Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 10:03:28 10/23/03
Go up one level in this thread
On October 23, 2003 at 00:29:48, Harald Faber wrote:
>On October 22, 2003 at 23:33:52, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On October 22, 2003 at 16:47:22, Uri Blass wrote:
>>
>>>On October 22, 2003 at 16:28:33, Matthew Hull wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 22, 2003 at 14:16:15, Fernando Villegas wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>...because then I have some assurance I will get some even strongers engines in
>>>>>the future. Why should this guy keep giving us gold for nothing?
>>>>>We are talking, probably, of around 30 bucks. Not the big deal. Sure the guys
>>>>>crying here expend lot more sipping beer just one saturday night.
>>>>>Fernando
>>>>
>>>>I personally cannot see that $30 will get you better answers, or better games
>>>>than fine engines like crafty, especially considering that nobody around here is
>>>>a even an IM.
>>>
>>>Totally irrelevant.
>>>
>>>By the same logic you can say that you do not see a reason to buy faster cars
>>>when nobody here has chances to run even only faster than the old cars.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>It's a bit like paying $200 bucks for Windows when Linux can be had for $5.
>>>
>>>Linux does not give the same things.
>>>
>>>People complain that they cannot run most of the chess software on Linux and
>>>chess software is not the only problem.
>>>
>>>Maybe if some good programmer can write a program that translate every source
>>>code for programs that run under windows to equivalent source code that run
>>>under linux things may be different.
>>
>>
>>
>>There is no need for this.
>>
>>I can run the commercial Windows version of Chess Tiger on my Linux notebook,
>>together with 99% of Windows software.
>>
>>There are several products that allow you to do that:
>>* Win4lin (the one I am using)
>>* VMWare
>>* Wine (free)
>>* Xen (free; not ready at this time, but promising)
>>
>>These products are good enough for me, until I get rid of all Windows software
>>(almost done).
>>
>>The next step is to write code that is portable between Windows and Linux, and
>>I'm working on this also for the softwares I have developped. It is not that
>>difficult and testing your code under two different OSes will make it rock
>>solid.
>>
>> Christophe
>
>
>I cannot see the sense in using Linux when you run a windows emulator and use
>(original) windows programs. IMO it would make sense if there were only few
>windows programs you use, but when it is more than 50% original Windows software
>you use, the Linux usage indeed makes - for me - no sense.
I agree with you.
But most of the software I am using now is Linux software.
I use Linux software provided directly on the Red Hat 9 CDs for most of my work:
* Internet navigation / email / FTP / web pages composing (Mozilla)
* Software developpement (Kdevelop: compiler + graphical IDE)
* CD burning / copying
* Music playing / recording / ripping / encoding
* Video playing (XINE: from DVD to Windows Media clips)
* Palm synchronization (jpilot)
* Backup (my own home baked backup software)
* Word processing / speadsheet / presentations (reads/writes MS Office files)
* Image editing (The Gimp)
* Digital camera import (gtKam)
* and much more...
All of this is done in a computing environment including a DELL notepad (X400)
and external hard disks/DVD/CD burners connected by USB1, USB2 and FireWire.
Everything works fine. I can't remember the last time my system crashed
(actually I think it has never crashed since I'm using Red Hat).
But naturally from time to time I have to run a Windows program. When I need to,
I do not have to reboot my computer. Just one click and Win4lin starts a copy of
Win98SE in 10 seconds. I'm using it to:
* compile the Windows DLL of Chess Tiger (with Microsoft Visual Studio)
* compile the PalmOS version of Chess Tiger
* sometimes I use it to search my old email archives that are still stored in
Outlook Express format
* sometimes I use it to view my website just to make sure it looks OK under IE
This copy of Win98SE runs on the Linux desktop, so I can copy/paste from Windows
to Linux and back. Linux and Windows are using the same file system so one has
access to the other's files.
Windows programs run at their native speeds.
I don't think it is justified to use Windows as your main OS when you almost
don't use Windows programs.
As there exist very good free replacements for the most used Windows programs, I
would even say that for many people it is not justified to have Windows as their
main OS.
But these people are not aware of it, that's the problem.
Christophe
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