Linux Format forums

Re: Porting to Windows

sandyman — Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:49 pm

Author: sandyman

Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:49 pm

Maybe so but on my old Thinkpad T22 ouch.. MX2004 runs faster natively

Strange about the OO.o thing. I actually thought it was snappier on Windows. I don't know enough about all distros or the download version but a custom install would be nice (a la Windows). At home I only need a Word Processor. The rest of it is "T**s on a bull" for me. Abiword covers my needs.

Re: Porting to Windows

andychannelle — Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:43 pm

Author: andychannelle

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:43 pm

I've been using DreamweaverMX happily (and snappily) on an Athlon 2400+/512MB and there is no noticable difference in terms of performance running it on the same machine in Windows. OO.o has a slow start up speed on all architectures, but I've stolen a trick from MS Office: I just throw OO.o Writer in my start up items and it's available once the system has booted. Booting takes slightly longer, but I only do it once a day, and that usually when I'm making coffee in the morning.

Andy

Re: Porting to Windows

sandyman — Wed Jun 08, 2005 6:42 pm

Author: sandyman

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 6:42 pm

andychannelle wrote:

The problem is, though, that they might see this as 'doing enough', especially as DWMX runs better under Linux than under WinXP.

You jest I take it. Ran like about as well as Open Office(on Linux) the last time I saw it. Until there is a native app/suite on the lines of Dreamweaver/MX2004 Suite I'll have to keep XP on the Thinkpad

Re: Porting to Windows

doctorflange — Fri Apr 22, 2005 12:42 pm

Author: doctorflange

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 12:42 pm

Making KDE etc. available from Windows does detract from the attraction of using linux.

Which would most people rather use?

* Windows, where they can use their normal programs, and great open source software, or
* Linux, where they can use only the open source software?

So if depends on whether you want OSS to benefit people or to take a swipe at M$.

Re: Porting to Windows

linuxgirlie — Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:14 am

Author: linuxgirlie

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 11:14 am

Success stories, well both my parents and my partners parents run linux on thier home PCs. My work place is running Linux servers, with Firefox, Gimp and Openoffice on the clients (W2K), in May Half Term we will be rid of Microsoft office completly. Thats about 200 desktops and about 100 laptops. Our future plans are to move to an entire linux desktop. My partners school is around the same place as us but has over 400 computers. I have several students that now run Mandrake at home, and about 20 more that run Firefox. We also, because of the Karoshi project have around 9 schools running Linux servers and firefox/openoffice etc on the clients.

At home, we have 3 computers, 1 server, 1 firewall and 3 laptops which all run linux, I personally haven't had windows on my home computer for over 3 years now....

I think my main problem will be getting the trust of the staff when converting!!

Re: Porting to Windows

andychannelle — Thu Apr 21, 2005 9:18 am

Author: andychannelle

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 9:18 am

I think its important that if you buy UT2004, Doom 3 and especially software you intend to use with WINE you ought to let the developers know. For example Macromedia (or Macrodobe - if they've been infected by Mandriva disease) assisted with the CrossOver implementation of DreamweaverMX because it allowed them to test the water for Linux without porting the entire application. In order to go further they need to know their efforts are appreciated (in the financial sense).

The problem is, though, that they might see this as 'doing enough', especially as DWMX runs better under Linux than under WinXP.

Re: Porting to Windows

Andy — Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:25 pm

Author: Andy

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:25 pm

Quote:

What would really make my day, is to walk into WH Smiths, or GAME, or any other high street store, and be able to choose commercial games, that were designed for Linux, without having to rely on middleware (Wine, Cedega etc). Maybe one day, this will happen as more and more people come home to Linux as their favoured Operating System.
Until then I won't hold my breath .... just in case

Well, don't forget that Unreal Tournament 2004 ships with Linux support out of the box.

Doom3 requires the install discs for the Windows version - you then download the Linux bits from idSoftware themselves.

Admittedly these are few and far between, but it is better than nothing to have two great FPS games available for Linux.

AndyH

Re: Porting to Windows

hairymunky — Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:16 pm

Author: hairymunky

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:16 pm

Well I think it would be pointless to port a Linux based window manager such as KDE or GNOME to the Windows platform. I think it would not intice any new users to the Linux OS, but instead users would probably think "Why have all the hassle of installing a new OS, figuring out how to get hardware working" etc, when they can just run it on their windows box! Apart from the obvious thing Windows already has a Window Manager...

I'm all for cross platform development, but it seems a bit one sided, when programs designed and built with Linux, are also usually available for Windows, but its not often the case with applications designed from a Windows point of view.

What would really make my day, is to walk into WH Smiths, or GAME, or any other high street store, and be able to choose commercial games, that were designed for Linux, without having to rely on middleware (Wine, Cedega etc). Maybe one day, this will happen as more and more people come home to Linux as their favoured Operating System.
Until then I won't hold my breath .... just in case

Re: Porting to Windows

nordle — Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:58 pm

Author: nordle

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:58 pm

IMHO porting kde / _insert_large_desktop_environment_here is totally pointless, a waste of developers time. If a windows user wants to try KDE, boot a live CD.

I agree with Andy in thinking that converting people at an application level is more important, if its right for them of course.
People using OOo, firefox, t-bird, apache, php, mysql, postgresql etc these are all good things introducing people to the idea of another way, and more importantly avoiding vendor lock-in at and application level and keeping open standards, which again helps to avoid vendor lock-in because it increases the demand for open standards itself.

Re: Porting to Windows

towy71 — Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:10 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:10 pm

I encourage everyone I know to move to firefox and thunderbird and have done it on about 30 computers so far, hope to win more people over with Open Office and all the goodies on www.theopencd.org
Dick

Re: Porting to Windows

Andy — Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:02 pm

Author: Andy

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:02 pm

And I think that this is where the real wins will be made for open source - moving people across to open source applications on Windows.

At a church not so long ago I was able to move them onto OpenOffice.org to replace Microsoft Office that was available on just one PC. Now they have it installed on several PCs.

A mixture of Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and Mozilla Suite are installed at work as standard.

Quote:

How do you convert people to OS (if convert is the right word)? I've installed FireFox on every PC of ever person who would let me, but that's probably only about 10 computers. Any success stories?

I don't think that we necessarily will have to 'convert' everyone to Linux. In a realistic world Windows has its place, and I am sure that there are things that Windows does very well and Linux does not as well and vice versa.

One of the joys of Open Source is the choice that it gives you. Considering that Windows is shipped with almost every desktop PC I think we should be encouraging application choice on the Windows platform, as well as platform choice.

I'm looking forward to Evolution being available on Windows - perhaps that may encourage more workers to use Evolution instead of Outlook. I can only hope that email servers such as Exchange and Oracle Collaboration Server carry on allowing access.

Feel free to flame me if necessary, but that is my opinion.

AndyH

Re: Porting to Windows

andychannelle — Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:44 pm

Author: andychannelle

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:44 pm

It's quite interesting that there is a possibility that the first real competition for something like Outlook on Windows is going to come from Novell's Evolution (currently being ported by Tor Lillqvist, the man behind GIMP for Windows) rather than another native-Windows developer. I've also seen screenshots of Beagle running on Windows (it's a mono app after all) which potentially covers the same ground as Microsoft's Longhorn search thing and also Spotlight on OS-X.

How do you convert people to OS (if convert is the right word)? I've installed FireFox on every PC of ever person who would let me, but that's probably only about 10 computers. Any success stories?

AndyC

Re: Porting to Windows

Andy — Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:29 pm

Author: Andy

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:29 pm

That's an interesting one.

I've long held the view that if I can get a user to use OpenOffice.org for Windows then I am half way there to converting them to open source.

However, porting KDE to Windows would be a bit like porting the Mac OS X Aqua interface to Windows - utterly pointless! At the moment the default desktop for a lot of people is still either Win9X/ME/2000 or XP. Why change that un-necessarily? There wouldn't be a lot of incentive for people to switch to a KDE based desktop over a 'classic' Windows desktop.

As for software such as WindowBlinds - I've never really had much to say about window modding software for Windows - I really don't see the point in dressing mutton as lamb. After all, underneath any dressing is MIcrosoft technology which is still unstable and prone to malware.

Any, just my tuppence.

AndyH

Re: Porting to Windows

jjmac — Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:11 pm

Author: jjmac

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:11 pm

How does that impat on the existing "openess" of the code base. Will there be secret kde libraries as a result now. I always thought kde's config files seemed to have a certain MS feel about the, but then, i am a bit of a cynic. Was this an idea of Troll Techs all along. Windows isn't intending to do the right thing and open up by any chance(silly-question.png), or are they going to expect all the compiance to come from the kde end. Do they deserve kde.

jm.

Re: Porting to Windows

fingers99 — Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:57 pm

Author: fingers99

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:57 pm

I can't see any problems with it: after all, it's simply a better Desktop than the Windows shell. Once you've used a Open Source application as your desktop, using an Open Source OS can't be far away