WineConf 2004 Wrapup

I got confused... by bc90021 · 2004-02-12 03:49 · Score: 1, Funny

...and I thought they were talking about the drink! I was thinking "wine hackers"? Shouldn't that be "sommeliers"? Man, it's still way too early in the day...

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libertarianswag.com

Re:I got confused... by MarvinMouse · 2004-02-12 04:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

...and I thought they were talking about the drink! I was thinking "wine hackers"? Shouldn't that be "sommeliers"? Man, it's still way too early in the day...

Nah, Sommeliers are closer to quality assurance workers, than wine hackers. Wine hackers would be more like people who make their own wine at home, and try to get the alcohol content as high as possible.

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~ kjrose
Re:I got confused... by Cardinal+Biggles · 2004-02-12 04:09 · Score: 1

by bc90021 (43730) on Thursday February 12, @04:49PM

[...]

Man, it's still way too early in the day...

Wow... 4:49pm is early...? You sure sleep late. :-)
Re:I got confused... by NickFitz · 2004-02-12 04:24 · Score: 1

Unless he's in California, in which case it's definitely too early at 8:49am :-)

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Re:I got confused... by Nadir · 2004-02-12 05:02 · Score: 3, Informative

Alcohol volume in wine cannot go above 16.8% because the yeasts that attack the sugars will stop doing their thing at such concentration of alcohol.

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--
The world is divided in two categories:
those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
Re:I got confused... by JohnFluxx · 2004-02-12 05:09 · Score: 0, Offtopic

couldn't you distil it or just add more alcohol afterwards to make it stronger?
Re:I got confused... by Short+Circuit · 2004-02-12 05:10 · Score: 1

So you have your local high school's chemistry teacher produce non-denatured ethyl alcohol. (You know he's got it hidden somewhere.)

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tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Re:I got confused... by FuzzyBad-Mofo · 2004-02-12 05:18 · Score: 1

Congratulations, you just invented fortified wine.
Re:I got confused... by Short+Circuit · 2004-02-12 05:24 · Score: 1

I'd have to ask a friend (Who brews wines and mead), but I think you'd risk damaging the flavor.

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tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Re:I got confused... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:32 · Score: 0

if distilled, it wouldn't be wine anymore, but a liquor, like brandy or cognac.
Re:I got confused... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 06:18 · Score: 0

What a bunch of fart-knockers... how is this Off-Topic if the parent post isn't??
Re:I got confused... by addaon · 2004-02-12 07:08 · Score: 2, Informative

16.8% is absolutely not a hard limit. Yes, most champagne yeasts poop out around 16%... but then, most ale yeasts give up before 12%. With a slow fermentation and a good yeast, a mead can easily hit 18%... and rice wines (which have lower initial sugar concentration, it's really a much more complex process) can hit 20%, 22% with skill.

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I've had this sig for three days.
Re:I got confused... by HiThere · 2004-02-12 11:00 · Score: 1

Ever tried freezing it? I understand that if you push the temperature a bit below zero, the liquid is over 20%.

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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:I got confused... by addaon · 2004-02-12 12:59 · Score: 1

Freeze distillation can be done, and it kills certain flavors a lot less than normal distillation... but it really is distillation, it's no longer a 'natural' wine. It's also a pain in the ass for little result; you can get to 40% if you try really really hard, but you'll be throwing away half of the good stuff. If you want a few percent more, get a better yeast. If you want a significant difference, distill properly.

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I've had this sig for three days.
Re:I got confused... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-14 01:58 · Score: 0

Don't worry, I've metamodded.

Perhaps this is an improvement? by samuel4242 · 2004-02-12 03:49 · Score: 5, Funny

He pointed out that Microsoft Office now "just works. You can use it all day long and you won't see the difference." Then he added that wasn't 100% true because, "The Paperclip still doesn't work." Seems like Wine runs Office better than Windows.

Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by UnknowingFool · 2004-02-12 04:34 · Score: 1

Paperclip = worst feature ever. And it doesn't help that you can never uninstall the paperclip without unistalling Office. When you "remove it", it just hides it, but if you click on the wrong menu command, it still comes up.

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Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by StarWreck · 2004-02-12 04:39 · Score: 3, Funny

... I always assumed the Paperclip was a trojan horse on diet pills.

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... and in the DRM, bind them.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by Shaklee39 · 2004-02-12 04:42 · Score: 1

It has nothing to do with the paperclip but I have found that having a search box immediately there to type in a help question is handy sometimes. The other day I was trying to add a caption to a figure but it was not putting them in the same table as my other labels so I asked clippy. Sure enough it said that images had to be inline for the labels to be able to group together.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by bluGill · 2004-02-12 04:49 · Score: 2, Funny

Codeweavers was joking that the next version of crossover would come in two version, standard for $70, and everything but Clippy for $100. Of course this assumes they manage to get all the code that Clippy uses working.
I was at the WineConf2004, very interesting.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by Frymaster · 2004-02-12 04:56 · Score: 1

I have found that having a search box immediately there to type in a help question is handy sometimes
me too. it's called man.

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2 1337 4 u!
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:15 · Score: 0

man "How do I check my filesystem?" ... not really

I wouldn't be suprised if emacs had something like clippy tho.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:21 · Score: 0

I just asked Clippy the same question..

'Check formatting for consistency'

'Check the correct sequence of South Asian text' ...

The second hit was about South Asians. Clippy has a fetish ?
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by Short+Circuit · 2004-02-12 05:32 · Score: 1

No! info is what real power users use. I'll search through your docs in a sec--wait.

Hold on while I get swish-e to work. Drat it!

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tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by jsebrech · 2004-02-12 07:44 · Score: 2, Informative

man "How do I check my filesystem?" ... not really

That's because you're using the wrong command:
joeri@angelina:~$ apropos check filesystem ... fsck (8) - check and repair a Linux file system fsck.ext2 (8) - check a Linux second extended file system fsck.ext3 (8) - check a Linux second extended file system fsck.minix (8) - a file system consistency checker for Linux ...
man is for when you already know what you're looking for. apropos is for when you want a man page of something, but you don't know what it should be.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by Haeleth · 2004-02-12 08:54 · Score: 1

I wouldn't be suprised if emacs had something like clippy tho.

I don't know about emacs, but vi does.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by HiThere · 2004-02-12 10:41 · Score: 1

The last I heard, it still wouldn't run MSOffice 95, but I haven't bought a copy since then. So even though I have the deluxe version (I paid extra to get MSAccess included), it still won't run on Linux.

Of course, that's becoming less important...but just today I wanted to do a document with a section that was formatted in a different number of columns than the rest, and both KWord and OpenOfficeWriter kept insisting on reformatting the enitre document. (There's probably a reason, and a way to do it, but I haven't figured it out yet.)

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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Perhaps this is an improvement? by mycal62 · 2004-02-13 01:23 · Score: 1

Absolutely! Office works much better on wine than windows. I know this because I run office 2000 at work. my workstation dual boots win 2000 and Mandrake Linux 9.1. when in windows office works only 25% of the time and locks up often. In Linux
never a single problem of hicup. Word , Excel whatever always just works!!! gotta love wine!

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I wish I understood all this stuff!

What's the point? by TheLevelHeadedOne · 2004-02-12 03:50 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Better and faster at what? Getting you intoxicate?

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Twin or more? ITA
Apache/Spring/La

CrossOver by cozziewozzie · 2004-02-12 03:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

I wonder how many of the improvements can be attributed to the Crossover code. IIRC, the Crossover people release all their changes back to the WINE tree after a time. IMHO, this is a good example of a company staying alive while helping out the community.

Anyway, running Office smoothly is a great thing. This and Photoshop are two very important steps to getting Linux on more desktops (last time I tried Photoshop, it crashed after a while and Office complained about some access violation).

Re:CrossOver by timeOday · 2004-02-12 04:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

Thank you Crossover. Of course, without free code from the community Crossover would never have gotten over the hump.
This makes WINE an interesting case study in the difference between the GPL and BSD licenses. (Wine is "lesser GPL" which allows linking to non-free software (eg MS Office) but requires source code distribution for the library (eg Wine)).
Re:CrossOver by nycsubway · 2004-02-12 05:31 · Score: 1

I just want to run Adobe Pagemaker in Linux. I've spent too much time learning pagemaker to switch to another product, plus there aren't any linux equivalents, like Photoshop has Gimp.

Since Pagemaker is the only thing preventing me from switching completely to Linux as my desktop, I would love to be able to run it in Wine. I've read about people having success with Pagemaker in Crossover Office. It would be nice to see that functionality in Wine.

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http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Re:CrossOver by Short+Circuit · 2004-02-12 05:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't profess to be an expert, but you could try something like SGML or LaTeX.

OOo and KOffice can print to PostScript or PDF, if you like.

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tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Re:CrossOver by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:57 · Score: 0

How is scribus looking as a substitute for pagemaker?
Re:CrossOver by JamesP · 2004-02-12 06:04 · Score: 0

and Office complained about some access violation).

Maybe it was trying to access your bank account, cash a Windows License...

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how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
Re:CrossOver by nycsubway · 2004-02-12 08:17 · Score: 1

scribus looks promising. it is still in development, with lots of work left to do. something that would prevent me from moving to that is the lack of a pagemaker file filter for importing.

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http://github.com/gbook/nidb

I hate to whine by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 03:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

but wine still seems like one of those apps that need geek'ness to get things working. For whom are they aiming the product for these days, joe average?

I appreciate what they are doing, but at the moment would it not be better to go 100% unix or 100% windows.

Re:I hate to whine by caino59 · 2004-02-12 04:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

i'll bite...

this just isn't for joe consumer, but for converting business over to a linux desktop.

most system admins that would love to have linux on their place of employment's desktop will have no trouble setting up wine. all the users have to do is use it, not set it up...
Re:I hate to whine by Lord_Frederick · 2004-02-12 04:33 · Score: 1

I'm not so sure "most" system admins would love to have linux on the desktop. Your helpdesk and desktop support people are the ones who handle the quick little configuration problems and other quirks that happen day-to-day in the workplace.

I don't know about where you work, but where I am, sometimes I wonder about how much our 1st level support knows about WINDOWS, much less linux!
Re:I hate to whine by caino59 · 2004-02-12 04:44 · Score: 1

you misinterpreted.

i said "most system admins that would love to have linux..."

not "most admins want linux..."

big difference.

i was basically saying that people that prefer linux will most often have a workable knowledge of the operating system and various tools and utilities that run on linux.
Re:I hate to whine by Lord_Frederick · 2004-02-12 05:25 · Score: 1

Ah. Yes, I misread what you were saying.

I think you are correct. Any admin who does want linux on the desktop would not have a problem with wine configuration. Or perhaps I should say SHOULD not have a problem.

try and locate the magic bullet.. by osullish · 2004-02-12 03:58 · Score: 2, Informative

to make Wine better and faser?? I Run word 97 on my linux box and its 100 times better and faster! I think they're not looking for a bullet but a WMD :-)

Seriously though, Wine is one of the most impressive feats of software engineering I've seen, the ability to emulate a closed source platform is a real achievement.

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It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them..

Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by IamTheRealMike · 2004-02-12 04:24 · Score: 1

Actually I meant development processes - Wine the project as opposed to Wine the software (which you are right, runs acceptably well most of the time). Wine is moving faster than ever before and is one of the most active open source projects around, but more people are always needed. If there is a magic bullet we can use to increase participation, and increase the efficiency of those already taking part, that'd be a valuable thing indeed.
Unfortunately, nobody has yet come up with one.
It'd be really great to know what would encourage people to work on Wine, so we can help them. WineHQ is one of the friendliest communities that I've encountered, so I feel it has to be our processes or technologies (or maybe just the nature of the beast) that scare people off.
Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by rokzy · 2004-02-12 04:39 · Score: 0, Flamebait

the version of wine I have (quite new) requires that I have a windows partition with everything installed there.

and then it says it might ruin it, so recommends copying the whole thing.

I'm not trying to flame/troll, but this doesn't seem like "emulation" to me... "MS Windows Emulator*!!!!"

*MS Windows required.

I guess the problem is MS copyrights meaning they can't just distribute the required files? or even attempt to reverse engineer?
Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by jatencio · 2004-02-12 05:28 · Score: 1

I have been keeping up to date with wine for several years. Having a windows partition has always been optional. It is for some of the *.dll that have not been fully implemented in Wine yet. However, having the partition is not necessary. It runs just fine with out it.
Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by wwest4 · 2004-02-12 05:34 · Score: 1

> No wonder you're stuck using an operating
> system written by out of work hacks.

way to kill your own point with a stupid non-sequitur.
Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by no+longer+myself · 2004-02-12 05:38 · Score: 2, Informative

Wow... I didn't realize they've changed their policy on that... I use a slightly older version of Wine (7/9/03) to run three win32 apps, and no I don't have a Windows partition.
And on a slightly different subject, what's with all the trolls in this area? Does Microsoft hire moles to go flood the halls of Slashdot anytime someone points out that you can run some Win32 apps without MS Windows? Is it really necessary to point out that it's not a perfect solution, or a magic bullet?
Hey, if you need to use several apps developed under MS Windows that badly, then STICK WITH WINDOWS!!! But if there's just a couple of things you'd like to keep when you make the leap to Linux, then Wine offers a potential answer to your prayers.
You know, I almost hate to admit this now, but if it were not for the Wine project, I would have stuck with MS Windows. But I got to keep three of my favorite Win32 apps, and that was more than enough to help me move into my new Linux OS. There were other apps that I had to sacrifice, but it was worth it.
And oh yeah... For anyone that's using Mandrake 9.1 and having trouble getting Wine to work, I humbly offer a tutorial on getting it up and moving without MS Windows. I know everyone's cousin has a how-to on this subject, but I've tried to make it step-by-step easy.
Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by rokzy · 2004-02-12 06:05 · Score: 1

what's with all the paranoia here?

I do use linux. I only use windows for
1. occasionally making some graphs with Excel
2. watching DVDs (no support for graphics card acceleration)
3. Virtual Pool 3

the only other things windows has going for it for me is:
1. I haven't found an mp3 player as good as MusicMatch Jukebox
2. dcgui-qt not quite as user-friendly as DC++

so maybe I'm wrong about wine since I don't really require or use it, I guess I must have been confused by the fact that the first thing winesetup says is it can violate my windows installation and the second thing it says is I should copy all my windows files.
Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by no+longer+myself · 2004-02-12 06:33 · Score: 1

Eh... About the paranoia... Sorry, I started out on one subject and my mind wandered. I was overwhelmed by the other posts that looked awfully trollish.
As for your personal uses of Windows, I say fair enough... While I decided to switch to Linux, I'm actually an OS agnostic. (Not entirely true... WinXP makes me cringe, but prior versions are still pretty cool.) But I encourage you to try VLC media player (for your distro of course),and you'll have excellent DVD support in spite of your video card's lack of support. (YMMV)
Re:try and locate the magic bullet.. by ender1598 · 2004-02-12 15:18 · Score: 1

Actually I meant development processes - Wine the project as opposed to Wine the software (which you are right, runs acceptably well most of the time). Wine is moving faster than ever before and is one of the most active open source projects around, but more people are always needed. If there is a magic bullet we can use to increase participation, and increase the efficiency of those already taking part, that'd be a valuable thing indeed.

Unfortunately, nobody has yet come up with one.

It'd be really great to know what would encourage people to work on Wine, so we can help them. WineHQ is one of the friendliest communities that I've encountered, so I feel it has to be our processes or technologies (or maybe just the nature of the beast) that scare people off.

We've got an answer now! ....unless the "source" turns out to be something dissapointing like Episode III.

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There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those that understand binary and those that do not.

Wine and DirectX by SydShamino · 2004-02-12 03:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

Next up, Tom Wickline put together a presentation about getting applications to run. Tom has worked quite a bit with Wine and CrossOver Office and had some tricks for getting things to work. The key to just getting something to run seems to be using native Windows DLL's. He has a copy of Windows 98 to copy things to and from. Generally he starts with CrossOver Office and adds the following things in this order:

* Internet Explorer
* DCOM98 (as opposed to DCOM95)
* MDAC.Type
* MS Scripting update (SCR56.exe)

Lately he's even added native DirectX 8.1 to the mix. Some form of this combination will get Wine to run about 85% of the applications and games he's tested.

That's cool and all, but DirectX 8.1 is outdated. EverQuest, for example, upgraded to DirectX 9 this week, breaking support for anyone who ran it in Linux.

I was about to move completely to Xandros 2.0 on a home machine, knowing that, if the included CrossOver Office wouldn't run EQ, WineX would. Now I'm comtemplating a dual-boot machine. But that doesn't work as well since our home file/print server is being booted into a new OS.

Unfortunately, most people only play the latest and greatest when it comes to games.* And to keep people centered on Linux when it comes to gaming, latest DirectX support needs to be a top priority.

* (Me, still playing EQ five years after its release, being an obvious exception.)

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It doesn't hurt to be nice.

Re:Wine and DirectX by SydShamino · 2004-02-12 04:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

And to keep people centered on Linux when it comes to gaming, latest DirectX support needs to be a top priority.

Of course, I mean for the Wine folks. For the rest of the Linux community, getting developers to release native Linux games is more important.

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It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Re:Wine and DirectX by kfg · 2004-02-12 04:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

And me still playing Grand Prix Legends and Red Baron 3D would be another exception. There may be more of us out that than you realize.

And while implimenting the latest DirectX might well be of some high priority it is inherently impossible to achieve in a timely manner, with regards to people who will only run the latest and "greatest" games. Wine will always be at least a generation behind.

So why not start from the beginning and work up, getting games people already have to run?

My Windows partition exists solely for these games. If DX8 were fully supported I could ditch the thing.

KFG
Re:Wine and DirectX by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:18 · Score: 1, Insightful

"Centered on linux" amounts to hacking the kernel, or doing cool open source work, or just getting _NOVEL_ shit done using an alternative OS (I would like to say "free software" instead here, but that's not necessarily the case, for better or worse). Honestly, what's the point of keeping people centered on linux by emulating Window$?

I haven't kept up with WinE for a long time, but I do recall it used to be necessary to have a few proprietary binaries for it to work, i.e., it's not even free-as-in-beer-window$-emulation. (This may have since changed, which would be cool; in which case, disregard this)

Now, notice that I'm not attacking the WinE project - it's a great technical exercise and it may be useful (though I really doubt that the manhours saved from applying WinE in productive situations will ever amount to those put into WinE's development, that's cool). It's a natural thing to develop as much cross-platform support as possible; it's one of those geek imperatives.

However, I'm attacking this "we need to emulate windows for the good of linux" mentality. It's worse than the various Gnome/KDE suite apps which apparently try to clone Win-apps down to the annoying "features" (Right now, I'm thinking about gnumeric's limitation to 256x65536 sheets... I don't know why anyone would want something to behave EXACTLY like Excel.) It illustrates an appalling herd-mentality: "We have an alternative OS, but man, it's just not going to be good enough for the world until it copies what everyone's familiar with."
Re:Wine and DirectX by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:12 · Score: 1, Insightful

Really, the whole Wine/DirectX thing is only interesting to 19 year old college kids where games are a vital application. You get one game working, and it doesn't matter because they're all off playing the next one (which doesn't work on Wine) -- it's a losing battle.

If one REALLY wanted to move users, they'd get perfect Visual Basic, Access, and Delphi app support. Then a ton of companies could ditch Windows and use Linux on the desktop, something that is impossible right now without expensive rewrites.

However, the irony is that a "Hello World" VB app is much more closely tied to Windows than a 500MB DirectX game, and therefore harder to emulate.
Re:Wine and DirectX by SydShamino · 2004-02-12 05:24 · Score: 1

it's not even free-as-in-beer-window$-emulation

Note that I use Xandros. Free as in beer isn't that important to me. Free as in "I'm free to switch to another distribution if I start to dislike Xandros, and my apps will still work" is what matters to me. If CrossOver Office starts to bug me, then I can go to WineX and it will work about the same.

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It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Re:Wine and DirectX by jsebrech · 2004-02-12 07:54 · Score: 1

If CrossOver Office starts to bug me, then I can go to WineX and it will work about the same.

The focus of crossover office and winex is entirely different. Crossover office targets desktop apps, while winex targets games. As a result crossover office runs apps like office and photoshop much better, but winex supports directx 9 and runs the majority of popular games.

Ofcourse, improving the win32 api's to run either desktop apps or games will improve the ability to run the other category as well, which is why winex is reasonably good at running desktop apps and crossover office / regular wine is reasonably good at running games.
Re:Wine and DirectX by ferralis · 2004-02-12 09:19 · Score: 1

Bah!

Ok, so EQ doesn't work on standard WINE- but the folks at TransGaming have done a fantastic job. It's running at a higher framerate under RedHat 9 (latest stable kernel) than under XP.

I really can't say enough about the high level hacking that gets these things going. The dedication, passion, and damned fine skills set these guys apart!

What's really interesting is that with all the work going on, eventually we'll have (yes, really) a more stable Windows environment than the one written by Microsquish. (Yes, really. It's been done before- Windows 3.1 under OS/2. IBM had code rights at the time and "enhanced" things a bit... and it ROCKED).

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Any generalization is a stupid one.
Re:Wine and DirectX by SydShamino · 2004-02-13 02:59 · Score: 1

>> Ok, so EQ doesn't work on standard WINE- but the folks at TransGaming have done a fantastic job. It's running at a higher framerate under RedHat 9 (latest stable kernel) than under XP. ...until this week. Unless I'm mistaken, the move to DirectX 9 for EQ just ended its WineX support. (PLEASE tell me if I'm mistaken. I hope I am.)

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It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Re:Wine and DirectX by ferralis · 2004-02-16 11:03 · Score: 1

Sorry it took so long to get back to you... you ARE mistaken. Works like a charm, although a message box pops up recommending I upgrade soon.

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Any generalization is a stupid one.

God, francois! by dasmegabyte · 2004-02-12 04:01 · Score: 1, Funny

If you hackers watched the Simpsons properly, you'd know that the secret to making Wine faster is to put anti-freezein it.

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Hey freaks: now you're ju

Re:God, francois! by idfrsr · 2004-02-12 04:44 · Score: 1

the secret to making Wine faster is to put anti-freezein it.

Ah... but it would hardly be a proper Win32 emulator if there some anti-freeze in it... might as well get rid of the blue screen while you are at it!

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"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits

Did the attendees make it back home too? by cruff · 2004-02-12 04:03 · Score: 2, Funny

I read that the attendants are back home. Are the meeting attendees geriatric geezers that needed help at the meeting? :-)

Re:Did the attendees make it back home too? by bluGill · 2004-02-12 05:03 · Score: 1

Not at the meeting, but getting around outside of the meeting. Friday before the high temperature was -15F (~-23C), pretty much everyone consideres that cold, though some have seen colder. Saturday and Sunday were warmer, but it snowed, meaning getting around was dangerous.
Not everyone had a car, and you can't get around in Minneapolis without a car. So some of the attendees were also attendants for those who didn't get a car.
Wine hackers are cheap. Nobody went for the expensive hotels. Some managed to spend nothing the entire weekend. (by sleeping on someone's floor and eating the host's food, hitching rides with someone) The only expense was transportation to Minneapolis. Of course all this cheapness means there was attendants to provide. Someone had a car, someone provied the floor, and food/beer (or wine, but mostly beer) in the fridge.
All this combined to mean that most people needed help. But then I don't know anyone who can live without getting help.

Re:Believe me, I love it as much as anybody, but. by IamTheRealMike · 2004-02-12 04:03 · Score: 5, Informative

Mods, please ignore this post, it's just a troll. Wine doesn't even have a TCP/IP stack, it (of course) uses the underlying hosts stack, ie the Linux/FreeBSD/Whatever stack. "Wait states for unsupported hardware" is entirely meaningless, Wine does not have hardware support, again that's delegated to the underyling operating system.

Of course, if the poster can show specific sections of code he feels have "fundamental flaws" and describe them satisfactorily then I'll take my words back.

Overly critical by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:06 · Score: 0

If you don't like parts of it, you're free to
help reimplement it. Wine has made good progress,
and it will continue to do so, with or without
your sniping.

By the way, as far as I know, Wine simply uses
Linux's TCP/IP stack. Thus your comments are not
only unhelpful and offensive, they don't appear
to even be accurate.

Re:Believe me, I love it as much as anybody, but. by jhunsake · 2004-02-12 04:06 · Score: 5, Informative

From his journal....

The Specious Project
09:45 AM February 12th, 2004 [ Add Friend | #61699 ]
Hi, thanks for reading the journal.

Any posts from this account are part of the Specious Project, which challenges the quality of the Slashdot moderation system by posting plausible-sounding, yet factually inaccurate comments to Slashdot stories.

Usually a simple Google search will reveal any errors, and anyone moderating Specious Project posts up are reacting only to the sound and tone of authority, rather that the actual content. We try not to talk to those people at parties.

Looks like he "proved" what he wanted to. by khasim · 2004-02-12 04:10 · Score: 1

When I saw his post, it was +5 Insightful.

We'll see what happens to it over time.

Re:Looks like he "proved" what he wanted to. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:30 · Score: 0

umm, you mean they see the informative replies and realize the mistake that was made :P
Re:Looks like he "proved" what he wanted to. by Frizzle+Fry · 2004-02-12 09:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

Since he ended at -1, I don't think that proved it. His post is modded up, which causes people to react by pointing out what's wrong with it, and it immediately dives to -1. So the system works okay in my opinion, provided that the post doesn't spend too long at 5 before getting struck down to -1. I think that he did show that some poeple react to the tone of authority (by the fact that anyone modded him up at all), but not that the moderation system is broken. More of a statement on human nature than on slashdot.

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I'd rather be lucky than good.

Win32 port anyone? by Dreadlord · 2004-02-12 04:11 · Score: 5, Funny

*sigh* still no signs of a Win32 port...

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The IT section color scheme sucks.

Re:Win32 port anyone? by wild_pointer · 2004-02-12 04:23 · Score: 5, Funny

Here Some Bill guy is working on it. It's not yet as stable as Wine but looks promising ;)
Re:Win32 port anyone? by Chris_Jefferson · 2004-02-12 04:30 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually there has been some work (its only on mailing lists, not public yet) of getting wine to run under cygwin, which is almost a win32 port.

Of course wine should also run cygwin (as it's a windows program), so eventually you will be able to run wine under itself :)

--
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Re:Win32 port anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 06:19 · Score: 0

Knee-jerk modded up funny of course, the same stupid joke comes around every time someone talks about Samba. Then there's the "oh boy i could run emulator xyz in virtualPC in Bochs in VMWare in emulator abc" blah blah blah ... it's like those beowulf cluster jokes.

Imagine it for real though. I certainly wouldn't mind an alternative Platform SDK, complete with the full implementation instead of just the interface. While you do get the source for MFC and MSVCRT, you don't get the sources for things like the common controls libs, let alone all the various VxD's and whatnot.
Re:Win32 port anyone? by nathanh · 2004-02-12 09:36 · Score: 1

Don't joke. There is a large collection of Windows software that simply doesn't run on Windows XP. I'm talking about software from the Win95-Win98 era. This software does run under Wine! I would love to see a port of Wine to Windows XP.

What can't by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:12 · Score: 1, Interesting

someone invent an API,ABI,execution or whatever to work on all platforms.

You know one code to rule them all.

BTW I know of java, but really I cannot see anyone making doom 3 using java3d or premier using javamedia.

Sorry, excuess my ignorance.

Re:What can't by Doug+Neal · 2004-02-12 04:27 · Score: 1

someone invent an API,ABI,execution or whatever to work on all platforms.

While that wouldn't be impossible - we have cross platform toolkits already e.g. Qt and wxWindows - the problem is getting everyone to use it. Developers who only do MFC for example aren't going to switch to Qt just because they could compile it on Linux, which they probably wouldn't want to bother doing anyway. The only way something like this could possibly work is if Microsoft made it their new "standard", and what are the chances of Microsoft standardising on something open and cross-platform? Pretty slim, unless they break it such that it only works properly on Windows.
Re:What can't by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:33 · Score: 0

Great, now we should get back to the good ol'days of programming, 1's and 0's.
That should solve the problem.

Even windows can understand 1's and 0's, well most of the time anyway.
Re:What can't by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:55 · Score: 0

The only way something like this could possibly work is if Microsoft made it their new "standard", and what are the chances of Microsoft standardising on something open and cross-platform? Pretty slim, unless they break it such that it only works properly on Windows.

Technically, that would be .NET provided you count in mono which pretty much makes .NET a cross-platform.. er.. platform. IMO, Microsoft hasn't bet the farm on this technology but it does have a good deal of momentum as standards and practices go. And you're right, it is "broken" outside win32 since mono doesn't support Windows.Forms directly. (But you can leverage wine to do this which brings us back to the article)

If you use mono and stick to the Gtk# libs you're pretty close to being cross platform for win32, linux and some unixes (virtually anywhere mono and Gtk will compile).

Its not perfect, but it works.

Still Not there... by Zordas · 2004-02-12 04:12 · Score: 1

Unfortunitly Wine (Winex) still doesn't play games very well. I purchased wine a little while ago and was unimpressed. In fact, games are the ONLY reason I still have a xp partition. The following link is to their database of applications. http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=897

Re:Still Not there... by Dreadlord · 2004-02-12 04:20 · Score: 3, Informative

WineX can't just support every single game released for Windows, this is simply impossible, at least right now.

However, WineX supports the big hits pretty well, Call of Duty, Max Payne 2, Warcraft III, check out their list of supported games.

If you are a subscriber, you can vote for games to get more support, and if the game is popular enough, they'll work on it.

WineX works great with supported games, and has dramatically decreased my Windows boots.

--
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Re:Still Not there... by Jotaigna · 2004-02-12 04:20 · Score: 1

perhaps you should get a playstation.

--
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
Re:Still Not there... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:26 · Score: 0

that's why it's still in development :oP
Re:Still Not there... by Zordas · 2004-02-12 04:26 · Score: 1

Your absolutly correct (unfortunitly I accidently hit the send button while I was previewing) The Other game I play from time to time is Everquest, which doesn't work well either. No problem though, I truly believe they will work out the bugs eventually. Better yet. We need to get game programmers to just port over to Linux !
Re:Still Not there... by osu-neko · 2004-02-12 04:35 · Score: 1

A copy of Windows is cheaper than a console, and plays better games...

--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Re:Still Not there... by Jotaigna · 2004-02-12 05:04 · Score: 1

Price of a Windows XP copy:
here
Price of a PLaystation 2:
here
as you can see is not that much more expensive, so you can devote your Linux Box for Linux games and completely rule out the other OS. Also you have to purchase Wine, windows upgrades, etc.
Porting games to Linux is much more appealing since full advantage of hardware can be taken. It has to be appealing in economic terms.

--
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
Re:Still Not there... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 10:17 · Score: 0

Latest Transgaming wine DOES support EQ
so sayeth Linux Format from this/last month.
(the fedora disk edition)

WINE Windows Driver Support by MrNybbles · 2004-02-12 04:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Jan had to reimplement about 300 functions in order to make the driver, NTFS.sys, work. Jan used four different methods to implement the necessary calls:
Pass the call straight through to ntoskrnl.exe (yes, the real WinXP ntoskrnl.exe)

It would be nice if someone worked on native NTFS support for writing to the disk that worked as well as it does in Windows. As far as I know the 2.6.x Linux kernels support writing that can't make a NTFS file larger on the disk.

What seemed to interest everyone was not the fact that the native NT drivers can be used for filesystem access, but how it could be extended to support other drivers. In particular, native Windows printer drivers, serial drivers, video drivers, and networking drivers may be able to be implemented using a similar method. All that special hardware using "Win" soft drivers might be possible to get working.

I hope they get some support for Win9x drivers too since I have only one program on Windows that WINE can't run because of some special drivers it installs and expects to work. At least that's why I think it's not running. That's one problem with Windows support: Windows is not one operating system.

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Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.

Re:WINE Windows Driver Support by Derek+Pomery · 2004-02-12 04:31 · Score: 4, Informative

Oh, no prob. If Windows does it, should be a snap for those Linux boys.
So, you wouldn't happen to have an NTFS spec handy? Maybe you could get one from MS?
So far, I consider Linux reading NTFS and writing verrrry carefully without changing number of blocks a file uses to be impressive given it is all reverse engineering.
But hey. There's a solution, maybe you remember seeing this posted on /., multiple times?
NTFS full write

Oh, and btw, WINE does work with 95 too. Check your configs and documentation.

--
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"' /. ate my old sig. Bastards.
Re:WINE Windows Driver Support by MrNybbles · 2004-02-12 08:05 · Score: 1

Yes, the current NTFS support for Linux is quite an accomplishment. I just said it would be nice if they had better support.

Oh, and btw, WINE does work with 95 too. Check your configs and documentation.

It's dificult to tell what you are trying to say. I never said WINE does not work with Win9x programs. It works very well with most Win9x programs. It's the Windows 9x drivers I don't know about. The one that is giving me problems is a video driver ment to talk to a spicific uncommon video card used to key effects effects to a switcher to be mixed in downstream.

--
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
Re:WINE Windows Driver Support by Derek+Pomery · 2004-02-12 08:16 · Score: 1

"I hope they get some support for Win9x drivers too"
Sorry, I misread that opening statement as stating there was no support for Win95 drivers.

And as for better NTFS support, I've linked you to an alternative that allows complete read/write - aren't you happy? :)

--
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"' /. ate my old sig. Bastards.

Legality question.. by stratjakt · 2004-02-12 04:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

If calls are being passed directly to/from drivers like NTFS.SYS and the actual WinXP kernel, does using Wine require a licensed copy of XP?

AFAIK you can't freely redistribute the XP kernel and system drivers.

Will we see WINE shut down at MSFTs whim one day?

--
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!

Re:Legality question.. by MrNybbles · 2004-02-12 04:38 · Score: 4, Informative

WINE does not require a copy of XP except if you want to have good NTFS support. Many people who want or need good NTFS support already have Windows XP. If you want good NTFS support and don't have Windows XP then you are probably out of luck.
The Linux Kernel 2.6.x so far does not have very good NTFS writing support. With few exceptions I would suggest not using 2.6.x NTFS support until it nolonger says it is experimental. Also, I think the NTFS.SYS driver from WINE calls the Windows XP driver ntoskrnl.exe. The NTFS.SYS talked about in the article is part of WINE.

--
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
Re:Legality question.. by caseih · 2004-02-12 04:53 · Score: 1

No it doesn't require a licensed copy of XP to run wine. But to run any of the drivers that ship with XP, especially ntfs.sys, then yes a licensed copy of XP is required. This is the basis for the captive-ntfs driver also. It requires you have XP already installed, then grabs its ntfs.sys and then uses that to mount the filesystem. If you don't have XP, then you can't legally use the ntfs.sys driver at all.
Re:Legality question.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 09:15 · Score: 1, Insightful

If you don't have XP, then you can't legally use the ntfs.sys driver at all.

But then, if you don't have a licensed copy of ntfs.sys, you're pretty unlikely to have any NTFS partitions. It's not really a big problem, shall we say.

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by kalidasa · 2004-02-12 04:25 · Score: 4, Informative

You notice there aren't any projects to run Mac OS apps under Linux.

Au contraire.

Re:Believe me, I love it as much as anybody, but. by zulux · 2004-02-12 04:27 · Score: 3, Funny

We'll we all know that the Specious Project started on Dave Cutler's work with PDP-11's during WWII. By inventing new opcodes, like, BSH and WRG, Dave and Allan Turing were able to break the Enigam codes that the American and Germans were using at the time. That's how we got the plans for the AtomicBomb from the Germans.

The Specious Project was also the first atempt to pring Opject-Oriented code to simple Babage style difference engines like the PDP-11.

(How did I do... am I part of the Specious Project now???)

--

Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

Bug or Feature? by crashcane · 2004-02-12 04:27 · Score: 0, Redundant

He pointed out that Microsoft Office now "just works. You can use it all day long and you won't see the difference." Then he added that wasn't 100% true because, "The Paperclip still doesn't work."

Wine still a pain by Apreche · 2004-02-12 04:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

While win is great and all, and I hope it gets better it has too many problems that are not being addressed. The biggest problem is how much of a pain in the butt it is to configure. Wine needs some sort of easy or automatic configuration tool. I mean, when it's easier to set up xfree86 than it is to set up wine we have a problem.

The second and most obvious thing is that because wine exists then less software will be made for linux in the meantime. There is at least one person out there who said to themselves "why bother porting this windows app to linux, they can just use wine". Many many open source apps are ported to windows every day because we have tools like cygwin and minigw with which to recompile them. I think this is the biggest barrier to linux taking more market share. Many people I encounter wouldn't mind switching, but there is always one or two applications that they absolutely need that hold them back. Wine can help, if it works for those apps, because that person will be able to switch. But wine can also hurt because that app will never get a real port, especially if it is closed source. The fact that wine is hard to configure and that it doesn't work perfectly tend to make wine more hurt than help.

--
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!

Re:Wine still a pain by stratjakt · 2004-02-12 04:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

The second and most obvious thing is that because wine exists then less software will be made for linux in the meantime.... this is the biggest barrier to linux taking more market share.

Why? Who cares?

The average user wouldnt care if the app their running was compiled for linux natively, or is being emulated, so long as it works seamlessly.

A WINE that worked, was effortless to install, had a compatibility with XP in the high 90%'s (including the latest DirectX - big issue, games are probably the most cited reason home users stay on windows), would be a huge reason to run linux on the desktop.

Users could simply be told "look, here's this free product, that's more stable, more secure, AND runs all Windows applications to boot". People start using linux, MSFT responds by breaking compatibilities in their next OS, breaking compatibility with XP in the process, pissing people off, driving more to linux..

There are plenty of apps I use that only have Windows versions, and I frankly prefer to any OSS counterparts I've seen. DVD/CD burning software, some dev tools (yeah, I much prefer Visual Studio to anything in the OSS world I've seen)..

And as far as games go, I know there's a handful of linux titles, but by and large there's no comparison.

As I see it, at that point, hardware support would be the biggest (only?) thing holding linux back from the desktops of the world.

--
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Re:Wine still a pain by NamShubCMX · 2004-02-12 05:22 · Score: 1

If you haven't already, I suggest you try K3B for CD/DVD burning. It's a really great app. I personally find it *superior* to any commercial/proprietary offering.
As for dev tools, I think I work faster in KDevelop than in V. Studio, probably due to the integration of all those tools...
I'm not saying that *you* will find those software better than your proprietary alternatives, but I erally suggest you give a try, if you haven't.
I've been pleasantly surprised. :)

--
We've always been at war with Eurasia.

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:29 · Score: 0

Too bad it doesn't run on i386 hardware.

Re:CrossOver ? with MS Blessings...? by da5idnetlimit.com · 2004-02-12 04:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well, the point had always been that the Office division of MS is a milk cow, System brings quite some money in but is attacked by Linux and XBOX Division (as well as the media division) is loosing money like hell...

Wine continuation just means that when (rofl) Linux has dethroned Windows on the desktop(/rofl) Microsoft can with no problem continue pushing it's Office suite everywhere...

Maybe putting all this devellopment time and brains on OpenOffice / MSOffice compatibility and TheGimp Tools/Dev/Filters would allow us what we really need..a really free, top to bottom OS...with all the goodies softs available for free...

"This and Photoshop are two very important steps to getting Linux on more desktops"

I might be wrong, but I think I'm closer to the mark than you are...

Get Oppenoffice working for cheap AND MS doc compatible (almost totally done), push for the SMEs and Big Companies to get cheaper hardware by getting them Microsoft free and then you will see that Photoshop is announcing a native Linux version by it's nice, userfriendly editor...

When you are at that point, most editors will come and shell out Linux versions... Binaries only, maybe, but Linux versions anyhow...

Wine was all right and fine an idea 2-3 years ago, when Linux didn't fully have the basic apps.

Now that we have them...

There is only two position in IT Market, the best or the cheapest... If we get all for free, editors will try and provide the best for a fee... Or so it was to work ...

--
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker

I'd like to know that too by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

I bought crossover partly because I wanted to support Wine, and I have know idea if I'm actually acheiving that or not. Anyone got any info?

btw I've used Photoshop under the latest crossover and it ran fine, although ImageReady was pretty buggy.

Re:I'd like to know that too by jeremy_white · 2004-02-12 04:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

We are only able to do the work that we do because of the money we receive from our customers, most of whom are single end users.
All of our work on Wine goes back to the public Wine tree. I think its fair to say that Wine runs MS Office 2000, XP, Photoshop, and a wide range of applications only because of the money our customers have sent us. So, yes, I think it makes a huge difference, and we greatly appreciate it.
Further, there is one misconception I wish to correct. We've actually changed our development process recently so that all of our Wine work goes to the public Wine tree as soon as our developer makes the change, without regard to CrossOver releases.
Cheers,
Jeremy White
CEO, CodeWeavers
Re:I'd like to know that too by Shriek · 2004-02-12 05:57 · Score: 0

We are only able to do the work that we do because of the money we receive from our customers, most of whom are single end users.
So, in other words you target the slashdot crowd? :) Seriously though, did you mean that your revenue stream comes from the marjority of people who would be considered a "one system license" user? Or did you mean "volume licensing" users who are unmarried? Is the customer segment your business is targeting the average user, or is your primary target the enterprise customer, and are reaching the average user more rather than the enterprise segment?
Re:I'd like to know that too by adrianbaugh · 2004-02-12 06:07 · Score: 1

You rock. Hopefully my father will be switching from Windows Me to Linux soon, but I expect he'll still want MS Office so I'll suggest he bungs some cash your way.

--
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Re:I'd like to know that too by Lumpy · 2004-02-12 06:18 · Score: 1

I personally want to thank you for the great work you guys did and are continuing to do. WINE in it's self has helped me get more newbies to linux than any other app/distro/idea.

now if we could get a gnome wrapper that would put a wine-installed app from a windows app cd to put an icon in the gnome menu it would be that much closer to perfect.

if a newbie can insert his windows app cd, run the installer under wine and have a application link inserted in a windows directory in the gnome menu that is already associated with wine and that app, the adoption of linux + wine would quadruple overnight.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:I'd like to know that too by jsebrech · 2004-02-12 07:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

if a newbie can insert his windows app cd, run the installer under wine and have a application link inserted in a windows directory in the gnome menu that is already associated with wine and that app

Crossover office adds apps to the menu and desktop on my system (debian + kde). That's the diff between crossover and wine, you pay for the polish.
Re:I'd like to know that too by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 09:01 · Score: 1, Interesting

Reading that has changed my opinion of CodeWeavers from bad to good. Next time I have money to spare I think I'll be buying a copy of Crossover Office...
Re:I'd like to know that too by mazor · 2004-02-12 18:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

>>> All of our work on Wine goes back to the public Wine tree

So where is the 6 months of work that Borland did on WINElib (with CodeWeavers, and paid CodeWeavers) to fix the multitude of threading and exception handling issues in the WINE sources? Borland submitted the fixes, but AFAICT, they were never accepted by the WINE maintainers due to "theological differences". Talk about a collossal waste of time and effort...

I'm not talking about WINE the binary PE file emulator that tries to run Windows code that was never intended for Linux but WINElib the native Linux .so library built from the same sources as WINE that Win32 API source can link against when recompiled for Linux.

--mazor

Open source virtual machines? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:35 · Score: 0

If you need both windows and linux software wine is an alternative... But have you tried vmware ?

I use it at work to run virtual machines on linux and at home (with the work license so dont tell anyone...)on windows. It works perfectly well with debian as server and as a VM! (although its not officially supported, so some extra effort is required... but knoppix is the easy way to go)

VM is technically very different from wine but has lots of advantages.
Its much more, so the problem (for users like me...) is the price (i think 300$).

Does anybody know about any other solution? How about starting an open source virtual machine project? Now that would be great!! ;-)

Re:Open source virtual machines? by jj00 · 2004-02-12 05:10 · Score: 1

I'm not sure about Open Source virtual machines, but my solution is to have a second computer and a KVM switch.

I've tried wine over and over, and it just doesn't seem to do it for me. I've almost always found an application in Linux that can do the same or better. Just look at their Gold List, it doesn't seem too useful.

All the big time applications seem to work in limited ways, like Quicken. I keep hearing how they (codeweavers) are getting close with Quicken, only to read that certain parts of the program (web connect) don't work. I'd rather have a cross-platform replacement.
Re:Open source virtual machines? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:17 · Score: 0

Virtual machines are very different from wine...

It is indeed as having an another computer (the cpu time is split, no big difference for simple use with that, only the RAM could limit things)

the good thing is that once a VM boots, all applications work normally.

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:36 · Score: 0

WTF is that sheeit?!!! An Open Source project that isn't properly platform-agnostic? Crap, I thought only Wintel developers were that stupid!!! That's as benighted as making a nice adaptable low power chip and then selling it as x86 comptatible!! Goddamned heathens!

That's why it's 0.9 by Weaselmancer · 2004-02-12 04:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Plus, Wine is not a product, it's a project. Codeweavers makes a product based on Wine, and so does Transgaming.

Codeweavers product is aimed at people who want to use Linux, but communicate 100% with MS Office people. And use MS plugins in their Linux browsers.

Transgamings product is aimed at the hacker/enthusiast who wants to be on the cutting edge running DirectX games on their Linux install.

Eventually, Wine will be a near 100% replacement for the MS API. Buy a MS piece of software at CompUSA, drop it in your Linux distro, and it works perfectly.

And once that happens, you will see Linux begin to take over the desktop. And that's why Wine developers are heroes. Keep up the good work!

Weaselmancer

PS: The submitter is hoping for the "magic bullet" that'll speed up wine, but may have missed just such a magic bullet in the article he posted. It's a shared memory wineserver, currently experimental. I'll quote from the WineHQ page:

Gav showed a dramatic demo of American McGee's Alice running under both WineX and WineX with shared memory. In that particular game the sound and graphics threads needed to sync with each other at an astounding rate. Typical WineX performance produced about 50 frames per second. By moving to shared memory the framerate nearly doubled to about 95 a second.

--
Weaselmancer
rediculous.

ReactOS by dcuny · 2004-02-12 04:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

For me, the most interesting thing happening in Wine has been the ReactOS project. Basically, it's an attempt to clone the Windows NT operating system.

There have been a number of attempts to clone the Windows OS in the past (i.e. Freedows and the Alliance OS), but most of them have self-destructed with no real product.

The ReactOS, on the other hand, has managed to get the core NT working, and has been added the Wine libraries to supply much of the functionality. Earlier last month they released a version with a functioning Windows Explorer clone, and they seem well on the way of reaching the goal of running OpenOffice and Mozilla by October, 2004. The target of a fully functional Windows OS replacement is only about a year away.

Re:ReactOS by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 09:08 · Score: 0

I have to confess I find ReactOS interesting but not particularly exciting.

Technically it's an incredible bit of work, and it's quite remarkable that they've got as far as they have. I'm just not sure I'm that excited about a Windows clone that's currently on track to reach full NT 4.0 compatibility around the time Longhorn comes out.

It's a cool hack and a nice bit of code, and of the numerous hobby OS projects it's far and away the most promising and the most interesting. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's pointless by any means. I just don't think it's likely to replace Windows on the desktop - Linux is probably a better bet if all you're interested in is future success.
Re:ReactOS by Thing+1 · 2004-02-12 17:39 · Score: 1

For me, the most interesting thing happening in Wine has been the ReactOS project. Basically, it's an attempt to clone the Windows NT operating system.

I would imagine that thanks to the story that came through 6 hours later, ReactOS will start improving a great deal faster.
Tainted or not, once the source is out there you can't put it back in the bottle.

--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.

Have you tried the commercial versions? by Per+Abrahamsen · 2004-02-12 04:49 · Score: 1

I haven't but I'd expect the crossover and transgaming versions to feel less geeky.

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:52 · Score: 0

I never quite understood that project, since it requires PPC hardware. If I'm going to spent the money on PPC hardware, why not just run Mac OS?

same old wine story by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 04:52 · Score: 1, Insightful

I've been using Linux for 10 years. Back in the day there was dosemu and wine. The story was that wine was getting close, wine was getting better, wine was getting usable.

Every once in a while I would give wine another try and find that wine was still not working. I don't think very much has changed in 10 years with the wine project.

At this point I have no interest anymore in using wine, I just use linux and native linux apps.

IMHO the wine developers should focus their efforts on linux and native linux applications, and users should request native linux applications from the software vendors.

Re:same old wine story by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 12:05 · Score: 0

I agree. Interesting that you mention DOSEmu. I can almost always get stuff working with DOSEmu, but almost everything I try with WINE fails. Of course, I'm not trying to run the popular stuff, like Office. I have a bunch of kid's titles on cdrom that I try to run, some several years old, some recent, not a one works. These titles are just not important enough for WineX, for example to give two shits about...

Other utilites with no equal in the Linux world, such as CDMage, don't run either. There is no support in Linux to write many cd formats out there, CDMage can convert most anything to bin cue format, which Linux does handle nicely (most noteably CloneCD images cannot be written directly from Linux).

Wine seems cool from the press release angle, but for a bloke like me, who isn't trying to run office apps, it's a big disapointment as far as emulation goes.

DOSEmu, on the other hand, just works.

yes there is by bluGill · 2004-02-12 04:53 · Score: 1

There are several signs of win32 ports.

Some people are replacing Windows DLLs with Wine DLLs. (mostly for testing).

Some people are trying to get Wine running under Windows.

the ReactOS people are doing really cool things trying to make a windows clone that uses Wine.

Depending on your definition of running, all or some of the above might be of interest to you.

freebsd by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:01 · Score: 0

and vmware also supports freebsd!

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:05 · Score: 0

> Too bad it doesn't run on i386 hardware.

Well, Wine doesn't run on PPC hardware either...

I just love the pictures. by NineNine · 2004-02-12 05:05 · Score: 0, Flamebait

I love the pictures. They're so painful, they're great. It's like watching a train wreck. I can't resist. A dozen of so uber-dorks in a tiny room, hunched over their laptops, building a product that what few people actually do use, use for free. It's soooo sad, I just love it.

Re:I just love the pictures. by bluGill · 2004-02-12 05:29 · Score: 1

A dozen
If you consider 30+ a dozen I guess

uber-dorks
We generally consider that a compliment considering the type of person who makes the comment.

tiny room
Well for 30 people it is a little small but it wasn't uncomfortable. There are a bigger room too, but it didn't have a net connection so you didn't see as many pictures of it. Compared to a typical room in a house, it is large. I've been in office buildings that didn't have a meeting room that large. (though the cafeteria substituted for a meeting room when they needed it)

hunched over their laptops
Most of those with a laptop sat at the table, where there was no need to hunch. For that matter few people were using their laptop in the meeting, as it is hard to work and listen to technical conversation at the same time.

building a product that what few people actually do use, use for free
Codeweavers and Transgaming both claim to be making money. Not getting rich, but making money. That seems like a pretty good indication that not everyone is using it for free. Maybe most people use it for free, but we are still talking several million $ per year just to pay all the people who get paid to work on wine. Few compared to MsWindows perhaps, but I know plenty of projects the thrive on much smaller customer bases.

I just love it
I love it too.

WINE is not just for "basic apps." by autechre · 2004-02-12 05:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sometimes you have this old, closed-source 16-bit program (possibly for an old, out-of-date piece of external hardware) that you really can't replace because all of this other stuff is built up around it. The company isn't around anymore, but the version of the application won't run on modern, supported versions of Windows for some reason. This is where WINE can really help you out.

It can help in other ways, too. My Playstation 2 was having a problem reading discs. In searching for a local repair place on the Web, I found out that several people sell cheap "self-repair" guides, but these are in some wacky Windows hypertext browser format (probably to prevent copying). Worked fine in WINE, and I had repaired my own PS2 for $10 in less than an hour.

--
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.

Re:WINE is not just for "basic apps." by Uggy · 2004-02-12 05:41 · Score: 1

Except my old versions of Micrografx Designer (4) and FormFlow, and MSWorks don't run under wine. All crash upon launch with 16 bit violation errors. Seems wine has lost some of its 16 bit compatibility.

--
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
Re:WINE is not just for "basic apps." by HiThere · 2004-02-12 10:55 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, the applications that I have like that, Wine won't run either. It will run SAngband, but that's hardly a thing one would change a business decision about, even if it is my favorite version of Angband.

What I need it to run are Encore by Passport Designs and Deneba Canvas 8 (getting closer, but it won't even load properly yet). (Photoshop I can replace with Gimp, but Linux doesn't *have* a decent Canvas replacement.)

OTOH, if RoseGarden or NoteEdit ever start working well (including producing the sounds of notes as they are entered, and doing playback), then it *MIGHT* be possible to ditch MSWind completely (though there are all those files in a proprietary format that can't be converted to anything else...). If there were also a good Canvas replacement (think of it as Illustrator with a built in bitmap editor as good as The Gimp)...then we would quickly convert totally to Linux. *QUICKLY*! A decent animation program would make the conversion happen even more quickly.
(N.B.: I'm not talking about a $15,000-$45,000 movie-maker special. Think more the kind that could be used in a school & by students making 15-30 second clips. Currently we're building it in Canvas and tuning it in The Gimp. And neither tool is designed for what we're making it do, and it shows in the clumsiness of the work.)

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:WINE is not just for "basic apps." by MenTaLguY · 2004-02-12 11:47 · Score: 1

OTOH, if RoseGarden or NoteEdit ever start working well (including producing the sounds of notes as they are entered, and doing playback)

I don't know about NoteEdit, but RoseGarden has been doing at least that much for a very long time now. You may want to give it another look.

--

DNA just wants to be free...
Re:WINE is not just for "basic apps." by HiThere · 2004-02-12 13:53 · Score: 1

Hmm...It isn't working on my box. Maybe it doesn't like SMP.

I'll have to try it on a different machine.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

Wine is not WineX by bluGill · 2004-02-12 05:10 · Score: 1

Please don't confuse wine with WineX. They are almost the same, but not quite. WineHq.com has little to do with WineX. Some code is passed back and forth, but not all.

There are 3 versions of wine: wine, WineX, and Crossover. WineX was Wine plus some things that cannot legally be made open source several years ago, but they have branched. Crossover is Wine, but they pick a point where it is stable, fix a few bugs, and sell support for that. Wine is the Open Source project that sometimes releases developmental versions, but there are always bugs in it, which are fixed in a different version with different bugs.

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by MooKore+2004 · 2004-02-12 05:11 · Score: 1

Wrong

--
found here

Is Outlook supported? by timeOday · 2004-02-12 05:14 · Score: 1

I'd think it would be a nightmare compared to a standalong product like Office because you have to log into a windows domain (or do you?)

Also, like perhaps many others my laptop dual-boots to Linux on one side and Windows XP on the other. Can I use Wine to run things from the (read-only, under linux) NTFS Windows-XP partition? That would be fantastic. (Currently I do this with VMware but the boot time is annoying and the memory usage of course is ridiculous).

Re:Is Outlook supported? by timeOday · 2004-02-12 05:18 · Score: 1

I forgot to say ,the reason I ask is because I looked at WineHQ's supported applications list and there are only 9 apps listed as working properly? And none of them is Office, which the story summary specifically claims works! There is another database of supported applications at wineHQ, but you have to register which it isn't worth doing just to decide whether to download Wine at all.
Re:Is Outlook supported? by AntiOrganic · 2004-02-12 05:31 · Score: 1

I forgot to say ,the reason I ask is because I looked at WineHQ's supported applications list [winehq.org] and there are only 9 apps listed as working properly?

This is not the compatibility list, this is the *officially* supported applications list. If an application on this list does not work properly, you are encouraged to piss and moan about it. It does not mean nothing else works. Many applications all the way up to Photoshop and Flash MX work pretty well under recent releases, and many OpenGL games, especially Quake 3 engine games such as Jedi Knight II, also run quite well.
Re:Is Outlook supported? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:35 · Score: 1, Informative

Yes it is supported. You don't have to log into a domain unless you are trying to connect to an exchange mailbox. When that happens, Outlook pops up a login window and you enter your domain, username and password and everything works fine from there.

In theory you can run windows binaries from your NTFS partition, but there are a few potential problems. First, if the program you're running writes any kind of tempory data to disk, you're screwed (not a problem for FAT partitions provided your permissions are set correctly). The other major problem is any special registry settings libraries, etc added at the time of install that your Wine installation might not be able to see.

LOL DUDES______BARZIL! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:15 · Score: 0

THEIR SOMETHNG IN MAH BUT 2NIGHT FERNANDO!1111! WTF

Depending on performance by autechre · 2004-02-12 05:16 · Score: 1

You can use Python and the Pygame libraries, and that will probably work for all but the most intensive 3d fast action stuff.

The big problem with "all platforms" is that once you start including different architectures (x86 and PowerPC, for example) then emulation gets more complicated, as you have to emulate all of the underlying hardware.

Of course, we have near-perfect emulators for video game consoles which run on PCs, but the platform doing the emulating is going to have to be a whole lot beefier than the original.

--
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 05:27 · Score: 0

You got that wrong pal. I'm not complaining on anything else than that I myself have only i386 hardware and would like to run Mac OS (X) on it.

I'm not pissing on their project. Quite the contrary.
Maybe you should consider that people are not always out to bash others work.

ALready is one, Bochs ... by molarmass192 · 2004-02-12 05:37 · Score: 2, Informative

Take a look here. Granted it's not as polished as VMWare and not as speedy but it's progressing.

--

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by kalidasa · 2004-02-12 06:30 · Score: 1

Of course, Wine doesn't run on PPC hardware without an emulator as well: in this case QEMU. It looks like QEMU may be starting to develop PPC emulation on x86.

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by spitzak · 2004-02-12 06:31 · Score: 1

Getting all the library and system calls to work would allow Mac programs to run under this on an x86 by recompiling them and linking with the emulation libraries that they develop, just like Wine is supposed to allow you to recompile Windows programs to run them under Linux on other platforms.

At least that is the idea. I agree that in reality it is not working out that way, it appears a lot of Wine is "get this DLL to run". Even a company making a Windows program and interested in porting it to Linux and in recompiling it cannot use Wine to do this, as they still rely on some closed-source DLL that is not emulated and is provided by a company like Microsoft who definatly will not recompile it.

True (both parents...) by da5idnetlimit.com · 2004-02-12 06:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

I didn't say Wine was useless...

Just, if you have that old 16 bits apps running on a dying computer, I'm sure you can find an old desktop somewhere, slap 98 or DOS 5 on it and keep it running...

I made the jump to full Linux less than 6 month ago, and now all my computers are Linux Based (Firewall is Astaro Linux, web/mail is E-smith, the rest (file server + desktop) is installed with Knoppix Cluster (debian))

Whenever I must do something Windows only, I ask my girlfriend for her keyboard, and later look for an alternative Linux solution.

Usually, I end up either with a multiplatform Java app, or with a Beta project from Sourceforge, and my need is fullfiled.

The problem is not with Legacy softz, for they will run on their old versions of whatever OS they need.

The problem is completing Linux's software portofolio so that Large Editors find it attractive to support their soft on Linux...

Choice, the cheap (as in free) against the best (as in payed-for version), until the free soft becomes better again, and so on...

--
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker

Wow. Great idea. by Futurepower(R) · 2004-02-12 06:50 · Score: 1

VERY impressive.

Wine is good but I feel sorry for Codeweavers by mijok · 2004-02-12 07:10 · Score: 1

I've heard quite a few times how wine is bad because it makes native versions less likely - IMNSHO quite the opposite is true since when/if most windows applications become usable in Linux using wine companies making those apps are quite likely to port them as well. Why? Because wine can prove that there's a market for the application among Linux users (presuming that the company does its market research properly and the users are clever enough to tell the company that they are running it using wine) and consequently the reasoning will be like this if two companies have similar applications that run with wine:
Company A: Both our and competitor B's apps run in Linux using wine but they don't run quite as well as they do in Windows but people use them anyway, the emulation makes it slower. Maybe we should make a native port and thus get all Linux users, who need this kind of app, to use ours since the market obviously exists and a native version is always better. Yep, we should do that.
Company B: Same reasoning.
Result: Two native apps for Linux.

This, however, makes wine a project which can only be successful as a not-for-profit open source project, why? Because wine's success excludes wine's success.That is, if Linux achieves greater desktop market share thanks to wine making Windows apps available and thus native applications will become more common and finally wine will no longer be needed. So consequently Codeweavers are in the business of putting themselves out of business. Transgaming might do a little bit better since they're calling it "portability technology" and make Linux ports, for which the demand is likely to increase if/when Linux' market share grows. But their success depends on whether they can do the porting of a game cheaper and better than the original game creator.

--
Karma. Moderation. Is my .sig good now?

Guh by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 07:30 · Score: 0

That's just great. You would want the wine developers to ignore the people who want to get MS apps running on linux NOW. If those apps never run on linux...no one will ever use linux. Don't you see? It's like the age old chicken-or-the-egg problem. Which comes first? Windows apps ported directly to linux or linux being able to run apps that function the same as their windows cousins?

You seem to be suggesting that we could replace the commercial apps with open source ones. Well, that would be a bit of a stretch, and also wouldn't encourage adoption, since people already know how to use apps on windows. And in order for linux to get the attention from corporations it needs to get a large user base...

Face it, the proportion of people using windows to linux is so much larger it boggles the imagination. We need to work as well as possible with windows apps initially so people can escape the clutches of Microsoft.

Best Linux word processor by mrm677 · 2004-02-12 07:45 · Score: 2, Interesting

The best word processor running on Linux is Microsoft Word.

In OpenOffice, I tried to create a simple numbered list, where I stop the list but then continue it at a later point in the document, but I couldn't figure it out.

MS Office on cross-over Wine is what I use and I am productive.

Re:Best Linux word processor by forgotmypassword · 2004-02-12 08:59 · Score: 1

In OpenOffice, I tried to create a simple numbered list, where I stop the list but then continue it at a later point in the document, but I couldn't figure it out.

I just opened up OpenOffice and did it without even thinking.

I made a numbered list.
I put an empty entry in the middle where I wanted the list to seperate.
I backspaced over that number.
I hit return a couple of times, to seperate the two halves of the list.

I even tested adding entries to the first half of the list and guess what? It worked just fine. I'm sure that there are probably better ways to do this, but that was the first thing I thought of.

Meanwhile I can remember about a half dozen odd bugs/quirks in MSOffice lists that I don't know if they have ever been fixed, including the incredibly annoying "one of my numbers in my numbered list has turned bold/italic for absolutely no reason and I can't change it back without deleting the entire thing or editing the raw code". God did that ever drive me nutz.

--
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot

Noob question here: by Kiyooka · 2004-02-12 07:53 · Score: 1

If Windows is an unstable confused pieca shit, and you're trying to emulate it, won't that make WINE, at its very perfect flawless best, an unstabled confused pieca shit? And if WINE's not perfectly done and has bugs in it, then it'll be an even MORE unstable confused pieca shit. Isn't this a doomed sad project?

Or am I just an unstable confused....?

Re:Noob question here: by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 19:49 · Score: 0

If Windows is an unstable confused pieca shit, and you're trying to emulate it, won't that make WINE, at its very perfect flawless best, an unstabled confused pieca shit? And if WINE's not perfectly done and has bugs in it, then it'll be an even MORE unstable confused pieca shit. Isn't this a doomed sad project?

Or am I just an unstable confused....?

In all fairness, this is a good question.

You're assuming that WINE is trying for what's called 'bug-for-bug' compatibility -- right down to, say, duplicating the overflowable buffers in certain parts of the IIS code. Obviously, this isn't the case; there is some code that you don't _want_ WINE to run. They're not technically trying for true 100% compatibility; they probably won't even touch IIS, since in all likelihood anything you'd use IIS for on a real Windows box can be done by the underlying Linux* substrate instead.

(Warning: the following paragraphs are guesses. Educated guesses, yes, but guesses nonetheless.)

Also, a lot of Windows crashes are due to things like broken or buggy device drivers bringing down the system (which, to be fair, isn't entirely Microsoft's fault); but WINE just has to make a few Linux syscalls, and if the Linux drivers are broken you can go in and fix them.

Most of the rest of Windows' crashes involve something in the kernel proper GPFing; if WINE's kernel, er, _doesn't_ try to write to an invalid memory location at instruction 0000A459:000006BD6, WINE simply won't BSoD where Windows does. Or if it does you can, guess what, go in and fix it.

So, no. WINE 'at its very perfect flawless best' would not copy Windows' behavior exactly. In fact, in theory it could be better at running Windows software than Windows itself is. (In theory.)

-- Anonymous Coward

(*Or substitute your Unix of choice.)

Try winecfg by Weaselmancer · 2004-02-12 08:25 · Score: 1

I just downloaded the latest Wine about 3 days ago straight from WineHQ. The new winecfg is excellent. It's way better than the old TK one. Clean tabbed interface, and it's as simple to configure as any other app.

Weaselmancer

PS: You said, "The second and most obvious thing is that because wine exists then less software will be made for linux in the meantime."

Think of Wine as a gateway to Linux. Yeah, there will be less of a compelling reason to write native Linux apps. That is, until it takes off and becomes mainstream.

If Linux/Wine was on 50% of desktops, you'd see more native Linux apps. "Why not port this to Linux and get a speed increase, Bob? Linux is on 50% of all the desktops in the world, and we're missing a market segment." That kind of a thing.

--
Weaselmancer
rediculous.

Re:George W. Bush touched my junk conservatively by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 09:21 · Score: 0

Is this the same George W. Bush which Thermoman flew to Northolt by mistake?

See a certain episode in MY HERO featuring the one and only GW Bush...

Re:Have a nice cup of flaming hot death! by nathanh · 2004-02-12 09:38 · Score: 1

You notice there aren't any projects to run Mac OS apps under Linux.

Au contraire. [MaconLinux.org]

And Basilisk (for 68k MacOS).

longhorn? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-12 11:11 · Score: 0

Will wine run longhorn applications when longhorn comes out?

Thanks. by Kiyooka · 2004-02-13 10:30 · Score: 1

Thanks. I'm a programming noob and know very little about OS infrastructures etc., but I get the gist of what you're saying anyway.

190 comments