BleepingComputer.com: Will Puppy Linux run Micosot Applications?

Hi - I have a great old win98 pc, with office 2000 on it, came preloaded so I don't want to lose it.

Will Puppy let me use the M$ apps?

I bought an e-machine with XP preloaded but the OEM is junk, junk, junk. I was hoping to move my Office software to the XP machine since this is the last o/s m/s will support my version. Any ideas?

Thank you very much,
joy



Split from topic Need Boot Disk?, in the 9x*Grinler Forum. ~acklan~

This post has been edited by acklan: 09 May 2007 - 05:55 AM

I am afraid it will not. There is an application that will allow you to run Windows base applications under Linux, WINE, but it will not run all Windows applications and the ones it does it does not do very well.
If you have are running MS Office 2000 I would recommend you purchase Windows 2000 Professional. I actually uninstalled XP Home from several of my computers and installed W2k, and am very happy with the results.
What are the specs of your Windows 98 computer? Do you have the CD to reinstall 98?
I see you made a comment about an eMachines that has XP, and that you were not happy with it. What is the problem with that computer?

There's also cedega. It however is a "pay for it" package. However, I have heard some great things about it. A lot of people have talked about where WINE seemed to fail, Cedega did the trick. Without believing all of the promotional propeganda, I'd be willing to bet Cedega has problems of it's own as well.

Hello Acklan and JoeDude,

I thank you for your swift replies, and apologize for my delay. Puppy just looked so attractive; I used to be computer savvy in the mainframe and pc with DOS days and my buddies in support and training. Win XP is making me feel really dumb.

The 98 machine is a pentium 3 but only 500 mhz and has all the ram it can hold, 7nn mb. I have the original win 98 disk, but then my hardware guy upgraded it to the next package and so now whenever it wants the original disk, its set up to go to c:\win98. He made me a full copy of the updated package, but the machine doesn't want to read it. I have occasional problems with its cd rom drive. I am seriously thinking of upgrading the mainboard if i can keep the box because i have all kind of drives in it except for the 5 1/2" drive (ha ha ) I just recedntly found a diskette that size, I laughed b/c somebody was offering a bunch of money for one, he was trying to set up some kind of museum, and i didn't know i had one. This thing even has a colorado tape drive and i do have the disk, but have never seen what goes in there. It has room for a few more drives.

The problem with the XP machine is the OEM software, I think. I got it on sale, and they told me it had an operating system, but instead the OEM software has some cheap version of XP on it with a bunch of junk software I have to remove all the time, and it will not operate at all unless I perform a restore. The machine is a year old now, so last year when i got it, i created the backup disks and it formatted the drive to a virtual D: drive under FAT32 holding the o/s, and the rest of the hard drive is C: under ntfs or nfts or whatever....... It made for a fast boot.

Then I loaded win one care and old old defender and it corrupted my file system. Several times. I had to reload the machine 6 times in 12 months. I lost data galore. Now I have backups that can't find their starting points and so won't restore. I used several different programs to do backups, Nero, ghost, and now finally one care seems to be performing but the machine has slowed down even though i keep it maintained as well as I can. defender always crapped out my machine, and i do not use it and i do not recommend it.

Often I get a message that "this version of windows does not supply ... functionality". The latest thing to happen is I inserted a flash drive, and it blew out all the settings for my j: drive (an external dvd/cd rw drive).

I never got the flash drive to work, it's a sandisk with software, but i haven't been able to make it work - haven't spent enough time. Now the j: drive is recognized in the ffront port where the flash drive was and it knows it's J:.

I bought a backup storage from my ISP, and it loses the original file date. I hate that!!! I guess I will have to take it to my hardware guy to copy my stuff over to my win 98 machine and get him to make me a backup and try to restore the book of b/u disks i have made.

I am trying to get the store to take it back, false advertising on the OEM. They can't begin to repay me for the hours i have wasted trying to make the machine run. Hardly have time to yell at the President and chat with you all. Can only sit for short time and carpal tunnel comes back...

Gotta go, hope I answered your question for whatever you were looking for on the e-machine, Acklan. FYI, Gateway and e-machine have merged. The box is also junky, only has room for maybe two drives but i think only one. If you are thinking of buying, there are a few things I could point out for you if you are interested; like a few usb ports in front and how many additional drives could you add to the box; and max ram will it hold. My 98 machine has 3 ram ports but the max is under a gig; whatever i have to upgrade to use the ram i bought for the emachine (they sold it with only 258k which is nothing for using xp and one care or the other virus/spy programs are so hoggish.

Sorry about the wining, guys n gals. Thank you for the info on puppy. I really need to get my ofc 2000 working under xp so if my lawyer is successful i will buy xp and upgrade my 98 machine and probably put an extra hard drive in it for backup and whatever it takes to make more mhz. I want nothing to do with vista.

After 30 years with big blue, i might go for an apple. my brain is not up to all the studying and learning needed in this era. this future is certainly not what i expected when i saw my first pc..... and even worse, I never thought I'd be this old.

hugs,
joy

This post has been edited by joygreen: 14 May 2007 - 10:21 PM

Wow! you have fell on hard luck there. I still think your best option for that old P-III 500Mhz is Windows 2000 Professional. It is very gentle on resources and should chug alone very nicely with 768mb of RAM. If you have three 256mb RAM modules and it is reading less than 768mb, that is more than likely because the diffenece is allocatied to your onboard video.
EXAMPLE
If you have 768mb install but only 760mb is reported you more than likely have a 8mb onboard video adaptor.

If you still want Xp instead of W2k Pro you can pick up a clean copy of XP Home on eBay for around $80 to $100 USD.
Do not worry about "OEM". The diskes your Tech sold you were more then likely the branded "Emachines" factory OEM XP disks. They are loaded with extra software. True non-branded OEM software is no different (for the most part) from the retail full version. The main difference is the non-branded OEM software is not supported by Microsoft.

I have an old mahine like that. I use it with Debian installed. Your's is much more powerfull than mine though. I bought it in 98 as well. When I first got it. it hada 466Mhz celeron, 96 Mb RAM, a 10 GB Hard drive, a rockwell modem/fax/speakerphone/soundcard, and a built in vido card (Rage Pro Turbo if I remember correctly).

Debian runs well on it. Having said that, Acklan is right, you should be able to get Win2k pro on that machine with little or no problem. It should be stable and somewhat efficient. If I have to use windows, this is the one I prefer to use. Unfortunately, I reckon in about 8 years, Win2k's support will disapear as well.

I remember those days, everything in DOS. I remember the apple II+ as well. Played Wizardry (notice there are no numbers after the title) with 5 1/2" floppies. It was all words and ASCII. I still liked it. I remember spending hours typing out basic code to play a game that was not much more than a few spots on the screen and the one you were was just a different color. I remember the TRS-80, The Timex Sinclair and the Apple Amiga. I owned each of them. So, you can learn, if your willing to put the effort into it. The world is changing and I have had to accept and embrace this to survive my career in the Army. I still ended up a dinosaur, but for different reasons (long story). It's not a s complicated as it looks. If you coded in DOS or basic, you'll certainly get the hang of newer OS's.

I only coded in RAMIS, and could make command files. Not a trained programmer (bummer). Can't believe anybody called my old PC powerful! Thanks, JoeDude!!! I had it made and upgraded over theyears. This new e-machine is a POS. Wish I had just upgraded my old one for more MHz and XP, I guess. Probably would have added a second hard drive. The case is great; has tons more space than this e-machine. Happy Weekend!