I have had decent luck with crossover. It is not free software (but it was free as in beer for a day) I don't actually do much with it as I have been clean from windows so long I actually had to go seek out apps to install in it because I didn't use any windows apps. I was able to run googles new browser via the crossover guys and to have Photoshop on Linux thanks to crossover so the few apps I find useful or the apps i wanna mess with because they are suppose to be the coolest thing since canned beer it seems to work. I am not a gamer in fact the last PC game I played was Duke Nukem and that lasted all of 10 minutes so I cant speak much to that aspect. If you are one of those WOW people I hear that runs in crossover but I couldn't say for sure. James Finstrom Rhino Equipment Corp. http://rhinoequipment.com ~ http://postug.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/rhinoequipment On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Stephen wrote: > Honestly i liked vista, i ran the beta and it was weird but there were > a number of thigns, the weird started to fade away as MS released > backwards compatability patches and software developers wrote their > code to be more compatible. Windows 7 is looking to fix a few of my > bigger complaints of Vista (running slimmer and without as much > overhead). but some of the same weirdness is ricgh back on the block > regarding driver and software compatability. > > I get this, it is a beta, and to stay bleeding edge this is soemthing > im more than willing to deal with. > > I also ran my Desktop that is running windows 7 as a full linux > machine for a couple motnhs as a test to see what i cna and cant get > away with. in the meantime i really liked it as a desktop environment, > learned a great deal about it as a workstation, but also realised i > have certain needs in my job that just cannot be circumvented with > wine/vm. so back to windows i go. > > but at home once i get a new video card im all over it. > > Heck my boss and i talk about the delight of running/administering a > 100% opensource network. firewall to desktop. and we do some real > studies about how much of your personal needs you can replace with > opensource software. and i can get pretty darn close. so can he.. we > just have a few apps we are trying to sort out. > > for me the difficulty comes in i am a gamer... and well most of the > gams i play are windows based... so i either need to get really > creative with wine or dual boot. > > I personally would like to see a fork of the wine project that will > merge the two.. so your wine install ties into an existing windows > install so you can attempt to run applications from a dual booted > environment. but i think thats a digression. > > The big hurt on MS is really that people dont like change, and for a > long time MS didnt change much. win 95 -> 98 -> ME and NT 3.x -> NT4 > -> Win 2k -> win XP didnt chang emuch.. peopel had more or less the > Same UI and admin needs and whatnot available for about13 years now. > and MS is telling them sorry to keep things going you have to change > to this new UI and backend? sorry peopel stayed with windows over > unix/linux not becuase of any great love of MS its their desire to not > change and learn something new. > > thats been the biggest grive about an OS upgrade of anyone i have > talked with... its different they have to relearn things. > > now vista and windows 7 come along... > > thats why MS is laying ppl off. that and the fact nobody can aford to > buy a new OS OEM pricing of windows home basic is about 80 bux not > calculating discounts and then vor vista ultimate its about 200. > windows 7 will be about the same. > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >