Running (very) legacy mostly 32-bit windows apps in linux

[Aloysius07]

G'day - I have a lot of 32-bit and a few 64-bit apps running in Windows 10. Actually, except for a couple of minor annoyances, the apps run better and faster than Win10. My big fear is that Microsoft will suddenly pull the rug out from under and I'll be royally screwed.

Hokay... Lotus SmartSuite (123, Word Pro, Organizer and Approach are the tools I need, but there are more); Paintshop Pro 6.02 (immediately pre-Corel); Brother's Keeper 6 genealogy database; Foxit Reader v7; Gammadyne Clyton 21.0 (x64); Core Temp CPU monitor, Hard Disk Sentinel, TreeSize, FontViewer, Character Map Pro v2 (www PhotoshopClub com) etc etc.

I am looking hard at Linux to replace the Microsoft nightmare. Is there a distro which can run these apps without a virtual box?

Aloysius07

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome to the forums

if they are 32 bit your options are to
keep windows for running these programs
install a 32 bit Linux [but these are almost dead as well ] and install 32 bit wine to run them on
install 64 bit Linux, add 32bit [i386] codects and wine 32 bit
best option,
install 64 bit Linux, add a Windows 32 bit VM/VB and continue to use them in windows this would be my preferred option as you can then jump between Linux and Windows without the need to re-boot
Finally give up on Windows and use Linux apps [ https://linuxgui.com/linux-alternative-to-windows-apps/]

 

[Aloysius07]

install 64 bit Linux, add a Windows 32 bit VM/VB and continue to use them in windows this would be my preferred option as you can then jump between Linux and Windows without the need to re-boot

Hello Brickwizard

Thank you for your reply. I have been thinking about a VM. My last adventure with one of those was back in 2014, testing to see if Lotus would work in ReactOS... VirtualBox and VMWare, it did work, sort of, but ReactOS was far too immature. And it was a lot of very hard fiddly bits.

On the bright side, I still have my OEM Win7x64 Home Premium CD.

FWIW, my box is a Gigabyte H610M Gaming WiFi DDR4, with a 12th Gen Alder Lake-S Core i5 12600K, 32GB RAM and 500GB SSD with 3 WD Green HDD. This supports an OKI B412 printer and a Canon LiDE 4000 scanner. I do have a spare SSD slot

So, which distro and which VM? As I see it at the moment, Win 7 in the VM would be running only productivity apps, the printer and scanner; and the distro would host hardware management like Hard Disk Sentinel and Core Temp. I imagine that the host distro would be responsible for anti-malware?

 

[CaffeineAddict]

hello and welcome to the forums.

Is there a distro which can run these apps without a virtual box?

Based on what you said so far it seems you misunderstood something,
Linux, no matter which distro will not directly run any Windows software.

You've discovered it's possible by running Windows in VM, while that's 1 option another one is wine.
wine is unlike VM because you don't need virtualization, so it appears as if you're running on Linux, what happens is Windows code gets translated to code that run on Linux.

In any case no distro will run Windows programs, if you're looking for that you're wasting your time.

Any Linux distro you choose to install, it doesn't matter, can install wine, and then trough wine you run Windows programs.

 

[Brickwizard]

So, which distro a

see scond link in my signature below

OKI B412 printer

there are Linux drivers for OKI products which work on most models [it will be try and see]

LiDE 4000 scanner

Sain/twain drivers are available for Cannon and similar products, but the set-up can be complicated dependent on model

VirtualBox and VMWare,

most distributions will have one in the software repositories, they are usual tested by the distribution builders to work best on their builds.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Aloysius07 :-

Welcome to Linux.org.....the friendliest general Linux forum online.

HardDiskSentinel has a free version available for Linux:-

Hard Disk Sentinel - Free Linux version

Hard Disk Sentinel Linux edition free console version

www.hdsentinel.com

We run a lot of 'portable' applications in the 'Puppy' Linux world. I combined both CLI builds, along with the GUI package, together in a single, easy-to-use "multiarch" portable package you can run from anywhere (it auto-selects the correct binary at run-time, depending on the kernel in use).

I have no idea how it compares to the Windows build (I haven't used Windows for well over a decade). We used to use GSmartControl for this, but it's a rather technical app; HDSentinel simplifies everything for the average user, whilst still presenting the important basic info you need to know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

As for CoreTemp, I used to use it myself back in my Win XP days. Most distros will have access to something similar in their repos.

We have a fairly basic CPU temp app that gives a real-time, ongoing readout via an icon in the tray. I and another 'Puppian' did some work between us to allow it to give a real-time core temp readout for Nvidia GPUs; Dave hacked the original source code for pmcputemp, and I threw together a 'detection' script to collect temp readouts from the appropriate locations:-

/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input

.....for systems running "nouveau", and:-

/usr/bin/nvidia-smi

...if the nvidia.ko kernel module was detected. This was then all combined to give an ongoing, permanent readout from a second icon in the tray.

pmcputemp (the original) = "Poor Man's CPU Temp"
pmgputemp (hacked, & modded to make the readout a bit clearer) = "Poor Man's GPU Temp"

Both of these auto-update every 5 secs.....which is plenty often enough for us. As the temp rises, so the icon also changes colour, too. I'm no gamer, but I do a lot of video-editing.....and when you offload transcoding to the GPU, it can easily get quite "toasty"..!

Just goes to show, in Linux "where there's a will there's almost always a way".


Mike.

 

[Aloysius07]

A big Thank You for all the replies. They have helped me a lot.

I won't be around for some time now, summoning the courage to get past the Win10 install catastrophes and moving to a brand new OS environment. FWIW, I was born in the first half of last century and I generally enjoy computers, but wading through pure stupidity has taken a huge toll.

May the Force be with youse.

 

[MikeRocor]

and I generally enjoy computers, but wading through pure stupidity has taken a huge toll.

The world at large has suffered from this though many don't even realize it.

Welcome to the forums and good luck with your migration to linux. Don't hesitate to ask questions as they arise.