Objectivism Research CD-ROM under Mac and Linux

[McGroarty]

Here are a few notes about how to use Phil Oliver's fantastic Objectivism Research CD-ROM under Mac and Linux.

Firstly, the CD is here. If you're new to the forum and are thinking about asking to bum a copy here, consider reading the patents and copyrights essay in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal first:

http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AR66M

Carrying on, if you're using VMWare or Virtual PC for Windows compatibility already, you can use the CDless Windows instructions here. Ignore the rest of this message and pretend you're doing a traditional Windows install. If you have a PowerPC or Gx Mac, this is your only choice:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...ost&p=63170

If you have an Intel compatible machine running a UNIX, including Mac, Linux or *BSD, you can use Wine or Crossover Office. Wine is available from most UNIX distributions' package repositories, and instructions for obtaining the Mac version are here:

http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX/Installing

The nitty gritty:

- I'm assuming WINE is configured. Run winecfg and visit the preferences there if it hasn't been.

- Insert your Objectivism Research CD-ROM

- wine /media/cdrom0/setup.exe (change to match your cdrom path)

- Run the installer, let it finish, exit

- cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Oliver\ Computing/The\ Objectivism\ Research\ CDROM/

- mkdir cdrom

- cp -r /media/cdrom0/* cdrom/

- wine ui_mv32.exe

- Ignore any errors and exit

- wine regedit

- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTARE\OliverComputing\Obj_CDROM_100\password

- Change the key to your CD serial number, all lowercase, with no spaces or punctuation - just the long string of numbers and letters

- Create this script file:

#!/bin/sh

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Oliver\ Computing/The\ Objectivism\ Research\ CDROM

wine ui_mv32.exe 'C:\Program Files\Oliver Computing\The Objectivism Research CDROM\cdrom'

You can now create an icon shortcut to this script file and launch the ORCD at any time under Mac and Linux. No CD needed.

Congratulations! You've just reduced your reliance on a specific OS. Compelling OS vendors to compete on innovation instead of legacy is a wonderful thing.

Of note - the above work just fine with a 64 bit Intel install as well, provided you have 32 bit compatibility libraries installed. With Ubuntu or Debian, these should be installed automatically as WINE dependencies. I'll assume other unices' packaging is similar.