CrossOver Linux is a commercial product that provides Linux users with an easy way (yet expensive) to install various applications and games that run only on the proprietary Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Technically, the application is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) front-end for the well known Wine software, which provides a set of APIs and libraries to emulate several Microsoft Windows OSes on top of an open source Linux-based operating system.
Features at a glance
By default, the program comes with support for a very large selection of Windows applications, allowing users to install and use them without the need for a Microsoft Windows license. However, this does not mean that you won’t have to own a specific software license.
It is distributed as free for 30 days binary packages that support the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or older distributions, Ubuntu 12.10 or newer, Linux Mint 14 or newer, Debian GNU/Linux Wheezy or any other distro that uses Debian packages, as well as Red Hat, Fedora and other RPM-based operating systems.
Supported Windows applications
Considering the fact that CrossOver is just a simple user interface for Wine, it comes with support for all the applications that can be installed by the latter, such as the entire Microsoft Office 2007/2003/XP/2000/97 suite, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Access.
Among some other Windows-only applications that can be installed by this software, we can mention Internet Explorer, Microsoft Project, Adobe Photoshop, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Visio, Quicken, FrameMaker, Shockwave Director, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, as well as numerous games.
Bottom line
We will give only three stars to this project, simply because it is not moral to take advantage of an open source project, just because it’s popular, create a simple interface for it and sell it. There are several other Wine GUI front-ends out there, completely free and far better than CrossOver!
