Run Windows Applications on Linux

Linux aficionados do not need an introduction to Wine,

which lets you run Windows applications from within Linux. It creates a virtual

hard drive and virtual Windows OS on your Linux box. This can run light Windows

games and applications like MS Office 2000, CorelDraw 8 and Adobe PhotoShop etc.

We have given the latest Wine in PCQLinux 2006 that

automatically gets installed when you do a workstation install. Once you have

installed PCQLinux 2006, you need to create a regular (non-root) user on it,

because Wine doesn't run from a root account.

Configuration



Login with a normal user in a GUI (KDE or GNOME) and open a terminal from

Start>System Tools>Konsole. Here issue  the command 'Winecfg'.

This will create a hidden (.Wine) directory under the user home directory.

Plus, you will also get GUI windows to configure the

appearance of Wine. Here, select the Appearance tab and come down and select the

kind of appearance that you like to add (Win XP/NT 4/98/2000, etc). Inside the

.Wine directory, you will get a directory named drive_c. All your Windows

applications will be in here.

Installing and running



We were able to install and run CorelDraw 8, Adobe PhotoShop Premier and MS

Office 2000. For instance, you want to install MS Office on PCQLinux 2006

machine, put the installer CD in the CD drive and PCQLinux will automatically

mount the CD on your desktop.

Now open the CD from the desktop and look for the installer

EXE file in the CD. Select the installer file, right click on it and from the

Context menu select 'Open With Wine Windows Emulator'.

This will start the installation process. Once it installs

successfully, the application gets installs in the users' Home folder in the

/.Wine/Drive_c/Program files.

If the installer has created the application shortcut on

your desktop, you can run it directly by double clicking on the shortcut, other

wise you've to create it manually.