Wine better in ubuntu??

[pierredaye]

Hello,

First of all, I am a new F15 users (but a old linux guy. Gentoo -> Ubuntu -> <Fedora??>). Therefore, excuse me if my question is strange. I have to switch to a redhat based distribution for my work (or using windows ). Most of the time, I am using lateX but sometime I have to use word (not libre office for a lot of reasons that would take a lot of time to describe). Under Ubuntu 11.04, I installed wine (1.2.2) and directly after, I installed word 2007 without a single problem... Therefore, I assumed that switching to Fedora would not change the behavior of wine... Apparently, I was wrong ! I tried the version in the repository (1.3.something) and it did not work. Then I tried the last stable version (1.2.3) compiled from the source and BAAAMM, again, it did not work.

Do I have to convince my boss that Ubuntu is more stable? I thought it was the opposite but maybe I am wrong?? Do someone has ideas about this issue??

Thanks a lot!

Pi-r

[satya164]

I think there were some filess to be installed to get ms word work. Don't remember, but you can search them. Also, install winegecko. Word worked out of box in Ubuntu? Kidding? I am also a Ubuntu user.

[pierredaye]

Originally Posted by satya164

... Word worked out of box in Ubuntu? Kidding? I am also a Ubuntu user.

No seriously, I am not joking, I was even amazed myself! I just ran the installer and the whole office suite ran perfectly... Even the endnote plugin worked... The problem here is that even the installer did not work!

[smr54]

You might try, if you have to use a RH based system, ScientificLInux 6.x. Ubuntu is into the Linux for human beings, meaning, as I see it, something that tries to approach the Just Works(tm) ideal.

Fedora, although, IMHO, it has become far more usable for the inexperienced than it used to be, is still in many ways a development/testing platform.

That being said, though I only use wine with one program (Timbuktu pro), it hasn't given me any problems. Another possible option is the fairly inexpensive crossover office (which allows you to try before you buy), based on wine with some enhancements to make it easier to use.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't used any of this in several years, save for the aforementioned wine in Fedora for Timbuktu pro.

[stoat]

Something to consider for the wine problems is system architecture. I mean 32-bit versus 64-bit. If, just for example, your Fedora and wine are 64-bit, then winecfg will establish a 64-bit environment (~/.wine folder) by default. But if the Windows app is 32-bit, it may not work. However, it might work if you use the WINEARCH environment variable with winecfg to establish a 32-bit environment for it in wine. It's even possible to have two .wine directories (with different names, of course) and select the proper environment for the app being launched by including the appropriate WINEPREFIX option in the launcher command. I personally experienced and managed to resolve this issue in 64-bit Arch Linux to run an old 32-bit version of Quicken. Anyway, this may not even apply to your situation, but the issue wasn't mentioned so thought I should do it.

P.S.: There most definitely are issues from wine version to wine version, too. I happen to be stuck at wine v1.3.14 for Quicken to work perfectly. At first I encountered irritating font issues as wine versions advanced during F13 and F14. I managed work around those each time. Eventually, even more irritating graphics issues popped up in even later wine versions of F14, and I never fixed those. And finally, in F15, I couldn't even install Quicken in its wine versions. So I compile v1.3.14 from source in everything now. There I will stay until a Linux personal finance app can do for me what Quicken does.

[pierredaye]

Originally Posted by smr54

That being said, though I only use wine with one program (Timbuktu pro), it hasn't given me any problems. Another possible option is the fairly inexpensive crossover office (which allows you to try before you buy), based on wine with some enhancements to make it easier to use.
.

I tried the crossover plugin and everything works correctly now. Just have to ask for a license to my boss

Pierre

PS: I would have preferred using wine instead but...

[Dangermouse]

Have you tried http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ it will set up wine correctly etc... its not just for games

I have great success with it (games)

[Dutchy]

Well I don't really know the difference between the Ubuntu and Fedora version (but they will most likely just be different versions, I've read that most distro's bundle quite old WINE versions).
But if you want Office 2007 to work the only thing you have to do for WINE in Fedora 15 is this (section 4).

Keep in mind though that it will run and look nice, but you have zero guaranty that it will do that just like it does on Windows.
For example the layout might be different than on Windows and it will be hard to embed objects.
To be on the safe side the best you can do is set up a virtual Windows 7 environment, but I guess the whole point is not to use that product.

[markdk]

Unfortunately while a few replies noted there could be issues between versions of wine; it is not always an issue with wine but could also be issues with standard OS libraries wine may need to use.

As an example my favourite game (heros4) just won't run on FC15, it did work perfectly under wine on FC14 (only 32-bit OS tried)

Symptoms (tried with three(3) different versions of wine source from winehq.org to be sure before giving up):
- clean install of FC14, compile wine from source, install game, game plays
- clean install of FC15, compile wine from source, install game, game says debugger detected and stops
So, not a wine issue

Apparently changes (we'll say improvements someone needed) in the environment/libraries outside of the wine software itself can also affect the behaviour of programs running under wine as well which is another thing to watch out for.

So having Office 2007 working for you under wine in ubuntu 'today' may not mean it will work tomorrow.

Crossover would therefore seem to be your best bet, as being a commercial product I assume you will at least have someone to call if/when something breaks.