[techtalk] Re: [grrltalk] Linux for Kids???

[Saska]

[lurk mode off]

For those of you who still wrestle with having both a Windows box and a
Linux box - and who vastly prefer the latter for everything but one or two
applications - I have been doing some contracting work with a company that
has a pretty reasonable solution.  (I don't actually work for them, so you
can consider me an outside source. :)

TreLOS (www.trelos.com) has just released their "Win4Lin" product.  It's
similar in some ways to VMware, in that it provides a virtual Windows
machine for running Windows applications, but unlike VMware, it doesn't
dedicate hardware and resources only to that session (which, in VMware,
means you have to have a very beefy box to get any use out of it).  Win4Lin
provides a Windows operating environment and supports the use of Photoshop
and Photodeluxe as well as all of the popular "productivity" software out
there (Office, Visio, Act, Lotus Notes, blah blah blah).  It uses the Linux
filesystem for your Windows applications and files, as well as sharing RAM
with Linux, so it can run nimbly on a workstation-class machine.  I can say
that for certain, as I'm currently testing it on Celeron 300A with 128MB of
RAM and an 8-MB Matrox video card.  My Windows apps run faster (as a result
of the superior filesystem) on the Linux box than they do on an identical PC
running Windows.

It's actually quite different from WINE (most people want to know how it
compares to WINE moreso than VMware), since it has an operating environment
instead of bypassing the need to run Windows at all in order to run a
specific application.  In some cases (e.g. apps or drivers or devices not
supported by Win4Lin), WINE may still be a better solution.

There are limitations (for example, Win4Lin won't resolve your need to use
your Parallel port scanner in Linux) to the software, but it's quite
impressive for the $50 price tag if you still need to use the occasional
Windows app but would rather not dual boot or have two machines.  I know
they plan to have an eval version available in the very near future, for
those of you who would rather see it before you buy it.

And yes, I know that for many people this concept runs counter to the idea
of the open source movement and the use of alternative tools or those
developed for use natively on Linux.  It can, however, prevent many of us
who can't afford a week off for new product education in the short term the
ability to use our operating system of choice. :)

-Sheryl Weidner

Elizabeth Fallon wrote:

> > > Regrettably, I am quite addicted to my Windows box.  Primarily for
Adobe
> > > Photoshop and Photodeluxe, as well as my scanner, and the wide range
of
> >ISPs
> > > available for it and NOT Linux. :(
> >
> >as someone else said: try the GIMP instead of Photoshop, especially the
> >developer versions are _sweet_ *claps himself on the backhead for
> >suggesting the use of a developer version to anyone*.
>
> I've been playing around with the GIMP a bit (not enough to be able to use
> it successfully), but I'm sure I'll be fluent in no time. :)