On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 21:01, Dan Kolb wrote:
ian wrote:
Just to play devils advocate. First how do I run RMs primary maths software (Don't say Wine as I don't know what ti is or whether it will work for sure ;-) ) Second if it goes wrong and its Windows its just the
Why not Wine? It works very well for a lot of tasks.
Simply because it takes time to try it out with specific software that no-one else has tried and time is expensive, particularly when new adopters are not confident and might not even know WINE exists.
There are also commercial versions available, which extend the core Wine functionality (e.g. Crossover Office). I'm using it at work to run Lotus Notes (under FreeBSD). A major advantage is that you can simply try the software to see if it works. If it doesn't, you haven't lost anything, apart from a bit of time.
Yes all the bits of time add up though. Just got a client to-day that has a web based product that requires Windows Media Player. Ok use the Crossover at a cost of £800 for 100 user license and down load WMP - except is it legal to run it not on Windows? Perhaps we can use RealPlayer or another player with a compatible Codec? Maybe not insoluble but another problem!
Most Windows software now seems to work under Wine, unless it does something *really* strange (and then you have the option of using native Windows DLLs, rather than native Wine ones).
But it needs setting up and while the application might work, the installer might not etc.
Yeah. But it'll really only shift when the educational program makers write Unix versions of their programs. Once they do that, then schools may get enough confidence in Unix/Linux.
I agree, and the way to get them to do that is to get more desktop Linux sites out there and we are working very hard to achieve that. 3 recent sites with nearly 500 desktops between them, but there are still issues in terms of running software that Wine, Crossover etc are not ideal solutions. Still, I did say playing devils advocate ;-) Its still a struggle worth doing - all I'm really saying is that the shift will not happen without some considerable effort but fortunately many people are making that effort, from SUSE to OO.org and lots of small players like ourselves. Regards, -- Ian