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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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If you're not tech savvy enough to get the software running under for example Wine, you might be better off with Windows. Trying to get support from the vendor for anything not Windows will not be easy if even possible.
Anyways, If you're still going for Linux, I guess that Wine is what you're looking for.
I'm getting Windows out of my life. I'll look into Wine again
Normally it's not lack of Windows compatibility breaking the use of an application with wine, it's the frameworks and libraries the application was built with/need to have access to.
So check what additional libraries and stuff your application have as a prerequisite. Visual C 2005? 2010? DotNet framework? Which version? And so on.
When you know what the application needs, then you can Google for "wine DotNet 4.5" (just an example) to get a feeling what problems people had and how they solved it.
Essentially wine needs to know where to find them when you start your application with/in wine.
Also, if your application uses MSSQL Express or similar, you might be out of luck. So if that's the case you should start googling on how to get that running (if even possible) before installing.
Good luck, be stubborn and make sure to have fun. There's a lot you'll learn in this adventure of yours that will come in handy again and again in the future.
Is winetricks still a thing to help with dep setup?
To be honest, it was ages ago I started up wine so I'm the wrong person to ask.
I'm a dual booter, best of two worlds, full support from vendors and no compatibility problems is my preferred way
Aye, win7 VM for that one piece of CAD software I rely on. been a while since I did much wine stuff outside steam.
Thank you. I'll be sure to that I have the libraries I need
I'm a techy and a tinkerer. I run Linux on a lot of machines and I self host some stuff, and I also mod and tune my car.
I keep a windows laptop on hand that at this point I literally only use for tuning software. If something goes wrong with the car I don't want to go through trying to fuck with booting a niche engine tune program in Wine on a Linux machine with an OS that may or may not even recognize the OBD device needed to flash the tune. Too many places for things to go wrong and the end result is a car I can't drive.
Unless you're very comfortable with having your car unusable for long periods of time while you troubleshoot things, I'd highly recommend having a windows laptop for car tuning.
Same here, I have an old Thinkpad running Windows just for my car tuning software, last thing you want is a potentially unstable connection when flashing an ECM.
I totally get what you're saying. Luckily for me the program just runs formulas so I can figure out for instance what size plenum, what length runners, what size turbo, etc. I need. I'm not using it to flash a tune as my engine is too old for that fancy stuff
How about a VM? Is that not an option for you?
Like running Windows in a VM with the program? I really don't want Windows in my life if possible
I understand.
Hey this is a long shot, but why don't you give React OS a shot inside a VM? If your application doesn't use anything special or doesn't require special drivers out whatever, it might work.
That looks like a pretty nifty OS. If I can't get the software working via Wine or something I'll definitely try this before Windows in a VM
If your computer is reasonably fast (I have managed this on a dual core, but it did have 16G ram), you can run windows in a virtual machine and use whatever software you want. You could also try wine, though I would pirate it first to see if it works if you want to do that. Virt-manager is a good tool for virtual machines, but you may want to try virtualbox as it is more beginner friendly.
I have previously used VirtualBox successfully. I am really trying to stay away from Windows if at all possible. If I absolutely had to I might run a VM with WinXP or Vista just for it