or they dont have the immature attidude of a linux nerd and dont think that they should have some of bill gate's fortune and are perfectly happy using microsoft.

also, with cmpanyies with a large amount of computers, a large amount of working hours would be lost from changing to linux.

Uh, no...what it says is that it converts commands to equivalent commands on the other operating system...the OS's don't have to be similar for it to work, the emulator just converts commands.

I think this emulator is probably true...it sounds similar (albeit much more advanced) to the Xbox emulator Cxbx...Cxbx can run Xbox games at virtually no performance loss so I find it quite believable that this universal emulator can run things at only 20% performance loss.



That would be strange...it's not true though. id Software is working on Linux and Mac versions of Doom 3 just like they did with their other games.

Edit:



Wanna tell ILM that? :p

there are other much larger companies that do use microsoft and need to stay up and running and could not afford to loose the time that it would take to change over.

Yeah, I found it funny how there's no Windows support. But I figure (if they can legally) it'll be added.

...I could maybe understand not bothering to read a link, but I quoted Transitive's website right in my post. Again:



It explicitly says that it only works between operating systems with identical or similar system calls. That means it can do things like call sbrk() instead of morecore(), not magically let windows fork().

Windows to Linux system call mapping is certainly possible (see Wine, WABI, etc.), but it requires much more than simply swapping one call for another. The quotation above describes a system call swapper like lxrun, not a WABI-like compatibility layer.

Alpha--shut up. Seriously. You have no idea what you're talking about. Half the companies I know use Macs or Linux, and the ones that DO use Windows are just smalltime businesses, nothing on a grand scale.

And using linux doesn't mean you're an 'immature nerd', although immature certainly does fit someone here. Using linux is just a preferred taste--one that many (albeit not all, ala Detty), prefer over windows, for many reasons. But of course, MS zealots, like yourself, who think they're cooler than everyone by 'not following the trend' usually just end up looking stupid. There are plenty of people who "don't follow the trend" and don't say crap about it, and plenty of people that DO and don't say crap about it. You probably talk to both of these kinds of people everyday, in fact, and they're just normal, everyday people, not 'immature nerds'. In fact, this guy in my C Programming class is just a regular guy all around, and uses *nix (Debian, I believe).

I'm just ranting now, but you get the point.

and just how many companies do you know that involve making programs for things like social security payments. Unless you know every single company on earth, then the "half the companies I know" card makes you sound like a politicain or an advertising executive.

When I say this, I mean that you give a percentage of an unkown number.

*sigh* Dude, I've worked in different companies, my friend is a Unix admin in one company around here that does manufacturing, there are tons of Unix admin positions open around here, if you've ever been in an office building, most of them use macs or Linux (MS is too expensive to license/buy), etc.

I can't quote specific numbers, because there aren't any easily accessible.

Your brain lacks logic.

Have you been to any australian companies?

no, so stop saying my brain lacks logic until you have checked every company on earth, directly to see what os they use.

Last I checked, Australia was far from the corporate power of the world. No offense to Jaiph, Spork, and the like, but really, a few aussie companies don't matter nearly as much as American Corporations.

How did I know this was going to disintegrate into a Windows vs. Linux argument.... *sigh*

I've never used Linux, as I've no reason to. I have no problem with it, and I'm sure it's great. But that's not the point.

Windows is used worldwide, and I don't think there's going to be much incentive for any large businesses to spend the time to convert all their employees over to a whole new system; that's why many companies still use ancient DOS programs for their databases or accounts, because they think the cost of changing over outweighs the cose of using an antiquated system.

Well, there's a way Windows can be suppoted somewhere in there, because it may be used in the Xbox 2 to run Xbox games. No doubt they don't mention Windows or Mac OS for legal reasons. Most emulation that has to do with Windows would probably have Microsoft involved ("Where an equivalent operating system call doesn?t exist in the target environment, QuickTransit maps to similar calls per the customer?s guidance." Where the customer would be Microsoft). Of course if other "customers" know what needs to be converted then they could probably emulate Windows programs on other OS's as well...of course then Microsoft would go after them and the "customer" would need enough money to fight them off (Bleem was killed by Sony in this way).

I've never seen anything saying that Windows related emulation is absolutely not supported, but I have seen it mentioned in a couple articles that it is supported...like I said, it is no doubt due to legal reasons that they don't mention it on their site.

Who said it couldn't be? Both Xboxes run variants of Windows, so it's no surprise that system call mapping could work between the two. The system API is probably identical or very close to it.

The website clearly explains that it only supports mapping to equivalent calls or "to similar calls per the customer's guidance". This type of system is as simple as encountering a sysenter, int 0x80, sc, or whatever, checking the parameters to determine what call it is, and then modifying them so the appropriate call on the host OS is made. This is not sufficient for mapping between two OSes with radically different system calls like Unix and Windows. What Windows system calls do you expect fork or exec to map to?

Unless Transitive's own website is wrong and QuickTranit does feature a full-fledged Windows API emulator, it isn't going to let you run Windows programs on Linux.

I've used linux and I liked the stability, customizability, and the fact that roughly 99.99% of the software for it is free, but I quit for now b/c its too damn complicated. windows lets me get work done amazingly fast, considering the fact that I don't have to constantly tweak it like I do with linux.

I've said this before, and i'll say it again: linux needs to be streamlined and simplified for users that want it that way.

Its not unreasonable-- why can't there be an easy mode for new users and regular mode for advanced users/fanatics?

Yoshi, American companies may use Linux/Macs/etc instead of Windows, but until you've worked for/studied every computer based company in the world, don't make such claims that its more widely used. Different applications call for different systems.

I'm neither a Windows, a Linux nor a Mac zealot/fanatic, I just use Windows because theres absolutely no reason for me to switch. None whatsoever. There are a few reasons for me not to, however, the biggest one being compatibility. Another is time, cost, and effort. Why bother spending time and money (in the case of Macs, possibly Linux too with h/w compatibility) and effort, obtaining and setting up a different OS/System and then learn how to use it, when Windows is already here, is already perfectly compatible with everything I want/need and I already know how to use?

So, its not really down to a persons preference whether or not they run linux, or use a mac instead of a PC, its down to whether or not the system they have does what they need it to. Same with companies, only one company I've worked for has ever used anything other than Windows for its client machines - that was a graphics editing company who used Macs. Lloyds Bank uses Windows, Southern Water uses Windows. Small time English companies, Yoshi? Babel Media, the company I currently work for, uses Windows throughout - to test Mac games we rent Macs. We don't need them, therefore we dont have them.

Maybe Linux is more stable, maybe the Mac has... whatever it has... but a company won't switch just because they want to - they will because the system has something the company requires. Even then, it has to be a must-have to initiate such a change.

I've tried to keep this as level as possible, but I'm sure a zealot like Yoshi would be able to flame the hell out of an erroneous "1" in a binary string.

Just a quicky for this one, missed it first time round.

This is the closest you've been to being right this whole thread.

A large percentage of Windows users are computer-illiterate, yes. This is because Windows caters to both computer-illiterate and more advanced users. You might say its compatible with both.

Linux, however, even has compatibility issues with the Human Race.

Dude I'm not a zealot. I use windows atm. I just hate it when people say linux is way too hard, because noob distros (Redhat, Mandrake) really aren't that hard, and even the advanced ones (debian) are rather easy to use with a small, small bit of literacy and the ability to learn.

The reason most places use linux is they can't afford for their servers and computers to be crashing indefinitely. That's why. Considering with a bit of tweaking, any linux distro can be made to act a lot like windows, then you've got yourself something easy to use, and stable. Same with Macs, only less tweaking is needed, but you pay more for the PC.

Last time I checked, the £2k macs we got in were a lot more expensive than their IBMPC equivalents...

But like I said, its the right tool for the right job.


I did post twice, so you may have missed the first...


Sorry, I must have missed the bit where you can make it compatible with everything that Windows can run... you know, the majority of software published, all that junk.


It may seem overdone, but we're back to compatibility problems again.

And not everybody is screaming that Linux is too hard - the people that do are mostly Gates Fanboys who havn't even looked at a Linux install.

Compatibility isn't the issue--there's alternatives. Especially for businesses. Hell most businesses use programs made for *nix because windows is just too unstable.

And I SAID macs were more expensive--but also more stable.

They don't. Linux has an increasingly significant presence in the server market, but Windows still dominates the business desktop with more than 90% of the market share. Exact market share statistics can be easily found on google.

Well, the website is wrong then because it doesn't mention being able to translate commands between Windows-like OS's, and we know that it can...or maybe it could be that there was another reason they didn't mention Windows.

Since that other article mentioned running a Linux program on Windows, I think that it does have a way to translate Linux commands to Windows commands and vice-versa. I'll change my mind if I see something that actually says it can't, but until then...