On Sun, 10 Oct 2021 05:14:36 -0500 Richard Owlett <rowl...@cloud85.net> wrote:
> On 10/09/2021 10:24 AM, Patrick Bartek wrote: > > On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 09:40:21 -0500 > > Richard Owlett <rowl...@cloud85.net> wrote: > > > >> [snip] > > > > > Just be forewarned, WINE is not the catchall solution to running > > Windows apps: The more involved codewise the program is like games > > or Photoshop, the more problems you'll have. > > For context, I've been providing informal support to a local couple > for decades. He is a retired pastor, now a missionary. They need a > new computer and as part of my support, I'll be purchasing a > replacement. As I've not used Windows since WinXP and they are pure > Windows users I planned to dual boot Windows and Debian. Debian > primarily for its maintenance tools. I hope WINE will run enough of > their "must have" apps that I can use that as a selling point to move > from Windows to Linux. If all they've ever used is Windows, leave it at that. Don't attempt to switch them to Linux. It will be more trouble than it's worth. Get them a laptop with Windows, clean the preinstalled and CPU cycles eating background crap off of it, bring it up-to-date, and you're done. > > In those cases, just run Windows in a virtual machine which is what > > I do for ALL Windows apps I need. Less or virtually no gotchas! > > On my personal machines I would have no motivation to install a VM. > However, I'll investigate the pros/cons of having their machine run a > VM in which I would run Debian as a demo. Unless they really NEED Debian or Linux, don't bother. If you want to demo Linux just get one of the many "live" versions to boot the system. Then they can play with it without installing. And it won't do anything to their existing Windows install. > Are there good FOSS or low cost VMs for Windows machines? Windows has it's own VM. Can't remember its name, but I'd recommend VirtualBox instead -- https://www.virtualbox.org/ . It's free and has versions that run on Linux or Windows, among others. B
