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Showing posts with label crossover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crossover. Show all posts

Friday, October 9, 2015

You’ll soon be able to run #Windows programs on select #Android devices thanks to #WINE

While most Linux purists prefer to stick to programs natively designed to run on their favorite distros, there are times when a user runs into a wall. Maybe they absolutely need Microsoft Office, or perhaps their favorite game just isn’t Linux compatible. That’s where WINE and CrossOver come in handy, making it possible to run some Windows applications with relative ease. And now that same magic is making its way over to the world of Android.

For those that don’t know, WINE is an application layer that fills in the missing ‘bits’ that aren’t found on Linux and other non-Windows platforms (okay, an obvious oversimplification.. but you get the idea), allowing Windows programs to work at essentially the same speed as they would on Microsoft’s own OS. How well these programs work varies from nearly perfect to buggy as all get out.
Crossover is coming to Android by the end of this year, with WINE to follow sometime shortly after.
What WINE isn’t is an emulator, and is instead billed as a “compatibility layer”. In fact, WINE actually stands for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”. As for CrossOver? This is the commercial side of WINE, with more app/game specific optimizations. CrossOver actually funds WINE, and in return utilizes WINE’s progress to help further its own goals.

So back to the main topic here: Crossover is coming to Android by the end of this year, with WINE to follow sometime shortly after. It’s unclear how Crossover and WINE might differ from their Linux counterparts, but the end goal is the same: the ability to run popular Windows programs on your Android device. Considering that many traditional Windows programs aren’t designed with touch in mind, we imagine this will be more useful for tablet users that want to improve their productivity and aren’t afraid of attaching a keyboard and mouse to do it.

Full Article

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

How Im Earning My Beer part 2

After completing the first part; Wine's Conformance Tests ran and that was all well and good and fun. There was a flurry of flashes on the screen, various windows were named after various tests, sound played, I rejoiced. It was an exciting accomplishment!

But the report did not work. My results did not show up and I was quickly frustrated. This is where I considered giving up.

I don't need to have a beer, right?
I mean, that's really a simple carrot and nothing else. I wanted to submit the results but if it won't run, it won't run; and it did run but for some reason it didn't report.

This is where the community comes in. This is where we often don't realize how many people are around us willing to help. I dropped a hint at my frustrations into chat and rather than getting the quick response of "that's too bad", I got a question:

How close are you?

And I don't know. And I have to be walked to the log file that wt-daily has very helpfully left in my folders. The location is:


~/wt-daily/winetest/wine/
The log file is called:


wt-bot-(yourtag).log
It's lines and lines of useful information about all the tests that ran. The first thing I learn is that WineTest really did run and it really did submit results to WineHQ. It took it almost 30 minutes to run... and it had 54 failures.

I report the number of failures and I get another question:

How many skips?

I confess I don't know. I didn't skip anything.

Now I get the explanation:

Wine's Conformance Tests are set to accept and publish results with 50 or less failures and 10 or less skips. Both requirements must be met to be featured on the results page. It sounds like you didn't skip anything, add a line to your configuration file and skip a test or two that fails and you will get it.

I'm skeptical because I've already put a bit of effort into getting this to run and I've watched a few other people grumble about libraries and dependencies but there is encouragement in that explanation: you will get it.

I started at the bottom of the log-file and looked for the failing tests. They were fairly easy to identify and so I added some tests to skip to my configuration file.

 Look for lines like this:

Running tests - 53 failures
Running: windowscodecs:tiffformat (541 of 579)
2015-10-05 11:28:16.135 wine[44040:808186] void *....
Running tests - 54 failures

Look for a line where the test failures increases. The amount of failures before the test is 53 and after windowscodecs:tiffformat runs, there are 54.

This is where the "windowscodecs:tiffformat" test failed. Adding a skip to that test looks like this in wt-daily's configuration file:

email="your email address here"
tagmac="a-tag"
descmac="A description of your system for Wine developers"
excludemac="windowscodecs:tiffformat"

I need more than one test skipped to get to that 50 or less mark so my configuration file ends up looking like this:

email="caron@codeweavers.com"
tagmac="CWtestbox004"
descmac="OS X 10.11 dual GPU AMD Radeon R9 M370X and Intel Iris Pro"
excludemac="windowscodecs:tiffformat windowscodecs:converter user32:msg 
gdi32:dc dwrite:font"

And it worked:

CWtestbox004 on WineTest

This is cause for great celebration. Not only is WineTest running on my system, it's reporting on WineTest. I made several Macs run and after a few reports came online, those watching the results come in realized that the name "CWtestbox###" was really horrible for identifying which box was which at a glance. We needed to summarize the box in 20 characters or less and still be able to tell who was who among our Macs.

This is the information we wanted to know at a glance:
  • Where is the report coming from?
  • Which type of Mac?
  • What hardware is onboard?
  • Which OS version?
  • Which test ran; the Mac Driver or the X11 driver?

My boxes are reporting from CodeWeavers, so "cw-" is the first piece of the new name. That will be consist from each box that comes from systems I setup. Then, the type of Mac. We have MacBook Airs, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Minis, iMacs; we have a decent collection to choose from and setup. We decided we could summarize them fairly easily with "mba-, mb-, mbp-, mini-, imac-".

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

Wine преминава към фиксиран цикъл на версиите и се интегрира с Wine-staging

Създателите на проекта Wine утвърдиха прехода към фиксиран цикъл за формиране на стабилни версии, с период от 12 месеца. Всяка година в средата или края на месец септември, сорс-кода ще се архивира и работата по него временно ще се прекратява. След кратък стабилизационен цикъл, в края на есента, ще бъде публикувана поредната стабилна версия. Първата стабилна версия от новия цикъл ще бъде компилацията Wine 1.8, която се очаква да излезе след няколко седмици.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=cxrossiya


Поддръжката на стабилната компилация ще се осъществява чрез bugzilla. За всички Linux дистрибуции, в които не са предвидени инсталационни пакети с Wine, ще бъдат разпространявани готови бинарни пакети.

Освен това, официално бе съобщено за започване на съвместна работа с клона Wine-staging, в рамките на който се разработват неофициални разширени компилации на Wine, включващи пачове, които не са приети в оригиналния Wine. Wine-staging става част от WineHQ обществото и ще бъде включен в основния цикъл на разработване във вид на експериментални пачове за предварителни тестове, преди техния сорс-код да бъде включен в основния проект.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=cxrossiya


Wine-staging ще допълни текущите стабилни и експериментални версии на Wine и изцяло ще бъде интегриран в структурата на WineHQ. Официално, в средата на Wine-staging ще се тестват и настройват рисковите допълнения, които още не са напълно готови. Тези експериментални пачове ще бъдат отбелязани със специалния таг Staging.

А если вы используете этот скидочный код ( TOM23 ) вы можете сэкономить дополнительные 20% от $20.95 цене.
 
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.
 

Saturday, October 3, 2015

The glass of wine thats worth 350 million dollars

Today while reading the Linux Foundations report titled ( Estimating the Total Development Cost of Linux Foundation’s Collaborative Projects ) that is located here.

Top-level findings from the report include:
  • The total lines of source code present today in Linux Foundation’s Collaborative Projects are 115,013,302.
     
  • The estimated, total amount of effort required to retrace the steps of collaborative development for these projects is 41,192.25 person years.
     
  • In other words, it would take 1,356 developers 30 years to recreate the code bases present in Linux Foundation’s current Collaborative Projects listed above. The total economic value of this work is estimated to be over 5 billion dollars.
I began to think what a project like WineHQ would be worth using their same estimates and cost  variables. So first I need the Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) in Wine and that is 3,512,143 as of yesterday.

Next to make this extremely simple I need the average cost per SLOC and if I divide  $5,663,488,007.63 by 115,013,302 I get $49.24 as the average cost per line of code. Now all I need to do is multiply 3,512,143 by $49.24 and we get  $172,937,921.32

But now your asking yourself why did I title this article the 350 million dollar glass of Wine when in fact the source is only worth 172 million.

Because if you actuality read the report you will see that they have not taken documentation, the projects web sites, marketing, or brand value into account. And I could even go further down the rabbit hole and include  “emotional attachment” or “top of mind.” because everything has a value.

If we now take a look ( The Value of Freedom: Linux Kernel Worth $1.4 Billion ) in this article we get into what a brand is worth, keep in mind brand valuation is only a guessing game, While Apple or Google would have excellent brand values I don't foresee many company's opening their doors tomorrow under the name ENRON.

"I think lawyers would likely evaluate the value of a trademark differently than we did," McPherson said. "I think they would take into account the 'goodwill' of the brand around the world and the economic systems it powers, which is far, far more than the $1.4 billion of the code due to its use, its network, its momentum, etc. That's why the $1.4 billion number is low."

Should third party applications like PlayOnLinux, PlayOnMac, WineBottler, Wine-Staging's patch set etc etc be included. Because they are all open source and are built around the Wine project.

Should we also include the commercial backing from company's like CodeWeavers and the ingenious marketing strategies to further the WineHQ brand.

And lastly developer worth isn't included in any of these other evaluation's, I believe the talent pool around a project is another form of worth because their are only so many guru hackers on this planet and if your project is fortunate like the Wine project and you have between 20 and 50 of the worlds best programmers that in it's self is saying something.

So to get the total valuation of 350 million dollars I essentially doubled the SLOC worth because that is only about half of a given projects net value.

Comments, Flames or thumbs up are always welcome...

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

Friday, October 2, 2015

WineHQ WineConf 2015 Videos and Slides

Here is three Videos taken at this years #WineHQ WineConf Alexandre is the maintainer of #Wine development, Jeremy is the CEO of #CodeWeavers and Michael is a member of #Wine-Staging and will become the new Wine stable maintainer.

Credit goes to Stefan Dösinger for editing and uploading the videos to YouTube.

Alexandre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTN5ksxzFnE
Jeremy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzR9RPlWi7c
Michael: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdcFNqWTja4

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

CodeWeavers CrossOver промо-код CXROSSIYA был продлен

Здравствуйте,

Наша 20% купон на скидку код ( TOM23 ) не был удлинен до 20 октября 2016 года Этот код действует для клиентов в России и на Украине и действует в течение 30 мгновенного% скидка Codeweavers наградами CrossOver Mac или Linux. Просто введите код на кассе в магазине и нажмите кнопку Применить.
 
 


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Thursday, September 24, 2015

Executando o CrossOver 14 Linux para uma melhor experiência com o Wine

Para uma grande quantidade de usuários de Linux e Mac a realidade é que sempre vai existir um programa de Windows que eles ainda precisam usar quase que diariamente. Para muitos a resposta é o Wine, permitindo que programas sejam utilizados com um certo nível  de sucesso em seus sistemas compatíveis com Unix. Infelizmente o Wine não vem com nenhum tipo de garantia de sucesso para uma determinada aplicação, também não possui nenhum tipo de suporte além da comunidade de desenvolvedores, ou um desenvolvedor muito dedicado. Vamos ao Crossover.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O CrossOver tem sido o principal fundo de recursos para o projeto Wine por muitos anos, ele oferece uma versão personalizada do código do Wine e inclusive com suporte garantido a uma variedade de aplicativos -- uns jogos, uns softwares de escritório e produtividade, uns utilitários.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O Wine atende as necessidades de muitos usuários, de forma gratuita, mas para aqueles que precisam de uma mãozinha ou para aqueles que não se acham capazes de configurar sua instalação do Wine para uma determinada situação o CrossOver é uma boa escolha.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Por US$ 59,95 o CrossOver conta com um instalador automatizado para muitas aplicações, além de integração com o gerenciador de pacotes do sistema para garantir a instalação de dependências que as camadas de compatibilidade podem requerer -- como codecs, bibliotecas para áudio mp3 e vídeos mpeg, ou fontes de texto específicas.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O comprador também pode optar por comprar suporte telefônico direto direto com a equipe do CrossOver, de forma a garantir que os programas rodem em seus sistemas. E não é só isso, toda compra do CrossOver vai diretamente para o desenvolvimento contínuo do Wine uma vez que o CrossOver emprega muitos dos contribuidores e desenvolvedores, assim como todas as correções feitas no código, "não importa o quão pequena", são sempre enviadas ao projeto do Wine em si. Ao comprar o CrossOver você contribui diretamente com o Wine.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Para mim, o maior e mais importante recurso é a integração com o gerenciador de pacotes. Todas as minhas aplicações principais (Microsoft Office, World Of Warcraft, Warcraft 3) e as outras funcionam muito bem com a versão base do Wine. Mas toda vez que troco minha distribuição do SO eu sempre preciso analisar e instalar todas as dependências do sistema, como as versões de 32 bits do gstreamer, lipmpg, mp3, entre outras. Já com o CrossOver assim que um programa sendo instalado precisa dessas dependências ele me avisa dos pacotes necessários.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Para usuários avançados comprar o CrossOver pode não ter um benefício direto. Mas para aqueles mais leigos com a computação, ou que querem ajudar o projeto do Wine, então comprar o CrossOver é uma maneira simples de contribuir.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O CrossOver tem se mantido funcionando muito bem através dos anos, mesmo lembrando do CrossOver Office 5 de mais de 10 anos atrás e também do CrossOver Games, que foi integrado ao CrossOver atual.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
 

Os mais novos cupons de desconto do CrossOver são ( TOM23 )  que garantem 20% de desconto tanto na versão Mac quanto Linux!
 
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Monday, September 7, 2015

Crossover 14 Linux, una experiencia Wine más llevadera

Una buena parte de los usuarios de Linux y Mac se encontrarán con que hay algún programa para Windows que tienen que utilizar a diario o con cierta frecuencia. Para muchos la solución es Wine, que les permite usar esas aplicaciones en entornos *nix con mayor o menor éxito. Desafortunadamente, Wine no proporciona ninguna garantía para aplicaciones concretas, ni existe un soporte oficial por parte de los desarrolladores más allá de la comunidad o de colaboradores altruistas. Aquí es donde CrossOver entra en juego. 

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
CrossOver lleva varios años siendo el principal soporte económico del proyecto Wine. Ofrecen una versión personalizada de Wine e incluso dan soporte oficial a ciertas aplicaciones -determinados juegos, software de productividad y utilidades-.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Para muchos usuarios Wine satisface sus necesidades sin coste alguno, pero para aquellos que quieran una ayuda extra o no se vean capaces de configurar su instalación de Wine adecuadamente, CrossOver es una buena solución.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Por 59.95$ USD, CrossOver proporciona un instalador automático de muchas aplicaciones, así como integración con el gestor de paquetes para instalar las dependencias que hagan falta -por ejemplo, códecs o fuentes concretas-.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
El cliente también puede contratar el soporte telefónico directo de CrossOver para lograr ejecutar sus aplicaciones. Y eso no es todo. Cada compra de CrossOver contribuye con el desarrollo de Wine pues muchos de los colaboradores y desarrolladores son empleados de CrossOver, y cualquier corrección que realizan, “por muy pequeña que sea”, se aporta a Wine. Respaldando CrossOver, los usuarios respaldan Wine
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
 
Para mí personalmente, la mejor característica de CrossOver es la integración con el gestor de paquetes. Todas mis aplicaciones (MS Office, World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3 y otras) funcionan correctamente en la versión básica de Wine, pero cada que vez que cambio de distribución Linux tengo que instalar todas las dependencias del sistema como los códecs gstreamer, libmpg, soporte mp3, etc. Sin embargo, CrossOver me ofrece instalar todos esos paquetes en cuanto intento ejecutar una aplicación Windows que los necesita. 

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
 
Para usuarios avanzados, adquirir CrossOver puede que no suponga un beneficio directo, pero para aquellos menos tecnológicamente versados o que simplemente quieren contribuir con el proyecto Wine, CrossOver es una manera fácil de obtener ayuda y ayudar a la comunidad de Wine. 

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
 
Con el paso del tiempo CrossOver ha conseguido asentarse, desde CrossOver Office 5 de hace más de 10 años y CrossOver Games, que ahora se incluye integrado en el propio CrossOver. 

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme

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

Friday, September 4, 2015

CrossOver azaz Windows alkalmazások Linuxon (és Macen)

Üdv Mindenkinek!

Szeretném megosztani veletek az élményeim, illetve tapasztalatom a CrossOver nevű szoftverrel linuxon.
Először is a gépemről.:
Oprendszer: Zorin OS 9 (64bit) (Ubuntu 14.04-es alapon fekszik)
Asztali felület: Lubuntu-desktop
AMD Athlon II P360 Dual-core 2.3 Ghz processzor
3GB Ddr3 Ram
Amd Radeon HD 6650m (1 GB) videókártya

Tehát amint látjátok nem a legfelső kategória, de épp ezért volt érdekes számomra látni, hogyan is futnak a Windowsos programok.

Screenshotokat is készítettem azért, hogy láthassatok 1 telepítési folyamatot is esetleg. A CrossOver beszerzése nagyon egyszerű volt csak fel kell lépni az oldalukra és le kell tölteni az adott distrora.

A letöltés végeztével, láttam egy .bin fájlt, terminálba beindítottam, nagyon egyszerű telepítése van, mindent elvégez saját magának. Itt találtam 1 kisebb bugot, Lubuntu/LXDE asztalnál resetelni kell a desktopot, hogy az ikont a telepítés után létrehozza. Én egyszerűen csak létrehoztam 1 indítóikont neki, gondoltam így egyszerűbb lesz. Miután sikeresen feltelepítettem, létrehoztam az ikont, illetve tökéletesen beindult, felhozott 1 terminált miszerint a szükséges fájlokat le kell töltenie, itt kér majd adminisztrátor engedélyt, hogy azokat letölthesse. Mikor minden kész volt egy egész kis pofás GUI-t találtam magam előtt. Egyszerű az elrendezése és könnyen használható, amit viszont hiányoltam belőle a Magyar nyelv. De ez elhanyagolható úgy gondolom. Miután minden készen állt, úgy éreztem muszáj kipróbálnom valamit. Támogatott szoftvereknél megtaláltam a GRID nevű játékot. Régen PlayOnLinux segítségével már megpróbáltam befuttatni, sajnos se azzal, se ezzel nem sikerült elérnem ezt. Kicsit utána olvasgatva rájöttem, hogy az AMD driverekkel van a probléma, szóval ha Open Source drivert (Radeon driver) használnák valószínűleg beindulna. Miután feladtam a GRID-el való szórakozást úgy döntöttem, egy régi MMORPG-t sok ember régi kedvencét a Metin2-t fogom letesztelni. Sikerült a telepítés beindult, a játék és felettébb jól megy. Egy kis összehasonlítás kedvéért feltettem ugyan azt a klienst PlayOnLinux segítségével is. A CrossOver által futtatott Metin2 20 fps-el többet produkált, ez számomra nagyon sokat jelentett. Mert így van rá esély, hogy a többi játék is jobban produkálna. Ezek után úgy döntöttem, nézzük meg az egyik fontos szoftvert amit emberek nagy tömege használ naponta és ez a Microsoft Office. (Igen, tudom van Libreoffice, viszont én személy szerint találkoztam már pár hibával ha docx/doc formába mentek, esetleg ppt készítésnél.) Tehát, gondoltam kipróbálom.

Mivel Office 2013-al rendelkezem gondoltam felteszem azt és nézzük, hogyan is produkál. Sajnálatos módon ez is besült, ilyenkor döntöttem úgy, hogy megkérdezem a CrossOver embereit hátha tudnak nekem segíteni. Nagyon hamar kaptam a választ (olyan 10-15 perc volt kb), hogy nemsokára megérkezik a Crossover15 ami már támogatni fogja, a 2013-mas Office-t is. Úgy döntöttem leszedem, hát az Office 2010-et. Minden hiba nélkül települt, működik, nem lassú nem fagy be.
Összegezve: Mint a Winenak a CrossOvernek is vannak hibái. De a GUI amit létrehoztak, az egyszerűség, hogy nem terhelik meg a felhasználókat mindenféle beállítási lehetőséggel, maximum akkor kell hozzányúlni a beállításokhoz, ha valamilyen nem támogatott szoftvert akarunk telepíteni.

Végezetül megéri ? Szerintem Igen. Játékokban kicsivel gyorsabb mint társai, így aki Windows játékokat szeretne játszani, annak ajánlom. Illetve, Windowsos programok százai támogatottak alapból, szóval ha nem szeretnél megszabadulni Windowson használt programjaidt

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

CodeWeavers CrossOver 14.1.6 ChangeLog

CodeWeavers recently released CrossOver 14.1.6 for Linux and Mac. Gaming performance continues to advance with this release. Their are important fixes for Mac OSX El Capitan RHEL CentOS and Ubuntu in this release. The full change log is provided below.

 You Can use promo code TOM23 in CodeWeavers store and save 20% off the normal retail price.

  14.1.6 CrossOver - September 2, 2015
  • Mac OS X:
    • Fixed a problem which caused CrossOver to crash on El Capitan when selecting a bottle in the GUI.
  • Application Support:
    • Fixed a bug which caused Mamut Business Software to crash during installation.
  • Linux:
    • Fixed a problem which caused CrossOver to fail to load libX11 on RHEL / CentOS 6.7.
    • Fixed a problem in which CrossOver would complain about unmet dependencies of libosmesa6 on Ubuntu 14.04.3.
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

CodeWeavers CrossOver 14.1.6 has been released

I am delighted to announce that CodeWeavers has just released CrossOver 14.1.6 for both Mac OSX and Linux.  CrossOver 14.1.6 has important bug fixes for both Mac and Linux users.

Mac customers with active support entitlements will be upgraded to CrossOver 14.1.6 the next time they launch CrossOver Mac.  Linux users can download the latest version from https://www.codeweavers.com/.

Change Log For CrossOver Mac and Linux :

14.1.6 CrossOver - September 2, 2015
  • Mac OS X:
  • Application Support:
    • Fixed a bug which caused Mamut Business Software to crash during installation.
  • Linux:
    • Fixed a problem which caused CrossOver to fail to load libX11 on RHEL / CentOS 6.7.
    • Fixed a problem in which CrossOver would complain about unmet dependencies of libosmesa6 on Ubuntu 14.04.3.
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Running CrossOver 14 Linux For An Easier Wine Experience

For a large portion of Linux and Mac users the reality is there will be some Windows program that they will still have to use on a daily or near-daily basis. For many the answer is Wine, letting them use their applications with a variable amount of success on their new *nix system. Unfortunately Wine doesn't come with any guarantee of support for a given application, nor is there any level of support from the developers beyond the community, or a generous developer. Enter CrossOver.
 
CrossOver has been the main financial support behind the Wine project for several years now, they offer a customized version of the Wine codebase and even claim explicit support for a variety of applications-- some games, some productivity software, some utilities.
 
For many users Wine meets all of their needs, free of charge, but for those who want that extra hand, or who don't trust that they'll be able to configure their wine install to meet their situation, then CrossOver is a nice compromise. 
 
For $59.95 USD, CrossOver will give you an automated installer for many applications, as well as integration into the package manager for dependencies that the compatibility layer might need -- such as codecs, mp3 and mpeg libraries, or specific fonts.
 
The buyer can also opt to buy phone support direct from CrossOver in order to get their applications working on their systems. That's not the only thing though, every purchase of CrossOver goes directly to the continuing development of the Wine project as CrossOver employs many of the contributors and developers, as well as contributing every fix they develop, "no matter how tiny", directly back to the Wine project itself. By supporting CrossOver, users support Wine.

For me personally, the biggest and most helpful feature is the integration with the package manager. All of my main applications -- MS Office, World Of Warcraft, Warcraft 3, and others all work fine in the base version of Wine. But anytime I swap a new distro to try out I always have to go back through and install all of the system dependencies, such as (32bit versions of) gstreamer codecs, libmpg, mp3 support, and others. But with CrossOver I get prompted to install those packages the moment I try to install a Windows application that has those dependencies declared. 
 
For advanced users, purchasing CrossOver may not have a direct benefit. But for those who are less technologically minded, or that want to help out the Wine project, then purchasing CrossOver is an easy way to support themselves, as well as support the wider community who benefits from the Wine project.
 
CrossOver has managed to work fairly well over the years, even going back to CrossOver Office 5 from 10+ years ago as well as CrossOver Games, which has since been integrated into CrossOver itself.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac for only 69 cents for three more days

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What's in the bundle you ask...


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Monday, August 17, 2015

World of Warships on Mac OS X with CodeWeavers CrossOver

It's no longer a secret that we've been doing work for Wargaming, Inc., the makers of the hugely popular World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and the forthcoming World of Warships (which is currently in open beta). We're doing the Mac port of World of Warships, and we've gotten to the point where it's in good enough shape that it needs some serious testing. And who better to do some serious testing than a naval historian who's written a book on the Battle of Midway, and who is an adjunct lecturer for the U.S. Naval War College, and given talks at Pearl Harbor, the National WWII Museum, the Nimitz Museum, and blah blah blah? Yeah, ummm, I guess that'd be me.



WoWS Splash Screen
Splash screen for World of Warships, running on my Mac. Late-war Nagato-class battleship, so pretty...

So, first things first: from a purely technical standpoint, our Mac port is going to be great. I've played the game extensively on Windows and on my Macbook Pro, and there's no perceptible difference in game play. None. If anything, with my Mac's SSD drive, it plays better on the Mac than at home on Windows. No graphical glitches, no performance issues, nothing. It works very, very well. When my ship sinks on my Mac, it sinks exactly the way it ought to on Windows: broken, capsizing, and in flames. And that's not just hype.



Me, sinking...
Me, sinking: broken, capsizing and in flames... but at least I killed the pesky destroyer that killed me...

So is the game fun? Yeah, sadly, it really is. And I say "sadly," because, believe me, I need a good game to chew up my time like I need a hole in the head. (I am, after all, working on my next book.) But Wargaming has done a really good job injecting a sense of realism while tempering it with game balance as well. This is, after all, a game, and it's meant to be fun. Having done play-testing on some "hyper-realistic" games (including 360 Pacific's horrifically bad Gulf War simulation "Patriot"), I can tell you that games are supposed to be fun, first and foremost. "Realism" is nice, but "fun" is nicer. And this is a great mix of both.

So, for instance, if you're a hardcore Imperial Japanese Navy fan (which I most certainly am), you'll see a mixture of the perennial favs (battleship Fuso, heavy cruiser Mogami, and of course the mighty Yamato) mixed in with a bunch of never-built oddities. And you might be tempted to say, "The cruiser Zao? The carrier Hakuryu? What the hell were those?!?" Really, what those are, are conveniently vague placeholders that give Wargaming the wiggle-room it needs to make sure that things are reasonably well-balanced between tiers of warships.



Target in sight!
Come to me, my prey... just a little bit closer...

The equipment, likewise, "feels" realistic, even though it kinda isn't. So, yeah, if you're playing a battleship, you'll notice that your main armament has a much flatter trajectory at medium range than, say, a cruiser's armament (which is fair enough). But then again, if you take a look at the range of Yamato's main guns, 26.6km, you'll see that that's about 60% of their real-life maximum. All the weapon ranges are downscaled in this way. Likewise, ship speeds (and certainly acceleration) are all scaled up, so that players feel like they have mobility around the battlefield. In real life naval gunnery, encounters often felt as if they were being waged in slow motion, although some of the encounters in places like the Solomons could be comparatively fast-moving and short range. However, even a real-life brawl like the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, which was very fast to develop, and about the nearest thing to a knife-fight we got into in the Solomons, lasted for nearly 45 minutes. World of Warships encounters are all brawls of this type, but they typically take about 15-20 minutes apiece. That's a nice chunk of time: long enough to be interesting, but not so long that your wife will yell at you for being an hour late to dinner.

There's a lot more terrain on World of Warships ocean than there was in most real-world naval encounters as well. Most of the games I've played seem to be fought over the remains of some ancient, sunken volcanic calderas. (I had no idea that that many ancient sunken volcanic calderas even existed in the world.) In the game, you routinely use small islands to shield your maneuvers, or to sneak up on your opponent, or to get the hell out of the way before that enemy battleship over there unloads on you. That's "fun," but it ain't very realistic. In fact, no naval officer in his/her right mind would be willing to drive a ship into any of these horribly constricted maps festooned with toothy rocks and volcanic peaks. But then again, such maps are fun as hell, and it's a hoot to drive your Kuma-class T4 cruiser through there like a Porsche taking the curves on Hwy 1. What's not to like?



Into the valley of death...
Notice the terrain all around me? Yeah, there's a lot of that.

I also appreciated the fairly realistic tradeoffs being made between the various nationalities that reflected their "feel." So, you like torpedoes and speedy warships? Then go with the Japanese all the way, but don't expect to have super great survivability. You're into gunnery and protection? U.S. Navy, baby, but you have to get used to the fact that your plodding South Carolina is going to take a lot longer to get into the fight than my zippy little Kuma.

This brings up another point: the individual types of ships also feel and play differently. And this is good, too. So, for instance, with a battleship, you really have to think ahead to what you're going to be doing a minute or two from now, because your ship is slow, your turrets are very slow to train to new bearings, and your reload time is slow as well. So, you have to look down the road and think to yourself, "Yeah, he's going to be around there, and I need to be facing this way in order to unleash a broadside, but, oh, wait, there's going to be that island in my way, so I'd better adjust my course now." This is why I primarily play cruisers, not battleships. "Yep, everything's goin' great... mhmmm... my 6" guns are nibbling that guy to death… oh crap, torpedoes! Turn around NOW and run like hell!!!"

Anyway, the game is a hoot. I'll be playing more of it, and can't wait to see it released. If you're a naval history fan, whether you're running Mac or Linux, I think you'll really enjoy it. And if you see "JonnyKaigun" out on the servers, you know who he is now...

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Thursday, August 6, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver 15 status update Office 2013 Steam and Wargaming fixes just to name a few

 The last two and a half weeks of testing were heavily occupied with attention to World of Tanks and World of Warships.

World of Tanks, now with LED lights!With World of Tanks we began by triaging a crash that started with the 9.9 update. We fixed the issue quickly and sent a new build to Wargaming. We followed this with a fix for a severe drop in frame-rates with the 9.9 update. A fix for the frame-rate issue and a mouse offset issue is on it's way to Wargaming now. We continue work on a rendering issue that lights up the garage as though it were decorated with blue LED lights on Intel based systems.

For World of Warships we spent a majority of the time working with the black screen a user would be met with upon login. The problem is related to Wine Bug number 35397. With more testing and development, we hope to send the fix upstream. This means we fixed it easily for Wargaming but to ensure we don't break other applications in Wine, we need to complete the patch by adding tests and additional cases.

Following that, our normal cycle of testing did not reveal new regressions with the latest version of Wine.

We reproduced a crash reported in our forums with El Capitan and CrossOver 14.1.4. We confirmed the crash in our development branch and opened a bug report with Apple regarding the crash. This crash is caused by an exception in code that only occurs when using El Capitan.

We confirmed that Apple fixed a rendering issue with the release of El Capitan that affects Banished.

We reviewed Wine bug number 34041; we confirmed that Skyrim continues to hang on exit both with CrossOver and the latest version of Wine, 1.7.47.

For CrossOver 14, we tested fixes with Microsoft Office 2010's behavior on dual screen systems. This includes full-screen maximize/minimize behavior of primary and secondary screens on Gnome Classic and Gnome Shell with Metacity and Debian 7. Additional testing was performed on Debian 8 with dual screen systems. This work will be included in CrossOver 15 and any future updates of CrossOver 14. We also retested the behavior of inserting Word and Excel objects in PowerPoint 2007.

For CrossOver 15
  • We confirmed a fix for Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010 installs where the contents and control panel would scan forever and never load.
  • We confirmed a fix for a bad case on bottle renaming where pressing ESC would rename the bottle in the GUI but not the system. Pressing ESC now completely cancels the bottle renaming process.
  • We confirmed a fix for a bad behavior when CrossOver was minimized to the OSX dock. It now maximizes with a single click, the same behavior as native applications.
  • We confirmed a fix where CrossOver could not download specific files based on a feature in the Mac frameworks via the user agent string. CrossOver on OSX now uses the same method as Linux for downloads.
  • We confirmed a fix for PokeXGames where a proper username is now used in the registry setting so the game can rely on it.

Magenta SteamDwrite has been completely merged into Wine with this update, this means that more people can now contribute to the work that still needs to be done for implementation. It also means that we changed how the development of branch of CrossOver is handled. We now build with dwrite for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately some titles break with this configuration, namely Steam. However, the work to make Steam functional is ongoing and we have confirmed that if Steam is not functional by the time CrossOver 15 is released, we can adjust this setting specifically for Steam.

Direct2D implementation was also merged into Wine this week. More people can now contribute to the work that still needs to be done.

As dwrite and direct2d were submitted to Wine, we performed a series of tests to ensure that Office 2013 applications remained as functional as they have been in the past weeks. This means that each application launches in the very least. In some cases that success is short lived as the application crashes quickly. Our developers have a sense of humor with this:

Ship it Quick!
With extreme caution, testing of Office 2013 can now take place with Wine and with development builds of CrossOver. Many installers do not yet work, patience.  

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Thursday, July 23, 2015

How to use the Windows version of Steam on Mac OS X

Learn how to install and play Windows Steam games on your mac without the need for bootcamp or dual-booting with CrossOver Mac.


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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver Linux and Mac one click promo code savings

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Sunday, July 19, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver discount coupon and promo codes for 2015 and 2016

The following CodeWeavers CrossOver promo codes are available for discounts from 10% to 20% off CodeWeavers products for Linux and Mac users. You can share these coupon codes with your friends or post them on your website, social media accounts such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc.

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Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

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



Two Weeks in CrossOver Microsoft Office 2013 installs and launches

It's been another busy two weeks in Testing Land:

We spent time reading through and updating our Fedora documentation to ensure we mention dnf instead of yum, where appropriate. During this review we consolidated some of our Linux sound troubleshooting pages and flagged out-of-date pages so they will no longer show up in Google searches.

Our bi-weekly testing cycle with Wine 1.7.46 did not reveal any new regressions within CrossOver.

We retested bugs with Excellerate and created a basic CrossTie for the application.

The developer of Virtual DJ Studio 7 stopped by our site to leave feedback:

Feedback from Virtual DJ Developer
His words inspired us to create a CrossTie of Virtual DJ Studio and try it out on El Capitan.

Virtual DJ Studio 7
For CrossOver 15 development, we added the extension .cxlog to all log files collected on Linux systems. This has been in place on the Mac side for a long time, and has been a much-requested feature to implement on Linux by those who use both platforms. We also tested a new feature on CrossOver Linux that will allow users to clean out the cache of installer files CrossOver downloads. A request to add this feature to CrossOver Mac is now in place.

We retested and gave feedback on the design of our registration dialog. While working on this portion of the product, we reviewed all the old bugs in our tracker regarding the registration dialog and determined that it is more precise to say 'activation code' and 'unlock' rather than 'register' and 'serial code'. (And yes, we actually argue about these things, vigorously, at the lunch table.)

We verified the names that application windows receive on launch in CrossOver and outlined what still needs work. We identified steps that lead to an odd error message in CrossOver Linux and resolved that issue for CrossOver 15. During this testing, we identified conditions that make installation unusually slow in CrossOver and we're exploring ways to resolve the issue.

We confirmed the resolution of a crash during installation on Linux systems.

Office 2013 in Wine 1.7.46In rather major news, we ran our first successful tests of Microsoft Office 2013! The most interesting part is that this series of testing was done with Wine and not CrossOver. While the code that allows for this testing to be completed is not yet in Wine, our developers believe their patches are relatively clean and they are upstreaming each patch as soon as it is ready. The Wine community should see this work begin trickling into the main Wine tree on a daily and weekly basis. As our work is completed, Microsoft Office 2013 will come closer and closer to installing on Mac and Linux systems with mainstream Wine and its derivatives.

That said, we should note that not all Microsoft Office 2013 installers are functional. As with previous versions of Office, there are various flavors of the Office installer that will need work. This includes downloadable versions, cd installers, live updaters, and various distributors. We cannot possible test every installation version of Office 2013.

And now a breakdown of what we saw in each application this week:

Access 2013 in Wine 1.7.46Word 2013 launches but typing is invisible. The document portion of Word appears blank though text is being typed. (Marketing jokes that invisible text may not actually be all that big a deal; but Testing thinks that it is.)

Excel 2013 launches and hangs. This result was inconsistent, in that it was possible to launch Excel 2013 on some systems and do data entry, but not on others.

Access 2013 launches and is somewhat functional. This is the most functional application in Office 2013 thus far, which has surprised us. Access has not been exceptionally functional in Office 2007 or 2010, and flaws in its functionality have traditionally kept us from stating that Access was usable with CrossOver. The largest problem in our testing was that toolbars were slow to render.

Outlook 2013 launches and hangs. We have tested this application many different ways but have not had great success with it yet.

Publisher 2013 launches and works to an extent. It is possible to draw a shape and complete some work. Eventually it crashes.

For the first time, we installed El Capitan on one of our Macs. This allowed us to confirm that CrossOver maintains functionality in the latest beta Mac operating system. Of course, this may change as updates come to El Capitan but as of today, CrossOver works. In addition, we did basic testing on some of our ported titles like Pirate101, Wizard101, World of Tanks, RootsMagic 7, and Electric Quilt 7.

CrossOver and Friends on El Capitan
Of course, we're also interested in testing reported problems and general functionality in our ported applications. Some of these included:

Electric Quilt 7 has been plagued by a keyboard layout issue. Few users are affected by this bug, but those who see it experience a crash. We are working with the developer to implement a proposed solution.

World of Warships has graphical issues on OSX with various GPUs. We are actively working to resolve the issues so the Mac beta of this title can go live.

World of Tanks has had numerous reports of the red and green flicker within the garage. We were able to identify the cause and fix it. In addition, we enabled the option to switch to the HD client. This build is staged, tested, and ready to go to Wargaming.

For Wizard101, we tested potential workarounds for the UK and US servers to live side-by-side on a single system. At the present time, users playing on both servers have to completely uninstall and reinstall the separate clients to gain access to the desired server.

For RootsMagic 7, we identified steps to reproduce a crash. Then we contacted customers who have reported a crash to compare their notes with our findings and ended up identifying an additional crash (because why settle for just one?) Both issues are now undergoing work by our development team.

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

Microsoft Office 2013 Is the Most Requested App on CrossOver for Linux and Mac

Skyrim and Guild Wars 2 are among the most requested games

CodeWeavers, the developer of the commercial and cross-platform CrossOver application that lets Linux and Mac users run Windows apps and games, wants to know on which Windows programs they should concentrate their efforts.

The company published a list of Windows applications and games that are very popular among Linux and Mac users, so that you can vote your favorite ones. The programs with the most votes will have better support in the upcoming versions of CrossOver.

Among these apps, we can mention Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft Office 365, VMware vSphere Client, Origin, Microsoft Visio Professional 2013, Quicken 2015, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5, Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Outlook 2013, Microsoft Visio 2010, iTunes 11, DirectX 11, and Quicken 2014.

Moreover, the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Elite Dangerous, Diablo III, The Elder Scrolls Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Steam, World of Tanks, Final Fantasy XIV, and Fallout 3 are among the games that are on the list.

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