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Crossover Office 2.0 Released 293

freakyfreak2 writes "Crossover Office 2.0.0 was just released. Finally can get Office XP apps to run. Here's from the announcement. "The changes in this release are as follows: Support was added for Photoshop 7, Access 2000, Word XP, Excel XP, and Powerpoint XP. glibc 2.3 issues were fixed. The setup GUI was dramatically improved. Tablet support for Photoshop was added. File locking and file change notification support were added. Scripts were added so that the technically inclined can have Windows applications open specific file types using Unix applications, for instance, opening PDF fies with the Unix Acrobat Reader. Many other cleanups and bug fixes were made. " Here's the homepage and here's the change log. I'm still waiting on getting Dreamweaver MX to run."
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Crossover Office 2.0 Released

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  • by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:22AM (#5781261) Homepage Journal

    "Crossover Office" sounds like a building full of transvestites.
    • Funny -- I've had similar thoughts about "transgaming". Maybe WINE is optimised for transvestites.


    • Thats funny. Imagine the faces and dresses and office politics and wasted time and sex behind the desk.. Whats Bill Gates doing there? Oh its Microsoft.
    • by fm6 ( 162816 )
      You have a dirty mind. Obviously these guys are Selena fans!
    • Well, transvestites by strict definition simply like wearing clothing of the opposite sex. Individual transvestites come in all sexual orientations, including straight. Transsexuals, by contrast, have minds of the sex that differs from their bodies, though they too come in all sexual orientations. Transvestitism is more of a clothing and behavioral tendency while transexualism is more of a medical condition known as gender dysphoria [zenithfoundation.ca] that can be corrected by altering the body to become the opposite sex.

      Chan
  • "Support"? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Karamchand ( 607798 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:23AM (#5781278)
    Do they have to add support for every single application which should be able to run with Crossover or does it simply mean it's guaranteed these applications will run with crossover?
    • Re:"Support"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by delta407 ( 518868 ) <slashdot@nosPAm.lerfjhax.com> on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:26AM (#5781306) Homepage
      You can install other things under CrossOver Office fairly easily, and a lot of them actually work, but in this case "support" is thorough testing and hacking the WINE codebase to make sure everything works with whatever the application is.

      For instance, Photoshop 7 doesn't run under current versions of WINE, WineX, or CrossOver Office 1.2. I'm happy about this. :-)
    • Re:"Support"? (Score:4, Informative)

      by dmaxwell ( 43234 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:30AM (#5781346)
      Not exactly. In principle, Wine is being used a general tool that can run Windows apps. In practice, there's little things that go wrong and keep say Publisher from running correctly. If Codeweavers has a lot of demand for Publisher to work, then they concentrate on fixes that allow that app to run. Fixes that allow that supported app to run will probably help out some other apps too. Of course, what fixes Publisher may well break something else...hopefully something that isn't too popular.

      Basically, it's your second idea. They're claiming to have fixed up Wine so it will run particular apps. They make no claims about other apps that may or may not run.
    • WINE isn't a 100% compatible of Windows yet in terms of bugs and quirks. Some APIs are probably incomplete too, I guess Codeweavers concentrate on the bugs, quirks and APIs needed to run the "supported" apps.
  • by Entropy_ah ( 19070 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:23AM (#5781282) Homepage Journal
    They are freskmeat.net links but they just redirect to codeweavers actual site.

    <conspiracy>
    OSDN is keeping track of our clicking habits
    </conspiracy>
  • nice, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aggieben ( 620937 ) <aggieben&gmail,com> on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:25AM (#5781297) Homepage Journal
    this is pretty nifty, but i think I'll stick with openoffice. I won't have to pay $100 to upgrade it when the next version is released and it's interoperable with MS Office.
    • I won't have to pay $100 to upgrade it when the next version is released and it's interoperable with MS Office.

      Not to mention paying for MS Office itself. And funding the development of future anti-interoperability features.
    • Everybody claims to interoperable with Office. If you don't worry about losing formatting, I guess everybody is. Include Vim!
  • You know... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by banky ( 9941 ) <greggNO@SPAMneurobashing.com> on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:27AM (#5781317) Homepage Journal
    it has been my understanding that there's a really great program-loader for Windows applications. It has native window management support, vendor device support, and lots more!

    It's called Windows.

    I always thought that WINE was a stopgap, a thing to tide you over until your users were comfortable with OpenOffice or whatever. Now we can run tomorrow's Windows apps today. I can't seem to shake the idea that by running Windows apps on Linux waters down the latter and strengthens the former.

    • Re:You know... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Diluted ( 178517 )
      Some offices need to run Outlook, such as mine, where Exchange is the only way to get your email.. They disabled the web access, so you can't use Evolution's Outlook plugin, and Outlook is the only way in...
    • Good point - would anybody really use this for more than a last-chance compatibility issue with Windows-based Office users???
      • Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Camulus ( 578128 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:46AM (#5781471) Journal
        Think about this. Let's say that in your office you can use pretty much what ever you want on your desktop, except you must run MS Office because for what ever reason they use features in it that OO doesn't support. If it wasn't for Crossover/wine/vm ware etc., then you would be stuck with windows even if 99.9% of the rest of your work would be better suited by another OS. Now imagine being able to run Office on any OS you want. Yes, you are still running MS office, but at least on application suite doesn't decide what OS you must run on your computer. You see wine, crossover office, etc. offer choice. I don't know how many times I have had a friend that has a dual boot machine or uses VM ware because some specific application will not run under linux and they wish they could switch all the way over. This adds choice and I don't see choice ever really being a bad thing.
    • by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:46AM (#5781476)
      waters down the latter and strengthens the former
      The analogy I would use is MacOS X. There is a difference. Office is available in Mac native version, we're not running under WINE. Nonetheless, I think having Office on the Mac has been beneficial to the platform.
      • by banky ( 9941 ) <greggNO@SPAMneurobashing.com> on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:59AM (#5781594) Homepage Journal
        There's a different analogy with OS X.

        Many apps now won't run on OS9, with good reason; either they're hybrid Carbon apps (meaning they use elements of Carbon, but also take advantage of OS X-isms) or Cocoa apps (for which no runtime exists on OS9). However, a quick glance at my Dock (and Fruitmenu) shows way too many apps that still run on OS9 via Carbonlib.

        OS X is coming up on it's 4th major release, and still has plenty of warts, but EVERY TIME a developer keeps their "works on OS X and OS8.6+ w/ Carbonlib" alive, they're forcing Apple and the Apple userbase to deal with a world we generally don't want.

        It's kind of the same with WINE. I used Linux exclusively for years. Some users I knew, they liked a couple Windows apps here and there. Forte's Agent, for example, was a "must have" for many of them. I'd say, Pan is really good, and uses Agent as inpiration. For years, it was never quite right for them; Agent was "done" and did everything they wanted. Rather than help out Pan, they ran WINE to run Agent (and a few other apps).

        Pan lost out on a number of smart, capable users, potentially hindering its growth. Windows, on the other hand, retained users (even if it was via compatibility DLLs and whatnot).

        You might say, "It's only a couple of users; Linux can survive that". Maybe, maybe not. I think that when users cling to applications like that, it hurts Linux. Just like people who start Classic on login hurts adoption of Cocoa.
    • Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @12:06PM (#5781662)
      I always thought that WINE was a stopgap, a thing to tide you over until your users were comfortable with OpenOffice or whatever. Now we can run tomorrow's Windows apps today. I can't seem to shake the idea that by running Windows apps on Linux waters down the latter and strengthens the former.

      You seem to be ignoring the fact that Wine does a lot more than MS Office. What about all that custom business software that there is so much of? No free replacement for them.

      The idea that being able to run more applications than another platform "weakens" it is a position I can't understand. The purpose of an OS is to run applications, not to try and force users to run "pure" apps.

      I also don't really understand why people seem to think that Linux native software is better than Windows software under emulation. If the integration is there, who cares what APIs it uses?

      • From WINE's front page [winehq.com]:
        Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix.

        And it is not emulation -- it is an alternate API implentation. WINE on x86 requires no virtualization or emulation of machine instructions. WINE loads the EXEs directly into RAM and locates the various DLLs so that the machine can properly run the Windoze program. This is not emulation.
    • Re:You know... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fferreres ( 525414 )
      Crossover is best server chilled when MSOffice is a requirement. You know, some people use other OS and have everything there. I can't even access my home dir under windows (can't say the opossite), and that is just sad... not to say that vendor support is shitty sometimes (for example, my IBM Thinkpad i-series 1460 freezes every now and then under Windows 2000 for unknown issues).

      With Linux I was just lucky or something, because it never EVER hangs, and never gives me trouble (witched to gentoo recently b
    • I completely agree. OpenOffice does all the things OfficeXp does, why not just use that? This goes along with what someone else said: "We're wasting developer power and time by chasing Microsoft's tail" (not a direct quote).

      I agree. Look at where Linux is superior: it's where M$ is chasing Unix. Apache, Security, etc.

      As far as desktops go, change is good, variety is good.
    • Re:You know... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by phoneboy ( 11009 ) <dwelch@phoneb o y . c om> on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @02:32PM (#5782991) Homepage
      Three reasons I disagree with thsi:

      1. Less security issues. Provided I set up cxoffice/Wine correctly, any "damage" a rogue Windows app might do can be contained very easily. At worst, it will affect the "Windows" stuff, but it won't affect the Linux data. While I occasionally need Outlook to perform some tasks, I usually use native mail readers, so the risk of "some virus" or "some rogue piece of code" coming in is very minimal.

      2. Apps that will never have a Linux equivelant. One application I currently rely on for work has effectively been discontinued as a result of M&As, so the chance of seeing a Linux equivelant is zero squared. However, with a little coaxing, it runs just beautifully under cxoffice.

      3. Choice. Because I can run my critical business apps under an alternate OS, I am now no longer "locked" into a particular OS choice. I frequently switch between my Linux box and my Win2k box and I can do most of my basic work tasks in either platform.

      -- PhoneBoy
    • I always thought that WINE was a stopgap, a thing to tide you over until your users were comfortable with OpenOffice or whatever. Now we can run tomorrow's Windows apps today. I can't seem to shake the idea that by running Windows apps on Linux waters down the latter...

      I disagree. Wine on Linux strengthens Linux in a number of ways. Quite apart from the fact that there are plenty of users who need or want those Windows applications without rebooting, the mere difficulty of Wine development is a positive
    • Re:You know... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by alienw ( 585907 )
      Your argument is bullshit. For example, I like Linux and I absolutely can't stand Windows. Not because it's made by Microsoft, I just don't like the system -- slow, buggy, crashes a lot, bad UI. This is true to a large extent even for 2K and XP.

      However, I highly dislike the Linux software options. For example, OpenOffice is slow as hell to load (takes damn near two minutes to load while MS Office under wine takes 10 seconds) and eats a lot of memory. It doesn't support many Word features. It is buggy
  • Dreamweaver (Score:5, Funny)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:27AM (#5781324)
    I'm still waiting on getting Dreamweaver MX to run.

    Why? So you can have huge chunks of javacript that sucks embedded into every single page? Or perhaps you want your HTML to look like it was laid out by a deranged monkey?

    TWW

    • Re:Dreamweaver (Score:3, Informative)

      by Azureflare ( 645778 )
      Oh dear, you employ deranged monkeys? No wonder you're so bitter.

      I love Dreamweaver 4. It is the best. I must admit, Dreamweaver MX is not an improvement; the idea was cool. "Hey, look, Homesite and Dreamweaver, all in one!!" I really like Homesite, since it was very much like Bluefish (hey, I use bluefish so...), but when they put it in Dreamweaver, I feel it wasn't as good as it could have been.

      My experiences with dreamweaver have been nice (i.e. Tables...PHEW, so much easier than by hand!), I haven'

    • Well, though I couldn't give a toss about Dreamweaver; FireworksMX and FlashMX are about the last apps that really tie me to Windows. Everything else is available for me in Linux now. Well; aside from a good "video capture from the desktop" tool, and some audio app close to CoolEdit pro 2.0 I guess...
  • RedHat 9 (Score:2, Redundant)

    by RichiP ( 18379 )
    Does anyone know if it runs on RedHat 9 now which uses NPTL?
  • Photoshop you say? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by verch ( 12834 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:33AM (#5781373)
    Hmm. I've long said I can never use linux on my desk at home until I can run Photoshop (and run it well). I'll be interested to see how well this works. Anyone tried yet?

    (and yes, I know about gimp, and yes, I know about OSX and photoshop)
  • by b17bmbr ( 608864 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:34AM (#5781376)
    before i get flamed or trolled, there are lots of great apps that run on windows, apps that don't come from microsoft. if a company can keep their same apps, running atop linux, then it will make migration much easier, even possible. then, when the install base of linux goes up, companies will offer commercial apps on linux.

    the problem that linux desktop adoption has is not quality nor quantity. there are plenty of both. there is always that one app that can't be replaced. microsoft's hold on the desktop is tenuous at best. they do know this. why else all the EULA fuss over foxpro. they have traction, but they don't have momentum. they have a base that HAS TO use their products, but many don't necessarily choose to. this gives businesses one less reson to not look into linux.
    • ... removed all incentive for developers to create OS/2 native applications.

    • I'm pretty sure this will be modded down to Troll, but what the hell.

      Actually, this shows how clueless the open source community really is when it comes to business. This is a product that lets you do the same things you are already doing, so what is the incentive to change? It is most certainly not going to work exactly like it does in Windows, and that is a pretty big risk when making a major decision. I can only imagine that this was made to "save money" for people adopting Linux. Truth is, this onl

      • I would argue that stability (or the OS) is a big win. I would take an educated guess that performance would be a big win, as well.

        Example: I'm running a big honkin' calculation in Excel or a huge query in Access on my workstation. It's CPU-intensive, and it'll take 30-60 minutes to complete. (Anyone with a real-world example, please speak up.) I'd be pretty miffed if reading email in MS Lookout caused the machine to go tits-up. Also, I'd wager that Linux's newer schedulers would make running these

  • Bitch Moan Whine (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ikazuchi ( 116052 ) <ikazuchi@c r y h a v o k . org> on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:40AM (#5781428) Homepage
    Yeah, sure. If you want to run openoffice, more power to you. If there are EQUIVALENT programs that are linux native, I'll use them. However, I don't see any programs equal to Photoshop 7 that are Linux native, and Adobe has stated that there won't be a Linux port of Photoshop.

    The GIMP is nice, but it isn't Photoshop. Also, the Crossover office tools are wonderful for those of us in Windows shop who need Outlook, but run Linux boxes for development and just cause we can.
    • I don't see any programs equal to Photoshop 7 that are Linux native, and Adobe has stated that there won't be a Linux port of Photoshop.

      Do you have any links to back this up? I didn't think they had taken an official stand on this...
    • That was a long time ago if I'm not wrong. Please correct me if I am.

      Meanwhile they crossed to Qt widget library, so porting to anything would be very easy. Taking that to consideration I really don't see other reason to use Qt instead of their own.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:42AM (#5781445)
    Seriously, a stock wine install (03-2003 here) should work fine. In my case I'm using Office 2000 under FreeBSD. Yes, it even runs the installer fine (make sure it doesn't use built-in CAB extractor but the one on the O2k CD), you do NOT need any "native" Windows partition/system binaries/DLLs to get most functionality. Exceptions are OLE stuff for Word saving, which needs native DLLs, and Access/IE is pretty much broke (but Crossover before version 2 didn't officially support either anyway).
  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • These "students" shouldn't be so damned picky then and should try OpenOffice.

      As much as I dislike Microsoft, I don't think that they owe me a copy of their software. Neither does Codeweavers.
    • Because students aren't the only potential user base for Linux.

      Many companies have thousands of legacy documents that were created using MS Office. They have already paid the MS tax. Maybe OpenOffice will work with all these docs, but if you were the CEO would you want to take the risk?

      • I have seen the same reasoning keep an entire corporation on Win95 and P133's...until 2001. And then it was near impossible to get the budget to upgrade machines to work with (mandated) migration to Win2000.

        Employees were literally unable to exchange documents with clients. Inflexibility is bad.
  • This is cool. Now there isn't any real reason Windows can't be moved off desktops. KDE/Gnome are far enough advanced to handel most users GUI's need and now they can exchange files with the reset of the world everone should be happy.

    However I don't see this happening. Coporates want to be be able to pay for support. They want SLA's. telephone hotlines. Mind you for us home users this is nice :)

    Rus
  • by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @11:54AM (#5781550) Homepage
    "Hello, Jim? This is Bob in the 'Office' department. Can you fax over that Visual FoxPro EULA? I think we might need to include that verbiage in our products too now. Sure, I'll be looking for it. Thanks!"

  • I have an office that has this little program they need for doing insurance rating. Well, the license says that everyone in an office can use it, but it can only be installed on one machine.

    So, we are trying to run it on our linux box with wine. Although the setup goes ok, running the program kinda borks. Trying to do this in Suse 8.1. I know it uses some kind of DB program but I am not very familiar with it at all.

    We are trying vmware for it -- but we cant run vmware in VNC so that may be worthless (
  • by north.coaster ( 136450 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @12:06PM (#5781667) Homepage
    Linux on the desktop in very difficult transition for most businesses to make. In many cases there are thousands of legacy documents that need to be supported after the transition. If the transition is not smooth, then productivity will be affected which in turn will have a major impact on the bottom line. Try convincing the CEO of a large company that they can afford to take such a big risk. It's a hell of a lot easier to justify making the transition in phases, and in many cases it will be easier to switch operating systems while keeping the Office apps.

    Many Linux advocates just don't get it. On the desktop, Linux is simply not going to move beyond being a niche environment until it becomes easy for average people to use the Apps that they today. Crossover Office has great potential as a tool to help accomplish this.

  • by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @12:11PM (#5781708) Journal
    I have no idea what this story is about. It's traditional to make the first paragraph of a story a summary of what the rest of the story is about. In fact, when /. was established someone understood this fact and so had the idea of putting the first paragraph of each story on the front page with a link to the rest of the story. But that seems to have been forgotten over the years. This reads like someone just figured something out while sitting on the toilet and couldn't wait to run to his PC to tell his friends about it. It isn't even in complete sentences.
    • I hate articles that start "Philadendron 9.4 was just released. Get it here!" and I'm thinking "What is Philadendron?" as if everyone has a wetware interface to Freshmeat...

      How about "Philadendron 9.4, which lets you cross-compile Python into TCL/Cobol, was just released!"

      Of course, this article did imply that Crossover Office let you run Windows apps, so I'm not talking about this article ;)
  • by leapy ( 667751 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @12:14PM (#5781734) Homepage
    It may not be fully supported by Codeweavers [yet?], but you can already install and run Dreamweaver MX in earlier versions of Crossover Office/Wine.

    You just need to add a simple script that gets over the "required resources" warning by moving the user into the same directory as the executable before running it.

    At least, it works for me. I do database hookups, PHP coding, etc.
  • by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @12:18PM (#5781787) Homepage Journal
    Seriously though, since they *are* contributing back to the wine project, I assume that there is enough stability now due to their additions that I can do the same with free-wine?

    Or is there to be a delay before the functionality is offered to us people that cant afford it for just personal use.
  • Codeweavers calls the product "Crossover" That is exactly what it's supposed to be used for; crossing over to Linux. You maintain your comfort level with applications you already know, and when the time comes to upgrade, thus requiring you learn something new, you can consider upgrading to an open solution (OpenOffice.org, Koffice, Abiword, Gnumeric, insert favorite open source application here). Crossover is a safety blanket for those leaving the Windows world until they get used to Linux. If anything, thi

  • Does it finally run IE 6 ? Looks like it still can only run IE 5...

    As a webmaster, I spend a lot of time switching from Linux to Windows just to check what my pages are looking like under IE 6.
  • Why it matters... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HarryLeBlanc ( 566888 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @12:56PM (#5782114)
    Two words -- Microsoft Access.
    Yes, I know that OO.o has some sort of database support, but many companies have invested in extensive custom apps in Access, and rewriting these using OO.o's feature-poor database tool is a non-starter.
    And yes, I know that Access has a lousy native database, and that postgresql/mysql/firebirdsql can slice & dice those fries for you... or gnoda, or rekall... but serious Access apps have backends in Sql Server or Oracle or some real database. And it's still much cheaper & simpler to buy Crossover office & run the existing app than to rewrite everything (especially if your mickey geeks don't know python or tcl).
    I do have hopes that eventually mono will provide a seamless way to port MS Access apps to a native linux app -- and I hope someone on the mono team is working on an application porter for Access apps -- but in the meanwhile Crossover Office is a huge step forward. There really isn't a good replacement for Access on linux yet. Really. But thanks to codeweavers, it's actually possible despite that lack to ditch Windows, switch to OO.o for word processing & spreadsheets, evolution for email,, etc, and run that legacy Access app too.
    Mock if you will, trolls, but this is a watershed moment for linux. This frees many companies who are tied to Access but hate Microsoft. It'll be cheaper for IT departments to hang onto their Office 2000 licenses & port the desktop to linux than to upgrade to XP & licensing 6. Then they can migrate the applications at their leisure.
  • by FuzzyDaddy ( 584528 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2003 @12:59PM (#5782151) Journal
    Many people have questioned the need for this, given that you can either 1) just run windows, or 2) run OpenOffice or AbiWord.

    One really cool use would be a web-server based file translator from Microsoft Word format to other formats (say, .rtf) using Microsoft Word as the engine to do the translation. It could filter your email, and automatically translate those Microsoft Office documents into something readable. Perhaps it could even brute force some files (power point, for example) into screen captured graphics files.

    But using the actual Microsoft software to do the translation would ensure that at least the file was read in correctly.

    That way you'd only need one copy of office for an entire office.

  • Does this also work with the Office updates?

    http://office.microsoft.com/ProductUpdates/default .aspx [microsoft.com]

    CodeWeavers have contributed a lot to the WINE project. However, have they commited to releasing Crossover as source within a reasonable time frame? Compare how Aladdin handled Ghostscript dual-license releases in the early days of development.

  • Still only works with Lotus R5 :-(.

    It sure would be useful to me if it would support Lotus Notes 6.

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