Linux compatibility layers

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01-07-2005
dsimcha

Linux compatibility layers

Hi,

I am not ready to ditch Windows just yet, mostly because I don't feel like getting rid of something that is working well and took me forever to get working the way I wanted. However, I have noticed that there is lots of good free software available for Linux that has not been ported to Windows.

I am wondering if there is a compatibility layer similar to Wine that allows you to run Linux software on Windows with a reasonably high degree of transparency. I would imagine that compared to Wine this would be fairly easy to implement since one could simply look at the Linux source to figure out what to do instead of reverse-engineering it, unlike the case of Wine.

I have tried CoLinux and virtual machines and I don't like these solutions because they don't allow my Linux stuff to interact with native Windows programs and are very non-transparent. I would really love something that does what Wine does only the other way around.

Thank you.
01-07-2005
sether

may i ask, what specific programs do you have in mind that you want to run on windows? the reason i ask is ive experienced just the opposite - that there are always windows versions of linux programs, but not necessarily vice-versa. i'm sorry for not addressing your question directly, but i'm just curious.

you can find a number of linux emulators by doing a google search of "linux emulator" though. i got a few interesting results, but i'm not sure any of them are as good as wine.
01-07-2005
techieMoe

For command-line emulation I use Cygwin. I've heard you can also emulate an X Windows environment but I've never used it myself.
01-07-2005
sether

Quote:

Originally Posted by techieMoe

For command-line emulation I use Cygwin. I've heard you can also emulate an X Windows environment but I've never used it myself.

the program you'd use to emulate an X Windows environment is called WinaXe: http://www.winaxe.com/
01-07-2005
adrenaline

Quote:

Originally Posted by sether

Quote:

Originally Posted by techieMoe

For command-line emulation I use Cygwin. I've heard you can also emulate an X Windows environment but I've never used it myself.

the program you'd use to emulate an X Windows environment is called WinaXe: http://www.winaxe.com/

I have successfully got windowmaker to work in cygwin it is pretty sweet.

Also to answer the thread. VMWare will run a complete linux distro x and all in its own virtual machine. It is pretty slick but it isn't free.

BTW it works both ways you can run linux in a VM or you can run linux with windows in the VM.
01-08-2005
user222

Quote:

Originally Posted by sether

Quote:

Originally Posted by techieMoe

For command-line emulation I use Cygwin. I've heard you can also emulate an X Windows environment but I've never used it myself.

the program you'd use to emulate an X Windows environment is called WinaXe: http://www.winaxe.com/

You can also use the Cygwin/XFree86 server included with Cygwin (not installed by default).