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Posts tagged with "microsoft"

IE and Linux

Wednesday, 25. October 2006, 19:52:29

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Hello!

Doing web development under Linux requires to no longer use Internet Explorer. For web site testing the only available solutions are dual-boot, virtualization or WINE.

I have the feeling that picking to use dual-boot is like not actually switching to Linux. That's because you'd code everything in Windows, test everything in Windows, with all Windows browser: IE, Firefox and Opera. Not a true switch. You can't code everything in Linux then do a quick boot in Windows to see if the cool CSS layout renders properly in IE 6. You still need to have all your web development tools (your IDE, your FTP/SSH client, etc) in Windows.

Virtualization is a nicer solution: you can do all coding and testing in Linux. Once you've booted Windows in VMWare Server (insert your favourite virtualization software) you can simply load the page and refresh it when you need to test something. Quite nice. I use this for "complex web applications" and for final testing of any web site. You only need a clean install of Windows.

For occasional and quick web development testing I mostly like WINE. Yes, installing IE 6 in WINE is (very) annoying.

However, there's IEs4Linux - a script which automatically installs IE 6, IE 5.5 and IE 5. It's very easy to use and quick to install.

Also, very recently there's beta support for IE 7 installation - which is quite awesome.

Why is this better than virtualization *and* dual-boot? You can have a context menu item in Opera which opens your page in IE 6 and IE 7 in just a few seconds after clicking (I do, hehe). Nothing to boot, and it's faster than virtualization.

I even use WINE with Opera 9 + Voice enabled for web development. Installing Opera 9 in WINE is only a matter of running the installer in WINE :smile: - easy.

Bottom line is: are you a web developer who would like to switch to Linux but believes he can no longer test his web sites with IE? The complete answer is: you can test your sites in IE, quick and easy. There's no long answer. You do not have to drop compatibility with IE. You can make the switch™ :smile:.

4 comments

Linux şi open-source

Thursday, 22. June 2006, 10:51:42

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This is the Linux and open-source article I previously wrote in english. Translated to romanian, on request.

Când eşti un utilizator al Windowsului, fiecare din prietenii tăi care folosesc Linux îţi sugerează să treci la Linux: "nu mai fi sclavul Microsoftului" sau alte formule.

Alegerea unei distribuţii de Linux este un pas greu de sine stătător. Acest pas este greu chiar şi pentru "experţii" Windows.

După ce în sfârşit ai ales şi instalat distribuţia, urmează o etapă pe care eu o consider amuzantă: prietenii tăi care folosesc o altă distribuţie încep să glumească pe seama alegerii făcute. Asta se întâmplă indiferent dacă ai avut sau nu cunoştinţele necesare să alegi exact distribuţia de care ai nevoie (deobicei nu ai). Dacă întâmpini probleme şi le ceri ajutor răspunsurile pot fi de genul "ha, asta nu păţeşti cu distribuţia X".

După ce eu mi-am instalat Ubuntu, un utilizator de Gentoo mi-a spus în glumă "ah, Ubuntu e aproape Linux, dar bine că ai trecut pe Linux". Asta e încurajare! Alt utilizator de Fedora Core 4 mi-a spus foarte simplu "Ubuntu merge prea bine, e prea grafic". Interesant, deoarece lui nu-i place că unele distribuţii Linux ajung la un nivel la care utilizatorul poate să treacă direct la Linux, fără să întâmpine problemele foarte cunoscute: linia de comandă şi editarea manuală a fişierelor de configurare. El a spus acest lucru deoarece a văzut că am avut Samba funcţionând perfect şi v4l (Video for Linux) era deja funcţional (el a avut aceste două probleme pe FC 4). Cauza acestor probleme poate fi dată de faptul că FC este o distribuţie ce introduce pachete de ultimă oră, fără foarte multă testare.

Trebuie specificat că nu doresc să las impresia că distribuţia Ubuntu este cea mai bună. Nici pe departe. Am întâmpinat şi eu tot felul de "bucurii", dar multe din ele sunt foarte uşor de rezolvat.

Contrar părerilor unora, eu nu am trecut la Linux doar pentru a fi în pas cu moda (aş fi putut face acest lucru ani în urmă). Trecerea mea la Linux a fost datorată necesităţilor în domeniul programării web: am nevoie să experimentez cu tehnologii mai noi care în mod "natural" sunt făcute pentru Linux.

Nereuşita Linuxului de a creşte în popularitate pe desktopuri este cauzată de lipsa acordului între membrii comunităţilor de programatori Linux şi utilizatorii Linux, diversitatea fiind foarte mare. Comunitatea Linux este probabil prea diversă prin definiţia open-source-ului. Foarte bine (din punctul meu de vedere) este că acum se mobilizează tot mai multe grupuri de utilizatori şi dezvoltatori pentru a face Linuxul pentru desktopuri mai bun şi mai uşor pentru începători.

După ce te obişnuieşti cu Linux, poţi ajunge să-ţi chiar place puterea oferită de scripturile Perl/Python sau orice altceva din consolă. Acestea-ţi oferă într-adevăr libertatea de care ai nevoie după ce foloseşti mult timp abordarea WIMP pentru a interacţiona cu calculatorul. Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing device (fereastră, iconiţă, meniu, dispozitiv de indicare) sunt metaforele cele mai bine cunoscute în interfeţele actuale ale programelor de calculator (pe Windows, Mac OS X, Gnome şi KDE). Pe Windows aceste capabilităţi lipsesc. Distribuţiile de Linux destinate utilizatorilori începători nu dezactivează accesul la consolă, ci doar adaugă capabilităţile necesare în modul grafic. Asta este foarte bine, deoarece după un timp ţi se permite să experimentezi, să înveţi şi altceva.

Nu ar trebui să existe "războiul distribuţiilor" Linux. Fiecare distribuţie este bună în felul ei. Trebuie să o foloseşti cea care-ţi place, cea care-i pe gustul tău. Nu vei ştii care-i până nu le încerci pe fiecare. Când ai găsit una care-ţi place, nu o mai schimba.

În legătură cu diferenţele între distribuţii: Claudio Santambrogio a punctat foarte bine spunând că Ubuntu este doar o simplă distribuţie, nefiind specială, şi mi-a dat o legătură spre un articol scris de el despre laptopul de $100, din care citez:

Pentru un începător Linux este confuz să înveţe că există mai multe aplicaţii care fac acelaşi lucru. Răspunsul la cea mai evidentă întrebare («care program să-l folosesc?») este de multe ori, îndrâznesc să spun, o problemă cvasi-religioasă decât ceva raţional ce poate fi înţeles de începători.



Exact aceeaşi problemă este reflectată şi în alegerea unei distribuţii Linux.

Am instalat KDE pe Ubuntu doar să-l încerc. Acum am mii de pachete care nu le folosesc niciodată şi nici nu ştiu cu ce se ocupă toate. Am vreo 10 vizualizatoare de imagini, câteva navigatoare web, managere de fişiere, managere de pachete, playere video/audio, joculeţe, şi multe altele.

În general, distribuţiile foarte cunoscute (Fedora Core, Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, etc) sunt şi foarte bune, chiar mai bune decât Windows. Asta se datorează stabilităţi, a vitezei şi a programelor disponibile. Cea mai serioasă problemă este că programe importante pentru Windows (gen Photoshop sau Flash) nu există pentru Linux şi nici multe drivere pentru imprimante, scannere şi alte accesorii la calculator. Parcă nu ar fi de ajuns, librăriile necesare pentru vizionarea filmelor şi ascultarea muzicii nu sunt permise în distribuţii Linux open-source (este ilegală integrarea acestora). Pentru un simplu utilizator asta este ceva foarte neplăcut, făcându-l să refuze Linuxul şi să nu mai vadă părţile bune.

Din unele puncte de vedere KDE şi Gnome sunt mai bune decât Windows. Ceea ce afectează KDE-ul este incorecta organizare a meniurilor, a interfeţei din fiecare pachet ce îl are. Gnome urmează standarde mai stricte şi din acest motiv îl folosesc.

Proiectele open-source sunt exemple extraodinare de lucru voluntar şi de organizare, fiind produse realizate de programatori începători pasionaţi şi de experţi angajaţi la diferite firme.

Trei dintre cele mai populare proiecte open-source (OpenOffice, Firefox şi Wikipedia), au tot felul de "probleme". Nu trece o săptămână să nu apară un articol negativ despre Wikipedia în care se arată proasta calitate a unor articole. Cu toate că exemplele oferite în aceste articole "bine intenţionate" sunt reale, nu se poate spune că Wikipedia este un proiect nereuşit. Wikipedia este, în general, o sursă bună de informare. Însă nu trebuie să crezi tot ce citeşti pe orice site. Avantajul pe Wikipedia este că ştii înainte că informaţiile ce le citeşti sunt probabil greşite. Dacă e ceva important întotdeauna trebuie verificat. La fel trebuie făcut şi cu orice alt site. Oricine doreşte să se documenteze la modul serios despre ceva nu trebuie să-şi bazeze cunoaşterea pe un singur site.

OpenOffice este un pachet foarte mare care probabil are scopul să ajungă la fel de greoi ca Microsoft Office. La ora actuală este bun şi-l folosesc, dar ar trebui să fie mai rapid, mai bun şi mai mic. Personal nu sunt prea mulţumit de el, deşi îl recomand în locul lui Microsoft Office.

Firefox este un produs realizat într-un mod inteligent. Corporaţia Mozilla este mult mai bine organizată şi se menţine pe o linie dreaptă. Nu e bine că Gecko (motorul din Firefox) introduce tehnologii proprietare, care nu sunt bine departajate de celelalte. Mă refer la adăugarea de proprietăţi noi în DOM care sunt specifice Gecko. Aceeaşi metodă este folosită de Microsoft, în Internet Explorer. Probabil cei de la Mozilla vor să obţină un Firefox similar cu Internet Explorer-ul actual (nu numai să domine piaţa navigatoarelor). Să sperăm că asta nu se va întâmpla şi că Gecko nu va rămâne în urmă la suportul standardelor web.

Pachetele Linux nu ar trebui să încerce să copieze programe Windows. Acum este nevoie de abordări diferite, de îmbunătăţiri pe desktop care să conecteze calculatorul la web (noua tendinţă). Mulţi ar trece la Linux dacă ar oferi ceva cu mult mai bun, uşor de utilizat, uşor de învăţat. La ora actuală pe Linux găseşti aproximativ aceleaşi lucruri, dar unele nu sunt la fel de bune. De ce să treci? Doar pentru a fi altfel? Există acele lucruri care chiar lipsesc pe Windows, gen opţiuni pentru customizare, stabilitate, viteză, control mai bun asupra sistemului, şi bineînţeles manager de pachete/programe, dar nimic nu sare în ochi.

Nu e necesară revoluţia, deoarece asta sperie un utilizator fiind vorba de schimbări prea mari. E vorba doar de evoluţie.

Foarte interesant e dacă va fi cândva o distribuţie Linux care încearcă să fie "mama" tuturor. Una care poate fi recomandată începătorilor de către toţi utilizatorii actuali Linux (indiferent de experienţă). O singură distribuţie care să aibă baza de date de pachete întotdeauna cu ultima versiune, unde găseşti aproape orice doreşti, cu drivere, cu instalare semi-automată de librării pentru ascultarea muzicii şi vizionarea filmelor, etc. Această distribuţie trebuie să fie stabilă dar nici veche precum Debian Stable.

O asemenea distribuţie, cu interoperabilitate între KDE şi Gnome, cu WINE preconfigurat foarte bine, ar aduce mulţi utilizatori pe Linux. WINE este un pachet ce poate rula aplicaţii Windows pe Linux la o viteză aproape nativă, dacă-l ştii configura. Acesta poate fi bine integrat în sistem. Nu trebuie uitat că este necesar să poţi să rulezi programele Windows, pentru că multe nu sunt disponibile pe Linux, sau la multe nu se doreşte renunţarea (de exemplu, a plătit mult pentru Adobe Photoshop).

Discuţiile generale despre Linux ar trebui să fie despre Distribuţia Distribuţiilor.

2 comments

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, the Web and Windows

Friday, 24. March 2006, 20:53:50

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Internet Explorer 7. What is this in essence? Is it an Opera and Firefox killer? Microsoft would like us to believe the latter, but I don't, even if I wanted to believe they'll bring IE to a decent level.

Almost all the CSS-based layouts look almost the same in IE 7 beta 2 as in IE 6. No big difference. I still can't drop *any* of those hacks I have in my layouts. I know they fixed *some* bugs, I know some pages render perfectly, or even better, but it's not enough. Why urge developers to drop the hacks when they are still needed?

The Internet has become the central part of computing. To me, the computer is almost useless without the Internet. When I boot I also start my favourite browser. I generally don't close it unless it crashes (which doesn't happen more than once a month or so), or I upgrade it :smile:.

The web and communication capabilities of the Internet are invaluable. Microsoft seems to get the trend, since there was some buzz around Windows Live and other Microsoft Fluffy products.

Having that in mind: why does IE 7 suck? Is it on purpose? Is it because they don't have the time to make it much better? Take your pick. I'd go for the latter option, since ... Microsoft initially didn't plan to have any updates for Internet Explorer, except updates bundled together with Windows. A huge mistake that even Bill regrets.

One thing's for sure (IMHO): if they would like a much better browser (comparable to Opera and/or Firefox) they do have to start by asking the cleaning lady to clean their hard drives where they've stored the current IE engine. They should do this without blinking and without looking back. Look at what Netscape got after they did that: Firefox :smile:. Yes, I know, that was very stupid what Netscape Corp. did: rewriting code is a big mistake. Nonetheless ... they now have a much better product (erm, Mozilla Corp. does :smile: ).

Five years since IE 6, Microsoft should have had the time to do what Netscape did. But, if they did't want to screw-up like Netscape did, they could have taken on the daunting task of improving the rendering engine, every minute, every second, every night and day, sundays and saturdays too.

They didn't do so. They actually started working on IE 7 last summer or so. That's because if they would've worked on improving IE since 2001, then ... IE 7 would simply be much better than Opera and Firefox combined. Microsoft has the resources to do that, they did it with IE 4, 5 and even 6. At that time, IE was really better than Netscape 4. Microsoft really had a better product. It was even better than the Gecko engine which was in its infancy at the end of 90's and the beginning of 2000. Opera was better only as a browser (features-wise) and better at CSS rendering, but it was not coping with the tag-soup affecting the majority of web pages (hence it didn't gain much popularity).

Once all the vaporware, buzz and fuzz surrounding the release of this cutting-edge browser (IE 7), users who switched back from Opera/Firefox (IMHO quite many) will start missing the features they've got used to in the alternative browser, and probably most of them will feel disappointed by IE (after the "wow" factor dries). Plus, they'll continue seeing "too cool for IE" and similar "campaigns".

The main point of this post is actually to propose a new way of looking at Microsoft failing to deliver a good browser. It's not just on purpose (because things have changed since then and Microsoft seems to realize the importance of the Internet and the Web). It's also about the possiblity of MS losing the entire market share dominance in respect to operating systems. Will this ever happen? Yes, no doubt. The only question is "when?".

Losing the web browsers market share dominance is not that hard as some think so. It's not impossible. Lets take the example of MP3 players: Winamp versus Windows Media Player. Winamp is not integrated into Windows, but WMP is. Guess which one dominates? Everybody I know uses Winamp (including myself, actually I use Ubuntu now, but the point is I used Winamp with Windows). WMP is simply not good enough: it's slower and it's a resource hog compared to Winamp. Yes, I've tried WMP and yes, it has some nice features, but that's all.

The same can happen in the browsers world. I know it's very hard, but not impossible (nothing is impossible :smile: ). If browsers like Opera and Firefox start providing extremely advanced new features and capabilities that will render IE simply obsolete, out-dated, developers and corporations might actually make Opera/Firefox-only web applications (unless MS pays them enough not to do so). Users will switch, because the alternatives are better. Microsoft can't pay all companies, all developers to make IE-only sites because it cannot afford to so and it's not something anybody can do (not even Bill Gates).

Firefox is already being installed on new computers by geeks for friends and families who don't know much about computing. I also install Opera browser on all computers I have to setup and configure, I even try to remove IE shortcuts, so the user can't start it by mistake. This is the same approach used with Winamp. It's just standard procedure: stop useless services, install Opera and Winamp.

That's the first step to losing the operating systems market dominance. Why? Once users realize the benefits of alternatives, the fact alternatives are better, they are more and more interested in alternative operating systems too. That's what happend to me as well.

Browsers are probably even more important than any piece of software on any OS. If you no longer use IE, you can already make the switch easier. Many web applications also make it easier to make the switch. Does Jane use Gmail? No problem, that one works under GNU/Linux too. Does she use Firefox, Thunderbird or Opera? All function under Linux better and faster.

A good move by Microsoft would be to release IE 7 ASAP, but make it stable and with enough "wow" factor for gullible users. Then, in one year develop IE 8, which has the "wow" factor for developers too.

I don't ignore the improvements in IE 7. Quite good ones, except the interface which is worse than what IE 6 looks like. IE 6 actually has an acceptable interface.

If anything's going to be "blamed" for the fall of Windows market dominace, that's the Web. It's not Google, and no other startup nor corporation, because they'll all make use of the Internet and the Web.

P.S. Comments are very welcome and I am actually interested in your personal opinions regarding matters expressed in this post.

4 comments

Kudos to Microsoft

Wednesday, 15. February 2006, 16:31:16

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Haha :smile:. Lol. You guys must be wondering what could they have done so I say "kudos to Microsoft" :smile:. Or did I switch back to IE?

Lol.

No. I haven't switched back to IE, and I will not do so any time soon.

I just wanna say Kudos to Microsoft for making the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar. Yeah, it's very useful. Actually, as I am writing this I am using it, because I am working on a web application for IE :smile: - yeah, isn't that sad? Anyways, clients still want IE-only sites.

Congrats and thanks to Microsoft for easing the pain with the dev toolbar. Quite a good one, a bit underdeveloped in some areas (compared to Firefox DOM Inspector).

Have fun and ... switch to Opera :smile:!

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Linux and open-source

Sunday, 5. February 2006, 19:47:00

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This post is about what I think in general about Linux (not strictly about Ubuntu) and open-source.

When you are a Windows user you are bothered by friends who use Linux, each of them suggesting you to switch to Linux: "stop being a Microsoft slave" or whatever.

Picking a distro is a "daunting" task for a Linux newbie, even if he's an expert or "expert" in the Windows world.

When you finally decide upon which distro to install, and you install it, the funny part comes: your friends who are using a different distro mock you for picking another one, no matter how experienced you are. If you need help when you run into a problem, answers can be along the line "ha, that doesn't happen in my distribution!".

After I got Ubuntu, one Gentoo guy said to me "ah, Ubuntu, uhm that's almost Linux, nonetheless good you made the switch". That's encouraging! Some guy from Fedora Core 4 simply said: "Ubuntu works too good, it's too graphical". Interesting, since he seems to dislike the fact some Linux distros are reaching a level which allows the user to simply just use Linux, without the problems most Windows fear of: going to CLI, and manually editing configuration files. He said that because he was a bit amazed by the fact I got Samba perfectly working very easily and v4l was already working (he had these two specific problems with FC 4). That's probably because FC is a more of a "cutting-edge" distro than a working/stable distro :smile:.

Worth noting Ubuntu isn't a perfect distro either. I did have some problems with it too. However, many of the solutions were very easy.

Contrary to what some might think... I haven't switched to Linux just to be hip & cool (I could've done so long time ago). I switched because there's a real need ... me being a web developer, also requires experimenting and developing with a lot of technologies - most of all being available only for Linux (or working better and faster on Linux).

The failure of Linux still being a niche desktop OS is caused by the simple fact that the entire community doesn't agree on the purposes, being too diverse. Gladly (from my perspective), groups of users and developers who want an easy-to-use Linux desktop are mobilizing to build very good distros.

Once you get used to Linux, you really like the power of scripts, the power of CLI and whatever. These really give you the kind of freedom you need after spending all day using the WIMP approach for computer interaction. The CLI stuff would be quite a big improvement to Windows, if they'll ever decide to actually make it useful. The graphical Linux distros don't "disable" access to the CLI, they just make it unnecessary for general configuration purposes. That's very good.

There shouldn't be this "distro war". Each distro is good in it's own way. Use the one that suits your taste. If you haven't yet found one, keep on trying. When you find a distro you like, don't change it just for the sake of change.

Regarding the differences between distros: Claudio Santambrogio made a very good point saying Ubuntu is yet another distro and offered me a link to one of his blog posts about the $100 laptop.

It is one of the more confusing points for a Linux beginner to have to learn that there are several applications for one and the same job, and answering the most obvious question ("so - which one should I use?") is often more an issue of, shall I dare saying, quasi-religious belief than anything the new user could grasp rationally.



It's exactly the same problem as picking a distro.

I found myself installing KDE on my Ubuntu just to give it a try. Now I have a gazillion of packages that I never use, nor I know what they do :smile:. I have about 10 image viewers, several web browsers, file managers, package managers, video/audio players, TV applications and what-not.

In general the most popular Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora Core, SUSE, Debian, etc.) are very good, even better than Windows. This is because they are stable, fast, and provide good packages. A big "downer" for a new Linux user are missing hardware support (drivers), missing capabilities for audio/video playback (patents...) and missing Windows-only software (like Photoshop, Flash, etc.). These are problems which are not caused directly by any distro, yet they make new comers forget about the good things in the Linux world.

In some way KDE and Gnome are better desktoper environments than Windows is. The organization of the menus, of the GUI in each package from KDE is problematic. The reason I am using Gnome is it's better organized, following stricter guidelines.

Open source projects are both an amazing example of volunteer work and organization, products built by begginers with passion and experts working for big companies, and an example of diversity.

Three of the best open-source projects (OpenOffice, Firefox and Wikipedia) have varying levels of "problems". Wikipedia is having quite a big share of articles dedicated to show readers the bad quality of some articles from Wikipedia (bad/vandalised articles full of lies). While the examples provided by these well-intended writers from very well-intended news agencies are right, it's still not entirely true. Wikipedia is quite a very good source information. It's affected by the "too open-source" factor. I am not saying Wikipedia is perfect and everything you read there shall be trusted. Yet, the same fact applies to any other site. The good thing on Wikipedia is you know before there might be trouble ahead. Anybody who's serious about documenting him/herself about something won't base all his/her opinions and knowledge on just one site or two. He/she must do some research and make-up his/her own impressions and opinions on the matter.

OpenOffice is a huge package which probably has the purpose of becoming as bloated as Microsoft Office 11. It's currently in a good state, I use it myself, but it should be better.

Firefox is intelligently made. Mozilla Corporation heads seem to be better organized and focused on what they want. It's not good they add proprietary extensions (no, not those extensions). I mean DOM extensions that have no vendor specific prefix like non-standard CSS properties have. There are some DOM stuff in Gecko which are available only on Gecko, yet there's no indication they are proprietary. That's the same problem IE has. Maybe Mozilla Corp. wants Firefox to be the next IE (in every aspect, not just market share domination). Or shall I say the next Netscape 4? From one perspective, this might be very unlikely, because (I hope) Gecko won't fall behind on implementing cutting-edge web standards.

Linux packages shouldn't try to just copy Windows counter-parts. This goes specially to KDE, Gnome and OpenOffice. Microsoft Office 12 might be quite good because it changed the user interface quite a lot (or so they say, we'll have to see when it's released). There's the need of new and better approaches. If desktop environments on Linux would really bring users something amazingly good with a great usability factor, ease-of-use, ease-of-learning, I am sure many users would try Linux and make the switch. Why? Because currently they see on Linux only the same old stuff they got used to on Windows, but worse in some ways (not professional, a bit bloated, lost compatibility with Windows executables, etc). Why really switch to Linux? Just to be hip? What do Linux distros provide users truely amazing the instant they boot the CD? Yes, I know there are many cool stuff (package management, stability, speed, better control over the system, etc), but nothing truely amazing.

I am not talking about something revolutionary, because that's not what users want, even if it might be better. They won't want to learn anything too different. I am only talking about evolution.

I am interested if there will ever be a distro that actually tries to be the "mother" of all of them. One that any Linux user can suggest to any Windows user (be it an expert or a newbie). A single distro supported by all distros, where the repository is always up-to-date, where you can find almost all packages you'll ever need. A distro that offers the almost perfect balance between cutting-edge and stability (this is what Ubuntu comes close to, IMHO).

One such distro, with a very good interoperability between KDE applications and Gnome applications (yes, they should unite their forces), with a very well configured WINE could be a big booster to Linux. WINE is quite good if you have the knowledge of properly configuring it. It can also be seamlessly integrated into the desktop environment. Any Windows user wants to be able to run its own Windows applications for which s/he doesn't have counter-parts (like Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, etc). Sometimes users want to run their Windows applications (like Microsoft Office) just because they like them more or they got used to them, or simply put they paid a truck-load of money for them and ... switching to Linux would make those payments worthless :smile:. WINE is the package for this (quite a good one too).

General talk about Linux should actually be about the distro.

Article updated on 2006-06-22, making it similar to the newly published Romanian translation.

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