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CrossOver Office: The Killer App for the Linux Desktop?

By: Dee-Ann LeBlanc
Monday, April 1, 2002 08:36:17 AM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/4126/1/

CrossOver: A Little WINE for the Office

I may spend most of my time writing about or teaching people about Linux, but I haven't been able to escape the Microsoft Windows world and applications. Some of the reasons for this problem are pure selfishness--sometimes I really get into a computer game that doesn't have a Linux version! Another reason, though, has been more frustrating. When I write books or develop courses I often have to use Microsoft Word because of heavy use of macros, templates, and other key customization features.

Sure, some publishers are great about offering workarounds for Linux authors who don't want to work in Windows. However, I have a life, and a lot of the workarounds can eat up significant chunks of time, so I keep a Windows box with Microsoft Office and I have my Linux boxes as well. But ... The times, they are a'changin! CodeWeavers, a heavy supporter of the WINE (a Windows emulator for Unix systems, www.winehq.org) has just released CrossOver Office 1.0.0, a program that has the fantastic ability to allow us to install and run Microsoft Office (and Lotus Notes) applications on our Linux boxes--caveat being that right now only Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook 97 and 2000 are supported, plus Lotus Notes 5. Tired of paying for all those Windows desktop operating system licenses plus the software licenses? You just might want to look into this little beauty.

Supported Platforms

CrossOver Office 1.0.0 is built specifically for Linux, but not for a particular distribution. The product has been tested on:

Caldera OpenLinux Workstation 3.1.1
Debian (no fixed version numbers, but multiple recent versions)
Mandrake 8.0, 8.1, 8.2
Red Hat 6.2, 7.2
SuSE 7.2, 7.3

However, company founder and CEO Jeremy White points out that CrossOver Office 1.0.0 is supported on all Linux distributions, and CodeWeavers' customers "run it on systems all over the map." Keep in mind as well that this product is meant for a workstation environment, as generally it's a bad idea to run intensively GUI applications on a server--not to mention word processors and so on. CrossOver Office 1.0.0 is built for the Intel x86 architecture, with the following hardware requirements specified:

200 Mhz or faster
2 MB RAM not occupied by anything else
16 MB hard drive space

There are also the following software requirements, for the use of those who are not utilizing one of the distribution versions that have been tested:

glibc 2.1 or higher
X11R6 3.3 or higher

Getting CrossOver Office 1.0.0

CrossOver Office 1.0.0 is a commercial product which is currently available in both a downloadable version ($54.95) and a version on CD-ROM for not much more for those who like to have a physical product in hand. Even better, if you buy the CD-ROM version, you're still welcome to get the download version, so you can use the product immediately and still get your physical disk.

There is no free download available. There are, however, a collection of screenshots, manuals, testamonials, and other useful items on the web site (www.codeweaver.com) to help you determine whether this product meets your needs or not.

What's Different

The obvious difference between having CrossOver Office and not having it, is that you cannot run Microsoft Office or Lotus (for Windows) products on your Linux box natively. Instead, the best comparison to make with this product is between Linux with WINE or Linux without it. An answer to this question doesn't take long to find.

In the WINE Application Database I find that Microsoft Office is not considered compatible with WINE in any version. Lotus Notes, another product supported by CrossOver Office 1.0.0, is compatible with WINE if you're looking at Lotus Notes versions 4.6a or 5--and it's version 5 that CrossOver Office can handle. So if it's Lotus Notes you're after, then you may not need something like CrossOver Office 1.0.0. Not everyone finds Lotus Notes 5 to work properly in WINE, however. Check out the comments in the WINE Application Database for more information.

Installing CrossOver Office 1.0.0

I go to check out the documentation, and find that I have two choices: install as a non-root user and only utilize the program under that account, or install as root and give it to everyone. As the opening dialog box reminds, you may have only purchased a single-seat license. If this is the case then your answer is clear, install the program only under your own user account. This is what I'll do for the sake of the review.

The first thing to remember if you've downloaded the installation script like I did, is to make sure and set that script as executable (a quick chmod u+x scriptname does the trick). After this I type ./install-cross[Tab]--let's face it, I'm lazy, and the download file has a very long name--and the opening dialog box (Figure 1) appears.

Since I do indeed only want to install this program for this user account I click Yes, which brings me to the License Agreement, which I read (you do read those don't you) and click I Agree. This action opens the CrossOver Office Setup dialog box, shown in Figure 2.

I click Begin Install and the installer happily creates directories, adds files, and so on with some nice progress bars to occupy the eyes. There's an odd pause at the end where I start to think for a moment that something went wrong, but then the dialog box changes to say Install Complete! Well, that part was easy.

Configuring CrossOver Office 1.0.0

At the end of the installation process, I click Configure Now, which brings up the dialog box shown in Figure 3. I don't use an HTTP proxy so I just pass that section right by, but if I did use one I'd sure be glad to see that this product supports proxying. After a moment, I find myself in the main setup section, shown in Figure 4.

Right now, the setup section tells me that I don't have MS Office or Lotus Notes installed, nor do I have the selection of TrueType fonts that come along with this combination. This brings me to the really exciting part. I put my Microsoft Office 2000 CD-ROM into my CD-ROM drive, make sure Microsoft Office is selected in the setup window, and then click the Add button to open the dialog box shown in Figure 5.

I leave the default of CD-ROM and click OK to proceed, and after a sequence of brief progress bars and dialog boxes, I have the distinctly surreal experience of seeing the MS Office 2000 initial installation screen on my Linux desktop (Figure 6). I choose the custom installation option and alter the defaults a bit, though I leave the install location in the default position within the virtual drive CrossOver Office set up, and the MS Office 2000 installation chugs happily along.

As all large program suites do, the installation takes a while, though I don't think it took any longer than it does on a Windows box. Then I hear a beep, so I look at the Linux box and there's the dialog box shown in Figure 7--which gives me a good chuckle. As per the instructions, I flip a coin and click No to whether I want to reboot now or not.

Once the simulated reboot finishes, the MS Office 2000 installation proceeds. When I reach the Windows Update dialog box the process seems to halt, and I sit watching to see whether the installer crashed or is just working behind the scenes. Sure enough, it was just quietly busy. Soon I see the Installation Report dialog box shown in Figure 8.

Now, this portion is a bit contrary to what the documentation says. Or, more precisely, I'm expecting the checkboxes I'm seeing in the Installation Report dialog box to be elsewhere. Once I take a moment to orient myself I set up the MIME associations, only letting the Windows software automatically open its own file types (my own personal preference). Once I click OK, I'm back to the main CrossOver Office 1.0.0 Setup screen, but this time Microsoft Office is listed as installed. I click Finish to close the Setup dialog box and get ready to try everything out.

Running Microsoft Office 2000 on SuSE Linux 7.3

There's no handy dandy icons included on the desktop or in the menus to start any of the MS Office programs, but CodeWeavers does include scripts to use, as described in the manual--though the default directory is cxoffice, not crossover. I type ~/cxoffice/bin/winword and lo and behold, there's Microsoft Word (Figure 9).

I work with Microsoft Word 2000 on a regular basis, and I've been asked to really take this baby for a test drive, so I put it through the works. I find the little buttons on the bottom left that allow me to change between views (Layout, Normal, and so on) first don't work but then they do. The usual start is to make a document so I type in some text, press Ctrl-S to Save, and the Save As dialog box appears with a default location of the My Documents folder, just like it would on a Windows box. Misspelled words get corrected automatically (you decide if that's a bad thing or not, but that's the default Word 2000 behavior), Revision Marks properly show up when I turn the tracking and their visibility on, and accepting revisions works properly. I can properly use the highlighter to mark up text, change text colors, embed a comment, and then properly view all comments. Don't take my word for it. See Figure 10 and my ugly Frankendocument.

It takes me a moment to find my Word document, it's in ~/cxoffice/support/dotwine/fake_windows/My Documents. I FTP the document over to my Windows 2000 Professional box and double-click it in the file manager. Poof. The associations under Windows are correct, so Word starts automatically and the Frankendocument looks exactly as I made it, down to the little unaccepted revision marked period at the end of the last sentence.

Now I make lots more changes, including entering Outline view and placing the entire document under a header, save the file out, and FTP it back over to the Linux box with CrossOver Office 1.0.0 on it. I open up the file (~/cxoffice/bin/winword "This is my new document 2.doc") and there's the document (Figure 11), still in outline view, outlining properly set up.

When I hover my mouse over a Comment it doesn't pop up the Comment's contents at first, but later this works again. However, the Comment wasn't actually lost, so that's a minor glitch I can live with. Now, to really test things out I open up a long (30 pages) chapter of a book that I've been technical editing. The Word 2000 behavior of opening a second document in an entirely new Word window works properly, and the large, heavily formatted document opens without a hitch.

For a moment I have trouble using the Window menu to switch between the two documents I now have open, but then the feature starts to work again. I save out the formatting template from the chapter's file and import it into my Frankendocument, and to my happy surprise it once again works perfectly! Selecting "update styles" properly changes the fonts to Courier and I'm able to change the formatting at will using the Styles dropdown list box. Once again, I FTP the file over to my Windows box, and it opens like a charm with everything properly working. Satisfied with Word, I move to Excel. I throw in data, autosum, select a chunk of data, and insert a chart of its characteristics in the middle of my spreadsheet. If I drag dialog boxes around too fast sometimes I get a little video glitch over the document, but minimizing the window and opening again gets rid of that little problem.

Building formulas that utilize data from more than one sheet works with no problem, as does anything else I can think to throw at this one, so I figure it's time to save and move on. But I press Ctrl-S to Save As with my new document and the program crashes. Oops. Good thing I didn't do too much work before I saved. I start up Excel again and give it another try and this time everything saves properly.

So, I FTP the Excel document over, make a bunch of alterations including changing the name on one of the spreadsheet tabs, bring it back and everything's as it should be. Next, let's check out PowerPoint, since I don't want to bore you with my software-testing prowess! My PowerPoint opens fine, lets me create all kinds of nutty slides (though sometimes when a dialog box opens I end up with some other dialog boxes from Linux programs also hovering over the PowerPoint window), saves and fine. I FTP what I've got to the Windows box and make a lot of changes, bring it back to the Linux box and make more changes, and everything is perfect--aside from every time a dialog box comes up I also get The GIMP hovering over my PowerPoint window). I run a slideshow and it gives me the fullscreen treatment in all its glory.

With Outlook, I go right for the gusto. I use Microsoft Outlook 2000 on my Windows box, so I've already got a lot of data I can export from there and move over. Rather than bringing it all over, I figure I'll export the contents of one of my mail folders and then import it into Outlook on the Linux end. However, Outlook keeps crashing on me during the import procedure. I eventually give up on the importing idea and just do a few "normal" things with the software instead. Those all work fine. I can send mail, make appointments and recurring appointments, create contacts, and more with no problems.

We've all heard about how Outlook is prone to virus attacks, so I thought I'd better ask CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White what happens when you're using Outlook in a Windows emulator under Linux, aren't running a virus scanner under the Windows emulator, and you get hit with a Windows virus.
His response boiled down to this. The virus actually will activate if Outlook is properly supported with the features it tries to use, and this is one reason that the Outlook support won't ever quite be considered complete, because CodeWeavers wants the software to be able to accept every Outlook security update that comes out of Microsoft. However, all of your Windows files are kept by CrossOver Office 1.0.0 in a little "virtual world" in your hard drive, in areas I've outlined throughout the article itself. Even if the virus tries to wipe out your system, the most it can do is attack the emulated Windows section. You can then uninstall and reinstall the software to restore your pre-viral state.
I'd recommend having a script regularly back up your files from the Windows section, however. Don't make it automatic unless you do staggered backups where you don't always overwrite the backed-up files. After all, mail comes in all the time, and if you get hit with a virus and aren't around, you otherwise could end up overwriting your healthy files with virus-infested versions. The same goes for Word macro viruses, Excel macro viruses, and so on.

Wrapping Up

Okay, so CrossOver Office 1.0 isn't perfect. I ran into glitches here and there, and the most frustrating was definitely not being able to import data from Outlook on my Windows machine. PowerPoint's a bit funny with pulling up other application windows whenever a dialog box opens, and there were other little problems that popped up and went away as I went about doing my thing.

It's a little sluggish with SuSE 7.3 on my slowest Linux box (a Pentium III 450MHz machine with 256MB RAM) with The GIMP running alongside it, so it could use a bit of speeding up. Keep in mind I type over 82 words-per-minute, though the dialog boxes and mouse clicks sometimes lagged behind as well as the text. I'd definitely want a faster machine with more RAM on a machine where I was using this program to do some serious work.

CodeWeavers has done an incredible job here. There's still a few little bumps in the road, but as they continue to iron out the small bugs remaining in the supported applications and add more programs to the mix, the Linux world will find itself in the same situation that the Apple Macintosh world found itself in years ago: able to utilize an emulator program to run many of the Windows programs that had never been ported over to the Macintosh market.

There's even a feature that allows you to mass-produce all of the product settings and roll an RPM or DEB package containing a script that will apply all of your setup choices, including MIME associations, on any number of Linux boxes. Check out the documentation for other cool things. I just don't have enough room to cover them all.

When I asked company founder and CEO Jeremy White what message he'd like to get out to Linux users, he said a few interesting things but I only have room for one quote, so I'll pick this one: "I think that all of the people who called for the demise of the Linux desktop are about to discover how very, very wrong they were." And you know what? I agree.