[Novalug] SOOOT: using Wine to run Micro$haft apps

[Stuart D. Gathman]

On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, James \(Jim\) Darlack wrote:

> Any linux lovers using it?

> How well does it emulate Windoze XP?

I used to use it.  The problem is that the M$ API requires a writable
page 0, which means that null pointer dereferences can be used to run
arbitrary code - yet another fundamental (design problem as opposed to
bug) security hole in M$.  When you run M$ apps in wine, you have to
turn off page 0 protection, reducing the security of your linux system.

If you do use wine, you should only use it with a user id reserved for 
running wine.  I used a "win" login for that purpose.  I haven't figured
out how to disable the page 0 protection for just that one user.

> Im stuck in Windoze land because of ONE application, TradeStation for day
> trading.  If I could run it on Wine, the big s*it can for Micro$haft. 
> Sorry, Bill, you are rich enough.

Charging money is not the problem with M$.  Charging money for software
or support is good when customer are free to choose (or not) your services.
The problem with M$ is that they have acheived the power to tax whether
you use or want their services or not.  Thus, like the US federal government,
they have no incentive to fix their problems, and you are forced to 
support them.

The ONE application I run in M$ is TaxACT.  I run it in a virtual machine.
There are (as usual) a handful of virtual machine system to choose from
in linux.  Using a virtual machine keeps the M$ security nightmare 
contained to the VM.  You still need to be vigilant, as your Windows VM
could be infected and sending out spam, child porn, etc.

Vista Home and Windows 7 Home forbid running in a VM in the license
agreement.  Windows XP and the Pro versions of Vista and 7 allow use
of a VM.  You may not care what the license agreement says.

I use VirtualBox from Sun.  VBox supports snapshots, which are like instant
backups of Windows - a big timesaver when (not if) it gets infected.
Vbox does not require any special hardware support - it achieves 
full virtualization without full emulation by dynamically patching
the target OS.

VBox is Free Software, but requires a kernel module which has not been accepted
by Linus yet, so Fedora policy forbids including it with the main distro,
requiring the rpmfusion-free repo.  Other distros will have their own policies
about 3rd party kernel modules.

If you have hardware VM support (most new 64-bit CPUs do), then you may
prefer the kvm virtual machine, which is approved by Linus.

There is also the commercial VMWare solution, which like VBox, does not
require special hardware support.  It is gratis (not libre) for personal use.

-- 
 	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.