9 replies to this topic

[Aghaster]

I have recently updated my website to talk about Ubuntu 9.04 + Codeweavers Crossover Linux, which allows you to get Microsoft Office 2007 installed very easily on Linux.

http://www.awakecoding.com/

Feel free to read. I tried seeing it from the perspective of an average student that's running Windows on his laptop, and gave reasons that would appeal to that type of student (this means, switching to OpenOffice and talking about free software are arguments that usually do not work, because they just don't care). Things have become ridiculously easy on Linux now, I can't believe it.

[johnnymanson]

Does anyone here have any experience installing Office using Wine on Ubuntu 9.04? I would love to have Office running on Ubuntu but would prefer a free solution.

[phasma]

Does anyone here have any experience installing Office using Wine on Ubuntu 9.04? I would love to have Office running on Ubuntu but would prefer a free solution.

I don't think wine can handle MS Office to well but OpenOffice does the trick for me.

[Aghaster]

Does anyone here have any experience installing Office using Wine on Ubuntu 9.04? I would love to have Office running on Ubuntu but would prefer a free solution.

I don't think wine can handle MS Office to well but OpenOffice does the trick for me.

Wine can handle it, but it's not an easy task to do. Your best luck would be to search on the PlayOnLinux forums and try one of the scripts that members have posted there. What PlayOnLinux gives you is a database of scripts that will download the appropriate dependencies, and run the program with the appropriate settings that have been found to work (forcing the use of a particular DLL, some options, etc). I could install Google Chrome and iTunes 7 very easily with PlayOnLinux. I checked what scripts they had in their database for Microsoft Office, but they only have Office 2003. They just could not work out a good script for Office 2007 yet, but people on the forums have successfully installed it and are sharing what worked for them.

Commercial alternatives such as Codeweavers Crossover Linux already have it working very well, and it's very easy to use.

[johnnymanson]

Thanks for the info Aghaster. I'll give the trial version a look.

[Aghaster]

It's probably worth mentioning: While I'm not a fan of Notepad++, I was able to install it with PlayOnLinux. I've heard some people say that they love Notepad++ too much to switch (there's scite that's approaching it, but sometimes people just don't want to change)

[intimidat0r]

I got Crossover to work really easily on Arch, so anyone should be able to without having to use a distro with a lot of featuers, like Ubuntu.

[johnnymanson]

I got Crossover to work really easily on Arch, so anyone should be able to without having to use a distro with a lot of featuers, like Ubuntu.

I just set up Crossover and installed Office 2008 on Ubuntu 9.04. It was easy on this distro too. I think I could easily get along without Windows now if I wanted too. Unfortunately I need to be able to support Linux and Windows so I don't know if I will actually shell out the $40.00. It's probably worth it though. The Crossover folks have done an impressive job!

[Aghaster]

I got Crossover to work really easily on Arch, so anyone should be able to without having to use a distro with a lot of featuers, like Ubuntu.

I just set up Crossover and installed Office 2008 on Ubuntu 9.04. It was easy on this distro too. I think I could easily get along without Windows now if I wanted too. Unfortunately I need to be able to support Linux and Windows so I don't know if I will actually shell out the $40.00. It's probably worth it though. The Crossover folks have done an impressive job!

A cheaper alternative that seems to support pretty much the same list of software is Bordeaux for Linux

It's 20$, I haven't tried it

[Aghaster]

I found this tutorial
The winetricks script on the bottom of the page seems important.

I also read on wine-reviews.net that Crossover 8.0 will support FreeBSD and OpenSolaris