I have not checked out any of the GUI's for Linux in about 3 years so I'm
not sure. But it's something I'm not sure I want to risk my life on!
This does raise a couple of questions on my part. Do the current GUI's for
Linux look and feel much more simular to Win9x now?
It makes no attempt to appear indistinguishable from MS-Windows, but the
closest to a work-alike is probably KDE. KDE isn't just a window manager,
but a total environment of many hundreds of popular Linux programs all
with a consistent interface. They don't work identically to MS-Windows
applications but they're close enough that a MS-Windows user should find
it an easy transition. KDE runs applications written for other windowing
systems but you'll lose the consistent look-and-feel.
If you want something that looks cosmetically identical, you can add a few
proprietary icons to fvwm98 and people won't be able to tell the
difference by looking at it. Even the "start" menu works the same.
However, Linux is NOT MS-Windows and they'll know there's a difference as
soon as they run some of the applications.
And how are the comeing along on running windows applications in Linux.
I know that there was a few differant projects out there that were
getting some Windows applications to run on Linux a couple of years ago
but what point are they at now? If I can run Photoshop, Truespace 7,
Corel Draw and a few other applications in Linux I'd say goodby to
Windows today...
As the open-source applications base has matured and Linux has solidified
a larger userbase including governments and corporations, interest has
waned in force-fitting MS-Windows applications into Linux. Many are
still doing it but many others have shifted their focus to making the
open-source applications as good as the MS-Windows applications. Some
open-source applications, like FireFox, OpenOffice, gimp, and Eclipse are
either already there or so close it makes no difference for most users.
There's still a lot of work to be done on others. The closest
open-source equivalent of CorelDraw, Scribus, is good but IMO still
not nearly as good CorelDraw. Also it's painfully slow if you have more
than one or two newspaper-sized pages, though there are some things
happening now that may speed it up quite a bit. Corel does have a
Linux version of CorelDraw but it's nothing more than a tweaked version of
the Windows code running under WINE. That was back around version 6 or so.
I don't know if they've maintained it with the newer versions of
CorelDraw. Also ISTR that CorelDraw is one of the applications that runs
well under Crossover Office.
Virtual-Machine technology has advanced to the point that you can run your
MS-Windows applications at nearly full speed and simultaneous with your
Linux applications. However that requires installing MS-Windows on your VM
so it's not an ideal solution. Especially since Microsoft is taking steps
with Vista to discourage this kind of use.
