http://www. vmware.com), or a full-blown virtual machine, or CodeWeavers’ CrossOver (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/ crossover). But the open source world has a lot to offer, too.
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When it comes to running non-Linux software or a second operating system under Linux, many users turn to a commercial solution such as VMWare (http://www. vmware.com), or a full-blown virtual machine, or CodeWeavers’ CrossOver (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/ crossover). But the open source world has a lot to offer, too.
When it comes to running non-Linux software or a second operating system under Linux, many users turn to a commercial solution such as VMWare (http://www. vmware.com), or a full-blown virtual machine, or CodeWeavers’ CrossOver (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/ crossover). But the open source world has a lot to offer, too.
This month, let’s look briefly at several open source projects that let you run Windows applications on Linux, or multiple operating systems at the same time.
API Support: WINE
Bob Amstadt began WINE in 1993 as a way to run Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. In the last 10 years, it’s come a long way, and now serves as the foundation of the CrossOver product.
The WINE project (http://www.winehq.com) provides the infrastructure required to run a variety of 16- and 32-bit Windows applications on Linux without having to install Windows. WINE simply re-maps Win32 API calls to Linux equivalents. The process isn’t much slower than running applications on Windows natively, but it sure beats dual-booting or having a second computer just to run the occasional Windows program. If you need to run Excel or Word a few times each year, it’s hard to beat WINE.
Virtualization: Plex86
Plex86, like VMWare, follows in the tradition of IBM mainframes: both Plex86 and mainframes use the capabilities of the underlying hardware to provide one or more virtual machines, where each virtual machine can run the operating system of…
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