Wine?

[Russ Foster]

> Subject: Wine?

> After reading all the list mail on Unity and seeing several people have
> been using nothing but Linux I have to ask about resolving an issue
> that has prevented me from going to Linux full time.

> I have a small business I run out of my home (Custom built fishing
> rods). I use Quickbooks pro 2011 to run my business. I use Quicken
> Premier 2010 for my home finances. I also use Adobe premier for video
> editing and Sony Soundforge for audio editing. 

> Any suggestions would be appreciated on how to get these apps to run
> without blowing up on Linux would be greatly appreciated.

I hate to say something blasphemous on the Ubuntu list but it sounds like
maybe you should reconsider.

You have four mission-critical applications--finance x2, video editing, and
sound editing--what do you expect to gain by running 4 native Windows
applications on a non-native operating system?

If you have stability issues now with a bare-metal Windows install and a
native application/operating system cooperation, I not sure moving to a
non-native environment is going to make things better. On the contrary, I'd
put my money it will be worse.

Especially with the video editing which will choke on either Wine or any
virtualization product due to the intensive video I/O.  Regardless of how
powerful your system is, why take the performance hit?

Even running full-virtualization or even para-virtualization is likely to
cause more issues than a native environment.  On the contrary, now you have
to maintain two operating systems.

As much as I fully support a non-windows environment, sometimes the right
tool is the right tool--even if it's Windows.

Having said all that, I have had no problems running Quickbooks Pro 2009
using WINE on my Ubuntu 10.04 on a modest HP laptop.

I use Pinnacle Systems Studio, Audacity, Autostitch, Paint.NET, and Zoner
Photo Studio--all native windows apps, all running on a dedicated Windows
machine (the only one on my network).  

-r

Russ Foster