The Wine Staging release 1.9.18 is now available

The Wine Staging release 1.9.18 is now available for Linux and Mac.

What's new in this release:

• Experimental support for 1D Textures in D3D10 and 11.
• Various improvements for windowscodecs and gdiplus palette functions.
• Various bug fixes.

In addition, Wine Staging users will also benefit from the following changes merged in the development branch:

• Support for multiple kernel drivers in a single process.
• More WebServices reader support.
• Various improvements in joystick support.
• Some more work towards the Direct3D command stream.
• GDI performance improvements.
• Improved IME window handling.
• Compatibility fixes in the clipboard support.
• Various 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.

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

Putty 6.0.0 for Mac has been released Telnet SSH FTP SCP on your Mac made easy

The Bordeaux Technology Group released Putty for Mac 6.0.0 for Mac OSX today. Putty 6.0.0 is a maintenance release that fixes a number of small bugs. With this release we have updated the metadata to match that of the Windows version.

Putty is one of the Best Terminal Emulators available today. It Supports different types of Network Protocols such as SSH, FTP, SCP, Telnet etc. In Windows it is used as SSH Client to connect to Your Linux server or for some other purpose But what will you do if you are on Mac? You might be thinking , Is there any Software like Putty for Mac Available? The answer is Yes! With the help of some other Software's we can Use putty on Mac although Putty is used widely on Windows Platform. Official Versions of Putty are available on Unix like Platforms, and now it's widely available for Mac systems running OSX 10.9.5 or higher.

SSH is available by default in Mac and Linux or Unix. Although you can use terminal for SSH connections still there are some benefits using putty such as Other clients don’t keep connections alive whereas Putty does. Also it is cool to use Putty as your SSH client if you are doing some CISCO Stuffs, transferring files, managing files on a server or whatever.

The cost of Putty 6.0.0 is only $15.00. Anyone who has purchased Putty in the past six months is entitled to a free upgrade. Putty comes with six months of upgrades and support and of course a 30-day money back guarantee.

Supported Protocols:

• Telnet
• FTP
• SSH
• SCP

About Bordeaux:

The Bordeaux Technology Group is a software services and development company specializing in Windows compatibility software. Users of Linux, BSD, Open-Solaris and Mac systems from time to time find themselves in the need to run specialized Windows software. The Bordeaux suite enables access to these programs and data in a seamless and low cost manner without requiring licensing of Microsoft Technology. The Bordeaux Group also provides migration services and support for alternative operating systems specializing in Windows compatibility.

There is a multitude of software developed only for the Windows operating system and even when software vendors port their applications to another platform, generally it lacks features that the Windows version contains. The only solution these developers face is to have access to both systems for testing which leads to increased infrastructure demands, and wasted project resources.

Version 6.0.0 New Features: 

• Metadata updates
• Small bug fixes

We use PayPal as our preferred payment provider, with PayPal you do not need an account to make a transaction simply select to pay via credit card, its very simple and fast.

• All purchases include 6 months of email support and the product is backed by a 30 day refund.
• Simply click on the Buy Now button and order with your PayPal account or Major Credit Card
• Follow the instructions on the page and when you order is complete be sure to click "Return to Merchant"

Screen Shots :

Purchase Putty 6.0.0 now and have Telnet SSH FTP SCP on your Mac made easy!

OpenOffice might be shut down due to lack of resources

For the longest time, those not wishing to pay money for the "standard" office application suite—Microsoft Office—had a few open-source alternatives: OpenOffice or LibreOffice. That list might soon get sliced in half, however, as recent reports indicate that OpenOffice might be shut down due to lack of resources.

At least, that's what Apache OpenOffice volunteer vice president Dennis Hamilton suggested in a recent email to the openoffice-dev mailing list.

"I have regularly observed that the Apache OpenOffice project has limited capacity for sustaining the project in an energetic manner. It is also my considered opinion that there is no ready supply of developers who have the capacity, capability, and will to supplement the roughly half-dozen volunteers holding the project together. It doesn't matter what the reasons for that might be," he wrote.

The chief issue seems to center around OpenOffice's inability to address identified security vulnerabilities, as there simply aren't enough developers or volunteers involved in the updating process to release timely patches for the open-source software. As Ars Technica notes, the last major OpenOffice update was for version 4.1.2 back in October 2015. In contrast, competing open-source office suite LibreOffice—where a number of OpenOffice developers have moved to—is well-maintained and frequently updated.

If OpenOffice were to shut down, one possible outcome is that the entire project's contents would be archived and available for future developers to check out as they desire, though they wouldn't be able to commit any code to this archive. Many of the various ways developers (and OpenOffice) currently communicate would go away: the OpenOffice blog, social media accounts, as well as the official announce, private, and security OpenOffice listservs.

"I cannot prediction how this will all work out. It is remiss of me not to point out that retirement of the project is a serious possibility," Hamilton wrote.

"There are those who fear that discussing retirement can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. My concern is that the project could end with a bang or a whimper. My interest is in seeing any retirement happen gracefully. That means we need to consider it as a contingency. For contingency plans, no time is a good time, but earlier is always better than later."

OpenOffice has been downloaded more than 160 million times since May of 2012.

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Maybe the two projects should join resources kind of like what happened with WineHQ and Wine-Staging. It's always better to work as one unified group on any project. And we always have CrossOver Linux   and CrossOver Mac to run Microsoft Office with, Right?

 

CrossOver Preview runs Windows apps on Android and Chromebooks even Photoshop

Last week, CodeWeavers announced that after three years of development, a preview version of CrossOver for Android would be released. Why was I so excited? Because CrossOver allows you to run Windows programs on Mac and Linux, and they brought their expertise over to Android. After trying out the Preview version out for a week (which you can sign up for here), I'm extremely impressed by its capabilities, despite some major limitations.

Disclaimer: Since I do not own an Intel-based Android tablet, and my Chromebook does not yet have the Google Play Store, I tested CrossOver on the latest version of Remix OS on my Dell Windows laptop. It is possible that some of the bugs I experienced are issues with Remix, but CrossOver's compatibility with Windows programs is identical no matter how you run it. CrossOver for Android is in early beta, so everything in this review is subject to change with subsequent updates.

First impressions

CrossOver's entire user interface consists of the virtual desktop, where all the Windows programs live, and an 'Install Application' button. The installer functionality is where CrossOver shines on the desktop. With the WINE open-source project that CrossOver is based on, getting a program to run (even at all) can mean hunting down forum posts to see what LinuxFan78 typed in the command line.
CrossOver tries to alleviate this pain with their installers, which downloads a given program and performs all the necessary tweaks for the program to run automatically. For example, when I installed Steam through CrossOver, it downloaded multiple fonts that Steam requires before proceeding with the actual Steam installation.

CrossOver for Android only has a few 'known-good applications', but if you so desire, you can try installing any of CrossOver's available applications. The selection is fairly expansive, but if you want to install something not listed, you'll have to download a web browser like Firefox inside CrossOver and download it manually.

The virtual desktop is fairly basic, showing some app shortcuts at the top and a Start menu with access to your programs at the bottom. There's also a very basic file manager, a setting to add/remove programs, and the Wine configuration tool.

Games

Perhaps the most exciting prospect of running Windows programs on Android (or a Chromebook) is playing Windows' vast library of games. That's a huge reason Wine even exists, despite the rise of Steam OS and Linux gaming, most new titles are still locked to Windows. Linux and Mac users have used Wine, CrossOver, and other similar software for years to play Windows-exclusive titles.

Steam is easy to get up and running, just choose it from the Install Application dialog and click Next/Accept on all the installer popups. But trying to play games is where I ran into problems. Wine, and thus CrossOver, only supports DirectX 9 - meaning most new Windows games will just plain not work. CodeWeavers is working hard on adding DirectX 10 and 11 support, but it's a massive undertaking. Many games also offer an OpenGL mode, except that doesn't work here either. Android only supports OpenGL ES, not the full OpenGL spec that Windows programs expect.
Another frustrating problem is games cannot lock the mouse inside the program. To my understanding, Android doesn't allow applications to lock the mouse at all, so FPS titles won't be playable without a controller. Games running in full-screen seem to be buggy as well, but most games have windowed modes anyways. Finally, there's no way to change the resolution of the virtual desktop, so older games expecting a smaller screen might have problems.

I didn't try many of my Steam games, but I did successfully run three titles - Half Life 1, Team Fortress: Classic, and Game Dev Tycoon. Half Life 1 (pictured above) only worked when I disabled full-screen mode and switched to software rendering instead of OpenGL. The mouse didn't lock so it was uncontrollable, but moving around was buttery smooth. Team Fortress was the same story, and Game Dev Tycoon surprisingly worked without messing with the settings.

If your game can run either on software rendering or DirectX 9, and doesn't need to lock the mouse, there's a good chance it might run in CrossOver. Especially if you install it through CrossOver's install mechanism. As stated earlier, CodeWeavers has been working on DirectX 10 and 11 support on the desktop versions of CrossOver, so it wouldn't surprise me if those changes trickle down to the Android version at some point.

Other software

You'll need to use a web browser to install software not available in CrossOver itself. I used CrossOver's installer to download Firefox, seen below. I tried to run a recent release, version 45 to be exact, but it froze whenever I saved a file so I switched back to Firefox 7 (which is still usable for most sites).

One of the best use cases for CrossOver is to run full Microsoft Office, but Office 2013 and newer don't work at all thanks to their dependence on DirectX 10. CodeWeavers officially supports Office 2010 and earlier, but I didn't have a copy of that version, so I tried out LibreOffice. If you've never used it, LibreOffice is an open-source office suite with MS Office compatibility, and it works fairly well in CrossOver.

Granted, it worked until I tried to save a file, then it froze. So close!

Holy Photoshop, Batman

I was incredibly surprised to see my copy of Photoshop CS3, without changing any settings, worked in CrossOver. Well, mostly.

I tried basic image manipulation including transforms, gradients, cropping, filters, etc, all with success. However, it does crash when trying to use fonts, and a few other times randomly, but it's extremely impressive that CrossOver can run it at all. Photoshop CS6 requires some extra packages in Wine, known as 'winetricks,' to run perfectly - but as far as I can tell, there is no way to install winetricks in CrossOver yet.

Android/Chromebook integration

CrossOver's integration with the host operating system, be it Android or Chrome OS, is rather limited but still more than I was expecting. The root Android file system shows up as a drive in CrossOver, allowing you to transfer data back and forth without too much trouble. For example, I could easily open pictures in Photoshop from the Android downloads folder.

Full Article

 

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