> Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 09:14:23 -0700 (PDT) > From: Chuck Carson <rhugga@xxxxxxxxx> > Subject: Does Corss Over Office Work on FC2? > To: Fedora Core Mailing List <fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > > Before I waste any time, I was wondering if Crossover office worked on FC2? > > Thx, > rhugga More or less. Since I don't have any experience with Crossover Office on other Linux platforms, I don't know if you can say it works better or worse on Fedora Core 2. The good: 1. Office 2000/Pro seems to run although I haven't stress-tested it. This is "unfortunately" important since most companies want my resume in Microsoft Word document format. There are some subtle differences in font and layout between OpenOffice's representation of a Word document and Word's representation. This has the effect of making my full two page resume extend to three pages. 2. Enterprise Architect (a UML modeling tool) runs OK under Crossover Office. I can create and document software models. 3. Yahelite (a Yahoo chat client) runs OK. I do not get sound in chat, but other than that it is functional. The bad: 1. Internet Explorer 6 runs poorly. Screen updates and refreshes are bad. I use this to make sure web pages I write work in IE, and sometimes there are inconsistencies. 2. Screen refreshes are really slow. I have an NVidia 5700LE with 256 MB video ram on an AGP 4x card. Screen flicker is noticeable at 1024 x 768 x 24. 3. Incremental updates of Enterprise Architect do not work. I have to remove and install every time a new upgrade comes out (unlike Windows). 4. Running programs under Crossover office is piggish. I have a Dell 8200 running at 2 GHz with 768 MB memory, and it struggles. I have a lot of things running in the background (Tomcat, MySQL, PostgreSQL), but the native applications are much faster. The ugly: 1. Windows media player (latest version) does not work. 2. Yahelite performance is spotty at best. I frequently have to simulate a Windows reboot or Crossover Office reset with this software. 3. Screen refresh is poor, and sometimes not complete. The only solution I have found for this is to minimize a window and then open it again. 4. CPU load is pretty ghastly. It's not uncommon to see load averages of 3 and above (1 minute averages) while running software under CrossOver Office. In short, if you occasionally need light office support this seems to be a reasonable way to go. I've done some spreadsheets, light word processing, and messaging. I've also struggled with using Enterprise Architect (my primary reason for using Crossover Office), and I'm to the point where I am thinking of rebuilding my Windows/2000 Professional machine just for that application. Either that, or finding another reasonably-priced feature rich UML tool . . . I could not imagine playing games of any sort with Crossover Office. I understand there's another emulation package (Cedega ??) that is designed to support games. Fortunately, I'm not more than an occasional game player, and UT2004 was released for Linux. The above is just my opinion. Your mileage may vary. /mde/ just my two cents . . . .
