Wine?

[Liam Proven]

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 7:11 PM, Russ Foster <rjf at russfoster.com> wrote:
>> 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?

I concur. If you are not happy with the Linux tools available for your
specific needs, and it sounds like you have evaluated them and you are
not, then stay with the OS that supports the tools you need. You will
not get a good experience (& *certainly* not a *better* experience)
running Windows under Linux, or Linux under Windows. Don't bother with
VMs.

My suggestion would be, keep your Windows machine rigorously up to
date, regularly purge its temp-file directories and so on, run a
CHKDSK once a month on all your drives, and use as many FOSS tools as
possible under Windows. For instance, I do not, under any
circumstances, allow Microsoft apps access to the Internet on my and
my clients' machines if at all possible. No IE, no Outlook or Outlook
Express or Windows Live Mail, no Windows Messenger or MSN Messenger,
no Windows Media Player. All these can readily be replaced with
superior FOSS tools.

(Outlook at a real push if you /need/ Exchange Server, but have good
antivirus & keep it patched.)

Personally, I recommend running /separate/ antivirus and antispyware
tools, from different vendors, and using the Windows Firewall if you
are on a LAN or you have only basic needs. The 3rd party firewalls are
mostly not worth the hassle, to my mind. I find I can protect the PCs
I look after just fine with freeware tools, these days. (In business,
this tends to mean PC Tools or Comodo, both of which have permissive
freeware licences.)

Dual-boot to Linux if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of what
is going on and whether the Linux tools have got up to speed for you
yet.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
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