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Wired Talks Wine
matroid writes "Wired reports that the upcoming WINE version 1.0 may be just what Linux needs to get users to migrate from Windows to Linux."
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you saying they all have to be drunk first?
four-oh-four
Hopefully Lindows will start implenting this new version of WINE and maybe start being able to run more programs. I think Lindows will be more successful at getting converts than WINE alone.
The future isn't what it used to be.
I'd really like to see this take off, and not just because my dad bought Corel stock. I went to find how to contribute to WINE, and they have this to say. If you haven't yet started the kernel hacking, then take up this project. Give them your time.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
I'm sure if Wine 1.0 had no difficulties running MS Office, IE+Outlook Express, Halflife CounterStrike and ICQ, a large chunk of dual booters would never have to go back to Windows.
#include
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Isn't that exactly what WINE intends to provide?
Perhaps "competitive" is the wrong word -- the idea is to make it intercompatible. Of course, anything that has the same function as a Microsoft product is, by definition, competing with Microsoft!
As István Lebor said: "I also find it intriguing that Microsoft has a Linux Competitive Manager if they don't see Linux as competition."
Heh.
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
Is WINE really necessary for Linux growth in the desktop area? I believe that Linux has enough of it's own apps native to the OS that we don't need to go out and run all the windows apps out there. From my experience Linux apps might be a little harder to set up, but eventually once they're running they're much more stable and more reliable then the windows counter-parts. Granted there are a few things I'd love to see work better in Linux like digital cameras but in time I have a feeling that will all be coded over.
Nate Tobik
ahh, the egg in the basket..
I say way to go WINE!
V1.0 gives a nice feeling of culmination to the project (granted, I know they won't stop). Good software always gets past V1, but it's an important milestone!
(sorry, could not contain my enthusiasm for WINE. If necessary, moderate me to -1 never to be seen again.)
Anarchy$ dd if=/dev/random of=~/.signature bs=120 count=1
...thank God for those guys! But I do have one request: could you PLEASE integrate OpenGL support in your RPMs? Everybody wants it anyway...Wine is a bit long to compile, and RPMs are easier to manage anyway.
Reminder: find a new sig
Yes, but IMHO I think that having Linux-native versions / workalikes (and I mean _exactly_ alike) of Windows programs would be better, both for the users of the programs and for the Linux community in general.
"Steve Wasko, Microsoft's Linux Competitive Manager, said that Microsoft is not very concerned about any competitive threat from WINE ... or Linux."
If they're not concerned about any competitive threat from Linux, then why do they have a position called "Linux Competitive Manager?"
Yea, I hate when I get drunk and wake up next to some random OS.
*booooo* Lame joke.
as far as real wine goes, the older it is, the better. wine is still somewhat new, and once it really gets going, i have no doubt that it will run all the necassary *dows apps needed to be a real threat to M$. any doubters, come back in 1 year and talk trash. who wouldn't want to run *dows apps (and there are many) on a stable box (as far as *dows goes, there are none). i'm 100% behind the wine people, and one day they will get thier glory.
"I also find it intriguing that Microsoft has a Linux Competitive Manager if they don't see Linux as competition."
-- from WINE contributor István Lebor
--- Learn XForms today: http://xformsinstitute.com
WINE lets CodeWeavers has created for QuickTime and Shockwave run so smoothly that I never think about them.
I have paid 20$ for CodeWeaver's Crossover plugins. And like he said Shockwave and Quicktime run very smoothly with Galeon + Mozilla 0.9.8. Without having any noticable load on the system resources.
So do your part go pay 20$ and get Crossover plugin. While enjoying all the Quicktime, Shockwave fun, you will be helping Codeweavers in not ending up like Loki.
I had mixed feelings about Transgaming, since they may not be helping in getting Linux game ports and so on. But with Loki gone I might support anything that will get good games on linux.
Its fine with Crossoevr plugins, since Apple was not going to do a Quiktime port for Linux anyway. And I think I read that Apple did support Codeweavers in getting Quicktime working with Wine.
Hey, I love Wine. It's a great product, and I think it's neat to run whatever I can directly in Linux using Wine.
However, I have to be realistic. One of my favourite games is Civ III, and since Infogrames isn't the most cooperative publisher in the world, I doubt a Linux version will arrive. And Wine doesn't run it well.
So, I'm stuck with my next system being one using both Wine and VMWare.
I think that's really the best anyone can hope for now. I'm not planning on upgrading my Windows version any time soon, though, so if you're a developer, remember the Win98 SE people.
(Of course, I bought Alpha Centauri for Linux. It's a shame about Loki. Can't wait for Bioware to release Neverwinter Nights to run on Linux. And those TOOLS better work under Linux as well.)
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
your bitch ass grandma might be able to use it, but mine sure can't. she can barely understand what AOL is, let alone what the OS is.
"Started in 1993". . .I hadn't realized wine is that old. . .it's almost as old as windows itself. . .
.the last time I used it was in '96 and at the time it served only as a cool novelty. I think I spent a few hours setting it up just to run notepad off of a windows share and then xhost it via Exceed back over to the same windows machine it was shared from. Hey. . .I had to have somthing to amuse me for all that work :).
I also hadn't realized that wine was nearing 1.0. .
I'll have to give it a shot again some time soon. . .
I think Wine should get with the times and follow suit in today's popular code-naming fad. eg. Whistler, Yamhill (what the heck!?), etc etc.
... it's pretty sweet"
Friend says: "yo dude... I just installed Merlot 1.9
Other Guy: "yeah.... it's pretty sweet man... but I can't wait for Sauvignon Blanc comes out. I hear there's gonna be some big changes in that one"
Friend says: "sweet"
Other Guy: "yeah... super sweet"
What's the niche? Web servers?
sic transit gloria mundi
I've been using Win4Lin 3.0 (Win4Lin) by Netravese for a few months now, and find it to be completely awesome. Now it does cost money, but this is actually booting up a copy of Windows inside an X session. Now granted it only support 95/98, but the article mentions that WINE only supports that as well.
I highly recommend Win4Lin for those of you who are forced into using M$ applications at your place of work (Outlook, etc.). It is pretty fast, and supports everything from Windows networking to sound and primitive USB. I tried WINE before and after Win4Lin, and I know why I'm sticking with Win4Lin.
goodshow
look who you may be helping out th next time you reply to a post on a linux news group
"Steve Wasko, Microsoft's Linux Competitive Manager, said that Microsoft is not very concerned about any competitive threat from WINE ... or Linux."
.perhaps "Anti-competitive Manager" would be more appropriate :). My favorite is still 'Dodge Ram'.
MS has a Linux competitive manager? A person whose sole purpose is to watch Linux? MS must really be scared or simply wants to quash everything. . .
"Competitive Manager" is an oxy-moron. .
oh damn, it breaks off just when it was getting good
sic transit gloria mundi
Now, most of people that I know who are running Linux are doing it mainly because of easy maintenance and reliablity.
Backside of mulating Windows is that you also have to implement all the flaws that some software unfortunately rely on. So does it really makes a difference after all if you have Office crashing on Windows or under Wine ?
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
I felt the article dealt mainly with removing the need for dual-booting for more and more existing Linux users. Why would a Windows user go to the trouble of installing Linux+WINE just to get what they already have (working Win32 apps and games)?
I (and probably other Windows users) will switch when Linux outperforms Windows where it counts - when it does what they have come to expect a PC to do: when it installs without much hassle, when their hardware works immediately or with minimal driver hunting, when they are almost guaranteed a supply of games (remember the success of Commodore 64s?) and when the applications are simple to install and use, and are compatible with files made by colleagues and friends.
I love the idea of WINE. I love the idea of Linux. I've tried Linux. Unfortunately though, I still use Windows because near-enough isn't really good enough. WINE is handy, but a 'Killer App' needs to be something more than simply matching the competition - it has to be the one thing you don't get anywhere else.
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
My own recursive acronym!!
But seriously, a fully functional WINE 1.0 would be a huge boon to current Linux users, and it may even bring in a few converts who want to use Linux exclusively but need quality Counterstrike action without rebooting into Windows.
The problem is that even with access to the amazing library of Free Software in addition to the Windows apps that WINE would provide, Linux is still not sufficiently user-friendly. My mother's head would explode if she were to peek into /etc.
Based on the Lindows review, we may be heading in the right direction. But if Linux is really going to take over the desktop, it's going to take more than being able to launch MS Word from xterm.
Learn to Play Go
Okay, I'm a newbie when comes to Wine's technical side, but what happens when Microsoft releases the .0.1 release of their APIs specifically to break Wine compatibility?
Or what happens when Microsoft updates their EULA to read: "this program must run on an officially licensed Microsoft Operating System" or starts requiring vendors who want to use the XP logo on their boxes to start including that wording also?
Heck, they could just put it all under the guise of their new security stance.
I'm not trolling, these are all possibilities when playing with MS! You can bet they've got contigency plans all ready for the day when Wine becomes a threat.
I've heard all this "wine (or VM or wahtever) will convice users to switch from windows" before. For the last two or three years I've been hearing it. What I'd rather hear is "many new apps that kick the crap out of their windows counterparts in usability and compatability are coming out and people will have no logical choice but to swithch to Open Source". Linux is getting a bad rep by coming on too strong with this "I'm just as good as windows" crap. What we need is for linux or other open source alternatives to show that just because it isn't Microsoft dosen't mean it won't work "In the Real World". Too often, Linux looks good on paper, but when it comes right down to it, it still can't replace windows 100%. And I'm talking about the desktop, not the server here. In other words, I'm saying a bunch of shit that's been said time and time again, but no one seems to be listening.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Sometimes, it feels like Cygwin (Unix on Windows) and all the windows-compatibility, and running windows apps on Linux... It's like giving in. Say you're dependent on Windows, so instead of being *completely* dependent on Windows-y things of the way the world works, you install Cygwin, which I've done, and it's nicer than cmd.exe, true! But it's tying you closer to Windows, because now you "sort of" have unix tools such as grep et al, and you can pipe stuff around.
Yeah, you can run Windows apps eg. browser, office, etc on Linux - but what that's saying is that Linux doesn't have the apps. True, it may not have the games, but games aren't emulated well often anyway. Code should be ported, not emulated. It's a great idea, I love the concept, and I'm grateful for their work, but it just feels like.... well, a sacrifice. I like Linux for the openness and the philosophy, I wouldn't be advocating anyone to switch to it because "DUDE!!! it has 'WINE' - it can run Windows apps!!" -- because Windows can run Windows apps as it is. Linux can run Linux apps. And a lot of UNIX apps. And a lot of open-source that gets written every day, and not for Windows.
Sure, it's about choice. Choose your OS, choose your apps, or emulation layer + apps. It's up to you. If I were to switch to a Linux-only solution instead of a dual-boot, I'd love a pure-Linux solution and wouldn't mind working towards it. This makes it easier for us dual-users to slack off on that front.
The moral of the story - we proliferate and extend the life of Windows with this, no offense, just my 2 $(MONETARY_UNIT)s.
I believe that anything that gives us all more choices is a good thing.
:) That was the best version that Office ever released. It was small, fast and had a reasonable number of features compared what we have now. grrrrr.
I bought win98 on several computers and a lot of old games and programs over the past 10 years, and if I can find a way to run them in parrallel with a better OS, then I will do so.
One of the things that people don't realize is that windows 9x is no longer a supported platform, if there are security holes and the like on that platform, you are on your own. I bet that soon even the virus scanner people will abandon those old platforms, and then you will be in a lot of trouble.
At least WINE will be fully supported by a lot of dedicated programmers for a long time to come. Who knows, we might even learn a few things from the dark side of the source (i.e. windows) and become better programmers.
And I have been wondering about decompiling programs into their original source and recompling them for newer platforms. Doesn't transmeta and the as400 do something this on the fly? It would be so cool to take my windows programs into the coming 64bit and 128bit computing environments that are on the way.
Or to run my full on version of MSOfficePro 4.2 on a PPC.
-- Never make a general statement.
I heard wine runs very poorly with in multi-user enviornments.. is this true?
This CRAP is driving me NUTS!!! Why is it that every journalist in the world believes that a port of M$ Office to Linux will magically bring users en mass to Linux? Linux has Applix Ware, Word Perfect, Think Free Office, and the "Completely free and completely compatible with M$": StarOffice/OpenOffice.
The Word/Excel/PwrPoint/Access replacement applications are there, and in my opinion, better than the M$ Programs they replace.
So what idiot can still believe that one single application is so powerful that it's keeping millions of people from switching to a more stable, more versitile, completely free Operating System?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"Although Linux has received a considerable amount of hype and may have received some degree of success in niche-server scenarios, we don't think Linux is compatible with the level of service, product consistency and vendor relationships that customers expect when they interact with a product," Wasko said.
Yea, preach on Brother! That is why I run wine on FreeBSD.
The way I see it, Wine is best used as a tool for engineering special-purpose Windows software into legacy status. I'm talking about software that businesses depend on that is written in-house or by smaller software companies. This software typically doesn't have all the secret API "features" that only big proprietary companies in bed with M$ use. For replacing Photoshop, Office, multimedia editors, etc., we still need native Open Source applications.
How's this for an idea.. an Open Source co-op. Lets say 10,000 people need a replacement for Photoshop. If they pool their resources at say, $100 per user (about 1/6 the price of a Photoshop license), that's a million bucks. The co-op then pays perhaps 10 programmers to work full time for 2 years turning Gimp into the most beautifully written image editor ever. Yes, some form of contract would be needed. Yes, the co-op would have to wait until the money is pooled before hiring. But it could work. Or here's another wacky idea. Invest that $1mil and pay a couple programmers to work full time using the interest alone. Money is powerful. We (the OSS community), really need to take advantage of it.
...while Lindows, Wine, and Mozilla are all struggling to get to the vaunted 1.0 mark, two copies of Windows XP are being sold every second.
If that doesn't motivate you to contribute to these projects and help get them out the door, I don't know what will.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
..Users will switch over initially, if somehow, Wine starts running Office/etc.
Then, when they realize that, yes, MS apps *are* more unstable when they're not on MS operating systems..
We don't need Wine. We don't need Microsoft products on Linux. What we need are actual Linux applications that people want - A massively functional office suite, DVD playback, etc.
People who dual boot currently aren't the 'desktop market'. People who don't dual boot (Using MS Windows) aren't going to switch over because Office runs ten times as buggier under Linux, no matter how cute our penguin may be.
What happened to this project? Seems like there was much interest and development for awhile and then it just dropped off the face of the earth.
Anyone know what happened to the project?
WINE should be stopped, it hurts Linux from meeting its full potential. Sure it is nice to run Windows programs on Linux and everyone would like to do that but it discourages developers from creating programs for Linux (either ported or native). WINE only helps benefit Microsoft by giving them more software for their operating system. For Linux to truely win it must have its own large base of programs.
It is easy to port software with only 2 common base OS's--all the *NIXs and Windows. Programs can easily be recompiled and run between all the *NIX systems so it is no biggie to port Windows software.
What about programs that will never get ported like MS Office? Well, I do not see a need for it since StarOffice is as good if not better. There is already OSS on Linux that mirrors Windows'. Anything that comes out of Redmond can be matched by programmers coding in their spare time.
The WINE team will be burdened by having to up implement Windows features. If they do not keep up they will fall behind and be blamed for the small ammount of software on Linux.
There will always be problems with Windows problems because of bugs in the APIs that some programs depend on so again WINE is a problem.
--Metrollica
Something like Wine will discourage developers from writing Linux versions of their software. Why bother when you can target Windows and let Wine handle running them on Linux? This may further maginalize Linux. Is Linux destined to be a cheaper version of Windows, or will it follow the road less travelled?
...if the aim is to get converts. How many people converted to the mac because of softPC? I personally don't know any.
Remember OS/2? One of their claims was "it's a better DOS than DOS" and it was true. OS/2 could run DOS with multiple versions and multiple configurations. But did it take off? No. And one of the reasons is that it didn't have the software support. People don't want emulators, they want native applications.
Emulators are good for that application or two that you still need to run aside from your main software. The key is to make that "main software" Linux software and get the users to like them better than the Windows software.
If people want to run Windows apps, they'll run Windows.
This guy and his kids live with his mother? CEO's jut don't get bank no more.
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
You see, the real world works like this:
1) You're running Linux at your workplace.
2) You get mail from your valued client: "Please find our budget attached". There is an Excel file as an attachment.
3) You try opening the file with StarOffice. It won't open, however, since it contains complex graphs and macros (happens to me all the time).
4) Are you REALLY going to mail your client and ask him not to mail you Microsoft Office attachments???
Grow up. Most people HAVE to use Microsoft at workplace. Not everyone is a network/sys-admin.
Lunix users: Don't want Windows users (who they deem to be mentally inferior) switching to their precious little 'pet OS', since that would remove the elitist stigma from Lunix and destroy what's left of their self-inflated, self-interested egos.
Windows users: Aren't exactly going to switch to a completely foreign OS just to do... the exact same fucking things they were doing on Windows, but with more hassle now.
So straight away you have both of the two groups involved that don't really need this project. It's like these geeks would rather waste their fucking time reverse-engineering the Windows APIs just to play Counter-Strike when their 'talents' (or 'mad skillz' as Lunix users refer to them) would be better used to either a) write quality native apps for Lunix, or b) give in and shell out for a licensed copy of Win*.
From the article: ... or Linux."
"Steve Wasko, Microsoft's Linux Competitive Manager, said that Microsoft is not very concerned about any competitive threat from WINE
Funny.
One of the major weaknesses of Wine so far is that there's no support for Windows-only drivers. For example, Matrox Marvel G200 MJPEG video capture. This wipes out whole classes of applications - multimedia, OCR and others.
Fortunately, VMWare version 3 now supports USB, which can allow installation of drivers for USB hardware.
I can envisage that many people will follow an integration path like:
1) Mainly using Windows, add a linux partition
2) Learn the Linux apps, often boot Windows partition
3) Progressively migrate Windows apps to VMware under Linux, less frequent use of Windows partition
4) Progressively migrate Windows apps from under VMware into the Wine environment
5) Progressively convert data from Windows apps to formats usable by native Linux apps
Hopefully, at some point along this path, one can delete the Windows partition, and later the VMware box, and use only native Linux apps or run some Windows apps under wine.
Realistically, I would hope to be completely free of my Windows partition in 6-12 months, and free of VMware in 6-18 months.
But the time to really 'pop the cork' on the Wine is when it supports native Windows device drivers, which will be a feat indeed!
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
There is no Microsoft Office for Linux and people will not bother learning another office suite as long as their companies install copies of it on their workstations.
Compatibility is also an issue. I'd like to run Linux at work, but can't because my clients and colleagues keep mailing me MS Office files as attachments. Now, if the file (such as an Excel sheet) contains macros or complex graphs it simply will not open properly with StarOffice, for instance. Even if I had time and desire to help the StarOffice developers and mail them about the problem I couldn't do it because the files are confidential and cannot be supplied as a test case.
The only reason I need Windows for (until I get a Mac) is music. There are excellent Windows/Mac apps with poor OSS alternatives yet. :(
So I tried various versions of Wine and VMWare.
Success was poor on Wine except with sample editors.
It was way better with VMWare except for one thing : latency. Although software was properly working, the sound card output had far too much latency. I guess the problem would be the same with any Windows emulator. The emulation part involves latency, especially when it comes to delivering signal to hardware.
So music makers will have to stick with a native Windows partition
{{.sig}}
linux isn't really that popular as a server os... (don't believe me? check netcraft.com) in this context, it doesn't really matter what the fuck the user is running... you want linux on the desktop right? well bend over sparky... and get used to the pounding the user's gonna give you, regardless of the OS you imagine you are running.
Where, exactly, is the news in here? I saw one sentence about Wine 1.0, saying that it would be released soon and that it will be better than the previous versions. What I would like to see is a feature list for wine 1.0; what will the major improvements be?
What we are seriously talking about here is migration. WINE is excellent at this. This is what we want. Get more people over to Linux, and don't force them to trash their existing software. If I buy a software package for Windows and I can run it on Linux, it seems very attractive to shift.
When I first thought about moving to linux, back a while now, the one gripe was that I wanted to run Half-Life as I loved that game. Then wine matured and I actually could. I dropped Windows like a rock and move to Linux.. There's got to be more people like that out there.
From your post I get the impression the Word can be used in serious publishing. Do you have any references that I could use when I complain to the beforementioned publishers about the lack of the Word option once again.
Strange that you'd have problems.
My laptop is currently a Celeron 400 with 128 MB RAM, and I'm not having any problems running it on Win 98 SE. Ok, if I play with 15 civilisations, after I find them all and the year A.D. 1000, well, then it starts to be slow between turns.
I wonder why yours runs so slowly. A friend of mine has an even worse machine than mine and has no problems. Could it be the Win2K?
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Are you new to Linux?
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I would have to say I am all for the legalization of drugs. I am not a drug user. I just believe it cleans out the gene pool. Why should I care what you put in your veins? if you rob me (I dont care WHY..you're a thief), you should be punished. Drugs or no drugs. What I do with my own body is my own business. I find it offensive that they spend MILLIONS of friggin dollars on drug busts and prostitution, while there are REAL criminals walking the streets.Thieves, murderers, etc. I dont care if he was on crack or he was on Peanut butter. He did a crime!
And how about Pay Per View executions? Do you know how much MONEY the govt would make? None of this lethal injection bullshit. Fry em! Throw em in a pot of boiling water! I dont care! Priorities in this country are WAY too fscked up.
People is the US are too PC to think for themselves. They change their tune though when it happens to them!
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
"AppDB Stats - There are 640 applications currently in the database with Half-Life being the top voted application."
/mnt/winc" for me!
- WINE application database website. (http://appdb.codeweavers.com/)
Acording to there own statistics at least. I'm the same. When I get CS working well enough its "rm -rf
Hey that rhyms! (How ever you spell it)
Acaila
Growing Old is Inevitable; Growing Up is Optional.
Even if wine were 100% complete today, and every program worked on Linux that does on Windows, it would not make Linux a viable desktop OS. For one thing, all applications would still "feel" like Windows applications because they were not designed for Linux. Secondly, Linux still needs more work done in the user interface department if it expects to compete with Windows. Linux also needs commercial software ported over to Linux. There is a big difference in running win32 api's in Linux and running a ported application, for an example of this, look at Office X. Then and only then will Linux become a mainsteam desktop operating system.
Will it play Dark Age of Camelot or Everquest? =)
-Berj
Personally, one of the many reasons I don't run Windows is that I tend not to like Windows apps. IF I WANTED TO RUN WINDOWS APPS I WOULD BE RUNNING WINDOWS
Go to Loki for your games. (I know /. says they're dead, but there's a rumor about every subject you could think of). Support those that support us and we both win.
Some time ago (probably the last Wine topic) I posted a comment saying that emulation is bad for Linux (and others). It allows authors to write for Windows and ignore Linux, while still getting revenue from Linux users. I don't want to repeat that discussion, but it is applicable. The better and more popular Wine gets, the worse the Linux applications will get.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
THE absolute advantage for game developers are the WINElets which they are working on here. It will make rewriting game code unnessecary and, remember, WINE Is Not an Emulator, so i don't really expect speed issues in the future !
" WINE does not yet support applications that use Windows XP-only features such as .NET. White thinks that as XP-only applications start to appear, WINE will have to accommodate them, but he doesn't see this as a major issue yet, since those applications are few.
.
This is not a calling of doom for windows users that want to convert_because_a lot of windows users don't want to buy the newest version of windows, even future Service Packs. Especialy small buisnesses because they have to focus their resources on growth and survival. So since M$ has announced that it will stop supporting Win98X in 2003, this might be the window of oppertunity to switch them over to a more sensable alternative."
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
"I really think that with the advent of StarOffice 6.0, Mozilla 1.0, and Ximian Connector, combined with a great, well-refined WINE, we may finally see the beginnings of the Year of Linux on the Desktop(TM)"
while i seriously hope you are right, it isn't merely a question of "equaling" the features of MS Office or of the Windows Desktop (Bleech!), or bringing native Win32 code over to the LINUX platform (look at the history of Win emulators on the Mac), even if WINE is perfect, thunking is not free, performance wise, and Bill's Thing will be shipping on MILLIONS of new PCs every month for the foreseeable future
we in the community have to offer a significantly better user experience, with LINUX native apps
we come in strong on price, free support and passion
we come in weak on marketing, abilty to tie our LINUX products to a "Big Name" tech provider (like AOL) and we have no ability to make the OEM Mafia (Dell, Compaq, Gateway, HP, Sony, et al) dual boot enable any large portion of their new machines
also, "The Curse of *NIX", which i have been dealing in my work since before the widespread release of SRV, continues to haunt us....especially in the area of idiot proof desktop setup and functionality
X continues to be less than perfect and hard to get going really smoothly without SOME user experience and intervention
...and although I have great hopes that in the mid-term plus (18-36 months) the battle/conflict/thing between Gnome and KDE will result in KILLER desktop functionality, in the short term, the desktop setup continues to be a real weakness in selling LINUX to anyone not comfortable with at least a little diddling, twiddling and fiddling with their OS setup (and that is a LOT of people)
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
In 1933, prohibition was overturned, the homicide rate dropped over 50 percent. Drug use in countries where its a soft crime or legal, like England and Canada show that legalization lowers crime rates. The facts are published, the world knows it. But brain washed little citizens like you wouldnt know the truth even if someone told you a gun was loaded, and you would have to shoot yourself to prove it.
Speaking of money, Marijuana is the ranked 1 in cash crops in the USA. Totaling 32 billion dollars a year. If it was taxed at a rate of 6% it would bring in 1.9 billion dollars a year. The USA fights the drug war with a budget of 35 billion dollars, thats money that could go into more police to stop murders, rapists and education. Its doesnt make sense, but people in the USA cant think for themselves anymore. Its a land of sheep.
X continues to be less than perfect and hard to get going really smoothly without SOME user experience and intervention
What is it exactly you don't like about X 4? It has full 2D and 3D support for most hardware out there. It's slimmer than X 3. It autodetects hardware (unless you have a stubborn hardware manufacturer who insists on requiring a closed-source driver with a clumsy rpm-based install). It has builtin truetype and type1 font support, with anti-aliasing. It has hardware accelerated video and 3D, making it just as performant as windows on my hardware (a G400). Anything left to complain about is NOT X's job.
Frankly, I think it's about time people stop complaining about X, because when they said to the X developers "put up or shut up", the X developers put up.
"...WINE version 1.0 may be just what Linux needs to get users to migrate from Windows to Linux."
.NET apps will probably not run on Wine. The next version of MS Office will probably be on the .NET platform. Of course, .NET apps will probably work on Linux/Mono by then. Even worse, now Microsoft will be able to sell its apps to the Linux & Windows World.
Couple of things
#1) Why would joe-schmoe user switch to Linux because it can run the Windows apps that he already happily uses on windows? Because it's free? He's already got a copy of Windows. You have to give users a real reason to switch. i.e. - If Grand Theft Auto 4 was only available on the Linux platform, you can be sure that every Windows kid will try to get Linux running on his/her PC. I think Wine's a good thing, but on the whole, it won't make the general population think about switching to it - hell most people have never installed Windows, let alone some foreign OS that nobody they know can help them with.
#2) Wine's days are already numbered.
Its not so clear that this will help much if at all. Macs have had virtual PC for years but when i hear of people switching OSes its usualy the case that they go 100% for native mac products and this is with virtual pc being a much more mature program than WINE, no offense to it's authors but connectix has several years head start not to mention a large budget. I see emulation software being most helpful for individuals who want to use a certain platform that their companies proprietary software doesnt support and in the case of linux this group probably already dual boots into linux anyway. of course this doesnt mean i wont try it out once 1.0 is released.
--aiee
______ is the reason people will not switch to Linux.
OK you are blind.
If MS is successful with their Licensing schemes then about 92% of the world will not be able to run windows. I guess we are still blind to the fact we are heading into a era of global computing. The US was strong early in computing due to the high cost of computing, and the wealth of it's people. This will/is shifting away from the US due to the number of people/nationalities that are are now part of the growing global computing community. Soon a High School graduate in Japan will have the equivalent of a American CS degree, as will many students in many nations. Remember the American public school system?
Get a free ipod.
If I'm mistaken and some feature of revision marks doesn't work as expected let me know and I'll go bring it up in one of the OpenOffice lists.
As for the other issues, list them here or (better yet) tell the folks at OpenOffice.org. They are very open to comments on improving the editor as well as any other part of the suite.
Revision marks quick how-to:
Export -- File...Save as... and choose one of these;
Microsoft Word 95
Microsoft Word 6
Import -- File...Open (choose document from list; default is show "All" files)
Since you are in journalism, I'll leave it up to you to get Sun to fork over a copy of StarOffice 6 beta. The last open beta closed at the end of 2001. The next release is expected to be 6.0 final (or close to it).
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
The only people who should really care about Linux displacing Windows are the commercial vendors who are trying to make money from it.
Personally I could give a rat's ass whether my neighbor want to run Windows bloatware on his computer, anymore than I care if he wants to drive a chevvy citation or eat dog crap sandwiches.
I use Linux.
Until you can install Linux on 99% of the desktops and laptops out there and not have to spend a week getting your network card, sound, and video configured properly, Windows is still going to be the OS of choice for most people... even if you have a way to run all their favorite Win32 apps.
I've been a Unix admin for 12 years now and it still takes me some time getting Linux up and running... which honestly is the last thing I want to do when I get home from a day of solving Unix problems. You're not going to be able to tell Grandma that in order for her sound card to work properly, she'll have to recompile the kernel.
Yes, I'd like to see more people using Linux. It would be great to take some of the wind out of Microsoft's sails. Windows does have a history of being buggy and unstable.. but they are getting better with the likes of Win2K and unless Linux developers concentrate on getting an install package that configures everything right the first time, the window of opportunity for taking over the Windows market share will be lost.
It's funny how the same users that say why would I switch from Windows to Linux are the same users who complain about crashes and high pricing of Windows apps.
The licensing schemes for Windows for the home user are the least of peoples problems with cost. Office costs far more to license than Windows itself, as does Adobe Photoshop(over 700$).
We have to remember that Wine although a great project and very interesting, will generate more sales for the same companies that overcharge to the extreme for products that would be considered a minor revision upgrade under Linux
I personally feel securing and improving Linux native applications and breaking the corporate grip on the minds of average computer users (aka "I have to have Office 2010 to get any work done!") is far more important to real independence and change.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
It's in Microsoft's interest to break its APIs and file formats: that keeps the $$$ rolling in for upgrades, because people need to read and work with files in the format du jour. Microsoft will always be more creative at breaking its file formats than the WINE people will be in emulating them. For that reason alone, WINE will always be a long stride behind the current release of the MS apps. Therefore, the project can never achieve its goal of providing true Windows emulation under Linux. WINE is a curiosity, nothing more, and will always remain so.
[this
If a program works in linux under wine a company might refuse to make a native port out of it, because "it already works". And all the program sales are seen as MS Windows program sales, so you also get another reason for corps to refure porting, being economically useless.
While wine might be a great piece of software, I don't agree with the reasons nor the concept. (and, yes I know it's a WinAPI implementation, not a emulator)
"...anything multimedia works poorly if at all."
I definitely have to disagree to this broad statement. Recently I've found myself rebooting into Linux just to play movies. Mplayer is the video player I've used any operating system.
The following quotes a developer on it's major strengths -- speed, synchronization, and support (It's accompanying dozens of codecs & builtin format support doesn't hurt either):" Linux is getting a bad rep by coming on too strong with this "I'm just as good as windows" crap. "
As we well should. Who in their right mind aspires that low? We can do better.
It seems to me that Apple has met the expectations of theirs users and exceeded them with OS X. There's no way that such a diversified linux community could create a seamless product like Mac OS X. Not all Linux users/developers have the specific aim of getting Windows users to switch over to Linux. Lindows is the best attempt yet, but they are still using WINE. A serious developer might consider writing their own flavor of emulation. I would consider something like VirtualPC for Mac or even something that acts like the emulatin of OS 9 in OS X. Something nearly seamless. Wouldn't it be interesting if Microsoft dug its hands into the Linux market by releasing a commercial emulator for Linux? They would still make money on the OS license and the emulator to boot.
I _think_ that the original poster meant that multimedia apps designed for windows don't work well in VMWare. Just guessing.
Your point about the OEM Mafia not installing Dual Boot systems has until recently been because M$ will not sell them the OEM liscences. Windows MUST be the only OS on the PC, with NO (or VERY minor) changes to the desktop. This has been the M$ stance for some time, although i beleive it is loosening up now
Um...when the president of a company publically admits that they're dead you call that a "rumour"? You have too much optimism, my friend.
WINE is, in theory, capable of running any application written for Windows 98/Me
To quote Homer Simpson:
Sure, in theeoory. In theory communism works... In theory.
Rather than get caught up in seeing things either too optimistically or too pessimistically, I think we should try to see things more realistically.
.Net subscription and services. To be realistic, a really good scenario for Microsoft would be to partner with major ISPs and cable providers and fold the cost of .Net subscription into the cable or ISP bill. Would you notice it? Developments in this space are obviously going to be interesting to watch and could be an opportunity for distributed and free .Net-like services.
I'll take a stab at such a realistic view:
1. Windows XP and its successors will have enough of a combination of stability, features, security, branding and marketing to hold onto a majority of the desktop for a long, long time. However, as more of the world comes online (Brazil already, Mexico soon, China and SE Asia and then India) important trade agreements will get signed and the currently rampant piracy will be curtailed. When more and more people in non-Western countries find that the latest version of Windows and Office is too expensive, an appropriately packaged version of linux (or the BSDs) will become more attractive.
2. While Office XP will probably continue the dominant position held by previous Office packages, Microsoft may attempt to nickel and dime us to death with
3. Future developments in the PDA and handheld space: While Pocket PC is gaining now, linux could play a role here which may eventually affect what we mean by "the desktop".
4. I just saw Gandhi on TV. Please remember his quote: "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always." It is unfair to characterize Microsoft as murderous, the movie _Antitrust_ notwithstanding, but I think "tyrant" fits admirably.
Anand Rangarajan anand@cise.ufl.edu
Yeah, it's whoring and slightly OT, so what?
From the Bork columnist:
If you haven't made your comment in U.S. v. Microsoft, you have three (Now TWO (2)) days to do so. The e- mail address is microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov while the fax numbers are 1-202-307-1454 and 1-202- 616-9937. As Judge Bork noted, your comment's effectiveness is a function of how intelligently it is rendered. I've received copies of many of the comments sent by readers of this column, and I'm truly impressed. Now we need to multiply them by a hundred or so.
Write the email!
Write the email!
Write the email!
Man, you guys are lazy.
As an example (albeit maybe not the best one), I have a Johnson J-Station digital preamp. I can download additional patches from Johnson's website, but I have yet to find a way to install them under Linux. (The interface software is a Windows proprietary executable.) And since it uses MIDI, I can't do it under VMWmare, as VMWare's MIDI support is essentially nil, and ditto for USB support (so no USB->MIDI solutions either).
Native Linux multimedia is awesome. That wasn't what I was talking about.
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
Responding to Steve Wasko's (Microsoft) comments about no threat from WINE/Linux.
..., Lebor said. "I also find it intriguing that Microsoft has a Linux Competitive Manager if they don't see Linux as competition."
Intersting, however OS 9 apps run in a box of sorts. They can take over the screen, but it is clear when an app is running in classic mode. It is much the same as where VMWare could take you.
WINElib has the potential to do for Linux what Carbon did for OS X.
Carbon is an OS X native API that is based on the classic API. Additionally, Carbon was ported to OS 8 and OS 9. This meant that you could have been developing for Carbon the past few years and having OS X native applications that ran under Mac OS. For extra fun, they could have FAT binaries (I think that I'm using the term right, they had something like that) where they could include a Classic PPC binary, Classic 68K binary, and Carbon OS X binary all as one application.
WINElib is interesting, you can build against WINElib and compile for Windows and Linux, supporting both platforms with native applications. The trick is a strategy that lets you target both OSes for now, it lets you keep your Windows market and expand into the Linux market as it matures.
Personally, I think that Apple should work on getting WINElib to be Aquafied. Then you could build targetting WINElib for Windows/OS X, and Linux or other UNIXes. Obviously you'd hate to make Win32 the standard API, but Apple dropped it when they dropped OpenSTEP for Win32, so oh well.
Alex
Although I'm a windows user, and struggling to get into Linux, here's a spot that no one else seems to have talked of: Vertical applications.
:). Comeon Lindows!
Although I'd love to have Linux as my main OS, I'd still have to duel boot to use some propritory, vertical applications such as apprasial software. They don't make this for linux, and chances are they won't ever unless Windows and MS was to dissipear.
But the same software out of that buggy, crash happy, insecure, and system hogging Windows, into a stable, secure linux. Now your talking! I'd leave windows in a millisecond if I could get all of them working.
That's why, those who said 'If you want windows programs, then why use linux' (or stick with windows, etc.) why I'm supporting Lindows, and WINE so strongly. If I *have* to use those programs, then I want a choice of what OS they run under! I want a stable, secure, lean OS. Is that too much to ask?
Now if they can work out an easy to install/upgrade way for KDE, AND WINE then I'll consider these two options
Shaddock Delaforge (shadwalk@operamail.com)
Guess you haven't been reading to the end of your eula's lately, but every M$ eula now includes that. The eula for VC++ says programs compiled with it must run on windows, and even the proposed DOJ anti-trust settlement has added restrictions to only run on M$ OS's.
tcboo
You know not what you speak of. There is no windows feature you can think of which is not available on linux + about 100 times more you can't.
What you should have said is "I like this straitjacket of uniformity and paternalism".
document processing and formatting in Word is second-rate to TEX. Change history is a poor substitute for a real version control system. cvs, webdav, ghostscript are just some of innumerable tools available. I'll admit they require some thought to set up though.
I guess you have never used gimp and don't know about it's superior extensibility and interaction with other software.
I use wine daily in a corporate setting. It is rapidly coming to a useful 1.0 release in the next few months. Lotus Notes, Visio, SoundForge and earlier versions of M$ junk are all major applications which already work on it.
The fact that an "entire publishing chain...is tied to word" should be an alarm and wake-up call to fix the problem thru open standards and protocols.
"Why bother?" snicker. some people deserve what they get.
tcboo
I, for one, plan to switch the family network over to Linux as soon as all our critical Windows apps can be reliably run. At that point, we'll be buying Linux-only software. But we'd buy Windows software which we knew to be Wine-compatible.
Has there been any thought put into that marketing idea by the Wine project? It seems like it could be a money maker, for one thing. Companies would pay to have their apps checked out for Wine compatibility, purchasing the right to display the Wine-Ready logo.
I went to find how to contribute to WINE
You can help contribute to the development of WINE's media layer by buying a TransGaming subscription for $60 per year.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Will it be so good that we will have to start worrying about windows virusses ? :)
I first discovered the WINE project back in 1994. I was using the Slackware distro which I painfully downloaded and installed from boxes and boxes of floppies. I was excited! Hardly anything ran on it but the idea of running Linux and being able to use all of the programs that were coming out on a relatively new OS called Windows really got my blood pumping. OK, I could wait a few months for it to come out of beta.... One year later.... OK Wine wasn't there yet but hey, Microcrap came out with Windows 95 which meant that the project got more complex and they were making progress weren't they?... Two years later... It runs Mine Sweep.... I guess they're making progress... Three years... Four years... Five... Six... Still in beta... So soon 1.0 will be out. I guess that means that it won't be in beta any more.... But didn't I hear that more programs fail to run than run? I'm not trying to blame anyone. Writing a compatibility layer for a closed source OS is no easy task even if the company who controls that OS plays fair. Microsoft doesn't play fair and it isn't a difficult task to "tweak" things here and there to keep WINE incompatible with the newest software. With this approach we will always be playing catch up. There are many challenges ahead if we want Linux to become an OS that is widely supported by major software companies. The prevailing Linux community attitude that all software must be free is a major block. We are in a sort of catch 22. To be well supported by major software companies they need to be able to make money selling software to the Linux community. This means that 1. That community needs to be large enough to make it worth while and 2. That community needs to be WILLING TO PAY for the hard work that these companies do for us. Where the catch 22 comes in is that we don't have the "critical mass" needed and we never will have unless we have some way to entice people to start using Linux. I.E. More software that they want to use. No commercial support = not enough users to warrant commercial support. On the surface it seems that WINE could be an answer but in the many years that I've been watching it, it hasn't delivered. Maybe the "WINElet" strategy will work... Oh, but then there's that Linux community "I WON't PAY" mentality to deal with, isn't there? I'm ranting now so I'll go away...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
please... please help. Software should run on an OS. IF it doesn't, it's a monopoly. Which is illeg... *BLAM* sound of lone gunman
/. about that? hmmm? Come on. It let's Windows software run on Linux. And you talk like it's a crime of some sort. I'm pretty sure it works, unless the coders are all half way to Guam out of embarrassment.
;p
From what I see posted here, it's all negative. Shouldn't this be a positive thing? It's stupid, it won't work, Microsoft will change the formats too fast. Linux apps aren't innovative enough. I'd rather pay for the Windows, it works. Sorta. I'm not worried about the license agreement. And the software, well it's thousands of dollars but it's pretty good. That Unix isn't nearly as user friendly. You need a Science Degree to admin it.
It's the new Wine! 1.0 Brothers and Sisters. Nothing positive to be said on
Microsoft has shown a pattern that's well known with changing file formats and APIs, etc. Not to mention it's tactics. I mean, this is why they were brought up to the DOJ right? It would be great if Microsoft didn't try to change the playing field every two years, this might help a generation of software to be born. Meanwhile, everyone is busy learning how to get their old software to work on the new Windows... which ever new one you have.
You've been a UNIX admin for twelve years and it still takes you time to get Linux up and running?
Buddy, ever since Red Hat 6.0, I have yet to see any piece of reasonable hardware (i.e., hardware you might reasonably see in a consumer box) fail to be autodetected. X could still be a pain in the 6.x series, but in 7.2 configuring it was sweet and simple.
If you've been a UNIX admin for twelve years, and it takes you a week to get your network card, sound and video configured properly, you're either using an Yggdrasil CDROM from '95 or else your sound card consists of a telephone transceiver soldered into LPT1 and controlled via smoke signals.
"Drug use has been shown to result in other crimes including murder.
It's, in fact, a composite crime whereas murder is only a single crime."
And you have been shown by yourself to be an idiot.
Poverty has also been shown to be a cause for crime. By your logic, we should put all poor people in jail... Fuck you!
Not only that, but the "I could give a ..." gets to me as well.
..."!
For crissakes people, it's "I COULDN'T give a
Think about what you're trying to say.
The more specialization you require, the less Linux is likely to suit your needs. Word processing is easy to achieve, but for example I am a musician and there are simply NO sound tools as powerful as there are for Windows: no Linux Sound Forge equivalent, no Cubase, not even good trackers (although Soundtracker is quite decent). Until WINE does a good job OR Linux native apps reach the point of development Windows apps have (and I think it's difficult to get a free Reason or Cubase without a big company putting big bucks into it), many of us will have to keep that double boot :)
Yeah, right on. I said this same thing as an answer to some post further up, but I'm glad there are other fellow musicians out there who understand the trouble we have with migrating 100% to Linux. In fact, making music is the ONLY reason why I keep my Windows partition. I think about it as having the best of both worlds! ;)
I think it will be a day to celebrate when some Linux company can hire away that Wasko guy. :-) Then he goes to TV interview and declares that he's convinced Linux will win by watching what was happening with it. :-)
"The Curse of *NIX?" Sounds like you've never heard of a *NIX system that has an idiot-proof desktop setup and oodles of functionality.
"When more and more people in non-Western countries find that the latest version of Windows and Office is too expensive, an appropriately packaged version of linux (or the BSDs) will become more attractive."
=TRUE, IFF the shrink wrap packaged version gives them 1. the same or better functionality as that month's version of MS OFFICE and 2. That packaged version installs as or more easily(?) than that month's version of Windows. Otherwise, they'll keep cracking and copying MS products, it's not as though these countries will have any truly effective IP policing in the next 20 years, they're too poor and have other priorities, regardless of how much the US, EU, WTO, IMF, WB whine about it
"...could be an opportunity for distributed and free
=TRUE, IFF the major content providers and software vendors don't use their clout to embrace and extend the DMCA to those "types or categories" of services AND some altruists are willing to set up the server farms that could serve and type of medium-high demand that such free services could generate. You should read the IP related sections of the
"3. Future developments in the PDA and handheld space: While Pocket PC is gaining now, linux could play a role here which may eventually affect what we mean by "the desktop".
right on...when you get past the number one social use for the Net (low cost pr()n distribution), most Net users today AREN'T Geeks, they really need/want wireless web browsing, organizer software, wireless email and some voice and other audio capacity (MP3 player, voice recorder, alarm clock), my color Prism or iPAQ can do MOST of that now, and are just a LITTLE BIT slower and kludgier than i'd like...
MS' tools in the embedded space have become much better in the last year, but there are still gaps in their approach to embedded developer tools
specifically, their tools are basically centered on VSE (a great development environment for "full sized" apps), and this makes them a little bloated in the embedded space and there are still some pieces missing (CE is still a little too big for most ultra light weight applications, and limited on processor type support)
LINUX could score BIG here if they someone can provide a superior development environment for the device space and a compact, stable device kernel across a wide variety of device processors
as i have continually said to my g'frnds, "Smaler is Better!"
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...