Re: [Semi-OT]: Win4Lin
On 05 Aug 2002 17:33:26 -0600
"Gary Hennigan" <glhenni@sandia.gov> wrote:
> I noticed someone recommending Win4Lin in another thread. I use VMWare
> on my workstation and I'd like to try something similar on my laptop,
> but everyone knows VMWare is pretty resource-hungry and while my
> laptop is loaded (2GHz P4, 1GB RAM) I'd prefer a lighter solution than
> VMWare if there's one available.
>
> My main motivation for running Windoze are writing these "wonderful"
> PowerPoint presentations that my management loves. To date I've been
> dual booting to Win2k, but that's a pain and I'd much prefer something
> that worked directly under Linux. The complication is that PowerPoint
> presentations can be pretty intense, with movies showing simulation
> results, and I'm curious how Win4Lin does. Anyone have any experience
> with it?
>
> I'm running Debian 3.0.
>
> Gary
>
Howdy Gary,
I started using Win4Lin a couple years ago, with a free copy of
version 2 they gave me for one of their promotions. I'm currently
running v3.0.10.
Win98 First Edition fully boots in 37 seconds, including Norton
Antivirus 2000 and the M$ Office shortcut bar (I just timed it. :-) My
machine is a 1Ghz T-Bird w/768MB ram running Debian 3.0. Most windows
applications run at close to the same speed as they did on windows. I
haven't used Power Point extensively, so I'm afraid I couldn't give a
very accurate statement about how well it would do your presentations.
Most of the Power Point presentations I've played on my machine were
only 1 - 2MB. Sound worked out of the box, for me.
The only drawbacks I've found would be lack of winsock2
support, no networking, and limited external peripherals. You can access
the internet from windows - it uses your Linux connection, no setup
required, but it won't let you do Network Neighborhood style networking.
The only applications I've found that were dependent on winsock2 were
things like aim and similar programs. Some of this may have changed in
the current release of version 4, however.
Overall, Win4Lin has been a very nice program, and it's the only one I
use for Windows programs currently. I stopped using VMWare way back with
version 1.1 (I'm too cheap to pay for upgrades. :-)
HTH,
Jacob
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