Crossover Office or alternatives? Mac even?

[Kurt Granroth]

eric© wrote:
> Still attempting to make the full switch from Windows to *nix (After
> seeing how Vista has the ability to flat out prevent drivers "known" to
> cause BSODs from installing, I'll support it at work but I'm not running
> it myself).  At the moment, I'm still stuck with the mapping apps like
> Streets & Trips or Street Atlas, and to a lesser degree Quicken.  I can
> switch a lower featured financial program if need be, but I've yet to
> see any native Linux apps even come close to S&T or Street Atlas. 
> 
> I've been Googling for a while, and I'm seeing a couple hits indicating
> that I might be able to run an older version of Street Atlas to some
> degree of success under Crossover.  I downloaded the trial copy, and
> will be playing with it this weekend.  Are there other programs out
> there like Crossover (other than Wine)?  I'm more than willing to pay
> for the software if needed.  I'd rather give some company like
> Codeweavers $500 than to give MS another hundred.  Given that, VMWare
> wouldn't be an option, as I'd technically still have to license
> Windows.  If I'm going to do that, I'd rather just have a dedicated
> mapping laptop. 

No, it's pretty much Crossover or nothing, if you're not willing to pay
the MS tax.  Transgaming has a Wine based alternative but it's heavily
skewed towards games.  Honestly, there are still a handful of Windows
apps that I can't find a good replacement for so I keep a sole Windows
box handy just for them.  I paid for Win XP Pro so I could have RDP
support but Win2000 can be had cheaply these days and works great.

Crossover 6.0 is a huge step up from 5.0, I've heard.  I keep meaning to
see if SplashId and MS Money 2003 work in it.  If so, then my Windows
box could be shut off nearly all of the time.

> I'm also open to the idea of picking up a Mac to do this, not to mention
> I've been kicking around the idea of picking up a Mac anyways just to
> learn the OS.

Ah.. blasphemy on the PLUG List!  Hehe... kidding.  I am a huge Mac fan.
 I definitely recommend getting one (or two or three).  IMO, OS X make
the most sense on a laptop so I'd recommend the MacBook.

OS X and Linux both work well in their intended realms and both have
honored places in my house.  My PowerBook (not going to upgrade to a
MacBook until after Leopard and iLife 7 is released) is indispensable as
a general user-centric computer.  I use it for my standard web browser,
email client, photo manager, and all-around get-non-geek-stuff-done
system.  But while you *can* setup server level or development level
stuff on OS X, it's usually a big pain compared to Linux.  So all of my
servers (apache, mysql, postfix, courier, iscsi, etc) are all running
Linux.  Pretty much any geek-level stuff is so much easier on Linux.
Like running Ethereal/Wireshark to reverse engineer a Brother Scan to
File protocol.  I'm sure there must be *some* way to get it running on
OS X (it installs via fink but refuses to display) but it's not worth
the effort when it's completely effortless under Linux.

So do like I do and have all three OSes scattered throughout and you get
the best of all worlds :-)