Apps That Officially Support Wine

David Gerard writes "Wine (the Windows not-an-emulator for Unix) runs Windows applications more often than not. (Certainly more often than Vista does.) Dan Kegel on the wine-users mailing list/forum has started gathering apps that declare Wine a supported platform. And there's now a Wine Support Honor Roll page on the Wine wiki. We need more apps that work with Wine stating that they consider it a supported platform. If you write Win32 open source or shareware, please open yourself to the wider market!"

Comments

Inaccurate?

[TrancePhreak]

There are probably more Vista users than Wine users, so I think the summary is inaccurate.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Certainly more often than Vista does."

This is what gives Slashdot a bad name: completely false (or exaggerated) negative statements in order to promote your own ideas.

I thought one of the premises of Slashdot is that it is unbiased when your news isn't. This kind of shit would be tolerable on Fox News, hopefully it never will be here.

Re:Inaccurate?

[RedK]

WOOOOOSH. He meant Wine is more compatible with Windows apps than Windows Vista is. He wasn't comparing the installed user base of each. Now his statement was an hyperbole meant to poke fun of Windows Vista breaking many apps when it got released and so it's probably not very accurate. It was meant as a joke. Your response should've been : Haha, moving along...

Re:Inaccurate?

[Ethanol-fueled]

Your comment might have been instead modded insightful instead of funny if the summary bashed XP instead of Vista.

So thanks a lot, jerk. Now I'll lie awake all night wondering,"Was that guy serious?"

Re:Inaccurate?

[fm6]

What does the number of users have to do with it? He's talking about Windows apps that run on WINE but not on Vista. And there are a lot of those, if you count apps that with features that are broken under Vista, and don't count apps that will run on Vista if you upgrade to the latest and greatest version.

Even so, he's probably exaggerating and/or overestimating. But the fact remains that there's a nasty degree of API incompatibility between Vista and previous versions of Windows. For example, if you have any version of Adobe Acrobat except the latest, you get a file system error if you try to write certain modifications out to disk. Basic I/O operations broken! That's pretty bad.

That said, I'm less then impressed by the list of "works on WINE" apps. The link is to a forum that mentions precisely two of them. That motivated somebody to start a wiki page with a list. There are maybe 20 very obscure apps on this page, and I'd be surprised if they don't all have Linux native alternatives.

When a major software vendor starts talking about WINE support, then we have a real trend. Not before.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought one of the premises of Slashdot is that it is unbiased when your news isn't. This kind of shit would be tolerable on Fox News, hopefully it never will be here.

Well, it's a kdawson post. He will post anything that sounds even a little bit sensationalist or bashes something that "true nerds" hate. Nobody knows why he is still /. staff.

Re:Inaccurate?

[RedK]

English is also not my first language. Sorry if my grammar melted your eyes or something.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, the number of users works the other way. As an app maker, I can guarantee you that I've received more complaints that my app doesn't work in Vista than complaints that my app doesn't work in Wine.

Re:Inaccurate?

[theheadlessrabbit]

from the perspective of a computer user (my sig should confirm that I am not a developer) perhaps this is because people expect windows apps to work in the windows world because, "we paid good money for this, it had better work"
while in the linux world, if an app doesn't work, i am not all that bothered by it, because its free, i paid nothing for it, i will forgive the occasional bug, and if it gets bad enough, there is an alternative out there that is also free.

In wine, having an app that was intended for an entirely different operating system actually work just blows my mind. i would never think to complain to the wine team that "x program won't work"

in windows, when an app fails, it is frustrating because I expect commercial software to be bug free.

(note to linux zealots: please don't mod this flamebait, did you notice how i said "IF a linux app fails" and "WHEN a windows app fails")

Re:Inaccurate?

[shish]

I thought one of the premises of Slashdot is that it is unbiased when your news isn't.

When did that happen o_O? Last time I looked at the FAQ, this was taco's personal blog, and he and his guest contributors did whatever they wanted with it ._.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Jamie's Nightmare]

Posted by kdawson

I could say more, but I think this quote speaks louder by itself.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is, one of my favorite games, System Shock 2, works just fine (for me) in WINE, while it has very shoddy performance in 2K/XP.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Achromatic1978]

And it's a David Gerard article - the guy is a professional Internet troll (responsible for such classy internet sites as lemonparty.org, yourmom.org, and k-k-k.com - don't visit), and part time Wikipedia admin/Wikimedia UK spokesperson (where his favorite pastimes are blocking entire US states for being sockpuppets of banned user, and so forth, this makes an amusing read). Why am I unsurprised?

Re:Inaccurate?

[ianare]

There's probably more Vista haters than people who even know what WINE is !!

Re:Inaccurate?

[bigjarom]

As someone who runs Wine and Vista, I have had more problems getting things to run under Wine than Vista; but I have had more problems overall with Vista than with Wine.

I believe that subby was confused on these points.

Re:Inaccurate?

[hvm2hvm]

Wasn't it just a joke? Certainly seemed like that to me.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really thought slashdot was supposed to be unbiased?? Huh, Well ... Uhm... there's something you should know about santa claus. You may want to sit down for this one.

Re:Inaccurate?

[SleepingWaterBear]

Even so, he's probably exaggerating and/or overestimating. But the fact remains that there's a nasty degree of API incompatibility between Vista and previous versions of Windows. For example, if you have any version of Adobe Acrobat except the latest, you get a file system error if you try to write certain modifications out to disk. Basic I/O operations broken! That's pretty bad.

I'm not so sure he's overestimating! Given how many years Windows XP and Windows 98 were aroung for, it's a safe bet that there are hundreds of times more apps for those two platforms than for Vista. A rather large fraction of those work in Wine. If a decent fraction of them don't work in Vista (and my understanding is that they don't), then just by number of apps Wine probably runs a lot more windows apps than Vista does.

Of course, the vast majority of the apps Wine runs that Vista doesn't are outdated, or have been replaced by newer version that do run in Vista, but for sheer numbers, I think it's a safe bet that Wine wins!

Re:Inaccurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

/. needs a healthy does of text book logic lessons. Categorical statements such as this not only remove any credibility from the article, they set a tone on /. that encourages more such statements, and so on. This sort of sophomoric drivel in the comments is to be expected, but it has no place in the submissions (at least not those which get green-lighted).

Re:Inaccurate?

[plantman-the-womb-st]

In wine, having an app that was intended for an entirely different operating system actually work just blows my mind. i would never think to complain to the wine team that "x program won't work"

Complaining that "x program" doesn't work yesterday, is why wine works today. The difference between complaining in the F/OSS world and complaining in the windows world:

Complaining in the World of Windows = getting at best a rebate on your next purchase, and it's STILL buggy and broken until the next realease.

Complaining in the F/OSS world = getting the problem FIXED.

Re:Inaccurate?

[the_womble]

"Certainly more often than Vista does." This is what gives Slashdot a bad name: completely false (or exaggerated) negative statements in order to promote your own ideas.

The GP makes an incorrect claim of inaccuracy because he misunderstood the summary (it is talking about application compatibility not user numbers) and gets modded (currently) "3 insightful"

That is what gives Slashdot a bad name

Re:Inaccurate?

[beav007]

In wine, having an app that was intended for an entirely different operating system actually work just blows my mind. i would never think to complain to the wine team that "x program won't work"

I think that when a common Win32 app doesn't work in Wine, it's not a bad idea to report it, so that they know, if for no other reason.

I think the more important side of the argument is whether you'd complain to a Windows app dev that their app doesn't work on Wine.

Re:Inaccurate?

[theheadlessrabbit]

Complaining in the F/OSS world = getting the problem FIXED.

i would absolutely love to believe that was the case, but I am forced to read slashdot in windows, because my wifi wont work in ubuntu, even with ndis wrapper. the reply i got was 'use ndis wrapper'
in the F/OSS world, my experience has been people who either mis-understand the problem, or ridicule me for not knowing how to code a solution myself, then they wonder why F/OSS doens't take off like it should.

Re:Inaccurate?

[ushering05401]

Huh, Well ... Uhm... there's something you should know about santa claus. You may want to sit down for this one.

Yeah, yeah... My parents tried this one on me. Don't fall for it user 1410247, there is a hole in the crotch of Santa's suit.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Inner_Child]

That said, I'm less then impressed by the list of "works on WINE" apps. The link is to a forum that mentions precisely two of them. That motivated somebody to start a wiki page with a list. There are maybe 20 very obscure apps on this page, and I'd be surprised if they don't all have Linux native alternatives.

Yeah, uTorrent is so obscure...

Other than that, though, pretty much spot on. Most of what's there is really specialized niche stuff, especially something like JWPce.

Re:Inaccurate?

[red crab]

Correct. That was where the First Post got me confused too. The summary meant that Wine can support more legacy Windows apps then probably Vista can. Where does the "user base" argument come here?

Re:Inaccurate?

[Inner_Child]

Hopefully nobody, I'm really liking Deluge, myself. But the point is that uTorrent is hardly an obscure app.

Re:Inaccurate?

[GF678]

When a major software vendor starts talking about WINE support, then we have a real trend. Not before.

It's not worth a major software vendor's time and money to have to support WINE. That includes ensuring it works for the current version (which software sometimes won't due to regressions), setting up technical support to support the WINE-supported version, etc. It would cause more headaches than it's worth for the fairly small number of customers who'd bother with WINE.

But... sometimes you get a surprise.

http://www.utorrent.com/download.php (note what platforms it supports)

OK, perhaps not a MAJOR vendor, but still a very popular (the most popular?) torrent client supports WINE, that's a promising sign.

Re:Inaccurate?

[timmarhy]

what kind of fucking retarded maths is that, wine has a fraction of the apps xp had so if a fraction of the apps don't work on vista is greater than the piddling amount supported by wine than wine is better?

a quick google of the situation shows these issues are all down to these apps requiring XP/98's poorly thought out security model, requiring access to system components and registry settings. If these software companies refuse to update software to a more secure model than by all means they should be nuked. this is exactly what happens in the linux world, only at a faster pace.

Re:Inaccurate?

[xtracto]

Complaining in the F/OSS world = being shout FIX IT YOURSELF!.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Inaccurate?

[mjwx]

English is also not my first language. Sorry if my grammar melted your eyes or something.

Don't worry, he's an American so English is not his first language either.

Re:Inaccurate?

[cbhacking]

Really? That's... more than a little surprising. On modern programs, Vista is far superior to Wine - blame it on .NET, DirectX, or whatever you want, but wine still struggles to run (and occasionally still fails to install) everything from games to web browsers. I've certainly seen a couple of recent apps - even games - that run truly perfectly in wine, but the most complex one I've seen is Battle for Wesnoth, which has a native Linux version anyhow.

As for older programs, the only ones I still run are games. Wine still fails to render Battle.Net correctly in StarCraft, and noticeably increases latency in LAN games. By comparison, Vista will, with almost no effort, run WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, a DOS-based game (in fairness, I believe wine will run programs *that* old just fine; my point is that in many cases, so will x86 Vista).

Use the tool appropriate to the task, of course, but damn near every program, no matter how old, that I've tried in 3 years of Vista (including betas) works fine. There are exceptions, of course, but claiming wine in more compatible in general is ludicrous. I would love for it to be true one day, but that day is still *very* far off.

Re:Inaccurate?

[SleepingWaterBear]

Let me give you a scenario, that should make what I mean clearer.

I think that it's a safe bet that there are at least 50 98/XP apps for every Vista app. Given how much longer we've had 98/XP than Vista this is a major underestimate. Wine has rather good support for older apps, it's always playing catch-up, but everyone agrees it does old stuff better than Vista does. Lets suppose Vista supports 80% of the old apps, and Wine supports 83% of them (the numbers are made up, but what matters is that Wine is a few points ahead). Then out of every 102 apps (100 98/XP and 2 Vista) Wine supports about 83, and Vista supports 82. I suspect that Wine has a much better than 3% edge for older app support though, and I've assumed that wine has absolutely no support for new Vista apps.

Numbers can be counterintuitive, and I'd suggest doing your own calculations before criticizing someone else's math.

Re:Inaccurate?

[drpimp]

Duh, we speak American and Mexican. /rolleyes

Re:Inaccurate?

[msormune]

"Probably exaggerating"...? "Basic I/O operations broken..."? Now just honestly read yourself what you just typed. Really. Just... wow. How the hell can you even remotely believe that?

And how do you exactly know it's Vista that's broken and not Acrobat?

The reason applications have problems with Vista is they break rules or are just plain coded badly, thus not working anymore now that Microsoft clamps down security.

And for the record, it's open source applications that often fail on Vista, because they always seem to assume the user is running as admin.

Re:Inaccurate?

[cbhacking]

I'm not so sure he's overestimating! Given how many years Windows XP and Windows 98 were aroung for, it's a safe bet that there are hundreds of times more apps for those two platforms than for Vista. A rather large fraction of those work in Wine. If a decent fraction of them don't work in Vista (and my understanding is that they don't), then just by number of apps Wine probably runs a lot more windows apps than Vista does.

Wine still doesn't run some programs meant for Win95 correctly (StarCraft is a particular annoyance of mine here, but it's not the only one). It certainly fails to run a *VERY* large number of XP programs; games are an obvious example (no, just being able to start the program doesn't count, it must be usable) but you still have productivity software, web browsers, reminder programs, and a host of other things that don't work. Hell, even if you manage to install .NET 2.0, there's no guarantee that a .NET app will work (Mono probably will, if no native .dlls are used, but that's not something you can count on for most apps).

The only programs I've been unable to run on Vista without paying for an updated version (a free patch is fine with me, especially if the compatibility checker directs me to the right place automatically, which happens on occasion) used kernel-mode drivers, and often weird ones. Even then, some such programs run fine.

From the sound of it, you've not even tried Vista (not in any serious way, certainly). You should probably do that before parroting the claims of others. As somebody who has extensively used both, it is a pleasant surprise if any remotely complex app runs in Wine without substantial work. It is an extremely rare shock if something in Vista takes more than a trivial change of compatibility settings (Run as Administrator being one of the most commonly needed).

Note: it doesn't count as "works in XP (or wine) but broken in Vista" if you need Admin privileges to run it on Windows. I ran XP as a non-admin, and it was a royal pain in the ass because so many apps expected to have full permissions (which, under most Wine configurations, you do have as far as the Windows app can tell). By comparison, UAC is easy, even if an app is so misbehaved as to need it every single time it runs.

Re:Inaccurate?

[vux984]

Wine has rather good support for older apps, it's always playing catch-up, but everyone agrees it does old stuff better than Vista does. Lets suppose Vista supports 80% of the old apps, and Wine supports 83% of them (the numbers are made up, but what matters is that Wine is a few points ahead). Then out of every 102 apps (100 98/XP and 2 Vista) Wine supports about 83, and Vista supports 82. I suspect that Wine has a much better than 3% edge for older app support though, and I've assumed that wine has absolutely no support for new Vista apps.

Except that Vista is actually WAY ahead of Wine. WAY ahead. No comparison. No contest.

Vista is more compatible with previous versions of Windows than WINE is. Especially after you factor in its compatibility modes, and are prepared to 'run as administrator' things.

Re:Inaccurate?

[cerberusss]

What chipset do you have? Try 'lspci'.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Redlazer]

As someone who uses both Vista and Wine regularly, I'd have to say that Vista runs significantly more programs than Wine.

Certainly Vista runs just about everything better than Wine does anyways - but it has certainly come incredibly far.

Final answer:

It is wildly inaccurate, and obviously there just to say something bad about Vista.

Re:Inaccurate?

[rastoboy29]

Where on earth did you get that idea?  Even /. doesn't purport to be those things.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Zoxed]

>> "Certainly more often than Vista does."
> This is what gives Slashdot a bad name...

Are you kidding: these grossly sweeping, biased and potentially inaccurate, but FUNNY, statements are what keep me coming back to Slashdot :-)

Re:Inaccurate?

[Kjella]

This is what gives Slashdot a bad name: completely false (or exaggerated) negative statements in order to promote your own ideas.

Yeah. I use WINE a lot, I've gotten very used to tweaks like switching windows versions, installing overrides, applying winetricks scripts, putting separate applications in their own WINEPREFIX with separate configuration, manually copying files, applying registry settings, even compiling a few custom versions of WINE and so on. Honestly, it's impressive what you can do with a lot of custom tweaks. But, if you think it's anything like running it on native Windows let me just take as an example of a game that works well BUT:

HOWTO

This is an attempt to summarize the steps needed to run World In Conflict and to compile a list of tweaks to make the game run as smootly as possible, if you have any additions, please make a reply with the subject "Extra tips for WiC!" and it will be tested, and if verified, added to this howto.

1. Read this before starting

Creating a seperate wine configuration directory for this game is recommended if you do not want to affect the environment of other applications/games that you run under Wine. This can be done for any of your other games, and it is an effective way to assure that your wine settings match those in this HowTo. It is however not strictly required.

World in Conflict should be run with Wine version 1.1.4 or later as it provides best performance, includes several bugs fixes relevant to the game, and support for copy protection.

2. Installing the game

Insert the disk, navigate to it's directory and enter this:
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-wic" wine Setup.exe

Observe that we set the variable WINEPREFIX at the beginning of the line. This will determine which directory Wine should work with. If the directory does not exist yet and/or has not been initialized by Wine, it will be automatically created and initialized before Setup.exe is run. If WINEPREFIX is not specified, your default Wine directory will be '$HOME/.wine/'.

Using the setup program, install the game to it's default directory and choose not to run the game after install - we're not done yet. In addition to the files copied automatically during installation, you'll have to copy over several files from the DVD to the directory the game was installed to. Usually, this should be 'drive_c/Program Files/Sierra Entertainment/World in Conflict' inside your Wine directory. The files to copy are:

binkw32.dll, dbghelp.dll, mss32.dll(From the 'bin' directory on the DVD)

wicloc11.sdf and wicloc12.sdf (From ldata/English, ldata/French, ldata/German, ldata/Italian, ldata/Spanish, or ldata/All depending on language)

Previously, it was necessary to install a crack for this game. Beginning with recent versions of Wine (~1.1 and later), this is no longer required. However, if we attempted to start the game now, it would crash right away. This is because World In Conflict comes with optional support for DirectX 10. As DirectX 10 is currently not supported in Wine, we need to disable it.

In addition, due to a few missing functions in Wine, the game would currently not be able to detect the hardware of your computer properly. Until these functions are supported in Wine, we will use Microsoft's original DLL to do the job for us. Therefore, get the file dxdiagn.dll from dlldump and save it to the 'drive_c/windows/system32' folder in your Wine directory:

www.dlldump.com/download-dll-files_new.php/dllfiles/D/dxdiagn.dll/5.03.2600.2180/download.html

Now let's instruct Wine about DirectX 10 and the dxdiagn.dll. Open a console and enter:
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-wic" winecfg

Click the Libraries tab, type in d3d10 under New override for library and click Add. You'll now see "d3d10 (native,builtin), hit Edit and select Disabled and hit OK. Then again under New override for library, type in dxdiagn and click Add. You'll now see "dxdiagn (native,builtin)" added to the

Re:Inaccurate?

[fruey]

There are two possibilities

1. Your WiFi chipset isn't supported in Linux, for some reason like no available documentation & chipset being rare or something

2. You're not asking the question in the right way. I reckon you can probably get most WiFi working, or you can buy an inexpensive USB wifi dongle (say $20) that does work in Linux.

Which is worth more, your time to get support for a particular piece of hardware, or a quick trip to an ecommerce shop to drop $20 on known good hardware?

Re:Inaccurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you even used Vista? I have had ZERO problems with apps not being able to run, and I run some pretty obscure stuff.

And yes, I was serious. I know a lot of people who won't read Slashdot anymore for this very reason.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Jurily]

http://xkcd.com/84/

Re:Inaccurate?

[ThaReetLad]

Then your apps are written wrong. If your apps follow the rules, they should work on Vista.
Word 2.0 runs on Vista, so there's no good reason why any old software should run on Vista, unless it was playing fast and loose with rules, that it just happened to get away with before.

Re:Inaccurate?

[daveime]

As Eddie so succinctly puts it ...

"You say baysil, we say basil ... and you say erbs, and we say herbs ... because there's a fucking 'H' in it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hJQsvoY6VU

Re:Inaccurate?

[Ed Avis]

Either way you take the summary, it's a ridiculous exaggeration. There is no way Wine is more compatible with Windows apps than Vista.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Yvanhoe]

But it runs Starcraft without asking a thing. We had to tweak stuff in order to get it working correctly under my dad's Vista.

Re:Inaccurate?

[ciderVisor]

French, a static, dying language best used for describing cuisine.

Merd !

Re:Inaccurate?

[kiddygrinder]

Erm, I don't recall anyone ever saying slashdot was unbiased, if anything it's a whole bunch of people pointing out how biased everything/everyone is. This may or may not be at the other end of the spectrum.

Re:Inaccurate?

[bakes]

Agreed - although this type of statement really belongs in the comments, not the summary.

Re:Inaccurate?

[icebraining]

Wine can make programs "think" they have full permissions, but they don't, so the system is secure. Maybe Vista should do the same.

And btw, Starcraft?? I play Starcraft over LAN in Linux and the only thing I had to do was insert the CD and run the installer with Wine...

I doubt that Wine runs as many apps as Vista, but it does an impressive job. Worms World Party actually runs *better* (less graphical glitches) than on XP.

Re:Inaccurate?

[sanosuke001]

So just because MS decided to "fix" some API calls to be more secure, remove old calls that should have been removed, and modernize their OS (for better or worse) you're saying that breaking backwards compatibility for some apps wasn't worth it? Even though MS told everyone they were doing it a year or more in advance and those companies didn't fix their software.

When functions in your favorite language get deprecated, what do you do? Do you bitch and moan, calling the lead Dev a money-hungry whore? Or do you say, "nice, they're fixing issues and letting us know before they pull support for good"?

I love bashing MS just as much as the next guy, but expecting backwards compatibility for every version of something is shortsighted and, for progress' sake, stupid. Updating the API and removing old, insecure calls, is one thing I do agree with MS on. Now, I wish Intel and AMD would drop x86...

Re:Inaccurate?

[wakingrufus]

have you tried Battle.net? last i checked, the interface for that was all but unusable. but yes, the rest of the program works perfectly.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Curien]

Neither the software that came with my scanner nor the software that came with my printer run in Vista.

Re:Inaccurate?

[db32]

Sorry, just had to take the shot. This is /. afterall.

Re:Inaccurate?

[DrgnDancer]

No to mention that many of the people who cry that Vista is "incompatible" are the same people who complain about Windows Security. You can't have it both ways. They're making some efforts to improve security, and that's broken some insecurely (or just poorly) coded apps in some cases. It's been said before on this forum that the only way MS is going to get a truly secure OS is to break backward compatibility. Well, look what happens when they put a small dent in backward compatibility. Now imagine if they broke it completely. This is why they're never going to break it.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Hijacked Public]

Taco sold his personal blog to Andover quite a long time ago, and the FAQ has never reflected the actual current state of anything.

For instance, the gigantic menu bar at the top of the front page that I must X away on every single page load. I'd like to consult a FAQ or a man page about that, figure out how I might get it gone for good, since I don't care at all about filtering the firehose.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Taevin]

You're right that it's probably an exaggeration, and I'm sure that any honest Wine user will agree. I love it and use it often but I've had my fair share of getting Windows apps to work correctly, whereas I've had few problems getting things to run on my Vista PC at work.

However, I also think it's an exaggeration to say that "There is no way Wine is more compatible." In my experience, though unlikely, it is possible. More than once I've actually seen app run faster and with more stability in Wine than on the original platform. Remember, Wine is a re-implementation of the Win32 API so it's certainly within the realm of possibility that bugs and inefficient coding could reduce the performance and reliability of apps running on Vista/XP.

Re:Inaccurate?

[MoHaG]

If you take all versions (and not just the latest versions) of Windows apps it might not be that inaccurate... At least not compared to a 64-bit Vista..

Some really ancient software runs on Wine, that no longer works on Windwos... Windows do however support a whole class of applications that Wine does not (yet): Anything that uses drivers...

Re:Inaccurate?

[Hatta]

If you don't file bug reports, bugs don't get fixed. There are cases like Bug 6971 that have been around for years. But it's also happened that I've submitted a bug report one evening, and the next morning there's a patch.

Re:Inaccurate?

[hedwards]

Nope, American English being the most prevalent form of English in existence is the closest thing we have to "real" English. Americans, for better or for worse. make up roughly half of all native speakers and are by far the largest chunk of native speakers in the world.

Either that or we should just tell the Brits to fuck off and just accept that it's American. Either solution is fine by me. The language argument is more about how they refuse to admit that they lost the revolutionary war than anything real. Hearing them now claim to have given back all of their colonies is pretty pathetic.

Re:Inaccurate?

[RicktheBrick]

I run Vista. I also shop at thrift stores and pick up old games and software there. Most if not all of which will not run on Vista. I also have a xp machine. Popular games such as the petz series will not run and they still have a internet site. The one I wanted to run the most is VirtualDrive but it will not run and the only solution is to buy another copy. With that I could buy software from Goodwill copy it to the hard drive and than exchange it for some more but they caught on to me and will not let me do it anymore. I mean I am just trying to let someone else have the software too. The computer keeps telling me it is looking for a solution but after a year now it is getting a little boring.

Re:Inaccurate?

[mdwh2]

Whilst I think the dig at Vista in the summary was probably out of place, it sounds like someone has an axe to grind here.

his favorite pastimes are blocking entire US states for being sockpuppets of banned user

Since we're talking Wikipedia - citation needed?

Re:Inaccurate?

[Zebano]

I had a copy of Vista Ultimate which crashed I.E., firefox, chessbase, Visual Studio 2003/5/8 and 90% of my games randomly within 10 seconds - 5 minutes of starting them. I never got the printer driver to work.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Tanktalus]

Apparently, you need to compile wine for XP... :-)

Re:Inaccurate?

[petermgreen]

I find it somewhat amusing that wine can run win16 apps on 64 bit linux (I dunno how it does it, documentation on wines win16 support seems virtually nonexistant but it certainly does it) while 64 bit windows can't run them.

Re:Inaccurate?

[petermgreen]

which is worth more, your time to get support for a particular peice of hardware or being stuck with a dongle that is prone to breakage and you have to remove every time you put your laptop away in it's bag.

Re:Inaccurate?

[ACMENEWSLLC]

Wow. This is why I switched to console games. I got so tired of spending time trying to get PC games to work (DRM, sound drivers, Sound Blaster settings...) that I switched to Sony PS1 and never looked back.

I have a few PC games. But now it's Nintendo all the way. Wii, GBA, and DS. No more spending hours trying to get past DRM that doesn't work with my specific DVD lower filter drivers.

Re:Inaccurate?

[fruey]

Fair point Peter, but a chipset that's integrated onboard on any major brand laptop should be supported in Linux in *theory*, but some are perhaps not too auto-detectable & auto-configurable.

Re:Inaccurate?

[fm6]

The only programs I've been unable to run on Vista without paying for an updated version (a free patch is fine with me, especially if the compatibility checker directs me to the right place automatically, which happens on occasion) used kernel-mode drivers, and often weird ones. Even then, some such programs run fine.

I'm sorry, kernel mode drivers? You're full of it. I've had problems with office apps, games, simple utilities, etc.

From the sound of it, you've not even tried Vista (not in any serious way, certainly).

I don't know about the other poster, but I use Vista every day — and encounter these kinds of problems every day. If I didn't have a tablet, and if Vista weren't the only version of Windows (or any other leading OS) that had a decent handwriting recognition engine, I'd downgrade in a heartbeat.

Re:Inaccurate?

[fm6]

You're right about the support issue. For that matter, it's really the primary reason there aren't more mainstream Linux apps. Yes, it costs money to port an app to Linux, but not as much as it costs to support it once it's out in the wild.

Perhaps the popularity of netbooks will change this, since they mostly run Linux. On the other hand, netbook users seem to regard them as prepackaged appliances, not upgradable general-purpose systems.

Re:Inaccurate?

[fm6]

The reason applications have problems with Vista is they break rules or are just plain coded badly, thus not working anymore now that Microsoft clamps down security.

Perhaps you're right, but if so the blame still goes back to MS. Their APIs suck. They're inconsistently designed, excessively complicated, and poorly documented. It's hard to obey the rules when they're hard to figure out and hard to stick with even if you do.

As for the security features in Vista: they're useless. They have no granularity (that's apparently being fixed in Windows 7) so you have a choice between it constantly interfering with your work and turning it off completely.

Except that there seems to be subtle changes in the filesystem semantics that I don't know how to turn off. And guess which vendors applications have the most trouble with these semantics? Microsoft! Not just value-added stuff like Office, but even core apps like Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer. (And, weirdly enough, the volume control app, which drives me crazy.) They crash, they lock up, they fail to open files they themselves created.

This OS is a disaster. This is one of the most widely accepted facts. And yet, just as W still has his defenders, so does Vista. Humanity is perverse.

Re:Inaccurate?

[fm6]

So just because MS decided to "fix" some API calls to be more secure, remove old calls that should have been removed, and modernize their OS (for better or worse) you're saying that breaking backwards compatibility for some apps wasn't worth it?

Depends. Removing or changing APIs that make it too easy for malware to infiltrate the system is one thing. But MS seems to have taken the approach that even basic filesystem semantics needed an overhaul. I think that was a really bad call. Sort of like those weird self-buckling seat belts that were briefly mandatory on cars sold in the U.S.

Even though MS told everyone they were doing it a year or more in advance and those companies didn't fix their software.

You're assuming they didn't try. Among those who seem to have tried and failed is Microsoft itself. I have more trouble with Microsoft's own apps (including those bundled with Vista!) than with any other vendor's.

I share your disdain for compulsive MS bashing. If you Google "fm6 slashdot" you'll find a lot of posts that try to debunk simple-minded attacks on MS. But the fact remains that Vista is a disaster. If I had the time, I'd install W7 now, just on the hope that it fixes some of the issues I have to deal with.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Aphoxema]

Have you even used Vista? I have had ZERO problems with apps not being able to run, and I run some pretty obscure stuff.

Try some late 90's games, particularly Microsoft games.

I know a lot of people who won't read Slashdot anymore for this very reason.

Give us some names and we'll correct the problem.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Rakarra]

Mods: please use your mod-points to mod up good articles. Save the Flamepoint mods for the truly terrible.

Re:Inaccurate?

[poached]

or maybe there are more vista users than linux/wine?

Re:Inaccurate?

[Toonol]

Yeah, the amount of crap slung at FOX news for being biased is, ironically, very telling of the accuser's bias. I do think FOX news is biased, but no more than CNN, and probably less than MSNBC. I could be misjudging them, and perhaps the median is a little more to the right or left.

But somebody who thinks FOX is biased, and the other channels are not, is lost in their delusions. They are arguing to support their emotionally pre-drawn conclusions.

Re:Inaccurate?

[INT_QRK]

We agree completely.

Re:Inaccurate?

[Hucko]

Time is irrelevant in the spirit realm so only Roland appears to have traveled back in time to be reborn from our perspective.

Re:Inaccurate?

[sanosuke001]

What apps that are bundled with Vista don't work for you? I've been running Vista since it came out and the only issue I've ever had is with folder display properties; they gave each folder a "type" and there's no way to set them all to default (or the same type) and it never remembers my display settings correctly (I like details and to display size, type, and modified date)

The only issues with apps I've come across are older applications and some drivers from companies who either took too long supporting Vista (Creative) or don't think x64 matters. Honestly, I blame the x64 issue on MS. They should have dropped the 32bit versions of the OS when all processors because 64-bit.

Re:Inaccurate?

[BigBlockMopar]

db32: I need your e-mail address. I'm slant6mopar@yahoo.com.

Re:Inaccurate?

[db32]

You do? May I inquire why?

You should also check your hompage/siglink, unless my DNS is fuckered again it is a parking page.

Re:Inaccurate?

[badkarmadayaccount]

*sigh* Tell me again, why isn't everybody using OpenFirmware?

Re:Inaccurate?

[TrancePhreak]

Right click, properties, turn off desktop compositing & visual themes, run in 256 colors & 640x480, run in compatability mode for XP SP2.
This is all that is needed to run most old games, such as StarCraft. The 256 colors w/ 640x480 is not necessary for all games, but I found it helps StarCraft.

I think this is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully game developers will soon realize they're missing out on a potential market.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

True! I'd much rather pirate the linux version of a game than the Windows version.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[nemesisrocks]

I don't think they'll even realise: most serious gamers will either be running Windows, or dual boot into Windows. The rest probably use Codeweavers' Crossover

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Daengbo]

I've got an "Officially Supported" section in Games That Work which includes Starport Galactic Empires and Soldat running under Wine. I tried to convince Reflexive (since my gal plays hundreds of their website's games) to let me test and certify games so that they could be marked as "Works with Wine 1.0" on the download site. I was snubbed.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Dreen]

Nice site but HOLY BATMAN make that logo smaller

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Daengbo]

I didn't notice the size of the logo until you mentioned it. I'm no web designer, and it's just Blogger.

Anyway, I wish that Wine would be better supported by publishers -- especially the small ones. On that site, I have 80 or so "free trial" games that work well running under Wine. Most of them are the kind that teens or younger would enjoy, and I'm sure that "geek dad" would love to purchase them for his daughter or son just to stop supporting Windows on the kid's computer.

As I said, my original concept for the site was to become a partner with a couple of sites like Reflexive / Tycoon / Big Fish, donate the proceeds to Wine, and get the sites to drop a Wine logo on the games that work. It all fell through.

I also tried to get other "testers" since I don't play much and my gal is obsessed with time management and hidden picture games exclusively. That didn't work out well, either, but I figured I'd try again after I hit 200 games listed on the site.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[ianare]

There's a difference between "This game you never heard of should work with WINE" and "Sims 3 : WINE edition".

Re:I think this is a good thing

[FlyingBishop]

I once was a serious gamer, but as I've grown up a bit it's less important to me. That said, I enjoy gaming from time to time, and hope that when I upgrade my machine, I won't need to buy Windows 7 to play the latest and greatest. At the moment, I'm content with revisiting games made over the past two decades.

I really can't justify the $200+ investment in Windows, since I would be buying it entirely as a game console. I'd rather just buy a console. I will however, be buying indie games that support Linux. Hell, I do that now.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Daengbo]

Starport Galactic Empires and Soldat are claimed to work on Wine by the publisher. That's a lot more than "should work." Just because you apparently don't think independent games are important doesn't mean that they aren't. In fact, they're probably the easiest to get on the "officially supports Wine" page because they need the extra market wherever they can get it and will do a little testing (maybe even tweaking) to get that exposure.

If you want everything to be EVE Online, you're going to be disappointed.

• Step 1: Get "Officially Supports Wine" backing to increase the number and genres of games available on Linux.
• Step 2: Once a beachhead is in place, get devs to do native support ports using winelib.
• Step 3: Encourage more high-quality cross-platform games.
• Step 4: Get the big guys on board.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[arth1]

And dropping support for the eye candy of DX9/10 and similar will cause increased sales?

WINE is not a solution. It's a workaround. If you want to entice the Linux people, you need to write a Linux version, not a Windows app that has been simplified to run under WINE. Real Linux users demand real Linux apps, and not just running Windows apps in Linux.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[msclrhd]

I added several games from Oberon Media during the Wine 1.0 beta/RC, about half of which work out of the ones tested, to the Wine AppDB. I haven't had the time to do any real testing recently, though.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[msclrhd]

It's usually because the tools, build process and code are tied to the Windows API (especially for established games and programs). If you need to spend a large amount of money for a small gain then it is very difficult to create a business case for supporting Linux and/or Mac. Thus, Wine is often easier because it is the same codebase and APIs.

There is a growing (albeit slowly) interest in and support for Linux. These tend to be independent games companies, the big games companies (with the possible exception of Steam) are not interested.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[msclrhd]

Step 5: ???
Step 6: Profit! ;)

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Daengbo]

I've been accused of "duplicating AppDB" before, but I really find AppDB difficult to use when you want to recommend a game which works flawlessly with absolutely no tweaking of Wine (i.e. just install and use). I've submitted some of my tested games to AppDB, too.

I just wanted an easy place to point a friend to and say "anything here works." I also wanted all the games to have some sort of free trial or demo available before purchase.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Daengbo]

In this case, you're probably correct -- profit for everyone involved.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[msclrhd]

Speaking from a developer's perspective, there is the learning curve to understand the different APIs. The choice of frameworks and libraries is great, but there is that investment in time and money (time off to learn, books and training courses).

If the company can get its developers to learn these outside of work then it reduces the cost for the company. It does mean that the company and the developers need to be dedicated.

The same is true on the Mac, learning Objective-C and the Cocoa/Carbon APIs.

Then there is the effort of porting an established codebase. In that respect it is easier for a new project or startup to create a cross-platform application/game. There is still the learning curve, though.

Re:I think this is a good thing

[msclrhd]

Sure.

There are (generalizing) three categories of companies:
(a) companies willing to invest in the time and effort to create Mac and Linux applications (easier to do for startups/from the beginning);
(b) companies interested in providing a Linux or Mac version, but who don't currently have the resources;
(c) companies that are not interested or have no intention of providing versions that don't target Windows.

With these (a) is not a problem as you already have native versions. With (b) there is interest and Wine/CrossOver can help to bridge that gap, to help get an initial version out of the door so that later on they can produce a native version. With (c) Wine is the only way you are going to run those applications (Microsoft Office, etc).

Re:I think this is a good thing

[Daengbo]

I'm sorry. I didn't think that you were accusing me, but my post sure sounds like I did. Apologies. You mentioned posting to AppDB and I want just adding my thoughts.

There's nothing wrong with AppDB. It's a developer thing and it shows. I wanted to focus on non-developers.

Question

[MyLongNickName]

How many developers want to put in the extra effort for a 0.1% wider audience? And consider the Linux crowd has the "free (as in beer) software mentality".... so I figure an even less percentage sales increase.

(ducks and covers)

Re:Question

[Paradigm_Complex]

While it is a smaller audience, it's a much more valuable one.

When Joe Sixpack needs computer advice, he comes to us. Getting on our good side with things like this can garner far more benefit than just our direct increase in audience.

Re:Question

[Daengbo]

This game developer claims that making the game available on less-popular platforms increased his sales by over 122%, perhaps significantly over. This was due to getting a lot of exposure for his game on Mac and Linux sites, when the same game probably would have gotten a footnote on Windows' gaming sites.

Re:Question

[moniker127]

If joe sixpack asked a linux expert for help, he would probably get laughed at for not knowing how to compile the source of the application he was trying to get to run.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

How many developers want to put in the extra effort for a 0.1% wider audience?

Developers who find actual numbers, instead of pulling them out of their ass.

And that means doing a little market research. The market for your app may be biased one way or the other. For instance, if you're selling a text editor targeted at programmers -- or better yet, an SCM -- it's probably not too difficult to port, and you'll probably get quite a few grateful Linux users.

consider the Linux crowd has the "free (as in beer) software mentality"....

Can we get past this already? It seems the only Linux folk who have that mentality are complete strawmen created by people who've never actually met a Linux user.

I actually bought Windows XP, despite Linux being my primary OS. Most Windows users I know will pirate it if it didn't come with the machine.

There is one exception to that rule: On Windows, there are tons of little freeware (but closed source) utilities like IrfanView, WinRAR, etc. On Windows, and to a larger extent, OS X, there's even more -- a massive culture of shareware, where tiny cataloging utilities and file management utilities are selling for $10 to $20 each.

So, if your app is something truly useful, sure. I would love to see things like Photoshop support Wine officially (I'll use Gimp when I can, but it still hasn't caught up), and I love that WoW releases Wine-specific patches, and Eve uses Winelib.

But if you're trying to sell me a $15 version of diff or merge, it had better iron my socks, too.

Re:Question

[Neoprofin]

consider the Linux crowd has the "free (as in beer) software mentality"....

Can we get past this already? It seems the only Linux folk who have that mentality are complete strawmen created by people who've never actually met a Linux user.

Or anyone who's spent more than ten minutes in any thread on this site involving Windows, Linux, Macs, the FSF, any FOSS announcement, and probably a hand full of other things.

You can't come here every day, or multiple times a day like people seem to do, and not notice that there are plenty of Linux users who are very eager to post about how all of their software is both free as in s speech AND free as in beer.

That said, I think most people are used to "free as in beer" by this point because Linux is free by choice and the high prices of a lot of proprietary programs has led to such massive rates of piracy that things like Windows, Office, and Photoshop may as well be free as far as anyone not professionally involved is concerned. Games don't exactly fit this model though, as developers actually care if their games get pirated much of the time, it's not an arena where gaining market share is worth the lost revenue because that marketshare doesn't continue forth the same way.

I digress though, my point was that that the idea of the fanatical free linux guy is far from a strawman, I'd just be interested to see how many there are compared to Windows and Mac users who just pirate everything but don't talk about it.

Re:Question

[bigjarom]

AC parent is clearly joe sixpack!

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

99.9999999% of the joe sixpacks of this world wouldn't be caught dead talking to people like you.

Re:Question

[tokyoahead]

The problem for game developers is finally that the costs of porting the big games to another platform outweighs the profit made by the small number of users. As long as all of the big companies stay with windows, no-one has to jump, since 99% of the gamers stick with windows - to game. If one big one would go ahead, all have to follow, and then the market size does not grow but the support/dev costs does. Same happened with "light" produts (sodas etc) - double your product lineup and do not increase turnover enough to justify it.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

That's a harsh way of saying that you don't really have an accurate picture yourself.

That's true enough. But I never claimed to.

Again, this is the kind of thing for which you would need to do real, actual market research in order to find out for yourself. If you're writing a tool for graphic artists, you probably don't have to care about Linux at all. If you're writing a tool for animators and modelers, it's worth considering. If you're writing a tool designed to run on a cluster of servers built from commodity hardware, you'd be stupid not to support Linux.

Because those like yourself who are embedded in the subculture that is Linux do not have an accurate picture of the entire computer ecosystem.

Nor does anyone who blindly throws a number out there, like "0.1%".

Linux is a tiny minority on the desktop, and I have no illusions about that. Can you find where that invalidates anything in my post?

Re:Question

[DiegoBravo]

I'd easily pay $70 for Flight Simulator X if I could run it in my Linux box. That game was targeted for Vista (albeit runs on XP) but I hate the idea of installing Vista (again) in my laptop (the thought of a virus deleting all my partitions scares me too much.) I would run it with vmware, but the graphic acceleration makes it difficult to impossible.

Since 2004 Linux is my only work OS, and that means that I no longer play as before. I'm always considering buying a desktop PC just for gaming, but the money waste sensation, and the space requirements, end stopping me.

Note that my current laptop came with Vista (but soon it was erased for the mentioned reason), so I think I could use the Windows files for Wine without paying any license.

So, I think allowing games targeted for Windows running with Wine, will make things easy to Linux desktop users, and reciprocally, will let a lot of people that refrains to be "converted to Linux" because Windows is MANDATORY for their loved games.

Re:Question

[GigaplexNZ]

If one big one would go ahead, all have to follow

There have already been a few big games (such as Doom 3, UT2k4), with very little following.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

Until their computers are broken. Then they suddenly become very friendly.

There's a reason some of us wear this shirt.

Re:Question

[ari_j]

Joe Sixpack tends to carry his Joe Sixshooter to make sure all his tech support calls are user-friendly.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

there are plenty of Linux users who are very eager to post about how all of their software is both free as in s speech AND free as in beer.

There are plenty willing to discuss it. I don't know there are many who are actually under that illusion -- most of us run on nVidia these days, and there are the binary blobs for firmware and such...

That said, I think most people are used to "free as in beer" by this point because Linux is free by choice and the high prices of a lot of proprietary programs has led to such massive rates of piracy...

Then you grow up, and at a real job, you learn things like -- suppose you're already on OS X. It costs a fraction of a single day's pay to buy TextMate, which should improve your productivity by quite a lot.

Bad example, because it's OS X, but you see this kind of thing all the time. People who use Linux, and like their Free Software, but they're on Gmail.

I would guess that a very large, quiet majority of Linux people are not at all afraid to pay for things. That's why you see things like Parallels and VMWare for Linux.

Not strawmen, maybe -- after all, RMS does exist. But RMS doesn't reflect on the community as a whole.

Re:Question

[mvdw]

I digress though, my point was that that the idea of the fanatical free linux guy is far from a strawman, I'd just be interested to see how many there are compared to Windows and Mac users who just pirate everything but don't talk about it.

Well, in my experience, the Linux guys are the ones who care the most about the license, and making sure they don't break it. Whether that license is proprietary or F/OSS, linux people are the most likely to pay more than a cursory glance.

Re:Question

[kbob88]

If joe sixpack asked a linux expert for help, he would probably get laughed at for not knowing how to compile the source of the application he was trying to get to run.

How do I mod parent 'sad-but-true'? Joe Sixpack would also be told to change some parameters and recompile the kernel too. And while you're at it, edit some parameters in a header file before you run ./configure. I love that one. :-(

Re:Question

[dmomo]

If I wanted to buy licenses to a piece of software for my dev team, half of whom run linux, this would certainly be a selling point.

Re:Question

[Daengbo]

Let me introduce you to id Software.

Re:Question

[dotancohen]

How many developers want to put in the extra effort for a 0.1% wider audience? And consider the Linux crowd has the "free (as in beer) software mentality".... so I figure an even less percentage sales increase.

(ducks and covers)

http://hoodyhoo.kumeelyun.com/2007/11/20/note-to-self-23-free-vs-free/

Re:Question

[cbhacking]

Just thought I'd quickly point out that the official EVE Client does *NOT* use anything which can be legitimately called wine. Cedega is the result of a long-ago fork before the license was changed, and is a closed, proprietary app.

Also, whether it can truly be said to work is debatable. I used to think EVE looked beautiful, but since the premium graphics came out the classic client (which is all that the Cedega-wrapped versions can use) looks really dated. Wine (the real one) can sort-of run Premium, but it's still buggy.

Re:Question

[Rogerborg]

What he said, if you actually read his words in consecutive order, is that the MacOS port sold units, and the Linux port got him free advertising which he assumes boosted Windows and MacOS sales. His actual Linux sales are 5%. I have no idea why you think he covered the costs of his Linux port. Can you quote the actual words that imply that?

So native MacOS ports make money. OK, but since we're discussing WINE here, I'd like to know what on earth you think the connection is.

Re:Question

[sumdumass]

I caught a guy wearing a shit like that once who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. He tried to tell me I needed a "plug and play card" because my DVD drive wasn't working. I don't know what his reason was but it wasn't the same as yours.

I also saw a shirt that said "I love lamp". Surprisingly, we aren't talking about the lamp stack, he claimed the shirt was about a scene in the 40 year old virgin where they were talking about women they loved and the virgin said he loved lamp then grabbed a desk lamp or something. Saw another one that said "Got Root". Evidently, he thought it was something about the size of his member and new nothing about *nix. I overheard a family at some Toy store during Christmas time saying the Stuffed penguin on the shelf must be the Sony mascot because it was on their TV. Are you sure that Joe SixPack would even understand why you were wearing the shirt?

Re:Question

[Daengbo]

He's a Mac developer. The game was developed on a Mac. His older games are for Mac Classic. I'm not confused about that fact. The OP:

How many developers want to put in the extra effort for a 0.1% wider audience?

I merely wanted to point out that your revenue from a game may not be correlated with the market share of the OS it works on. I didn't mention Linux as the motivating factor because it wasn't.

This belongs in a Wine discussion because a) the topic was brought up by the OP, and b) Wine ports (using the binary or Winelib) are significantly easier than porting to a completely new OS. It's more like making sure your game works on XP and Vista. Ask EVE Online if the port was worth it -- I wouldn't know. There are several developers that certify "Works with Wine 1.0."

Re:Question

[Bazer]

Who the hell modded this insightful?

If joe sixpack asked a windows "expert" for help, he would probably get laughed at for not knowing how to change the registry entries of the application he was trying to get to run.

"Experts" like that aren't exclusive to linux. I admit that Linux does tend to draw in these kind of people more because it's seen as the alternative for a bit more knowledgeable audience. These "experts" are commonly known as "dickheads". They are everywhere and you've probably met someone who laughed at you because you didn't know something about car mechanics. In that field you could be the "Joe Sixpack".

Re:Question

[the_one(2)]

Considering that most applications work out of the box in wine I would think it would pretty easy to get that extra audience.

Re:Question

[pipatron]

What do you mean? The t-shirt was correct. He did not fix your computer.

Re:Question

[kiddygrinder]

Just saying it's not a strawman doesn't make it true. Of the group of 40 people or so that i know the operating systems of, 39 run windows, 1 runs linux, 2 actually buy pretty much all of their software, the 1 linux guy and 1 windows guy. Those figures are of a ridiculously small and completely and utterly useless sample size, but i'm guessing it's probably bigger than yours.

My actual point is, don't claim shit that you have no idea is true or not.

Re:Question

[socketwiz]

And consider the Linux crowd has the "free (as in beer) software mentality"

I've never understood this quote. Is beer free and I just wasn't aware?

Re:Question

[DrgnDancer]

Blizzard has been dual releasing for Mac and Windows for years and Id used to for Linux and Windows (they may still, I don't know). That's two big shops, yet no one seems to be rushing out to follow their leads.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'd easily pay $70 for Flight Simulator X if I could run it in my Linux box.

Unfortunately, Microsoft would probably rather use it to sell Windows.

I hate the idea of installing Vista (again) in my laptop (the thought of a virus deleting all my partitions scares me too much.)

Me, I'm more paranoid about a piece of malware giving people access to my partitions, but I suspect that's a long way off. As far as losing everything, that's why you need backups. NOW.

I would run it with vmware, but the graphic acceleration makes it difficult to impossible.

Depends what version of vmware/parallels/virtualbox/etc. Some of them take Wine's Direct3D layer and use it to convert the guest Windows' Direct3D calls to native OpenGL calls. So, it's still not going to be as good as native, but it will at least use graphics acceleration.

I think I could use the Windows files for Wine without paying any license.

Probably. However, most Wine things seem to work fine without any Microsoft code whatsoever, and a few might need you to find a DLL to download.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

Cedega is the result of a long-ago fork before the license was changed, and is a closed, proprietary app.

I'm aware. I was too lazy to look up which they ended up using, though.

My experience has been, occasionally Cedega is better at a game, and not all games work on Wine. However, more office-type stuff works on Wine, and as soon as a game works on Wine, it usually works better than on Cedega.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

I caught a guy wearing a shit like that once who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

Clearly, he's not one of the people I was talking about.

Are you sure that Joe SixPack would even understand why you were wearing the shirt?

Somehow, I think "No, I will not fix your computer" is pretty unambiguous.

Re:Question

[DiegoBravo]

Thanks for the comments...

> Unfortunately, Microsoft would probably rather use it to sell Windows.

My (maybe bad expressed) point is that I'm ready to pay for gaming in Linux to whatever seller. Of course for the mentioned case, I'd rather pay for a polished and really "completed" version of Flightgear.

> Probably. However, most Wine things seem to work fine without any Microsoft code whatsoever, and a few might need you to find a DLL to download

This always confuses me. It's legal to download DDLs at random? maybe those are published in order to repair a licensed Windows installation.

> Me, I'm more paranoid about a piece of malware giving people access to my partitions, but I suspect that's a long way off. As far as losing everything, that's why you need backups. NOW.

Ok. I always use a "test" user for downloaded binaries (other than the OS updates.) For example, to avoid compiling google-earth, just downloaded the binary and always use it on the "test user", so malware infection danger is minimized to that dummy account. Since Wine is implemented in user mode, I think that that prevents me from liberal access to my partitions.

That's also the reason I hate IBM when forces me to run their installers as root (I think in order to install some secret-shitty-license-key-file)... In last December had a crazy experience where their installer deleted a full filesystem after aborting the wizard-download, I think trying to remove the (unexistent) /opt/IBM (sorry for the offtopic.)

And yes, I do backups to internet of my unrecoverable information, but always try to avoid losing two days doing a full restore from the bare machine.

Re:Question

[petermgreen]

One key difference is that in windows almost everyone INCLUDING GEEKS uses the gui. They only tend to turn to the command line, config files or registry editor when the normal GUI fails them.

On linux most geeks tend to use the command line and config files since that is the easiest way for them. Unfortunately it means when they are asked for help by someone who is scared of the command line and config files it puts them in an awkward position.

Re:Question

[Risen888]

I agree that it's not quite a strawman, but it's a pretty gross overgeneralization to say (as you did in your original post) "the Linux crowd has the free as in beer mentality." I'm just one more datapoint in the ocean, but...

Do I use the free stuff? Yeah, mostly. But not always. I got Crossover free in October, after using it for a while I bought a license and recommend it whenever I can. I keep meaning to buy the GoblinX disc set. I have bought several Linux-related books that are available free online.

But mostly it's the free stuff, right? Now, why is that? Could it possibly be because I am not even given the option to buy the stuff I might want on the platform of my choosing? Yeah, that might be it. I sure as hell ain't gonna pay money for Windows software to try and hack into working in Wine (no offense to Wine devs, you guys do phenomenal work). If I see something out there I want, and it's offered for my platform (or even maybe certified by the company to work in emulation, to try to return to the original topic) I'll gladly buy it. I've heard the same chorus from Linux users all over the place. But these folks don't seem to want our money. So fuck 'em.

Re:Question

[jsiples]

Just a note on the Photoshop, Google has been funding Linux support of Photoshop for a while now.
http://apcmag.com/google_behind_photoshops_new_linux_compatibility.htm
I think it's great, I have to agree, the GIMP is a bit difficult to use when you're used to Photoshop.

Re:Question

[shutdown -p now]

On Windows, there are tons of little freeware (but closed source) utilities like IrfanView, WinRAR, etc.

WinRAR is shareware, not freeware. It won't lock you out after the trial period has passed (though it will display a nag screen), but using it afterwards is still breaking the license.

Re:Question

[sumdumass]

Actually, he "could not" fix my computer, that was the issue. There is a difference between a bad DVD drive and a Plug and play card whatever that is supposed to be. There is also a difference between "could not" and "did not". The only reason he got the computer is because I was working double shifts all week long and my girlfriend at the time said he could fix it and she needed it working. He was her dad's rocket scientist neighbor who "fixed" all the computers in the neighborhood.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

My mistake, you're right. WinRAR is shareware. The rar commandline tool, however, does appear to be freeware.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

I didn't say it was difficult to use. I prefer the Gimp when I can, and lately, I prefer Krita to the Gimp.

That said, I almost never do much more than MS Paint could. I'm not much of a graphic designer.

When I say "hasn't caught up", I'm talking about raw functionality. Things like the amount of time it took for CMYK support (no idea where that is), lack of support for layer groups (unless something's changed very recently), and so on... If someone sends me a Word doc, it'll almost never fail to work properly in KWord, and when it fails there, it works in OpenOffice. If someone sends me a Photoshop file, I pretty much need Photoshop.

But yeah, I can see why Google would want to fund that. I imagine there are more Linux desktops than usual at Google, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were designers for whom a working Photoshop was the last thing they needed to make the switch.

Re:Question

[shutdown -p now]

The full command-line RAR version is still shareware, for all supported platforms. You must be thinking about the unrar tool (which can only unpack RAR archives, and not create them) - it is the one that's freeware, and it also comes with source code (though not under a F/OSS license).

Re:Question

[Neoprofin]

All I claimed was that it isn't a strawman, the OP is a completely different person.

Considering most of my post was a question, you might want to make sure you're flaming the right people.

Re:Question

[kiddygrinder]

Hah, you're right. I was replying to you but i either didn't read or misread your last paragraph. sorry about that, i was bagging you out for claiming something with no stats when you merely said you'd like to know the stats.

Re:Question

[SanityInAnarchy]

This always confuses me. It's legal to download DDLs at random?

My assumption has always been that since I do have a valid Windows license, it would be splitting hairs to try to find the exact version that's in my Windows (when I could probably download a version known to work with that combination of app / wine version).

However, this seems to happen less and less as time goes by. Used to be, you'd need IE or some IE DLLs. Now, most things will work just fine with the Gecko shim.

Ok. I always use a "test" user for downloaded binaries (other than the OS updates.) For example, to avoid compiling google-earth, just downloaded the binary and always use it on the "test user", so malware infection danger is minimized to that dummy account.

I tend to create one per piece of software, when I bother. If it's one "test" user, that could start to get like nobody -- because you run so many things under the same user, any one of them could blow up more than it should.

As an example, I got tired of waiting for Ubuntu to update Rubygems, and the Rubygems update itself didn't work well. Ruby 1.9 was always a bit behind, too. So I downloaded Rubygems and Ruby 1.9, gave them each a user, and had them install to their home directory. Now, if I need to completely wipe it and start over, I won't be picking pieces of Rubygems out of every corner of my system -- I just nuke /home/rubygems, and start over.

Since Wine is implemented in user mode, I think that that prevents me from liberal access to my partitions.

I see -- but, this was a response to you being afraid of installing Vista again. I wouldn't be afraid to have Vista or XP on this laptop, if it's properly backed up. If it's an emergency, I can pull out the SATA disk and put it in the fileserver where the backups are. Your "two full days" don't seem realistic, with good backups.

What I'd be more afraid of is a deliberate, specialized attack -- something which finds my home partition and grabs my ssh keys, for example. Ok, those can be encrypted, but realistically, I should be doing full-disk encryption to protect against that...

That's also the reason I hate IBM when forces me to run their installers as root (I think in order to install some secret-shitty-license-key-file)

I wonder if those will run chroot'ed? Or in a VM? Debian's "fakeroot" might also help you here.

Imagine the day programs like

[rolfwind]

Turbotax, quicken, photoshop, quickbooks claim it on their boxes?

Chair manufacturers wouldn't be able to keep up with demand!

Re:Imagine the day programs like

[Rudisaurus]

Yup, these are exactly the apps I'm waiting for to migrate completely to Ubuntu and finally wean myself completely from Win-dependency.

Insightful AND funny -- mod parent up!

Apps available are also available natively...

[mvdw]

Most if not all of the apps already mentioned have native Free equivalents that are as good, if not better. Specifically, the majority seem to be DVD or MP3 programs, which are already heavily targeted. Although, more officially-supported WINE apps is certainly good for regression testing the codebase.

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[evanbd]

Not listed (yet, I'm about to add it) is the PokerStars client. It's a bit buried, but they do list it as supported in the faq and they offer support for it. That's the closest you'll get to a real-money poker option for Linux.

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[Tatsh]

I played that all last month and it works fine 100%. Real money, but I lost it all hehe

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[Tatsh]

The problem is developers who write Windows-only code then. There are a decent number of games that are open source that are written using Windows APIs only. Sure, maybe developers like the Windows API but why target one OS? The other thing is .NET. Wine still barely works with it and Microsoft loves that developers find C# easy to use and that most developers using C# are developing Windows-only .NET apps. Yes, there is Mono but it is nowhere near compatible. Purposely kept behind, plus if there's a .NET app front-end to a Windows CLI app, that will not work because .NET has no Win32 API.

I would like to see Mono and Wine developers work together. Of course, Micro$oft does not. On the other hand, what's stopping DotGNU from becoming better than Mono and working with the Wine project?

Then of course, newcomers to developing should understand that they can provide to a larger user base if they build cross-platform apps (and if necessary use cross-platform libs). We would all like newcomers to developing to start on Linux (this is essentially how my university does it), but this is right now not necessarily a reality.

Who wants to start the 'Learn on Linux First' campaign?

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[GigaplexNZ]

Real money, but I lost it all hehe

You should file a bug report about that.

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[Tatsh]

I would like to know if there is some reason why 90% of the games coming out use DirectX as opposed to OpenGL in the first place. A reason besides ease. I can certainly side with developers if they find DirectX easier to app with OpenGL (it is bound to happen). Also, the incentive is that if you make a game with DirectX, that means there will be a LOT less time spent porting it to Xbox 360. If the games were written with OpenGL, Linux and Mac ports (native, NOT Cider) could be easily made. Even PS3 and Wii ports would be easier.

Must not be fun programming games today for up to 6 consoles (all slightly different architectures and libraries): Xbox 360 (DirectX, PowerPC big-endian), PS3 (PSGL based on OpenGL, special Cell processor that not everyone knows how to program yet it seems), Wii (PowerPC processor, slight upgrade from the GameCube; an OpenGL-based graphics language again), PS2 (also uses a variant of OpenGL for graphics; as it is MIPS, can be little-endian or big-endian); PSP (MIPS, like PS2), Nintendo DS (ARM, graphics library based on OpenGL like Nintendo 64 was heavily based upon SGI's implementation since SGI provided the chip). I cannot even imagine. #ifdef _XBOX360, #ifdef _BIGENDIAN. Although consoles are going to compete, that does not mean they should use totally different languages (especially the difference between DirectX and OpenGL). How does this benefit the developers who are PAYING to be able to make console games in the first place?

Conspiracy theory: M$ is paying developers like EA Games to use DirectX only, and soon enough they will pay developers to use DirectX 10 only.

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[anss123]

I can certainly side with developers if they find DirectX easier to app with OpenGL

It's not ease, it's bugs. If you code OpenGL you have to deal with ATI/Nvidia driver bugs to a much larger degree. OpenGL is large and complex while to ATI/Nivida DirectX is small with Mirosoft handling the "complex".

In theory this should give OpenGL a performance advantage (one less layer to pass through). Of course things might have changed from the DirectX 7 days when I looked into this stuff.

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[Macthorpe]

Just to echo the other respondent, it's mainly because it's a choice between you handling hardware compatibilities in OpenGL via extensions (which is expensive and time-consuming) or Microsoft handling that for you by providing set feature lists for DirectX (quicker and cheaper). While OpenGL does have DirectX-style set feature lists for their point releases, they're slow to come out, the scope is narrower, and there's still a mass of proprietary extensions for ATI and nVidia that make it a mess to code for.

No conspiracy theories, I'm afraid - it's just that much cheaper to design for DirectX.

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[msclrhd]

So educate people. Teach them Python and/or Ruby either as a replacement for, or as well as C#. Teach them C/C++. Teach them Haskell, Prolog and other languages. Teach them Objective-C and how to write iPhone/Mac applications.

Haskell was a revelation for me into how the C++ STL works and the design decisions behind it.

Scripting languages are easier to start with as the first program is just a print command and you don't need to compile the program. Hell, teach children Logo or other interactive languages.

Re:Apps available are also available natively...

[ThaReetLad]

Could it be because DirectX is more feature full than OpenGL? Seriously, shader support in DirectX is light years ahead of OpenGL. If you're coding for a platform it's not a major issue, because the hardware is defined, but on a PC, DirectX is far and away the best abstraction layer if you don't want your games to be limited to either NVidia or ATI, and still use the full power of those cards.

Wine troubles me...

[bogaboga]

...because it's always a work in progress. We in the Linux world appear to always be "chasing" a prize that can never be caught.

I applaud the programmers in this effort though.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[_Sprocket_]

As someone playing WoW on my Linux box, I say "chase on!"

Re:Wine troubles me...

[bondsbw]

Agreed. They've done a fantastic job, but their job will never be over.

I personally think that reversing that effort would be best. If companies were able to develop solid apps for Linux, and be assured that they would work flawlessly and efficiently in Windows, that would be a better way to kill two birds with one stone.

A major project going this direction is andLinux, which is basically the opposite of Wine. It uses the coLinux kernel, a port of the Linux kernel for Windows, to allow Linux programs to run natively in Windows.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[onefriedrice]

In the world of computers, anything that isn't a work in progress is already obsolete.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's like the rest of the OS -- it works for some things, not for others.

However, occasionally, what you need and what Wine/Linux provides sync up perfectly. Then, there are a lot of good reasons to switch -- free-as-in-beer being the obvious one.

As an example: I have tried plenty of programs in Wine, and watched them fail horribly. Others, I simply don't want to sacrifice a dozen FPS and some visual quality to play Portal on Linux, when I can just keep an XP partition around.

But every now and then, you end up with something like Filemaker or Quicken working just perfectly -- and if the only remaining app a user depends on is in that list, they can pretty much stop booting Windows.

Even if Wine never "catches up", every user who can use Wine instead of Windows is a win. And those users who do make the switch aren't likely to switch back because of a new app that isn't supported -- they're more likely to try to get it supported, or seek out another app.

So, even in a perfect world, where Linux achieves at least some 20 or 30% marketshare, to where people can no longer ignore it (and possibly starting a tidal wave of Windows users jumping ship), Wine probably wouldn't be perfect. But it would be enough to drive demand, and change the game.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[Tatsh]

I also applaud the effort in creating Wine. It has enabled great efficiency within Linux as you no longer have to boot into Windows or virtualise to run many apps.

Regardless, I do not mind listing my project as 'supporting' Wine, but my project is open source and builds natively on Linux. Obviously I am going to want the native version.

Shared libraries seem to be the biggest problem with trying to distribute binary-only apps for Linux. A lot of apps try to solve by using static binaries or building the binary so it only uses so files in a certain directory, including its own, much the same way a Windows app will first look for a DLL in its current directory first before going to system32 and other 'standard' directories. Currently on Gentoo if I grab Opera (64-bit), it has a problem with a symbol in a shared library and then crashes. No real way to solve this except to go back a version or two in the library that the so file belongs to. Of course I would not want to do that if everything else works fine.

We cannot convince the commercial software developers to release their source so we can all compile or make distribution packages yet. Someday though I hope.

I would love to experiment this: make a high-budget game that is sure to get high-ratings and release it with the source code so that Linux users can use it. The catch: the licence would NOT be the GPL or LGPL, thus making it possible for me to sue anyone who modifies the source code and distributes or even pirates in the first place. How different is this from the current state of warez? Right now, a game gets released, someone who knows ASM really well cracks the protection away, and then the game is released onto the internet and masses download the game for free (many of whom were never going to buy the game whether they have the money or not). I think the game will sell regardless, pirates will get the game because they want it, and modders will have a great time. Maybe I could make a good licence for modders?

Re:Wine troubles me...

[Tatsh]

I disagree. Why rely upon the buggy Windows kernel to keep things afloat? We do not know exactly how it works, why it does it what it does, etc etc. It is not trustworthy. Linux is because we can see the source code and we compile. We can see the source code of GCC which compiles it. We can see the source code of the GCC that compiles GCC, ad infinitum until we get down to the ASM code that starts up our PCs in the first place.

If developers build for andLinux, that is all it will really support. It is generally impossible to say that a binary built on Fedora will work on Ubuntu. It is likely a simple Hello, world app will run fine but not something that has a vast amount of dependencies with specific versions.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[Jamie's Nightmare]

Hell yeah! Join me in a game of Day of Defeat: Source. It should be pretty easy for me to chase you, since you'll be getting about only about 17 FPS.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[Jamie's Nightmare]

Oh! Please continue. Tell us in what way you find the NT kernel to be buggy. Naturally you can't be expected to expose all the problems with NT because you haven't seen the source code yourself, unless you've requested to do so from Microsoft for academic purposes. Still, we need more guys like you that are willing to stand up and be heard.

Only if you have some free time though. I understand you spend a lot of time looking through the source code for each new Linux kernel release and software program you install on your machine. I imagine that must take some time out of your day. It's a lot of work, but this is your safely we're talking about. Can't trust those evil Microsoft employees.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[_Sprocket_]

Which is why I won't bother with that game. :P

Don't get me wrong... there's plenty (I mean PLENTY) of stuff that doesn't work in Wine and probably never will. Bummer.

But as the Blizzard guys do work with the Wine folks to keep everything smooth - that works for me.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[NotBorg]

Agreed. They've done a fantastic job, but their job will never be over.

Linux Kernel developers have done a fantastic job, but their job will never be over. I don't understand why they keep going.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[dotancohen]

...because it's always a work in progress. We in the Linux world appear to always be "chasing" a prize that can never be caught.

I applaud the programmers in this effort though.

And when do you suppose the Linux kernel will be done? Or MS Office? Or your local bus service?

What is done?

Re:Wine troubles me...

[cbhacking]

Out of curiosity, exactly what "buggy Windows kernel" are you referring to? Win9X sucked, but it's been discontinued. NT4 had some serious issues, but essentially nobody still uses it either (any more than they use Linux 2.2).

Since NT5 (Windows 2000, and especially 5.2 - Server 2003) the kernel is quite good. It's not perfect, but strip away the Windows user-space and the core of the system is quite a feat of engineering. Like all other mainstream OS kernels it is still evolving - 6.1 brings a few very significant low-level changes - but buggy is not the term anybody honestly familiar with the NT kernel would use.

Also, while your point about the visibility of each layer of the system is a good one, don't delude yourself into thinking it perfect. At some level, you always need to trust something you can't personally verify - when you take GCC source and use GCC to compile it into a new version of GCC, how do you know the GCC binary you're using hasn't been subtly modified such that the resulting compiled code has some malicious behavior that the source never specifies? How do you know the hard drive or CPU microcode you're using doesn't have a firmware-level rootkit? I'm not advocating closed-source software, simply saying that there's no such thing as perfect visibility unless you build everything, from the silicon wafers up, yourself.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[msclrhd]

Someone could use your work and use it to create a really cool game that everyone buys. They release it as closed source as you don't have the protection from (L)GPL, so you don't know what they have done to your codebase and you don't benefit.

In your example, it is not the copy prevention circumvention that is the issue but the use of the code without sharing the changes.

NOTE: (disclaimer: IANAL) If the license does not have protections against modification or reuse (like the (L)GPL does) then it *prevents* you suing people who modify the source code and not distribute it, just the binaries.

And if you are talking about suing people who modify and publish the source, what protections in the license do you have for that (e.g. you shall not modify and distribute the program in source form). What's to prevent people modifying it and distributing it in binary form?

Re:Wine troubles me...

[Creedo]

I agree. My desktop, which is not top of the line, can play two sessions of WoW at a time without taking a major hit in performance. And this is the stock wine that comes with Debian. I just mount up the Windows partition and run it.

Re:Wine troubles me...

[nyvalbanat]

As someone who's been using Ubuntu as primary desktop at work for 2+ years now (after 6+ years of windows), whenever I use Windows it feels like my hands are tied behind my back with a string that goes from my neck down between my legs so whenever I try to type with my nose I get a terrible pain you know where.

Neat!

[NineNine]

Neat! 16 apps! One I've heard of, and there are tons of replacements for it on every platform (utorrent). Looks like a fun project, though!

Re:Neat!

[Hal_Porter]

Neat! 16 apps! One I've heard of, and there are tons of replacements for it on every platform (utorrent). Looks like a fun project, though!

I dunno, wishful thinking mixed with hubris like this usually leads to a funny rant on Linux Hater's Blog.

Wine is important

[moniker127]

I know you Richard Stallman fans dont approve- but if wine were all encompassing- if it could run more or less anything that windows could- and if it were built into a distro- linux's market share would SKYROCKET. Not being able to run some windows apps is the reason 90% of windows users out there dont use linux.
If this were the case- it would allow a transition period for application developers to gradually switch over to coding for linux nativly, and eventually windows could be the one you'd need an emulator for.

Re:Wine is important

[howlingmadhowie]

Not being able to run some windows apps is the reason 90% of windows users out there dont use linux.

i know it's hyperbole, but the reason 90% of windows users don't use linux is because windows is what came on their machines and they have no reason to change.

Re:Wine is important

[moniker127]

People are broke and linux is free. Even lowly joe sixpack understands that. Some companies offer linux on machines to make the whole price cheaper. Besides- not everyone who dosnt use linux is a moron. People would switch if they had a fucking reason to switch.

Re:Wine is important

[david_thornley]

Windows is free, too, as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned. It comes with the computer, and Joe doesn't know ways to get the computer cheaper without it. The companies that offer Linux computers cheaper (and they can't do it all that much cheaper, OEM licensing being what it is), don't advertise much and, more importantly, don't have shelf space at Best Buy and Office Depot.

Windows is expensive to upgrade to, but Joe doesn't upgrade. He uses the OS that came on the computer, although he may accept free (as in beer) updates. He doesn't have a clear idea as to what is the computer, what is the OS, what is the Internet, and what are applications.

Give him an Ubuntu box, and he's likely to use it happily, unless there's a specific game or other application he wants that doesn't run on Unix. He won't go out and buy one.

Re:Wine is important

[Risen888]

Windows is free, too, as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned. It comes with the computer, and Joe doesn't know ways to get the computer cheaper without it.

YEAHBUT! When that Windows install shits the bed and dies a horrible, gurgly death, and you don't have an install disc or a CD key, suddenly Windows is no longer free.

Wait them out, that's what I say.

Re:hey adobe...

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll be serving snow cones in hell before Adobe releases Photoshop for Linux. Adobe wants $$$$$ for its products. Linux users, by and large, want their OS and apps for free. The two concepts don't mesh well, and the suits at Adobe know that.

Re:hey adobe...

[RedK]

You can already run Photoshop CS4 on Unix, and I mean the real deal (http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html), not imitation Linux Unix.

The heart of the matter

[Narpak]

I reckon the core of this is more and more realizing the future is diverse when it comes to operating systems. Already some run Microsoft systems, while others run Linux distros or other systems. Coming out with Wine as a supported platform can mean that when a company or person decides to switch to a Linux based system that person know that they can chose one of their familiar alternatives and that it will run under Wine. This not only helps make it easier for certain people to make the switch to a Liunx system it also gives the companies that declares Wine a supported platform with an "early" in; into what promises to be a bigger marked than most of the old guard within Open Source might accept or realize.

While there might be free alternatives certain companies and organization isn't looking for free. They are looking for function and more importantly; support.

Re:hey adobe...

[powerspike]

Until the cost of producing the software, is dwarfed by the income from it, it's not going to be very likely, you might fine if they did do it, they'd have to staticly compile the whole thing, and it'd make the windows and mac versions look "lite" compared to it.

WTF with the summary.

[rrkap]

Wine is a cool project. It's even useful, but it isn't nearly as compatible with Windows or DOS aps than Vista. That's just stupid. This is yet another story that leads me to suspect that kdawson is an idiot.

Re:WTF with the summary.

[sameb112]

That's not very nice. Can't take a joke? Ok, maybe not a very GOOD joke... but what is a joke on Slashdot?

Re:WTF with the summary.

[ari_j]

Do you remember that story that didn't lead you to suspect that kdawson sucks and is retarded?

Me neither.

Re:WTF with the summary.

[kae_verens]

I guess it depends on the application.

For example, I recently got to play Thief for the first time in years - it refused to play on Vista. The only reason I had Vista installed in the first place was in case I wanted to play some games.

It seems to me that when the games I want to play (command and conquer, dungeon keeper, alpha centauri, thief) work better and are easier to install in Wine than in Vista, I don't see the point of using Windows at all.

Re:WTF with the summary.

[Gavagai80]

DOS apps? I'm pretty sure you'll need dosbox to run those on any platform.

Wine for Windows

[sonamchauhan]

> runs Windows applications more often than not. (Certainly more often than Vista does.)

Maybe this occasions releasing Wine on Windows itself ;)

Re:Wine for Windows

[hcmtnbiker]

Um, WINEHQ has for a long time had a "Windows port". It's used mostly for testing since substituting the real system files is easier in the actual environment; and some other debugging is easier too. Since the new site layout however I've yet to find the correct link for it, otherwise I would post it.

Re:Wine for Windows

[blool]

I came here to gripe about wine. While it is definitely a cool piece of software I think people way overstate its abilities. For instance, I've read many many times that wine works perfectly with starcraft. The wine website itself rates it "Gold" which according to them means "Applications that work flawlessly with some special configuration". And yet anyone who has tried to use starcraft on Linux would know that that the multiplayer(the reason people still play sc) is unusable due to acknowledged graphical bugs and lag(YMMV on this). Starcraft is not a stand alone example from my experience. I would say anything not on the list of 76 programs that "work flawlessly, no configuration", are likely to be unusable. Unfortunately software is not like a glass of milk. A program that only works 50% of the time is bad, while milk is delicious no matter how much of it you have.

Re:Wine for Windows

[penguinchris]

It's worse than that. Many of the programs on the "platinum" list, which as you noted are supposed to "work flawlessly, no configuration" - don't. If you look at the write-ups people posted saying they tried it and it worked flawlessly, most of them will say they "didn't try" certain features (which are probably the ones you want, and which end up not working) or they even say that there ARE some problems... and in many cases these are serious problems.

But the program starts up, and it's feasible you could get something useful out of it, so it's "platinum" right? Chances are, those couple of things that weren't tried or didn't work quite right are the whole reason anyone wants to use the software in the first place, as in your Starcraft example with multiplayer!

The worst is that it's obvious in some cases that the people who submitted these reports weren't regular users of the software. They apparnetly just installed it and tried it to see if it would work with wine. That's great, seeing if things are compatible, helping out - but seriously, to be helpful you have to know what the program is supposed to do and what people actually use it for.

I'm not trying to incite anyone but I don't think anyone who's looked at the Wine AppDB would disagree with me too much. I appreciate the work people put into it, but there needs to be some better standards for deciding how well software works under Wine. It's hard to recommend Wine for anything when it's a total crapshoot whether comments in the AppDB are correct or not.

I personally don't have need to run anything with Wine, but I have attempted on occasion, and have helped others do so. I do run one piece of Windows software - Adobe Lightroom - but I do so in a Windows VM because Wine support for it is extremely limited.

As I think someone else in here noted, a lot of the really well-supported software is stuff like DVD rippers/burners and "utility" apps, of which there are usually multiple excellent open-source programs available to choose from. That's not the kind of software preventing people from switching to linux. Although, I did give up my favorite DVD burning program, ImgBurn, when I stopped using windows several years ago - it does work pretty much flawlessly under wine actually, but I like k3b too :)

Re:Wine for Windows

[msclrhd]

So help out. Test your favorite application in Wine that you use day-in day-out. Add your feedback to AppDB - mention that functionality XYZ does not work, or is slow. File bug reports.

I do this for Cepstral SwiftTalker that I use all the time under Wine.

If you see a bug in Firefox, do you report it or do you just tolerate it? Reporting it means that it is more likely to get fixed (note that I am not saying will get fixed as tracking down bugs can be complicated and time consuming).

Re:Wine for Windows

[m50d]

For a long time I ran wine successfully under SFU on windows XP. It was a geeky thing to show off, nothing more. (Sadly, now that I'm running vista x64 and could actually do with having wine work under it, it won't build).

Re:Wine for Windows

[LingNoi]

I use ubuntu and it depends. Sometimes I just tolerate the bug because I'm tired of the "New version of ubuntu out does this still effect you?" messages I get.

I could understand if it was something not testable to the person saying that. However when the steps to reproduce are download package x and do xyz I think its simple laziness to not just test it yourself, especially when the package from your version of ubuntu has been used in the new version, duh, of course the bug is still there, it's the same package.

There is a large commitment on the bug submitter to do all the work on testing and following up on simple bugs which are reproducible by everyone. This happens in wine too which I follow closely, however to a much less significant degree as it happens in Ubuntu.

Re:Wine for Windows

[stim]

Yeah, I have noticed a degrading in the appdb concerning gold or above ratings. For example, Left4Dead has several gold reviews. But you have to turn off HDR, and crank the settings real low to make it playable, and it still looks and plays like shit. My personal observation is that Ubuntu has poisoned the db with a flood of users who will note a game as gold or above just because it starts up. I know it sounds flamebaitish but I have seen several games where every distro on the list will give a silver or lower, but theres a bunch of gold Ubuntu's. I can no longer trust a rating on face value, but rather have to dig into the attached discussion or a third party forum to get a real feel of a games usability. But taking my above mentioned example, even if you include lots of tweaking and configurations, the game still doesn't deserve a gold rating.

offtopic but...

[Penguin Follower]

I really really dig their web design. :) Been a while since I visited the site, so the current design is new to me.

Re:No Need for Wine

[onefriedrice]

My computer is a tool. Software is my job, not my religion. If I can increase my productivity or otherwise enjoy life better by using a win32 binary in wine rather than a Free version which may or may not be available, I'll use wine without even feeling guilty. Ahh, true freedom.

Re:No Need for Wine

[bug1]

Wine is for those who are addicted to non-free software.

Some people manage to give up their addiction by going cold turkey, others need to ween themselves off it, different methods work for different people.

If people need to ween themselves from their non-free software addiction then their is a need for wine, dont you agree ?

You Don't Support Wine... It Supports You

[Kenyai]

An operating system emulator is supposed to support apps, not vice-versa.

The list should be titled, "Apps That Wine Officially Supports." And it doesn't look good to have that list be so small.

Re:You Don't Support Wine... It Supports You

[SBFCOblivion]

An operating system emulator is supposed to support apps, not vice-versa.

The list should be titled, "Apps That Wine Officially Supports." And it doesn't look good to have that list be so small.

Well, firstly Wine Is Not an Emulator.

Secondly, wtf are you talking about? The list just started this month, of course it's going to be small. The idea is that it will grow.

Thirdly, the list is composed of applications that specifically state they are compatible with Wine. Not sure why you're insisting it should be titled "Apps That Wine Officially Supports".

Re:You Don't Support Wine... It Supports You

[FlyingBishop]

The list should be titled, "Apps That Wine Officially Supports." And it doesn't look good to have that list be so small.

No. That is a list of apps that officially support Wine.

The list you're looking for is located at http://appdb.winehq.org/

Furthermore, Wine is not an emulator. It implements Windows-specific API's so that that program can be run under Linux - x86 Linux. If the programmers are writing good code, it should run unmodified on Wine. Writing a program that implements an established API is not that hard. The problem is, software never works as intended, and programmers invariably make use of undefined behavior in the Windows API. The challenge of Wine is emulating this behavior. However, it is not a Windows emulator. It translates Windows API calls into Linux API calls.

That's nice

[NonUniqueNickname]

Just as long as it doesn't distract the wine devs from what's really important to the linux community: Making sure World of Warcraft runs smoothly. Keep up the good work.

Re:hey adobe...

[theheadlessrabbit]

if this is the case, wouldn't it be easier to make an OSX emulator and run mac photoshop under linux?

is there a MAC-WINE out there?

Re:hey adobe...

[RedK]

For anything written using Cocoa, there is GNUStep.

Why not... I'll pull up the asbestos underoos...

[thesandbender]

This is not a knock on Wine or Wine developers. Hear me out.

Applications develop to a platform. While Wine is technically a platform... it's raison d'être is to emulate the Windows platform. So... asking Windows developers to support it is essentially double-think. You're writing to the emulation platform and not the platform it's supposed to be emulating.

For arguments sake lets say the Redhat or the Debian group came out and said they were going to recognize applications that ran on the Linux 2.4 or 2.2 kernel. The immediate question would be... why? Why are we writing to this standard instead of the current 2.6 standard?

Like I said... this is not a knock on Wine. More and more apps are running on it everyday... which means they're meeting their goal of emulation. Rewarding programs just b/c they don't exercise the full windows API is a step backwards.... for everyone. Recognize the companies that step in and fill the gap so their programs do work. Recognize progress not stagnation.

Re:hey adobe...

[Achromatic1978]

Assuming, of course, you're content to run a 32 bit memory hungry application on a 64 bit operating system, only using possibly a fraction of your RAM. Yay!

I'll stick with Windows, where Photoshop recognizes and uses the 16GB of RAM on my desktop.

W.I.N.E

[DrugCheese]

Wine stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator"

Add another - geophysical software

[dbIII]

There's the SeiSee program with is a viewer for segy files and is specificly tested with wine:

http://www.dmng.ru/seisview/seisee.en.html

I think you'll find a lot of other scientific software is also designed to be cross platform in that way.

There is also some commerical software which is cross platform from dotnet to mono and has official linux support - but I can't give you an example which is paticularly stable on either platform. I really don't know if the blame can be laid on dotnet or the developers using it - and mono is playing catchup which adds in a few more quirks (libexif as a dependancy to run purely text based stuff?).

Re:Add another - geophysical software

[Almahtar]

I can't give you an example which is paticularly stable on either platform

Could it be a sign?

Re:Add another - geophysical software

[dbIII]

Well, I don't really know if the .net environment is crap or that paticular developers of all the .net applications I have seen are crap. I suspect it is a lot of the latter as people that half learnt VB and produced shareware as they were learning are now half learning .net in the gaps in their day jobs. I won't name the paticular 5 figures per seat peice of crap shareware quality .net software because I need to support to get around the many bugs - but it and the many dodgy asp websites really give me little confidence in .net software. I must say it crashes slighly less in MS Windows, and unfortunately due to poorly implemented licence software it takes over ten minutes before you can use the application again after a crash.

Re:Windows troubles me...

[ianare]

Whomever modded you troll obviously never tried getting win98 apps to work on XP, or an XP app on Vista ...

Re:No Need for Wine

[dbIII]

Then you get the inhouse app that everyone has to have which requires MS Access or whatever VB is these days (broken java?). Instead of an expensive mass migration back to MS Windows due to somebody not having the skill or foresight to put a web front end on their oversized macro you can probably get it going under wine.

Re:Windows troubles me...

[Techman83]

Troll!! It was supposed to be funny! Oh well first Troll modding FTW!

Re:Why not... I'll pull up the asbestos underoos..

[dacut]

I agree. I think it would be more beneficial to get these apps either ported fully to Linux (using the native toolkits or WineLib; take your pick), or have them work with the Wine developers to document flaws in their library implementations and help patch it up.

Having dabbled on Wine a looong time ago (I think my last contributions were in 96 or 97?), let me say that this is a very difficult problem to solve. It's easy to get the first 80% done, but the last 20% can be maddening. Trying to bridge between two different rendering models isn't easy, either -- things as simple as drawing a line can have surprising differences in Win32 vs. X (like whether that last pixel is drawn or not!).

Slow but steady

[Eil]

I was at the credit union today waiting literally hours for a banker-type person to do their job. On the table, a CU industry magazine. I picked it up and started flipping through it. (Interesting how every article followed the same exact business-like structure and format, no matter what the topic.) One of the ads was for some kind of "check transport" device. The thing that zips your check through a U-turn and puts a timestamp or something on it, I think. At the bottom of the ad in big bold letters was the statement:

Compatible with all versions of Windows and Linux with WINE.

I was floored. I got that same feeling as the first few times I started seeing World Wide Web URLs pop up on billboards and on TV commercials. Or when random people would find out I was a computer nerd and ask if I knew that Linux program (pronounced with a long 'I').

Put simply, these things teach me that just as there was not really a definitive "year of the Internet," there won't be a "year of Linux" either.Linux's growth has and always will be slow but steady. The nature of software and the I.T. marketplace will demand that more and more software be portable, available, and just generally flexible. That software which isn't will be replaced by that which is. These are a few of the cornerstones of open source after all, and the proprietary vendors would do themselves a favor to realize this for themselves.

Re:Slow but steady

[cerberusss]

I can attest to this. An Australian company called Sparx Systems produces an UML modelling tool called Enterprise Architect.

In a previous job, this piece of software was used and to my surprise, Linux was supported. It's up to version 7 now and for the last couple of major versions, Linux support is provided through Wine. More specifically, they support running it through the commercial version of wine, Crossover Linux.

Re:hey adobe...

[rubah]

who's got a 64-bit operating system?
not me, that's who!

There absolutely are advantages

[Almahtar]

Agreed. For instance, ies4linux. I love the fact that I can run IE 5.5, 6, and 7 concurrently to test web apps and make sure they run right. This doesn't hurt Linux at all. It makes it more attractive to people that have to test with IE. My only other alternative is to run Windows in a VM, which requires purchasing a Windows license.

Re:There absolutely are advantages

[Risen888]

Y'know, I tried, honest to God. I sell Ubuntu boxes, and every once in a blue moon I actually get someone who's stuck with a must-have IE-only website (usually a ten year old work system that they have to log into), and for a long time I tried to do it with ies4linux. But it's so maddeningly buggy on every installation I've ever attempted it on that I had to quit on it. Leave it running for twenty minutes, it never fails to gobble up 100% of the CPU, desktops freeze, customers bitch, chaos ensues.

What I do now is recommend that they buy a Crossover license. Six months later, I have yet to regret my decision.

Joke?

[NotBorg]

I believe the word you are looking for is

WOOOOOOOOOOOSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

If you don't put a large bare foot next to it or it doesn't follow a well established pattern of humor (eg Soviet Russia), it cant be funny.

Re:Joke?

[Random BedHead Ed]

I live in Soviet Russia, you insensitive clod.

In insensitive clod, Soviet Russia lives in you.

Re:hey adobe...

[GigaplexNZ]

Why would they have to statically compile it? Adobe is a fairly big customer of the Qt toolkit, which most distros have dynamic libraries already installed (or at least in the repository). Photoshop is an image editor where they are mostly just modifying memory, they shouldn't need to write much (if any) platform specific code if they did it properly (although being a legacy app that's not very likely at this point).

Link to forum is incorrect

[marshalium]

I think you meant to link to: http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=3375

Re:No Need for Wine

[jonaskoelker]

true freedom.

No.

Freedom is a multidimensional thing. It's an element of {0, 1}^n: the freedom to do thing 0, ..., the freedom to do thing n.

Only using free software means you abstain from exercising freedoms k..k', in return for having freedoms 0..3 with regard to all software you use.

Whether you value freedoms 0..3 more or less than k..k' is an individual value judgement, and you're free (heh) to make that value judgment on your own. And there is no correct, true value judgment, only individual choices.

what on earth is the point of this?

[alexander m]

what am i missing here -- isn't the ENTIRE POINT of wine supposed to be that apps can run on it without having to specially support it? bizarre. an emulator that needs developers to target it for it to work isn't doing its job... (sure, i know most apps DON'T have to target it, but then that renders the whole concept of this list completely redundant!)

Re:what on earth is the point of this?

[shutdown -p now]

what am i missing here -- isn't the ENTIRE POINT of wine supposed to be that apps can run on it without having to specially support it?

Not necessarily - winelib, for example, has always been positioned as a tool to ease porting of Win32 programs to Unix. If the changes that's needed for that are on the order of a few dozen lines of code, as compared to rewriting the entire app in Qt or Gtk, then I'd say that it's still a very useful thing.

Re:hey adobe...

[alexander m]

i do. 64bit ubuntu 8.10, 64bit windows 7 and everything works. all the 32bit stuff on windows just keeps on rolling without giving a damn, and all the 64bit stuff breathes a huge sigh of relief and relaxes into a 6GB memory space. performance is up across the board. drivers were available for everything. (and the adobe 64bit flash plugin worked seamlessly on ubuntu) the real question is why are people NOT running 64bit systems? i don't get it...

Re:hey adobe...

[rubah]

32-bit processors might have something to do with it. Or getting your money's worth out of the computers we already had.

Re:Why not... I'll pull up the asbestos underoos..

[savuporo]

I thought the call to support Wine as a platform to be a bit retarded as well. If from the very start of development you consider multiplatform, its just easier to really write and test for multiplatform from the get-go, rather than relying on an emulator.

You have entire frameworks and languages that are multiplatform ( .NET , Java ) and then for C++ you have myriad of OS abstraction toolkits for all your programming needs, from basic opsys level abstraction ( Boost, POCO etc etc ) to crossplatform UI, 3D and audio tools.

There is simply no reason why for a new project you would have to target Wine as a platform, unless you still think that MFC, ATL or COM is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Ok, for apps that are legacy codebase paying attention to Wine might make a bit more sense, but then its perhaps easier to spend that effort not rewriting parts of your application to work with Wine, but to improve Wine to support your existing app better.

New name suggestion

[Woek]

That "Wine-Is-Not-an-Emulator-but-the-name-sure-sounds-like-it" thing is getting awkward... Why don't they start calling it "Wafl" or something? Being the acronym of Windows Api For Linux it's less confusing. Plus, it sounds like something delicious!

oh, lol

[smash]

"Wine (the Windows not-an-emulator for Unix) runs Windows applications more often than not. (Certainly more often than Vista does.

Story hereby tagged "troll".

Yes, I've seen the "comparison" done by osnews or whoever it was. Its an extremely skewed crock of shit.

Re:Inaccurate? hmmm

[Tuna_Shooter]

I wonder if this is the same Dan Kegel that did the netcode for the Mechwarrior 2 series??? Sharp cookie that one is ......

A Windows port?

[jandersen]

I went to their website, but I couldn't even find a Windows port. That's so lame, if we want people to use open source software, we need to port things to Windows. Useless, I say, useless.

Not obscure

[Britz]

Actually for music production under Linux, Reaper (http://www.reaper.fm/) is currently the recommened application. It is the closest alternative to digital audio workstation DAW products like Cubase on Linux.
The other two programs would be Rosegarden and Ardour. Both don't cut it yet. Ardour is closer than Rosegarden, but I heard that the developement is more a one man show and the developer uses outdated concepts.

So for music production this is not obscure at all.

Scouts badges

[jlebrech]

It's nice to have little logos on the software box. it makes the app look profesionnal and endorsed by someone. goes well with the little penguin, vista logo, xp logo, and daemon :D

Spotify

[Per Wigren]

Spotify officially support WINE and it runs with WINE almost as good as running it natively in Windows. When using desktop effects (Compiz/KDE4), maximizing the window is buggy and there are no window shadows but other than that it runs great.

Re:Spotify

[JickL]

Yup, I've been using it a lot on my Linux boxes.

But of course it won't be mentioned in a hurry in the discussions here on Slashdot, as it hasn't been released in the US yet. :P

Re:hey adobe...

[amRadioHed]

I ran 64bit for awhile. No real benefit with plenty of extra problems. Of course I don't have more than 2GB of memory either. One of these days 64bit will be mainstream, but for now it's not worth for the normal user.

If you have XP lying around, just virtualise...

[hattig]

Many people will be in possession of an Windows XP CD of some sort, seeing as it has been out for 8 years so far.

Yesterday I decided I wanted to play Sim City 3000 again, but my main computer is Linux, and I was also doing work in it at the same time. I looked at the Wine compatibility site and it wasn't compatible. So I found my old Windows XP Professional CD, installed VirtualBox OSE from Ubuntu's package manager, and installed Windows. Worked a treat. NoCD patch? Create an ISO of the game image and mount it within VirtualBox (have yet to try this)... The level of integration is brilliant, once you install the guest tools. And thus I managed to play Sim City 3000 happily soon afterwards.

Now I know it would suck for modern games because of the lack of hardware accelerated 3D, but it's perfect for running apps and older games. Which is more than can be said for wine, in which I installed a simple text editor in which the text turned out to be oddly spaced.

Open Source, Open Systems...

[argent]

... If you write Win32 open source or shareware, please open yourself to the wider market!"

If you write Win32 open source, consider writing your code to an open API instead of a proprietary one instead. Open systems are at least as important as open source.

Re:Open Source, Open Systems...

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you write Win32 open source, consider writing your code to an open API instead of a proprietary one instead. Open systems are at least as important as open source.

First they think it's cool that they can run their app on Linux. Then they try to figure out how to get it to run better. Then they refactor their code into libraries, then they port.

First step is to show them the shallow end.

Poker and Linux

[horza]

I enjoy online Poker and the *only* poker client that works under Wine with Linux is Party Poker. And I've tried a lot of clients. So they get all my money! They are really missing a trick though as their download page doesn't mention this. They could get some geek cred and loyalty by putting a "Linux/Wine friendly" badge on the page.

Phillip.

Appeal against misery

[SpaghettiPattern]

Congregation!!!
Do you think the lord of GPL is good?! Yeah!
And do you think the M$ is wicked, bad and a deceiving devil altogether?Yeah!
Should we, defenders of the faith of the saint Ignucious, be merciful on the sinners which are still in the claws of the cursed M$?Yeah!
Then why, I say, why do not we let our brothers and sisters end their misery?
End it, by pouring the blood of JC* onto the Vista.Yeah!
And thus they, our brothers and sisters, will become able to unfold** the scrolls*** which were forbidden by the tyrant Vista?
One merely must deceive the evil and to allow the holy scroll of the blood of JC to unfold onto the Vista.Yeah!

Let the lord bless you and let he bless the united states of America. Amen.

• *: Wine
• **: To run
• ***: Programs

Re:hey adobe...

[rubbsdecvik]

I disagree. I love Linux for it's pragmatic uses as well as it's freedom, but I'm not going to let Open Source philosophy rule my software decisions. If something is worth the money, I don't mind paying for it, even if my OS was free. I saved money on my OS so I could afford other things, if those things include software, then why not?

This all you need for a Slashdot front page now?

[Zey]

Seriously lame list.

First thing you'd do when initiating that page would be to plug "System requirements Windows WINE" into Google and start wading through results. I know my apps would certainly be there somewhere (I make a point of testing against Windows 98-Seven, WINE and ReactOS).

.Net Framework

[groslyunderpaid]

You want to help those of us in the business world migrate towards linux?

Get support for the .Net Framework built into Wine. From what I understand, it does decent with .Net 2.0, but I couldn't get it to install .Net 3.0 to save my life. We have lots of proprietary apps here that require .Net X to even install.

WoW on WINE

[emanem]

As long as I can enjoy World of Warcraft on Linux (apart the new cool shadows -not implemented by Blizzard on Windows OpenGL) I think WINE is great. I know a lot of people that did the big jump because of this. Cheers,

Two questions

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

1. What does the first link have to do with the article? Perhaps a mis-paste?

2. Great! So where can I find a list of requirements for making my app WINE-compatible?

A couple of quick google searches did not turn up any such information. While it would be great to make windows apps "WINE compatible"... until they make it clear /how/ to do that, don't expect too many people to jump on the bandwagon.

What about winelib?

[MobyDisk]

If these developers "support" Wine then they should recompile their apps with WineLib instead of saying "see, someone else made our app work on Linux - aren't we nice guys?"

Re:What about winelib?

[petermgreen]

For many projects that would involve major work on the build setup and due to the different compiler would increase the chance of bugs specific to the wine version.

And for what gain? I don't see any.

Re:True freedom to expoit

[mjtaylor24601]

I bet you just buy clothes because you like them. You can't be bothered with all that stuff about child labour being used to produce them.

So just to be clear here, you're seriously drawing a moral equivalence between closed source software and sweatshop labor?

Native, not WINE

[arth1]

There are (generalizing) three categories of companies:
(a) companies willing to invest in the time and effort to create Mac and Linux applications (easier to do for startups/from the beginning);
(b) companies interested in providing a Linux or Mac version, but who don't currently have the resources;
(c) companies that are not interested or have no intention of providing versions that don't target Windows.

With these (a) is not a problem as you already have native versions. With (b) there is interest and Wine/CrossOver can help to bridge that gap, to help get an initial version out of the door so that later on they can produce a native version.

I think you're an optimist. What I see happening is that because a company has managed to get an app to work with WINE, the impetus for creating a native Linux version disappears, and any port or recreation projects get canned. They use WINE instead of creating a Linux version, and as an excuse not to do so.

Google Picasa and World of Warcraft are excellent examples.

Again, WINE is just a band-aid, and not the solution. In many cases, the presence of WINE has hampered Linux development, because companies and lazy users are content with running the Windows app instead of a native app that can take full advantage of Linux.

Re:Native, not WINE

[Hatta]

Wine is native. Wine is just an implementation of an API. An application that's compiled against Wine is no less native than an application compiled against QT, or SDL, or what have you.

Re:Native, not WINE

[arth1]

The apps that run under WINE are not native in any understanding of the word "native". They do not interface with X, do not link with system DSOs, but interface with what they think is Windows, and link with DLLs. They are, and continue to be, Windows applications.

I type this in a browser running on VMWare, running on Windows. That doesn't make the browser I type this in a Windows native application.

Re:Why not... I'll pull up the asbestos underoos..

[LingNoi]

because porting a windows only app takes a huge amount of effort whereas co-operating with wine as to what bugs are your programs and which are wine bugs take much less effort.

The program working is far more important then if it is native or not. It's a pathetic goal as a native build doesn't guarantee quality over an application running via wine.

Off Topic: Santa Monica Client

[fm6]

OK, I stand corrected on uTorrent. (I'm probably the only Slashdotter who doesn't do P2P.) But I have to wonder why anybody would go to the extra hassle of running a Windows torrent client on Linux when there are so many native Linux clients.

My technical writer semantic inconsistency monitor just cut in: "P2P client" is a contradiction in terms. But "client" is the word everybody uses. I guess "torrent peer" sounds like place you go fishing for salmon.

Re:Off Topic: Santa Monica Client

[InverseParadox]

I think it derives from the days when peer-to-peer networks all involved centralized servers to some respect - only the transfers themselves were peer-to-peer; searching for particular files and/or for sources of a particular file were all done by interaction with a central server, and therefore the programs which did all that were clients for that server.

Technically that's still true with BitTorrent, it's just that the "finding particular files" part has been taken out of the P2P program itself and moved into the "things you do before launching your transferring program" category. Under this scenario, the BitTorrent tracker would be the server, and the seeds and peers would be clients of that server; it's a bit thin compared to the established client/server image, but it does work.

Re:Off Topic: Santa Monica Client

[fm6]

I have a simpler explanation: people are used to calling a local program that accesses a shared resource a "client". You see this in other loose uses of the word "client" (such as "thin clients" that are actually terminals and don't even begin to follow the client-server model) and in other common applications of technical terms such as "broadband". When technical language. gets applied to ordinary life, ordinary people feel no obligation to preserve the technical subtleties.

Re:Please no

[phrostie]

i understand your arguement and at one time i used to agree.

but in hindsight, as projects like Wine or Reactos have evolved and improved,
MS has been forced to constantly tweak and change their so called standard win32 api.
it has been a moving target.
now by companies and projects officially supporting Wine,
the open source community have taken control of the standard.

write once and run anywhere.

they've taken the Embrace and Extend system MS has used against everyone else and turned it on it's ear.

call it, Embrace and Define.

it may not be a perfect solution, but this is what happened with Unix. now Unix is an accepted open standard.

In insensitive clod, Soviet Russia lives in you.

[zooblethorpe]

I live in Soviet Russia, you insensitive clod.

In insensitive clod, Soviet Russia lives in you.

Thank you for that, now I need a new keyboard! Yerg... typing through coffee mush.

Cheers!

Re:hey adobe...

[gandhi_2]

OSX + Adobe combo is 90% Aqua, Finder, and Quartz and 10% Unix. Most Mac users couldn't grep their way out of a wet paper bag...so enough with the "Mac is Unix" bullshit.

Windows build?

[bartok]

I looked for a version of Wine for Windows to support legacy applications and apparently they don't make a built for Windows. That sucks.

MFoG12 (for Hikaru no Go fans) is Wine ready

[grikdog]

David Fotland's Many Faces of Go v12 runs under Wine (or at least CrossOver) pretty much out-of-the-box. There is one minor cosmetic issue with shadows under the go stones, but that's it. And, courtesy of the new Monte Carlo algorithms, it can whip your butt on a 9x9 board playing at 3 dan (!) which, until last year, I'd have thought was impossible.

Re:MFoG12 (for Hikaru no Go fans) is Wine ready

[Paradigm_Complex]

While MFoG is certainly respectable, there are go AIs that work native under Linux you may want to look into, such as the open-source gnugo and the incredibly strong mogo.

The technique used to make MFoG 12 so strong (Monte Carlo Tree Search) was first popularized for go AI by Mogo, and last I checked Mogo was still stronger than MFoG. Check it out.

Re:MFoG12 (for Hikaru no Go fans) is Wine ready

[grikdog]

Yup. However, MFoG makes strong Go accessible to non-geeks, always presuming that Go players are not geeks in the accepted sense of the word. I mean, mogo requires command-line arguments that are a bit idiosyncratic, compared to GNU Go or even SmartGo (Anders Kierulf's excellent PC Go suite). Mogo's performance improves with time and memory, whereas Dave Fotland's takes advantage of dual-core processors on boxen likely to be found at home, Dell Inspirons, e.g. Where MFoG shines is the way Fotland has integrated MCTS into his own knowledge-based player. The result is very playable.

However, MCTS has made everybody's Go program a moving target, and nobody who claims the laurels today is likely to be wearing them tomorrow. Exciting times. As little as two years ago, absolutely nobody expected strong Go from a computer in this decade. By the end of the century, it may be necessary to play against 7-dan computers, and it's not at all clear whether the games will resemble anything in the last thousand years of history.

One of mogo's inhuman idiosyncracies, e.g., is that it never plays for the crushing victory and invariably settles for the minimum win required. That's weird, like playing against a Vulcan.

Officially or fully support, there is a difference

[jhfry]

I use DVDFab to backup disks that are not supported by Linux tools in the Ubuntu Repo's... however it's 'Official' wine support is sketchy at best.

I can do a full disk backup... but nothing else. I can't even change the application settings from within the application because the settings page won't allow me to navigate.

I say, that if developers add their names to this list, their software should be on par with the same software in a windows environment.

About mac-wine ?

[rzr]

> About mac-wine ? I did look for this once, and it's not so obvious, since it's less documented than win32 is Some hints: http://rzr.online.fr/q/macos

Uhm...

[dmsuperman]

That first link points to a random article about a user asking for help with Office 2000 in wine. Is that really relevant?

Re:hey adobe...

[RedK]

But it's not bullshit. Mac OS X is certified as Unix by the Open Group. That means it includes everything a modern Unix should include. For all intents and purposes, it's as much Unix as Solaris is, while Linux isn't Unix at all.

Re:hey adobe...

[badkarmadayaccount]

And they know even better that each Photoshoper going on linux with no photoshop is one more likely ex-future user. The GIMP isn't perfect, but people jump ship to it, so there is something. Just sayin'.

Re:hey adobe...

[badkarmadayaccount]

That's source and not binary compatible, and not formally aiming at any sort of usable compatibility, just imitating the ideas (good ones, too). Also, there are a myriad of other APIs GNUStep does not cover - the whole damn Quartz stack, for instance. For the uninitiated - it's sorta like DirectX + X.org + Compiz Fusion, from a functionality standpoint.

Re:hey adobe...

[badkarmadayaccount]

It's most important bits, the non-Unix specific graphical and media stack are proprietary. GNU + X.org + Qt + Compiz ain't, and they run on both Solaris and Linux. And the *BSDs. Heck, even Plan 9 has X.org hacks for it. =P

Re:hey adobe...

[RedK]

But it also ships with all the Open, Unix graphical and media stacks. In fact, it now ships with Xorg. QT (available on OS X too) is not part of the Unix specficiation, nor is Compiz. He said he wanted Photoshop on Unix, that's exactly what Photoshop for OS X is.