Re: WINE, SoftWindows, and other proprietary software ports

[Jamey Sharp <sharp.one@bigfoot.com>]

Erik Walthinsen wrote:
> 
> > I don't want it if it costs $200. Although it is cheaper than
> > NT it's not cheaper than Win95. -Jeff
> 
> That's fine, it's your decision.  While Windoze98 costs "only" $100, the
> amount of money spent with other required crap is much higher.  When's the
> last time you ran a heavily used machine more than a few months without
> needing some tool that runs you another $100?  If you do, let me know and
> I'll notify the Guinness ppl, they'll want to record that.
> 
> I am reminded of the blisteringly high cost of running Windoze by the
> trials involved in simply upgrading my parent's machine from Netscape 3.04
> to 4.05.  Since Windoze's multi-user "support" isn't good enough, Netscape
> designed their own system, which doesn't do what I need.  To attempt to
> solve that, I am now installing NT, and Netscape is still not cooperating,
> so it may be several more days before I can get things working.  In the
> meantime, I'm downloading 3.04 again.
> 
> I would *GLADLY* buy my parents a copy of it for $200-$300 if it cost that
> much, just to be able to install Linux on the machine and LEAVE IT ALONE
> and let it (and my parents) do actual work.

You could download Communicator 4.05 for Linux. I have that running very
nicely on my Debian 2.0 box here. There's a package for it where you
have to place the Communicator tar/gz in your /tmp directory and then
install the package, and it sticks the files in the right places.

'course, if you've got some Windows apps with no equivalent Linux
version, you'd have a problem. Though in that case, perhaps (just maybe)
a dual-boot system would be good enough.

-Jamey