FM on Linux?

[Guest]

Hi, I am looking for a Linux solution with FrameMaker. Any information on availability welcome. Thanks.

[Bob_Niland]

> ... Linux solution with FrameMaker.

FrameMaker 5.5.6 beta was available as a time-bombed trial version in the late 1990s. It was let expire, and seems unlikely to return.

So there won't be a native Linux solution (unless the entire commercial software industry finally gets fed up with having only one platform, that's controlled by industry-destroying clowns).

Your best bet is probably to run the Windows version under an emulator, and for that you'll need to do some research to see if anyone has gotten FM12 to run like that. People routinely run FM on Macs this way, so it might be possible.

And of course it's not just maker.exe that needs to run, unless all you need is PostScript output. For PDF you'd need Distiller to run as well, or have a Linux ps2pdf utility that you like. For any other workflow (ebook, HTML, XML) even more executables become potential issues.

[FieryPantone]

fwiw, I have been running FM 7.0 quite happily through wine … just haven't needed to for a while, so I can't remember whether I hit any particular snags.

When I've needed to prepare content for FM away from my Windows PC, I've used mml and made sure the encoding was ANSI. Doesn't do everything, but it's quicker than longhand :-}