Wine or wineX??? Need some answers.

[hooj]

Ok I am slowly getting away from Windows and if it wasnt for Everquest my pc at home would be windows free. But here at work I am on a NT network. Now I still have to use Excel, Streets & Maps are the 2 main programs I need to use, but on a regular basis I all so use Adobe & Macromedia software for my web design and other graphics tasks. Now wich would be the best route to go? wine or winex and will ethier work with said programs??? Any advice or suggestions ??
Thanks in advance.

[mdwatts]

It's probably best to check the wine/winex websites to see if those applications work. They should have a list of apps that are known to work.

[GonzoJohn]

If you're not looking to spend money, look at Codeweavers Wine (www.codeweavers.com). If you don't mind spending a little, VMWare Express is a nice option (Only one guest OS).

[Molecule Man]

Winex- not yet for everquest

Wine- probably not until after Winex becomes fully Opensource.

Basically, you are looking at Win4Lin or VMware. Maybe Bochs is ready but I'm not sure.

[Jomboni]

I don't think VMWare supports Direct X, and although I've never played Everquest, I'm guessing you need some version of Direct X.

[Molecule Man]

VMWare runs windows. Directx runs ontop of Windows. So it doesn't matter to VMware.

BTW Quake3 will run though not as well as in native mode on VMware. I expect that if you have hefty enough hardware, it will work.

[b3d]

So, does win4lin support DirectX 8.0?

[chikn]

Im running , Excel, Word, Visio, Dreamweaver and some other oddball win32 apps off of codeweavers wine. Havent figured out how to make excel and word print yet though:(

[b3d]

But can you run Myst and Jedi Knight under win4lin? That's what my son need to know. It looks like you can, because you have to install an actual copy of Windoze over the win4lin prouct. Right?

[Icarus]

I never tried Myst, But Jedi Knight works great under WineX. That was one of the main selling points for me to buy that :D

[MlotPolska]

haha, everquest...beware hooj...thats all i can say, that game reamed my grades for a good year

[Luigi]

winex beats any pc emulator hands down. instead of emulating the whole machine, i just translates directx hardware calls into linux language. less emulation work, you see. that being said, you're still looking at about a 50% drop in performance, not counting little incompatibilities that will drive you up the wall. all in all, if you're any kind of gamer it's really worthwhile making a dual boot. games run so smoothly and prettily on windows....

for your applications, use regular wine. wine emulates the application function calls, and winex emulates the directx function calls. therefore - > if it's an app, use wine. if it uses directx, use winex.

[b3d]

How about games based on the Age of Empires engine? Do those work with the latest winex? Anybody know?

[Luigi]

http://www.transgaming.com/searchgame.php

a searchable list of winex-compatible games, with their compatibility levels. really, you don't want to play anything below a 4. no, really.

[Ludootje]

Originally posted by chikn
Im running , Excel, Word, Visio, Dreamweaver and some other oddball win32 apps off of codeweavers wine. Havent figured out how to make excel and word print yet though:(
huh? which version of dreamweaver is that?

[chikn]

Originally posted by Ludootje

huh? which version of dreamweaver is that?

Dreamweaver 4

[Ludootje]

Thanks a lot, I tried with MX but it didn't work. I'll give 4 a try.

[yold]

- Wine -
Pros:
Emulates the windows API ontop of linux, meaning no emulated/virtualized instuctions to slow applications down, so applications should run at near native speeds. Wine can use native windows dlls, so it works great with a dual booting computer, or an existing win95/98 install. Easy config with codeweavers "winesetup" utility.
Cons:
VERY limited game support. Serious font issues. Unreliable with included non-windows dlls. Limited networking support. Numerous crashed installs lead to severe headaches.

- WineX -
Pros:
Fork of wine, provides directx API implementation ontop of linux, and like its counterpart wine, it gets near natives speeds. Install is a snap with the RPMs. Best for linux gaming. Massive support database with many tweaking tips. Highly active development paid team focuses on getting major software titles working on winex.
Cons:
Monthly fee for access to binary rpms and support. Limited number of games. No directplay support, so most MMORPG don't work at present. Minor annoying bugs in games often require hours of scanning web archives/transgaming database to fix.


NOTE - NONE OF THE FOLLOWING SUPPORT SUBSTANCIAL PARTS OF DIRECTX WELL ENOUGH TO PLAY GAMES!



- Vmware -
Pros:
Full encapsulation of virtual pcs, so if there is an OS crash on the virtual machine, host remains unaffected. x86 virtualization is much faster than full instruction set emulation(i.e. Bochs). Full NAT support, so guest a OS has full access to network hardware. Maximum application compatability, virtually all applications depending solely on the win32 API run flawlessly. Easy "suspension" of virtual machines allows the same state of the machine to be maintained.
Cons:
Pricey commercial software. Performace is still drastically degraded within virtual machines compared to native windows. Absolute RAM pig, huge drain on system resources. Severely limited directdraw support, and no direct3d support.

- Bochs -
Pros:
Full x86 emulation for maximum portability to other platforms(ppc/sparc). Full virtual machine encapsulation.
Cons:
Rediculously slow. Operating system installation required substancial know-how. Not a good choice for anyone except developers and non-x86 platform users.

- win4lin -
Pros:
Near native application speeds. Windows boots within 20 seconds. Shares native file system, users able to view/modify windows 98 filesystem within linux even when win4lin is not runnig. Virtual network supports 99% of internet/network applications. Minimal ram/cpu use. Full linux printing support. Foolproof install. Less than 1/2 the price of vmware.
Cons:
Requires working copy of win95/98. Limited free updates. Sub-par font support. Requires installation of custom win4lin kernel.