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Compiling Under Wine
now3djp writes "Interesting article over on CodingStyle that demonstrates how I successfully eliminated wasted time maintaining an MS-Windows computer when I could build natively from my GNU computer! /. has followed other cross compilers in the past. This article is different because I used MS's own compiler! This allowed me to get on with real games porting; with only a proportional increase in compile time. Wine has really come a long way in supporting simple apps, let us hope it reaches a 1.0 soon."
I can't wait til we have a fully functioning windows emulator. Even if it will kill the need for native apps (read games).
I find it entertaining that when I went to read the comments, I got to see an article for Visual Studio .NET :).
--
lds
that you compile under the influence of any type of alcahol
It's not so interesting to me that he managed to compile using VC++ under WINE. VC++ doesn't call any of the APIs you code, it just puts machine code into the file saying you can call them if you want. It's all well and good to have VC++ compile DX9_CreateSurface() (or whatever) into a bunch of PUSHs, POPs and a JMP instruction, but that doesn't help if WINE can't actually call that function when you're testing. It makes more sense to me to use Bochs or VMWare to test your application if you're developing on multiple platforms. Anything less would be short-changing your Windows clients.
If the people are forced to test applications on slow machines, we may not have word processors that need 40MB of ram and a 933MHZ pentium III to run.
Fight Spammers!
Wine has really come a long way to facilitate running major applications such as Visual C++. Features that "just work" often do not get mentioned because there is nothing to say. Wine has many excellent features like this. However, I have expressed the problems with Wine currently and I expect that in a potential follow up article many of these will be resolved. Wine has been in development for over a decade now. As it is finally nearing a 1.0 release, I see how much better it was than the 1.0 release of MS Windows.
Using Visual C++ on GNU/Wine gives me all the benefits of being able to develop a 100% compatible MS-Windows version of the game, while saving me the time of maintaining another Win2k machine version of the source and moving to that machine to compile. It has been a great time saver for me and I strongly expect this information will be very useful to myself and others in the future.
Okay, so you can use Visual C++ compiler under WINE. Is that terribly surprising when WINE can run MS-Office for the most part? The compiler takes the source files and libraries and produces an executable or library. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't think that too much of this would involve heavy usage of the Win32API, much less the lesser-used and less-tested-under-WINE parts. For the most part, the compiler would be doing tokenising, parsing, translation and optimisation, which would in all likelihood use no external libraries or anything.
I don't mean to rubbish this article, I'm just saying that I don't see it as being terribly surprising. On the other hand, I think this is a great use of WINE and is definitely more innovative that anythin I would use WINE for. And as he says in the article, there was a lot of fiddling around with command line arguments and environment variables. But if you're compiling from the command-line under Windows, it's just as bad (no, really).
A much greater "victory" for WINE would be to have the whole VisualStudio ensemble running. But I'm not sure if this is feasible, especially in the short-term. By "victory" I don't mean something along the lines of "Linux now allows you to run a quality IDE", because KDevelop and Eclipse are great IDEs. Instead, VisualStudio and Office are probably the most complicated pieces of software written by MS (excluding Windows itself) and for WINE to be able to run them both as if they were running under Windows would be truly a fantastic achievement.
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
It means :
"to assume something that hasn't been proven as a basis of one's argument,"
"Wine is not good because it is open source", or "Microsoft's compilers are bad because it is closed source", are examples of Begging the question.
Help fight continental drift.
I'm a programmer for a Supplier of Software to the US Government and we are actively looking to port our products to Linux do to the strong interest from our clients. Specific Offices decide what products they want to implement and how to do it. We are investigating Emulating Windows as an one solution.
I look forward to the days when any program that is Windows Compliant runs on any platform that supports the Windows API.
That being said, the real problem I have is DRIVERS for my hardware working under Linux. If someone could emulate Windows enough to use standard Windows Drivers, there would be no more reason to use Windows at all. I truly commend those braves souls and companies who write drivers for Linux.
Now if there was a Proxy that accepted Microsoft SQL requests and sent them to a PostgreSQL backend transparently we would be free of the beast and save the Tax Payers lots of money paying my paycheck, plus blow our competiters out of the water. :o)
Wow! So RMS wants us to simply call it GNU now? Dropping the Linux part altogether? Sorta hypocritical to me ;).
Or do you run Hurd? Which is technically the GNU OS.
The above is meant to be funny.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
The author describes the problem he originally solves as being the pain of moving code between Linux and Windows, losing attributes, case problems, etc. The approach I take is to keep all code in CVS on my file server. I do compiling and editing on my personal computer; both Linux and Windows can handle CVS. This way you have to reboot into Windows for the Windows compile, but never have to worry about copying files or case changes.
I use Microchip's pic assemler through wine, for a small piece of code I maintain that runs on a PIC that wasn't supported by any GNU/Linux assembler when I started. I also maintain a legacy version of a very specific proprietary MSDOS (actually we run DRDOS) program that was written with Borland C, hopefully I will be replacing the last running bit of that with a DJGPP compiled version soon, which of course can be cross compiled on GNU/Linux without the need for Wine and bcw.
I know what your thinking, but when a piece of software has worked flawlessly (well almost!) for 15 or so years, and is 'mission critical' it is very hard to drop a platform and move on. I am hoping to try out a move to Linux some day in the near future so that I can take advantage of new features and things that just arent available for DOS. But unless I can convince everyone else of the benefits I may be supporting dos for quite some time (I am the only software person at this company).
VC++ isn't a bad compiler at all, really. They got a quite shitty implementation of the STL lib though(might have changed now - I use VC++ 6). Also isn't properly following the C++ ANSI standard. for example the scope whenyou declare vars in for loops is broken. MS is aware but they can't really fix it easily now, since *lots* of old MFC code would break if they fix it. Yuo can set a flag though to enforce ANSI but it not on by default. Compiler makes quite good code though. If you want a more 'proper' closed source compiler go for Borland's - the command line version is even free on their website! (after a rather hefty registration proc though)
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
I'm curious, what exactly will the "milestone" of version 1.0 of Wine actually mean ? I would doubt that it'll ever be 100% compatible with Windows 98/XP. So what feature list is the development team trying to complete before calling it 1.0 ?
I think that pretty much any other product would have been deemed a failure if it had endured a 10 year development life and not reached version 1.0. Unless of course we're talking about Duke Nukem Forever...
My experience of Wine is common to most people's I think; it looks like a great idea, but as soon as you try to run any non-trivial program, it simply locks up/doesn't work. I've looked at their website and looked at all the "passed" indicators on their test cases. That doesn't help me run my apps much though... do they need more test cases ? Are they simply too abstract ??
Just my $0.02 worth
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Visual C++ doesn't do anything weird regarding Windows API. The IDE is a normal affair, and the compiler could be run without a user interface. It's really not testing Wine to it's limitations and the irony of situation is barely worth commenting on. This is non-news, the only thing this article achieves is to make Slashdot look like the anti-MS geeks with limited social awareness. Some things just aren't worth giggling at.
I don't even need to look at the poster to know that this is the work of micheal...
That's quite different from Winelib, which is indeed a separate implementation of Win32 that may "lack" some Windows bugs.
Use the Intel compilers, your code will be 50-300% faster.
50-300%? You're nuts. I've used both, and performance definitely varies...and if I had to choose one or the other as "generally producing faster code", I'd probably point at gcc.
Take a look at these benchmarks.
Gcc produces fastest code on 26 of the tests, icc on 9.
Furthermore, not all the optimization flags for gcc were being used (no idea why -fexpensive-optimizations wasn't used).
May we never see th
and uses the preview right
can turn to a troll
when the typos roll
and the bottle is empty and light
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If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
It's MAGIC.
what is your project's name...emacs *ducks for asbestos-lined safe room*
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
I paid for lots of operating systems too. I have 2 versions of OS/2, 2 versions of DOS, windows 95 and 98, 3 copies of NT 4.0 and a copy of 3.51 and a copy of w2k that I got stuck with because it didn't work and I had to refund the client's money. Microsoft would not refund what I paid them. Microsoft would not allow me to either return or exchange the unopened copies of Windows NT 4.0 either. I was a Microsoft dealer at the time and bought a 3 pack - which was about a month before w2k was announced. So I got stuck... then stuck again with w2k.
I have only one computer that runs windows NT so only one of these operating systems is in use.
I have red hat linux 6.1 server edition, OpenBSD 3.0 and Mandrake 8.1. I paid for all these too even though they are free.
Now, my desktop runs Debian and it is just great and I did a net install. Guess what, I don't know how to upgrade that RH 6.1 machine. Sure I can reformat the hard drive - but it contains a LOT of my work and I don't want to lose it. With Debian, an upgrade is easy.
In addition to this I bought 2 copies of Brief and I can't use it even though it is my favorite editor. I did a trial d/l of CRiSP and it is a wonderful editor, fully Brief compatible. I contacted them about licencing. I run 8 machines in my home and am a member of the local Unix users group and do consulting work. The CRiSP people told me I would need a "Licence Manager"! I decided to learn Emacs. It has a CRiSP mode and is looking better every day.
I bought 3 versions of M$ FTN and copies of M$ C as well. The last version of M$ FTN was such a botch that I could not use it. I have the Borland OS/2 C/C++ compiler. It was so broken I didn't use it.... but I paid for it. I have Borland C++ professional builder 4. I want to do C/C++ cross platform development.
I phoned Borland. I think they told me that I can buy Delphi for Linux. I think they told me that the language is supported on both platforms but that the API is different. The person on the other end of the phone didn't seem too knowledgable. So I am going into wxWIndows or gtk because these people actually SAY they are cross platform. Thus, I do not have any C++ builder code and didn't get my money's worth.
I have 4 versions of Oracle - paid for by the taxpayer (because I am one of their developers). The DOS versions were so bad we couldn't use them on that platform. The OS/2 versions were better but still not good enouf. It is not possible to install 8i for red hat 6.1 (even though that is the version oracle says 8I is for) unless you CAN STAND ON YOUR HEAD and read the paper What you need to knwo before you even THINK of installing oracle 8i . Imagine having to backdate the glibC and install an old version of Java from blackstrap just so you can get the installer to work. Why couldn't Oracle have put their developers into a room with 2 cd sets. One set - an off the shelf shrink wrapped copy of Red Hat 6.1, and the other set - a copy of the 8i source tree. And then make sure they don't have INTERNET access so they can't cheat and create a version that you can't install. Leave them there until they solve the problem or rot to death trying!!! Damit. I have lost MONTHS of my life solving other people's problems.
Guess what, I am porting the client's apps over to PostgreSQL. See ya Oracle!!! Goodbye!
So, of all the software I bought most of it did the job for a precious short time or didn't do the job at all - with the exception of Brief - which was just excellent. And what happened to Brief? Borland bought the rights, put it on the shelf and AFAIK I can't buy it any more.
So frankly I really don't care if that copy of VB ++ was paid for. Even if it wasn't, I do not feel M$ was ripped off . I feel I was ripped off.
I have been ripped off Over and Over and Over because I bought these products in good faith and paid for them with my hard earned money. Now I can't use them. Some never did what they were advertised to do. Others were discontinued and I lost out.
Let me tell you about the 2nd last copy of M$ FTN that I purchased. I found a bug where the conpiler just eliminated an "IF" statement. No errors, no warnings, and no machine instructions either. I filed a bug report with M$ with sample code. Months went by. I re-filed the bug. Months went by. Finally I phoned them and sat on wait for like an hour - and paid for this too. The rep told me the bug was fixed in the new version. So I bought it.
When the new version arrived I tried out the sample code from the bug report. The problem was still there. Oh, and the last version I bought couldn't be used it was so bad. The client dropped PC development ideas and switched to SUN.
What the Open Source movment has done is a refreshing breath of fresh air and IMHO it is the ONLY way that the programmers of the future are going to stand any chance of avoiding the endentured servant trap that closed source software creates. Anyone questioning this should realise that in order to use closed source software they have to agree to the licence terms and these are arbitrary and non-negotiable. If you find the terms unacceptable then you can't be a programmer. That is unless you can find the tools and the infrastructure you need elsewhere.
Well, we programmers are being attacked another way now.... patent law. If this gets too well established we won't be allowed to be independant. We'll have to work for a big company that has managed to negotiate cross licensing. Either that or pay the piper each time we want to go to the can.
Water flows down hill and the infrasructure required to build some of the closed source tools, like Windows NT/2K/XP, or Oracle or JAVA or say a compiler suite like Visual C++ or Borland Professional Builder is so great that it looks like an ocean. Oceans are hard to move. Oceans are also hard to re-create. There is no way that any company could recreate from scratch an operating system like XP. The environment that XP grew out of no longer exists. IBM tried and failed.
Over the years all computer companies with the exception of perhaps IBM,HP,M$ have failed. Who here thinks Microsoft will survive into the year 2050? Gates won't be in charge then. Who here thinks that another company is going to loom up that can invest the BILLIONS in infrastructure required to create an alternative?
The future of software has to be opensource because that is the only way for us programmers to ensure that we will have the tools we need and the right to use them.
If I add up the THOUSANDS I have spent on software over the years it illustrates to me that I should have been looking for better solutions a long time ago.
Now this is impressive. Things like this are what WINE should be all about. Amazing.
I disagree, it's depressing not impressive:
In summary, while the article probably accurately describes the author's actions, there is nothing in his account that others should be emulating. More experienced developers should be consulted in the search for best practices.
I write this as someone who has done software development for almost 20 years; more than 20 if you count my high school years as a computer hobbiest.