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Playing Nice: Reviews of CrossOver Office, WineX 4 279

Posted by timothy from the methadone-clinic dept.
JimLynch writes "One of the more common questions experienced Linux users get asked by those considering migrating from Windows to Linux is, "Will my Windows applications run under Linux?" Thanks to the folks at CodeWeavers, the answer to that is yes--for some applications, anyway." And Dan Dole writes "Linuxlookup.com staff member Rich reviews Cedega (WineX 4.0), give it a 20/20 score & Editors Choice Award. "The release of Transgaming's newest version of WineX, renamed Cedega, was met with considerable enthusiasm and interest in the Linux community last week. So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release. Cedega is claimed to be much improved, offering the ability to play recent games released for Windows "seamlessly and transparently" under Linux. They provided me with a copy, and I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype.""
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Playing Nice: Reviews of CrossOver Office, WineX 4 More

Playing Nice: Reviews of CrossOver Office, WineX 4

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  • We shall see... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Coldeagle ( 624205 )
    I'm usually critical of WineX, but hopefully it will work well with all of my games so I can get rid of my Winblows box :)

    • Re:We shall see... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ScottGant ( 642590 ) <scott_gant@sbcgloba l . n etNOT> on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:38PM (#9585683) Homepage
      I have Cedega loaded and I've been off Windows totally since last November. This machine has never even had Window loaded on it. Since day one it's been Linux (Gentoo btw).

      Cedega(Winex) runs everything I would normally play if this were an XP box. My wife still has her XP machine, and the games that I had, I played on that machine. So when I went 100% Linux, I thought I would have to give up my games as I'm not a fan of dual booting...or else just play them on her machine.

      As it turns out, the games I play (Warcraft 3, Neverwinter Nights, Everquest, Counterstrike, UT2003/2004) all either have a native Linux client or work great under Cedega. And from what I can tell, it will work with World of Warcraft when it comes out...which is really the only game I'm looking forward to playing in the near future (ther than Call of Cthulhu).

      So guess what folks, I Windows ain't needed at all on my computer. Not that I'm a MS hater or anything, just didn't feel like shelling out 100 bucks for the OS as I had to build this machine with little to no money.

      This is just my experience, you're milage may vary...especially if you're looking to play a game that isn't supported. But the ones I play, play just the same as if on Windows, yet faster as I can switch to another desktop while playing EQ full screen to check on something quickly. I mean, it's INSTANT switching to another desktop. Playing EQ full screen on my Wife's XP machine you have to wait and wait and wait to get to the desktop, THEN the computer runs like molasses.

  • Prevent it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @03:45PM (#9585051)
    I'm forced to wonder if an application developer could put enough logic in their code to prevent it's running under Wine. It'd be an interesting attempt to prevent 'unauthorized' distribution of their product if they only authorize it's use under Windows.

    • Re:Prevent it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by bobhagopian ( 681765 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @03:51PM (#9585122)
      There's no reason for any software distributor to run away from Linux (with the exception of those in the OS market). Though Linux still represents a small portion of the desktop market, small enough that software companies wouldn't go out of their way to make their programs compatible, I also don't see any good economic reason why they would go out of their way to prevent use of their software on Linux. If Windows represents 80% of desktops and *nix 5%, these companies could now market their product to 85% of people instead of just 80%.

      More importantly, the threat of unauthorized use is not any greater under Linux than under Windows. That's largely the point of Wine; the same programs run under Linux in almost exactly the same way that the run under Windows. I'll bet that the real threat of unauthorized distribution comes from little warez kiddies, most of whom run Windows.

      • Re:Prevent it? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Dimensio ( 311070 ) <darkstar@LISPiglou.com minus language> on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:05PM (#9585278)
        You're thinking logically. Some software developers throw in deliberate restrictions that have no logical grounds whatsoever.

        Case in point: Thief: Deadly Shadows. Ion Storm says that you MUST run the game under an account that has full Administrative rights. There is no reason to require that a game run with Administrative rights, and no sane Windows user should be using an account with Administrative tasks for playing a game. The restriction is not a matter of the game needing Administrative access for anything. The game can function just fine under a Power Users account. However, the geniuses at Ion Storm decided that they wanted to lock players into this asinine restriction, so they programmed the game to self-destruct by deleting all of the files in its System directory (the game's System directory, not that of Windows) when a non-Admin tries to run it. There is a workaround -- give non-Admin users read-only access to the files (since the game's config and save data is stored elsewhere) -- but that is an example of a completely illogical and pointless restriction deliberately placed on software by a developer. Having the software discover that it's being run under Linux via Wine and self-destructing in much the same way is not a far stretch.

        • Re:Prevent it? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Plac3bo ( 651890 )
          The only reason I can think of for this type of restriction, would be to prevent the use of this game on a public machine, such as an internet cafe, library, school lab, or similar. Perhaps the license packaged with the game does not include public use like this, and requiring administrative privledges is the best way the company could think of to enforce their license.

          • Re:Prevent it? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Dimensio ( 311070 )
            Heh. That wouldn't work with the machines at the local University's computer lab. They're all logged in with full Administrative access for normal users, and security is handled through "policy settings" (the university's IT department is wholly incompetent).

            In any case, it still shows utter developer incompetence. If a dev had a requirement that a standard Linux app -- such as a game -- have full root access, they'd be rightfully lynched. Unfortunately there are quite a few morons who think that it's

      • Re:Prevent it? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:07PM (#9585298)
        One word: Support.

        How many software houses are going to want to support their application running under an unsupported operating system?

        Oh yes, they can clearly say "We do not support running _____ under Linux, do so at your own risk" but that does not prevent the inevitable calls and e-mails, asking for support, hoping that an answer exists or worse... that they did not read the warning.

        If Wine were perfect and could handle ANY Windows app then yes, it might be advantageous for a publisher to sell to Linux users for use under Wine... but lets face it, it's not perfect, it can't handle all apps.

        The best way to avoid support for something is to prevent it. My favorite example, VMware... ever try to install VMware inside of a VMware VM? The install shield says no, saying that it is not supported. Period. And with that go any possible support issues down the line of someone having problems which could be caused by such a setup.

        Also, when I said unauthorized distribution I did not mean 'piracy' I meant (and said) use under an unsupported/unauthorized operating system.

      • Re:Prevent it? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 )
        True that. I've actually noticed many sites now have a notice saying "NO we will NOT port this to any other platform"! That's amazing stuff to me. I see an opportunity to "get in on the ground floor" of the commercial Linux software market, while these guys see a bunch of customers who won't quit bugging them. Linux is growing, Mac is growing, Windows is stagnating. Wake up app vendors, because if you don't get portable you're probably toast in a couple of years.
    • Probably one could...after all, MS came up with the check to see whether MS-DOS or DR-DOS was living underneath Windows so it could display FUD.

      Here's a simple one off the top of my head: check what the results of fopen("/bin/sh", "r") are, including what errno is afterwards.

      The question is: who'd want to? A third-party developer probably wouldn't care, unless MS insisted on their making sure their app broke under WINE as part of some sort of agreement. I certainly wouldn't put it past the the folks who b

    • I don't see this as ever likely happening. Mainly because it would be a classic case of "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face". Why go out of your way to piss off a potential customer base? All most commerical developers really care about about is that their software isn't pirated and they get paid for their efforts. Regardless of whether the app is designed to run on Windows or not, folks would still be expected to pony up a licensing fee. Just because you can now run MS Office on your Linux box

    • I'm forced to wonder if an application developer could put enough logic in their code to prevent it's running under Wine.

      Microsoft already has. Try installing Office 2003 under CrossOver. You get a dialog box telling you you're running the wrong OS.

  • Just Tried WineX... (Score:5, Informative)

    by pnatural ( 59329 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @03:47PM (#9585072)
    ... and now cedega. Gotta say, it's pretty painless on gentoo.

    Per the ebuild instructions, I registered w/ transgaming, ponied up my 20 bucks (or whatever), downloaded the file, copied it into /usr/portage/distfiles, ran the emerge, then done.

    I was playing American McGee's Alice 20 minutes after starting my first "run a Windows(tm) game on linux" adventure. Even impressed the Mrs. :D

  • Just like Windows? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Myrmi ( 730278 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @03:47PM (#9585075)
    Cedega is claimed to be much improved, offering the ability to play recent games released for Windows "seamlessly and transparently" under Linux.

    So they crash most of the time?
    • Actually, one of the things that has kept me from fully switching to 'nix is the game support. Now, however, I'm finding that some of my games regularly freeze in XP (driver issues perhaps), and I'm looking forward to testing WineX to see if they play better. At the least I'd think that they shouldn't freeze the OS.

  • actually the question I always ask: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Killswitch1968 ( 735908 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @03:49PM (#9585096)
    "Will I have to deal with annoying dependency problems that take me hours to install the most basic of programs?"

    So far that answer is still yes :(
    • Is it? I can say "no" since I started using debian. Now installing software on my red hat systems feels like a chore, but so far I haven't had problems using apt to install software that's prepackaged for debian, this includes a vast majority of programs you could possibly need so it covers the requirements of most users. I'll agree that dependency hell is just that, hell.
      • Now installing software on my red hat systems feels like a chore
        Um, so why don't you use apt under Red Hat or Fedora? It does the same thing as under Debian and makes installing rpms a breeze. There are plenty of red hat/Fedora apt-rpm repositories out there, a good place to start is FreshRPMS [freshrpms.net]
        • I run Red Hat (don't ask me why), and thus first tried the RH package manager, UpToDate. It sucked. Then I tried Ximian Red Carpet -- which is a cool tool, but there are next to no applications on the channels, and what you get is quite old. Finally, i discovered that apt-get will run under RH just find. I never looked back. The only feature i miss is it telling me (like Red Carpet does) which updates are most urgent.
    • youre crazy. i can go from a fresh linux install to having Battlefield Vietnam running in under an hour, including the BFV install. install Point2Play, get latest winex version, install BFV. done.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • 1) They don't accept debit cards & thats all I have.
    2) They don't charge in . I'm sure my bank will charge me extra, for converting to a foreign currency.

    Tell then I'm stuck with normal wine & half-life....well thats not too bad ;)

  • WineX Downsides? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by arieswind ( 789699 ) * on Thursday July 01, 2004 @03:53PM (#9585143) Homepage
    The LinuxLookup.com review touches upon this point:
    The only downside I see is philosophical rather than a problem with Cedega itself. There aren't many Linux versions of popular games available. By making it so easy to run the Windows versions, there may not be much of an incentive to develop for Linux.

    Now, not many gaming companies make Linux versions of their games, but suppose Linux gained a significant share of the desktop market. At a certain point, gaming companies will start making Linux versions, whether or not WineX can run the Windows version or not. If only because gamers are more likely to be tech savvy and the same type of people who would probably switch to Linux away from Windows before the less computer literate population does
    • As I see it, it's a victory for Linux if a game is released with a native Linux version, but it's also a victory if the developer officially supports WineX. It's only a problem if they count on WineX for running on Linux, but don't officially support it.

  • WineX is nice, but.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Skraut ( 545247 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @03:59PM (#9585204) Journal
    I'd rather support those who are supporting the Linux community.

    First of all there are many great Open Source games out there, Frozen Bubble and TORCS come quickly to mind.

    Secondly games like Neverwinter Nights and UT2k4 are amazing, not just for the games themselves, but for the mod communities that surround them. Who cares if you can't give Sony $13 or $15 a month to play everquest. Give your money to Bioware and thank them for making a game so open that people have created MMORPG's that can be played freely with their software.

    Same with UT. One look at duffer's golf, a complete Golf mod sold me on UT. I'm honestly not that interested in Golf, but if one can be made, and if it's a mod it'll run on windows and Linux, it's just the tip of the iceburg as to what can be done by modding the engine.

    These are the companies and the mod communities we should be supporting. Yes there are a few windows games I'd like to play, but I'd rather not give those companies my money, since to them, I'm just another windows user.

    • Re:WineX is nice, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Azureflare ( 645778 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:38PM (#9585681)
      Are you saying that WineHQ/Transgaming/Codeweavers aren't supporting the linux community?

      Because if you are, you're wrong. They aren't supporting the segment of the linux community that says "Ohh Noo Nothing but native linux apps for us, windows sux0rs and must burn in hell!" They're supporting the segment that says "Hey, I've used windows for a long time, and I like linux a lot, and I'd like to be able to play/run my windows stuff on my linux box. Can you help a guy out?"

      There are plenty of developers in the world. These people are supporting that segment of the linux community that desires the ability to run windows applications on linux.

      We can debate all we want about if this is a good strategy in the long term. But there's no doubt that these companies are strongly supporting (parts) of the linux community.

      • I'm not saying Codeweavers and Transgaming aren't supporting Linux, I'm saying if I buy Warcraft III and play it under WineX, I am giving Blizzard money for making a game for Windows.

        What insentive do they have for making Warcraft IV Linux compatable if Transgaming will do all the hard work for them?

        Bioware overcame a lot of hurdles to make NWN available under Linux, including forcing MILES to make their sound system Linux compatable. Yes it took them a long time to do it, but it did happen. Every company

    • >Who cares if you can't give Sony $13 or $15 a month to play everquest. Me for one. So some games you like have native linux versions, how nice for you. I like Everquest and have no interest what-so-ever in giving my money to Bioware. Especially after the way they dicked around the LInux community with the extremely delayed release of NWN for Linus. No thanks, I said back then that Bioware would ever get another penny from me, and I meant it.

  • cedega rules (Score:3, Informative)

    by ultrabot ( 200914 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:00PM (#9585217)
    I've tried cedega as well, and I must say I'm a little bit surprised on how well it works, at least with Debian Sid & new nvidia drivers. Configuration is a snap (just tell them the mount points & drive letters of your windos partitions), and you are pretty much ready to go. One less excuse to boot to Windows - and for many, the last excuse.

    Now what we need is a good daemontools-like utility that can mount non-iso images without converting to .iso's first... ;-)
  • since there are quite a few other versions of wine out there...

    has anyone had any sort of sucess running windows apps, particularly office on linux - on a free version of wine, not crossover?

    Not if I can actually get DRI to work on my ATI 9200 chipset (annoyingly impossible even after trying the free-closed-source ati drivers)...

  • Its the way to the future . . . (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kingjosh ( 792336 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:04PM (#9585267)
    This is awesome. In fact, I believe that the best possible thing that can happen is more compatibility. Most Windows users absolutely despise Windows, and don't change because they are s-c-e-e-r-e-d! To be able to alleviate this fear, WineX apps are like bridges, training wheels for an OS.

    • Grandma, you CAN still use Quicken and Word, but you won't get SpyWare anymore!
    • Your business depends on Micro$oft OfficeXP? While you try out OOO we can set you up with this WineX app . . .
    • More examples could come, I'm sure you get the point.

  • Don't need it. (Score:5, Funny)

    by jonathan_atkinson ( 90571 ) * <<jonathana> <at> <cleanstick.org>> on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:04PM (#9585268) Homepage
    We already have Neverwinter Nights (and expansions), Quake 1-3, UT2004 (and no doubt all the sequels, because the UT engine supports Linux so well), we're getting Doom 3. Why do you need Windows compatibility? Sure, maybe you can't play your crappy licensed EA games, but all the really serious game developers have seen the light, and activly develop for Linux.

    The only Windows games I'm going to want to run are Duke Nukem Forever and Half Life 2. Oh, wait... they don't exist...

    --Jon
    • all the really serious game developers have seen the light, and activly develop for Linux.

      How about Blizzard? I'm a big Warcraft/Starcraft fan... I think Warcraft3 is one of the 6 or so games that run on Macs though. How about Civ3? Don't tell me about FreeCiv, I tried it, it is crap.
    • Why do you need Windows compatibility?

      Just imagine. You are a Linux user. How else do you expect to run the Windows version of OpenOffice.org without Wine?

      Think of all the great open source software on Windows. Software you want to run. Mozilla. The GIMP. Inkscape.

  • Crossover Office (Score:5, Informative)

    by dangerz ( 540904 ) <`ten.soidutsadlit' `ta' `ffuts'> on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:22PM (#9585479) Homepage
    I purchased a license to Crossover Office several months ago. At first, I figured it'd run rather slow and wouldn't be good enough for production. I paid anyways just to try and support the programmers.

    I installed Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop. Microsoft Office is practically transparent as to how fast it runs. It loads up very fast and runs very smooth. As far as Photoshop, it runs pretty good as well. There are little bugs with the different windows and the toolboxes, but it works. for the most part.

    For production, I dont think Adobe Photoshop is ready yet (version 7 by the way). Office I think is more than ready. I also installed IE so I could preview websites I'm working on in IE natively without having to go to another windows computer. On top of that, I installed the Quicktime plugin and I watch trailers from Apple.com with no lag.

    I give Crossover Office a 10/10. Well worth every penny I spent.

    • I also installed IE so I could preview websites I'm working on in IE natively without having to go to another windows computer.

      Can you confirm whether or not they've fixed the IE encryption key bug yet? Importing encryption keys into IE running under Crossover wouldn't work. I'm not talking about regular ssl keys signed by third parties. What I'm referring to are self-signed keys like what Bank of America uses to communicate with bankruptcy officers.

      IIRC, the key jsut wouldn't install. You'd go th

  • Ermmm... (Score:2, Informative)

    by elFarto the 2nd ( 709099 )

    ...So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release.

    I'll think you'll find that was the slashdotting they recieved.

    Regards
    elFarto

  • Gaim? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:33PM (#9585601) Homepage
    In the article, the author gives an example of an application that doesn't work properly under WineX ... GAIM. Well, WTF... why the hell would anyone running WineX try to run Win2k GAIM when the app is native to *nix anyway? Just a thought.
    • Last time I tried, gaim didn't work (crashed a lot) on windows, either. I can't imagine why you'd expect it to work on wine.

  • Linuxlookup.com (Score:4, Informative)

    by Linuxlookup.com ( 646578 ) on Thursday July 01, 2004 @04:37PM (#9585661) Homepage
    I apologize for not keeping up with the requests, we never could withstand a thrashing from Slashdot. Perhaps it's time for me to look into a different CMS with fewer bottlenecks. So, if anyone in community/other site owners would like to share their solutions with me, I'd like to hear from you. Reached me at ty @ linuxlookup.com
  • So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release And now, thanks to Slashdot, inaccessible again!

  • So popular that the website was down? (Score:3, Informative)

    by grubber33 ( 746727 ) <grubber33@NoSpam.rogers.com> on Thursday July 01, 2004 @05:12PM (#9586111)
    No, it just got Slashdotted. :P

    Unfortunately I've read some horrible stories on their own website (in the support section [transgaming.com] and new forums [transgaming.org]) about people having a bad time getting their already-working games working under Cedega. In fact, I've read an unfortunately large number of posts saying that they've downgraded to WineX because of the number of bugs. I'm not sure whether the editor noticed this but those facts certainly don't merit a 20/20 in my book...
  • I recently bought CrossoverOffice to have access to Microsoft Weird and Internet Exploder (required by upper management to access company forms). I was delighted to find that it runs flawlessly under my bit-rotting Red Hat 9 system.

    I've tried perhaps a dozen other apps (including YetiSports) and they all worked with no glitches.

    The one feature that CrossoverOffice appears not to support well is trashing your whole system with malware -- you can grant your applications read-only access to your main fi

  • Now that would be the ultimate in very difficult to implement pointlessness!
  • Hmmm...

    I am a Lotus SmartSuite fan and am deeply disappointed that there is not enough demand for IBM and Lotus to port it natively (nevermind the IP matters/excuses)

    Growing weary of some "invalid license" rubbish from Crossdresser after I simply deleted my .cxoffice dir and some other related paths and after I tried to reinstall it from my Mandrake 10 Power Pack (retail), I decided to once again try WINE. Can I say "Wine is NOT Exemplary"?

    I struck upon an idea:

    "What if I graft my 'win' folder created b

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