New Linux User

EXPLAIN: How to Run Windows Applications on GNU/Linux.

by Jon on October 4th, 2005

There are a number of options to facilitate the running of Windows applications on a GNU/Linux machine.

These appliations are grouped into two piles depending on how they work. The first two applications do not require you to have a copy of Windows, rather they ‘trick’ the Windows application into thinking it is running on Windows. Very neat, but not all that effective. There are a couple of handful of Windows programs that run on this type of application, but there are buckets of Windows applications that won’t.

The second pile are ‘virtual machine’ type applications. These guys create a little virtual world inside your GNU/Linux machine that fools Windows into thinking that it is being installed and run on a stand alone computer. These applications are typically more expensive and they require you to have your own properly licensed copy of Windows to install on the virtual machine, but they geneally work better.

All together, the four most obvious ones are:

1. Wine: ‘Tricky’ type application, but free! In the time honoured hacker tradition of using recursive algorithms to name applications, Wine Is Not an Emulator. Wine frequently comes installed on most distros. To find out if you already have it installed, either look for it in your application menu, or open a terminal window and type
   

   wine

   In general, to run a Windows application with Wine, you can click on the application and either Wine will automatically fire up and attempt to take care of running the application, or your box will complain that it doesn’t know what to do with the file and ask you. If you experience the second option, type ‘wine’ without the quotes in the query field.

   If you don’t have Wine installed, you can either pay a visit to WineHQ or give your package manager a try by typing either:

   • apt-get install wine
   • yum install wine

   Wine does not require you to have a copy of Windows.

2. Crossover Office: ‘Tricky’ type application, but not free. This is a commercial offering that extends Wine’s capabilities to run specific applications under GNU/Linux. The application and instructions are over at Code Weavers. Crossover Office does not require you to have a copy of Windows.
3. Win4Lin: ‘Virtual Machine’ type application. Win4Lin is an application that sets up your machine to run Windows in a window just like any other application. You have to bring your own Windows license to the party. Because it is native Windows running rather than being ‘emulated’ on the desktop, you can pretty much guarantee that any Windows application will run on it. You can buy Win4Lin from Win4Lin.com
4. VMWare: ‘Virtual Machine’ type application. VMWare is actually not limited to GNU/Linux and Windows. Once you have VMWare installed (which is possible on a number of different OSes), you can install a number of other types of OSes on it. Even more than one at a time. Very cool and very expensive. You can pick it up over at VMWare.com.

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