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Friday, June 25, 2010

An introduction to CrossOver Office and Games for Solaris

What exactly is CrossOver Solaris?

CrossOver for Solaris is a commercial variant of Wine released by CodeWeavers with (currently) limited support for many of today's most popular office application and games. CrossOver Office and Games for Solaris has been compiled on Solaris 10 and tested for performance and stability with many of todays most popular games such as Guild Wars, Eve Online, and Steam games like Half-Life 2 and Portal. As well as many of todays most popular Office application such as Microsoft Office 97 to 2007, Quicken, Quickbooks, Photoshop, Internet Explorer and many other not mentioned applications.

CrossOver for Solaris will also run on OpenSolaris systems, in this introduction I will be using OpenSolaris 2009.06 the last stable release of OpenSolaris.
Minimum system requirements

Solaris :
  • An x86 based Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris distribution based on glibc 2.3 or greater
  • Perl 5 or greater
  • IJG JPEG library (libjpeg)
  • python >= 2.4
  • gtk2 >= 2.10
  • python-gtk2 >= 2.10
  • It is also recommended that you have a web browser installed.
  • 100MB of available disk space (plus space for the Windows applications)
  • 128MB of RAM
Currently Unsupported builds of CrossOver Solaris

Currently the only way to get CrossOver Office or Games for Solaris is to first purchase a Linux licence of CrossOver. After your purchase you can then go to "My Downloads" (Your Downloads) and then select the "Unsupported Downloads" tab and then select the CrossOver Solaris tab. At this time you can download both CrossOver Office and Games 8.0 and the new 9.0 release from CodeWeavers.

The Demo version of CrossOver

When you download CrossOver Solaris from the Unsupported section it will be a seven day demo. The demo version of CrossOver has all the functions and features of the full version. Any Windows software that works on a full version will also run in the demo version, and vice versa. The important limitation of the demo version is that bottles can only be used for 7 days. This means that any Windows packages that you install using the demo version will cease to work 7 days after their installation. When a demo installation is unlocked, all existing bottles and applications are unlocked as well. To unlock a demo, you must have a support account with CodeWeavers. You can purchase CrossOver licenses and support contracts from the vendor that provided you with your demo or directly from the CodeWeavers store. During purchase you will be asked to provide an email address and password. This address and password will be used to unlock your demo install. (Your Linux purchase will unlock the Solaris demo)

Games :
Games in CrossOver Games for Solaris:
  • World of Warcraft
  • EVE Online
  • Guild Wars
  • Prey
  • Steam Games, including:
    • Half-Life 2
    • Team Fortress 2
    • Counter-Strike
    • Counter-Strike: Source
    • Civilization IV
    • Peggle Extreme
    • Call of Duty 2
    • Max Payne 2
    • Grand Theft Auto 2
  • and more...

Office :

Applications in CrossOver Office for Solaris:
  • Microsoft Office 2007, 2003, XP, 2000 and 97
    • Microsoft Word
    • Microsoft Excel
    • Microsoft PowerPoint
    • Microsoft Outlook
    • Microsoft Access *1
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 & 7
  • Microsoft Project
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Microsoft Visio
  • Lotus Notes 5.0 and 6.5.1
  • Quicken
  • FrameMaker
  • Various Web Browser Plugins
    • QuickTime
    • Shockwave Director
    • Windows Media Player 6.4 & 9.0
  • and more...
*1 - Microsoft Access supported in Office 2000 only.
Many applications and games that are not on the above list will still work just fine. For a list of such applications, visit the CodeWeavers CrossOver Compatibility Center. At the compatibility center you can search for games, read about other users' experiences, and post tips and hints for other users.

Cost and Support of CrossOver Solaris

If your a current owner of CrossOver Office you will receive a complimentary copy of CrossOver Games. If by chance you don't currently own a copy of CrossOver Office you can purchase the stand alone Games product for only $39.95 with your purchase you will receive *limited support* through their support ticket system at this time, you can join in the discussions that take place at the C4 compatibility center, join a mailing list, vote for your favorite applications and games, and much more.

A purchase also goes toward helping support a full time Wine hacker! the folks at CodeWeavers have over the years given back well over 98% of all the code modifications that went into CrossOver to the Wine project. It also a good idea if you purchase CrossOver for Solaris to VOTE for Solaris in the Compatibility center.

CrossOver Solaris Screenshots (taken on OpenSolaris)

CrossOver Solaris Gnome menu entries


When you select "Install Windows Software" from the menu the CX GUI will start.


If you select install software the installation process will begin.


After you select the bottle you want to install your application or game into the install process will start.



After the install has finished your application or game will be placed in the CX Manage Bottles UI window.


In Manage Bottles you will see "Advanced Settings" tab. From this tab you can create Archives of your installed bottles, perform backups and more.


In the Manage Bottles UI you can run commands in a bottle, view installed applications and games and view the control panel settings.


To register your copy of CrossOver Solaris select the "Register and unlock this demo" from the system menu. You will need to enter your email address and password and the register tool will connect to the CrossOver store and proceed with the registration.


To run a Windows command select "Run a Windows Command" from the system menu. Select a bottle and then run a Windows command from that bottle. With CX Office and Games 9.0 and onward you can now easily create log files and use debug channels from the Run Command UI.


To terminate a Windows application select "Terminate Windows Application" from the system menu.


To uninstall CrossOver Office or Games select "Uninstall" from the system menu. You can choose to leave all of your previously configured bottles intact if you wish to do so.


To run a Windows Application or Game from the system menu simply navigate to the menu entry and choose the installed Application or Game. Or if your a advanced user you can run any application or game from your terminal.

Here is a screenshot of IE 7 running on OpenSolaris with CrossOver Solaris.


CrossOver also runs on FreeBSD and PC-BSD, see this older post for more information on CrossOver for FreeBSD.

In a future post I will be doing a review of Microsoft Office and IE 7 on FreeBSD and OpenSolaris.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

An introduction to CrossOver Office and Games for FreeBSD

What exactly is CrossOver FreeBSD?

CrossOver for FreeBSD is a commercial variant of Wine released by CodeWeavers with (currently) limited support for many of today's most popular office application and games. CrossOver Office and Games for FreeBSD is tested for performance and stability with many of todays most popular games such as Guild Wars, Eve Online, and Steam games like Half-Life 2 and Portal. As well as many of todays most popular Office application such as Microsoft Office 97 to 2007, Quicken, Quickbooks, Photoshop, Internet Explorer and many other not mentioned applications.
Minimum system requirements

FreeBSD :
  • An x86 based FreeBSD distribution based on glibc 2.3 or greater
  • Perl 5 or greater
  • IJG JPEG library (libjpeg)
  • python >= 2.4
  • gtk2 >= 2.10
  • python-gtk2 >= 2.10
  • It is also recommended that you have a web browser installed.
  • 100MB of available disk space (plus space for the Windows applications)
  • 128MB of RAM
Currently Unsupported builds of CrossOver FreeBSD

Currently the only way to get CrossOver Office or Games for FreeBSD is to first purchase a Linux licence of CrossOver. After your purchase you can then go to "My Downloads" (Your Downloads) and then select the "Unsupported Downloads" tab and then select the CrossOver FreeBSD tab. At this time you can download both CrossOver Office and Games 8.0 and the new 9.0 release from CodeWeavers.

The Demo version of CrossOver

When you download CrossOver FreeBSD from the Unsupported section it will be a seven day demo. The demo version of CrossOver has all the functions and features of the full version. Any Windows software that works on a full version will also run in the demo version, and vice versa. The important limitation of the demo version is that bottles can only be used for 7 days. This means that any Windows packages that you install using the demo version will cease to work 7 days after their installation. When a demo installation is unlocked, all existing bottles and applications are unlocked as well. To unlock a demo, you must have a support account with CodeWeavers. You can purchase CrossOver licenses and support contracts from the vendor that provided you with your demo or directly from the CodeWeavers store. During purchase you will be asked to provide an email address and password. This address and password will be used to unlock your demo install. (Your Linux purchase will unlock the FreeBSD demo)

Games :
Games in CrossOver Games for FreeBSD:
  • World of Warcraft
  • EVE Online
  • Guild Wars
  • Prey
  • Steam Games, including:
    • Half-Life 2
    • Team Fortress 2
    • Counter-Strike
    • Counter-Strike: Source
    • Civilization IV
    • Peggle Extreme
    • Call of Duty 2
    • Max Payne 2
    • Grand Theft Auto 2
  • and more...

Office :

Applications in CrossOver Office for FreeBSD:
  • Microsoft Office 2007, 2003, XP, 2000 and 97
    • Microsoft Word
    • Microsoft Excel
    • Microsoft PowerPoint
    • Microsoft Outlook
    • Microsoft Access *1
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 & 7
  • Microsoft Project
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Microsoft Visio
  • Lotus Notes 5.0 and 6.5.1
  • Quicken
  • FrameMaker
  • Various Web Browser Plugins
    • QuickTime
    • Shockwave Director
    • Windows Media Player 6.4 & 9.0
  • and more...
*1 - Microsoft Access supported in Office 2000 only.
Many applications and games that are not on the above list will still work just fine. For a list of such applications, visit the CodeWeavers CrossOver Compatibility Center. At the compatibility center you can search for games, read about other users' experiences, and post tips and hints for other users.

Cost and Support of CrossOver FreeBSD

If your a current owner of CrossOver Office you will receive a complimentary copy of CrossOver Games. If by chance you don't currently own a copy of CrossOver Office you can purchase the stand alone Games product for only $39.95 with your purchase you will receive *limited support* through their support ticket system at this time, you can join in the discussions that take place at the C4 compatibility center, join a mailing list, vote for your favorite applications and games, and much more.

A purchase also goes toward helping support a full time Wine hacker! the folks at CodeWeavers have over the years given back well over 98% of all the code modifications that went into CrossOver to the Wine project. It also a good idea if you purchase CrossOver for FreeBSD to VOTE for FreeBSD in the Compatibility center.

CrossOver FreeBSD Screenshots

CrossOver FreeBSD Gnome menu entries


When you select "Install Windows Software" from the menu the CX GUI will start.


If you select install software the installation process will begin.




After you select the bottle you want to install your application or game into the install process will start.


After the install has finished your application or game will be placed in the CX Manage Bottles UI window.


In Manage Bottles you will see "Advanced Settings" tab. From this tab you can create Archives of your installed bottles, perform backups and more.


In the Manage Bottles UI you can run commands in a bottle, view installed applications and games and view the control panel settings.


To register your copy of CrossOver FreeBSD select the "Register and unlock this demo" from the system menu. You will need to enter your email address and password and the register tool will connect to the CrossOver store and proceed with the registration.


To run a Windows command select "Run a Windows Command" from the system menu. Select a bottle and then run a Windows command from that bottle. With CX Office and Games 9.0 and onward you can now easily create log files and use debug channels from the Run Command UI.


To terminate a Windows application select "Terminate Windows Application" from the system menu.


To uninstall CrossOver Office or Games select "Uninstall" from the system menu. You can choose to leave all of your previously configured bottles intact if you wish to do so.


To run a Windows Application or Game from the system menu simply navigate to the menu entry and choose the installed Application or Game. Or if your a advanced user you can run any application or game from your terminal. See the IE 7 screenshot below.

CrossOver FreeBSD running on PC-BSD 8 screenshots... :)






If you sign up as a Advocte you can get nightly development builds of CX FreeBSD and test newly implemented features and bug fixes!


Here is a screenshot of IE 7 running on FreeBSD 8 with CrossOver FreeBSD.



CrossOver Office and Games also runs on Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris! In my next post I will be doing a introduction to CrossOver Office and Games for Solaris.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

wisotool 20100618 released

Dan Kegel released wisotool 20100618 today: 19 new verbs (blur, spore, photoshop cs5, ...), and 75 old ones.

wisotool is a handy winetricks like script for automatically installing games from .iso or .mds files copied from your own dvds (or, if the game is freely downloadable, it will download it). Just like winetricks, it is intended to make testing Wine easier, but might be useful for people who simply want to install games.
Unlike winetricks, wisotool is quiet by default, it doesnt ask any questions (except, for now, it prompts for your password so it can mount the .iso file).

Wisotool currently supports about 95 games and/or benchmarks (see below). Please consider contributing support for your favorite game, its not (too) hard. Im especially interested in recent or beta games, ideally wisotool would support good games or betas on or near their day of release.

Changes since version 20100530:

Austin English:
  • New verbs proevolution2010_demo
  • pscs5
  • pscs5_pickle
  • pscs5_unpickle
Dan Kegel:
  • New verbs bioshock_demo
  • blur
  • rom
  • Various bugfixes
Eleazar Galano:
  • New verbs avatar_demo
  • braid braid_demo
  • darknesswithin2_demo
  • hegemonypom_demo
  • hphbp_demo
  • nfsps_demo
  • popsot
  • spore
Travis Athougies:
  • New verbs 7million
  • msaoe_demo
Vincent Pelletier:
  • New verb beneath_a_steel_sky_gog
Here's the current help message:

Script to install games automatically.
Usage: wisotool [options] package [package] ...

Options:
-q quieter
-v verbose
-V display Version
Packages:
3dmark03 3D Mark 03 (Futuremark, 2003) [download]
3dmark05 3D Mark 05 (Futuremark, 2005) [download]
3dmark06 3D Mark 06 (Futuremark, 2006) [download]
3dmark2000 3DMark2000 (MadOnion.com, 2000) [download]
3dmark2001 3DMark2001 (MadOnion.com, 2001) [download]
7million 7Million (Deep Silver, 2009) [download] [broken on wine]
abes_exoddus_gog Abes Exoddus (GOG.com)
abes_oddysee_gog Abes Oddysee (GOG.com)
assassinscreed Assassins Creed (Ubisoft, 2008)
avatar_demo James Camerons Avatar The Game Demo (Ubisoft, 2009) [download]
baldursgate2 Baldurs Gate 2 - Shadows of Amn (Bioware, 2000)
battle_chess_gog Battle Chess (GOG.com)
beneath_a_steel_sky_gog Beneath a Steel Sky (GOG.com, free)
beyond_good_and_evil_gog Beyond Good and Evil (GOG.com)
bfbc2 Battlefield Bad Company 2 (EA, 2010)
bioshock Bioshock (2K Games, 2007)
bioshock_demo Bioshock Demo (2K Games, 2007)
blur Blur (Activision, 2010)
braid Braid (Number None, 2009) [download]
braid_demo Braid Demo (Number None, 2009) [download]
codmw2 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (Activision, 2009) [broken]
darknesswithin2_demo Darkness Within 2 Demo (Zoetrope Interactive, 2010) [download]
descent_1_2_gog Descent and Descent 2 (GOG.com)
descent_3_gog Descent 3 (GOG.com)
diablo2 Diablo II (Blizzard, 2000)
dragonage Dragon Age: Origins (Bioware, 2009)
dukenukem3d_gog Duke Nukem 3D (GOG.com)
dukenukemmp_gog Duke Nukem Manhattan Project (GOG.com)
earth_2150_trilogy_gog Earth 2150 trilogy (GOG.com)
earth_2160_gog Earth 2160 (GOG.com)
earthworm_jim_1_2_gog Earthworm Jim 1 & 2 (GOG.com)
earthworm_jim_3d_gog Earthworm Jim 3D (GOG.com)
empire_earth_gold_gog Empire Earth Gold (GOG.com)
evil_genius_gog Evil Genius (GOG.com)
fallout_2_gog Fallout 2 (GOG.com)
fallout_gog Fallout (GOG.com)
fallout_tactics_gog Fallout Tactics (GOG.com)
far_cry_gog Far Cry (GOG.com)
flatout_gog FlatOut (GOG.com)
freespace_2_gog Freespace 2 (GOG.com)
freespace_gog Freespace (GOG.com)
ghost_master_gog Ghost Master (GOG.com)
ground_control_2_gog Ground Control 2 (GOG.com)
gta_vc Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Rockstar, 2003)
half_life_goty Half Life: Game of the Year Edition (Sierra, 2000)
hegemonypom_demo Hegemony: Philip of Macedon Demo (Longbow Games, 2010) [download]
help How to use this tool
hon Heroes of Newerth (S2 Games, 2010) [download]
hphbp_demo Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince Demo (EA, 2009) [download]
lswcs Lego Star Wars Complete Saga (Lucasarts, 2009)
manhole The Manhole Masterpiece Edition (Cyan, 1994)
masseffect2 Mass Effect 2 (BioWare, 2010)
mdk2_gog MDK 2 (GOG.com)
mdk_gog MDK (GOG.com)
mnbw_demo Mount & Blade Warband Demo (Taleworlds, 2010) [download]
morrowind The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Bethesda, 2002)
msaoe_demo Age of Empires Demo (Microsoft, 1997) [download]
neighbours_from_hell_compilation_gog Neighbours From Hell 1 & 2 (GOG.com)
nfsps_demo Need For Speed: Pro Street Demo (EA, 2007)
operation_flashpoint_goty_gog Operation Flashpoint GOTY (GOG.com)
orangebox Orange Box (Valve, 2007)
painkiller_black_gog Painkiller Black (GOG.com)
pcmark04 PC Mark 04 (Futuremark, 2004) [download]
pcmark05 PC Mark 05 (Futuremark, 2005) [download]
perimeter_gog Perimeter (GOG.com)
plantsvszombies Plants vs. Zombies (PopCap Games, 2009) [download]
popsot Prince of Persia Sands of Time (Ubisoft, 2003)
popsot_demo Prince of Persia Sands of Time Demo (Ubisoft, 2003)
praetorians_gog Praetorians (GOG.com)
procycling08_demo Pro Cycling Manager 2008 Demo (Cyanide, 2008) [download, broken in wine]
procycling09_nda Pro Cycling Manager 2009 (Cyanide, 2009)
proevolution2010_demo Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 Demo (Konami, 2009) [download]
pscs5 Photoshop CS5 Demo (Adobe, 2010)
pscs5_pickle save Photoshop CS5 Demo to tarball
pscs5_unpickle restore Photoshop CS5 Demo from tarball
psychonauts_gog Psychonauts (GOG.com)
quake3 Quake 3 (ID Software, 1999)
re5bench Resident Evil 5 Benchmark (Capcom, 2009)
[download]
redneck_rampage_gog Redneck Rampage (GOG.com)
robinson_requiem_collection_gog Robinson Requiem & Deus (GOG.com)
rom Runes of Magic (Frogster Interactive, 2009) [download]
settlers_2_gold_gog The Settlers 2 Gold (GOG.com)
shogo_gog Shogo Mobile Armor Division (GOG.com)
sims3 The Sims 3 (EA, 2009)
splitsecond Split Second (Black Rock Studios, 2010) [wine bug 22865]
splitsecond_demo Split Second Demo (Black Rock Studios, 2010) [wine bug 22865]
spore Spore (EA, 2008)
starcraft Starcraft Battle Chest (Blizzard, 1998)
starcraft2 Starcraft II beta (Blizzard, 2010)
stfu Starwars: The Force Unleashed (Aspyr, 2009)
sto Star Trek Online (Cryptic, 2010)
tex_murphy_1_and_2_gog Tex Murphy 1 & 2 (GOG.com)
unigine_heaven Unigen Heaven 2 Benchmark (Unigen, 2010) [download]
unreal_2_se_gog Unreal 2: The awakening Special Edition (GOG.com)
unreal_gold_gog Unreal Gold Edition (GOG.com)
ut2004_gog Unreal Tournament 2004 (GOG.com)
ut_goty_gog Unreal Tournament GOTY (GOG.com)
wog World of Goo demo (2D Boy, 2008) [download]
wowbc World of Warcraft: Battle Chest (Blizzard, 2008)
Pseudopackages:
load Load a disc into the iso cache
load=KEY Load a disc with given key; only works from commandline at
moment
------------------------------------------------------
If the game is not marked with {download} or {loaded} in the menu, you have
to insert its disc and give the 'load' command before you can choose that
game in the menu. If the game has multiple discs, you have to do this for
each disc.
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
If the game has an install key, you have to enter that when loading the
first disc. (You have to do that from the commandline, e.g. sh wisotool
load=XXXX-YYYY-ZZZZ.)
------------------------------------------------------

Wisotool is available at
http://kegel.com/wine/wisotool
You can read more about it at
http://wiki.winehq.org/wisotool
Please report bugs via
http://code.google.com/p/winezeug/issues/







Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac


winetricks 20100618 released

Dan Kegel released winetricks 20100618 today: new verbs dxsdk_nov2006, windowscodecs

Another month, another Winetricks.

Changes:

Dan Kegel
  • Add dxsdk_nov2006, document how to use it etc. at
  • http://kegel.com/wine/cl-howto-win7sdk.html
  • directx9: override dxdiag.exe, too
  • Update divx sha1sum
Andrew Nguyen
  • Add windowscodecs
Jeff Zaroyko
  • Fix vjrun20 path in non-quiet mode
Austin English
  • Update OpenWatcom to version 1.9
Online as always at
http://kegel.com/wine/winetricks
or
http://winezeug.googlecode.com
(Bug reports to the issue tracker at the above URL, please.)



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac


Monday, June 14, 2010

How to Become a Linux Gamer

There are several resources out there to assist you in being a Linux gamer. The WINE project is a great, free example of this as it allows you to run Windows programs (and games) on Linux. CodeWeavers CrossOver software also allows you to do the same but the difference is that theres a cost associated with this software. Today, though, we're going to introduce you to another option for being a Linux gamer the Linux-Gamers project.

The Linux Gamers project is very unique in that the entire project is encapsulated within the confines of a live distribution (aka distro). Version 0.95, its most recent offering, of the project provides you with 34 free and open source games that run natively in Linux. I downloaded the "Big ISO" which is the DVD offering but you can also download the "Lite ISO" (CD) as well as the "Lite USB" and the "Big USB." Your computer will have to be an i686 or better, have at least 512MB RAM and have a video card that supports 3D acceleration. If your computer is more than 6 years old, you might want to try out the "Lite ISO" as it contains games mostly suited for older computers. Some of this distro's great features are that it has support for high-end video cards and it provides open source drivers with 3D acceleration for many other video cards. Plus, most of the games have multi-player modes. There's no software to install and no editing of config files. You download the ISO file, burn the image to a DVD, pop it into your DVD drive, reboot your machine, and off you go. There is an MD5 file that you can check against to ensure that the ISO image you burned is identical to the original. The only other thing you might need to double-check is that the first boot option in your computer's BIOS is set to boot from your CD/DVD drive and not the hard drive. However, this normally isn't a concern since most recent systems have that as the default already. In case you have a problem running the live DVD or CD, those are the first things to check: the integrity of the download image (via the MD5 sum) and your BIOS boot order.

Upon reboot, you're greeted with a GRUB menu where the default option is to boot into the Linux-Gamers distribution (you also have an option to play Space Invaders!, although it's only a rudimentary version and only one level, but still). Next, you're given the option to select your keymap choice (based on what part of the world you are in). If you have an NVIDIA video card, as I do, you're next shown a message saying that the system found a recent video card but that there's no free drivers for it. Scroll down and you see a message to kernel developers and open source enthusiasts letting them know that the distro developers respect their point-of-view of how proprietary drivers are tainting the GPL v2 (under which the kernel is licensed). Next is a message regarding the license for your video card. Next is a super short message asking you if you really accept the installation of said closed source drivers. While it sounds like there are too many messages, I thought that the authors of this live distro did a really good job of informing all parties involved and you speed through them so it hardly feels inconvenient.

You boot into an operating system-like desktop with the games as icons on the menu bars. You're also greeted by an HTML file with "Important Info," "Release Highlights," and "Known Issues." You can hover over the icons to see the title of the game. Click on the icon to load the game. You can also load a game by right-clicking on the desktop as doing so provides all the games in list format. The Live DVD provides you with the Gran Paradiso (version 3.0.11) web browser, a free and open source browser from the non-profit Mozilla Foundation (makers of Firefox). Testing the browser I discovered that my network drivers worked right out of the box!

Aside from the games and the browser, the right-click menu provides a few tools. An xTerm terminal is provided for your geeky pleasure. You're also given the Wicd network config tool (version 1.6.0) in case you have the need to configure network settings -- I did not. You also have an AlsaMixer sound volume tool as part of the offering (v1.0.20). Lastly, you have the XChat IRC client (version 2.8.6) at your disposal in case you want to setup matches with friends or for a little pre-match smack chat.
The distro includes 34 of the most popular, fun, free and open source games that run natively in Linux. Most, if not all, of them can be found and installed from your regular distro's repositories once you are back in the friendly confines of your distro of choice. You can find a complete list of games and download links at live.linux-gamers.net. Every single game played great -- a few even had cool soundtracks -- and while I was very familiar with many of the games, there were some I had never heard of. Naturally, I have a few favorites. Frets on Fire is a Rock Band/Guitar Hero-like offering where you use your keyboard to play the guitar -- the live gaming distro's authors claim that you can plug in a USB Wii Guitar and it will work right out-of-the-box, but I don't have one of those so I can't confirm that. SuperTuxKart is loads of fun and a great way to engage your little ones in some family racing. World of Padman is an extremely addicting, cartoony, multiplayer-only frag-fest (very colorful and kid-friendly). Urban Terror brings back sweet dreams (or are those nightmares?) of Counter-Strike days gone past. Secret Maryo Chronicles is very pretty and evokes nostalgic Nintendo memories. Foobilliard shows that good billiards games can be simple yet quite enjoyable. I could go on and on about the veritable bounty of games that the good folks from Linux-Gamers have provided us but I would rather suggest that you take it out for a spin yourself and find your own favorites amongst the wide variety of games offered.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

A Windows style Fix to a WINE Problem

Author: Jacob Barkdull
The problem with emulating Windows -- or since "WINE Is Not an Emulator" I should say: the problem with developing a "Windows Compatibility Layer" -- is you end up having the same problems Windows has. If WINE is compatible with anything, it seems to be mostly with Windows flaws. :)

If you remember "Microsoft Windows XP" you may be aware of Windows little problem of keeping too many "temporary" files for too long (I don't know if this is still a problem with Vista and 7.) These files can be Internet files (web cache, history, downloaded files, and Internet Explorers apparent backups of these files) or ".bak" files, etc. All of these files over a year or two of usage can make up a total size anywhere between 3 to 15 gigabytes. That's a lot of hard drive space used simply for files that are supposed to be temporary.

And you may have guessed it by now, but yes, WINE has the same problem. If you use WINE regularly, view the properties of the directory "~/.wine" that is "/home//.wine", you'll probably be surprised at the directory's size (1.3 gigabytes here, and I never use WINE.)

In "~/.wine" you'll find a sub-directory at "~/.wine/drive_c/users//Temp" to be the main source of the "~/.wine" directory's size. This is because it is where programs running under WINE store their "temporary" files. To gain some hard drive space, you may, of course, simply delete the "Temp" directory, but you may lose passwords and configurations you may have stored in some of the programs you have been running under WINE. This is why it may be wiser to use a program such as "Disk Cleaner" under WINE to delete only the unnecessary files.

This way has the potential to mess up your GNU+Linux operating system if done wrong, though. Because by default WINE has permission to delete any files owned by the user you're logged in as -- to be more specific: every file you have permission to read, modify, and delete, so does WINE. If you let "Disk Cleaner" scan for files to delete on your GNU+Linux FileSystem, "Disk Cleaner" may begin deleting files that it thinks are Windows "temporary" files that are actually your personal files.

The situation becomes fatal if you are running "Disk Cleaner" under WINE as "root", because in this case "Disk Cleaner" now has permission to read, modify, and delete any file on the system, even important system files (such as kernel images, Debian packages, logs, configuration files, etc.) Never run programs under WINE as "root", running certain other programs under WINE as "root" can be fatal to your GNU+Linux system.

If you're going to do it the "Disk Cleaner" way, don't scan your GNU+Linux FileSystem. You can remove WINE's access to your GNU+Linux FileSystem by opening "Wine Configuration" (press ALT+F2, type "winecfg" without quotes, and hit enter), go to the "Drives" tab and remove the "/" and "/home" "Drives" and any other "Drives" you're uncomfortable with WINE having access to.

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Icewind Dale with Crossover Games

This video is a overview of Character creation in Icewind Dale using CodeWeavers CrossOver Games in Linux Mint 9 the game also plays extremely well in other Linux distributions and Mac OS X with CXGames 9.0






Running with Crossover Games by CodeWeavers.




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Saturday, June 12, 2010

Wine 1.2-rc3 Released

The Wine development release 1.2-rc3 is now available.
Whats new in this release:
  • Many translation updates.
  • A lot of bug fixes.
The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Bugs fixed in 1.2-rc3:
4523 Can't copy from Firefox 1.5 and paste into OpenOffice 2 under Wine [dogfood]
6594 Call of Duty install fails - can't eject first CD
6642 BabasChess v3.6 crashes quite randomly
6654 NFS Carbon cant run
7098 msi doesn't publish/install some assemblies into GAC
7807 3dmark03 crashes:denormal float operand in 32-bit code (0x0042504a)
7973 Default font unreadable
8095 PQ Teaching toy crashes
9114 MSI Uninstallers leave empty directory behind after removal
9657 Adobe Framemaker 8 setup requires setting Window version to Vista even if XP and 2000 should also work
10147 Word Viewer 2003 - Tab behavior differs from Windows
10287 unable to install nero 8
10934 Nikon Camera Control Pro thinks trial is up immediately
11207 Problem running iRO 3.0 (recruiting application)
11267 Adobe/Macromedia Flash MX Pro 2004 can't create .fla file
11367 Flysis: Launcher resolution dropdown box lists no options.
11560 Sigmaplot 10 demo refuses to start; license manager problem?
11719 Intuit QuickBooks Simple Start 2008 install fails
11924 BabasChess crashes halfway
12020 Unimplemented function d3dx9_36.dll.D3DXAssembleShader
12066 Jade Empire character models are invisible
12218 word viewer 2003 - required / difference columns do not countain data
12234 EdwinXP 1.61 trial installer z-order problem
12487 FutureTax runs but postscript is invalid
12574 Using WinAMP's media Library causes crash
12696 nsis script with a gradient background window => install window not displayed
12880 Sony Ericsson software fails to install.
13516 Dynamic HTML Editor 4.2 Demo installs, crashes on startup
13895 printer setup dialog has a useless Apply button
13924 Mod4win crashes when trying to start the mixer
14284 winhelp: bad/missing support for imagemaps
14286 winhelp: window size/position changed whenever link or navigation button is clicked
14312 mdi workspace not drawn correctly when restoring child windows in winefile
14910 Errors creating PDF files using WINEPS printer using CUPS form PAF.
14957 FL Studio fails to minimize
15069 Apps won't minimize and extra caption bar shows
15094 Wine won't install FAA Safelog
15126 Pro evolution soccer 2008 demo crashes
15156 Unable to change from Direct3D to OpenGL output in WinUAE
15287 Silent Hunter IV: game crashs while loading ingame grafics (tutorial, mission, museum, etc.)
15372 palm hotsync: minimize button disappears
15433 Failure to load mp3 in popup file browser in Audiosurf.
15480 Saving files in Word/Excel 2000 creates useless .lnk files
15522 Firefox crashes on LDS.org's Move Media Player page with latest git and 1.1.5
15818 winecfg should fit on a 640x480 display
15981 Rhapsody 3 and 4 crash at end of autoupdate install
16088 Quartus II 80sp1: Opening About window crashes application
16158 Condor: Wine System Tray
16282 Quartus II 80sp1: Compiling project crashes application
16298 Finale Notepad 2009: Clicking on splash screen causes X error
16356 16 bit file dialog file filter not working
16418 Keyword corral crashes (LsaLookupNames2 returns ERROR_NONE_MAPPED)
16475 dragging the winamp window is slow
16729 font smoothing doesn't work
16753 unimplemented function ntoskrnl.exe.KeGetCurrentThread
16820 VCarvePro v4.6 Trial crashes on save
17026 Prince of persia warrior within: everything is upside down during gameplay
17067 Stud_PE crashes on Tools -> Plugins
17175 Crash running Quicken 2008
17242 Regedit: Exported key names containing backslashes are not escaped
17454 Toad's tool 64 doesn't work, needs msvcrt.dll.___lc_handle_func
17484 Leisure Suit Larry 7 refuses to run with Win98 settings
17603 winecfg crashes on encountering unknown (incorrect) dll overrides
17684 ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Professional PL: Fails to start
17705 Audiosurf: crashes at startup
17773 AutoCAD Mechanical 2005 PL: Fails to install
17800 Silent hunter 4 crashes while loading mission
18025 .NET 2.0 Regasm.exe typelib exporter needs ICreateTypeInfo2::SetCustData
18026 TopPlan 2009 crashes while opening a map
18348 Wine Crash in Baldurs Gate I when more than 1 character in team
18542 Slingplayer 2.0 unhandled exception
18575 FlashFXP installer quits: "Cannot register "C:\Program Files\FlashFXP\IEFlash.dll"
18654 Wine uses native gdiplus with Adobe Lightroom 2.3 demo by default
18723 LUAU 2.2.1 setup causes a page fault
18876 Lightroom 2.3 flipped logos
18908 Editing name in File Open dialog causes Powerpoint to hang
18942 UT2004: freeze loading a match
18973 Duplicate license entries in multiple wine programs
19000 Stronghold 2: Error at installing 1.4 game patch
19013 Oxford English Dictionary 2: freezes on startup with fatal error
19075 Problem with MCataloguer
19172 Powerpoint 2003 viewer's installs file in wrong location (appinstall)
19255 SlingPlayer 2's remote doesn't draw
19357 Crash when changing resolution in Telltale games
19440 Word Viewer 2003 - Tab button does not work
19502 Visual Studio 2005 SP1 install seems to fail
19524 War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition: game hangs on starting any scenario
19597 Sony Ericsson PC Suite 5 fails to download a required component
19642 Arx Fatalis : page fault on read access while loading
19793 Office 2007 Word has problems rotating .EMF files
19811 Visual C 2005 redistributable installers create many empty directories in WinSXS
19861 Wine should warn when ulimit -n needs raising
19947 Desktop windo fullscreen directx application focus problem
20007 Winamp 5 won't start
20059 Office 2007 SP1/SP2 looks for *.cab in C:\Windows\Installer\ instead of C:\MSOCache\
20226 builtin xcopy.exe crashes with page fault when source directory does not exist.
20279 winemenubuilder confuses Windows and Unix code pages leading to 100% CPU usage
20307 Call of Duty 4 v1.7 frame rate issue
20541 No MIDI in to Piano Teacher v3.0
20680 winecfg: no Wave Out Devices under ALSA Drivers (M-Audio Delta)
20744 Mordor - the depths of Dejenol installer puts window into background
20935 HoMM5: Hammers of Fate: game dvd not found
20939 Keyboard focus lost after switching to another app and back
21124 Text cursor and some of mouse cursors are not solid in Word 2003
21156 Add torrents in webUI with µTorrent >= 2.0 doesn't work
21511 wsmanhttpconfig.exe tool from Windows Management Framework Core (PowerShell 2.0) needs msvcrt.dll._scwprintf
21930 Free Ghost installer crashes during project building in console
22143 Lemmings game clone (Lemmix): problems running under Wine.
22346 Palm Pilot: hotsync.exe could not load 'USER.DLL' required by 'COMUT16', error=2
22470 Excel 2003 cannot launch
22532 Lemmix (Lemmings Clones) can't be played because of black screen
22610 Ragnarok Online client echoes some sounds
22656 Serif Webplus X2 trial crashes in windowscodecs
22695 Avira AntiVir doesn't install - missing msvcr90.dll._snwprintf_s
22702 Cyberboard maps, markers and units display as all black.
22816 QIP 2010 (Infium): text cursor doesn't move properly
22843 Paste of text from Word 2003 into Powerpoint 2003 stopped working
22863 Win64 compile broken on FreeBSD
22876 HTML-Kit's small icons have a white background
22888 Damaged icons in QIP
22909 Drawn text overlapps after the second character.
22911 Fonts are garbled when running apps inside a vnc4server session
22914 TheWord: cursor does not display/function correctly
22927 The Bat! v4.2.36.4 didn't show the titlebar caption in KDEs taskbar
22928 IE8 for Vista's "missing updates" message is cut off
22946 WinOmega v6.30.51 shows Icons with dark/black background instead of transparency
22988 Vectorworks 2010: Drawing area doesn't show objects
22989 Adobe FrameMaker 8 installer aborts with compressed file extraction error
23003 Compile/link error on Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 8)
23007 GetSaveFileName incorrectly returns non-zero when Escape is pressed after a "replace this file" dialog
23010 Fonts corrupted in Civ4-based games when subpixel rendering is enabled
23021 Spider black suits fail to display
23029 closing window of IE 6 closes Lotus Notes 6.5.5
23044 Program 'convert.exe' shows menus in a strange way
23049 Shareaza crash while starting
23056 BitComet 1.21: Fails to start
23107 Unimplemented call _snprintf_s in CSPro 4.0

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010

A new Bordeaux implementation of Wine will install IrfanView AND IrfanView plugins

By Steven Rosenberg :

One of the hiccups in Bordeaux, a for-profit, costs-$20 implementation of Wine that allows for easy installation of a variety of Windows applications in Unix/Linux environments, is that while installing the IrfanView image editor is clickably easy, users are on their own when it comes to the IrfanView plugins.
In my workflow, the IrfanView plugins are an essential part of the IrfanView experience. That's a fancy way of saying I need the plugins.
I managed to get those plugins installed the last time I installed Bordeaux (and for the record, Im a paying customer), and along with some incompatibility between the newer Wine base supplied by Bordeaux and the older environment of Debian Lenny, the experience wasn't as smooth as it should be.
In distributions built with newer packages, such as Ubuntu, the Wine supplied with Bordeaux should work well (in Debian all I had to do was use the distros own, older Wine and all began working).
And with support for easy installation of the IrfanView plugins, Bordeaux should make the installation of Windows applications under Wine even easier than before.




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Monday, June 7, 2010

A Comparative Performance Analysis of Longene VS Wine

Test methods:
  1. Get a computer with Linux installed.
  2. Install Wine and then test it with our test programs. Finally get the test result.
  3. Uninstall wine
  4. Get Longene installed, test it with our test programs and then get the final test result.

Test environment:
model name: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU
E5300 @ 2.60GHz
cpu MHz: 2600.000
cache size: 2048 KB
MemTotal: 1032748 kB

MemFree: 857724 kB Buffers: 7872 kB
Cached: 116800 kB
Overwiew of test programs:
TestApi program mainly operates on file, registry and windows message. TestAll program integrates all the above operations tested.Tests program are coded in MFC [source code download: http://www.longene.org/download/TestCase.rar ].

Test programs flow:
  1. According to the number of files, registries and messages required to test, reader/writer processes are created.
  2. File tests: Thread1 first creates a file and waitsThread2 to read. Then repeat it. After Thread1 created the file, Thread2 is in charge of read and delete the file. Then repeat it. Thread1 and Thread2 synchronize with each other by Event.
  3. Registry tests: Thread3 first creates an registry key, and waits Thread4 to read. Then repeat it. After Thread3 created the registry, Thread4 is in charge of read and delete the registry key. Then repeat it. Thread3 and Thread4 synchronize with each other by Semaphore.
  4. Message test: Thread5 is responsible for send an message, then waits the main thread to receive. Then repeat it. After Thread5 sent the message, the main thread is in charge of receive the message. Then repeat it. Thread5 and the main thread synchronize with each other by Mutex.
  5. Test API list:
CreateFile
WriteFile
DeleteFile
CloseFile
RegCreateKeyEx

RegSetValueEx
RegOpenKeyEx
RegCloseKey
RegQueryValueEx
RegDeleteKey
PostMessage
GetMessage
CreateEvent
SetEvent
CreateSemaphore
ReleaseSemaphore
CreateMutex
ReleaseMutex
CreateThread
CloseHandle
WaitForSingleObject
WaitForMultipleObjects
Test result: The following datas use ms as the unit. The test consists of 10 groups and each group tests 100 times. Longene0.3: TestApi:

WriteFile________ReadFile________WriteReg________ReadReg___________MsgTest ____34_______________7_______________1_______________1_______________149 ____23_______________6_______________1_______________1_______________157 ____34_______________6_______________1_______________1_______________177 ____44_______________6_______________1_______________0_______________197 ____56_______________6_______________1_______________0_______________216 ____65_______________6_______________1_______________0_______________253 ____73_______________7_______________1_______________0_______________274 ____86_______________6_______________1_______________0_______________297 ____95_______________6_______________1_______________0_______________307 ____91_______________6_______________0_______________0_______________313 ____60.10____________6.20____________0.90____________0.30____________234.00

TestAll:
FileTest Write Number 100 Read Number 100 Time 20ms RegTest Write Number 100 Read Number 100 Time 8ms MesTest Send Number 10000 Recieve Number 10000 Time 184ms All Time 207ms Wine 1.0: TestApi:

WriteFile________ReadFile________WriteReg________ReadReg___________MsgTest ____44_______________21______________7_______________6_______________900 ____35_______________20______________8_______________7_______________1147 ____45_______________21______________7_______________6_______________1455 ____59_______________19______________7_______________6_______________1731 ____69_______________22______________6_______________6_______________2007 ____75_______________20______________7_______________6_______________2286 ____85_______________21______________7_______________6_______________2467 ____97_______________22______________8_______________7_______________2447 ____112______________23______________7_______________6_______________2434 ____106______________20______________7_______________8_______________2478 ____72.70____________20.90___________7.10____________6.40____________1935.20

TestAll:
FileTest Write Number 100 Read Number 100 Time 73ms RegTest Write Number 100 Read Number 100 Time 95ms MegTest Send Number 10000 Recieve Number 10000 Time 1222ms All Time 1270ms Performance improvement: WriteFile: 17.33% ReadFile: 70.33% WriteReg: 87.32% ReadReg: 95.31% MsgTest: 87.91% Summation: 83.70%

Test analysis:
Now we take file write operation as an illustration.Wine at least executes the following operations:
  1. Client process sends the get_handle_fd request to wineserver process. Note that there should be two system calls, one is the write system call to pipe by send_request function, and the other is the read system call to pipe by wait_reply function.
  2. Wineserver is scheduled and runs.
  3. Wineserver find the opened file descriptor of target file in the client process in terms of the handle, and sends it to the client. There must be at least 3 system calls involved. One is the write syscall to pipe by send_reply function, next is the poll syscall alike select syscall and the read syscall to pipe by read_request function.
  4. Client process is scheduled to run.
  5. Client process makes use of dup syscall to duplicate a new temporary file descriptor.
  6. Client process calls write syscall to write the file by the duplicated file descriptor.
  7. Client process calls close syscall to close the duplicated file descriptor.

In contrast, Longene don't have the mentioned schedule operations in 2 and 4 above because of wineserver's removal. Longene has fixed the send_reply and read_request's implementation from inter-process communication to system call. So it decreases the time spent in inter-process communication.




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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Google gives Windows the boot and opts for Mac and Linux

With Apples market share growth increasing you really dont see a lot of companies moving from Windows-based computers to Macs. Sure, you will find mixed environments, with Macs predominantly in the creative departments. But, you dont typically see a complete departure from Windows. Well, Google is making the move from Windows based computers to Macs and Linux based computers.

Google is tired of security issues with Windows, and this is what they are doing about it:

Were not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort, said one Google employee. Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks, said another. New hires are now given the option of using Apples Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. Linux is open source and we feel good about it, said one employee. Microsoft we dont feel so good about.


More companies need to look at what Google is doing, and really look at what the costs are for security prevention versus switching to a more secure platform. Yes, at first the costs will be high, because not only are you replacing the hardware, you will be replacing software as well. One way to look at software replacement costs is this way: when you have to upgrade your company from one version of Office to another, a large cost is incurred. Well, instead of upgrading from one version of Office to another, you take that cost and apply it to the Mac version of Office.

Inevitably you will run into some software that is only made for Windows and not for Macs or Linux. When this happens you, can always look into Crossover for Mac or Linux. These are emulators that allow you to run Windows based applications in OS X or Linux. The application acts as a translation layer between the Windows application and the non-Windows operating system.

I like how Google is giving their employees a choice of which computer they would like to use – a Mac or a Linux-based computer. This is definitely a bold move on Google’s part. They are taking the status quo and turning it on its side by doing this. My only question is when Googles Chrome Operating System is ready for prime time, will they be making the same kind of move, or will they still give their employees a choice? Only time will tell.


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