[PLUG] Crossover office...

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Wed Feb 14 17:42:37 UTC 2007


On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:37:25 -0800
plug_0 at robinson-west.com dijo:

> The idea that you have to run the separate applications in separate
> containers has me a little concerned.  After all, Excel and Word
> probably need to interoperate to work correctly.

I have been using Crossover Office Pro 5.something for several months
now on Ubuntu Dapper (now Edgy) amd64. The reason I paid the price for
Crossover Office instead of just using Wine is that installing Wine on
64-bit Linux is a PITA -- you just about have to put it in a 32-bit
chroot. 

The way it works is that you create "bottles" to run things in. Each
bottle is a Windows environment, and you can specify whether you want
the bottle to be a Windows 98 environment or a Windows 2000
environment. I installed MS Access 2000 Pro in a Windows 2000 bottle
and it works fine. However, I have long used OpenOffice, even on my
Windows desktop, so I had no desire to install the rest of the Office
2000 suite. As I recall, it not only wanted to install the whole suite
in the same bottle at the same time, but I had a hell of a time getting
it to install *just* Access.

> At $40-$80, this is a lot cheaper than paying for a vmware workstation
> license plus a fully licensed copy of Windows.

I paid $58 educational price for Crossover Office Pro. The non-pro
version is cheaper, but I decided if I'm going to buy a gun to keep
Microsoft at bay, it better be the biggest gun I can buy.

> I think crossover office long term is a better approach than vmware,
> at least until ReactOS or something similar matures.

Actually, I am planning on installing VMware player, perhaps at the
next Clinic. Reasons below.

> Does anyone have experience with this product?  Concerning updates,
> if I buy a copy of crossover office today and it substantially improves,
> can I trade up?  To just run Word and Excel from the Office 2003 suite,
> is crossover office or vmware the best choice?  How about TurboTax
> and Quicken?  How about Corel Wordperfect Suite 8?  I've been looking
> at 2000 Pro on top of say CentOS, but maybe crossover office will work
> and ease migration by removing the need for a copy of Windows.

I have the following installed in Crossover Office: MS Access 2000,
Quickbooks 2000, Internet Explorer 2000, Quicktime (which found Firefox
and Opera, Linux versions, and installed the plugins for them), and
Photoshop 7.0. I also installed CorelDRAW 9.0, but it won't launch.
Installation went without error, but I can't figure out why it won't
launch. And I installed Illustrator 10 and it works fine, except all
the icons in the toolbar do not appear, nor do the little balloon help
thingies. All I get is little black boxes, which makes it pretty hard
to select a tool.

I also installed Adobe Reader 7.0, Windows version. I have Adobe Reader
7.08 Linux version installed, but I cannot get it to print using all
the features of my printers. Sadly, after installing Adobe Reader 7.0
in Crossover Office, I discovered that applications installed in
Crossover Office go through CUPS for printing, so I didn't gain
anything.

There is just one thing left that I need from the Windows world --
Adobe InDesign CS. There are reports of people getting 2.0 to work, but
I have lots of files I need to work on occasionally, and all were
created in CS. (Versions were 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, CS, CS2.) It installed,
but won't launch. And that is the reason I am thinking of going to
VMware Player. Luckily I have a spare Windows XP license that I am not
using.

> Well, another concern I have about crossover office is that I don't
> want it to make my Linux system as vulnerable as Windows to: worms,
> spyware, trojans, and viruses.

I'm far from an expert on such things, but Crossover Office is Wine on
steroids. Basically Codeweavers contributes to the Wine project, and
uses Wine as the base for Crossover Office. What you get with Crossover
Office is easier installation and greater ease of use than Wine. And,
while Codeweavers is a commercial for-profit organization, they do
contribute to the Wine project, so you know at least part of what you
are paying is supporting the Linux community. And since it is Wine, it
is not an installation of Windows, therefore I can't imagine how it
could increase vulnerability to attack. You might, however, contract an
Office macro virus. But it could only affect Office, not Linux. 




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