e.  Use OpenOffice or StarOffice instead of M$ Office.
> > And of course you could always triple boot Redhat/Mandrake/Windows. 
> 
> But booting back and forth between operating systems sucks.

Yes, if you have to do it very often.

I might consider it if I only needed to run Windows once a month or less.

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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