Linux apps like Quicken are badly needed 3375

I would strongly suggest that you try WINE.

There are a few caveats:

1. You have libraries to emulate Windows APIs for most of the "core" APIs including MFC, COM, and the other core libraries. These are often adaquate, but you may find that an application starts trying to look for libraries or versions of libraries that don't exist in WINE.

2. You may have to have a Windows license to get the required run-time libraries that are released with Windows NT, 2000, XP, or ME. If Applications are Windows 9x compatible there shouldn't be too much problem. If they are Windows XP minimum it gets more exciting.

3. An alternative to a Windows OEM license can be to get Crossover Office - this has most of the libraries to run most Windows 9x, 98, and XP applications. Mulbreastasking Windows applications with memory mapped IPC can be ugly.

4. Win4Lin pro is pretty darn close to Windows XP compatible. It costs $99 and is not freely distributable. In addition, in contains libraries licenced from Microsoft. If you're a debian "True GPL Only" fanatic, Win4Lin would be against your rules. For the rest of us, it's a nice elegant solution. Win4Lin also uses the Xen extension, making it possible to run Win4Lin as a Xen VM Client.

5. When all else fails, consider VMWare. VMWare has a range of products. You will need to create a "master" image using VMWare Workstation. The image can then be used on other PCs LICENSED FOR THAT VERSION OF WINDOWS - using the VMWare Player.

6. If you've just got to have Windows as your host - consider installing VMWare Player, and downloading one of the numerous "VM Appliances" available. There is everything from SUSE OpenLinux and Fedora Core (3, 4, and 5) to Ubuntu. There are also server images for evaluating Oracle 10g, IBM WebSphere, MySQL, and several other "Server Images". We will probably start to see more "Client Images" as player becomes more popular. The image download takes about 20-30 minutes on a broadband connection, and the player takes about 3 minutes.

7. If you want to "author" your own VM appliances, consider VMWare Workstation, this will let you create VMs that boot from USB drives, that can access network drives, and can be reconfigured to take more or less memory.

At minumum, just get started with WINE. Try some simple cheap-and-simple programs to see what Linux does with them. The configuration takes about 30 minutes, and once that initial effort is complete, you can install Windows applications to WINE and start them just like you would any other Linux or Windows application.