WINE / VmWare / Win4Lin / etc.

Wine

• tries to be bug for bug compatible with lots of undocumented bugs
• No windows CD needed, runs most windows binaries, pretty quick,
• Lotus Notes works in Wine (LUN project)
• Pointer to latest rpm?

VmWare

• VmWare only runs IA32 apps, re-vectors APIs into linux kernel APIs
• VmWare 2.0.x was rumoured to only supports kernels up to 2.4.9, otherwise VmWare 3.0 is required - upgrade is $99 (ick). But apparently you can fix 2.0.x by going here and doing as you're told.
• Requires lots of memory. Can install Windows CD, run any Windows app.
• Can run lots of guests: windoze, linux, BSD, etc.
• Can boot lots of Linux's on the same machine, good for testing 2.4.latest...
• Have to install VMWare floppy to get customized to your hardware. Emulates least common denominator. $300 - $100 depending on how clean you are with the licensing.
• VMware uses a dedicated partition for boot disk.
• VMWare 3.0 doesn't work on T23
• VMWare 2.x modules for the latest 2.4.x kernels are available here.

Win4Lin

• krader is using now, lightweight, not as flexible,
• runs Win95, Win98, nothing else.
• Trelos now owns Win4Lin.
• About $40-60.
• Version 2 didn't support UDP, so no SINE support. Can't see SMB shares.
• Version 3 has a virtual network device a la VMWare, much better networking environment.
• Need to have a CD-ROM of Windows to run this and a license.
• Only 64 MB memory footprint for guest OS. Can't run Notes and a java app in the same instance (and can't boot multiple instances at once).
• at least 15 people use wine, 6 use dual boot, 6 use VMware, 3 use Win4Lin.
• Win4Lin transparently mounts local filesystems, but VMWare uses SMB or NFS to mount local filesystems.
• Win4Lin uses a file in an existing partition for boot disk.