[PLUG] Crossover office...

[Jason Martin]

On 2/14/07, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
> 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.

Wine *can* expose you to Windows vulnerabilities, for example the WMF
vulnerability from 2005:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Metafile_vulnerability

Notice the part in that article that talks about Wine.  In this case
Wine implemented their own graphics library but followed the WMF
implementation from MS so closely that they ended up being vulnerable
too.  This is even more true when Wine uses a native DLL.

The typical Linux use case involves running as a non-privileged user
(unlike the Windows use case), but there's still a whole heck of a lot
a compromised non-privileged user process can do that you might not
want it to (like delete your files, run an IRC bot, and spam all your
relatives).

Jason