Wondering if Linux is right for me...

[harpoonz]

Hello all,

I know next to nothing about Linux, but my wife and I have grown sick and tired of our computers constantly crashing.

Currently, we have three computers...two desktops and a laptop. The vast majority of our usage is work- and internet-related. That would be my first dilemma...my wife uses Quickbooks Pro constantly (she's an accountant) and I use a proprietary real estate program...to the best of my knowledge, all of these programs only run in Windows.

The second is that all of our computers are currently networked using W98(and sharing a cable modem).

So my question becomes, is it even -possible- to replace Win98 in this scenario, and is it worthwhile? I understand that there are some 'Windows Emulators' out there for Linux, but do these actually work, and is it worth doing? Having two OS' on the same system also seems rather annoying. (I have a friend that tried it, but found that the bootup and restarting the computer each time made him mental and actually wasted more of his time than he would have saved.) The programming aspect of things doesn't bother me...I'm an old tinkerer at heart, and currently do DB programming in Access and other things (just on the side, they aren't my real job).

Our current system crashes on us at least once a day, and is incredibly frustrating. If this would work, I'd love to try it.

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Robert
Edmonton, AB, Canada

[A_Lawn_GNOME]

Emulating Windows or running Windows within a virtual machine is an iffy thing to do.

VMWare is the most reliable option. It works best when you have power to spare because you'll end up running your program on top of Windows which is on top of Linux. Stability for the computer as a whole will be rock solid but Windows and your app will still crash.

The other choice is WINE which basically let's Windows apps run natively. It's still very beta but it works best for basic apps. Although, I've even gotten MS Word to run in it though there were a few things out of place. You'll cut Windows out of the problem but it will still be slow.

The latest is, well I forget the name, but it was like VMWare. Instead of running Windows on top of Linux, Windows ran beside it. Linux and Windows shared the CPU but Linux kept sole control of memory. They just got it to work so I would advise against it.

Getting Windows apps to run in Linux is possible. It just isn't a fun thing to do though.

My advice is to consider to your computer specs (500MHz and 128MB should do it without a lot of pain), the complexity of the app (WINE might be able to run it), and if there was a Linux replacement.

[MovingTarget]

okie computer crash's yes in linux u will end this madness http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

i am sure there is accounting software for linux

as for your real estate proggy u can use vmware or wine

linux loves to network so dont worry about linkin up all your systems

yes constantly rebooting is rather annoying
i still have my win2k os in there but use linux most of the time now http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

[pbharris]

yes, linux is for you!!! there are great tools for setting up a FREE and EFFECTIVE firewall with and ipmasqerading (what windows calls sharing an internet connect I think). i have my firewall box running on a 133 MHz k5 with 16 MB of ram, and it has been up for over 200 days (were it not for electrical storms I belive this would be closer to 400 days now).

wine works well for many windows applications, plus there is vmware and other windows things...for lack of a better word.

[David Anderson]

Yes there are accounting packages for Linux but I imagine his wife is requires to use Quickbooks for her job. I have no idea if that runs under Wine.

I'm not sure Linux would be a good choice for this guy. If he wants Windows to be stable he should do what needs to be done to keep it stable -

1) Get 256mb RAM (minimum)

2) Delete Windows entirely and do a fresh install every 2 months.

You'll still get crashes but they won't be as frequent. I love Linux but given what this guy is doing I don't think it's right for him.

Personally I've found Windows is a pig with memory (duh) and starts crashing once you begin to use lots of memory (duh duh). Once I start doing some scanning on my Windows machine, which seems to eat lost of memory, the system starts crashing left and right. But if I do the scanning on a fresh boot and make sure no other apps are open it's generally solid.

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David W. Anderson - dave@horrordvds.com

[penguinlinux]

You should not use linux if you and your wife use the computer for business. You should install Windows 2000 professional on 2 computer and install linux on the other one just for surfing the net . I would not recommend use Vmware or Wine . They work but it is a little hard to understand how they work and why would you want to run an emulator when you can use Win2K which is good. I love linux, but I also like Windows 2000.

Take care

[mastersibn]

I'm going to have to agree with Penguinlinux on this one; it looks like Microsoft has your company locked that way.

If you're interested in running Linux, and you don't know what it is, I'd recommend starting out with something on which you can afford to lose data. See if you could make that work the way you need to. If you wanna do it, we can help out some. But I don't honestly believe that it's something you'd want to do to get your apps running either in VMWare or WINE.

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grab my gnupg key (http://jove.prohosting.com/~msibn/sibn-p.asc) if you feel so inclined.


cAPS lOCK? wHAT cAPS lOCK?
I cna ytpe 300 wrods pre mniuet!!!
an operating system has not just advantages...

[harpoonz]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I think that what was said is probably true...I suppose, at least on my wife's system we have to stay with WinBlows. But is it possible to set my system up with Linux and hers up with Win98, on the same network? Will they be able to talk to each other, share the internet connection, files, etc? Or will they be totally foreign to each other? I think that my real estate program (which is fairly basic) will probably run in WINE without any problems, after reading the WINE home page.

Thanks in advance for your help, and hope everyone has a great week.



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Robert
Edmonton, AB, Canada

[ndogg]

My suggestion is to wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, and wait. There are people out there that are trying to make Linux easier, and are trying to write applications that work with Windows files (e.g. using MS Word files in Abiword, which is another word processor made for Linux, Windows, and some other OSs).

Eazel, Helixcode, and KDE (in spite of the last two's conflicts of interests) all look very promising. The people at Eazel are among the first to create the MacOS, so they know what they're doing. The people at Helixcode are doing a really good job at writing a Linux office-suite that they hope will replace MS Office. Everyone that has worked on KDE have written some very Window-ish programs and window manager (I would personally say that KDE is more user-friendly than GNOME).

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Too much Sun can give you cancer. Windows break too easily.
Apples/Macintoshes can rot. BSD... sounds too much like LSD.
Penguins are the only animals sophisticated enough to wear a
tuxedo.


Linux, the only one with the Penguin.


http://ndogg.n3.net

[witman]

I dissagree with the Win2K option. You should use Linux and install Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) on top of it. Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) allows you to run windows inside Linux. This protects your system from crashing while allowing you to use your windows apps. You can run just about anything in Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) that doesn't use Directx or QuickTime. I'm sure you accounting and realestate software will work fine.

Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) is more stable because Windows does not control you system, and most other tasks are done through Linux (i.e. surfing the we, email, etc)

I use Office, Visio and have recently been experimenting with remote lan acces to the windows network at the office.

You need Linux, it's Freedome on a disk. Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) is $35

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Use the source!
The WITMAN Cometh!

[This message has been edited by witman (edited 10 December 2000).]

[turdball2k]

Originally posted by witman:
I dissagree with the Win2K option. You should use Linux and install Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) on top of it. Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) allows you to run windows inside Linux. This protects your system from crashing while allowing you to use your windows apps. You can run just about anything in Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) that doesn't use Directx or QuickTime. I'm sure you accounting and realestate software will work fine.

Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) is more stable because Windows does not control you system, and most other tasks are done through Linux (i.e. surfing the we, email, etc)

I use Office, Visio and have recently been experimenting with remote lan acces to the windows network at the office.

You need Linux, it's Freedome on a disk. Win4Lin (http://www.netraverse.com) is $35



I would also recommend Win4Lin, tho in most cases in can be a (worthwhile) pain in the *** to get going. I had it going great in Mandrake 7.1, but it took recompiling the kernel (which ended up being /really/ easy) to do it. Now that I'm using 7.2 (which as of yet is unsupported by Netraverse) I have had nothing but probs and have been unable to successfully install/use it, although, of course, I hear other people tell me, 'Oh, I'm running it just fine on MDK7.2'... Oh well.

geo