So yesterday afternoon I posted some glowing info about the new CrossOver Office, and some folks wanted further clarification, especially vis a vis Win4Lin. Let me just say that I've had GREAT experiences with CrossOver. Earlier this year I finished a book for O'Reilly (Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox) that forced me to use Word (since their template is a VBA-laden beast), and XOver handled everything with aplomb, even a VBA-laden template. I just finished a forthcoming book on Knoppix (Hacking Knoppix) for Wiley, and the same thing happened, with a totally new VBA-encrusted Word template. Yet XOver handled it with aplomb. And now I'm doing it again, for a upcoming book on the Linux command line (more on that down the road!). New VBA-besmeared template; same story. I've used Dreamweaver, Excel, various Windows browser plugins (incl. Shockwave, QuickTime, & even WiMP), & even Photoshop (just a little) - everything has worked just great. The XOver install is a piece of ...

Peter Besenbruch on the Libranet list tried out the Xfce windowmanager, and then wrote up a good overview of his impressions. I'm a KDE guy myself, & it looks like Peter is too, but it never hurts to try another environment out, as it gives you a better sense of the good & bad things of your chosen GUI, and it's also just good to know about all things Linux. Here's what Peter had to say about Xfce: ...