Archive for the ‘windows’ Category

Getting Linux functionality on a Windows desktop.

Friday, September 14th, 2007

When I was forced to run Windows in a support environment, I was faced with a number of challenges. Mainly, how to get my favorite OSS functionality back in my Windows desktop. Luckily, there are many tools that can help you.
I’ll go through them in the order I usually install them on a Windows box, and add in some others that I’ve found and considered.

  1. BBLean

    2. BBLean gives you a Blackbox environment in Windows. I like BlackBox, especially in a Windows environment, and it’s probably the biggest visual indicator that you’re making progress in getting OSS on your Windows box.

  2. UnxUtils

    3. Oh how nice it is to have native GNU tools in Windows. I put the utilities into the Windows/System32 folder, renaming find.exe to gfind.exe, as Windows won’t let you replace find.exe (Who knew?)
    Notable programs in the package include dd, diff, grep, find, head, tail, gzip, gunzip, wc, tr, sed, gawk, and touch.

  3. Cygwin

    4. From Cygwin.com: “The Cygwin tools are ports of the popular GNU development tools for Microsoft Windows. They run thanks to the Cygwin library which provides the UNIX system calls and environment these programs expect.”
    Worth the install, definitely.

  4. GnuWin32

    5. GNUWin32 has Windows ports of GNU or other open source software. The list is much more comprehensive than UnxUtils, and you can pick and choose which packages you want to download. Useful if you want a native version of a specific tool not included in UnxUtils.

  5. PuTTY

    6. PuTTY gives you SSH to other machines, and also includes SOCKS proxying, port redirection, SCP, SFTP, and other useful tools for the command-line.

  6. BitVise Tunnelier

    7. This item isn’t GPLed, so it diminishes its value in my mind. However, if you need an easy client to just run a SOCKS proxy, do graphical SCP, or run SSH tunneling of any kind, the BitVise Tunnelier client is great for this. I don’t use it for CLI administrative tasks, as PuTTY does better terminal emulation, but it’s still very good at what it does. If you’re SSHed into a Windows box, it will let you do one-click, SSH Tunneled Remote Desktop sessions to the box you’re SSHed into. Which leads me to my next item….

  7. BitVise WinSSHD

    8. If you’re not a big fan of Cygwin but still want to SSH into a Windows box, get WinSSHD. This is a closed source SSH server for the Windows environment that runs as a service. It costs money, though, $40 for a personal license and $100 for a business license. This also only gives you 5 user licenses. Closed source, costs money, and a diminished value in my book. May be necessary for some, though.

  8. WinSCP

    9. If you wish they made a SmartFTP-like application to do SCP file transfers in Windows, you’re in luck. This program is open source and free as in beer. It’s definitely more secure than plain FTP, and the program is very polished. Tunnelier does some of the same things, but for large or complicated transfers, this is the way to get it done. Plus, Tunnelier is closed source.

  9. Unison

    10. There aren’t any particularly good Rsync options for Windows (except for via Cygwin), but Unison comes pretty close and brings you a lot of the same features. To synchronize folders, there is no other. Unison is also open source (GPL) and free as in beer!

You can find a veritable gaggle of other Open Source windows software via the OSSwin site. So if there’s something else you like in Linux but want in Windows, you might just happen to be in luck. We still don’t have Yakuake/Tilda or Compiz Fusion on Windows yet, but this will make Windows more tolerable for OSS geeks like myself, and give more functionality to the Windows power users.
That’s a Win/Win in my book.

Did I miss anything? If so, use the comments section to slap me upside the head.

Until next time!
-LightningCrash

Posted in gnu, gpl, linux, port, windows | 1 Comment »

Linux and the most-wanted Windows applications, pt1

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Earlier this week I asked on my local LAN party’s forums, “Windows users: What would it take for you to make the jump to Linux?” I got a lot of good commentary and many well thought-out answers, you can read it here.

But there’s a problem. Nobody really asks these questions on a larger scale. I set out on Google to find a list of the top requested Windows applications for Linux. Surprisingly, nobody has really asked this question in the past. That is, except for Novell. In 2006, Novell hosted a survey asking what Windows applications Linux users wanted. You can read the published results at Linux.com here.

The list isn’t all too surprising, most of the big-ticket applications are listed:

  1. QuickBooks
  2. AutoCAD
  3. Photoshop
  4. iTunes
  5. Dreamweaver
  6. Visio
  7. Lotus Notes
  8. Quicken
  9. Macromedia Studio
  10. Act!

Nothing unexpected here, although you can tell this survey ended up with more business respondents than home users. Although with iTunes at number 4, you can tell that the home users still made a big showing.

So, where do these applications stand right now in Linux? Do they work via WINE? Are there any plans for a Linux port? I want to know these things. First, I want to focus on the applications that aren’t typical business/profession oriented software.
Which, arguably, only make up 3 items:

  • Photoshop
  • iTunes
  • Quicken

These are important pieces of software for many people. I don’t know why more focus isn’t put onto 100% support for these products, but it seems to fall by the wayside. A number of editors and writers come up with these catchy headlines for Linux as a whole, like “Is 2007 the year of the Linux desktop?” but they miss the boat. Until a user can install these applications as easy in Linux as they can in Windows, it will never be the year of the Linux desktop. These three just have to work and work well, period.

So I guess we’ll go through the list one at a time. I’ll start with Quicken.

Quicken
Is it possible to make Quicken run under Linux? The short answer is maybe. See this thread here. We’re still miles away from just popping in the CD and installing, though. This is a big hangup for would-be users who have jobs and pay taxes. Not so much of a hangup for Ed and Elaine Brown, though.
What do people do when they have 10 years of Quicken data and are faced with the temptation of Linux? They stay right where they are, in a Windows environment.

iTunes
Doesn’t work. From scouring the internet, I’ve yet to see anyone get a fully functional iTunes installation operational via WINE. While your iPod may work with a WINE install of iTunes 4.0, you still can’t buy anything from the iTunes store, and just for another kick in the pants, the iPhone requires iTunes 7, which isn’t even close to useable in WINE. It’s just not there under Linux.
Luckily, though, there is an alternative which even the most devout iTunes users end up liking if they have to: Amarok. Here‘s a post on how to switch from iTunes to Amarok.
It’s little consolation. If you have an iPhone, you’re going to end up booting OS X or Windows anyway.

Photoshop
From my research thus far, it looks like none of the Photoshop CS releases work properly in WINE right now. It seems that Photoshop 7 works rather well, which would be fine if you’re content with the best that 2002 has to offer. It seems that Photoshop CS has a bronze support rating from the WINE apps db, which means it works with some gotchas. CS2 and CS3 appear to be right out, though.

What to do
So you wish these applications worked, and you want to know if you can do something to help?
Fortunately, you can help contribute to the process in the following ways.

  • Register for the WINE App Database and contribute your results in getting these applications to work.
  • Vote for your favorite applications at the WINE App Database
  • Donate to WINE (down the page and to the right) via PayPal and tell them to get these apps working ASAP.
  • Write Apple, Adobe, and Intuit and voice your desire for a native Linux port of these applications.

As it stands, there are only two paths for full support: Native Applications for Linux, and 100% WINE compatibility.

Part 2 of this series will cover the other 7 apps in the list. Part 3 of this series will involve me personally testing every one of these Top 10 applications that I can get my hands on, and reporting my findings.

See you on the next go-around!

Posted in linux, windows, wine | 1 Comment »