| Matthew Rosewarne on 16 Oct 2007 21:56:31 -0000 |
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While wine doesn't run everything, it has two serious advantages over running windows in a VM with VMWare/QEMU/etc: The first is speed. Since the programs under wine are running directly on the CPU without any virtualisation, the speed is exactly as it would be in Windows. The primary use I have for wine is gaming, which would be impossible with a VM. The second is convenience. Instead of running a virtual machine entirely isolated from your regular workspace, wine uses only a thin windows-like wrapper. As a result, the windows apps behave just like any native linux app, with access to the same files, clipboard, devices, and so on. The app's windows show up as regular windows that you can manage just like those of any other app, as opposed to having all windows apps live in one big window. My father uses Crossover primarily to run MS Office (a necessity for him), so he can click on a file in Konqueror or open an email attachment and it will open just like if he were using OpenOffice/KOffice. If he had to use a VM instead of wine, he would have to copy the file over to the VM, edit the file inside the VM, and copy the file back into his home directory. For an app that he uses almost constantly, this would be enough of a barrier that he'd probably switch back to Windows entirely. There are a few apps he needs that do not work with Crossover/wine, so he also uses QEMU for those. He used to use VMWare, but it became a real pain to maintain, since it doesn't really play nice with package management, so it would break frequently on updates. %!PS: For VMs, Windows 2000 is somehow much faster than Windows XP. Attachment:
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