[Linux-disciples] installing windows programs on linux

[Adam Kessel]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 03:18:05PM -0800, Karl Sokol wrote:
> i currently have a dual boot system (win/suse).  using
> wine, i can run certain programs without linux
> equivalents (e.g. bibleworks) from the win side of the
> partition.  my question is, is there some way to
> install these windows programs directly onto the linux
> side of things?  there are no binary files.  i would
> love to be able to delete the dark side of my
> partitions. 

I think you're asking several related questions at once.

(1) Are there Windows programs you need to run that don't work under
WINE?  It sounds like the answer to this is *no*.  If the answer is
*yes*, you can likely get them to work under WINE by copying Windows DLL
files into your WINE installation.  With a complete set of Windows DLLs
running under WINE, I understand that it is quite possible to run almost
everything pretty well.  Even without Windows DLLs, as I'm sure you've
discovered, you can run many Windows programs all right.

(2) Are there free equivalents of what you currently are running under
Windows?  You didn't actually ask this question, but I thought it would
be a good one.  I assume you've looked at GnomeSword
(http://gnomesword.sourceforge.net) and the Bible for Linux Project
(http://bible.theverge.com), and related packages/projects?  These days,
even in very specialized fields, it's hard to find any proprietary
software without a free "equivalent," although sometimes "equivalent"
means that it's not as full featured or fully developed.

(3) Okay, now getting to the questions you problem did mean to ask.
Assuming you have the CD or original installation files of the programs
you need, you should be able to install them with WINE, rather than
installing them with Windows.  I.e., a Windows installer should run just
as well under WINE as any other Windows programs.  This will install the
program into your WINE program hierarchy; in Debian, this is
~/.wine/fake_windows/Program Files/...etc... So this is something you
could do with no Windows partition at all.

(4) Do you want to access your linux partition from Windows so you can
install it there as, e.g., drive D:?  You can't mount an ext2/ext3
partition from Windows (that I'm aware--there probably are utilities that
would let you do it), but you could create a VFAT partition that appears
as drive in Windows and is mounted under a directory in Linux.  Or even
an NTFS partition, although writing to NTFS partitions is still quite
experimental in Linux (there is some type of clever tool that uses the
Windows DLLs to write to the NTFS partition, called captive
<http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/>).  If you're using
Windows NT/2000/XP, the default partition type is NTFS, although you can
do VFAT just as easily.

(5) You could just do your installation with Windows onto the Windows
drive, and then boot into linux, mount the drive, and copy the program
files, etc., over to your ext2/ext3 linux partition, then kill the
Windows partition.  There is no magic about running the programs from the
Windows partition vs. the Linux partition.  WINE doesn't care.

Now, it's possible that there is something I don't know about SuSE--if
you purchased it, I think it comes with Crossover Office, and perhaps
deals differently with Windows programs.  I've never used Crossover
Office and only used SuSE a tiny bit, so maybe there are complications I
don't know about (arising from SuSE trying to make it easier for you to
run Windows Apps).

But that's my first pass.  Maybe you can narrow down your question if
this isn't fully responsive.
-- 
Adam Kessel
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org