Wine

[Stephen M]

Has anyone any experience of using WINE and how reliable is it. I have heard mixed reports but never used it but now be forced to or buy a Microsoft Licence just to use a few programs for a short time.

Unfortunately I do not know what software it will be at the moment, am trying to find out but not getting a very good response but will post as soon as I find out.

 

[ubuysa]

WINE is free I believe? And Windows is not. Would it not make sense to try your Windows programs under WINE before you buy a Windows license?

 

[Tony1044]

Has anyone any experience of using WINE and how reliable is it. I have heard mixed reports but never used it but now be forced to or buy a Microsoft Licence just to use a few programs for a short time.

Unfortunately I do not know what software it will be at the moment, am trying to find out but not getting a very good response but will post as soon as I find out.

When it works, WINE is great. Performance can vary from superb to so-so. When it doesn't work, it's been almost impossible to get working in my experience. But that could be more down to me than WINE to be fair.

And for me, one of the major issues is that you cannot run any modern version of Office.

 

[Stephen M]

Under normal circumstances yes, unfortunately I am dealing with some extremely unhelpful people. I am considering doing some Open University courses in Maths and Physics but all the course descriptions say is software will be provided and minimum computer requirements are W7 or later. I have emailed the main OU enquiries and the computer help desk but neither gave any useful advice, at the moment I cannot even find out what software they use, although I am hoping to get in contact with some students already doing the courses as they will know.

I am awaiting further replies from different departments in the OU and hope they will at least tell me what the software is but the way the OU work is to have short-licence software for their courses, so the stuff I will be using will not be available to use until the course starts and that leaves it a bit late to start fiddling with extra-curricular stuff.

Thanks for the suggestion, it was a logical idea. I should have explained more in the OP.

 

[Stephen M]

Thanks Tony, that is very much what I have heard from others. Luckily I will not need to be using Office.

 

[Tony1044]

Thanks Tony, that is very much what I have heard from others. Luckily I will not need to be using Office.

Another option would be to run Windows in a VM

 

[fnf]

Has anyone any experience of using WINE and how reliable is it. I have heard mixed reports but never used it but now be forced to or buy a Microsoft Licence just to use a few programs for a short time.

Unfortunately I do not know what software it will be at the moment, am trying to find out but not getting a very good response but will post as soon as I find out.

I've given up on Wine a long time ago. It does indeed work very well for stand alone programs and many games but for anything else that is more invasive i.e., programs that rely on less frequently used Windows features, DRM schemes, etc. it tends to be more trouble than it's worth.

The Wine database is excellent and will tell you how well it works for most popular programs https://appdb.winehq.org/ .

As suggested above, your best bet would be to run it inside a Windows VM. A valid Windows key can be had for very cheaply these days e.g., 3 quid so that will save you a lot of time.

 

[Stephen M]

Thanks fnf, a VM is looking like a good option, although the WINE database is handy. Unfortunately the OU are not good at giving out helpful information and the only software so far I can put a name to is Minitab, that has a mixed record on the database, although it has the advantage of giving 30-day trial versions so testing in WINE would be an option. Trouble is it could be 10 or 12 modules with nearly all just saying software will be provided and no one seeming to know what the software is.

 

[fnf]

Thanks fnf, a VM is looking like a good option, although the WINE database is handy. Unfortunately the OU are not good at giving out helpful information and the only software so far I can put a name to is Minitab, that has a mixed record on the database, although it has the advantage of giving 30-day trial versions so testing in WINE would be an option. Trouble is it could be 10 or 12 modules with nearly all just saying software will be provided and no one seeming to know what the software is.

I think a good strategy is to give all the software that you need a try in WINE and spend only a few minutes each getting them to work. If not all of them run then a VM would be the way to go.

I spent far too much time getting stuff work on WINE when I was still enthusiastic about running everything under Linux. It has proven to be mostly a waste of time which is a luxury for me nowadays.

In fact I just went back to Windows after 13 years of using Arch Linux as I realised that for the past 1.5 years all I've been using Linux for is web browsing. Most of the stuff that I need e.g., Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro for photo/video editing can only be run in Windows. I installed Photoshop 6 under WINE which worked but isn't practical as it doesn't integrate well with drawing tablets and plugins.

So after 13 years I've gone back full circle, except that this time I'll run Linux in a VM instead (already tried WSL which is a bit slow) as I still need it for hosting a Web server and a few other custom utilities. In exchange for having everything I need, I'll need to take extreme care of the system to keep it running stably (I'm used to only reboot every 6 months in Linux) but it is a trade off that I'm prepared to make.

Apologies if it's gone off-topic .

 

[Stephen M]

I have had a slightly more helpful reply from the OU and may be able to find out exactly what software is involved, although I find it annoying they are not able to give the information straight away. Hopefully they will supply, as promised, contact details for the heads of courses and they will provide the info, then I can start WINE testing.

The VM still looks the most reliable option, I just need to find a cheap (legal) key for Windows, I am certainly not paying the full price for something I will rarely use.

 

[Tony1044]

If it's just for uni work why not go windows 7? It's in extended support until 2020 so will get security patches.

Keys can be bought fairly inexpensively off the interwebs though you may need care to ensure they're legal.

 

[polycrac]

I have had a slightly more helpful reply from the OU and may be able to find out exactly what software is involved, although I find it annoying they are not able to give the information straight away. Hopefully they will supply, as promised, contact details for the heads of courses and they will provide the info, then I can start WINE testing.

I work in a Uni department of Physics and Mathematics and am currently writing a distance learning masters module, so I'm up on the challenges of using software for distance based courses. You can certainly expect Matlab to be in any Maths course you take, its everywhere in HE (& industry, especially finance. They will usually have a student licence version (we certainly do) available for you but a lot of our students also use the mobile version from time to time: https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab-mobile.html

Some might use Geogebra, depending on level and budget for the course.

If you are looking at Stats then they'll likely have Minitab (great, easy to use, point & click stuff) or R (I hate it, but it does the job and it is free), possibly Statistica (more expensive but some great options, especially for machine learning).

For Physics you can expect Labview for any instrumentation stuff but most of the software is so equipment-specific that you wouldn't run it on your own machine anyway.

A lot of the above have free 30 day trials or are free anyway, so you can try them and see if they work before shelling out for Windows. Often, Windows itself is free with the course (again, I think we do this).

Finally, good luck getting course heads to answer emails this time of year! The exam boards will be done and this is prime holiday time - my corridor is like a ghost town. MUCH better to contact the admissions tutor, who'll be there and busy over Summer. Failing that just try anyone with a public email, one of them will have the time and empathy to reply and they'll all know what software the department uses, because it will form the basis of most of the departmental feedback complaints!

*edit* Asked my wife for her department's software and they are big on Graphpad Prism, so maybe worth trying that too.

 

[Stephen M]

Thanks Tony, Polycrac. I had hoped W7 would be available, I can just about remember that.

Minitab is the OU statistics software, although that module will be some way off so I will wait to try a rial version when I know which version it will be, the WINE fora have mixed reviews depending on which version. I will certainly have a look at the other stuff mentioned.