__/ [ The Ghost In The Machine ] on Tuesday 28 March 2006 17:59 \__
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote
> on Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:45:40 +0100
> <e08frr$i6$6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> Is Linux-Like Environment for Windows Really Required?
>>
>>
http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=&task=view&id=2221
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Ever tried this query in Google: "Linux-like environment for windows"
>> | with inverted commas? If you have, it gives exactly 13,700 results
>> | (at the time of publishing). Now try the same other way around. Google
>> | "Windows environment for linux" but don?t use the quotes from previous
>> | query. It yields approximately 1,150 results.
>> `----
>
> Needed or not, they're out there. Disclaimer: I've not tried
> any of these.
I only tried Cygwin; a couple of times, in fact. At the time (2000-1), all I
ever did as means of getting work completed was SSH to the Linux clusters
(PuTTY + X Server). Cygwin was part of my attempts to have LyX running on
Windows (back in the days when Klaus' win32 port was emerging and before
Windows was properly supported by the LyX team).
> Microsoft would probably highly prefer one simply buy SFU
> and Shut the [censored] Up (although it's real name is
> 'Services For Unix' but that's what I think when I see
> that acronym!). This environment is a Unix-compatible
> system that runs on top of Windows. According to Oreilly.net
> it's now free:
I recall quite clearly that approximately 6-9 months ago, Microsoft called
for the death knell on 'Services for UNIX'.
>
http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2004/01/microsoft_windows_services_for.html
>
> www.colinux.org has been out there for awhile. I'm not
> entirely sure exactly how it works but basically one can
> use some free disk space on a Windows partition and get
> Linux running. Of course if one has a free *partition* or
> two one might as well just get native Linux running. :-)
To some this would be too big a jump, psychologically-speaking. I think that
the right route would be seeing a demonstration (e.g. friend runs Linux),
then add a Linux partition and over the months/years migrate the data,
whenever time/passion permits.
Ultimately, Windows becomes obsolete as nothing is locked in anymore. Data is
available on both 'sides', OSS programs are installed which can handle it
and usage of OSS software is something that the user becomes increasingly
skilled at. The other route involves installation of OSS on Windows for
familiarity and data conversion (import). The Ubuntu Live CD comes with OOo,
Thunderbird and Firefox.
> www.vmware.com is now free, to a point.
True. It has been about two months since that happened. I saw it in action,
but never tried it for myself. It's rather fascinating to see how well it
works.
> AIUI, the KDE and Gnome teams are working to build their
> systems on top of Windows. I'm frankly not sure what the
> results will look like internally (or if a window manager
> on Windows even makes sense!), but Gtk (Gnome's widget set)
> has gdk underneath so it's got a reasonably good shot at
> being portable.
Someone told me that KDE can be run with Cygwin. I was also warned that it
can be tough to set up.
> Whether any of this makes sense or not to the individual user
> is probably up to that user.
I like the idea of being able to run Windows-only applications while getting
the benefit of a decent desktop environment like KDE. However, I am not sure
it justifies the costs and the risks (network-security).
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder"
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
6:45pm up 20 days 8:30, 8 users, load average: 0.76, 1.12, 0.90
http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine
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