Hmmm, don't know if I'm that impressed. A colleague installed the MS IE4 Solaris port and found it to be much larger, much slower, and much more resource hungry than Netscape, while providing less features. And from personal experience wirh Netscape, that's saying something :)

Why do we need this? If you want to run Windows apps, get a Windows box. However, if you want to run apps that rarely crash, on an operating system that uses system resources pretty well, get a Linux box.

And if there's a single Windows app that you "must have" running under Linux, take a look at Freshmeat or Linuxberg for Linux native equivalents. There's some good stuff out there, and it's getting better.

BTW, I'm not intending to flame here, it's just that I've never seen the point of "emulation" or "replacement" APIs. I'm sure you're all gonna enlighten me, now ;^)

WINE is the only acceptable Windows API emulator; but not an extremely good one; after a LOT of configuring, you can get it to run many of your Windows apps; but by that point you may also be ready to through the towel in and check somewhere like www.CNet.com for a similar, cheaper->free Linux app to accomplish your task.

-Robherc
robherc@netzero.net

*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't :-)

I agree with all you say - but it doesnt wash in a corporate environment. Lots of bespoke legacy client server apps with vb front ends etc, plus thousands of users who would need retraining. I also agree about WINE, especially now that Corel is pouring funds into the project, but there will always be those 'undocumented' api calls so beloved of uncle bills army.

On the other hand NT doesn't scale. In an ideal world we need a thin client solution with back end servers to host all those legacy apps. We can then use Tarantella / Metaframe (on Unix/Linux not NT) to publish them to the desktop (linux based thin client). New apps can be X or web based but the legacy apps run and the corporate user is a happy bunny and isn't paying any more MS license fees.

Techies like us need to address the needs of commercial users if we really want to take linux et al into the main stream.

Re Undocumented API calls, I've got a (very) dim recollection of reading somewhere that MS have released details of many of these calls on their web site.

Warning: It's only a -dim- recollection from a mind that's had better days than today :)

Of course, they're probably happy to release these documents now that WIN2K is just around the corner...

(BTW, anyone seen upgrade prices for this? I've just seen a report that upgrade licence from Win9x/NT to Win2K will come in at £160 sterling. That'll get me pretty much every current Linux distro that's available, complete with every app I'm ever likely to need (or not, as the case may be.) The mind boggles...)

Andy-
    Well; that's not saying much for Linux; I can get you 8 distros & 4 CDs full of *nix progs. for $25 US; the problem is getting pple to see how much better it is....that takes advertising, a BIG upfront cost.

pfp-
    I'm not sure on that thing about making it friendly to the corporate user; the corporations really use whatever OS their employees will be most effective using; if we get some popular games that are Linux only; the corporations will follow just as soon as the Linux-game loving crowd starts to enter their labor force; the transition may end up being a little rough, but I beleive getting the big games ported over is the real answer. (but you DEFINATELY aren't going to see me wasting my own time to make Linux games when it could be spent making much more meaningful apps!)

-Robherc
robherc@netzero.net

*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't :-)

Rob- good point, but I was thinking about buying some commercial distros off the shelf. In fact, thinking about it, I could get them all, as well as a case of wine to enjoy while installing them. With the change I could send out for pizza for a couple of weeks, and all would be well in the world :)

On the corporate front, I've always found that the pointy haired managers like to have a backside to kick when something goes wrong. With MS, you pay your several thousand a year to support your servers and desktops, and if something goes wrong, you can shout at somebody. Management gets to shout at somebody and feel all important, while SysAdmin are still hanging around waiting for a fix to the problem...

Doesn't get your problem fixed, but makes people feel important and needed.

Meanwhile in the Unix room we laugh quietly to ourselves as we check 'uptime' on our boxes and look at the budget savings we've made that can be spent elsewhere... Ie, bigger kit to run our Linux mail, web, etc servers on. And when a problem does come along, a quick search on Deja News or similar usually throws up a fix within a short time of searching.

It's a happy life in our Linux world, and I'm very glad to be here. Now if only I can resolve this issue that's preventing me upgrading these bleeding SCO servers... Hmmm.... (looks at various Linux distro CDs lying around...) Maybe... ;^)

Hmmmm; I've a sugg. for upgrading the "Bleeders"......ever tried FreeBSD 3.2? Talk about dependable.....if you can get past the somewhat cryptic install & get everything running fine.............let's just say you'll be running out of breath if you try to read of all of the "9"s following the 99.9 in your server's uptime percentage ;) (and it's FAST too!!!)

-Robherc
robherc@netzero.net

*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't :-)

Rob, I might give that a try on a spare box, with iBcs installed, see if the apps we need will run. I've just found out that for the hardware we're using, the vendor recommends doing a fresh install and re-install of apps and data. <sighs> I'm gonna have to re-install anyway, so.... another few Linux based boxes may slip in ;^)

The only problem is we've got some hardware in the boxes that isn't supported under Linux. <sighs, again, deeply> Now, where's my Writing Linux Device Drivers book got to... 40-odd days left to write a couple of device drivers... <jests> :)

Let me know if you just "happen" to write a Linux device driver for a Canon BJ200ex or BJC4100 ;^)

-Robherc
robherc@netzero.net

*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't :-)