Emulators This starts the process of adding the files to the archive, compressing as we go. Emulators We’ve discussed various interoperability features of the applications in this chapter. For example, we’ve seen how OpenOffice is able to load and save files in formats like the Microsoft Office formats, and other non-native formats. In addition to these features, there are a number of emulators in existence. An emulator implements another (virtual) operating system within Linux, and hence you can run executables that are native to that operating system. Hence, we can (for example) run an emulator application that simulates the Microsoft Windows operating system running within Linux, and hence allows us to run Microsoft Windows Applications (binary files) untouched in their native format - from within Linux! The concept of emulators is not new, and they’re not unique to Linux. There have been many different emulators, for lots of platforms - mainly targeted at those who wish to recapture their youth or take a trip down memory lane. Among the most common emulators are those that simulate 8-bit home computers like the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. However, what’s far more impressive is the fact that emulators are available for simulating complex operating systems such as Microsoft Windows. In this section of the chapter we will discuss some of the emulators available. We won’t cover emulators in detail - it’s a large and complex topic, and the online documentation provided by the suppliers of some of these emulators is more than sufficient to get you started. But we will mention a couple of emulators, so you can start to get an idea of what they’re about. VMWare The VMWare application is an Enterprise Class virtual machine that can run multiple versions of an operating system on a single computer. For example, you could run multiple versions of the Windows operating system on a single Linux machine. More information can be found at http://www.vmware.com/. An example screen is shown below, demonstrating Windows XP running under VMWare on a Linux box: 159

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