Platform-Independent Programs

[Beau Geste (imported)]

When Java was first introduced, it was supposed to make it possible for programs to be written which would work on any existing operating system (assuming the computer had enough memory.) Since then, if I understand it correctly, C# also was designed to produce programs portable to any system.

Obviously, the key to making the switch to Linux, lies in getting programs which will run with Linux, and will do what you want. Has anybody looked into this, and figured out which of the more important programs which most of us use, can be used with Linux as well as with Windows?

[fhunter]

When Java was first introduced, it was supposed to make it possible for programs to be written which would work on any existing operating system (assuming the computer had enough memory.) Since then, if I understand it correctly, C# also was designed to produce programs portable to any system.

Obviously, the key to making the switch to Linux, lies in getting programs which will run with Linux, and will do what you want. Has anybody looked into this, and figured out which of the more important programs which most of us use, can be used with Linux as well as with Windows?

C# in it's current state is fully supported only on micro$oft platforms.

Also the Mono (http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page) project exists, which makes it possible to run C# applications on all platforms. But it only supports .net 1.1, and support for .net 2.0 is spotty (as they claim).

As for the programs, may be this table would be helpfull to you:

http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html

Also there is the Wine (http://www.winehq.org/) project - it is possible to run windows programs on linux, but i can not say, that all of them run smoothly, YMMW.