Wine 1.0 — Uncorked After 15 Years

pshuke writes "After 15 years of development, Wine version 1.0 has been released. Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix. While perfect windows compatibility has not yet been achieved, full support for Photoshop CS2, Excel Viewer 2003, Word Viewer 2003 and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 have been among the goals prior to the release. For further information about supported applications, head over to the appdb. Get it (source) while it's hot."

Comments

What will interest me is

[Toreo asesino]

...how many applications will state "Designed for Windows XP, Vista, and Wine 1.0" as a supported platform. That will be the metre stick for success IMHO.

Re:What will interest me is

[RonnyJ]

Not going to happen, sorry.

Re:What will interest me is

[cybrthng]

How about NONE? Wine doesn't have a "logo" nor a certification program. Being 1.0 release as well means it would be premature for a developer to market towards it (thus accepting liability for what could be shortcomings in the WINE system itself)

Re:What will interest me is

[SirMeliot]

And of course such a program would be pointless anyway. If 'Designed For Windows' apps don't work under Wine then Wine itself has failed its objective.

Re:What will interest me is

[cerberusss]

The chaps at Sparx Systems make software and have designed their UML tools to be compatible with Crossover Office, the commercial Wine variant: http://www.sparxsystems.com/support/faq/ea_on_linux.html.

For others, I would advise to check whether your favorite application is in CodeWeaver's compatibility database. This database is maintained pretty well.

Re:What will interest me is

[Firehed]

Premature? For a product that took a decade and a half to reach 1.0, I'm not sure that's the correct word.

Re:What will interest me is

[The MAZZTer]

uTorrent already does, last time I checked.

I was debugging a Half-Life crash once and I noticed it checks the registry for Wine keys while starting up, probably for compatibility hacks.

Re:What will interest me is

[QBasicer]

uTorrent does, and lists Wine first.

Re:What will interest me is

[dave420]

It never will, as it will always be playing "catch-up". Through its very nature it will never be 100% compatible, as long as modifications to win32 happen, which has been the best part of the last 20 years.

Re:What will interest me is

[daveisadork]

REAPER already lists Wine as a supported platform.

Re:What will interest me is

[TheNetAvenger]

how many applications will state "Designed for Windows XP, Vista, and Wine 1.0" as a supported platform. That will be the metre stick for success IMHO

Quite a few in the non-commerical areana already do list Wine/XP/Vista etc...

However,Wine may be a little late to the game. Virtualization will give us all the features we once needed Wine for if done properly.

The other problem with Wine is the evolution of the Win32/64 API, and how it is slowly being replaced. Vista API technologies are not even on the radar, and have the potential to shake up the next generation of application development. (Search Channel9 on WPF .NET 3.5 SP1 for some interesting demos of how far WPF has already gone in just a year.)

Microsoft sees a movement away from Win32 before too long, and even current applciations a lot of developers are working on projects that stretch from generic Win32 to fully hybrind Win32/WPF/DirectX all in one application.

If Virtualiation doesn't solve the divide, we still have Wine and Mono, and for any future, some of the backend of the current Linux kernel will need to extend to handle hardware with the same levels of abstraction, or shoving DX to OpenGL will not be enough when some of the core aspects of WPF is based around 3D UI that uses aspects of the OS to schedule and manage the 3D aspects so that two applications don't fight for 3D GPU resources, and currently only Vista's design allows for this.

(Didn't mean for this post to go negative, as there is a congrats to the Wine peeps in order, and even if Wine translation doesn't last forever is meeting a lot of people's needs now.)

Re:What will interest me is

[MighMoS]

A common myth. Wine may never be 100% compatable with MS Windows, but it can be 100% compatable with MS Windows Programs. No company in their right mind would release software that only works on the latest version which has been out for one month. They'll wait until there's enough of a base to justify it, and that takes time. Time that developers have to implement.

Re:What will interest me is

[MighMoS]

Wine doesn't have a logo? I'd send you a link, but the website is down. Oh wait! All I had to do was scroll up to see it ON SLASHDOT!

Re:What will interest me is

[dave420]

Not necessarily. Software houses release their bleeding-edge software for the latest versions of Windows all the time. Adobe do that. They can do it, because people who use their software want to take advantage of the benefits the new versions have (such as performance increases, better use of multi-core CPUs, etc.), and those new benefits often come from improvements in the OS itself, or its supporting frameworks. They then wait for the rest of the market to catch up, and eventually adopt their software. If what you say is true, then why isn't Wine supporting 100% of Windows applications?

Re:What will interest me is

[PRMan]

But Wine and Mono don't require a commercial license and virtualization does. So while it may "seem" the same while running the application, there is a cost difference (unless you are pirating Windows).

Re:What will interest me is

[Baloo Ursidae]

However,Wine may be a little late to the game. Virtualization will give us all the features we once needed Wine for if done properly. An application compatability layer is a hell of a lot more nimble than dragging the deadweight of an entire VM. And I've yet to see one that handles DX or GL at all, yet Wine handles it in stride.

ista API technologies are not even on the radar, and have the potential to shake up the next generation of application development.

Never mind the Vista compatability options already in wine.

Re:What will interest me is

[SanityInAnarchy]

There's a cost difference with virtualization. There's also a difference in boot times (2-5 seconds with Wine vs a whole XP boot with virtualization), in performance (wrapped FS API is very likely faster than virtual hard disk on top of a real FS, for instance), and in RAM usage (duh).

Vista API technologies are not even on the radar, and have the potential to shake up the next generation of application development. (Search Channel9 on WPF .NET 3.5 SP1 for some interesting demos of how far WPF has already gone in just a year.) If WPF .NET is the future, Mono is already on that job -- and Mono can, in theory, be better than Wine, as .NET was at least half-assedly designed to be portable.

Keep in mind, also, that there's a whole class of people who only need one or two killer apps to work. Sometimes it's something recent (Photoshop); often it's something like an old version of QuickBooks, or some obscure app that no one makes anymore. So if Wine runs legacy apps well, that's a very good start.

Re:What will interest me is

[Baloo Ursidae]

uTorrent does, and lists Wine first.

What's more impressive is that there are far better options that run natively on Linux and they still have the balls to say that.

Re:What will interest me is

[MighMoS]

Better question: if what you say is true, then why are we supporting more and more rather than less and less?

Re:What will interest me is

[Eponymous Bastard]

utorrent already does this. Their download page has a big button that lists wine first, IIRC.

Re:What will interest me is

[merchant_x]

uTorrent does, and lists Wine first.

What's more impressive is that there are far better options that run natively on Linux and they still have the balls to say that.

Please name two. And don't say Transmission. It's nice but uTorrent still beats it imo.

Re:What will interest me is

[Koiu Lpoi]

I suggest you google "VMWare Fusion". It's a Mac VM designed to run Windows, fully, seamlessly, and (in the latest beta versions, which you can download for free (for the time being)), full support of DirectX.

Re:What will interest me is

[linuxrocks123]

Virtualization still requires running actual Windows, just inside an emulator. WINE allows running Windows programs without doing that.

OpenGL isn't in the Linux kernel right now; it's done through an X11 library. That could be extended if it's needed, but I'm not sure it is; it's possible to play Q3 in Linux while also running Compiz.

Re:What will interest me is

[mdielmann]

And of course such a program would be pointless anyway. If 'Designed For Windows' apps don't work under Wine then Wine itself has failed its objective.

I disagree. What that would mean is that software producers have tested against the platform, and certified it as a working alternative. That would be a level of awareness that has yet to be seen. It's also no different than having both XP and Vista, or only one, listed on the box. And that's besides the publicity that Wine would get.

Re:What will interest me is

[k1e0x]

I think maybe your looking at this the wrong way..

It is more like someday we wont need wine.. because everything will be native Linux apps. ;)

Re:What will interest me is

[Hatta]

rTorrent. I don't know any others because I stopped looking when I found rTorrent.

Re:What will interest me is

[Baloo Ursidae]

ktorrent, and bittorrent itself.

Re:What will interest me is

[Opportunist]

Wine has a logo. More yet, you don't have to go to some authenticating company and dump a load of greens on them to get it.

Actually I'm fairly sure we'll soon see it appear on some games. It's a pleasant looking logo to slap on the box, doesn't cost a dime and even if it doesn't work as well as it "should", or does under Windows, who cares, it's a game. Would you go to court for it and sue them?

Re:What will interest me is

[amrik98]

Deluge works great and has a similar UI to uTorrent. I used to use utorrent in wine until I found it and haven't looked back since.

Re:What will interest me is

[SirMeliot]

It would raise awareness, but not in a good way. Developers don't want another platform to support. It's supposed to be just like Windows. The standing advice from the Wine devs is if you find something that doesn't behave like Windows don't code round it, report a Wine bug instead.

It's great if Wine gets to a point where developers will entertain supporting it but anything that suggests you have to do anything special to run under Wine or that apps without a Wine logo won't work would be counter productive.

Re:What will interest me is

[Opportunist]

I just know there's a Vista and a DNF joke lurking somewhere in there, I just can't put my finger on it...

Re:What will interest me is

[Junta]

Two problems with that:
-No virtualization seems to be in shape to provide a good quality hardware 3d acceleration functionality. Among the most desired software, games are high on the list. Wine can play many of them accelerated, Virtualization can not.

-You are still required to buy a product from a monopolist. Well, to be legal at least. Part of the goal is to have a competing implementation of MS APIs, so that users are given a viable choice. Virtualization does not address this.

The best thing I think would be for the industry to move toward cross-platform toolkits (DirectX->SDL, Direct3D->OpenGL, MFC (or whatever it is)->wx (or any number of toolkits). They could still target Windows first, but be left with a portable codebase. Jumping on .Net because of mono is a braindead approach when you have so many other similar sorts of implementations that aren't driven by one platform vendor.

Re:What will interest me is

[TeknoHog]

Here's another one for rTorrent. In my experience, it's pretty much the only choice if you want to run multiple torrents with detailed control in one text terminal (for example a window in screen).

Re:What will interest me is

[thetoadwarrior]

utorrent claims Wine compatibility and, if I recall, Notepad++ claims it as well though in NP++ case I sorta think it's an excuse to get out of porting it to Linux.

Re:What will interest me is

[Hyppy]

Let me summarize the last few posts in line-by-line format for you.

How about NONE? Perhaps not commercial applications, yet, but many open source and freely distributed applications do. Case in point: uTorrent.

Wine doesn't have a "logo" Did you miss the Wine logo on its front page? Or on the top of the story?

nor a certification program. Wine's AppDB begs to differ

Being 1.0 release as well means it would be premature Over a decade of development, and its premature?

for a developer to market towards it (thus accepting liability for what could be shortcomings in the WINE system itself) Like that stopped developers or even hardware vendors from marketing for WindowsME.

Re:What will interest me is

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Wine doesn't have a "logo" nor a certification program.

If I understand it correctly, "designed for" doesn't mean a certification organization poked at the product. It means the manufacturer advertises it to run on that platform.

So all a manufacturer needs to do is run the same test suites against the product running under wine 1.0 that he runs against it for windows platforms. If it passes, include wine 1.0 in the "designed for" list and accept support calls from customers.

Re:What will interest me is

[mdielmann]

Again, I don't agree with you, and I see benefits for having a certification logo with one or more levels of compatibility, but I doubt either of us are going to change the other's mind. I'm even more than willing to admit I could be wrong. OTOH, this discussion has made me more interested in researching Wine, so it's still a good thing.

Re:What will interest me is

[generica1]

Seconded. ktorrent is the only KDE app I keep around. I love it.

Re:What will interest me is

[legirons]

...how many applications will state "Designed for Windows XP, Vista, and Wine 1.0" as a supported platform. Are you sure the "Designed for Windows Vista" program allows you to mention Microsoft competitors on the packaging?

Re:What will interest me is

[Elektroschock]

Yes, buit wouldn't it be great to run at least the software we had in 1998?

what about missing applications such as Photoshop or Video editors?

There is a critical mass: If things start to work more people will try to get things work and check out the source.

Esp. for public authorities the lock-in into special applications is severe and keeps them from switching to Linux. these are mostly trivial from a technological standpoint.

So what really matters is critical mass and a development process that makes it not into elitist work of a close cycle.

At least everyone can run
http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/paulm/WRT/CrossBuilt/winetest-latest.exe
on his windows boxes to support the developers but you really miss a level entry into wine hacking.

Re:What will interest me is

[bberens]

I can name 1 app that advertises that it runs under wine. It's called Picasa, and that's produced by one of the largest firms in the industry. Thanks for playing though.

Re:What will interest me is

[Koiu Lpoi]

rush of the great unwashed.

And when, exactly, would that be? I'd bet you'd be off by years, but no matter what I say I doubt it'll change your mind.

I also rather enjoy how, instead of actually, you know, commenting on the discussion (or admitting you were wrong, something that seems stupid hard for most geeks), you just Foe me, insult me, and add nothing to the conversation. It's too bad no moderator will see your post to send you down into the oblivion it deserves. And don't forget calling me part of the "unwashed [masses]", when you display a keen ability to not only be unable to quote people properly (see your original post), something you decry me on, but you then lack the (rather basic) cognitive ability to connect DX to DirectX as the same thing. Maybe the "unwashed" anger you because you got left behind.

Re:What will interest me is

[sveard]

Microsoft certified anything is guarenteed to be of shit quality. So certification can be useful?

Re:What will interest me is

[Eponymous Bastard]

I noticed it when downloading it for Linux. The reason I did that is I have a crappy connection at home and wanted a portable torrent client I can put on a USB stick and download from elsewhere (parents' house, friend's house, net-cafe, etc.)

Using utorrent under wine lets me be sure I can resume downloads from both Linux and Windows from the same USB stick without worrying about binary compatibility of the temp files.

Azureus is nicer but I'm not even sure how to make it portable, let alone ensure that an appropriate JVM is installed wherever I go.

Re:What will interest me is

[BitZtream]

While you are correct about .NET portability in theory, I would like to add that its more like the CLR was designed to look like it was portable, but as was seen with the 1.0/1.1 runtime, there was so much intentionally left out that you ended up using P/Invoke and native DLLs so often that portability wasn't even close to obtainable for any app that was more than hello world. Its better in the 2.0/3.5 frameworks, but P/Invoke is still around for a reason, and while Microsoft will claim its for compatibility with 3rd party libraries. In which case, '3rd' party means another programing group within Microsoft, not 3rd party in the sense that most developers think.

Its all about the spin ...

Re:What will interest me is

[ydrol]

Dont tell the Gnome developers that :)

Re:What will interest me is

[ydrol]

Perhaps not commercial applications, yet, but many open source and freely distributed applications do. Case in point: uTorrent. I'm fairly sure "wine" was IBM's official stance on a Linux Lotus Notes client (albeit briefly)

Re:What will interest me is

[SanityInAnarchy]

Fair enough, but while it hasn't happened so much yet, I suspect that an effort will be made to have Mono's P/Invoke calls map to DLLs run through Wine.

Of course, the goal of Mono is to allow any cleanly portable .NET app to run without any need for Wine -- so WinForms is actually implemented in Mono.

But keep in mind, a cleanly portable .NET app means it will also run on non-x86 platforms. While there was initially some effort to do this with Wine (specifically Darwine), I think Apple's move to x86 killed it, and in any case, it would be emulation -- .NET on non-x86 could be just as portable as Java. (Won't be, but could.)

Re:What will interest me is

[garett_spencley]

Virtualization still requires running actual Windows, just inside an emulator.

I don't mean to nitpick, but just for the sake of accuracy, emulation and virtualization are not the same thing.

Virtualization is the process of abstracting computer resources in order to hide it's physical characteristics from it's users. IE: running more than one operating system simultaneously by "virtually splitting" the hardware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization

Emulation is software "pretending" to be hardware. An emulator is a stand-alone application that loads the binaries, interprets them and translates the instructions to it's native hardware. Another example of emulation may be software that tries to mimick the behaviour of another application or system (xterm is a good example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulation

For further clarity: you can not run, for example, SNES games on an x86 system using virtualization because the games were not written / compiled for the x86 processor. You can run an SNES emulator, however, that understands the SNES instruction set and translates it to x86 instructions. For this reason virtualization is much faster than emulation since the instructions run natively and there is no translation involved (but there are other uses for virtualization as well, such as making one system behave as many for security purposes etc.).

Re:What will interest me is

[ydrol]

Forgot to add, they have since done a native port. Not that the world needs another version of Lotus Notes in a hurry.

Re:What will interest me is

[Ogi_UnixNut]

Strongly seconded. I stopped looking once I found rTorrent, great for running on headless machines (like my print server) that already run 24/7. Set it up in screen and come back every couple of days to see how its going. Excellent! (and feature packed too!)

Re:What will interest me is

[ozbird]

"Designed for Windows XP and Wine 1.0" would be better.

Re:What will interest me is

[shimmyshimpson]

Not everyone is unwashed, some of us joined, then forgot passwords, didn't post for a while, and then had to rejoin later and get approriately higher id's. Let me tell you about my first ICQ account, back in the day, 1995-96 I believe. My UIN was like, 1800 or something as I was one of the first beta testers, now they're up into the gabillions. Of course, I used it for a while, then left it alone, graduated, lost my uni email account and then forgot all my login details. You think I have a ghost of a chance ever getting that UIN back again?....nup ! So now when I use it (rarely) I have to use my UIN that I got when I signed up again a year or two back..35347598723453465656 or something. Who woulda thunk it ?

Re:What will interest me is

[ColaMan]

And when, exactly, would that be? I'd bet you'd be off by years, but no matter what I say I doubt it'll change your mind.

Well, he would likely say after UID30000.... personally, I would say after UID40000 or so.

But the First Unspoken Rule Of /. is "Do not be led into tedious pedantic, off-topic discussions".
Unfortunately the Second Rule is "Ignore the First Rule."

So, here we are.

(long pause)

Ummmm, I bet you're a Gentoo user. I can tell by your tedious pedanticness.

Re:What will interest me is

[Koiu Lpoi]

Nah, Slackware, Vista, Hackintosh tri-boot, since you asked. Gentoo's boring, and if I really wanted that much performance I'd load up Puppy or DSL.

Re:What will interest me is

[Gavagai80]

All the time? How many major programs aren't available for the seven year old Windows XP? The Windows world is slowing down.

Re:What will interest me is

[genericpoweruser]

If you like a challenge, Torrentflux-b4rt. Can't beat it for coolness =)

Re:What will interest me is

[LDoggg_]

The quotes are so that it gets treated as a single term by the search engine.

Someone with such a low 5 digit UID should know that. Oh wait, the timing of someone joining slashdot has nothing to do with anything.

Re:What will interest me is

[TheNetAvenger]

don't see that this is true, you can open multiple OpenGL apps at the same time with no problems at all. OpenGL already enables sharing 3D GPU resources between multiple apps.

In your example, DirectX also does this...

However you are arguing that cooperative multi-tasking (applicaiton controlled locking) is just as good as pre-emptive multi-tasking (OS controlled scheduling/locking)...

I think most would agree that Applications 'self' managing themselves in a cooperative multi-tasking method is a horrible solution when compared to an OS controlled multi-tasking solution (ie. pre-emptive, etc.)

When you have EVERY application using 3D aspects or using GPU functions for the UI, for physics, to simple 2D acceleration through the 3D GPU side, which happens every second in Vista, then depending on Application yeilding like OpenGL and DirectX already provide would be a nightmare.

When you have every application dipping into the GPU, you need the OS handling the scheduling or things get ugly really quick.

Re:What will interest me is

[loutr]

Wrong

Re:What will interest me is

[Elektroschock]

Because Wine is a hermetic project which requires a lot of specialist knowledge and simple routine tasks with a high entry level. It has a massive tasks and work is not properly distributed, the community does not scale very well. Progress is just linear but things are getting better. With distribution I mean: think e.g. of an external hacking project that is just concerned about getting MS-Office run perfectly under WINE. Or just concerned to get a perfect implementation of a certain API.

I would say that most software runs on WinME. The windows core is pretty stable. But this running is not really the issue. You also cannot say that wine supports WIN95 better than Win Vista.

Re:What will interest me is

[Elektroschock]

Of course, it is not a perfect or complete implementation yet.

Re:What will interest me is

[Nurgled]

What would be useful is a shim in Wine that can make Win32 apps that use .NET and .NET apps that use Win32 work when running under Wine. I imagine this being similar in principle to the shim that makes the Internet Explorer embedding API map to Mozilla.

Several times I've had grief from apps that have both native Win32 and .NET components due to the fact that Wine and Mono can't talk to one another. One hypothetical example that springs to mind is a .NET game being distributed via Valve's Steam: the .NET game can't run under Mono because it can't talk to Steam, but the .NET game also can't run under Wine because Wine has no support for .NET.

Re:What will interest me is

[TheRaven64]

To be even more pedantic, virtualisation is a special case of emulation where a number of the emulation operations are performed using the identity function.

Re:What will interest me is

[David Gerard]

In my experience, developers of open source Windows apps, and even shareware or freeware Windows apps, are keenly interested in working to make their app work better on Wine (e.g. 1, 2 for VirtualDub) - open source and freeware developers because they like to make their programs better, shareware because it increases their market. It's worth asking them to declare Wine a supported platform.

Re:What will interest me is

[SanityInAnarchy]

I imagine this being similar in principle to the shim that makes the Internet Explorer embedding API map to Mozilla. Let's hope not. The Mozilla wrapper is an old version of Gecko, and it's not Wine-specific, it's Windows-specific. Wine just happens to support it.

Now, I think I understand what you're saying, wherein Mono should be able to call Wine DLLs, and Wine should be able to run .NET EXEs in Mono. But that would be tricky -- as it stands, I'm guessing P/Invoke allows support for Mono calling out to native Linux libraries, which is as it should be. What's needed, then, is a way for Linux apps to call Wine libs...

Re:What will interest me is

[BitZtream]

Personally, I hope to see Mono do well. Its got some serious flaws that prevent me from rolling it out onto I production servers here, but our 'new' web front ends for the last 6 months have been done in .NET just so that when Mono became ready for prime time we could switch to it.

I'd much rather have my web apps running on a FreeBSD host with Mono, but for now, we still have to use Windows machines with IIS for now. Garbage collection in Mono needs relocation before we'll be using it. In our case there are some other minor issues we could work around that would actually get our apps working properly in Mono, but on a high traffic site without memory relocation we'd spend too much time optimizing code to make it cost effective. Speed isn't the issue in our case, memory management is.

Anyway, back to the point, I agree 100% with you, any app designed with portability in mind should be portable now, or very soon as Mono does a great job of supporting the 1.0/1.1 and 2.0 frameworks right now. I believe that if developers truely embrace Mono, portability should be just as high as Java. Hell, it takes me FAR less effort to get a .NET app working on my FreeBSD machine than it does to get a java app working. This I blame on Sun and their license restrictions, but we've moved apps from Win32 to FreeBSD/Alpha for playing around and had them work out of the box, so processor type isn't really an issue even.

Heres to hoping Mono isn't just some high school illness anymore.

Re:What will interest me is

[b4dc0d3r]

My girlfriend has DSL.

Re:What will interest me is

[Koiu Lpoi]

-No virtualization seems to be in shape to provide a good quality hardware 3d acceleration functionality. Among the most desired software, games are high on the list. Wine can play many of them accelerated, Virtualization can not.

Check out the betas of VMWare Fusion, if you have a mac. They're getting pretty close to native speed.

Re:What will interest me is

[SanityInAnarchy]

Native interop is huge for our application because we have to interface with hardware and other applications. Wine will never work for you, unless you deliberately port to it.

Out of curiosity, what hardware?

Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ash-Fox]

By deleting the incomplete msxml dlls and setting winecfg's settings to use the native versions, then installing microsoft xml..

You can install and run Microsoft Office 2007.

I do find it a little disappointing that Wine didn't set getting Office 2007 working out of the box as a goal for 1.0, as it really currently just relies upon finishing two DLLs.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

Some would consider not running Office 2007 to be a feature.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Phyrexicaid]

By deleting the incomplete msxml dlls and setting winecfg's settings to use the native versions, then installing microsoft xml.. You can install and run Microsoft Office 2007. I do find it a little disappointing that Wine didn't set getting Office 2007 working out of the box as a goal for 1.0, as it really currently just relies upon finishing two DLLs. Sad to say, but probably because

7.0.0 CrossOver Linux - June 17, 2008
* New application support:
o Office 2007 (Including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and limited Outlook) I'll still be buying a copy though.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Nursie]

Oh, so it's about not workoing for brainless, intolerant morons?

I can handle that.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of us out there who really dislike Office 2007, that doesn't mean that we're promoting OpenOffice, it may mean that Office 2003 is the better product.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Koiu Lpoi]

Three days a year there's a problem? I kinda doubt it's that high. Maybe one day every three years, which, knowing how Microsoft products have worked for me in the past, is pretty damn good.

For some reason, people love to decry OSS because of lack of compatibility, and then turn around and ignore Microsoft's own problems.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Hatta]

I find it a little disappointing that they couldn't fix bug #6971. That's a vast quantity of games that are unplayable because they won't warp the mouse from one side of the screen to another when it hits the edge. They won't even mark it as a high severity bug, even though it meets the qualifications (makes many applications unusable), it's one of the most duplicated bugs, and it's one of the most highly voted bugs.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Aphoxema]

Your logic is ridiculous, at 99% compatibility for Open Office, it outdoes Microsoft Office's general compatibility with itself.

The situation you provided is very exclusive to a boss who is intelligent enough to realize the difference between MS Office and Open Office and having to work 100% of the year long.

In a normal business year, 99% compatibility is much closer to 1 day something going wrong, assuming your claimed statistics are even worth arguing.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[djdavetrouble]

This is funny and true. As a desktop admin, there is nothing harder than
getting someone to take the time to learn a new application. Even worse
is asking someone to relearn the same application that they have been using
for over a decade. 2007 completely changes the user interface, which
is not a good thing for the target audience: people that use computers for
document editing. All I hear is people wishing for the "old toolbars" back.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Phyrexicaid]

I can only say one thing regarding Crossover: Greedy bastards. I wouldn't go that far! In your signature, you tell people to donate to Wine, and Codeweavers is probably the largest sponsor of the Wine project. I see nothing wrong with them making some money for a polished product. I use Crossover 6.2 and it's great.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[iroll]

Send "presentation important" documents as PDFs. Always. Even if you're going from MS Office to MS Office.

Problem solved!

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Baloo Ursidae]

By deleting the incomplete msxml dlls and setting winecfg's settings to use the native versions, then installing microsoft xml..

You don't even need to delete the native msxml dlls if you're using winecfg to override them with the Microsoft versions. (You got what is native to wine entirely backwards).

I do find it a little disappointing that Wine didn't set getting Office 2007 working out of the box as a goal for 1.0, as it really currently just relies upon finishing two DLLs.

Oh, boo hoo. It's not like OpenOffice.org doesn't do the same job better anyway.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Born2bwire]

I'm a brainless, intolerant moron you insensitive clod!

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[AndyCR]

If one of those days is a doc from your boss that either looks great on you computer and not on his or good on his and bad on yours. Could cause the question on why you are using that free crap. If Office 2007 works anything like the previous versions, the documents will look completely different on different computers anyway. Document consistency from MSO to OOO is the least of your worries. Citing http://ancaluca.blogspot.com/2007/09/please-dont-send-me-doc-attachments.html , http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html#tth_sEc1.8 , and others.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[greg1104]

No, it's much higher--for me Open Office fails to be a suitable replacement for Word/Excel during every single attempt to interoperate with the genuine article. Documents never look right, and I don't dare edit anything and send it back lest I corrupt something that destroys the file.

I find OO a useful tool for basic previewing of MS Office documents and doing trivial word processing and spreadsheet tasks. For those purposes, it's nice, and I really appreciate having it available. The GP's view that it's 99% there is a still a wild overestimation of its utility from where I sit.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ash-Fox]

You don't even need to delete the native msxml dlls if you're using winecfg to override them with the Microsoft versions. (You got what is native to wine entirely backwards).

You do because the Microsoft XML installer doesn't replace them for some stupid reason.

Oh, boo hoo. It's not like OpenOffice.org doesn't do the same job better anyway.

I use Microsoft Office 2007 for interacting with Microsoft Office 2007 documents that have specific features that are unique to Microsoft Office 2007 (such as Microsoft Office's Groove). Tell me how OpenOffice.org not only does that, but does that better.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not necessarily the toolbars we document processors/writers/editors miss in 2007--it's the hot keys and the functions usable from the keyboard through drop down menus. In spite of MS's assurances that those haven't been changed, many many have been. Not to mention the whole thing works damned inconsistently from the keyboard.

In this end of things typing speeds above 75 wpm are a matter of course; at that speed, taking your hands off the keyboard to use a mouse is a big productivity hit. Taking that hit plus the hit necessary to relearn an interface? Sorry, but I have deadlines to meet.

The most galling thing about it is MS's hubris (yes, I know, par for the course). They could have at least put in the ability to switch between the old and new interfaces to ease the transition and allow user choice. So confident were they that the new interface was better, that they forced us to make an either/or choice. If I had both, I could use the old interface when I had to and spend some time every day learning the new one. Instead it decreased our productivity.

Thanks guys...this is the worst call since they changed the help system to an online web-imitative help system.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[nyu2]

...

You know that Wine is open source, right? There isn't anything stopping you from getting that implemented yourself. Code it, or hire someone to code it. You could even gather a bunch of other people together, and all pay for that person to code it.

If it's really that highly voted, maybe some of those people will want to spend $5 on fixing their problem.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[maxume]

Recognition is the first step.

The next step is to eat some pudding, it will make you feel better.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[damn_registrars]

having 99% compatability means 3 days a year where that is a problem
Not necessarily. It could also mean that only 1 user in 100 will have a problem with it. I've been running Open Office for well over a year without encountering any problems (in Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD) that prevented me from getting my work done.

And as someone else already pointed out, even MS products don't accomplish 100% compatibility. I've had more problems with moving files between different versions of Microsoft Office than between Microsoft Office and Open Office (or different versions of Open Office).

Although of course, your mileage may vary.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ultra64]

Crossover pays the salaries of the people who work on wine

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Baloo Ursidae]

No, it's much higher--for me Open Office fails to be a suitable replacement for Word/Excel during every single attempt to interoperate with the genuine article.

Given that the ISO standard for office documents is OpenOffice's native format, OO.o is the genuine article at this point. Microsoft's deliberately incompatable with the genuine article at this point. OO.o's import facilities do well enough to convert your legacy Microsoft-format documents to the genuine article.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ultra64]

That is a bug in X windows, it will be fixed in an upcoming release

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[ConceptJunkie]

So you're implying you'll get better results than when using Office itself?

Because in my experience, Office, or more specifically Word, doesn't work well at anywhere near 99%.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[dosius]

I do some extremely evil stuff with Word that, when I try to do it in OOo, makes me want to throw my machine out a window. Stuff like associating separate headers with separate sections, instead of doing it through some convoluted style sheet system and hidden text and all sorts of nonintuitive bullshit.

Sorry, guys, OOo is good for what I need 95% of the time, but 95% isn't enough. I keep Word around for the other 5. (mind j00 I still use OOo the other 95)

-uso.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[squidfood]

While Open Office is close it is still not 100% there. having 99% compatability means 3 days a year where that is a problem.

B.S. It means 3 users out of 100 will find it useless. Or 3 functions out of 100 in your spreadsheet will not work (which 3?) I've tried open office regularly (read, at least once a year) and discarded it every time.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[lbgator]

If you wanted to use the old toolbar, what would be the point of updating to the new software? Are there any benefits to Office 2007 outside of the 'ribbon'? If you gave a user Office 2007 without the ribbon would they have any idea what they just spent $50 on?

I'm asking in all honesty - I still use OO at home and 2003 at work.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Hatta]

I am aware that X doesn't give you any information on mouse motion when it hits the edge of the screen. That shouldn't stop them from using the kernel driver. Sure it's not portable, but it would fix the issue for >90% of wine users.

That said, how do you know this is fixed in an upcoming release (release of X or wine?). Do you have a change log, bug report, or mailing list posting you could refer me to? I'd like to be hopeful for progress again.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[jellomizer]

I cant open PDFs can you send to me as a DOC

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[greg1104]

From your perspective where the native Microsoft formats can be considered legacy documents that only need to be converted to a newer one, it appears you don't actually work in any sort of corporation. Lucky you.

This problem may go away in a couple of years as the ISO standard gains traction. Right now, I run Office in a VM when I need it on a Linux system, and if I could use Wine more simply in that emulation role that's a nice additional option. Being able to use a true standard document format instead remains a dream at every company I work with, and that will unfortunately continue to be the case for quite some time.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Lumpy]

In a normal business year, 99% compatibility is much closer to 1 day something going wrong

Then Microsoft Office is only 85% compatible and stable to it's self. when we did a office 2000 to Office 2003 rollout we had at LEAST 10 failures a day. Images reversed, bad formatting, scripts not running, etc.... Office 2007 has even WORSE compatibility.

So the difference between OO.o and Office are the SAME as the difference between office and office and office.

So I'd rather spend $0.00 on OO.o and the rest on training than the insane $499.00 a license for Office 2007 (corp discount) and the SAME MONEY on training.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ephemeriis]

Yea Yea... Everything Microsoft does is evil and wrong. It is only good after some Open Source group makes a copy of it. While Open Office is close it is still not 100% there. having 99% compatability means 3 days a year where that is a problem. If one of those days is a doc from your boss that either looks great on you computer and not on his or good on his and bad on yours. Could cause the question on why you are using that free crap. It is not about better or worse it is about saying hey it doesn't work on mine and it doesn't work on yours something is wrong. And not having your boss install Windows on your PC overnight. I've got to say... I've run into more than 3 days of issues a year working exclusively in Microsoft Office...

Lately there've been a good number of problems with compatibility between 2007 and everyone else... Not everyone has the compatibility pack installed on their machine and folks with 2007 keep forgetting to save as an older version. But that's just lately...

I've also had plenty of issues over the years with people running identical versions of Office. Maybe someone uses a weird font that nobody else has and it shows up weird on everyone else's computer. Or they'll save as HTML for some reason, but not include any of the pictures when they distribute it. Or maybe somebody's weird macro is blocked by somebody else's security settings. Or perhaps Office just decides to act weird one day for absolutely no good reason.

If I had to guess... I'd say I'm dealing with at least one Microsoft Office oddity a week, and that's not including all the 2007 fun we've been having lately.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[iroll]

Where I work (public high school district), completely computer illiterate people (teachers) are required to Telnet into a VAX to input attendance and grades.

Telnet. Into a VAX.

They are shown how to do this on their first day. Their coworkers can show them how if they forget. The IT guy will come hold their hands ONE MORE TIME if they still can't handle it. And if all that fails, guess what? Find another job.

If your workplace says "save it as a PDF," your workers will learn to put it in a fucking PDF, even if they whine for the first week. The slowest and stupidest of them will eventually have the steps "save as... PDF!" on a sticky on their monitor and it will get done. It only takes one boss to get 'er done.

For your stupidest customers, guess what you can do? EMBED THE FUCKIN PDF IN A DOC, LOL!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I recently received a contract from a residential contractor in this exact manner.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Hatta]

If you wanted to use the old toolbar, what would be the point of updating to the new software?

So you could read .doc files from the newer version. Lack of compatibility between versions has always been a mainstay of the Microsoft upgrade treadmill.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[rmcd]

It depends on what you're doing and with whom you're working. For example, the equation editor changed between 2003 and 2007. If you create a document with equations using the native 2007 editor, there is no way for a 2003 user to edit the document. It's not a matter of the file format, the ability to edit that kind of equation simply doesn't exist in 2003. And similarly, 2003 equations are not readily edited in 2007 unless you find the old editor and make it available. So it's a mess, but upgrading everyone is one way to get compatibility going forward. Keeping everyone in 2003 is another solution. But, I mean, WTF?? Who makes decisions like this? I read the blogs from the Microsoft programmers about the new equation editor and my jaw hit the floor. They're goofing around with half-implementing things (such as equation numbering) that LaTeX nailed 20 years ago. They should be ashamed.

It's as if a kindergartner was in charge of the release process.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Baloo Ursidae]

From your perspective where the native Microsoft formats can be considered legacy documents that only need to be converted to a newer one, it appears you don't actually work in any sort of corporation. Lucky you.

I work for a corporation, just not one where the CTO is fucking up his job horribly by not maintaining standards compliance.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Elektroschock]

Both products need improvements, that is what open file formats as ODF are for. Choose your favourite tool for your specific task.

I am glad that Office07 SP2 will start to support ODF.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Bert64]

Similarly for me...
A few of us at work run a combination of NeoOffice and OpenOffice 3.0 beta, while the rest of the company runs msoffice 2007, 2003 or xp...

Being as our software is free, we can always have the same most up to date version (not that i have ever encountered compatibility issues between OO and Neo), so compatibility between us is perfect...
Compatibility with the rest of the company is generally better than the compatibility between different mso versions, sofar noone else has even noticed we're running free software. They will, when the next iteration of the upgrade treadmill comes along and they see how much we need to budget for it.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Bert64]

What does that "groove" feature do?

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[tkw954]

I find it a little disappointing that they couldn't fix bug #6971. That's a vast quantity of games that are unplayable because they won't warp the mouse from one side of the screen to another when it hits the edge. They won't even mark it as a high severity bug, even though it meets the qualifications (makes many applications unusable), it's one of the most duplicated bugs, and it's one of the most highly voted bugs.

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6971

Apparently, the bug is "Can't connect to local MySQL server"

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[naapo]

For your stupidest customers, guess what you can do? EMBED THE FUCKIN PDF IN A DOC, LOL!!!!!!!!!!! But... But... That is horrible! The children!

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ash-Fox]

What does that "groove" feature do?

Here is the wikipedia article.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[V!NCENT]

Yes here you go:http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.org/?product=OpenOffice.org&os=winwjre&lang=en-US&version=3.0.0beta

Oh and just click on Yes,Yes,I agree, Yes, Yes, Finnish.

"Wait... is that a virus?" -"No you download email attachments of nakedgrls.exe all the time... just click on it I promise you it's ok. You can trust me

"What? Where is the document?

re-send the pdf

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[V!NCENT]

document12345.doc.pdf and pray that he has a default Windows install.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ash-Fox]

Are you just saying that it would be nice or have you actually seen and used MS Office 2007?

I have seen and used. It just doesn't install out of the box unfortunately under Wine 1.0.

MSO 2007 made a mess of the menus, nobody can find anything in it any more and I don't know what it does better than 2003 either.

The interface changes in MSO2007 don't bother me.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Champ]

Oh and just click on Yes,Yes,I agree, Yes, Yes, Finnish.

En puhu suomi, olette tunteettomia clod!

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[zsau]

As a desktop admin, there is nothing harder than... Even worse is...

You really should take the time to think before you write. Or even after you've written, but before you've previewed!

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Spy der Mann]

And yet, they keep the best part for themselves. I would gladly accept that if they released some of their code regularly - but they don't. In other words, they keep using the same closed-source model that we're trying to get rid of in the first place.

If Crossover donated their SOURCE CODE to Wine instead of money, the Wine project would benefit much more.

And the proof is that, right now, everybody is downloading Firefox 3 which is a 100% open source (or should I say Free Software?) product. Do we see the developers asking for donations? Heck, they're benefiting from Google ads already, and they're running a f***ing corporation!

Do we see that in Wine? No. You think they're helping, but they're only pushing Wine behind. They'll always be ahead, and in the meantime, people still don't move to Linux because they'd have to pay for what they ALREADY HAVE with Windows! The money they contribute to the Wine project is in my eyes nothing but bribery money. OK you stop asking us for the source code, and we'll give you these dollars so you can keep trying to improve your inferior product.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Tubal-Cain]

That's great to hear. But how long will that be?

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Mitchell Mebane]

You have it quite wrong. CrossOver, being based on the LGPL Wine, is also GPL. The full source code is freely available, just like the Wine source. Most of the code for Crossover gets rolled back into Wine.

However, there are several hacks in CrossOver, done to get things working. These hacks are not rolled into Wine, the biggest reason being the fear that, because something works "well enough", nobody will bother to fix it the right way, and cruft will build up in the tree.

Nothing is stopping you from taking the hacks from the CrossOver tree and adding them to the Wine tree. And, in fact, git makes it fairly easy for people to maintain their own forks of Wine which contain third-party patches - for example, check out the "forks" section at the bottom of http://repo.or.cz/w/wine.git.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Spy der Mann]

Thanks for clarifying. I guess I was wrong on this one.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[DeeQ]

Your math is flawed. People work on the weekends too. Just because its not a "business day" doesn't mean people wouldn't be working on documents from home. given 365 days in a year it would be near 3 days.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[jellomizer]

But why would the work place standardize on PDF if they already have licenses for Office, and you are the lone gun with open office.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[demallien2]

If I had mod points, I'd give you some :-) And I don't even speak Finnish...

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[David Gerard]

Buying Crossover is an excellent way to directly support the Wine project - they donate a lot of the code and directly employ a lot of the developers.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Aphoxema]

Well, YOUR math is wrong because you're a DUMB DUMB!

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[flyingfsck]

Well, as a desktop Admin, you should be aware of Adintools and their Classic Menus for Office 2007 http://www.addintools.com/english/menuoffice/default.htm

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[flyingfsck]

Here is your solution: http://www.addintools.com/english/menuoffice/default.htm

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[iroll]

You standardize with PDF when the >>presentation of the document is as vital as its content. The finer touches of presentation in word documents can get screwed up between two computers with Word!

You also standardize with PDF because it is cross platform and doesn't require purchasing any license at all; there are a million (NON-Adobe) implementations of PDF. In fact, idk about Vista, but Mac OS and any good Linux desktop will have PDF functionality in the desktop OS (as a save function or as a print function), so you don't even need to shell out for Adobe or any other "pdf software."

It's also a mature format and completely forward/backwards compatible; when you get a license for Office 2021, your PDFs will still look exactly the same. When you save a file in Office 2007, what happens when somebody opens it in Office 2000? Or vice versa? What happens if you need to send documents to a state office (ahem Massachusetts) or a foreign client that wants an open format? What happens if (when?) Microsoft decides to ditch ".doc" for OOXML?

PDF isn't going above and beyond; it's using common sense. Once you make it common sense/practice, you don't get people sending out emails with bizarre attachments (MS Publisher?) to people who don't have the same software. You don't get word .doc's that get weird line wrapping or other fuckups when different people open them. You don't get people crying about using Open Office vs. MS Office vs. desktop publishing suites vs. whatever--different people in your office have different needs. You don't get macro viruses (lol). You don't get out-of-date formats, or files saved in multiple doc formats. You get one format that ALWAYS looks right when you print it.

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[pugugly]

It's not that I've never had an issue with an office document - but in the two or three years I've done Open Office, I only recall a couple, none severe. One begins to wonder if your definition of 'Trivial' is the same as mine - I mean, certainly in the grand scheme of things, excel spreadsheets for D&D characters are 'trivial', but that's hardly the same as unsophisticated, and I've been using OO for those for years without issue.

Pug

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[pugugly]

I love how you consider a "true standard format a dream at every company I work with" in the same posting in which you're complaining about a program that uses a true, standard format.

And of course, the person who's saying that they've had success *using* that standard format, must not be working in any sort of corporation.

Possibly he simply works for a corporation that decided that having a true, standard format was actually a priority?

Pug

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[DeeQ]

You must be a linux fan. Even when your completely wrong you still have to argue :).

Re:Office 2007 runs on Wine 1.0 too.

[Ultra64]

Afraid I don't have a citation for that, I just remember someone in #winehackers@irc.freenode.net mentioning they had talked to an X developer and it was going to be taken care of.

Everyone's downloading Firefox 3 right now!

[suck_burners_rice]

Excellent news for those of us (like me) who would like to run Windows apps without having to run an entire machine in VMware, Qemu, Parallels, or a similar program. Of course, nobody is paying attention right now because they're all busy downloading Firefox 3 to create a new Guinness world record for most software downloads in one day. (This story is being posted almost at the instant that Firefox 3 is being made available; not-so-great timing on /.'s part!) Nonetheless, I'm going to download Wine 1.0 right now.

Re:Everyone's downloading Firefox 3 right now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands of nobodies right now are bringing the site down.

Re:Everyone's downloading Firefox 3 right now!

[Anonymous Coward]

For every copy you downland I upload 2 thus negating your record setting pursuit.

Better luck next time hippie.

Re:Everyone's downloading Firefox 3 right now!

[Vectronic]

"...not-so-great timing on /.'s part..."

Yeah, but Slashdot already warned us almost a week ago that FireFox was going to be released today (thats if you werent already aware of it)

Besides, anyone who relies on WINE, is going to be looking for the 1.0 release, for business or pleasure, downloading FireFox, installing, fuckin around with it only takes a few minutes, and doesnt really add anything that exciting (its just a browser, does the same shit it always has), WINE on the other hand is far more exciting, and potentially quite influencial on the market, im sure there are quite a few companies keeping it in the corner of their eye, but FF3 isnt anything special, World Record or not...

Re:Everyone's downloading Firefox 3 right now!

[crazybilly]

You're confusing "exciting" with "confusing and complex and frustrating." Then again, it is 1.0 this time...

Re:Everyone's downloading Firefox 3 right now!

[Vectronic]

That may be... I sorta find "confusing and complex and frustrating" as exciting, at least at first... if it stays that way, I eventually give up and deem it "unworthy".

Let me be the first to say....

[Tetsujin]

Holy shit!

Re:Let me be the first to say....

[SwordsmanLuke]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm pretty sure you're not the first to say "Holy Shit!" I mean, there's even an album.
If you wanted to be truly the first to say, you should have tried something more like: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers."

reference

Re:Let me be the first to say....

[Tetsujin]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm pretty sure you're not the first to say "Holy Shit!" I mean, there's even an album.
If you wanted to be truly the first to say, you should have tried something more like:
"Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers."
  Man, I hate when friendly milk countermands my trousers...

Perfect windows compatibility?

[nurb432]

Even Microsoft cant do that between versions.

Not slighting them in the least as they have done a Herculean task to get to this point, but i do wish they had made the actual MS office suite a requirement for 1.0, not just the viewers.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[Ash-Fox]

Microsoft Office 2003, XP should install and run out of the box in Wine 1.0. Office 2007 requires a few tweaks before you can install it though.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[jbeaupre]

Office 2000 is suffering due to a regression. Hopefully that will get fixed soon.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[Dr. Blue]

I'll have to test that out with Wine 1.0, but that was definitely not the case with the fairly recent version (0.9.56 - from February of this year) that I had been using. Office 2003 had some pretty serious problems, so I fell back to using Office 2000 under wine (which DOES work very well).

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[prestomation]

Indeed, I run Word and Excel 2007 just great here under Wine .9.59. Funny thing, it doesn't start under 1.0RC1. Too bad the rest of the Office doesn't work

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[Ash-Fox]

Too bad the rest of the Office doesn't work

It does seem to work for me. If you join #wine on Freenode at some point, I might be able to help.

If you're using Gentoo however, we may end up getting nowhere due to weirdness issues that occur on Gentoo.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[nurb432]

Does this include Access? If so ill be trying this as soon as 1.0 hits the FreeBSD ports tree. 2003 is pretty important for me to be useable ( and i don't mind having to use native windows libraries for the time being, i'm licensed for it since either my machine came preloaded, or its an enterprise license )

Any pointers on these 'tweaks' for 07? I know there is a lot of noise out there, but some good , some useless.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[thetoadwarrior]

I'd rather stick to Open Office, tbh.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[Ash-Fox]

I'd rather stick to Open Office, tbh.

I would too, but I don't get that choice.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[b4dc0d3r]

If they made the suite a requirement, it would simply take longer to get to 1.0.

They need the viewers so that people can't say "Well I can't see this document someone sent me because OOo doesn't render blah correctly". So a 1.0 release accomplishes the goal of being able to read documents as they were intended to be read, while still offering a functional, very compatible office suite. It's a good compromise I think, functional while not yet complete.

Re:Perfect windows compatibility?

[nurb432]

In case you didn't know, they offer significant student discounts and 120 day full functional demos.

Oh, and any IT person worth his salt has at least one version they got from a Technet or other Microsoft road show.

Next step is to ship this with Linux UMPCs

[Animats]

The next step is to encourage the makers of UMPCs to ship Wine with their units. Then users can run some of their legacy apps on the sub-$500 machines.

Re:Next step is to ship this with Linux UMPCs

[revengebomber]

This creates a problem with user expectations. If you ship a GNU/L distro on a UMPC for the general population, people will look at it and say "oh, like a Mac, guess I'll have to find new apps." If you try to ship it with WINE installed, people will instead try to run their old apps and then moan when nothing works quite right. WINE is a last resort.

Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[thomasdz]

As I've learned well in the Microsoft world... always wait for the THIRD version.
I've marked my calendar for June 2038...

SMAC

[Hatta]

Does it run Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri?

Re:SMAC

[Hatta]

Last I checked it wasn't possible to get it to work with recent versions of glibc. At least without a lot of work first. Wine support would be a major step up.

Re:SMAC

[TheRaven64]

I have a couple of old games that shipped with MacOS Classic and Windows 95 versions on the same CD. On an Intel Mac, I can run the Windows version in WINE, but can't run the MacOS version. For some reason, this amuses me.

Re:SMAC

[Baloo Ursidae]

Does it run Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? Dude, WTF?? YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!!

Re:SMAC

[Baloo Ursidae]

Last I checked it wasn't possible to get it to work with recent versions of glibc. At least without a lot of work first. Wine support would be a major step up.

ln -s is a lot of work?

Re:SMAC

[WWWWolf]

Last I checked it wasn't possible to get it to work with recent versions of glibc.

Not long ago, folks here happened to point me toward loki_compat_libs. Lo! LD_PRELOADing ye olde libstdc++, smpeg and SDL seems to make the game work perfectly, at least for me. And there were many nervestaplings once more. =)

Re:SMAC

[Cajun Hell]

At least without a lot of work first.

If you're calling installing the Loki-compatible libraries a lot of work, isn't installing Wine also a lot of work? You were going to lose either way.

Re:SMAC

[kjots]

At least without a lot of work first.

If you're calling installing the Loki-compatible libraries a lot of work, isn't installing Wine also a lot of work? You were going to lose either way.

apt-get install wine ... no, no it isn't.

Should have delayed the release slightly.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Obviously, sooner is better for actual use; but releasing it on June 30th would have been more amusing.

Don't forget the main commercial sponsor

[cerberusss]

Don't forget the main commercial sponsor CodeWeavers. Alexandre Julliard, one of the leading developers of Wine, now works for them. Their main product is CrossoverOffice, which regularly snapshots the Wine branch and then does bugfixing on it. Then they charge $40 for a solid and stable version, and include a GUI to make installing IE and other applications a cinch.

It's a small shop and very sympathetic. They also read Slashdot. Jeremy, the CEO, is active here as user jeremy_white. Befriend him to let his comments show up as +5.

Disclaimer: I'm just a happy customer since version 4 (about 5 years ago).

Re:Don't forget the main commercial sponsor

[Baloo Ursidae]

It's a small shop and very sympathetic

Unless you're on wine-users, then they completely hate you and would rather deal with the troglodites that roll in on the wine forums.

Re:Don't forget the main commercial sponsor

[Splab]

Isn't it a bit of conflict of interests?

The lead developer also happens to make money on the working branch of the program. What happened to all the hippie good feel? And the fix to get current version to work with 2007; http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=586545&cid=23825339 requires people to remove a couple of file and install the right ones, bit convenient they left that thing out?

Re:Don't forget the main commercial sponsor

[cerberusss]

Looking at the amount of GPL code they put back in Wine, I don't care about tricks they leave out in the open source version but which people can share on the web.

Great, something to download

[mgiuca]

while I wait for you bastards to stop hammering poor mozilla.com.

Re:Great, something to download

[penguinbrat]

Guess again... Well, at least to see what the download will do..

Network Timeout

The server at appdb.winehq.org is taking too long to respond.

The requested site did not respond to a connection request and the browser has stopped waiting for a reply.

        * Could the server be experiencing high demand or a temporary outage? Try again later.
        * Are you unable to browse other sites? Check the computer's network connection.
        * Is your computer or network protected by a firewall or proxy? Incorrect settings can interfere with Web browsing.
        * Still having trouble? Consult your network administrator or Internet provider for assistance.

Spore?

[Rik Sweeney]

Will I be able to play Spore?

Re:Spore?

[BrianGKUAC]

No, but I've heard Duke Nukem Forever works fairly well on it...

Re:This means what?

[cerberusss]

Every time I have needed Wine to work on a piece of commercial software I have been disappointed.

Get the commercial branch from CodeWeavers. It's just 40 bucks and is tested against a documented set of commercial software.

Just a happy customer.

Slashdotted?

[Gusfm]

it's just me or wine http://winehq.org/ and firefox http://www.firefox.com/ websites aren't loading??
Strange coincidence :)

Re:Slashdotted?

[IkeTo]

Choosing a release time when the world is up and watching and waiting for the release of another piece of software with greatly overlapping audience is probably not the wisest act...

Re:Slashdotted?

[Mercano]

So, anyone tried the Windows build of Firefox 3.0 under Wine 1.0 yet?

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[peragrin]

I don't know that sounds awfully early. Then again Duke Nukem Forever should be out about that same time.

Not to discredit the wine developers. reverse engineering windows is like mapping the human genome. It's complicated, and a whole lot of WTF moments.

Get it while it's hot?

[JKFLBOB]

I dunno...Personally, I like my wine at room temperature.

I can already see a great marketing campaign...

[xtracto]

DO NOT DRINK THE KOOL-AID.

DRINK THE WINE! 1.0

Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Re:This means what?

[MighMoS]

File a bug if something doesn't work. No one will fix your problem if they don't know it exists.

And Wine is an emulator for PE (Windows files) just as much as Linux is an emulator for ELF files. They do the same thing: read in the binary, run through the x86 instructions, and forward libary calls to the appropriate libraries. Only Wine's libraries just happen to be mostly incomplete, ATM.

site is dead

[hey]

What a surprise the WINE site is dead as is getfirefox. Victims of their own success.

Re:site is dead

[Rapidity]

Afraid so. Care to help me spread the link?

Re:site is dead

[Tom9729]

Might have something to do with the fact that TFA linked directly to their server for downloads, instead of one of the sourceforge mirrors.

Duke Nukem Forever!

[Anonymous Coward]

I do find it a little disappointing that Wine didn't set getting Duke Nukem Forever working out of the box as a goal for 1.0!

I predict a multitude of such responses- "Wine 1.0 shouldn't have been released until it could run..."

It would be interesting to know what factors determined that it was ready for 1.0 release. Personally, I suspect it was a rounding error (perhaps they were using Excel in Wine 0.91 and it accidentally rounded up to version 1.0).

Re:FINALLY!

[mrsteveman1]

It goes great with vintage Windows apps.

Oh, and bread.

Re:Get it while it's hot?

[damn_registrars]

Nah... Get it before Microsoft sues.
Sues them for what? If you read the website, you'll see that the wine release is 100% microsoft-free. I think they'd have a hard time coming up with something to sue over.

I would really like to try this out

[an.echte.trilingue]

I would really like to try out Wine, but I couldn't find the WinXP version on the site, which is strange because usually open source apps get ported over really quickly. I tried installing the source tarball in CYGWIN, but no avail. Anybody know where I can get the Win32 binaries?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[jonasj]

I tried installing the source tarball in CYGWIN, but no avail. I know you're joking, but might wine-under-cygwin actually be a solution to Vista's incompability with some software written for older versions of windows?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anpheus]

Or using the compatbility modes designed for that purpose.

To be honest, I've only ever had to run one or two programs with those compatibility modes.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anonymous Coward]

There's something to be said for being able to use a Windows application remotely over X11, even if both hosts are running Windows. Remote desktop is kind of a joke in comparison.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Bob-taro]

Anybody know where I can get the Win32 binaries?

There actually is a win32 binary version of wine that runs in cygwin. They say it was created as an additional test of the code's portability, and for some other reasons that I can't remember right now. Funny but TRUE!

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I've used Wine to gimmick ancient 16-bit installers into proceeding under XP64 and Vista64.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[drsmithy]

Remote desktop is kind of a joke in comparison.

Remote desktop is just better. Vastly more usable on low-bandwidth (or high latency) links and when your session drops out for some reason you can reconnect and not have lost everything you were working on.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[lbgator]

Pay no attention to that "whoosh" sound. It'll pass in a second.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anonymous Coward]

I once promised myself that I would never do this to somebody, but this is just too much.<br>
Joke -->*
You --> O
       /|\
        /\

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Toll_Free]

After spending the better part of a couple days attempting to fool C & C Gold under Vista X64, I think I found my solution.

16 bit and 64 bit = bloods n crips.

--Toll_Free

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anpheus]

Oh god! Watch out there's a huge arrow approaching your head!

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Doug Neal]

Remote desktop is kind of a joke in comparison.

Remote desktop is just better. Vastly more usable on low-bandwidth (or high latency) links and when your session drops out for some reason you can reconnect and not have lost everything you were working on.

If you haven't already, I recommend taking a look at NX (proprietary with free edition) or FreeNX (GPL). RDP/VNC style remote access to Unix and Linux servers, but actually better and faster than both, especially on lower quality links. It uses a combination of SSH tunneling and X11 protocol compression. Very easy to set up and use, too.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[joshv]

Remote desktop actually works over broadband/VPN. X11, even with compression, is virtually useless at any broadband speeds I have available.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[iampriteshdesai]

Wat do U mean by it???

Re:I would really like to try this out

[erudified]

Remote desktop is just better [EDIT: than X11]. Vastly more usable on low-bandwidth (or high latency) links and when your session drops out for some reason you can reconnect and not have lost everything you were working on.

It's this kind of simple, obvious, in-your-face observation that the OSS community seems to be constitutionally incapable of making. I can't understand it. I come here, and I see everyone talking about the inherent technological superiority of the Linux GUI system, and how great X11 is, but as far as I know, there's nothing that even approaches the functionality of Remote Desktop. It's like screen meets XDMCP, except it's actually usable over real internet connections and doesn't require a PhD to use.

And, seriously, resizing windows is just broken with AIGLX. It doesn't work at anywhere near acceptable speeds. If Windows or OSX shipped it, they'd be relentlessly attacked. I kid you not: with Firefox 3, you can get better resizing performance on OSX with acceleration completely turned off. You can talk all you'd like about how it's a toolkit issue and there's actually, blah blah blah. It's broken. Not to mention the horrific screen tearing, etc. It's just nowhere near production quality, sorry.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Opportunist]

Unfortunately, they're typical Windows compatibility modes: More or less compatible, unless you need it.

You'd be amazed how many applications can't be bothered to run, or at least run stable, in compatibility mode. Especially old (pre-2000) games are prone to faulty behaviour, bogus graphics or simply not working at all.

I've just recently unearthed a few old games I liked, to play them again on my XP box. Project IGI had insane graphics errors, Transport Tycoon didn't start (and after using some player-made patch it had black spots and occasional blackouts), a lot of other games had no sound (or no sound you wanted to hear), yet others had troubles with an USB mouse so input was impossible, the list goes on.

Ok, it's just games. But let's be honest, is there any reason to stay with Windows besides games and DTP?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[orudge]

It's particularly useful for Wine developers to be able to ensure that their code functions the same on Wine as it does on Windows, hence the Wine tests can be built as native Windows executables. Much of the rest of Wine can be, too, although your mileage may vary as to how well it all works.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[khellendros1984]

That one took me a couple seconds. Very realistic, good job! ^_~

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anpheus]

A lot of old compatibility fixes are actually problems with the game itself, especially because you mention pre-2000 as the release date. I'm reminded of the Sim City example. Source: http://ianmurdock.com/2007/01/14/on-the-importance-of-backward-compatibility/

Raymond Chen is a developer on the Windows team at Microsoft. He's been there since 1992, and his weblog The Old New Thing is chock-full of detailed technical stories about why certain things are the way they are in Windows, even silly things, which turn out to have very good reasons.

The most impressive things to read on Raymond's weblog are the stories of the incredible efforts the Windows team has made over the years to support backwards compatibility: "Look at the scenario from the customer's standpoint. You bought programs X, Y and Z. You then upgraded to Windows XP. Your computer now crashes randomly, and program Z doesn't work at all. You're going to tell your friends, 'Don't upgrade to Windows XP. It crashes randomly, and it's not compatible with program Z.' Are you going to debug your system to determine that program X is causing the crashes, and that program Z doesn't work because it is using undocumented window messages? Of course not. You're going to return the Windows XP box for a refund. (You bought programs X, Y, and Z some months ago. The 30-day return policy no longer applies to them. The only thing you can return is Windows XP.)"

I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it.

This was not an unusual case. The Windows testing team is huge and one of their most important responsibilities is guaranteeing that everyone can safely upgrade their operating system, no matter what applications they have installed, and those applications will continue to run, even if those applications do bad things or use undocumented functions or rely on buggy behavior that happens to be buggy in Windows n but is no longer buggy in Windows n+1...

A lot of developers and engineers don't agree with this way of working. If the application did something bad, or relied on some undocumented behavior, they think, it should just break when the OS gets upgraded. The developers of the Macintosh OS at Apple have always been in this camp. It's why so few applications from the early days of the Macintosh still work...

To contrast, I've got DOS applications that I wrote in 1983 for the very original IBM PC that still run flawlessly, thanks to the Raymond Chen Camp at Microsoft.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Dewin]

[...]Transport Tycoon didn't start (and after using some player-made patch it had black spots and occasional blackouts)

TTD Patch works fine for me in XP, though I took a liking to Open TTD instead. OpenTTD is a complete replacement (i.e. written from the ground up), rather than patches for the EXE file.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Junta]

I agree with the bandwidth assessment, but there really are two usage experiences:

rdesktop: 'screen' like functionality. You have a self-contained workspace that can be disconnected and resumed. Useful, but keeps the apps very separate and provides the most jarring distinction between Windows and native apps.

-X11 style forwarding. Interleave Windows with other native applications. Notably, this includes system tray icons going to the right place and a single window list. For a cohesive experience, this is great.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[internewt]

I've just recently unearthed a few old games I liked, to play them again on my XP box. ... a lot of other games had no sound (or no sound you wanted to hear),

I tried recently installed the win95 game Need for Speed SE on XP, but the sound was awful and stopped even the install routine from working properly. After some fiddling about, I found that turning down direct X's sound acceleration down to nothing in dxdiag.exe solved the problem, and the game worked fine from then on.

Might be worth giving it a try?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[tepples]

After spending the better part of a couple days attempting to fool C & C Gold under Vista X64, I think I found my solution. DOSBox?

16 bit and 64 bit = bloods n crips. Then why do both 16-bit Super NES games and 64-bit N64 games run on the same Wii console?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Somebody has apparently never used NX. The day that RD can compare to NX on a 128K or lower line is the day I switch :)

Re:I would really like to try this out

[pato101]

As someone has already pointed out, NX does that as well.
Plain X11 + extensions is probably more responsible at low-latency links (LAN). Providing hardware accelerated graphics (OpenGL). IMHO X11 was designed in order to achieve very high performance of apps run at remote expensive servers and displayed at many graphical terminals conected to those. For normal apps you don't realize you are running remotely.
NX is the almost ultimate answer to the needs of remote displaying. If only supported GLX with hardware acceleration it would be just perfect. I expect to see it soon :). The performance of NX over internet links is incredibly fast: not only compresses the X11 protocol (including vector drawing), it also compresses the raster parts (for instance the wallpaper, icons, ...) using a JPG-like algorithm whose quality depends on the selected link capabilities. The raster images are cached also.
Installing NX server (the commercial product, free of charge) is very easy at common distros (debs and rpms provided for i386 and amd64 archs).
Free-NX is almost as easy to install.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[smittyoneeach]

What a wrong-headed piece of flamebait.
X is a portable, network-based display system, and its various capabilities make it roughly as fair to compare the Microsoft Windows windowing system to X as it does to compare the Microsoft kernel to Linux.
BTW: what, pray tell, do you think Mac OS X is running, hmmm?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[pato101]

X is the worst way imaginable to do graphics (a giant frame buffer). Stop trolling about what you don't know about!.
X is not a giant frame buffer. It has vector operations, combined with raster operations.
X11 is a wrong option over high latency links because it is designed to provide a very high performance at low latency ones.
For high latency links, use NX which is much faster than VNC + compression (being VNC a giant frame buffer, is faster than X11 because the latency issues).
NX does compression, but most importantly solves the latency issues by cumulating requests avoiding roundtrips.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[spitzak]

This was probably a troll, but if not, you have it exactly backwards. X is *not* a giant frame buffer, while the alternatives it is being compared to (Remote desktop) *are* giant frame buffers. That does not have anything to do with which is better, but that is their primary differences.

A giant frame buffer may well be better because communicating the changes to the pixels in the buffer may compress much smaller than compressing the X drawing instructions, and (probably more importantly) the drawing is exactly what the program expects, rather than a different machine's interpretation of it.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[erudified]

I agree that the types of experiences are different, and it's good that you point it out. Essentially, my beef with X11 style forwarding is that there's never been a killer app for it. XDMCP takes a backseat to the screen-esque experience of rdesktop, and I just don't know of any *nix applications that are seriously worth using over a network link, particularly when the possibility exists of me losing work when the link goes down.

This has been exacerbated by the comeuppance of genuinely usable web applications -- sure, they kinda suck now, but in terms of delivering applications over the network, that's the future, period. I really agree with the anonymous coward who got modded down. Other than novelty value and it being what most *nix folks are used to, I just don't see the point of X11 style forwarding nowadays, and XDMCP is relatively useless for the reasons outlined above.

I realize this is offtopic, but what do you feel is the 'killer app' that takes advantage of the X protocol? Why couldn't it be done as a simple client/server app?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Moridineas]

X is a portable, network-based display system, and its various capabilities make it roughly as fair to compare the Microsoft Windows windowing system to X as it does to compare the Microsoft kernel to Linux. I'm not quite sure how to parse that? You're saying X is comparable to Windows (the windowing systems?)...yeah..and?

BTW: what, pray tell, do you think Mac OS X is running, hmmm? Not X11 (unless you choose to optionally install it, much as you can run X programs in Windows with the proper software installed)...or did you think it DID run X?

Re:I would really like to try this out

[fortyonejb]

Then why do both 16-bit Super NES games and 64-bit N64 games run on the same Wii console? not sure if that was an attempt at humor or not, but, the difference is exactly where all the discussion lies. Wine along with compatibility mode are not emulators, they are compatibility layers. The Wii uses an emulator to allow you to run older games. Much like you can get nesticle to run NES games on your windows machine.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Lerc]

It is fair to compare them if it is the primary display system that users get. Their use, not their design is the factor here.

Having said that, I spent all yesterday working on my desktop system via a laptop over wi-fi nx.

You seem to be implying that the OSX display is X. OSX supports X11 but does not use it for it's own native stuff.

From a programmer standpoint I don't much like X. I hate having to work though many layers of libraries to do things. The windows GDI lets you draw to memory bitmaps that you create. The Seperate memory spaces of user and X make things like that a pain in X.

Things have vastly improved on the X side though. Cairo, xcb and the various extensions make things possible. I would still like something low-ish level yet nice. Somewhere between xlib and gtk in level, that I could program to without adding a lot of application weight

Re:I would really like to try this out

[drsmithy]

BTW: what, pray tell, do you think Mac OS X is running, hmmm?

Quartz. Certainly not X11 or any derivative thereof.

(With that said, OS X's remote display capabilities aren't very impressive.)

Re:I would really like to try this out

[smittyoneeach]

You're saying X is comparable to Windows (the windowing systems?)...yeah..and?

No, I'm saying X is a full-on network protocol, and not fairly compared to the Windows GDI.exe.
Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X

Mac OS X's core is a Unix operating system (OS) built on top of the XNU kernel, with standard Unix facilities available from the command line interface (Apple released this core as a free and open source operating system named Darwin). Over this core, Apple layered a number of components, including the Aqua interface and the Finder, to complete the GUI-based operating system which is Mac OS X.

The question becomes how deep is Aqua? The tone of your question would seem to imply that the answer is "everything above the command line", and I don't know enough to argue otherwise.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[smittyoneeach]

Fair enough. http://developer.apple.com/macosx/architecture/index.html, while certainly swell eye candy, doesn't offer much in the way of specifics.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[smittyoneeach]

Never been an OS X user, and I'm certainly getting perusuaded away from thinking they used X. I stand educated. So rare to learn anything on /. these days...

Re:I would really like to try this out

[tkw954]

Wow. No wonder Windows seems slow, if it's continually checking whether any specific buggy code is running *and then fixing the bugs in the code*.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Tetsujin]

After spending the better part of a couple days attempting to fool C & C Gold under Vista X64, I think I found my solution. DOSBox?

16 bit and 64 bit = bloods n crips. Then why do both 16-bit Super NES games and 64-bit N64 games run on the same Wii console? The N64 only had a 32-bit data bus, and a lot of its software was written to use only 32 bit precision because the full 64 wasn't really needed... That's how it gets along. :D

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Anpheus]

Agreed, it's a price Microsoft has paid for compatibility. That's why there are a lot of people at Microsoft who are pushing -hard- for this fancy ".NET" thing. See, if you can abstract the API and the code and everything below it, or even convince a large number of developers to use managed code by default, you can get rid of a lot of the backward compatibility cruft.

On the other hand, most applications written for Windows in the past decade run without problem despite enormous changes in the kernel, the API, the drivers, etc. This is in large part the reason why their software is valuable. Thankfully there are thousands or millions of Linux volunteers fixing old code so that I can run it on the latest kernels in Ubuntu or Gentoo or what-have-you, but if you find a deprecated or obsolete program, or some abandoned code from a few years ago, you may run into some major problems running it on Linux. Anything from problems with GCC not building it to missing libraries.

I'm not saying one approach is better than the other, they both have their downsides, but Linux versus Windows is more than just the ideology of source code availability.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Moridineas]

No, I'm saying X is a full-on network protocol, and not fairly compared to the Windows GDI.exe. I see. Ok. I won't argue that they have different strengths/origins.

The question becomes how deep is Aqua? The tone of your question would seem to imply that the answer is "everything above the command line", and I don't know enough to argue otherwise. OSX is an interesting beast. As you quoted, it runs a hybrid microkernes, has a largely FreeBSD derived userland, and API and other inheritances from NeXT, etc--it draws from many sources!

I'd recommend the following Ars Technica article on Quartz which is what I think you're looking for, rather than Aqua (aqua being basically the theme/skin)
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10-4.ars/13

wiki has an article too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_(graphics_layer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Graphics

(I think they're calling it "Core Graphics" instead of Quartz nowadays)

In short, graphically, OSX is not at all based on X11. You CAN install an optional X11 server that allows you to run X programs, but it's neither required nor integral to the OS.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[BPPG]

16 bit and 64 bit = bloods n crips. Then why do both 16-bit Super NES games and 64-bit N64 games run on the same Wii console? They both run on different virtual consoles, ie: emulators. Wine doesn't (normally).

Re:I would really like to try this out

[Bryan Ischo]

I have recently been testing NX as a replacement for my current system, which is:

* Run a VNC server on my local workstation at work, and run an X server as well that runs a single, full-screen program: a VNC viewer of the local desktop.

* When I am at home (or actually, halfway around the world since my office workstation is in California and my home is in New Zealand), I can VNC-over-SSH into my work VNC server and have the exact same view on the same desktop that I have at work

This is super awesome because it lets me use the same desktop wherever I am.

However, VNC has terrible performance over high-latency/low-bandwidth links. TERRIBLE. Even if I choose the best compression I can find, it's still bad. With VNC, you have to have latencies less than 100 ms and bandwidth > 1 mbit to be remotely useable, and true useability does not start until your latencies drop to under 20 ms and your bandwidth is at ethernet speeds.

I have experimented with NX as a substitute, and from a performance perspective, it is *way* better than VNC; it is useable at latencies as high as 80 ms and bandwidths as low as 56k. I find that truly good useability requires latencies under 40 ms though. 56k bandwidth is plenty. However, with latencies from NZ to CA being 150 ms minimum, NX as a simple X11 proxy doesn't cut it. It is not really workable to have to wait a third of a second or more for a single mouse click to 'register'.

Enter nxagent. This is an X11 server that is further optimized to work with NX proxies and reduce roundtrips considerably. I find that this is *much* more useable with high latency links - 200 ms latencies result in on-the-edge-of-useable interactive performance.

However, I haven't dug deeply enough to figure out how to get NX agent to have the other great feature of VNC - that I can disconnect from VNC, and reconnect, and see the exact same desktop I had right before I left.

Since I run nxagent on my local system, and the X clients on the remote host, if my connection drops, then all the X clients get 'server disconnected' and they die. They can't be reconnected to. I am not sure if any solution to this exists.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[shoor]

Yeah, I bought "Civilization, Call To Power" from Loki, the version specifically for linux. I still like to crank it up once in awhile to relax with, but it doesn't run on most current linux distros. I suppose I could google around and find a fix of some kind, but it still runs on slackware, so I haven't bothered.

This is an example of a commercial application on linux, so one doesn't have open source that can be upgraded. I suppose if I'd purchased a windows version of the game, I'd be running all fine and dandy now under wine.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[rah1420]

In the event that you really don't know, the "whoosh" comment indicates that the parent post that you replied to was a joke, that flew by over your head, completely un-noticed.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[74nova]

As much as I like making fun of Windows, RD is actually very good.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[slapyslapslap]

NX just absolutely rocks! I have all my developers (usually no more than 6 at a time) using Gnome desktops over a WAN link with no appreciable impact on bandwidth. We use the "adsl" setting and it's like running X on the local LAN. The responsiveness and image quality are superb. Apart from some Windows to NX clipboard issues, I have few complaints. I'm using the freeNX server with the free windows clients from nomachine.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[ais523]

Link to Windows version of Wine: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=6241&package_id=112520 Yes, there is one. Some Windows programs run better under Wine than under Windows, after all; it would be a shame if all those Windows users missed out on them.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[TheRaven64]

It is a toolkit issue, but the good news is that recent versions of X11 include things that allow the toolkit writers to fix it. XCB is asynchronous and hides latency nicely so you are not adding visual delays by using xlib which makes the easiest course of action to write very slow code. XDamage allows toolkits to tell the display which bit of the window needs updating easily, which speeds up redraws. XComposite allows the X server to store unchanged parts of the window in video memory and composite it in hardware. XRender allows accelerated drawing of antialiased shapes (mainly used for fast text rendering).

A modern X server is a very different beast to the system when OS X was created. X.org now has all of the capabilities of Quartz. It is still taking toolkit authors a while to catch up with these, however.

Re:I would really like to try this out

[rtechie]

spitzak is right here, after I posted I realized I said the exact opposite of what I wanted to say.

Re:Personally ...

[Hatta]

That's nice if you have a license to windows, and a VM that provides hardware accelerated video. BTW, would you mind telling me where to get the latter?

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[MighMoS]

You'll have to set up Cygwin :-p In all seriousness, some of the DLLs can actually be used on MS Windows (if you want to ask why anyone would want to do this, its because you /could/ litter them with TRACE statements, and see what goes on with $WINDOWS_APP).

Re:Personally ...

[shystershep]

Personally, I get at least as good stability, and usually better performance, running (supported) Windows apps using CrossoverOffice, the commercial version of Wine. The two main Windows apps I use are MS Word and World of Warcraft. Word seems more stable, and I get better fps in WoW, running in Linux rather than Windows.

Re:FINALLY!

[Hojima]

I can't wait for the day it phases out Microsoft (on a personal level at least). On a side note, is it possible to sue a non-profit organization?

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

No one will fix it if it does either; it's just not dependable, especially if your problem is with older, or special purpose business software, and that stuff is critical for business deployments.

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[Pazy]

If only it did, in order to get Myst Masterpeice Edition working on Windows XP SP2/3 I need to virtualise a Linux install, install wine and then Wine the Myst installation. Maybe if im lucky someone will get Wine working inside windows to help run old games/programs similer to Dosbox, or maybe ill learn and do it myself.

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[damn_registrars]

This sounds great... but I couldn't find any downloads that run on Windows!
Not sure if you're trying to be funny here, but you actually could run wine in windows, if you really want to. Just install Cygwin on your windows box, and install wine through there.

I seem to recall hearing at one point that some of the testing in wine is actually done through a similar mechanism.

Vista compat

[MighMoS]

does it run on Vista? No, but Vista runs on it! Wait.. that's 2.0.

Re:Vista compat

[The MAZZTer]

Most programs will run on XP so Vista support isn't high priority until we see more programs that are Vista-only. Currently the only ones I can think of would need full DX10 support too which is probably gonna be a lot of work.

Oddly Trillian Astra tries to call Vista functions (dwmapi.dll) in Wine no matter what the Windows version is set to, so it crashes. Weird.

Re:Vista compat

[Baloo Ursidae]

Currently the only ones I can think of would need full DX10 support too which is probably gonna be a lot of work.

Are there really game developers out there who really think DX10 is the way to go instead of OpenGL at this point? For that matter, are there really game developers out there who still consider Windows the only viable gaming platform in the long term, despite the fact that the platform keeps sapping hardware power away from the programs with each newer release?

Re:Vista compat

[thetoadwarrior]

What's the point? Making a vista only app would be dumb so not even MS does that except for games and does anyone think Crysis would run anyway when it doesn't run on most PCs and who the hell wants to play Halo 2?

Re:Vista compat

[jmorris42]

> Are there really game developers out there who really think DX10
> is the way to go instead of OpenGL at this point?

Doesn't matter. Microsoft sells the publishers and they tell the developers what to do. And when logic and reason fail they pay em to develop to DX and if even that doesn't work threats usually do the trick. Besides. it makes the Xbox port so much easier if you use DX.

> For that matter, are there really game developers out there who
> still consider Windows the only viable gaming platform in the
> long term..

No, most seem to be leaving for the consoles. Getting the few left on Windows to take the hit on development time and performance to use multi-platform libs is hard. Especially in view of the above mentioned incentives to tie the title to Windows APIs.

Re:Get it while it's hot?

[PolyDwarf]

If there's one thing I've learned from SCO, it's that lawsuits don't need a basis in reality.

Seeding doesn't negate anything

[tepples]

For every copy you downland I upload 2 thus negating your record setting pursuit. No, it just means you're a seeder. Which Fx3 mirror do you operate?

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[morgan_greywolf]

A Windows port is currently under way.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

I've seen it. Usually the deal breaker for me is something obscure, and not something like "Photoshop".

I'm sure I'll end up getting strafed by the fanboys, but I've been burned by Wine too many times. For my personal use, it's fine to sit and fiddle with it for a while to get it to work.

For a situation where you're trying to sell a linux deployment to some big customer, that just doesn't fly...A hundred fiddly little apps that all need special attention to run correctly under wine, and every one that craps itself makes you look like more and more of a jerkoff to your client.

Re:Personally ...

[Cley Faye]

That's not always the case; especially with Vista out there.

Hell hath no furry like a women scorned...

[penguinbrat]

We're lucky that isn't "...like a geek scorned". I would hate to have anyone as stubborn and persistent as these guys who spend 15yrs working on an ever moving target that it - it self wouldn't work right half of the time.

Cheers and Kudo's to them all :-)

Re:Hell hath no furry like a women scorned...

[Ant P.]

Hell i has no furry liek a women sconed There, fixed that for you. If you're going to spell it wrong, at least make an effort.

Re:Hell hath no furry like a women scorned...

[bh_doc]

Hell hath no furry

I'm lead to believe hell is full of furries...

Slightly offtopic question

[dargaud]

OK, there are apps that work in Wine, for others there's VMware... There are a few critical apps that keep me partly in the Windows realm (I'm a Linux device driver developer in other circumstances). One of them is photo-quality printers such as the Epson R1800 which only has Win/Mac drivers. Sure, CUPS can print on it. Text. No profiled pictures. Is there a solution to this ? Can a printer driver work in Wine ? Can it work in some virtualized windows config ? Last time I checked, a virtual Windows under Linux couldn't access USB /firewire devices.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[AlexCorn]

VMware server (and probably workstation) lets guest operating systems access USB devices on the host operating system.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[TheRaven64]

If you want a really ugly hacky 'solution', then configure your VM with a printer which prints to a file, and export this as a network share. Then set up two printers in CUPS, one which takes postscript input and sends it to the printer shared by the VM and another which takes the resulting file and sends it as raw data to the printer. It's ugly as hell, but it should work.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[shaiay]

VMWare Server (free as in beer, registration required) allows windows virtual machines to access the host's USB ports -- I have it running Win98 with some software accessing it's USB copy protection device

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[domatic]

VirtualBox allows this.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[Bert64]

Mac drivers are based on CUPS too, what happens if you take the PPD file from the mac drivers?

I have avoided Epson printers for years, having nothing but problems with them (like the stupid top load paper, where the paper stands almost vertical, falls over from the slightest breeze and gets jammed easily), and their linux support is poor to nonexistent.

HP on the other hand produce open source drivers for their printers.. I have an old HP printer/scanner combo for which the latest windows/macos drivers dont work with vista or leopard, but the open drivers still compile on current versions of linux...
Infact, it's possible to compile the open drivers on leopard too.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[David Jao]

set up two printers in CUPS, one which takes postscript input and sends it to the printer shared by the VM and another which takes the resulting file and sends it as raw data to the printer.

This method doesn't always work, because some printers are so spectacularly bad that not even the raw data is enough to make it print -- you also have to send the raw data down the wire according to strict timing requirements.

Having said that, the Epson R1800 should mostly work in Linux; if all you can print is text, then you're doing something wrong.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[blacklint]

The free (as in beer) version of VirtualBox can access USB devices. There's also a GPL'ed version, but it's missing that feature, among a few others.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[dargaud]

'OK enough for most use' is certainly not good enough for printing pictures on glossy paper using calibrated profiles.

Re:Slightly offtopic question

[ushimitsudoki]

Last time I checked, a virtual Windows under Linux couldn't access USB /firewire devices. FWIW, the closed-source edition of VirtualBox can use USB devices.

Re:This means what?

[Vectronic]

Very few applications are bug free, especially those that have to accomodate to a larger variety of users.

As far as I am aware, its at 1.0 because they met their goals for the 1.0 release, its not really that different from what 0.9 was, or what 1.1 will be, they added support for a few more applications, probably did some code cleaning, etc, etc...

As for targeting games, thats actually a very good decision the way I see it, considering that one of the largest reasons XP is still kicking is because of games (granted not all the reason)

Following games, comes users, following users, comes developers...

Games are also easier to target because they are generally a lot more simple, targeting mostly DX or OpenGL, a couple DLL's done... take a look at Photoshop, or Office they are complex as hell, with binaries scattered all over the place...

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[Spy der Mann]

Not to discredit the wine developers. reverse engineering WTF is like mapping the human genome. It's complicated, and a whole lot of windows moments. There, fixed it for ya.

Re:FINALLY!

[mrsteveman1]

Sure, you can sue anything with nipples

Re:This means what?

[damn_registrars]

That it's finally bug-free?
When is the last time that version 1.0 of anything was bug-free? For that matter, when was the last time that a commercial release of anything was bug-free on the first iteration of any version?

That I won't have to spend hours working with each individual application?
When was the last version you used? More importantly, when was the last time you checked the AppDB or the bugzilla? If you're trying to use a commercial application, has it occurred to you that you might not be the only person on the planet who would like to get said application running in wine?

not half-assed emulators
Congratulations on not even reading the front page of winehq.org. Or even breaking down the acronym - "Wine Is Not Emulation". But if you want to call it an emulator, you're still free to do so. You just happen to be incorrect.

Every time I have needed Wine to work on a piece of commercial software I have been disappointed.
Then file a bug report and contribute to the solution, rather than just complaining about the problem. Or is there some reason to believe that your complaining will somehow resolve the situation?

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[The MAZZTer]

Go look for realMyst, it's pretty neat plus it has a new age. Also it works on XP IIRC.

Doesn't work too well on Wine though. You can walk around but if you click on some stuff like books it crashes.

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[The MAZZTer]

Or you could make a "passthrough" dll. It has the same function exports as the real DLL, but they all just call the real DLL functions. Then you can put whatever code in there you want to manipulate the function calls or their results or log stuff.

Someone made a DirectInput dll which allows real old games to use the Mousewheel which otherwise couldn't by making the game think you're really pressing PageUp and PageDown, which it should be able to handle easier.

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[operagost]

Too bad you'll only have about six months to enjoy it before your system crashes due to the ending of the *NIX epoch.

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[Stormwatch]

In this case, I guess what you need is a virtualizer like this , so you can install some old Windows in its virtual machine.

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[Pazy]

I actually like the old school slideshow thing lol never really got into realMyst like I did Myst. Thanks for the tip though.

winehq slashdotted

[damn_registrars]

Hmm, their webserver appears to be having trouble keeping up with the traffic.

I wonder if they were running IIS through wine to serve the page?

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[Spatial]

Then again Duke Nukem Forever should be out about that same time. Ah, but will it run on Wine?

Re:Get it while it's hot?

[SilentBob0727]

Or slightly chilled if it's white.

Not really

[an.echte.trilingue]

And of course such a program would be pointless anyway. If 'Designed For Windows' apps don't work under Wine then Wine itself has failed its objective.

IIRC, Wine's objective is to give software vendors a set of libraries to compile their Windows software against so that it will run under Linux, not necessarily run all windows software natively in Linux. The idea is that if it is so simple to do, people like Adobe will release a Linux version of Photoshop compiled against Wine.

So actually, getting products to say that they are "compatible with Wine 1.0" is the goal. That is also the reason that they are releasing: it gives vendors a stable branch to work with.

Re:Not really

[linuxrocks123]

Actually, the original purpose was dual: they wanted to provide a way to natively run Windows binaries, and also provide a method for porting Win32 applications to Linux. Both efforts are still ongoing, but there's never been much uptake for the porting approach. WordPerfect 2000 for Linux was the flagship success of the porting project, and it was years ago (and the native WordPerfect 8.x was better anyway). I think it's fair to say that the main goal of Wine at this point is to provide a method to run Win32 applications natively in Linux, and that a secondary goal is to provide a porting library.

Re:Not really

[Bill_the_Engineer]

IIRC, Wine's objective is to give software vendors a set of libraries to compile their Windows software against so that it will run under Linux, not necessarily run all windows software natively in Linux. The idea is that if it is so simple to do, people like Adobe will release a Linux version of Photoshop compiled against Wine.

If this is Wine's current objective, then the goal posts were moved.

Wine's original objective was to be a compatibility layer for existing Windows applications not as a library for new ones.

I think it would be very wise move for Wine to market itself as a "porting library", since they have yet to fully implement the Win95 environment and may not be able to without violating some "patent" or at least having to defend itself from Microsoft.

It would be even better if the companies would just make a "native" Linux version of their software, but I'll take what I can get.

Re:Not really

[kipman725]

I think that some of googles software runs on linux using wine (Earth ETC). Not sure fi it's complied against it though.

Re:Not really

[shellbeach]

(and the native WordPerfect 8.x was better anyway) As someone who tried using the hideous abomination that was Corel WP 8 for linux back in 1999 ... tell me your statement was just a bad joke?

Re:Not really

[linuxrocks123]

No, I wasn't joking. We must have had different experiences; I had WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux installed on my machine right up until a year ago, when, even with all the compatibility libraries installed, the thing just wouldn't run anymore :(

Re:Not really

[Kalriath]

So actually, getting products to say that they are "compatible with Wine 1.0" is the goal. That is also the reason that they are releasing: it gives vendors a stable branch to work with. But of course you then face an issue - since WINE is not aiming for 100% compatibility, it means that if a product meets the Windows logo guidelines, but does NOT meet the WINE requirements, guess what'll happen?

You guessed it, WINE support gets thrown out the window because it would jeopardize the all-important "Certified for Windows" sticker.

So if WINE really sets a goal of having developers saying "Compatible with WINE 1.0", they need to set a goal of supporting everything with the "Certified for Windows" sticker.

Re:Not really

[shellbeach]

Definitely different experiences! I knew someone who lost their Honours thesis thanks to WP 8.1, too, so I wasn't alone ...

It's a pity about Corel, really -- they had the right idea, but they were 10 years too early for the mainstream linux market.

(Mind you, it was partly thanks to WP being such a bomb that I discovered LaTeX and LyX, so really I should be eternally grateful to Corel and co :)

Re:Not really

[Elektroschock]

In fact most ported projects where discontinued.

But Wine gets more and more attractive. And then there are some outstanding issues as Bug 239 testing (controlspy) where you would expect massive activity from users but it does not happen.

The whole project seems to make it extremely difficult to contribute and distribute the work.

It is not even possible to say donate for a full implementation of a certain specific library.

Re:I halfway get it.

[MighMoS]

I understand why people would not want to run Windows. I understand why people would not want to run Office. But why would you want to run Office and not run Windows? Because Open Office and friends still aren't perfect, and there are already people sending me .docx files. (And people like their macros)

Re:FINALLY!

[igibo]

I've got nipples, Greg. Can you sue me?

Re:Personally ...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Personally I've always found it better to run windows applications on Windows, either installed on the machine or in a VM. Personally, I get at least as good stability, and usually better performance, running (supported) Windows apps using CrossoverOffice, the commercial version of Wine.

Crossover is fine if it just happens to work well with the one or two applications you actually need. If you're looking to run a larger selection of applications or something they don't support well, then a VM or native install is really the only option. Personally, I don't think this needs to be the case. I think CodeWeavers has a very flawed business model that has hampered them more than anything else. They could be making significant money from small business (and larger business).

The problem I have is with CodeWeavers' method of deciding what applications to support. They ask users to pledge a certain amount of money if they get an application supported and working well. That's a fine method of deciding what to work on if your users are hobbyists looking for support for some video game. It is a complete non-starter in business. For example, I tested it out for use with a certain Adobe application and it was nonfunctional. I looked into when they would support it, and the answer seemed to be "never" because not enough people pledged money. Since this is mainly a business application, what do they expect people to do? Have you ever tried getting approval for a purchase order that says if CodeWeavers ever gets this application supported we'll give them some amount of money... but we have no idea when or if that will ever happen? Not a chance. So, of course, we moved on and purchased a bunch of copies of a virtualization environment and Windows to run in it. Now in my case, they only lost a few dozen sales, but I know another, very, very big company that did a similar evaluation... but they needed a solution within a few weeks. They easily lost 500 sales there for the same application.

Basically, I think if they started targeting business customers with a plan that made even a lick of sense to potential business users they'd be pulling in a lot more money, money they could reinvest to make faster progress and more fully support a wide range of programs.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

Or...And this is a radical thought...Use Windows Terminal Services to deploy your apps off a Windows server, and bypass the whole nightmare.

Frankly, that's the only way to do it. No lag time, no third parties, no depending on the developers to fix problems.

Sure, you have to pay for it, but it works, and you can usually sell it by calling it "license management".

Re:This means what?

[A beautiful mind]

Oh jeez, wine took 15 years to get to 1.0 and you're complaining that they only did so just because they wanted to increment the version number?

By these standards I would expect you to still talk about TCO even if Wine would make it possible that your computer would be shitting five pound golden bricks every ten minutes.

Wine is a reimplementation of the windows API. It is not an emulator. An emulator is a simulation of another program or hardware. If WINE is an emulator then SAMBA is one, too (the point being, they aren't emulators).

OOo - For The Rest Of Us

[copponex]

Sorry, compadre. In heterogeneous environments which are a lot more commonplace these days, Office is prohibitively expensive. You either need Terminal Servers, or Parallels plus a windows license, or I can hand out OOo to everyone, not worry about file formats, and get on with my life.

I switched another office that had already bought copies of Office 2008 for Mac, but the spreadsheets from Office 2003 never translated quite right. So they converted everything to OOo instead of wasting another couple of thousand dollars upgrading to office 2007.

Access and Infopath are dead because of web services. Graphic guys are going to buy Adobe anyway. That leaves Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Which are handily beat by OOo 3.0, which works all the time, every time, on Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Re:Quickbooks?

[mini me]

Wine has Photoshop support because Disney needed it. Apparently nobody has needed Quickbooks support, else it would also work.

Has anybody tried TI's code composer?

[lotho brandybuck]

Has anyone tried to run Code Composer and Signums JTAGjet for TI DSPs? I'm asking because this is really the only reason I keep a windows system around.

The funny thing is, I run mingw/msys in Windows, and run the TI code gen tools (dos command line based) out of a makefile.. but the initial jtagging is dependant on drivers.

Re:FINALLY!

[Nimey]

When is Macallan going 1.0?

Out of Steam

[GottliebPins]

I see that WINE supports some of the Steam games. That's great! I can't even get Portals to work on my Windows PC. The box says my system is compatable but alas it is not. Their wonderful online help has a list of several hundred things to try if their game does not work on your system. One of them says if the game will not run on your system you should upgrade your system. That's very helpful. So in order to run a $20 program you need to spend several hundred dollars to upgrade your system. The easiest way to make sure their software is compatable with your system is not to buy it.

Re:Out of Steam

[Baloo Ursidae]

Try running it on Wine instead. This box won't run most games in Windows that it will on Wine...

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[Stevecrox]

realMyst does't work on WINE (I've tried) and several of the game developers have admitted to skipping certain windows rules. It was designed to work on Windows 98 and has a spotty record at best on XP.

Re:This means what?

[maxume]

If a piece of software could make computers shit gold bricks, gold would quickly lose much of its value. Then I could finally have my golden toilet.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

I used to post bug reports and be really active on the lists...and I used to try and use Wine.

Now I just complain. That's about all it's worth to me these days. Maybe someone will read this, and think twice about trying to build anything commercial around Wine, thereby profiting from my experiences with it.

And why should I read the page again when you can't even be bothered to read my whole post? I usually prefer "Wine is not easy" or "Wine is not efficient" or "Wine is nasty excrement" as far as pithy self-referential acronyms go. The only reason I can see why it would not be an emulator is that emulators usually work.

Version 1.0 is usually buggy, but most times it doesn't take 15 years for version 1.0 to make it to the "buggy" stage.

Even if you get an app working, chances are it will break with every update. How do you sell that to someone? "Here is this new cool operating system, and here is the guy you're going to have to employ to configure every single windows-based application you want to try out...Oh, and no guarantees, he may not be able to get it to work."

You just can't work that way. No business project ever comes with a complete list of software.

There are applications that you've never heard of that 2 companies in the world still use, and it will be an absolute deal breaker if you can't make them work in Wine, but since no one uses them, no one on the lists will give half a shit no matter how important it is to you personally and inevitably, someone will tell you, "You need to program the functionality in yourself and stop complaining" which is the point at which you realize that depending on this program is utterly pointless and you get on with your life.

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[socketwiz]

I've marked my calendar for June 2038... Wouldn't that be 2028?

Re:This means what?

[TeknoHog]

DOSemu, QEMU, MAME, etc. are not emulators. They just provide compatibility layers. Also, Lame Ain't MP3 Encoder.

Re:FINALLY!

[turgid]

It goes great with vintage Windows apps.

Many a true word was said in jest. Back in 1998 I wrote a small Windows program at work (~3000 lines of Turbo Pascal 7.0, Win 3.1) and tested it at home on Wine on Slackware. It worked fine.

Wine is an astonishing project. It deserves a lot of credit.

Re:Personally ...

[cerberusss]

in my case, they only lost a few dozen sales, but I know another, very, very big company that did a similar evaluation... but they needed a solution within a few weeks

I'm not sure what exactly you would do in their place.

Re:FINALLY!

[KillerBob]

wine sucks.... never worked 100% and never will

the same can be said of Windows....

Re:FINALLY!

[NetDanzr]

It goes great with vintage Windows apps.

True; I may finally retire my Win98 box, which I keep up and running for the Windows 95/98 games that don't run on WinXP.

Re:This means what?

[catmistake]

we need native applications not half-assed emulators (and yes, it goddamn well IS an eumulator). No, it goddamn well is NOT an emulator. Emulators emulate hardware (e.g. QEMU). And I believe its arguable that we NEED native applictions for an OS that is headed towards abandonware.

Get yer shit straight before you rant next time. Wine is sweet.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

People who defend Wine have never had to make it work for anything that wasn't for their personal use.

The problem with Wine is that they really try and make you believe that just around the corner they're going to be able to do anything Windows can do, and they push it for people who really need Windows apps.

It's wholly unsuitable for that. If you really need those apps, you had better invest in an environment that will run them, and run them well, because Wine doesn't cut it.

Re:This means what?

[SanityInAnarchy]

A hundred fiddly little apps that all need special attention to run correctly under wine, and every one that craps itself makes you look like more and more of a jerkoff to your client. Simple solution: Look it up in AppDB. If it's listed with a good rating, tell your customer you can do that. Otherwise, explain that you can't, and that virtualization might be a better approach.

Keep in mind, Wine doesn't have to be able to perfectly run every Windows app. It only needs to be able to perfectly run the ones you (or your client) actually needs.

Re:This means what?

[cerberusss]

I totally agree; stick with the supported apps or better yet -- the supported apps with the gold (highest compatibility) label. However, a Linux deployment isn't a 1 or 0; most people in a company can deal with missing particular apps.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

Terminal services are your friends.

In my experience the absolute best way of dealing with a big migration is tossing as much of the old software as possible, and using terminal services for the stuff that just won't transfer to the new platform.

If you do that, most of the problems just go away. The biggest issues I've had with Linux migrations are things like IE, Exchange, and Office. Firefox is finally killing off the need for IE, so that's less of a problem. OpenOffice still sucks, but if IBM manages to pull off the whole Lotus/Symphony thing, that problem could solve itself (though Lotus would have to get a LOT better).

Then you throw the remaining apps on terminal services, and you're good to go. That takes care of all the apps that will never ever EVER run on stuff like Wine, as well as things that don't run as well, or need to much maintenance.

Once the OS becomes popular enough, you'll end up with native apps, and life will be sweet.

Re:Quickbooks?

[technoid_]

Quickbooks now has web based Qucikbooks Online, which with IE4Linux, you can access.

This is the solution I found for my business.

technoid_

Re:Personally ...

[Bushman624]

VMware player and workstation now have experimental 3d acceleration support. I have a Windows XP player running Google Sketchup in accelerated mode currently. Works great.

http://www.easyvmx.com/blog/?q=vmware_with_3d_acceleration

I've seen reports that it can run many older DX8 type games. Of course wine runs most of those just fine so why bother with a VM.

Re:This means what?

[flnca]

You're right, there's so many things wrong with WINE, I doubt I could even name them all in my lifetime. WINE ought to be forked!

Some of the things truly appear as if they have been coded by people who never used Windows once in their lifetime. And some things look as if they've been coded by 3-year-olds. (now we know where all the monkeys from the local zoo went)

There's a lot of important stuff missing.

IMNSHO: I won't name names, but someone high up in the project's hierarchy is a major douchebag. WINE will never get anywhere if it's not forked.

Re:This means what?

[ILuvRamen]

It's emulating libraries. That's enough of an emulator for me. When it reroutes library calls to new libraries and doesn't tell the application it's doing it, I call that emulation. Plus, doesn't it fake some windows hardware related libraries?

Re:This means what?

[Hatta]

The goal should be to help linux break into the business market, but the things that run most reliably are games.

Linux has already broken into the business market. What do you think IBM is doing? Most business critical apps have native replacements that are as good or better than the proprietary solution. Yes, I know Photoshop isn't one of them.

Games on the other hand are more about the experience than the task, and a mere reimplementation doesn't suffice in most cases. (Freeciv not withstanding). Looked at this way, I'd say games are a higher priority if you want linux to break into mainstream computing.

Re:Personally ...

[mollymoo]

Parallels does hardware accelerated video.

Re:This means what?

[A beautiful mind]

Your broad statements that would require substantial experience with Wine to be taken as credible are undermined by the fact that some of your statements seem to signal serious unfamiliarity with it. I'm not exactly sure why you're spreading FUD, but you do.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Using wine is a stop-gap measure for running Windows apps on Linux. All users of wine (and I am one) should write to their applications' developers and let them know that they would like native Linux support. I have a list of tens of software house and their contact info, for writing to software developers. Please, if you use wine, at least write to the application developers and let them know that there is demand for their products on Linux. Whether the apps work in wine or not.

Actually a good question ..

[roguegramma]

Actually a good question, since I got several games that won't run on the version of windows I use.

Direct Download Link

[zygwin]

Here's the link to the download directory :
http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/pool/main/w/wine/ for deb files

Re:FINALLY!

[tehbunneh]

And there is a fatal flaw in your pointing out that he has a fatal flaw in his last argument, namely - Wine is not an emulator

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

Your argument is that Linux is superior because it lets you play those games, however this is through an emulation layer (i.e. WINE), which you can also do in Windows if you're so inclined.

In a horribly insecure manner. You should never log in as Administrator or root to play games, and, unfortunately, Windows often makes you to do just that. That kind of behavior just isn't ready for the desktop at all.

Re:FINALLY!

[ya really]

Was there really any Windows software worth porting to Linux in 1993? I can't recall any unless perhaps doom counts.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

Whatever dude, if you didn't like the "emulator" jab, fine. But I've sweated blood on Wine projects, and I've gotten jack from the community.

If you go in the door without planning on using some sort of terminal services for the bulk of your windows apps, you're screwed, because the company will have forgotten to tell you about any number of windows apps that will turn out to be flat impossible to run in Wine, and no one will give a damn.

Re:This means what?

[catmistake]

Its really not, but, well, I applaud your efforts to redefine words. Its an excellent way to write in a manner that will leave your words ambiguous and misunderstood. Ever considered publishing your own dictionary?

Re:This means what?

[A beautiful mind]

I'm not seeing the problem here. They are not required to give a damn if you're not paying them anything. Paid wine support/services exists from multiple companies, who do give a damn to your specific application level concerns.

Re:FINALLY!

[tjwhaynes]

When is Macallan going 1.0? I'll wait for 16.0 thanks very much. 1.0 is too spikey for my tastes.

Take it step by step

[Opportunist]

At the very least, write to them if it doesn't run in Wine.

Porting a software project can be a very nontrivial task, taking many manyears of work to complete. Few companies are willing to invest this kind of work (and money) for what seems to be a rather small customer base. They could, though, be willing to invest in a few tweaks to make it run on an emulator that would accomplish, from their point of view, the same thing: Letting Linux users use their software.

Companies are usually reluctant to develop for a platform with a small customer base. They do, though, accept making a few tweaks to get a foot into the market.

Currently, the only argument for people to keep using Windows is that Wine can't handle EVERY SINGLE Windows application. When there is no important application left that doesn't run well on Wine, people will more readily switch (Linux+Wine == Windows, from a user's point of view, but about 100-300 bucks cheaper).

And THEN it's time to ask software companies to develop for Linux, with it being the bigger market.

Re:Take it step by step

[dotancohen]

While I agree with most of your comment, I would like to point out the obvious:

Few companies are willing to invest this kind of work (and money) for what seems to be a rather small customer base. The key word here is "seems". Linux users need to make themselves more visible, so that the market will not seem so small.

Re:Take it step by step

[zacronos]

When there is no important application left that doesn't run well on Wine, people will more readily switch (Linux+Wine == Windows, from a user's point of view, but about 100-300 bucks cheaper). And THEN it's time to ask software companies to develop for Linux, with it being the bigger market. I think you're confusing two sides of the issue.

At the point in time you describe, it will be easy for Windows users to switch to Linux, and there will be incentive for them to do so since it is generally cheaper and they would have more apps available (all Linux apps plus Windows apps under Wine) -- that much I agree with. However, one could argue that developing for the Windows API would still be the bigger market, since developing for Windows would give you an application which would work on Windows or Linux-with-Wine. Until the size of the Windows-only customer base is smaller than the Linux-only-and-I-won't-or-can't-use-Wine customer base, there will still be incentive to develop for Windows. There may be other reasons to develop for Linux instead (ease of development, more plentiful developers, etc), but a bigger market is not one of them as long as you continue to account for Wine.

On the other hand, having an easy-to-use and easy-on-developers Linux API available on Windows does the opposite -- software companies could develop for Linux and get apps that target both the Linux and Windows markets, thus targeting a bigger market than just Windows.

Re:Take it step by step

[RulerOf]

Currently, the only argument for people to keep using Windows is that Wine can't handle EVERY SINGLE Windows application.
Don't forget, some people actually like Windows as a Desktop/Server OS, and it's not because they haven't "experienced the glory of Linux" or some other epiphany. Granted, I don't think anyone likes licensing it, but that's a totally different story.

Re:Take it step by step

[stg]

Companies are usually reluctant to develop for a platform with a small customer base. They do, though, accept making a few tweaks to get a foot into the market.

Not only that, but also a small customer base that prefers free, open source solutions...

That said, I've heard from a few shareware developers that were able to make tweaks to make their programs run better in Wine in a few hours.

I tested my own program in Wine (1.0-rc2) and I'll be making a few tweaks to improve it when I have time - mostly it runs fine but there are a few problems.

Re:Take it step by step

[Opportunist]

Well, you sure as hell won't sell a lot of Office suits or network tools for Linux.

But there is room for commercial software, even on Linux. Commercial software has one advantage, usually, and that's development speed. Wine took 15 years, and it's a good example of the development cycle of FOSS. FOSS takes time. Lots of it.

Re:Take it step by step

[Daengbo]

Wine does more than run binaries, you know. It also allows recompiling your Windows application to Unix fairly simply. As a result, houses that want to "write to wine" would probably be better off writing to libwine and compiling natively.

Re:Take it step by step

[somersault]

Actually, Windows server is getting pretty good these days. What is needed to 'beat' them is a good Exchange alternative (that has alternatives to direct push email, integrated calendar, and doesn't need weeks fiddling with LDAP to install - I tried openexchange but kept having issues, I think eventually it was something like if the LDAP domain name was the same as the email domain then it wouldn't work), or for the world to friggin get rid of email already..

I would have no qualms installing Linux on every client in our company if all of the software we need ran on it. A lot of our engineering software already has Linux versions, but the Autodesk products dont, and they're the most widely used among the engineers :(

Re:Take it step by step

[gmack]

You can compile your windows apps against the wine libs and make a "linux port" that way.

It's a bit bloated but it does work. That's how Corel did their Wordperfect for Linux port.

Re:Take it step by step

[dotancohen]

If you let me know what problems you've encountered when compiling for Wine 1.0, and the solutions that you've devised, I'd like to put them on some wiki (does wine have such a wiki?) so that other devs could benefit as well. I wouldn't mind hosting it either, though it is off-topic for my personal homesite.

Re:Take it step by step

[dotancohen]

Where is there documentation on this?

In other words, I find your ideas intriguing and...

Re:Take it step by step

[ArhcAngel]

They could, though, be willing to invest in a few tweaks to make it run on an emulator

WINE Is Not an Emulator

Re:Take it step by step

[stg]

I never compiled for Wine - I just downloaded my program on Ubuntu, installed and ran it.

It worked fine (as far as I tested it), except for metafile issues on printing and PDF export - which I plan to work around by having an image-based PDF export. It's nasty, but it's better than nothing.

I'm not aware of any such a wiki for Wine.

However, given that their FAQ already suggests that you shouldn't try to detect Wine, but instead figure out the bugs and report them, I would be a bit surprised to see it.

Re:Take it step by step

[Daengbo]

The Wine website has your answer.

Re:Take it step by step

[Selivanow]

Windows can't handle EVERY SINGLE Windows application. Why should anyone expect that from Wine?

Re:Take it step by step

[dotancohen]

Please don't use image-based PDF. It is an accessibility nightmare. Please find some other solution rather than dump the problem on us moles.

Re:Take it step by step

[dotancohen]

Thanks. I wonder what Linux apps were compiled with this. I suppose Picasa maybe.

Re:Take it step by step

[Opportunist]

Because we're used to Linux being better than Windows?

Re:Take it step by step

[Captain Electrode]

Currently, the only argument for people to keep using Windows is that Wine can't handle EVERY SINGLE Windows application. Face it, even Windows can't handle EVERY SINGLE Windows application.

Re:Take it step by step

[Opportunist]

So? I'm not comparing myself with someone beneath me. It doesn't really give you an incentive to improve.

Re:Take it step by step

[Dolda2000]

Except that Wine doesn't work. Or, if it does, then it's because you have a "paid-for (yeah, right)" Windows install somewhere on your hard drive (go try to run anything beyond Notepad with the wine dlls and weep while I rotflmao). I think you underestimate the progress Wine has made the last year or so. It used to be precisely as you describe, but lately I've discovered a surprising number of Windows programs that work more or less flawlessly on Wine.

Just to list a few, I've been able to play Starcraft, Warcraft III, use Declan's ReadWrite Kanji program and use Blizzard's downloader program for the Starcraft II videos. I've also been able to play MtG Online with only a little tweaking. In contrast, the only program I've tried and not been able to run has been the "School Days" visual novel, and only because it uses WMA.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

That's actually more my point. Native apps are the answer, not half-assed compatibility hacks like Wine. If Lotus Notes didn't suck so bad, selling Linux would be a dream...Likewise OpenOffice.

Re:This means what?

[damn_registrars]

Now I just complain.
I've noticed.

Maybe someone will read this, and think twice about trying to build anything commercial around Wine, thereby profiting from my experiences with it.
So in other words you'd rather put your energy into torpedoing the project than actually contribute towards its improvement? Well, you are free to do that, as well. Its your own choice.

you can't even be bothered to read my whole post?
Which part of your original post then did I apparently not read? You swore up and down in that first post that Wine is emulation, and I stated that it isn't. Please let me know where I missed something.

And yes, I see that now you are claiming that it might not be. But that doesn't change what you said the first time.

"Wine is not easy" or "Wine is not efficient" or "Wine is nasty excrement"
Oooh, ooh, are you one of those really creative types, like the ones who make new acronyms for FORD? I've got one - "Freakin' owner's really dumb!" Now can I play too?

Version 1.0 is usually buggy, but most times it doesn't take 15 years for version 1.0 to make it to the "buggy" stage.
I'm probably not the only person who would still like to know what the last version was that you used.

I'm guessing you haven't run 1.0, since it just came out. So how can you claim it to be buggy?

And on top of that, consider everything that has been added to windows in the past 15 years. How much of that needs to be added to wine in order for it to be useful for a significant number of users?

Even if you get an app working, chances are it will break with every update.
I will just again suggest you read the AppDB before complaining. You'll find that the list is growing of applications that have been stable for many consecutive releases.

How do you sell that to someone?
Actually, it sells pretty well. Take a look at the CodeWeavers commercial wine release.

There are applications that you've never heard of that 2 companies in the world still use
That is a nice example, but you still haven't told us what application has infuriated you so badly, or what version of wine you were trying to run it in.

I don't for a minute doubt that there is plenty of windows software out there that I haven't heard of. But yet for some reason you seem to doubt that your anger will do anything to help the situation of software that doesn't work properly in wine.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:FINALLY!

[Opportunist]

There is a Windows emulator for Windows?

Besides the hilarity of having such a piece of novelty software, I'd kinda need something like that. Where could I get it?

Re:Personally ...

[0racle]

There's a wonderful word in the English language I used, 'either.' Maybe, if I needed hardware acceleration I would install Windows on the machine directly, in fact I know I would.

Oh, and VMware does support hardware accelerated video.

Re:FINALLY!

[neokushan]

Except that you're argument against gaming refers to newer versions of windows, which try to encourage both you AND developers (because they're just as much to blame for this by making crap installers and such) to not always stay in or require Administrator access.
Besides, you're blaming the OS for something a user has near completely control over. You'd be better blaming Microsoft for not discouraging this practice instead of the OS.

Re:This means what?

[MighMoS]

Even if you get an app working, chances are it will break with every update. How do you sell that to someone? "Here is this new cool operating system, and here is the guy you're going to have to employ to configure every single windows-based application you want to try out...Oh, and no guarantees, he may not be able to get it to work." Guess what? Don't upgrade. That's just not smart. I know of ZERO companies who installed Windows Vista the day it came out on their production servers, and if anyone does the same with Wine, bad things can happen. Quite frankly Wine is understaffed for the purposes of recreating a whole operating system, but your argument of "These two secret apps don't work and never will" doesn't really hold much water. Even "These two secret apps don't work because...blah blah blah" would be better. "It dont work" is NOT a valid technical issue. And adding references to shit does't exactly make you more credible.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

Exactly my point. No one gives a shit. And sure, you can pay a company to care, but their cheap package won't cut it, and their expensive package starts costing as much as doing it with terminal services, so you're just throwing money away.

Which is why Wine is worthless...It's only fit for hobbyists and geeks, because they're the only people who have the time and patience to make their software work when it doesn't work first thing.

I've got no patience left for the fairy tale.

Does it play Civ any better?

[Absimiliard]

If it doesn't play Civ IV then I can't get rid of my windows box at home.

Historically WINE hasn't done so great with the games I care about. Since I only like Windows for gaming that's what I really need for WINE to do before it becomes useful to me pesonally.

Oh sure, I admit running Office 2007 is going to be a god-send for transiting my users away from Windows. But for me, non-professionally, it really boils down to one question.

Does it play Civ IV now?

-abs

Re:Does it play Civ any better?

[X0563511]

Do you post testing data and bugs? If you don't - well, thats the only way for them to really find out what doesn't work. That's all handled at http://appdb.winehq.org/

I've done some stuff before, and the issues actually got the attention they needed.

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[thopkins]

Duke Nukem Forever will have native binaries for GNU/Hurd.

Duh!

Re:FINALLY!

[RiotingPacifist]

try wine

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

Except that you're argument against gaming refers to newer versions of windows, which try to encourage both you AND developers (because they're just as much to blame for this by making crap installers and such) to not always stay in or require Administrator access.

That's odd, because the games that Windows and Linux both have native versions of, Windows generally requires Administrator rights to give proper access to the hardware, whereas Linux will give you access to the appropriate hardware without compromising access to the rest of the system (and well-ported games will refuse to run as root).

Besides, you're blaming the OS for something a user has near completely control over. You'd be better blaming Microsoft for not discouraging this practice instead of the OS.

To say that it's not the OS's fault for being crap and therefor it's OK for it to be is a pretty specious argument to make, and I can't believe you went there. Sure, it's Microsoft's fault that Windows doesn't encourage safe permissions by default. But the point is it's insecure by default, despite being marketed as such, so a great deal of it's users don't bother to learn about permission seperation and understand why you shouldn't blindly give Administrator permissions to non-maintenance tasks. The permissions problem is one that should have been fixed 20 years ago, and it's STILL wrong in Vista. Yet, Wine not only lets you do the same thing without root, you're actively discouraged from running as root.

Re:Personally ...

[phrostie]

there is a linux version, a mac version,

Will they release a version of Wine for Vista?

No logo *licensing arrangement*

[tepples]

Wine doesn't have a logo? I think what was meant was more like this: Wine doesn't appear to have a certification process to license its logo for use on product packaging.

1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[Eravnrekaree]

I dont see why they chose this time to release 1.0. Still, a large number of software programs dont run on Wine. One that would not run at all is acrobat. Firefox crashes constantly. I could not get AOL online service client to run. Office XP doesnt run. Its pathetic. Wine is nowhere near 1.0 status. Its misleading since the software does not fully emulate windows, even reasonably well. Release 1.0 when you finally get everything working right.

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[Ash-Fox]

One that would not run at all is acrobat.

I used to run Acrobat 7 a while back under Wine. But I found most of the pdf software on Linux was good enough to replace it.

Firefox crashes constantly.

Why don't you run the native version for Linux?

I could not get AOL online service client to run.

I cannot find "AOL online service client" on Google, so I assumed you meant AOL Instant Messenger, which works fine.

Office XP doesnt run.

Yes it does and you can run different versions of Office simultaneously if you know how to use the wineprefix parameter.

Its misleading since the software does not fully emulate windows

Wine is not a emulator, it simply implements the Windows API on top of a unix-like environment.

even reasonably well.

I beg to differ. I find that some of my games tend to run faster under Wine (compared to running them under Windows XP/Vista on the same hardware), I also use it to run older software that does not run under Windows XP SP2, Vista etc.

Release 1.0 when you finally get everything working right.

Feel free to contribute.

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[BitZtream]

Seems that, with some work, some other people got OfficeXP working a few years ago, I doubt its regressed since then since OfficeXP was on their 1.0 goals list if I recall correctly.

http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-users/2006-February/020480.html

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[Eravnrekaree]

I use Windows firefox because I am on FreeBSD and there is no flash player for FreeBSD.

It was Office 2003 that would not install right.

I was talking about the AOL online service client, not AOL instant messager. That is AOL 9.0.
http://daol.aol.com/software/90vr

Its still not acceptable that these programs should crash.

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[pavon]

I cannot find "AOL online service client" on Google, so I assumed you meant AOL Instant Messenger, which works fine. No, he meant the dialer/brower/mail/IM monstrosity. I'm not surprised that it doesn't work considering how deeply it roots itself into windows when you install it.

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[Ash-Fox]

I use Windows firefox because I am on FreeBSD and there is no flash player for FreeBSD.

Why don't you enable the Linux ELF compatibility support in FreeBSD, install Linux Firefox with Linux flash plugin?

I suspect the Wine issues you are suffering might be due to Wine issues with the FreeBSD specific port. I do recall listening to a podcast on BSDtalk where Jeremy White said the Wine support shouldn't even be considered beta on the BSDs. In theory you could run the Linux version through the Linux ELF binary support - but I haven't tried that myself, but I doubt there should be any issues.

I have used Firefox through the Linux ELF binary support though.

I was talking about the AOL online service client, not AOL instant messager. That is AOL 9.0.
http://daol.aol.com/software/90vr

Okay... I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole.

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[Eravnrekaree]

thanks for the reply.

I first tried to use Firefox/WIne on FreeBSD because it seemed a little eisier to install tghan the Linux ELF. It actually has installed. It just crashes every so often. But I still use it.

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[LinuxLlama]

There is a program for linux called "Penggy" that allows you to use AOLs internet.

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[pandrijeczko]

Would you like some cheese with your whining about Wine?

Re:1.0 premature, Wine does not work well

[argent]

I first tried to use Firefox/WIne on FreeBSD because it seemed a little eisier to install tghan the Linux ELF.

Should just be a matter of "cd /usr/ports/www/linux-flashplugin9; make install" on any recent FreeBSD version.

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[asylumx]

15 yr release cycles, 2 of them, so 30 years.

Re:This means what?

[SiChemist]

People who defend Wine have never had to make it work for anything that wasn't for their personal use.

That is complete and utter bullshit. I have a user that uses wine to run windows programs to interface with oceanographic instruments and so far, every one of them has worked with little to no hassle. These are niche programs that the developer provides with the instruments themselves and they likely sell only dozens of them a year.

Just because YOU can't get something to work under wine is a poor reason to be a whiny little bitch about the project.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

No, I haven't used Wine in about a year, and even then it was for my personal stuff, and no business purpose.

I don't see that expecting a product to work is necessarily a character flaw on my part, any more than not being willing to devote my life to Wine and Wine issues.

I'm not going to sit and list apps I've had problems with...I doubt you'll have heard of most of them, and some of them I've willfully blotted out of my memory. The first and worst was some goddamn proprietary banking interface; real crapware, but I had to have it. Had a 750,000 dollar migration hinging on it, and I couldn't get support for money, or begging, and I couldn't fix it myself.

Ended up using Win4Lin which is an emulator, and almost solved all my problems. Fucking FONT corruption, I shit you not, on two goddamn custom applications which, I'm sure I don't have to even say it, was completely unacceptable to the client.

So I ended up using terminal services. Whole thing was a disaster. And the lesson I took out of it was "Wine is completely unreliable."

You can't go into a professional deployment with a huge unknown. You will run into homegrown apps, you will run into industry specific software.

Who is going to help you with that? Who is going to compensate you for all the time spent trying to make it work? It's not worth paying people to make it work, and there is no point unless you're trying to capture a specific niche.

In the end, you save yourself ever-so-much pain by just setting up terminal services.

Be my guest

[Weaselmancer]

X just sucks. I find it appalling that the best UNIX minds are unable to admit that truth. Of course, we have nothing better, but we will never have anything if we keep repeating the mantra that X is perfect or good enough.

Well - you're not repeating that mantra, are you? So go start a project that is better than X.

And no, I'm not trying to be a smartass. Really - go do it. You don't even need to know how to code. Good administrative skills are enough to start a project. Wrangle like minds. Start a message board. Exchange ideas.

Unlike some other programming paradigms, open source welcomes revolutions. So go start one.

Re:Be my guest

[nschubach]

How is writing an alternative to X not "UNIX(ish)"?

Re:FINALLY!

[neokushan]

What games require administrator access to access the hardware? That's a new one on me and I'd like for you to give a few examples of such a thing.
But once again, is that a fault of the OS or a fault of the developer who designed it like that?

What's more, I never said it was "the OS's fault for being crap", you're attempting to twist what I've said to suit your needs.
What I actually said was that the OS is at the mercy of the user and the User is the one running in Admin mode. I said you should blame Microsoft for not discouraging this act sooner, as the OS is only operating as the user intends it to.
There's nothing stopping you creating a user level account, password protecting the administrator account and using the OS as normal. As the user, it's entirely your choice.
Most games and applications will run fine in this mode, if there are exceptions then you can't really blame Microsoft, it's the lazy developer's fault there as there is absolutely no real reason why a game NEEDS administrator access.
Basically what I'm saying is you've got some legit points, but you're blaming the wrong people. Microsoft has some of the blame, but there's plenty to go around.

Re:FINALLY!

[mcrbids]

I don't think you understand the reality of WINE, especially to Microsoft!

With WINE, Microsoft officially loses control over their Windows API. It's like IBM with the ISA vs. MCA architectures around the 286 era. Microsoft desperately wants to move to something else, ANYTHING else, so that they can maintain control of their API, so that developers have to write to the Microsoft API, and so that customers still have to buy Windows.

But if there is a WINE that is reasonably stable, that's no longer the case. Case in point: I develop a cross-platform application with PHP-GTK, which has been ported over using the Win32 API. I can write software that's immediately usable on Windows, Macintosh, and *nix. But I haven't released an actual installer for *nix, simply because nobody's asked for one. And if I decide that I want to support *nix, I have to go with at least one of two options:

1) Pick a distro or five and build packages for each every time I issue a new release. (as often as weekly!) This is pretty much a guaranteed FAIL since everybody has their own fav distro...

2) Release a Windows installer and test it against WINE to ensure reasonable compatibility.

I'm going with option 2 for now. Note that I prefer this even when using a toolkit that's natively a *nix toolkit. It's not because I don't love *nix, it's because I have no desire whatsoever to deal with customers who are often barely competent to turn their computer(s) on and try to get them to recompile ANYTHING.

Win WINE, the most successful development platform in existence becomes an open-source platform, and will quickly deflate the Microsoft monopoly. Microsoft has no choice, simply because the very thing that's kept them in the business (the massive base of WinXX applications) now becomes the very thing that they cannot abandon.

Re:FINALLY!

[BillGod]

I never use anything 1.0.. Will wait for 2.0 before I upgrade!!!!

Punctuation plzkthxbai

[tepples]

I cant open PDFs can you send to me as a DOC

Try this. [Attachment: Foxit Reader.zip]

Seriously, people who can't use punctuation are also likely to open EXEs from e-mail attachments.

Re:FINALLY!

[Nimey]

I'm pretty happy with 12.0. Are the new features in 16.0 worth it?

Re:FINALLY!

[xtracto]

I know you were aiming for a funny mod. But I am tired of reading people say that wine is not an emulator but keep seeing the description of WINE in the Ubuntu and other repositories as "Wine - Windows emulator" [from ubuntu add/remove applications] to run windows applications"

WTF people mantaining the ports!! you should describe WINE for what it is a compatilibity layer. An emulator has in itself several disadvantages that WINE does not have.

With WINE you can say that it makes Linux Windows compatible. It is just a set of libraries to allow such a [not perfect, but still, very good] compatibility.

Re:FINALLY!

[thetoadwarrior]

The great thing about America is you can use anything. I sued my next door neighbor's dog for keeping me awake for two nights. I won all his kibble and there is a restraining order on him.

Re:FINALLY!

[VGPowerlord]

Correction, a lot of Windows games require Administrator access because they insist on writing files to the application's directory rather than to the user's home directory.

Rumor has it that Microsoft introduced the annoying UAC prompt to get developers to stop this practice by getting users to bitch at developers until they adjusted applications and games to get rid of the prompts.

Re:FINALLY!

[smittyoneeach]

Windows often makes you to do just that.

No, Windows does not make you do anything of the sort.
The most you can say is that poorly coded client apps encourage you to do something stupid.

To replace Stone Edge Order Manager?

[tepples]

Access and Infopath are dead because of web services. What inventory management solution do you recommend that doesn't run on Access?

Re:This means what?

[damn_registrars]

No, I haven't used Wine in about a year, and even then it was for my personal stuff, and no business purpose.
So of course that tells us a lot about why we should revere you as an expert in wine, then...

I don't see that expecting a product to work is necessarily a character flaw on my part, any more than not being willing to devote my life to Wine and Wine issues.
I haven't seen anyone asking you to do anything resembling devoting your life to wine.

However, you seem to believe that your own incessant complaining will somehow resolve the problem. That could well be viewed as a character flaw, as you are contributing nothing towards solving the problems that bother you. Even submitting a bug report would accomplish a lot more than posting your complaints here.

The first and worst was some goddamn proprietary banking interface
Ended up using Win4Lin which is an emulator, and almost solved all my problems. Fucking FONT corruption, I shit you not, on two goddamn custom applications which, I'm sure I don't have to even say it, was completely unacceptable to the client.
One obvious question here is did the client actually say they wanted to move away from windows? It isn't clear by your statement that you were actually trying to fulfill a legitimate request from your client by moving them to Linux. Indeed, you haven't even told us what it was that your client was paying you to do...

So I ended up using terminal services. Whole thing was a disaster. And the lesson I took out of it was "Wine is completely unreliable."
If these three statements are related, it would appear that since terminal services was a disaster, you concluded that you hate wine. Interesting conclusion, for sure.

But even if that isn't the case, I still don't see why we should agree that your hatred is justified. You said you haven't used wine in about a year, and your example is based on software that you don't appear to be very fond of. But yet you seem to anyways want to launch into a bad-PR campaign to discredit the project.

Who is going to help you with that?
As I and several others have already said, there is the codeweavers project that does do commercial work with wine. You can chose that route if you wish. It isn't even particularly expensive.

Who is going to compensate you for all the time spent trying to make it work? It's not worth paying people to make it work, and there is no point unless you're trying to capture a specific niche.
I would be interested in knowing what it was that you were trying to accomplish - or even better, what you were paid to do - as it would help explain why you made the decisions you made.

Re:FINALLY!

[thetoadwarrior]

Except for the fact that if you want to keep old operating systems you should ideally keep old hardware or run an emulator.

Or, for free, use Linux, wine (not an emulator) and install it on the most advanced hardware you can afford to play your old games.

Re:Oblig

[mrsteveman1]

Sure i can try, but you have to put these clamps on first....

Microsoft APIs

[Cassini2]

Microsoft sees a movement away from Win32 before too long, and even current applciations a lot of developers are working on projects that stretch from generic Win32 to fully hybrind Win32/WPF/DirectX all in one application.

I think you nailed a comment on Microsoft's API strategies there. Microsoft keeps adding API's, but they don't actually replace one another. In the case of a long-running project, you wind up with hybrid fraken-apps. This makes Windows application development rather horrible, and I suspect gives Windows operating system developers nightmares. As a person that likes emulators, I look at the Microsoft API, I look at Wine, and think: Why would anyone implement that API?

Re:Does it run on Windows?

[Pazy]

Because I dont own older versions of Windows and cant really get a hold of them easy and a little thing like morality prevents me from stealing it from .torrent's etc. Plus Ive set it up now, waste of money to buy something to do what I already can do.

Like a fine Cabernet...

[EmagGeek]

It just so happens that I am uncorking a 15 year old bottle of Mondavi Reserve Cabernet tonight.

Congrats to all of those who have labored over this product for so long...

Re:FINALLY!

[SBrach]

Dear software dev,
I am writing you to inform you that even though you only write Windows apps, I (somewhat) successfully managed to get it to run on my Linux operating system. Please start making a Linux version of this application post haste so you can not gain a customer (I have already hacked your app to run in linux) and increase your development costs. An added perk is the fact that you will be required to support the Linux version rather than just telling me to "run it in Windows" when I call. The extra staff you hire for your support center should help the unemployment rate.

Thanks Again,
A Wine User

Re:FINALLY!

[Hatta]

It's not quite good enough yet. For instance, Wine won't run Civ 2. Which is ok, since we have FreeCiv, but I'm sure there are other games that haven't been reimplemented.

Virtualization requires a Windows license

[Anonymous Coward]

People who say "virtualization makes wine obsolete" are mistaken. Wine represents freedom from Windows and the Microsoft tax. Running a copy of Windows inside a virtual machine represents continued dependence on Microsoft, and means continuing to pay the Microsoft tax.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Please mod parent insightful so that the maintainers of portage||deb||rpm||yourPMhere will understand the harm they are causing the community.

Re:FINALLY!

[Lennie]

OK, I'll bite, straight from the Synaptic package manager (and I think it's a pretty good explanation):

Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer (Binary Emulator and Library)
Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux.
Applications are run at full speed without the need of cpu emulation. Wine
does not require Microsoft Windows, however it can use native system dll
files in place of its own if they are available.

This package includes a program loader for running unmodified Windows executables
as well as the Wine project's free version of the Windows API for running programs
ported from Windows.

  Homepage: http://www.winehq.org/

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

I think that the point that you make is very important. I've filed a bug at Ubuntu on the subject of collaborating the different package managers:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/240770

Please add your thoughts as a developer to the bug. Thanks.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Dear software dev, That's a good start. The rest could use some work, though.

Re:FINALLY!

[tjwhaynes]

New features? It's smoother and silkier but really, the developers have you over a barrel for 16.0.

Re:FINALLY!

[DaveV1.0]

The fanboy response:

But, but, but, choice is good! And, the more choices the better! It can't possibly hurt the community to have to choose from 15 different possibilities! That's just crazy talk!

Re:FINALLY!

[Orange Crush]

Yup. *Two* in fact. (well "compatibility layers" is the better term). The open source WINE and Microsoft's very own "Windows on Windows" (WOW) which is for legacy compatibility.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

This idea that I should devote all this time to a resource that I find to be completely marginal is absurd. Are you devoting your time to ironing out problems in Mono? But why not?!

I've used Wine; I'm hardly an expert, but Wine experts are probably not the target audience for the software. I have needs that would be filled by Wine; it doesn't fill them.

The times I've tried using it to fill them, I've regretted it.

I've only used Wine professionally in full Linux migrations. I've been involved in 6 to date, which isn't a huge number, but is enough to have a pretty robust idea of the problems. The smallest was 80 people, and the largest was ~500 people. Industry-wise, it was finance(bankruptcy), finance(insurance), medical, medical, dental, and media (print).

In those situations, there turned out to be TONS of industry specific applications, and they were mostly not portable, and not supported in the sense of "we'll fix it so it runs on linux."

The first one we'd really counted on Wine; we'd worked out how to use every application that they said they needed in Wine, and we deployed it based on that. They were wrong, basically, and we spent so much as to take a substantial loss trying to make the situation work out to the benefit of everyone involved. This was in 2004, so not exactly state of the art, but the target Windows was 98, so we'd thought it was a safe bet.

Since then I've used Wine on some desktop stuff, but we've always bid up the terminal services end of it, and frankly, though I'm not a huge fan of MS, the terminal services stuff has always worked fairly well for us, and it requires a lot less work than Wine does, and it's substantially easier to deploy new stuff on it because it generally works "out of the box" as it were.

The main negatives are licensing and cost, and for big deployments its less of a factor, especially since you can reduce your licensing requirement for other software once you've got all the terminal crap set up.

I'd be happy to use a Wine that delivered reliably, and maybe I'll spend some more time playing with 1.0, and give it a shot for some stuff, next time a migration project rolls around.

I think in the end though, it's going to be more about native applications than Wine.

Re:FINALLY!

[DaveV1.0]

I can't retire my XP box because Linux does not have good support for the Hauppauge HVR-1600 that came in my PVR-250 box. If I want my MPC to work, I have to use XP.

Gives users time to switch.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... releasing it on June 30th would have been more amusing.

Amusing, yes.

But this gives users an opportunity to try it out BEFORE the closing date. That lets them avoid executing on a migration to some other Microsoft version if Wine 1.0 will do the job for them.

It's a little late already. A lot of people and companies are already committed. But today is vastly better for market penetration (or Microsoft market eviction) than June 30. B-)

Re:FINALLY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded. I have an Ericsson MC218 PDA (a re-badged Psion Series 5mx). Psion, to their great credit, have a free emulator that runs under Windows - and amazingly, it runs using Wine as well. I was very impressed, and swapping data back and forward using a CF card is seamless.

Unfortunately, Visio doesn't (yet) play nicely with Wine (or vice versa). As no GPL/Linux application can read Visio files, many LAN/networking professionals are stuck with staying on Windows, as Viso is the de facto industry standard for producing pretty pictures of networks. If Dia, or OpenOffice.org Draw could read .vsd files, or Visio could run with Wine, many people would be very happy.

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

Or throw an ad up on Criagslist asking to swap with someone who has a supported tuner.

If Microsoft is shutting down XP ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Get it before Microsoft sues.

Too true. But one nice thing...

If Microsoft is shutting down distribution of XP they're going to have a difficult time showing financial losses on a product they don't sell any more. B-)

Techies at Wine don't know Ubuntu

[zaivala]

I just went to the Wine site, paged through until I found the page with Ubuntu instructions. Guess what? Either they don't know what they're doing (I know I sure as hell don't, which is why I had to look it up) or there are typos in each of the commands. Won't run in my Terminal.

Re:Techies at Wine don't know Ubuntu

[YokoZar]

I just went to the Wine site, paged through until I found the page with Ubuntu instructions. Guess what? Either they don't know what they're doing (I know I sure as hell don't, which is why I had to look it up) or there are typos in each of the commands. Won't run in my Terminal. Hi, I wrote that page and make the Ubuntu packages. Copy/pasting the commands works just fine, so I'm really curious as to what exactly you're doing wrong. "Won't run in my terminal" is a very strange thing to say; are you getting some sort of error message? Unless you're mistyping something or using an account without administrator permissions, I can't figure out what could be wrong. You're not alone, by the way. I hate having the terminal instructions, but without built-in support for third party repositories there's not much choice for the current release of Ubuntu.

Re:FINALLY!

[turgid]

If Dia, or OpenOffice.org Draw could read .vsd files ... many people would be very happy.

That sounds like a challenge :-)

Re:FINALLY!

[krystar]

Wine is best when aged. serve chilled with a side app of Cheese(tm)

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

The most you can say is that poorly coded client apps encourage you to do something stupid.

Not when they're going with the reasonable assumption that Windows has given that user administrator rights by default. That's a design flaw at the OS level that developers are stupidly taking advantage of. At best, it's a co-moronic situation where both sides are the loser. Windows isn't the white knight on this one, and neither are the developers. Both suck.

Re:FINALLY!

[tirnacopu]

There is a very serious need for such an emulator, and Microsoft has provided three of them: one is an actual emulator (Virtual PC), the other two are delivered in the installation kit and are called WOW (Windows on Windows), one for 32-16 bit compatibility, the other one for 64-32. To be complete, there is also a fourth one, for MS-DOS legacy applications, NTVDM (Virtual DOS Machine). Neither of the above does a splendid job, but they do exist and are useful in a number of cases.

Re:FINALLY!

[dtremenak]

Have you considered using a distribution-neutral package format like autopackage? There are solutions written specifically for developers in your situation. Not everyone needs to build packages in native formats; really those are mostly for central repositories. If you're not distributing your app through a central repository, there's no reason not to use something like autopackage.

Re:Quickbooks?

[Ash-Fox]

My brother, who runs his own business & is a recent Ubuntu evangelist, said that Quickbooks doesn't function on Wine.

QuickBooks works in Crossover. There is definitely a way to get QuickBooks working under Wine (since Wine and Crossover are pretty much the same sourcecode, except one comes with a easy-to-use install interface).

That is a rather important piece of software. It's on the order, if not exceeding that, of Photoshop.

As for Photoshop, while not officially supported by Crossover, there are reports that the older versions work fine - also if it works under Crossover, there is definitely a way to get it working under Wine.

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

You should never log in as Administrator or root to play games, and, unfortunately, Windows often makes you to do just that. That kind of behavior just isn't ready for the desktop at all.

Windows does nothing of the sort. Stupid developers make you "login" (really, just "Run As) as Administrator, and they're as likely to do it targeting Linux as they have been targeting Windows.

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

[...] and still lets you keep your old games (unlike every newer Windows version)?

It's hard to take anyone who writes such blatantly false bullshit as this seriously.

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

they're as likely to do it targeting Linux as they have been targeting Windows.

Fact not supported by any evidence in the field. If that were the case, games on Linux would be as notorious for it. YHL, HAND.

Re:This means what?

[damn_registrars]

This idea that I should devote all this time to a resource that I find to be completely marginal is absurd.
I'm not sure who you feel is asking you to "devote all this time" to wine. It takes less than 5 minutes to fill out a bug report. Nobody is asking you to write code or do any kind of intense work. Just show them what went wrong. Generally the STDERR / STDOUT from trying to invoke wine is sufficient. If you're too busy to capture those and send them in, then why are you trying to lead a migration between two very different operating systems, anyways?

there turned out to be TONS of industry specific applications, and they were mostly not portable
I hope that wasn't a surprise to you...

The first one we'd really counted on Wine; we'd worked out how to use every application that they said they needed in Wine, and we deployed it based on that. They were wrong, basically,
Could you clarify who are you are ferring to by "they"? Do you mean your client, or the wine people? Or some other they that excludes you?

For that matter, which part was wrong, the method or the application list? Did the client perhaps spring some applications on you that you weren't expecting?

This was in 2004, so not exactly state of the art, but the target Windows was 98, so we'd thought it was a safe bet.
I can tell you from personal experience that wine has come a long way since 2004. I had a lot of applications that I was trying to run on my FreeBSD box that did not work in wine in 2004 that now work. A lot of capabilities that were previously missing are now available.

And FreeBSD is one OS that generally gets next-to-no attention from the wine people

I'd be happy to use a Wine that delivered reliably, and maybe I'll spend some more time playing with 1.0
I think you could do us both a favor by spending some time with 1.0 to begin with. Really, any amount of time would be "more time" than none.

Though really, if you want a professional deployment of wine, why haven't you tried the commercial version? If you're willing to dish out money on terminal server, I don't see why you would be afraid to dish out money for wine.

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

Sure, it's Microsoft's fault that Windows doesn't encourage safe permissions by default.

No, it's not, because Windows *does* have safe permissions by default - it's just the default user on some installations has elevated privileges.

[...] and it's STILL wrong in Vista

How so ?

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

No, it's not, because Windows *does* have safe permissions by default

If that were true, the default permission level would not be Administrator unless you go out of your way to reconfigure it.

How so ?

The default permission level for new users in Vista is still Administrator: Not sane.

And thank god!

[crhylove]

It is REALLY good that utorrent 1.5 works so well under wine, because none of the Linux torrent programs are even remotely as good.

Re:And thank god!

[V!NCENT]

Seriously, all a torrent program does is download and write to the fs... Never had a problem with Bittornado and kTorrent. You can set the speeds and it doesn't crash... so what is so superbly great about uTorrent that makes you want to run a Windows program under Linux?

Re:And thank god!

[ArsonSmith]

It uses the super secret windows APIs that make things download faster over the internet.

Re:FINALLY!

[smittyoneeach]

Not when they're going with the reasonable assumption that Windows has given that user administrator rights by default. That's a design flaw at the OS level that developers are stupidly taking advantage of.

What is you, boss, a politician? It's reasonable or stupid: take your pick. ;)
A quality app targets a Limited Account, period.
This catch-me-screw-me game of hiding half the app in the Windows Registry, and other whacky nonsense (Do You Hear Me, Hewlett-Packard?!?!?!?), so that the user sees all manner of annoying errors when running sanely is the height of wrongheaded.

Re:This means what?

[A beautiful mind]

It looks as if though you're looking at wine and expect everything to just work, with no effort or expense on your part. The reality is that wine is a compatibility tool or a tool of interoperability. It isn't a 100% solution. If your whole infrastructure is built around windows systems and applications which generally use the API in less than mainstream ways, then by all means, stay on windows. Noone said that you'll be completely let off the hook for choosing a piss poor operating system in the first place. No, that's your shit. All wine is supposed to do is that if you compile against wine, you'll be able to run your program on windows and linux too, apart from providing a tool that can run windows applications in most cases, for free. If you need more than that, then pay for it.

You're acting like moving from windows to linux under wine would be the endgame. It isn't. It is the first step of a migration. Yes, migration costs, but not having an intermediate point between windows applications and linux applications would cost more.

Re:FINALLY!

[SBrach]

Joking aside Wine, Ndiswrapper, and the like are a step backwards for Linux in some respect. I use Linux, Windows, and OSX and honestly the majority of problems with Windows (2000-Vista) are caused by crappy drivers and even crappier applications. Whats the point of getting everyone to switch to Linux if we are still going to have to deal with all the crappy applications written in 1993.

I understand some hardware doesn't have drivers and some applications don't have Linux versions and people want to use their hardware and programs but where is the incentive for the producers of these products to support Linux if the open source community "makes it work" for them for free?

Not necessarily.....

[crhylove]

PLENTY of people have an old Win XP OEM disk that would legally give them the right to have a XP VM on their Linux distro. I in fact do not know one person over 10 years old that doesn't own SOME kind of Windows license from a previous computer purchase.

I'm sure there is something restricting in the latest Eulas, but LOTS of people bought a machine that came with XP, ME, 2000, or 98.... For those people, having a Windows VM that matched their license should be legit.

Re:Not necessarily.....

[Jurily]

Hi, I'm Jurily.

I in fact do not know one person over 10 years old that doesn't own SOME kind of Windows license from a previous computer purchase. You do now.

Re:Not necessarily.....

[Kalriath]

PLENTY of people have an old Win XP OEM disk that would illegally give them the right to have a XP VM on their Linux distro. I in fact do not know one person over 10 years old that doesn't own SOME kind of Windows license from a previous computer purchase. Fixed that for you. OEM licenses are bound to the PC they were bought with, as that's the condition of them giving you the special price on it.

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

Fact not supported by any evidence in the field. If that were the case, games on Linux would be as notorious for it. YHL, HAND.

Linux games are notorious for not existing. The tiny handful of Windows games ported to Linux don't even come _close_ to conclusive "evidence in the field" that developers wouldn't carry their bad Windows habits over to Linux.

There hasn't been any justification for typical Windows software to require Administrator-level privileges for a decade, yet developers have continued to do release broken software. Your only argument against this historical record is, basically, "but none of the handful of Linux games have done so".

Agreed, and.....

[crhylove]

Make sure to visit portableapps.com and get a copy of SumatraPDF, arguably the best PDF viewer I've ever used.

Oh, and yes, it works well under wine.... :)

WOW! Wine AND FF 3.0!??!

[crhylove]

On the same day! Every website I visit daily is completely slashdotted! This is like a geek perfect storm!

I'm downloading both..... As soon as I find mirrors that are still alive.

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

Linux games are notorious for not existing. The tiny handful of Windows games ported to Linux don't even come _close_ to conclusive "evidence in the field" that developers wouldn't carry their bad Windows habits over to Linux.

I think it's fair to include Wine in this. No, they aren't carrying their bad habits over from Windows.

There hasn't been any justification for typical Windows software to require Administrator-level privileges for a decade, yet developers have continued to do release broken software.

And there is zero reason for the default Windows install to make someone create a seperate, normal user account, and require passwords, which is the root cause of the problem.

Re:This means what?

[Bert64]

Those hardware related libraries you talk about are in effect drivers...
Which convert a changeable interface (hardware) into a fixed interface (the api)... In this case the changeable interface is changed to the underlying linux api instead of directly to a piece of hardware.

Dear Mr. Gates:

[bondjamesbond]

I think Excel 2003 is swell. I even think there is a demand for Excel on Linux. Could you pretty please with a cherry on top port Office 2007 and below to run natively on my Ubuntu 8.04 box? Thanks.

Love, Tux

P.S.
I think you're swell, too.

Re:Personally ...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm not sure what exactly you would do in their place.

They should do real market research in the business sector and see what companies are using VMs, remote desktops, etc. to enable, and how much it is costing them per seat. They should actually market themselves to big companies deploying alternate OS's, like IBM. They should, at very least, solicit feedback on their Website from business customers as to what programs would result in sales for them, without requiring those customers to promise to make a purchase in future; since at that point they've already lost the sale.

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

What is you, boss, a politician? It's reasonable or stupid: take your pick. ;)

It's reasonable for developers to take advantage of security flaws in an operating system, especially when they go long-unfixed, even if doing so is a stupid thing to do.

A quality app targets a Limited Account, period.

And a quality OS makes those by default. It doesn't matter if you and I know better. If the defaults suck, your average layman is going to use crap permissions and figure they're secure. If your average layman doesn't know better and don't care, what's the motivation for developers to get it right?

You can't implement security top-down and expect it to stick on it's own as an afterhtought, it has to be top down from the stop.

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

If that were true, the default permission level would not be Administrator unless you go out of your way to reconfigure it.

You are conflating two very different things. The permissions in the system and privilege level of the user.

The default permission level for new users in Vista is still Administrator: Not sane.

This is simply confirming your ignorance. An "Administrator" in Vista is simply someone who is allowed to elevate their privilege level. It is loosely equivalent to the "admin" group in OS X or the "wheel" group in UNIX.

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

I think it's fair to include Wine in this. No, they aren't carrying their bad habits over from Windows.

Am I fascinated at the twisted logic you need to muster up to equate "works in WINE" with "writing code not to needlessly require Administrator privileges".

And there is zero reason for the default Windows install to make someone create a seperate, normal user account, and require passwords, which is the root cause of the problem.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Re:This means what?

[SatanicPuppy]

They = the clients, of course. And yes, it was sprung on us, and it wasn't surprising, but the elevation of the problem to "unsolvable using our solution" was surprising. I posted all kinds of stuff at that time, regarding errors and possible solutions. These days I don't really use it, so I'm obviously not posting.

Looking at Codeweavers page, I'm not all that hopeful, even for the paid support. Still no IE6 (well, still buggy...Buggy is almost worse, complaint-wise), Jesus. IE is often a problem on all-linux deployments, because of IE only websites. Outlook still buggy, that's an issue because of all the managers and their unnatural love for Exchange. I don't actually care about Office myself, but no Access is a big deal for a lot of people...My distaste for Wine is nothing compared to my unending hatred of OpenOffice (though I have high hopes for IBM's Symphony fork).

And a lot of the top requests are games, which isn't all that thrilling. Itunes, Rhapsody.

And all these are HUGE products, not some proprietary product that they probably couldn't even get access to to attempt to make it run under Wine.

Re:FINALLY!

[Lee Cremeans]

Actually, the driver issues have been sorted and the HVR-1600 now works fine with both ATSC and NTSC. I've been using mine with MythTV for a few months now, and it works quite well.

FWIW, I'm using Debian testing, kernel 2.6.24 and the MythTV packages from debian-multimedia.org.

-lee

Re:FINALLY!

[BitZtream]

The use for 'binary emulator' in that statement is incorrect. As the grand parent post states, Wine Is Not an Emulator, which is where it gets its name from. Appearently they person who has added/editted the Synaptic package isn't really aware of what WINE really is. I have to fully agree with the parent post, as even though the text you posted is mostly correct, it is still wrong in at least one obvious way that makes many people still think 'emulator'.

Please read #1 on:

http://www.winehq.org/site/myths

And for anyone who still believes WINE is an emulator, please read #10 from the above URL. If you still don't believe it or don't understand #10, then call it what ever you want cause it doesn't matter to you anyway.

Re:FINALLY!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

You know, I read your post, and immediately thought you were trying to be funny. Instead, I find you've been modded +5 insightful! Whilst what you say would be insightful in an ideal world, I have to reply, "You MUST be joking!".

There are probably MILLIONS of programs written for Windows. Maybe a slight exageration, but maybe not. WINE is extremely useful to me for old, but still useful programs, that may have been written in VB6 or whatever. I personnaly have 4 such apps that will only run under Windows (or emulation), or WINE.

I use WINE whenever I can, it's easier and cleaner for me than emulation.

Just my 2c

Re:FINALLY!

[cheater512]

You can leave Portage out of it.

Its a very nice niche PM.
It will never really hit mainstream thus wont do any damage.

RPM does need to die though.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

You know, I read your post, and immediately thought you were trying to be funny. Instead, I find you've been modded +5 insightful! Whilst what you say would be insightful in an ideal world, I have to reply, "You MUST be joking!".

There are probably MILLIONS of programs written for Windows. Maybe a slight exageration, but maybe not. WINE is extremely useful to me for old, but still useful programs, that may have been written in VB6 or whatever. I personnaly have 4 such apps that will only run under Windows (or emulation), or WINE.

I use WINE whenever I can, it's easier and cleaner for me than emulation.

Just my 2c

I certainly was not joking. But I am not referring to the legacy software that is already out there, rather, I want to see developers write _new_ applications for Linux. We don't need Photoshop 7 on Linux, we need Photoshop CS4 (whenever that will be) on Linux.

Re:FINALLY!

[hairyfeet]

Because otherwise it gives Windows an even better lock-in? I have switched a couple of SMBs to Linux and I have long since given up switching home users and most businesses except for the older "giveaway" computers that I get from SOHOs and SMBs updating their hardware which I give to single moms and charities. Why? Because in the SOHO and SMB cases there is always 1 mission critical app that HAS to run for the business to function and that is always a Windows only app. Which is one of the reasons I keep Xandros 4 Business with the latest Crossover installed on my laptop. That way I can try any mission critical apps in Crossover before I even THINK about suggesting Linux.

And in the home users case it is always those damned cheapy Lexmark/HP/etc "Winprinters" or even worse the ever popular all-in one Winprinter/scanner/fax that is pointless to even try to convert. If there was a Ndiswrapper equivalent for printers there would be a huge amount of home users that I could easily convert to Linux. Most of these simply check email,surf,print their pictures,etc and would be perfect candidates for Linux,but those damned Winprinters get you every time.

IMHO the easier we make it for users to have their "must have" apps and hardware the better it will be for us all. The Linux market will grow larger, we will get more and more machines like the EEE with Linux preinstalled,and most importantly,the hardware and software manufacturers might actually start paying attention and make native solutions so in the future we won't HAVE to have things like Wine and Ndiswrapper. But that is my 02c from down here in consumer land,YMMV

Re:FINALLY!

[smittyoneeach]

It's reasonable for developers to take advantage of security flaws in an operating system, especially when they go long-unfixed, even if doing so is a stupid thing to do.

I'm from the "you're part of the problem, or part of the solution" school of thought on this one.

Re:FINALLY!

[jmorris42]

If you are developing in PHP I'd guess your app is a pretty simple graphical app and doesn't have hooks into the OS, especially if it runs in Wine. So packaging a native Linux version should not be a problem.

Step one, create a generic RPM with as few dependencies as possible. If the size isn't totally insane just static link the sucker. Put it in a yum repo on your site along with a repo package. Give users instructions on how to add in the repo. Now you get to automagically upgrade them as you release new versions and with a little effort you can cover all yum/rpm distros. rpm based distros without yum can still manually install the rpm.

You can stop there if you like since .deb based systems always include the ability to install an rpm via alien/etc. since the LSB mandates rpm package support. But a little more effort would get you a Debian package in a repo so Debian/Ubuntu users get the automagic update love also.

So that should cover Fedora, RHEL & clones, SUSE, Debian plus Ubuntu & it's growing offspring and thus cover 90% of real world users. Toss in a tarball for anybody who might complain they were left out.

The Windows Installshield way only looks easier, long term it is a nightmare because it doesn't provide for auto updates so everybody gets to reinvent that wheel.

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[sick_soul]

codeweavers _are_ the main wine developers.
There are no real boundaries between the company and the free software project;
this is in my opinion the cause of the divergence between
the community-perceived goals of wine, and the real ones, which are far
less far-reaching than I would like.

Re:Personally ...

[pavon]

CodeWeaver routinely does contract work with companies to improve support for specific applications, which sounds exactly like what you are talking about.

Kudos all around!

[lord_mike]

And special thanks to Microsoft, who slowed down their development and release time so much that it allowed the Wine developers to catch up. I remember in the 90's, Wine developers were significantly hampered by Microsoft continuously adding core components and often completely changing how Windows worked. Now that Windows has been essentially stable for so many years, Wine's been able to catch up. Ever since Gates left Microsoft day-to-day operations, the company has been really blowing it. Thanks to their delays and incompetence, they've lost a significant competitive edge... their OS, their key product that locks customers in, can now be effectively cloned by anyone. Good for us! Bad for Microsoft... no tears shed here!

Re:FINALLY!

[nschubach]

The PM that works on all distros will win. That's competition. Take the load off the developer in figuring out what distro they are on and let the installer put files where they need. It could also set flags for the program being installed to locate appropriate locations to save and load information from.

At least, that's what I'm rooting for.

Re:FINALLY!

[nschubach]

At least wait for Wine 1.0 SP1. That's the norm, right?

Re:FINALLY!

[Voltaire759]

Using wine is a stop-gap measure for running Windows apps on Linux. All users of wine (and I am one) should write to their applications' developers and let them know that they would like native Linux support. Yes, please send a letter to Microsoft....

Re:Personally ...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

CodeWeaver routinely does contract work with companies to improve support for specific applications, which sounds exactly like what you are talking about.

Actually, what I'm talking about it soliciting feedback from potential business customers and using that to decide what programs to focus upon. Their current scheme only allows pledges of money for a given application, useless for mainstream business (as I described above). Right now I'm sure hundreds of companies evaluate CrossOver for use with one or more applications, reject it as not yet there, find there is no easy way to tell CodeWeavers what application's lack of support cost them a number of sales, and move on.

Meanwhile CodeWeavers waits for individuals looking for a game to play or the lone contractor looking to dump their Windows box, then spends their time on said applications, pretty much ignoring those larger missed opportunities. This is probably one of the reasons why, despite the greatly lower price of Crossover, VMs running Windows are a much, much more popular solution in the business world.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Because otherwise it gives Windows an even better lock-in? I have switched a couple of SMBs to Linux and I have long since given up switching home users and most businesses except for the older "giveaway" computers that I get from SOHOs and SMBs updating their hardware which I give to single moms and charities. Why? Because in the SOHO and SMB cases there is always 1 mission critical app that HAS to run for the business to function and that is always a Windows only app. Which is one of the reasons I keep Xandros 4 Business with the latest Crossover installed on my laptop. That way I can try any mission critical apps in Crossover before I even THINK about suggesting Linux.

And in the home users case it is always those damned cheapy Lexmark/HP/etc "Winprinters" or even worse the ever popular all-in one Winprinter/scanner/fax that is pointless to even try to convert. If there was a Ndiswrapper equivalent for printers there would be a huge amount of home users that I could easily convert to Linux. Most of these simply check email,surf,print their pictures,etc and would be perfect candidates for Linux,but those damned Winprinters get you every time.

IMHO the easier we make it for users to have their "must have" apps and hardware the better it will be for us all. The Linux market will grow larger, we will get more and more machines like the EEE with Linux preinstalled,and most importantly,the hardware and software manufacturers might actually start paying attention and make native solutions so in the future we won't HAVE to have things like Wine and Ndiswrapper. But that is my 02c from down here in consumer land,YMMV

This is _exactly_ the reason that I insist that we write to the software developers and request Linux support. It's that one last app that ruins the party. I would actually appreciate if you posted here which particular apps have help you back in the past, or which apps you know are problematic to find Linux replacements for. If you don't want to post here, you can leave me a message at the http://dotancohen.com/ website. Thanks.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Yes, please send a letter to Microsoft... I would expect a wittier response with a username such as yours.

Re:FINALLY!

[Baloo Ursidae]

I'm from the "you're part of the problem, or part of the solution" school of thought on this one.

So am I. If you're defending Windows as a platform, you're part of the problem.

Re:FINALLY!

[smittyoneeach]

The nicest thing I have to say about Redmond is nothing whatsoever.

Re:FINALLY!

[David Gerard]

The main use of Wine is for that old piece of Windows crapware you rely on and you can't even find the developers, let alone ask them to free it. "If only this one app would run on Linux, I could move ..." With Wine, they can.

Re:FINALLY!

[mrsteveman1]

Win by what end date? Deb and RPM have been around for years now.

What you are suggesting is that rational people will see one as better and switch. That doesn't happen. People aren't rational in choosing a linux distro most of the time.

There isn't even enough difference between most of them to justify their existence, and yet they continue on because a sufficient number of people use the one they love and refuse to entertain the idea that something else might be better.

Re:FINALLY!

[mrsteveman1]

You know, most commercial printers also happen to support OS X as well as Windows, and OS X uses CUPS, but its likely that some of them still use nonstandard drivers on OS X too.

Although, Apple does bundle drivers for most major printers on the install CD for Leopard, perhaps those are proprietary and not postscript?

Re:FINALLY!

[walshy007]

and why, exactly, does rpm need to die? the very same could be said of deb files, yum and apt-get, they're respective package managers both functionally work the same, user says get this, they resolve all dependencies and get it, install it, and done.

Also, I think having at least two of them would be optimal, at least then they're trying to one-up the other one, a little friendly competition is never a bad thing.

In regards to packaging, I agree that a project shouldn't need to make packages for every platform around, that's why if your popular enough, you get the people who use that distro to package and maintain the package on their distro. Then it can be added to the central repository and checked against dependencies in that repo and made to all work fine, with no effort from yourself as the software developer.

Re:FINALLY!

[Kalriath]

The Windows Installshield way only looks easier, long term it is a nightmare because it doesn't provide for auto updates so everybody gets to reinvent that wheel. Incorrect. InstallShield installers can also package InstallShield Update Manager, which is an app which upgrades all InstallShield based application installations on the system which support it. Most devs are too lazy to write the INI file and tick the box to support it though.

Re:FINALLY!

[SBrach]

Did you miss something? The question I asked was, what is the software developers incentive to port an app to Linux that everyone is running in Wine? I will repeat myself. Wine and the like make it capable for everyone to switch to Linux AND keep the crappy "mission critical" apps. Wouldn't it be a better idea to create a native app with the desired functionality then port over the crappy app that is part of a large percentage of Windows bad name?

Re:FINALLY!

[Khyber]

If I may say - You "correctly coded" a program, hence why Wine ran it. Many programs do not run because they were not properly programmed, and use odd tricks that aren't in the spec to make things work, and WINE can't handle it. I'd submit a list but you likely have one of your own.

Re:FINALLY!

[Khyber]

Does this mean I could take the entire DirectX/D3DDSound system DLL files from my windows install give them to WINE and it will use those? Would that help at all with compatibility?

Re:FINALLY!

[ChrisMP1]

but where is the incentive for the producers of these products to support Linux if the open source community "makes it work" for them for free?

True, but these things are necessary. Thank god for ndiswrapper, that the $600 computer I just bought isn't a $600 brick.

For all you pedantic idiots out there (may you saponify in your grammatically-correct graves), I know that it isn't _truly_ a brick -- it turns on -- but I couldn't use it without Wifi and I wouldn't use it with Windows.

Re:FINALLY!

[Gavagai80]

Funny how Google Earth manages to releaes one single linux binary, then. People will prefer to have packages, but they'll be fine with installing a worthwhile program without them.

Re:FINALLY!

[darkwhite]

What harm?

Hundreds of open- and closed-source software projects release code on a fast-paced schedule and are supported by PM developers very promptly with no problems at all. It's a beautiful system that continues evolving in a way proprietary apps will never be able to, and test driving new features and integration opportunities all the time.

What harm?

Re:FINALLY!

[hairyfeet]

Oh that is easy,and I'll be happy to list them for you. With the SOHOs and especially the SMBs, it is usually a custom cooked up VB app. Those are bad enough I am going to give the trial version of Real Basic a spin to see if I can natively compile a VB app to work on Linux. Even if it works though,at $400 I would have to charge more than my market could bear to buy it. I have looked and tried to find a native way to run VB code,but so far no luck. The few times I tried asking on the forums about it I got that "get that VB stink out of here!" elitism. But for the SMBs VB and MS Office are the engines that the business runs on. I have had about a 50/50 luck when it comes to running the IE6 Intranet ActiveX based websites that many small offices have to use to interact with the head office,such as Allstate or DirectTV. I have also found many parts stores use an IE6 ActiveX based webpages for parts ordering and credit checks. But the native VB would help an awful lot. It really is the tool that allowed the SMBs to have custom software. So you see that sadly there isn't any company to ask,it is just a need to get past VB elitism,which is weird seeing how it is still the number 3 business language even though MSFT tried to kill it.

And for the home users two words: GAMES and WINPRINTERS! Even the ladies who look down on game playing love Age of Empires. While I can get it to work in Wine,the problem with Wine is it is just too geeky and CLI for your average home user. Which is why I usually show my SOHO and SMBs Crossover. The second you go to CLI,the presentation is over and you've lost. Most of these people don't even know that Windows HAS a CLI.

But the biggest reason I gave up on trying to convert home users,and why I only have one laptop out of four machines running Linux myself,is those damned Winprinters. I got a really nice brand new Lexmark all in one given to me by a SOHO whose husband bought her a laser printer for her birthday. I spent a week in hell trying to get that thing working in Linux before I just gave up. And it never seems to fail,when I make a housecall or someone brings their machine to me and I look in the task bar,there is the stupid cheapo Lexmark/HP Winprinter driver. And you will never get a customer to throw out a printer that they are perfectly happy with just so you can stick them on an OS they've never heard of.

I'm sorry about the length,and I hope this helps. But for business it is VB and an easy way to use those weird little proprietary apps,along with access to the IE6 ActiveX Intranet app. For home users it is mainly games and Winprinters. Most of the others,like those funky webcams I can usually find a work around,but an easy way to run their favorite games,along with a "clicky clicky next next next"(I swear I actually got that from a customer!) way to use their Winprinters with a big extra point for those damned Lexmark all in ones that pretty much rule the home market here. IMHO Vista and the probability that Win7 is going to be subscription based Vista means Linux has a real shot if they can get the few things that folks use most to work. But that is my 02c,YMMV

Re:FINALLY!

[hairyfeet]

What about all the VB apps? You really think an SMB can afford to port all of those,especially since most of the time the guy that wrote it is long gone? What about all those customers that have invested huge amounts of money in software that was made by a company that has been bought out/out of business/etc? I will have to take a customers new machine that came with XP SP3 and wipe it and install XP SP2 because his Xres 3,which he bought before it was released in '96 and which he has probably spent over $1000 in add-ons for, works in SP2 but dies with a weird unable to access xres .swp error.

While I am all for choice,I am also a realist. Those companies need those VB apps to survive,and would cost more to have someone rebuild it from scratch than they can afford. And my customer uses Xres 3 for his livelihood. There is no way I could just tell him "learn Gimp". So while it would be great if all the software and hardware had a native Linux version,the odds of getting it ain't good. You have to deal with what you have. Believe me,MSFT would just love it if everyone kept an elitist attitude in the Linux communities and didn't cook up a way for these "must haves" to work. That way they can just keep giving XP last minute stays and coast. And I know you weren't being elitist and I do agree with you,but there are simply way too many little weird apps that will never be cooked up for Linux. But that is my 02c,YMMV

No

[Max Littlemore]

because someone will surely remove your fingers for typing that question on /. instead of checking somewhere more appropriate...

Re:FINALLY!

[sonofusion82]

I have a list of tens of software house and their contact info, for writing to software developers. Please, if you use wine, at least write to the application developers and let them know that there is demand for their products on Linux. Whether the apps work in wine or not. Is microsoft on that contact list? While their recent OSes isn't great, they do make pretty Microsoft Office (in terms of usability and features) although I don't really agree with OOXML.

Re:FINALLY!

[dbIII]

This is simply confirming your ignorance ... It is loosely equivalent to the "admin" group in OS X or the "wheel" group in UNIX.

Insulting someone for a bad analogy and then adding in another one - oh well, it can't be helped due to the differences. Unfortunately Administrator in MS Windows is unlike any other user based security model even to the extent where users can lock Administrator out of things.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:FINALLY!

[Daengbo]

Wow, Dr. Smithy, this comment and the one below are so antagonistic and insincere that I actually believe you're trolling. Still, I'll explain what you "don't get."

1. Windows XP set up the default user as an administrator with elevated privileges by default. Since few users have more than one account,
   • They have complete access to their entire system.
   • The developer probably has complete access to the system as the only user.
   • The are, therefore, no or few bugs related to permissions during testing from the 99.99% of users above.
   • As a result, there are a large number of Windows games (basically all of them before WinXP) which require system access and admin rights.
   • BONUS: From your other comment, this default user didn't need a password.
2. Linux desktops, on the other hand, don't run as root. Lindows tried it some time back, and got eaten alive for that. Some distributions don't even have the capability to log in as root. This means that:
   • Users have an unprivileged account.
   • Developers also have an unprivileged account.
   • Any developer who decided to log in as root and make an application which required system access would be flooded with complaints from the 99.99% of users which don't run as root.
   • As a result, no games in Linux (and there are quite a few) require admin rights. Windows programs running under wine don't require them, either.

This, my friend, is how choice of default permissions affects the software environment. I really think you already understand that, though.

Irfanview as well

[cbhacking]

Irfanview (http://irfanview.com) also advertises that it works under Wine. From the FAQ:

Q: Can I use IrfanView on Linux?
A: Yes. There is no native-Linux version of IrfanView. However, you can use IrfanView in conjunction with Linux programs like WINE, Windows Linux emulators and Linux-based virtual machines.

It would be great to see more of this kind of thing.

No, I'm not affiliated with Irfanview in any way other than being a long-time user.

Re:Irfanview as well

[David Gerard]

"It would be great to see more of this kind of thing."

Contact the developers of FOSS/freeware/shareware apps for Windows and ask them to advertise their stuff works under Wine, if it does. And if it doesn't, work with them to get it to!

Re:FINALLY!

[Eskarel]

I'm going to tell you a secret. If you're the only person using your computer it doesn't matter if you run as admin or not. You can run your linux system as Root and it won't make the slightest bit of difference(so long as you're the only person using it).

The reason for this is the fact that the OS is trivially easy to install and set up, even a Gentoo system can be installed from scratch in less than a day and that's probably the worst case scenario for installation and setup.

The stuff that really matters is your own personal stuff, which in every OS imaginable your own user has the access to destroy. All the information you have that's worth stealing, everything that's valuable and hard to replace was created by your own user admin or otherwise. The state of your OS doesn't matter if your stuff is gone. You don't even have to be root to run a spam daemon in Linux(so long as you don't try to open a port Not running as admin is only really important in shared environments. If you lose your files, that shouldn't necessarily mean that everyone else loses there's too, but most desktops don't run this way, linux or otherwise. Very few shared family PC's will have separate data and program stores for each user, and as previously said anything that's yours you can write to and can destroy, encrypt, automatically upload to a web address, change permissions on and execute, and therefor anything that's taken over your system can do the same.

That's not to say that linux isn't more secure than windows, merely that for a single user PC running as admin doesn't really make a lot of difference.

Pick Ubuntu, Red Hat and SuSe.

[jotaeleemeese]

Or depending on the nature of your app one or two of those.

Or distribute as tar.gz bundle (with all the necessary libraries).

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Two works "Fuck them" go with what most people use. Windows?

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Thanks. While I know about the games / printers problems, I did not realize that VB is so critical. I will start looking for solutions. As for ActiveX, well, I do not think that there will ever be a real solution. At least on the public internet ActiveX usage is on the decline.

Re:FINALLY!

[Doug Neal]

wine sucks.... never worked 100% and never will

the same can be said of Windows.... And pretty much all software that's ever been made.

Re:FINALLY!

[cafard]

In that case though, there are packages that download the binary and package it properly (see http://packages.debian.org/testing/misc/googleearth-package).

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

Insulting someone for a bad analogy and then adding in another one - oh well, it can't be helped due to the differences.

How is the analogy bad ?

Unfortunately Administrator in MS Windows is unlike any other user based security model even to the extent where users can lock Administrator out of things.

No, it's just not like UNIX. It is like other ACL-based permissions systems. Further, Administrator in Vista is different to Administrator in earlier releases of Windows NT.

Re:FINALLY!

[drsmithy]

1. Windows NT only has the default user as Administrator in unmanaged (ie: not an Active Directory Domain) environments. I think it's fair to say that a majority - or at the very least a significant proportion - of Windows software developers will be working in managed environments. Therefore, they would have had to manually and deliberately been elevated to Administrator-level.

2. The default user configuration does not, in any way, shape, or form, excuse developers from not following basic best practices like "least privilege".

That a significant proportion of Windows software still requires Administrator privileges to run, is 100%, utterly and completely, the blame of software developers. This is even more evident when one fires up something like filemon or regmon and observes that the only reason elevated privileges are needed is because the software is doing boneheaded things like writing to files in its application directory, or to system areas of the Registry.

Which brings me to my ultimate point that - given the above - there is little reason to think that these same idiots won't do the same stupid things when they're writing software for Linux.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

And in the home users case it is always those damned cheapy Lexmark/HP/etc "Winprinters" or even worse the ever popular all-in one Winprinter/scanner/fax that is pointless to even try to convert. HP? HP has there hplip and hpijs and they work fine. Which HP printer have you had trouble with?

...but those damned Winprinters get you every time. So write to the printer manufacturers! Here is Lexmark:
http://support.lexmark.com/

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Did you miss something? The question I asked was, what is the software developers incentive to port an app to Linux that everyone is running in Wine? I will repeat myself. Wine and the like make it capable for everyone to switch to Linux AND keep the crappy "mission critical" apps. Wouldn't it be a better idea to create a native app with the desired functionality then port over the crappy app that is part of a large percentage of Windows bad name? So tell them that! Write to the devs and let them know that there is demand for their product on Linux. If you stay quiet, they will never know that you want Linux support.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

Is microsoft on that contact list?
While their recent OSes isn't great, they do make pretty Microsoft Office (in terms of usability and features) although I don't really agree with OOXML. No, I have not written to Microsoft. Though I will tell you the truth, I would pay for MSO 2007 if it ran natively in Ubuntu and saved in ODF. I really like the ribbon interface, and I am not a FOSS purist. I do, however, care that my documents themselves are not in a proprietary format even if the program that I am using at the moment is proprietary.

So what was the 1.0 criteria?

[mike_sucks]

After looking on the Wine site, I can't find what makes this release 1.0? Did they completely implement a particular set of APIs or what?

/Mike

Wine under Cygwin

[Lobais]

It is actually listed under "Fun Projects" as "Almost Compiles" and "In Progress" (even though not updated for six years)
http://www.winehq.org/site/fun_projects#virtualization

Re:FINALLY!

[Kjella]

HP? HP has there hplip and hpijs and they work fine. Which HP printer have you had trouble with? HP looks pretty good but there's still some on the paperweight/unknown list.

Re:FINALLY!

[TheRaven64]

And does Autopackage let you build things that can be easily turned into FreeBSD or OpenBSD ports? Installed in a Gentoo system? Turned into pkgsrc packages or installed on [Open]Solaris?

Re:FINALLY!

[secondhand_Buddah]

And with new Windows apps.
I've written several enterprise apps using Delphi (Object Pascal) using Zeoslib (http://sourceforge.net/projects/zeoslib) running under WINE.
The combination of Native binaries and the complied open source database layer has meant that my apps run fine on both Windows and Wine into numerous databases.
WINE has run remarkably well in these environments without having to have resorted to any non standard development and without any compromise. I would certainly recommend this combination of tools to anyone looking to develop powerful cross platform apps without any compromise.

Re:Bah! I'll wait for version 3

[peragrin]

well that explains a lot actually. if duke Nukem is going to run on HURD then the developers have been trying to finish HURD enough to make that possible.

All nice, but....

[Foske]

Does it run linux ?

Re:FINALLY!

[JasterBobaMereel]

No! No not autopackage - it's a just bunch of scripts that make assumptions about the filesystem which may not be true, cannot correctly determine the dependencies (no matter what Autopackage claims) I have been burnt by Autopackage too often (they never seem to work and leave debris in some very odd places...)

Use either DEB or RPM ... Alien can convert it to other formats and the native package manager can sort out dependencies far better ....

Hidden benefits.

[argent]

I use Windows firefox because I am on FreeBSD and there is no flash player for FreeBSD.

I use Flashblock because I am on OS X and there is a flash player for OS X.

What?

I was talking about the AOL online service client, not AOL instant messager. That is AOL 9.0.

You just destroyed all my illusions about FreeBSD fans. Thanks a bunch.

Re:FINALLY!

[c-reus]

depends on your definition of "100% working"

Re:FINALLY!

[ozmanjusri]

have a look at Zero Install. It solves most of the problems you've mentioned.

Re:FINALLY!

[LingNoi]

That's the most retarded thing I have read today. Of course it matters if you're running in a root account or not. Anything could get installed on your system then you're:

1) getting a police on your doorstep because they want to know why you are:
          a) hosting kiddie porn
          b) DDOSing a US army base
          c) Downloading Software/Music/Movies
2) losing bandwidth to people that are using your computers for servers which could cost you hundreds of dollars in going over limits
3) getting your passwords stolen via a key logger which will then dig into your email, etc

When The Heck Will OpenGL Get Fixed?

[rsmith-mac]

While I'd love to love WINE, I'm absolutely dismayed at the status of the Mac OS X version of it. The basics work but currently OpenGL is completely and entirely busted. Due to some kind of linker error OpenGL doesn't work, which means Direct3D doesn't work and as a result you can't use WINE to play games.

Does anyone know what's going on? In spite of the main project having adopted the DarWINE fork back in to the main tree, it seems like the OS X version of WINE is getting the shaft here for no particularly good reason.

Super Secret?

[crhylove]

I don't really know why, but it is MUCH faster at downloading torrents than any of the native Linux clients I've tried.

Re:Super Secret?

[V!NCENT]

Have you tried changing the upload bandwith?

Re:FINALLY!

[Enoxice]

I actually saw an app that did that last week! For the first time ever. I booted up the machine and a little notification popped up that said InstallShield Updater detected updates. I had no idea wtf that meant so I clicked the notification balloon and sure enough some third-party program had an update available.

Of course, the updater promptly froze after I chose to install the update, but that's probably because it was offsite at work on a terribly old computer.

Re:FINALLY!

[msromike]

The same can be said of anything. Whether it is true or not is the issue. Don't leet that stop you. It is obvious Windows is succesful. Try coming at it from anothe angle.

Whatever next

[Zoxed]

> Wine 1.0 -- Uncorked After 15 Years

Yikes; that is great news. Perhaps HURD will also be released soon ?

If Only It Were So....

[encoderer]

Are we talking about the same Wine?

If WINE was anywhere near a complete, OS implementation of Win32 then you'd be on to something.

But it's not. Not even close. And it's not WINE's fault, the Win32 API is both huge and complex. Even if you somehow get past the fact that much of Win32 is not documented, or barely documented, you also have to deal with large, popular apps using undocumented "features" of the API.

But it doesn't matter WHY it's not a real replacement, it just matters that it is.

WINE, without a windows-install somewhere on the box, is basically useless for all but a handful of targeted applications and dirt-simple apps that call only the most popular Win32 methods. With a windows install on the box it's better, but still nowhere close to thorough. Though it's hardly a threat to the monopoly if you have to have a copy of Windows installed.

If you ask me, what that means is that the OSS community gets none of the benefit that you're describing.

And I think on balance it actually harms OSS: Imagine the CEO or Director of SomeSoftwareCo, Inc who decides that Linux should be supported.

It's not far fetched to envision a midlevel PHB who decides that, hey, we don't need to create a native Linux version of our app to run on Linux, because WINE is now 1.0!

This is the stuff PHB's salivate over: He can sell his management on the idea that the company product now runs on Linux but thanks to the PHBs genius tens-of-thousands in development costs were saved.

Net Effect: Windows Software still requires Windows, less Linux Software is written as uninformed managers decide that WINE is their own personal platform panacea.

I love rTorrent, but there are real problems.

[TerranFury]

I love rTorrent; it's my choice as well. But it does have some serious issues stemming from basic design decisions. I'll talk about those in the first half of my post; in the second I'll ask what we really like so much about rTorrent anyway.

Here's rTorrent's problem: The original rTorrent devs made a decision to do all file IO using writable shared memory maps. This is somewhat faster than "normal" file IO, but it creates a number of problems.

Problem 1: rTorrent can't download as many chunks simultaneously as other clients.
Every chunk that's open is mapped in memory, taking up space (in memory of course, but also in address space). This adds up, and ends up meaning that there's actually a relatively low upper bound on the number of chunks rTorrent can simultaneously download. That means rTorrent is great when you're downloading a few torrents from a few fast seeds (and this saturates your pipe), but if you try to download lots of torrents simultaneously from many slow seeds, it won't be able to! Unfortunately, this is the real bottleneck for all but the most popular torrents, not your CPU speed!

Problem 2: rTorrent is incompatible with a number of popular filesystems.
Obviously, rTorrent is incompatible with filesystems which do not support shared writable memory maps. In particular, it does not work with FUSE. This is especially a problem because it means rTorrent does not work with ntfs-3g -- which is an issue for many people with large external USB drives.

So what makes rTorrent good? I think the real answer is this: screen+rTorrent is easy, and it works. With this combination, it is very easy to set up a "remote torrent box" that you can ssh into. That's why I use it; it's wonderful for that.

Yet, I think this does not reflect well on rTorrent so much as it reflects poorly on other "parts of Linux."

Why do we like rTorrent? Because it runs on the console. Why do we like console apps? Because they work with screen. Why do we like screen? Because there is no good alternative for X clients.

There does exist a program called xmove which, when it was developed, aimed to be "screen for x clients." It works by acting as an "X proxy server" between the client and the real X server, and you can tell it to redirect to one X server or another. This is the obvious way to do it, and it would seem the right one. But in practice it does not work, because it cannot authenticate to X servers when you try to use ssh X forwarding. Basically, getting ssh, xmove, your x-server, and your x-client to cooperate is unwieldy and impractical. Someone who really understands X authentication could get it to work, I'm sure, but the cargo-cult "change this config file" solutions abounding on web forums either don't work or effectively disable X authentication, and xmove is no longer under development so the situation is unlikely to change. (And though it occurs to me to dig through the source code myself, I do not have the time to invest in learning the intricacies of X authentication!)

Now, you can use VNC software, but that's an ugly hack. Why on earth should I take screenshots of my programs and JPEG them when the whole goddamn point of X was to allow clients and servers to run on different machines? VNC is an ugly hack to get Win32 GUIs across a network; it's just an absurd extra layer on top of X.

The other alternative which might be worth considering is web interfaces for torrent clients; this achieves roughly the same thing as screen+rtorrent. uTorrent, for instance, has a nice one. However, methinx something is wrong when the authors of programs start duplicating their GUIs in web interfaces. We want to get a GUI across the network? That's what X is for. And if X cannot gracefully handle unreliable connections, then there's something wrong with the way we work with X.

Re:FINALLY!

[MrNaz]

Dear Microsoft. I have recently moved to Linux, and have noticed that I am now having to run MS Word and MS Excel under Wine. Please can you add native Linux support to your office suite. Kthnx.

Wine is more secure than Windows

[flyingfsck]

There is also an enormous security difference, since virtualization retains all the security, virus, trojan and spyware claptrap of Windows.

Re:FINALLY!

[BitZtream]

Oh I have the time ... Its just that this is slashdot and I'm a lazy slob ( the latter being the real reason of course) :)

Point taken, I disagree with the statement, but I also don't think that emulation in the sense we're refering too here means the same as the dictionary definition, as such, technically I'm incorrect, but only in everyone elses mind. :)

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

I had never even heard of the ThinkJet. Sounds like an IBM laptop - HP printer crossbreed. Don't feed it after midnight.

Re:FINALLY!

[hairyfeet]

Actually the ActiveX isn't usually the problem. Like I said Crossover is really good about running IE6 which is what most of these companies use on the Intranet. The VB is the real stickler. Nearly every SOHO and SMB has a custom VB app that keeps up with clients or in some other way makes their life just a little easier. I'll admit I have done this in the past myself. I had a junkyard as a client once and I whipped off a little VB6 app that lets them keep track of cars and parts and will tell them the location of cars on a 64x64 grid. Even though I am a network and PC repairguy I was able to whip this off in a weekend just from the code I had left over from VB class and the VIC BASIC I still remembered from coding on the VIC 20 in the early '80s. So for a SOHO or SMB Visual Basic really is a "must have". If there was an Open Source IDE that would let me write VB in Linux that would be a Godsend,but even just a way to run Windows compiled VB apps would be a great plus.

And for the home users a very simplistic free GUI that ran on top of Wine would be like Manna from Heaven. It is hard to get a user to shell out for Crossover when "Windows is free". Heck,just a hook that would catch a cd autorun and let them do the "clicky clicky next next next" that they are used to would work wonders. And the only thing I could think of on the Winprinter situation is perhaps an Ndiswrapper for the Winprinter. After seeing what made up a Broadcom wireless "chipset",which is pretty much a wire and a single firmware chip the size of 1/4 of your pinky nail, I don't see why there isn't a way to catch the calls those Winprinters drivers make and send it to something like CUPS. Surely those Winprinters couldn't be any harder than getting all those weird funky wireless "chipsets" to work. But that is my 02c from down here in the trenches,YMMV

Open office self-incompatible

[ChrisMaple]

Create an oocalc file with 1.0. Save it.

Open it with oocalc 2.0. Make minor changes and save it in oocalc 1.0 format.

Open new file with oocalc 1.0. Watch oocalc crash.

...

Generally, if you create a spreadsheet with oocalc 2+, you have to save it in Excel format if you want oocalc 1.0 to open it. Why use 1.0? It's a lot more responsive.

Re:FINALLY!

[hairyfeet]

I'll be the first to admit that HP has gotten a LOT better,especially in the last couple of years. The only problems I've had lately is trouble with those funky memory stick readers/extra card readers/USB ports that you get on some of their bargain basement jobs. For the home users,who is just printing out the occasional photo,or the graphic artist down the hall who just uses his for the occasional blueprint the cheapy printers work wonderfully.

The 9th circle of hell is reserved for those that try to get those damned Lexmark all-in-one printers to work in Linux. Like I said,that is why I only have Linux on my laptop,because that thing was literally going to cause me to stroke out. And I HAVE written to them,more times than I can count. If you check some of the forums out there the attitude from Lexmark is pretty much "P*ss up a rope and die Linux user". And they can have that attitude for a reason: they completely rule the low end. I wouldn't give up my Lexmark all in one freebie because for the small amount of printing/scanning/faxing I do it works like a dream. But if you try to get it to work in Linux it is a nightmare from the darkest depths of hell.

And I know this is off-topic,but I have the karma I can afford to burn and this thing is about to cause me to blow a blood vessel. So here goes: Do we have any graphic artists here with exp in Xres 3 errors? I have gone crazy trying to find a fix for my customers bug and I'm at the end of my rope. He wanted to get XP before the cutoff so he had me build him an Athlon 4200+ single core with 2Gb of RAM and XP Home SP3. His laptop has XP Pro SP2 so when the Xres wouldn't run I figured it was an SP3 error,but when I installed XP Home SP2 from scratch it still crashes and burns. He tried run as a different user when I wasn't there(even though he is the admin) and managed to get an error about "unable to access C:/xres.swp",otherwise it crashes so fast all you get is a generic appcompat error. I have searched the net for hours and have come up with squat.

At this point the only thing I can tell him is to have me get him a KVM switch and a couple of 512Mb sticks for his WinME box and switch to it to run Xres 3. But I hate to give up when the damned thing runs on his XP laptop. I even tried copying the install from the laptop to the new PC and no dice. So if anyone has experience in this app and has even a clue as to what to do I would be grateful. I have never touched this program in my life and have never seen one work on a clean XP laptop and not on a desktop. Fell free to write here or email me if you have a clue. Thanks.

But I still miss Win4Lin 9x

[The MESMERIC]

Win4Lin 9x - the original one. Very fast, very good, perfect.

Does anyone know how to make it run on more recent kernels?

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

As ridiculous as this will sound, have you tried running the app in a virtual machine? I'm not familiar with Xres but it might be a better solution than perpetuating that ME box.

Re:FINALLY!

[hairyfeet]

Actually his WinME box runs beautifully. Shocking,I know. But he never installs anything and only has a half dozen graphics programs along with a couple of astronomy apps,and lucky for him it came with really solid WinME drivers,instead of hacked Win98 ones like most of the machines at the time did. The only problem is it is RAM starved at 256Mb,but he has a really nice for the time Athlon board which supports 2Gb. The problem with running Xres in a VM is it is just too graphics intensive,it is like trying to run a game in a VM.

So we have discussed it and he has decided to get a KVM switch and a couple of 512Mb sticks and have me set up his machines with a crossover so he can transfer working files back and forth. He has Photoshop,Corel Paint,Freehand,etc but for certain tasks that he is called on to do often(cutting ex wives/husbands out of photos,LOL) he says Xres 3 just beats the others hands down. Since I myself use a Belkin KVM and know how handy they are for multitasking I normally would have went for this solution right away,especially considering Xres 3 was released in 1996. But the fact that for some damned reason that stupid program runs like a charm on the XP Pro laptop just really bugs me. I know that the only real difference between XP Pro and Home is AD and remote group policy management. At least that was what some of my chat buddies on the MSDN forums told me. But anyway,thanks for trying. And if anyone else has an idea it'll be about two weeks before we can do the KVM so if anyone thinks of an idea feel free to message me here or email me. Thanks again.

Re:FINALLY!

[dotancohen]

At the risk of breaking the /. recursive comment record, I'm going to go very far out on this limb and ask: have you tried running the app in Wine under Linux?

Re:FINALLY!

[hairyfeet]

I'm afraid that in this case Linux wouldn't work,because he has a bunch of very proprietary graphics and laser etching software. Plus we are talking a serious hodgepodge of software going from 1996 to 2007. Frankly the thought of trying to get that much proprietary software to function is just too daunting for an amateur Linux guy like me. Plus Wine is way too CLI heavy for this customer. Like many of my customers he was shocked when I brought up Windows CLI because he believed that Windows didn't HAVE a CLI. This guy knows graphics software and old school circuit design:he doesn't want to learn anything more than is required on a PC.

Like I said in an earlier post I wouldn't have even brought it up here if it weren't for the fact that stupid software is running like a dream on his laptop. I just can't wrap my head around how the software will run perfectly on Win98/ME,it will run perfectly on Win2K(which I wish we could just switch to,but he has several XP only apps),and it will run perfectly on XP on the laptop. But for some damned reason it will not run on XP on the desktop. Hell I even ran benchmarking to make sure the hardware wasn't flawed,but nope:memory and everything else checked fine. I have never seen anything like it,it is just too damned weird. But like I said earlier we can work around it with a KVM hooked to the WinME box after it has been boosted to 1Gb in the RAM.

I will keep looking right up until the KVM gets here,because it would be really nice if he could run the 4200+ instead of the 1.2GHz in the WinME box. I was just hoping that as big a community as there is at Slashdot someone would know a little more about the software than me,which is squat. Thanks for your time though. I do appreciate it.

PARENT SHOULD BE MODDED FUNNY

[baka_toroi]

Come on, now...

No, that will never work. But WINE will.

[stoobers]

Well engineered project work well in the areas they were designed to work well.

The don't work in areas they were not designed to work.

The is the same for EVERYTHING! If a tech manual is intended to primarily be on the web, the printed version is always out of date, and vice-versa.

So unless the app is DESIGNED and WRITTEN in a multi-platform language like java or INTENDED TO BE RUN USING WINE, there won't really be cross platform support.

WINE is therefore not a stop gap. It is an end-result environment for cross-platform development.

Write your code to run under WINE, and it will work under both Windows and Linux.

Write your code for one or the other, and the porting process will result in "different" programs, which will have mismatched features and conventions.

If a primary goal is "cross-platform" support with almost no porting, java or WINE is the way to go. But the "primary" goals of the project are the only things likely to happen.

I think, in the future, we will see more of this mismatching and feature-missing crapola, because of the insurgence of web-apps. If a mainstream app like "Quickbooks" is ported to the web (which it should be), the application version will run differently than the stand-alone.

There can only be one! Parallel development is expensive, unnecessary and unless it is a primary goal, impossible to attain/maintain/etc.

Re:No, that will never work. But WINE will.

[dotancohen]

You have a good point regarding compiling for Wine. Please write to software developers and let them know that they can write their apps to compile on Wine, and they will be both Windows and Linux compatible with relatively little effort.