linux

[Z3RO]

so i bought my mom and the rest of the family a linux based computer. fit my price range relly well.

the problem is is thier having trouble getting programs to work and thier printer as well. thay have been told this is becuase the programs are made for windows and arnt compatible i was jus wondering if thier is a way to get em to work or if im better off buyingg thm xp.

[mookie]

There are emulators out there to let you run Windows programs in Linux. WINE is one you might want to check out, but there are probably others as well.

[NOFX]

what programs are they using? What distro of linux are you using? Yes, there is emulators, but if they haven't heard of the emulators, Im sure it would be over their head anyway.

[appalachian_fox]

Short opinion: If they're not computer savvy, especially if they don't WANT to be computer savvy, bite the XP bullet. It will save you and your family much frustration in the time to come. Otherwise, try Wine or a dual-boot.

 

Long opinion: If your family is pretty good with computers or if they are willing to learn, you might try sticking it out. Wine as I understand it is actually a set of libraries that mimic the API / etc. calls of Windows programs...It doesn't actually emulate a Windows environment for you, so if you want an MS Windows environment to run you'll need to address that. If the XWindows environment is fine, you just want to run XP programs, Wine is a bit unstable for some things but there's a whole database to check compatibility:

 

http://appdb.winehq.org/

 

Using Wine is nice because you don't need to own a copy of Windows XP (no licensing issues, since you're using third-party APIs) and it will be faster than an emulator. Plus, updates should be easier to set up: A big plus in a Linux environment.

 

Also, there are two free emulators that should work with your setup that come to mind: Bochs (http://bochs.sourceforge.net/) and Plex86 (http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/plex86). Bochs will probably run slower (it definitely used to) because it's really designed as a multiplexable emulator (from many platforms to many platforms) and in fact I have seen x86 Linux run Windows XP and a PocketPC run MS-DOS, Windows 98 (albeit slowly) and Redhat / Fedora with Bochs. Plex86 is more specific to your problem, but I have never used it.

 

However, remember that if you run an emulator, you have licensing issues: You must have a license for Windows XP to do this legally, and then you're going to take a performance hit for running an emulator and you're still going to have to bite the licensing cost anyway...Basically, you'll pay the price and have a slower computer for the benefit. Of course, this only matters in Windows XP programs, so if you're primary using things like Quickbooks, I doubt the performance hit will matter and you can use Linux as your primary desktop.

 

Also, you may consider dual-booting. It's become stupid-easy over the past few years and even easier to recover if the bootloader goes bonkers when you install it.

 

Hope some of this helps. Good luck!

[Z3RO]

thnx for the hlp

 

its running linspire and besides me, thy dont no much about computers. living 6 hours away and having xp myself doesnt relly make me wanna learn linux. so i think im gonna pushem to get xp for thier sake and not having thm call me 3 times a week asking how to use thier computer. but i might try having thm use an emulator for a while and see if thy can do it bah tht should be fun

 

i cant remeber wut programs exactly i no thier internet is poepl pc and is a windows only program and the driver for thier usb printer is windows based as well if i could just get those to things working im shure thyed be happy

Edited March 15, 2006 by Z3RO

[appalachian_fox]

Whatever you decide, good luck!

[TheReverend(c)]

Short opinion: If they're not computer savvy, especially if they don't WANT to be computer savvy, bite the XP bullet. It will save you and your family much frustration in the time to come. Otherwise, try Wine or a dual-boot.

 

Long opinion: If your family is pretty good with computers or if they are willing to learn, you might try sticking it out. Wine as I understand it is actually a set of libraries that mimic the API / etc. calls of Windows programs...It doesn't actually emulate a Windows environment for you, so if you want an MS Windows environment to run you'll need to address that. If the XWindows environment is fine, you just want to run XP programs, Wine is a bit unstable for some things but there's a whole database to check compatibility:

 

http://appdb.winehq.org/

 

Using Wine is nice because you don't need to own a copy of Windows XP (no licensing issues, since you're using third-party APIs) and it will be faster than an emulator. Plus, updates should be easier to set up: A big plus in a Linux environment.

 

Also, there are two free emulators that should work with your setup that come to mind: Bochs (http://bochs.sourceforge.net/) and Plex86 (http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/plex86). Bochs will probably run slower (it definitely used to) because it's really designed as a multiplexable emulator (from many platforms to many platforms) and in fact I have seen x86 Linux run Windows XP and a PocketPC run MS-DOS, Windows 98 (albeit slowly) and Redhat / Fedora with Bochs. Plex86 is more specific to your problem, but I have never used it.

 

However, remember that if you run an emulator, you have licensing issues: You must have a license for Windows XP to do this legally, and then you're going to take a performance hit for running an emulator and you're still going to have to bite the licensing cost anyway...Basically, you'll pay the price and have a slower computer for the benefit. Of course, this only matters in Windows XP programs, so if you're primary using things like Quickbooks, I doubt the performance hit will matter and you can use Linux as your primary desktop.

 

Also, you may consider dual-booting. It's become stupid-easy over the past few years and even easier to recover if the bootloader goes bonkers when you install it.

 

Hope some of this helps. Good luck!

 

Pretty much what I was going to say.

[appalachian_fox]

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHKELLYCLARKSON!!!!!!

 

Hope some of this helps. Good luck!

 

Pretty much what I was going to say.

 

Glad to hear I'm on the right track!

[ich bin ein berliner]

its hard for me not to be bias on this, i love linux and i love opensource but it is not for people who 'want to use thier computer casually'.

 

learning linux in short is:

1.) getting to know your computer extremly well on the hardware side and software side

 

finding drivers for printers and installing other programs can be an extreme hassle. finding packages and compiling them from source is hard to do also because you have to debug the program while it installs. also if you use RPM or another program packaging (not sure if thats the correct name for it) software dependency can give you an aneurism.

 

 

a personal example i had with my current linux system when i first had it was a monitor display problem. i had to find the correct configuration file on my system and put in specific dimentions for my 19 inch monitor. in order to fix this i read for about 2-3 hours trying to fix it. every attempt did not work. i then happened to notice that mandrake automatically installed a IRC client, so i opened it up and happened to see a 'linux-help' channel. i joined that and asked for help. they asked me if i had done any 'homework' on my problem and i told them i wasnt exactly sure... they told me to read some more. after two hours of more reading i knew exactly what my problem was, what file i needed to edit. then, someone was nice enough to help me. although i dictated exactly what i needed to do, i still could not do it. i had to give a total stranger root access to my machine so he could do it remotly from his computer. after he edited my configuration it worked.... but this was after 8 hours of reading and testing. the ONLY thing i had to do was to change about a half a dozen arguments in a configuration file.... it was extremly frustrating.

this was only one of my many linux exploits that i accomplished.

 

personally, on average in order to install a program or drivers takes me anywhere from 3 hours to a couple days to configure everything correctly.

 

stick with windows xp, id say wait for windows vista because it sounds like its going to be wicked cool (and i hate Microsoft) but im sure/know that there are going to be a decent amount of bugs that MS is going to have to weed out.

[NOFX]

basically all you had to do was edit your //etc/X11/xorg.conf file

[ich bin ein berliner]

basically all you had to do was edit your //etc/X11/xorg.conf file

 

 

::stab::

 

 

i know... but when u dont know this stuff off the top of your head with no experience, its hard to figure out from scratch and no one to call for reference.