Pages

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

How Necessary Is Windows? Part 5 Crossover

There have been several attempts down the years to make Windows unnecessary. The most audacious is doubtless ReactOS, which cuts to the heart of things and wants to be a complete Windows XP-compatible OS. Needless to say, this is no small project and will take a long time to complete; right now, I'd call it somewhere between completely useless and intriguingly experimental. (It runs Skype, at least.) I'm also concerned that if they ever do get it anywhere near useful completion, Microsoft will stomp on it hard.

That's certainly the high road. But how necessary is it to clone the whole damned OS? A Windows app, after all, is just a block of x86 machine code that makes calls into one or more APIs. If you can clone the APIs in an acceptably clean-room manner, you don't need to duplicate the entire architecture, kernel and all.

And that brings us to one of the oldest and oddest ongoing projects in open-source computing: Wine, which dates back to 1993, and provides a compatibility layer consisting of clean-room DLLs implementing the Win32 APIs, plus whatever magic is necessary to make the deeper host OS machinery look like Windows to the app. This is easier than implementing a whole OS, with the further advantage that if done properly, Wine can act as a Windows compatibility layer over several Unix-like OSes, rather than only Linux. Currently, Wine can operate over Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD Unix, and x86 Solaris.

After 16 years of dogged work, Wine actually works pretty well. Part of its success is due to a remarkable cooperation between the Wine project and a commercial software house in St. Paul named Codeweavers. Codeweavers sells a $40 deployment/management utility for Wine called Crossover, which basically makes Wine noob-friendly. (Naked Wine is pretty stark.) Codeweavers also tweaks Wine itself to improve app compatibility, and contributes those tweaks back to the Wine project under LGPL. Some financial support is also provided to the otherwise volunteer-based Wine project. Wine's maintainer, Alexandre Julliard, is an employee of Codeweavers, where he works full-time on Wine development.

Codeweavers focuses mostly on big-market apps like Microsoft Office, and doesn't officially support apps beyond a relatively short list of "gold" software. However, I've found that a great many Windows apps install and run just fine under Crossover whether they're on the list or not. InDesign 2.0 is listed on the site as "known not to work" but apart from a minor display glitch, it seems to work as always. (I haven't tested it deeply so far.) Most Microsoft apps work beautifully (especially older ones) and I've been using Office 2000 and Visio 2000 under it without incident since last fall.
Wine implements a sort of runtime environment emulation for Windows called a "bottle." More than one bottle may be created on a single host OS, and each bottle has its own emulated C: drive and Registry. By giving each Windows app its own bottle under Wine, apps are prevented from interfering with one another in the dreaded "DLL Hell" effect. Because it's not a VM, the performance hit for running Wine/Crossover is very small, and most important, you do not need to have a legal copy of Windows running in the VM. On the other hand, a bottle looks enough like Windows to be infectable by Windows malware, though one bottle probably can't infect other bottles on a Linux system, or the underlying system itself. (From what I've heard, the low-level system tricks played by many malware packages keep them from running or at least running completely.) There are known conflicts between WGA and Wine, so don't install WGA if you can avoid it.

Bottom line: If Wine supports all the Windows apps you absolutely must use, you do not need Windows at all. I haven't tested all the Windows packages that I use here (next up is MapPoint 2004) but for Office and Visio 2000 it's been nothing short of magical, and I'm guessing InDesign will come along eventually. In a mature software market, time works in our favor: One by one, existing apps will be installable under Wine, and each time that happens, Windows slips a little bit deeper beneath the waters of irrelevance.

CrossOver Games 8.1.2 for MAC OS X released

CrossOver Games... Now gamers can play the games they want, on whatever platform they want! With CrossOver Games, you can run many popular Windows games on your Intel OS X Mac or Linux PC. Whatever your tastes — first-person shooters, fantasy, strategy, MMORPGs — CrossOver Games provides the capability to run many popular games titles. CrossOver comes with an easy to use, single click interface, which makes installing your games simple and fast. Once installed, your game integrates seamlessly into your Desktop. Just click and run! Best of all, you do it all easily and affordably, without needing a Microsoft operating system license.

CrossOver Games is built on the latest versions of Wine, based on contributions from both CodeWeavers and the open-source Wine community, and then lovingly hand-crafted by Stefan Dösinger, our very own Wine/Games connoisseur. Unlike other CrossOver products, which are aimed primarily at office productivity applications (and hence maximum stability), CrossOver Games aims to bring you the latest, greatest, bleeding edge improvements in Wine technology. This means that the newest games run faster and better under CrossOver than under other versions of CrossOver, or other version of free Wine, for that matter. You want to run your Mom's knitting software? Maybe you should look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you need better framerates on Linux or Mac so you can frag your buddies: check out CrossOver Games!


Mac Games Fixes and Changes

Version 8.1.2:
• Fixed installation of Left 4 Dead 2 via Steam on the Mac.

Mac Games System Requirements

Intel Required
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

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


Friday, November 20, 2009

CXGames 8.1 Zombie Mallard Overview

Left 4 Dead 2 was one of the most anticipated games of 2009 (even with the boycott). Even before its full release (the demo opened to players a few weeks prior) the good people over at Codeweavers where hard at work making sure their CXGames software would be ready to allow Linux/Mac gamers everywhere to fully enjoy this latest edition to Valve's source games. Less than twenty four hours after L4D2 hit shelves (digital and otherwise) CXGames 8.1 (codename Zombie Mallard) was released.

This newest update to the CXGames line is really just a small update (as the version number increase of .1 implies) rather than a full upgrade. In fact depending on what games you play - you might not even notice a difference between this and the previous 8.0 release. From the official 8.1 change log:
  • Add support for Left 4 Dead 2
  • Fix a problem with directory permissions in World of Warcraft in Ubuntu 9.10
  • Fix a number of problems with Guild Wars
  • Fix a number of Mac audio issues which should fix Steam voice chat
  • A few minor adjustments for Snow Leopard
  • Fix a bug registering CrossOver under Snow Leopard
What makes this release so special then? I feel it important because it displays Codeweaver's dedication to their product. They are obviously aware of what their users want and what is going on in the gaming community at large. This CXGames update, I feel, shows how they plan to react to big releases in the future. I say this because the main reason for this CXGames update is to add support for L4D2 (in addition to the various other small bug fixes listed). This gives me great hope that they will be quick to the draw in their supporting of other soon to be release big name titles such as Starcraft II and Diablo III. As a side bar I feel it is also worth mentioning that performance under CXGames 8.1 is about the same as it was under 8.0 (And Left 4 Dead 2 benchmarks about the same as L4D)

Left 4 Dead 2 Menu

Left 4 Dead 2 loading a new game

Left 4 Dead 2 Game Play on Ubuntu with CXGames 8.1.0



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

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



Thursday, November 19, 2009

CodeWeavers releases CrossOver Games 8.1 for MAC and Linux

CODEWEAVERS RELEASES CROSSOVER GAMES 8.1 FOR MAC AND LINUX
Latest "Zombie Mallard" Release Features Support for Left4Dead 2; Free PC Giveaway

 
SAINT PAUL, Minn. (November 18, 2009) – Despite a crazed assault of zombie playtesters on their headquarters, CodeWeavers, Inc., a leading developer of software products that turn Mac OS X and Linux into Windows-compatible operating systems, today announced the release of CrossOver Games 8.1 for both Mac and Linux, available immediately.

CrossOver Games allows Windows games to be played on Mac and Linux PCs without the need for a Windows operating system license.

The newest version, codenamed "Zombie Mallard", allows CrossOver customers to play the fervently anticipated sequel to the runaway hit Left4Dead, appropriately named Left4Dead 2. "Frankly, that's all we need to support to justify a new release," said Jeremy White, bloodless President and CEO of CodeWeavers. "We had the zombies practically beating down our doors to be able to run the sequel. We're particularly pleased that we were able to support Left4Dead 2 as soon as it was released. In this way, Linux and Mac users can also do their bit to stave off the effects of the apocalyptic zombie plague sweeping this nation."

As part of their efforts to arm the gaming populace with zombie killin' tools, CodeWeavers will also be giving away a fully loaded, custom built CodeWeavers gaming PC to some lucky winner.
"Jeremy Newman, our sys admin, is also our foremost first-person shooter in the office," said White. "He'll be custom building a brand-new, loaded CodeWeavers Linux Gaming PC, with a quad-core CPU, dual graphics cards, 27" monitor, and CrossOver Games installed. We'll be giving it away to someone this week. It'll be built and shipped to them in time to put under their (non-denominational) Christmas / Kwanza / Hanukah tree. It's part of our way of saying ‘Thank you' to our loyal customers. Oh, and zombies must die."

CrossOver Games is available for purchase directly from CodeWeavers and its authorized resellers. It is a download-only product. The cost for the product is $39.95, which includes 12 months of free product support and software updates.

About CodeWeavers
Founded in 1996 as a general software consultancy, CodeWeavers today focuses on the development of Wine, the core technology found in all of its CrossOver products. The company's goal is to bring expanded market opportunities for Windows software developers by making it easier, faster and more painless to port Windows software to Mac OS X and Linux. CodeWeavers is recognized as a leader in open-source Windows porting technology, and maintains development offices in Minnesota, the UK and elsewhere around the world. The company is privately held. For more information about CodeWeavers, log on to www.codeweavers.com.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

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