Chapter 13. Running Windows Applications

I work in the downtown section of a medium-size city. Sometimes leaving work and walking down the street is a gauntlet of entreaties and demands. I dodge petitioners asking for my signature. I slide past street preachers working to save my soul. Up ahead I can spot donation seekers lying in wait. This is the everyday challenge of the modern American city dweller. Sometimes the sights and characters can be entertaining, and even perplexing, enough to make the inconvenience worthwhile.

One day I saw a street performer of such enormous talent that I stood speechless in the reflected glow of her geniuswell, actually, I stood stifling a giggle and moved to where I could watch her less obviously.

The older woman sat across from the square downtown on the busy corner with the Nordstrom's store and the Starbucks. She knew how to pick her corners. She was dressed in a bevy of multicolored scarves. Her musical accouterments included one old transistor radio, which sat in front of her on the brick sidewalk with antenna at attention. There were two containers also in front of her with scattered change in them. I'm not sure why there were two. Large bills in one and small change in the other? One for domestic currency and one for foreign? Complimentary tips in the red plastic bowl and disparaging tips in the blue plastic bowl?

Her piece de resistance, the thing that really made her act, was a plastic toy electric guitar. The white guitar and colorful buttons gleamed in the muggy afternoon haze. That afternoon was begging for her magical sound to tear open the mundane atmosphere. Her little transistor radio hissed static and strained for reception of a station, any station, to accompany the womanno, the artist. The guitar's buttons along the neck each corresponded to a preprogrammed guitar solo, engineered to sound like famous rock song interludes with all of the flavor, melody, and familiarity stripped out. The radio grabbed on to a song and held the reception. The performer raised her instrument to get ready. I knew something wonderful was about to take place. The tension was high. The anticipation was great. She waited for the appropriate place in Journey's "Separate Ways" and then performed her magic.

She hit the blue button.

An anemic guitar riff punctuated Steve Perry's yowling. I stood still and silent as the magnitude of her artistry washed over me in acoustic waves. How did she know the right moment? How did she choose the blue button when any amateur would have gone for the purple button?

She was a performer. She was a rebel. She was not worthy of any tips.

I mean, come on, sarcasm aside, was that a performance? Was it music? I suppose it is not up to me to judge what is music or what is art, but my sneaking suspicion is that substitution is the best word to describe that performance. She had no real electric guitar. She used a substitute to try to get a similar effect and experience.

I can't help but think of that woman and her white plastic guitar when I use a Linux program to open a Windows application. When you use other programs to simulate a different operating system like that, you are also substituting. I'm not saying you can't do this: You clearly can run Windows applications in Linux with relative ease, depending on the program. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do this: Sometimes you need a particular Windows app when you are working in a world full of Windows users. I am, however, taking my soapbox moment to ask you to try to learn to like native Linux programs before you use Windows programs as the transitional crutch. Although you have the ability to run Windows programs in Linux, it's not always the easiest task.