Best disro to run Windows apps

[danmpem]

I work for a man who wants to switch his secondary computer to Linux, but he doesn't care which distro. He only wants to run Google Sketch-up and Google Earth. What distro would have the least amount of difficulty getting the two programs to run? I know about Linux XP, but I know of no other that comes Windows-ready.

Thanks!

[oz]

Welcome the forums, danmpem!

You can run some Windows apps using WINE, and it should run on just about any Linux distribution that you might choose.

Check the link in my signature for lots of good information on getting started with Linux. You'll also find a couple of quizzes there that might help you to decide on a distribution.

Have fun with Linux...

[sdimhoff]

I know that Google provides Google Earth for linux, and I know for a fact that it is in the portage tree (gentoo). It is probably available via most distribution's package managers. I've never used sketch-up, but it looks like versions 4 and 5 work with wine. It looks like version 6 will work if you follow the instructions on winehq.org.

When it comes to running windows software, the distro you are using usually matters less than what version of wine you have running.

Good Luck

[danmpem]

I've seen pages from Wine's web site around, usually links from other sites. So wine is just an app that allows the user to run Windows programs on his Linux system?

[scrarfussi]

try reactos its new still in beta stage

Frontpage - ReactOS Website

[sdimhoff]

Yes, wine is a program/environment in which you can install and run windows programs. There are other options besides wine as well as scrarfussi pointed out. There is also cedega, which is sort of wine with support from codeweavers. Wine is sort of the standard that these others are held to simply because the user base is large and it is a long standing project.

[danmpem]

I wonder how the makers of ReactOS were able to base it on NT architecture and still keep an open source license.