NeTraverse Inc. and Xandros today announced a strategic partnership to expand the range of solutions to individual users and corporate clients. By combining Win4Lin with the Xandros Desktop, users can now operate the full range (editor’s note: Win4Lin 4 had a limitation on DDraw/3D apps like Media Players and games) of Windows applications, and organizations can leverage the powerful advantages of Linux while preserving their current investments in Windows-based systems and applications.
Xandros and NeTraverse Join Forces
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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More GPL voilations from companies that attempt to support an obsolete API.
This isn’t as great as their Crossover integration since for Win4lin you also need a Windows license.
I’ve been testing Xandros for about 3 weeks now, alongside my Libranet 2.7 and RH 8.0 installations, and I must say that Xandros is a really fine product. Their Xandros File Manager is incredible. Yeah, it uses KDE 2.2.2, but so what? It’s stable and you can install any of the thousands of debian woody apps out there.
I do like the CXOffice, since there are some docs that OO.o just doesn’t render correctly and Word runs really well in CXOffice (IE not so much, but I don’t need that). Since the Xandros kernel is preconfigured for Win4Lin support, you can add that too if you need extra functionality.
They’ve already added updates in their Xandros Networks thing, including Evolution 1.2, which is a nice touch.
I think Xandros is on the right track.
CXOffice really didn’t seem to add any value for me since I don’t like to use MS Office even on my windows machine. Win4Lin seems interesting, maybe I could use Cool Edit in Linux. Is Win4Lin another non-free product like cross-over office?
This would seem a good fit for an office situation, but if the desktop home user still can’t play UT2003 due to poor DirectX it might not be so great. So that makes me ask, if your using a non-directX windows game that is openGL based, would that work in Win4Lin?
Haven’t tried Xandros yet, just setup a maxchine with the free Libranet 2.0 distro. It’s real easy to setup and use so far. Is it worth it to buy the 2.7 release?
Did anyone notice Ne Traverse doesn’t support Windows NT-based Windows? This is tantunum to suicide because within 3 years, Windows 9x would be discontinued, and later on become obsolete.
I hope Ne Traverse has been busy lately with the development of a WinNT version. And I hope full DirectX support would be coming our way, because without it I have no reason to purchase it. Plus, I hope there would be improvement on speed. MacOnLinux is quite nice because except you are running CPU and RAM intensive apps on Linux itself, MOL is as fast as running without Linux on its own.
But the same can’t be said of Ne Traverse.
UT2003 ships with linux binaries so you don’t need to try to run it via Win4Lin.
I also want to add that UT2003 runs fine. I run it in Xandros through a GForce3. I play it quite often.
Win4Lin is an excellent product, if you’re happy running Windows 98 within Linux. It works perfectly on my machine. But there is no special price for Xandros users, as they implied, and they do not support Windows NT/2000/XP. Plus, at $89.90, I think they’ve priced themselves out a little bit. The magic number for Linux users seems $49 or less for anything. The only real partnership I see here is that Xandros users can download an evaluation copy of Win4Lin (shareware) that’s good for 30 days. But again, the product itself is very good.
“But there is no special price for Xandros users, as they implied”
Uh, no, you are wrong.
http://www.netraverse.com/xandros.htm
My apologies. I saw 89.90 when I clicked on it yesterday. If it ran XP, I’d probably get it. I’m tri-booting (Win98/XP/Xandros), and for the little I use 98, it’s just not worth it.
“If it ran XP, I’d probably get it. I’m tri-booting (Win98/XP/Xandros), and for the little I use 98, it’s just not worth it.”
What are you using in XP that you can’t use in 98? I love Win4Lin — sort of like a cheaper VMWare. I can use it to run tons of windows apps that won’t otherwise run in Linux. So, it’s win98 and not the latest xp. No real difference in functionality, from what I can see. It’s stable and runs at near native speed (which you can’t say for VMWare, unfortunately. VMWare is just so sloooooww).
We’ve covered this one before – the answers are in the linked article (review of Win4Lin 4).
Win4Lin “tricks” Windows 9x into thinking it is running on DOS. Hence the reason the “DOS Extension” versions (you know, the 32-bit Kludge) are the only versions supported.
Getting it to think that it is running on a VMS-based system would be a different kettle of fish altogether. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if that is a work in progress!
Hmmm…Win4Lin is like 3 years old already. Win98 was still viable back then, and using Win4Lin was great for old Linux desktops, but Linux today is so different from Linux even a year ago. No one really needs it (Win4Lin) anymore, except maybe software developers (but most of them use VMWare anyway).
I cannot wait for the day that I can play Age of Mythology on my Xandros installation.
That would be quite nice… I would no longer need windows OS… I still play the M$ game (AOM) and use Outlook but Open Office, Ximian, and Mozilla are getting close and closer. 
The day will come soon that I will not need to use ANY M$ products, except at work…
Oh well, I will at least be using non-M$ products at home.