On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:35:02 +0100 Philippe Landau <lists@user-land.org> wrote:
Maura Edelweiss Monville wrote:
Since I have to use MS Office every now and then I would consider to run alternatively Windows and SuSE through WMware. Now I run MS Office through CrossOveR. Is WMware stable and reliable ? Yes, others recommend VirtualBox though (free too). Or if it is just for that: Crossover Office, which is not free. Which one is easier to install and backup ?
I found Virtualbox to be a bit easier to install than VMWare. However, VMWare, Virtualbox, WINE and Crossover Office (essentially WINE +) are all excellent products. I think I would recommend using CrossoverOffice for Maura. CrossoverOffice and WINE are Linux native programs (and libraries) that fool Windows applications into believing they are running on Windows. Therefore, all your files can be kept on your Linux file system and available to you from Linux. VMWare, VirtualBox, and other virtualization products actually run full blown Windows on your system, but the virtual machine drive is essentially hidden from the host OS. The advantage of using a VM is the cases where you need to have some Windows applications or services that are simply not available under Linux. Last summer, I did this because my wife needed to use RealPlayer with a licensed feed, and the authentication had to be through Windows. I could authenticate through MSIE under Crossover, but it also needed RealPlayer 10, which does not run under Crossover Office. The solution was VMWare at the time. (Actually, the solution ended up by fixing up an old laptop). I was using VMWare server since it was free. VMWare Player would have been a better choice, but for some reason I didn't find a pre-built WindowsXP VM and Ubuntu had VMware Player in its installation database. -- -- Jerry Feldman <gaf@blu.org> Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846