I’m going to introduce WINE which is all about running Windows based applications on Linux and other operating systems, such as the Mac. WINE is open source.

The ability to use Windows based applications is very useful for many Linux users. For new users this mitigates the learning curve of so many new applications at the same time as the operating system. It also broadens the application base which can be important in areas in which Linux is not well supported, such as games, or it can make speciality applications usable on Linux which can often be useful to business.

There are 3 real ways to achieve this.

1) Run Windows as dual boot. This is my primary route and easy to do. It lets me run whichever operating system I like. The cost is the time delay of rebooting into whichever OS I desire and the waste of hard drive capacity implicit in running two operating system and often two copies of the same application, one for each operating system. I also have to pay for Windows.

2) Run Windows emulators or virtualisation software. These exist but I’ve never tried them and the drawbacks are significant.

3) Run WINE. Wine runs Windows based applications natively which, needless to say, is not trivial. However it’s got a lot of advantages, particularly speed. Speed in getting things going and speed of the running application.

Wine has a long history. Since 1995 it’s been reported to run MS Office and currently runs it near flawlessly. However MS Office has become less important to Linux users since OpenOffice is just as good in practical terms. It also has some degree of popularity and can load and save native MS Office documents anyway. But there’s more Windows applications than MSOffice.

Recently WINE has leapt forward in development and, more importantly, functionality. I am quite late on the bandwagon having only heard of it since version 0.9 or so and used it since 1.1.0. It’s now up to 1.1.14.

I’ve been astounded at how good it is, though it certainly has a long way yet to go. I play a lot of games and in my experience with using it the results have been very approximately this way;

Around ¼ of games will not run whatsoever. Around ¼ can be run but are either virtually unplayable or require rather complicated steps to get working for a non-expert. The next ¼ run with some reasonable tweaking. The final ¼ run out of the box.

I’ve also noticed some preconceptions that might need correcting;

1) Only older games and applications work well: Actually the game’s age doesn’t really make that much difference to the success rate. I’ve had old games fail on me where more modern games might work fine. The only exception to this are games that require directX10 components.

2) Applications running on WINE are slow: Nope. Since it runs natively, if there are no serious slowing bugs, the games will run at speed comparable to Windows. Sometimes a little faster, sometimes a little slower. Practically speaking I’ve only noticed slowdown in 10% of games I’ve tried.

3) Applications running on WINE are less stable: Well it’s like this. The games that do not run or do not run well are definitely not stable. But those that do I have found just as stable if not more so than on Windows. If a game is known to crash on WINE it will usually be reported.

4) WINE is hard to setup and use: Actually WINE is very easy to setup but it can be hard to use for those who have little expertise, especially if you want to get that extra ¼ of applications and games to work.

5) WINE is an emulator: No no no! This one is so hated that WINE has the acronym Wine Is Not an Emulator.

I would encourage Linux users who want to try running Windows based software to give WINE a go. I will be posting updates related to WINE in due course. I hope to cover support, how to set things up, useful information, common issues and maybe some specific games.

Dosbox is an MS-DOS emulator for Linux, the Mac, Windows and quite a few other operating systems. It lets you run older MS-DOS based applications, games and other MS-DOS compatible software.

If you don’t know what MS-DOS is, thank your lucky stars and know the rest of this will probably be worthless to you.

One might wonder why you would run Dosbox on a Windows system. The short answer is that it was possible to run MS-DOS applications on older versions of Windows well but now, with Windows Vista, it’s not really possible.

Their website linked to above is quite useful including information on application and game compatibility, the progress of the Dosbox team, a wiki and other useful information. Dosbox is open source and is free to use.

Dosbox is currently up to version 0.72 and is extremely functional for games but is said to need a bit more work for more office-like applications due to weaker networking, printer and communication support. Dosbox does have cdrom, iso image, sound, mouse, joystick, modem and of course graphics support.

The basic Dosbox is easy to install but is just as clunky to use as the original MS-DOS. So it’s a great idea to run a Dosbox GUI frontend which handles launch and hardware settings for each application or game you want to run. For Linux I use the ‘DOSBox Game Launcher’ DBGL and this will work with any operating system that supports java. There are also other good frontends out there.

With Dosbox and the frontend I can complete a profile with whatever CPU cycles, memory and hardware support I need in order to install and set the game or application up. Then I can run it with just one double click. It also allows for a nice collection of screenshots if you so desire.

In practical terms I can run about 95% of any MS-DOS games I throw at it without any problems. The last 5% have some kind of flaw like botched graphics or a joystick problem. The sound is occasionally off on several games. Using Dosbox and the frontend is considerably less hassle than the original MSDOS. It’s much easier to set up, very fast to launch and easy to change from one game to another.

I thoroughly recommend it to any nostalgia ridden gamer.

Though I enjoy Linux and generally think well of it there are times when one shakes the head and wonders what the hell people are doing. So this is going to be a Linux bashing review, or more specifically Ark bashing.

Ark is the default archive managing program for the KDE desktop. Meaning it makes and extracts things like rar, zip, tar, and ace files. I can say without reservation that my experience with the GNOME desktops’s archive manager was quite good.

Ark has the honour of being the worst application I’ve used on Linux. Let’s begin with it’s website.

Yes that’s right, despite being an important part of the KDE desktop, it’s got about as much exciting exposure as a nun in church. Here’s some of the fun things Ark has to offer;

1) Crashes. Most of the time I don’t even know what triggered it.

2) You can’t archive a folder. No, that would be too much like normal behaviour.

3) No integrated right click archive or extract.

4) Sometimes you have to make the folder to extract to manually. Really.

5) Quite often an extract will fail. If you are lucky you will know because nothing at all has been extracted. However, for special occasions, it decides to fail partway through an extract, thereby fooling you into thinking it’s all done so you can make the discovery the hard way.

6) Ark doesn’t tell you it failed or why. It’s utterly silent. No, that would be keeping people informed. Given Linux’ usual habit of telling you the ins and outs of a duck’s arse, this behaviour is quite odd.

There are alternatives. Not real good ones really. I no longer have the gnome archive manager but might be able to install that. karchiver works a bit better though it seems to be designed for KDE 3 and so parts of it aren’t working very well.

There’s been a lot of talk about improvements in KDE 4.2 which is coming very soon. Currently I’m using KDE 4.1. It’s possible Ark will be significantly improved in it, though it’s hard for me to imagine it’s been improved enough.

Software Freedom Day (SFD08) is a world wide event promoting Free and Open Source Software to families and businesses. It’s held each year and this year is on Saturday 20 September 2008. There are many small localised events all across the world organised for that day.

My local Linux User group is doing one of these in Victor Harbour of South Australia. A rather pretty seaside town popular with tourists. The website above will let you know if there’s a local event planned for your area.

We intend to have;

• Speakers giving special presentations on Linux & Open Source Software

• Interactive tutorials & demonstrations

• Hands on with systems set-up with Linux for you to come and try for yourself

• Stands showcasing Linux & Open Source Software, along with some other “Techie” IT & Computing goods & services

• FREE Linux & Open Source Software CD’s, & maybe a few other goodies

• BBQ, snacks & drinks