I encourage you to review the options and features of WINE that can be customized.

Install the Lotus Notes client
Copy your Lotus Notes ID file to your home directory. To begin the installation of the client under WINE, the CD-ROM that contains the Lotus Notes installer needs to be inserted into the drive. Under Red Hat 7.2, the CD-ROM should auto-mount.

Change directories to the location of the installer for the Lotus Notes client, and you're ready to begin installation.

To start the installer, execute the following:

If everything worked correctly, you should see the familiar Lotus Notes Installshield installer, pictured in Figure C. Continue the installation like you normally would under Windows.

FIGURE C


You should see the Lotus Notes Installshield installer. Roll over picture for a larger image.

After installation has completed, you can execute Lotus Notes under KDE by going to the WINE menu item Programs-->Lotus Applications-->Lotus Notes. This is shown in Figure D.

FIGURE D


Execute Lotus Notes. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Depending on your machine's available resources, including memory and processor speed, it may take some time to launch the client. I found that the client ran slower under WINE than under Windows.

WINE's scorecard
A large number of functions and features worked perfectly after the installation. The following features of the Lotus Notes client worked:

• Lotus Notes Installshield Installer;
• Access databases locally and on servers via TCP/IP;
• Lotus Notes R5 Mail, Calendar, and To Do;
• Lotus Domino Designer including designing, creating, and managing local and server-based databases;
• Majority of the features of Lotus Domino Administrator.

The following features didn't work properly during initial testing:

• Replication via TCP/IP;
• Internet Explorer 3.0 Integration;
• Server console within Domino Administrator.

Conclusion
Overall, I was surprised how well Lotus Notes installed and operated, but it's still not quite ready for production environments. WINE has always been previously and still is considered a release for "developers." Although some work still needs to be completed before you might consider deploying Linux/WINE with the Lotus Notes client within your enterprise, I'm extremely optimistic about the future. The WINE project has made tremendous strides within the past year, and I imagine that we will see a stable and robust 1.0 release of WINE within the coming year.

While WINE has received a lot of buzz in the past, an up and coming operating system, Lindows (at http://www.lindows.com), just recently entered the race. In addition to having a genius of a name, Lindows promises to provide an easy to use to Linux-based operating system to run Windows applications. By the time you read this, the preview release of Lindows should be available. It's going to be exciting to see how these innovative technologies play out in the desktop market. Its unknown if, or even when, Lotus might develop and release a Linux Notes client, but in the meantime, WINE enables Linux to be a powerful alternative to Windows for Lotus Notes users.

Jeff Gunther is the General Manager of Intalgent Technologies (at http://www.intalgent.com), a Notes and Domino consulting firm based in Northern Virginia providing collaborative solutions with specific expertise in the healthcare industry. Jeff can be reached at jeff.gunther@intalgent.com.