Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Vallerian on July 28, 2003, 02:37:56 PM
-
Hi everyone !
Im new to this forum, so forgive me if this topic has been discussed before, of if this is a wrong place for asking.
My problem is this: I have a PC at home (AthlonXP, but its not really important) running Windows98, since I have a need for MS Office applications and also some other M$ programs (like MS Project). But, I came to an idea (probably impossible, but still - no harm asking) to buy AmigaONE motherboard, use the existing components I have (graphic card, hard disk, etc), and put SuSe Linux as main OS.
Now, there is still a problem of MS Office and other MS applications that I must have installed. So, is there any possibility to install MS Windows and other MS stuff on Linux ? I have heard of VMWare, could it be the solution to this mess ?
Thanks...
-
Normally you could use a wrapper like Wine or such... but the problem is that the A1 is PPC, and so I doubt it will run x86 apps even under Linux.
-
yes, I know of wine, but it definitely will not work (I now for sure that it's hardware dependent). however, I have checked the vmware homepage and in theory it should work, but I would prefer knowing it for sure before spending a certain amount of EUR on A1 motherboard :-D
-
Welcome to the forums :-)
As Wilse says, Wine wouldn't work. And I don't think VMWare would (doesn't it just "box" part of the processor's time as a virtual processor, so the virtualised processor would need to be the same architecture as the host CPU.
Bochs on the other hand is "just" an emulator - anyone had any luck with it?
---edit---
What do you want the A1 for? The greatest feature is that it'll run OS4 when it's out - I'd hate to think that you would buy it just for Linux ;-) BTW are you sure that native solutions like OpenOffice won't help you?
---edit----
That about VMWare was just my educated guesses - you seem to have researched it (I didn't).
-
I suggest you run Wine on AROS...
Disclaimer--
when we finnish AROS and port Wine to it...
--- :-D
-
Welllll...
The AmigaOne motherboard may accept some stuff and not other parts, for starters, it's finicky with RAM and right now (I think it's N-Vidia isn't giving out the drivers??? someone help me out here) some graphics cards can't be supported. The harddisk should be dandy. Since, however, the AmigaOne is a PPC mobo you can't run Microsoft programs on it without some very serious emulation (I think the best is called Boch's X86 emulator?) However you can use OpenOffice (possibly even StarOffice) on SuSe PPC (I'm assuming they have a PPC version) the most essential Microsoft programs usually have a Linux counterpart (Samba, Gimp, OpenOffice, Mozilla)
-
BTW are you sure that native solutions like OpenOffice won't help you?
hmmm, let's say 99% sure. because I use MS Word and MS Excel at work (and when speaking of MS Excel, I need 100% compatibility - I use spreadsheets with macros and stuff). I also need MS Access, since we use it at work. And, I need MS Project installed too, for same reasons.
Other software (Corel, Photoshop, etc.) I could live without, however, the above mentioned _is_ the imperative.
-
Bochs runs far too slowly to be useful for major apps because it emulates the whole PC (video, sound etc) rather than just the processor.
Wine/VMware won't work because they don't emulate a x86, just provide compatible APIs or separated boxes for other OSs to run in.
OpenOfiice and KOffice both work fine on the A1 under Linux. The only bit of MSOffice you might miss is Access. You can convert the databases to run under MySQL etc, but there aren't any mature GUI frontends that will easily replicate any Access reports.
If you already have graphics cards/ram etc and the A1 to hand, then stick them in and see what works. A few updates over the last 3-4 months have improved ram compatibility to a good level.
-
Vallerian wrote:
BTW are you sure that native solutions like OpenOffice won't help you?
hmmm, let's say 99% sure. because I use MS Word and MS Excel at work (and when speaking of MS Excel, I need 100% compatibility - I use spreadsheets with macros and stuff). I also need MS Access, since we use it at work. And, I need MS Project installed too, for same reasons.
Other software (Corel, Photoshop, etc.) I could live without, however, the above mentioned _is_ the imperative.
Keep your PC, and just run AROS when the hunger Pangs kick in...
AROS (http://www.aros.org)
-
If you're going to use Linux, be it on an AOne or another machine, for wordprocessing and/or spreadsheeting, don't muck about with Windows emulation, get OpenOffice.org. It can read and write .doc, .xls files and make .pdf files.
If you're going to insist on MS apps, then you're locked into their specific architecture (x86 + Windows).
-
anarchic_teapot wrote:
If you're going to insist on MS apps, then you're locked into their specific architecture (x86 + Windows).
unfortunately, it's my office (notice the small "o") :-D and my boss who keep on insisting on MS software... as I said, it's not Word and Excel, it's the Access and MS Project that trouble me...
anyway, maybe I'll go and by a whole new A1, or just upgrade my A1200 with a ppc card and mediator and stuff... seems much more easier :-)
-
Since you already have a fast PC, you could easily download the Windows version of Openoffice.org (from, well, Openoffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org)), and see if the import/export is good enough to live with or not.
Keep in mind that Sun has a pay version of StarOffice floating about that's much lighter (and potentially has had more MS-tracking work done on it) than the older free versions that OpenOffice itself is based on. The bloated old codebase was released to the OpenOffice team, while their streamlined? version continued on as a commercial product. Only thing is, *that* might not have a PowerPC port either.
Remember that a decent Office machine costs $300 or less these days; if you're going to declare it a necessary evil, don't let it keep you from doing what you like. With a broadband link, you could VNC from your AmigaOne into the machine at your office, too. (That said, I'm not a big fan of VNC's methodology, but if you're just using it to run Office...)
There's a company out there with a better remote desktop solution that basically handles VNC-like operations over a compressed X11 protocol (and maybe had a 'bridge' for Windows' Remote Desktop Protocol?), which seems to suggest that, at least, window-dragging would remain fast and sharp, even if the images in each would be compressed (their screenshots looked pretty lossless)... unfortunately, I can't remember who they were. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?
-
Ah, found it - I was thinking of NoMachine (http://www.nomachine.com/)'s NX product.
From their "introduction to 'NX' technology, (http://www.nomachine.com/doc_introduction.php) just to explain why I think it sounds nifty...NoMachine has developed exclusive X protocol compression techniques and an integrated set of proxy agents that make it possible to run complete remote desktop sessions, even at full screen, using narrowband Internet connections, at speeds as low as those offered by a 9600 band modem.
[...]
NX accessibility and remote computing capabilities are not limited to Linux desktops and servers. NX encapsulates and translates into X protocol the Remote Desktop Protocol used by Microsoft Windows NT/2000 Terminal Server Edition and Citrix Metaframe, and Remote Frame Buffer, the protocol used by VNC, another Open Source remote computing facility, available numerous different operating systems.
Only question is whether they've got builds for PPC; they already support PSX2 and Zaurus, so some community-directed spam can't hurt. (Looks like the thin/fat client roles play a good part in both Genesi and Eyetech's sales strategies.)
Edit: Ah, here's a rather recursive screenshot (http://www.nomachine.com/img/xp_gnome_kde_redhat_windows_big.gif) showing it acting as a Windows RDP client (actually taken on Windows XP, that's a fullscreen NX session running on Windows, connected to a Linux box, that's running a windowed session connected to *another* Linux box, which is then running a session acting as an RDP client to another Windows box! Looks like they're showing off the lack of quality degradation...) ...
In the meantime, of course, you could try rdesktop (http://www.rdesktop.org), which is Free and probably compiles on PowerPC. Unfortunately, it's not really clear (http://www.ccm.ece.vt.edu/~lscharf/rdp/) how maintained the project is, though people can take nice screenshots with it (http://nerve.nov.net/gallery/screenshots), too.
None of the protocols are perfect, but given enough bandwidth, you'll probably get a clearer, less-artifacted session over RDP (with Windows) or X11 (with X programs) than you would using VNC.
-
hmmm.. there is actually a solution for you, if you want to run ms software on your a1.
run MacOS on your A1 through MOL (MacOnLinux).
And then run VirtualPC from MacOS. VirtualPC is a very good/fast windows emu for macos!
there is a screenshot out there somewhere showing
an amigaone running virtualpc.
dunno about the speed, but macosX feels quite nice
on my amigaone, it outperforms my friends real g3 mac! =)
-
Whats wrong with open office or staroffice? It is m$ office compitable...
Welcome to the forum btw
-
Tomas wrote:
Whats wrong with open office or staroffice? It is m$ office compitable...
Well, if you'd read what the poor guy wrote, it sounds like he's got some formulas and Access tables (and more pity to him, if that's the case - everything I hear about Access is a horror story, though I'm lucky to have never had to personally use it) that would be complex, at least for his skills, to go porting about on a daily basis.
Obviously, seeing how much OpenOffice can handle seamlessly is a good idea; the .XLS import and export may shuffle back and forth fine (how much work does anyone *want* to be doing from home, anyway?) ... If not, the remote access solution sounds fair. An employer shouldn't be able to dictate the purchases you make for yourself (even though they often do, true enough), and your work machine is the tool they've provided you for doing your work -- use it to its fullest, and if they want you to work from home, they should let you take advantage of the tool to do it. If it's a small operation, and you're more concerned about the trouble it'll be to yourself to set up... just remember, Microsoft did this to you to force you to keep buying Office.
That said, again, he could probably be getting by with a 300MHz Celeron (or the equivalent Via chip), so while VirtualPC on MoL on Linux won't be a speed demon, it should get the job done (though you might want a gigabyte of RAM, to handle all that). The difference is that Bochs is fairly unoptimized - it's aimed at providing purely accurate emulation, for developers banging x86 code on all platforms - while VirtualPC probably has a fair few optimizations that work well on the PowerPC but weren't worth including in Bochs.
-
Vallerian wrote:
But, I came to an idea (probably impossible, but still - no harm asking) to buy AmigaONE motherboard, use the existing components I have (graphic card, hard disk, etc), and put SuSe Linux as main OS.
Oh, one final note - if you recycle the case, graphics, and drives, you'll still be left with an Athlon, mainboard and RAM (assuming you're doing the right thing, and buying memory guaranteed to work with the notoriously finicky Mais.) ... A case and power supply today can be had for $40, drives are cheap if you know where to look, and graphics cards grow on trees - especially if you just need 2D output for office applications. An old Matrox G200 would be overkill, in fact, and probably runs $5 on eBay now.
So, while it'd be better to have the power-sipping AmigaOne in a cheap case with a cheap supply, and the finger-burning Athlon in an expensive case with one of those gold-plated 400W monsters, you can worry about swapping things around later. If you decide VNC or rdesktop don't cut it, and you really must have A Windows Machine in the house, you can skid by for a month or two, and assemble all the parts to rebirth your Athlon on the cheap. By then, OS4 may be proving (or not proving) itself as a platform, there'll probably be a new generation of 3D cards on the market, and you'll be able to decide which machine more deserves such upgrades.
Heck, maybe you'll be comfortable enough with Linux to try DragonFly BSD on the Athlon (no, it's not ready for prime-time; I'd give it about a year?), and see what happens when people apply Amiga principles to UNIX. :-D
-
Well, if you'd read what the poor guy wrote, it sounds like he's got some formulas and Access tables
ah sorry, didnt get that.... that would be worse indeed :-(
-
@Vallerian
No need to appologize for having a x86 PC running MS Windows98 and MS Office. Some of the rest of us also run x86 PCs and MS software.
My advice ... if you have the money available and enough room for two machines, keep your existing machine to run the MS software and setup the AmigaOne in it's own case to run Linux and AmigaOS.
If you wish, network them together. If you have a broadband internet connection, get an inexpensive router and use both machines on the internet.
---------------
redfox