I am thinking of switching to Linux. However, there is one program that I cannot do without and for which a good Linux substitute does not exist. I have a Windows version and also an earlier DOS version of it and could happily live with the latter. So does any Doper know of an emulator that would run it?
Perhaps something like Wine?
Actually, you may want to take a look at this page… it lists 5 emulator-style programs, along with a review of two of them: http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,69849,00.html
Also, have you considered the possibility of dual-booting? I don’t know what application you want to run, but perhaps that would be a viable alternative to emulation.
What NI said.
Though Wine can run an amazing amount of stuff, don’t bank on it being able to run what you want. I’d start off dual booting, at least until you get the hang of Linux.
On the other hand, Wine installed automagically with SuSE 8.2 and has handled everything I’ve thrown at it so far.
I will try wine. Actually, it is more complicated than I said; I have a new office computer that is already Linux and is also the mail server for my group so dual boot is not an option. That being the case, I was thinking that my next home laptop could be Linux too. But anyway, I will try wine.
Thanks for the answers.
If you are willing to spend dough, check out VMWARE. It is about $300. But it is a complete emulator. You can get versions to run on windows, linux or mac among others.
For example your base system could be linux. When you run vmware, you can install client systems such as various versions of windows. The full windows will then run in a window from linux.
There is a one month free trial if you want to try it. It is by far the best emulator I have used.
Whoops, I see nobody had vmware in their link. Carry on.
Anyone ever try Lindows?
Lindows does for dough what other Linux distros do for free. It’s fine if you don’t wanna tinker with settings, I guess.
Hari, mind telling us what app you’re trying to run? Some of the more experienced Linux volk might have a better idea of what’ll work for you that way.
Kedit. I have been using versions of it since 1984 and after nearly 19 years, it feels like an extension of my fingers. I would buy a Linux version of it if it were available, but it isn’t. I will probably try wine and perhaps, if that doesn’t work, investigate vmware.
I was reading the documentation of wine and, like virtually everything written for Linux, assumes that you are familiar with being a Linux administrator, which of course I am not. The FAQ, for example, tells you what kind of directories should be set up for a windows program to run and even describes one successful installation, but fails to give instructions for setting it up. The installation instructions for wine, say to run the install program, but doesn’t say from where.
While I am writing this, let me metion that I have installed THE (which claims to emulate kedit), but it falls very far short of doing that and is even more poorly documented. Moreover, the profile that I was able to create for the Linux version utterly failed on the windows version and I have given up on learning it.
Hey Hari, why don’t you also tell us what features of this Kedit you like so much? This is an enhanced text editor right? I use nedit in linux and am very happy with it.
It has quite a simple interface, like using Wordpad or such. Does syntax highlighting for many different languages such as LATEX, C, FORTRAN, HTML, makefiles, … as well you can define your own or enhance the current highlights. For instance, I have added many FORTRAN 90 commands to their list of syntax highlighting. Other things like Find/replace, defining macros … are available too.
I’ll have to dig a little bit on Kedit… I’m not familiar with it.
Anyway, for me, running Wine has just been a matter of installing the RPM when I first installed SuSE. If I wanna run a windows program, I just double-click on the program’s exe in Konq.
I’ll have to dig a little bit on Kedit… I’m not familiar with it.
Anyway, for me, running Wine has just been a matter of installing the RPM when I first installed SuSE. If I wanna run a windows program, I just double-click on the program’s exe in Konq.
It would appear that your Kedit is XEdit for Windows.
Here’s a link to a commercial version of XEdit and the scripting stuff:
http://www.sedit.com/
If you really find you need Wine , then try these guys:
They put out a version of wine intended for running Windows games under Linux. They produce two versions: One for free which leaves out all of the stuff to deal with copy protection, and a pay version that includes some special libraries for copy protection schemes.
The free version should do you just fine. All you do is “rpm -U” the package that you download (or whatever it is you do on a Debian based system) and then “winex3 keditsetupprogram.exe”
The transgaming Wine includes a script that automatically sets up a Windows directory and a bunch of other stuff if you don’t have them. You might want to tweak it later, but the default works pretty well.
Ooops.
You don’t need to uninstall your existing Wine version to use the Transgaming version.
You do, however, need to be logged on a “root” to install it.
as “root”
crappy keyboard - or maybe just my butterfingers.
I’ve never used Xedit, so I cannot say to what extent kedit is Xedit for windows. It was originally a DOS program, obviously. It is completely programmable with a well-documented programming language that is a subset of Rexx (called Kexx) that I have learned over the years and I have a very personal profile. Perhaps some other editor could be programmed similarly, but the one I have tried, THE, falls far short and I could not guess how to program it. Needless to say the documentation is essentially non-existent. In this it scarcely differs from most software produced these days.
The main thing I use it for is to prepare documents in TeX, the mathematical markup language. This is made for every computer and OS I am aware of, but does not come with a standard editor. I have made kedit into an editor optimized for preparing TeX documents. For example, when I press F10, it lays down a pair of dollar signs and backspaces so the cursor is between them. F11 and F12 do the same for pairs of braces and parentheses, resp. C-b prompts me an environment name and lays down a \begin…\end pair. And so on. I spent over an hour trying to do the first of these with THE, to no avail.
Now someone suggested nedit. I have not heard of it and may look into it, but after my experience with THE, I am not sanguine.
According to here , Kedit is a windows knock-off of Xedit. The site I referenced above has trial versions of Sedit and Srexx (Sedit with REXX,) so it might be worthwhile to download and try it. Sedit is a knock-off of Xedit, and the S/REXX apparently includes the complete REXX language rather than just a subset.
BTW:
Good for you for using TeX. I personally use Lyx to edit documents that must look good. LyX is a front end for LaTeX - which is TeX with a bunch of extra macros. LyX makes it a bit easier to create LaTeX documents.
I just took a look, and LyX allows you to define your own function keys. Maybe LyX would do the trick for you.