[vox] Linux software for windows

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Wed 26 Nov 03,  8:51 AM, Nicole TWN <ana.ng@tmbg.org> said:
> 
> (I've moved this to vox by the simple expedient of changing the address and 
> subject line.  Hope this is OK.)
 
more than ok, thank you!  :)

> At 10:24 PM 11/25/2003, you wrote:
> >Linux software's which can run on Windows
> >OpenOffice
> >Gimp
> >Mozilla
> >Jabber
> 
> 
> I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "Linux software that runs on 
> Windows".  Do you mean:
> 1) Open-source software for Windows?
> 2) Applications familiar to Linux users that are also available as Windows 
> applications?
> 3) Something else?
> 
> For 1), puTTY is the only one that springs to mind.  For 2), may I suggest: 
> dia, nmap, and readers for various file formats (e.g. acrobat, postscript).
> 
> --nicole twn 

i'd add one of my favorites (other than putty): scummvm.

scummvm is a hoot.  not only does it allow you to play lucasarts
adventures on linux, but astoundingly, it's the only way you can play
SCUMM games on winnt/win2k.  old DOS games usually render correctly on
winnt/win2k because they didn't access the video card directly.  nobody
hardware accelerated back then.  but sound is another issue.  that
demanded direct access to the hardware since games usually had sound
code hardwired for a particular set of sound cards that were popular 10
years ago, and no others.

this leads to the fact that lucasarts adventures run without sound on
MS operating systems that don't allow direct hardware access.  even on
platforms like win95/98, sound could be a problem depending on how
compatible your soundcard is with something like AWE or a soundblaster.

scummvm fixes this!  one could say that scummvm is just as important to
windows users as it is to unix users.

btw, duke nukem 3d was in the same boat as the lucasarts adventures.
the difference being, windows users had no sound, but on linux you COULD
play with sound because DOSEMU emulated a 100% compatible soundblaster.
one could even make the claim that 3d realms open sourcing of duke nukem
3d was more important to windows users than it was for linux users
(except setting up DOSEMU correctly has always been tricky).

btw, to scummvm add duke nukem 3d, a bunch of quake ports, and a bunch
of doom ports.  i only know of one quake2 port, and i think that's unix
only.  of course, along with doom comes hexen and heretic.

lots and lots and lots of games are now running on linux and windows.
and we have three things to thank for that:

1. the companies that have been open sourcing their games
2. SDL
3. the people doing the porting.

pete

-- 
Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.  -- Albert Einstein
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