Wine 1.2 Released

David Gerard writes "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text, and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now."

Comments

Hmmmm.

[click2005]

DirectX 10 is getting better.

I wish someone would port Wine to WindowsXP.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this is /., i wish you would pirate a newer version of windows instead of whining about one that's ancient.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Batty0ne]

It's happening. You can actually somewhat use wine on windows. http://wiki.winehq.org/WineOnWindows

Re:Hmmmm.

[CaPn Corelian]

But DirectX 10 on Windows XP is impossible!, MS said so.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Jorl17]

There are already packages that enable Wine's D3D implementation in Windows. VirtualBox, for instance, bundles this with their guest additions. They call it WineD3D on Windows, I believe. You can do a quick google search and you'll find them. That's one of the things you really want to get in Windows with Wine. There are others, of course, but DX10 (enhanced DX7, for instance), are what users usually request.

So, basically, your wish is being granted.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

Windows XP is still the best version of Windows to date.

Re:Hmmmm.

[stonedcat]

I suspect this is more of a user error than anything.
I've been using Linux exclusively for the better part of a decade and have been able to run most anything I throw at Wine on a decent enough system.

Re:Hmmmm.

[DAldredge]

Why do you think that?

Re:Hmmmm.

[David Gerard]

You think you're joking ...

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

No they didn't. They said it was impossible without rewriting other portions of the OS, and really why should they back port DirectX 10 to such an ancient OS. Here's your backport: Spend the $50 to upgrade every 8 years like I did.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

7 isn't bad if you turn Aero off. I'm posting this from a Windows 7 netbook, "Windows Classic" theme.

That being said, I'll probably try out the new version of Wine, and I've had luck with VirtualBox in the past.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows XP is still the best version of Windows to date.

windows 2000 was better..

Re:Hmmmm.

[Bengie]

Win7 is faster, more scalable, more stable, MUCH less bug ridden, better security, and supports new tech...than XP

By your rankings, Linux must be the worst OS out there and Windows ME rules with an iron fist.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Khyber]

I was about to say this, as well. Did most everything XP did, without the bloat.

I remember installing it from 250MB ZIP disk. That was a fun hack.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Undead Waffle]

Depends on what you're trying to use. Valve games usually work just fine (though Steam has had some lag and font issues). Warcraft 3 has been on and off. It will work perfectly in one version then break horribly in the next. Last time I tried to install it again through Wine it didn't work and the instructions on winehq said to download the source, apply a patch, and recompile... for a 10+ year old game that used to work perfectly.

I like Linux and I'm glad Wine is there to give me a shot at getting some games to work, but he's right in that each new version isn't necessarily an upgrade.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Undead Waffle]

for a 10+ year old game

Correction: 8 year old game. Whatever.

Re:Hmmmm.

[linhares]

because he's not working for ballmer?

Re:Hmmmm.

[suso]

7 isn't bad if you turn Aero off. I'm posting this from a Windows 7 netbook, "Windows Classic" theme.

HAHA! This sounds exactly like a Linux apologist from 5 to 10 years ago.

"Linux isn't bad as long as you don't try to play anything proprietary like a flash video or avi. And as long as you buy the right sound card and video card, you'll be fine."

Re:Hmmmm.

[Smauler]

Who modded this "informative"? XP was a crap consumer upgrade to win2k (with features removed), and Vista (and now 7) runs wells on decent hardware. I've run Windows as one of my operating systems for the last 10 years or so, and XP was always crap IMO. YMMV :P

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

scalable how? more stable how? for every bug it fixed, it probably added another at the very least. what new tech does xp not support? most of that is drivers anyway.

Re:Hmmmm.

[dov_0]

But will it run conficker? Blaster-worm? I want my Windows emulation layer to run anything I can run on Windows - realistically. Which means all my XP apps should have their knee-caps blown off by malware!!! I want all malicious binaries coming to me over Limewire to EXECUTE dammit!

Re:Hmmmm.

[pestilence669]

Windows 7 is really expensive for the service pack that it is.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Pentium100]

Also install Classic Shell. Now if I could find a way to move the address bar on Windows Explorer below the menu and toolbar (like it is on XP) it would be really nice.

I am still using XP (Win7 runs in a virtual machine so I can experiment with changing the UI), but I know that sooner or later I am going to have to upgrade (if I buy a new laptop, for example, it's almost certain that I will not be able to install XP on it).

Re:Hmmmm.

[zach_the_lizard]

Well, for one, you don't need to use a floppy to get RAID drivers (I'm ignoring slipstreamed install disks). Windows 7 (and Vista?) support SSD TRIM commands; I don't think XP does. Newer hardware might not have XP drivers. There's no Direct X 10 and above. And so on and so forth....

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

so by sticking with xp, the user loses what? dx11 mode in the 3 games that support it? the ssd trim stuff can be done in drivers so I don't see the big deal.

most modern bioses allow the emulation of the floppy drive with a usb stick.. sure it's mildly annoying but not a big deal, and not a knock against the OS itself.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Win7 is faster, more scalable, more stable, MUCH less bug ridden, better security, and supports new tech...than XP

Aaaaand, you select to base this on precisely nothing. There's not a single place that matters, where Windows 7 is faster than XP. It installs faster, because it uses an image. That's about it.

I use both in my daily work, and I'm not saying Win 7 is bad. I'm only saying your remarks are bad.

Re:Hmmmm.

[aeoo]

Professional shills. You bet your ass corps monitor sites like this one. It's called "public perception management."

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, "bloat" like WPA for wireless. God why can't you lovers of all things retrograde just make like the morse code hams and just stick to your own network without your constant nasal whining on things that matter to this decade.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds exactly like a Linux apologist from 5 to 10 years ago.

Windows is finally catching up!

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't install either for a Laptop (2k for the reason you mentioned, XP for driver support) but if you're installing on a desktop, even a mostly later model one (EOL C2D era, not like i3/5/7) Windows 2000 is still awesome for gaming, flashing usb drives, burning anything on sata/ide, etc.

Most of the places where 2k/XP fall down are technologies that normally make more sense for notebooks and the bleeding edge of gaming (due to drivers/features that the OS does not currently architecturally support.)

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure it's 150 to upgrade given that the XP Compatibility mode is only available in Professional on up.

Re:Hmmmm.

[zaphod777]

an up to date install of XP can do WPA just fine. And if it isn't up to date you can install a hotfix for it.

Re:Hmmmm.

[kestasjk]

Wow you're easily amused. How about this: Windows 7 isn't bad, period. Better?

Re:Hmmmm.

[Arccot]

7 isn't bad if you turn Aero off. I'm posting this from a Windows 7 netbook, "Windows Classic" theme.

HAHA! This sounds exactly like a Linux apologist from 5 to 10 years ago.

"Linux isn't bad as long as you don't try to play anything proprietary like a flash video or avi. And as long as you buy the right sound card and video card, you'll be fine."

Meh. Not really close. The install even gives you the option of turning it on or off, so it's part of the installer. More like Linux distros offering a Gnome or KDE desktop. Most Win 7 users will probably prefer Classic, since that's what they're already used to. There's nothing wrong with Aero, it's just new.

Re:Hmmmm.

[arcade]

Some of us wasn't appologetical about it.

I've been a linux-only user since 1999. In that time, I've gone from KDE 1.X to 4.X (Okay, 4.x is still crap, 3.x was better :-). I've been through a huge load of linux distros (slack, debian, redhat, suse, mandrake, ubuntu, etc).

I don't regret it. I have a system I understand. I've learned way more about how computers and the internet works, than I would have if I had stayed with windows.

There certainly are things in Linux that aren't entirely up to scratch, even to this day. Sound is one of them. While there is plenty of options, they all suck in different and all non-interesting ways.

And then of course there is the problem of games. While there does exist a few, it is rather annoying to have to go through hoops with wine to get the games to run properly.

But would I switch back? I think not. The first thing I do when my computer is booted is to fire up a couple of xterms, since that's where I do most of my stuff. I can understand that not everyone wants be fiddling around in "the terminal" all the time, but that's where I feel at home. :-)

Re:Hmmmm.

[Soul-Burn666]

That's a load of BS.
Even ignoring the ton of fixes MS did with the kernel and things the users don't really see, Win7's Explorer is a metric ton better than in XP.
Movable taskbar windows, I can finally move the tasks to where I want and not have to restart all the running applications.
Pin to taskbar instead of a space wasteful Quick Launch with pretty useful jump lists of recent files.
Winkey-Left/Right for half screen pinning is most useful. Winkey-Up/Down for maximize/minimize is less so.
Searches in the Start menu, renders menu searching obsolete. Much faster to reach any control panel feature.
System tray is more streamlined showing only what I want instead of popping in and out all the time.
It's prettier, with no loss of performance. A friend of mine got a cheapish Netbook with Vista - Worked slow. Installed XP - Worked slow with driver problems. Installed 7 - Worked fast out of the box, aero enabled.
The file explorer... well it's OK, not better or worse than XP's. Vista's method of going up in folders is nice.
Driver support is already quite good.
Excellent touch support. Big icons, touch scrolling on all scrollbar-ed windows.

Unfortunately, CD/DVD IO still locks up the whole system... which is my biggest complaint for a 2010 released system.

Oh, for all of you *STUCK IN THE FRIGGIN' PAST*, streamlining things is *good*, even if it breaks bad things you're used to.
Take a few minutes to get yourself acquainted with the system and embrace Start menu searching - It's awesome.

Re:Hmmmm.

[shaitand]

There is nothing there that couldn't have been done in XP SP4 and almost all of that is something that was intentionally made deficient to increase sales of the new product. For example, there is a hack to install the new direct x versions on XP because there is no technical reason they can't run with full features.

"Windows 7 (and Vista?)"

If you are going to pretend those are different OS then I'm not sure we can even have a conversation.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, somebodys gotta balance out the anti-ms trolls here.

Re:Hmmmm.

[WaroDaBeast]

Why you fail to mention DX10, I don't know. At any rate, here is a list of all games that support it. Hope that's enough for ya.

Anyway, proper support for multi-core CPU's has been introduced in Vista, so switching to Seven from XP will give you that. No more patches to prevent games from displaying what I call "the Benny Hill syndrome" (everything goes at 2x speed in games, possibly more — of course, the framerate remains unchanged) with AMD CPU's.

In addition, XP has neither Direct2D nor DVXA 2.0 support, not to mention that it lacks 30 and 48 bit color depth. That and the interface, along with a lot more shortcuts and a searchbox in the start menu allow you to move around more easily.

As a bonus, you'll get nVidia's scaling and ambient occlusion. Yes, I know — not making them available them under XP has to be a business decision from the aforementioned company, but still... the fact is, you can't have those under XP.

Furthermore, there are much more settings sound-wise; you can adjust the sound volume for each and every application or choose the bitrate and the sampling rate for every sound device, among other things. And there's the second bonus: sound quality. I had always thought the reviewers were talking nonsense when testing the Xonar D2 under Windows 6.x but it's true — that card does sound better under Vista and a fortiori Seven.

So yeah, there's nothing new under Windows Seven.

Re:Hmmmm.

[shaitand]

They lied there is a third party DX 10 on XP installation. No real modifications were needed except to remove checks in the installation that deliberately block the install and execution.

Re:Hmmmm.

[TheRaven64]

Probably because he never used Windows 2K.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say that sounds like a Linux apologist today. I've yet to meet one who's not stuck in Penguin Day.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Khyber]

Umm, WPA is provided by the driver vendor typically. Always was for my wireless cards. I don't use Microsoft stuff if I can, preferring to rely upon 3rd party.

So, yes, WPA works in Windows 2000.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Khyber]

"For wireless clients running Windows 2000 (or clients running Windows XP SP1 and using a wireless network adapter that does not support the Wireless Zero Configuration service), you must obtain and install a new WPA-compliant configuration tool from your wireless network adapter vendor."

From Microsoft's site.

Re:Hmmmm.

[lm317t]

How about this: Windows 7 isn't bad, asterisk*

*as long as you don't compare it to XP or Win2k

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, Windows Vista is a lot better than XP, even more secure than Win7 but less usable.

Re:Hmmmm.

[null8]

Win7 is faster, more scalable, more stable, MUCH less bug ridden, better security, and supports new tech...than XP

By your rankings, Linux must be the worst OS out there and Windows ME rules with an iron fist.

You are wrong, most dx9 games run faster in winxp and it uses less memory and swap, so the actual experience feels for me actually faster.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Runaway1956]

Ha. Didn't I read that Microsoft had extended support for XP to 2020? Don't NEED no steenking new Windows!! ;^)

Re:Hmmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong, most dx9 games run faster in winxp and it uses less memory and swap...

Are you another one of those idiots who think seeing a lot of free memory in task manager?

Here's a clue, dude. If your operating system isn't using up all the RAM you have in your computer, its memory management is broken. That's what the RAM is for, to cache what you're using, because it's faster than disk access. Swap gets used as well, just not accessed very often, if all goes well.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Draek]

And XP isn't bad, as long as you don't try to run anything that uses DirectX10 and weren't planning on using more than 2 GBs of RAM.

All OSes have areas they're weak in, and my personal opinion is that Windows 7's are a *lot* easier to deal with than XP's.

Re:Hmmmm.

[Straterra]

Windows 2000 has one huge flaw for gaming : multiple applications using microphone input. Windows 2000 does not allow it. That issue makes Windows 2000 pretty much useless if you want to use Ventrilo/TeamSpeak, as most games these days have their own voice communication built in.

Re:Hmmmm.

[suso]

It seems your sig is 10 years old. Please update.

What do you mean? Twitter and Identi.ca aren't 10 years old.

Re:Hmmmm.

[cool_arrow]

Yeah but the "This copy of windows is not genuine" crap is really annoying :D

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

I've used Windows 2000. It just doesn't run on as new of hardware as XP will - most hardware after 2007 has trouble running Windows 2000 on bare metal, and virtualization is pointless if the host OS is still crap.

Re:Hmmmm.

[st0nes]

I've just finished playing Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1993?) on Ubuntu 10.04 with DOSbox. What's the problem?

Re:Hmmmm.

[Risen888]

There's nothing wrong with Aero except that it's a fucking resource pig that melts video cards into slag. News flash: the free desktop figured out how to do accelerated desktop effects without burning the damn house down years ago.

Re:Hmmmm.

[samwichse]

The first thing I do when my computer is booted is to fire up a couple of xterms, since that's where I do most of my stuff. I can understand that not everyone wants be fiddling around in "the terminal" all the time, but that's where I feel at home. :-)

Try Yakuake then... man, I feel lost without it now.
F12: instant terminal, tabbed interface between them.
The only thing I'd change about it is the ability to do a vertical split with two terminals side-by-side (or four vert/horiz split with fullscreen, that'd be cool).
Sam

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

You might be able to get away with XP x64 but you'll be playing hell in a handbasket if you want drivers for anything that doesn't come standard in every computer.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

Then just use the bloody built-in voice chat and stop being a 'tard, the point of Ventrilo is to augment games that *lack* the feature, and I highly doubt you're going to be hosting a voice chat while in game if the other people you're voice chatting with aren't playing in the exact same game/server as you.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

You totally misunderstood, he means Windows 2000 is lacking WPA. I can't say if that's the case or not, but next time, pay attention to every word being said, not just the select few that you want to misconstrue into whatever bogus argument you want to make.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

Windows 7 is not less bug-ridden, the only thing it scales is the number of CPU cycles it takes to do the same shit that XP did, the better security argument is dubious (XP is insecure because everyone runs as Administrator?), and while "new tech" is probably the only point I'll give you, most of this "new tech" doesn't do piss for the average user. DirectX 11, right, what does that do for the guy in the cubicle whose domain group policy locks the machine down to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel? Or for the user that only knows to use Word, PowerPoint, and Excel? Or what else, more RAM is available because finally people are using 64-bit OSes? Fuck, dude, even XP came in a x64 flavor, and all the extra RAM allows is for the developers to get lazier and write even more bloated code, and for end users to run even more crapware to bog their machines down with.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

not to mention that it lacks 30 and 48 bit color depth

And the ability to have color depths that exceed the capability of the human eye is to what benefit, again? The human eye can see around 10 million colors, whereas 24-bit color provides 16.7 million, although arguably those 16.7 million colors aren't all viewable, given the gamut limitations of display technology - even laser DLP has a smaller color gamut than the eye can see. Adding more bits per pixel does nothing to assist this, nor does it increase the range of colors displayable - it simply increases the number of colors within that range that can be expressed, and likely it's not possible for humans to notice the difference.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

And that's an idiotic statement based on the average amount of absolutely unallocated physical RAM on the average Linux system. Used cache space is free RAM for all it's worth - when a program tries to malloc() some RAM, it's the RAM used by cache that the Linux or *BSD kernel will hand to the process for it's use. Cache is too ephemeral to qualify as used RAM in the same sense.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

When I try to phonetically render your handle, it comes out the same as "smaller". Is this an obfuscated attempt to describe certain elements of your anatomy?

Re:Hmmmm.

[Straterra]

You must not do much gaming online with a regular set of people. Using a voice service out side of the game provides a unified interface to communicate with. It's not being a 'tard' at all, especially since the quality of in-game voice chat is usually sub-par. Counter-Strike is especially guilty of this. Also, in some games (such as Counter-Strike), you can't communicate with your still living team mates if you are dead.

In short, you are completely missing the point. The whole point was that Windows 2000 is missing a feature that many gamers need, and therefore does not qualify as a good enough OS for people who need this feature.

Re:Hmmmm.

[segin]

And yet the alternative Windows shell is still the same crappy cmd.exe we had back in the days of 2000. Tab completion was always there, the only difference now is that someone flipped a single binary bit in the registry's default settings to turn it on by default.

Desiring less bloat isn't being stuck in the past. Some of those features you describe, I'll probably never use, yet the code that drives them is always consuming RAM in my system, whether I want them too or not, something that with XP, where they don't exist, doesn't happen! (Those features consuming RAM in XP don't happen, I mean, for those too stupid to understand English.)

Re:Hmmmm.

[WaroDaBeast]

Scanned through a bunch of pages, and it seems that all Blu-ray titles so far are 8 bits per channel, so it's just the HDMi connection that can handle this at this stage.

So you're right, it's useless to have those color depths — 'cept for future proofing, I reckon.

Wine wine wine.

[Kepesk]

Awesome! I think I'm going to go install Wine. So that I can run software to organize my collection of wine. While I'm drinking wine. Who's with me?

Re:Wine wine wine.

[AnonGCB]

Your spam on every post is getting rather annoying.

Re:Wine wine wine.

[selven]

Oh quit w(h)ining already.

Re:Wine wine wine.

[DaVince21]

That spam is called humor, you know.

Every windows application

[Anonymous Coward]

except the 1 I usually want to run

I keep fooling myself into thinking that software X is going to run on wine, then I usually end up wasting a lot of time trying to get it to run while borking every other program that it used to run

Re:Every windows application

[KDEnut]

That's what wineprefix is for.

Well, that and copious amounts of prayer.

Re:Every windows application

[Lennie]

I think Wine needs a usability team. Some kind of gui/tooling to make things easier for newbies to Wine.

Re:Every windows application

[Kell Bengal]

Yeah! Something with a GUI front end, and separate windows for each program... and a start menu. Oh, wait.

Re:Every windows application

[h4rr4r]

buy crossover. That is why they sell it.

Re:Every windows application

[morcego]

I think Wine needs a usability team. Some kind of gui/tooling to make things easier for newbies to Wine.

That is exactly why Codeweavers makes money. And it is not even that expensive ...

Re:Every windows application

[gad_zuki!]

Right, along with a native windows manager. Perhaps some kind of "task-bar" where we can see those windows and what they are doing. Of course we'll need a "task-manager" to control them. We'll also need some way to explore all those files, perhaps a "explorer." I'd also like a built in browser, or some way to "explore" the "internet." When we're done we should change the name of the project to reflect its new capabilities. How about a new acronym:

W ine
I is
N not a
D dumb
O open-source
W windows
S simulator

Yes! That's the ticket! Now lets charge $199 a copy and get rich!

Re:Every windows application

[Anonymous Coward]

Since winemenubuilder runs automatically now and mess with host OS files associations (wanna Wine's own notepad.exe to open txt files? No? Why??) I'd say usability team was hanged, shot, beheaded, and finally burned long ago.

Re:Every windows application

[eapache]

I think Wine needs a usability team. Some kind of gui/tooling to make things easier for newbies to Wine.

The vineyard project is working on that, I believe: http://vineyardproject.org/

Re:Every windows application

[Kjella]

PlayOnLinux makes a decent effort, but I don't think it helps WINE development much. It's basically a simple way to run predefined installation scripts that install into separate prefixes with different wine versions and custom settings. If you want to file any bugs, use vanilla wine. CodeWeavers sells a version that does pretty much the same thing and there your money mostly goes into making wine better. On the one side I like the POL approach as you don't get the %&%/%"#% regressions, the downside is of course that with less testing the regressions are unlikely to be fixed. But wine tends to have a bit too many regressions IMO...

Re:Every windows application

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah!

Something with a GUI front end, and separate windows for each program... and a start menu.

Oh, wait.

That already exists, it's called ReactOS.

Re:Every windows application

[David Gerard]

You want Crossover.

(Buying Crossover funds Wine, by the way - half the Wine devs work for Codeweavers.)

Re:Every windows application

[DickeyP]

....with a GUI front end....

Built with Visual Basic I hope!!

Re:Every windows application

[YokoZar]

I think Wine needs a usability team. Some kind of gui/tooling to make things easier for newbies to Wine.

That is exactly why Codeweavers makes money. And it is not even that expensive ...

Yeah it's basically me and the Vineyard author working on Wine usability at this point (Hopefully I can get Vineyard more or less finalized for inclusion in Ubuntu 10.10)

Re:Every windows application

[Anonymous Coward]

If you encounter a regression and don't submit a bug report for it, then you deserve what you get. Wine developers do pay attention to regressions, especially if someone does a regression test (git is really great for that job).

Wine has become relatively good at both preventing regressions and dealing with them when they happen. Patches get rejected daily by Alexandre because they cause test failures. Often I wonder if people complaining about regressions on /. are just regurgitating something they heard or encountered years ago and blindly assume the same is true today.

I don't see many people saying "I filed bugs and nothing happened." Instead I see people making overly generalized statements about how terrible regressions are in Wine. Which seems odd given that regressions happen as a result of code changing because an interested developer is working the area. If you encounter a regression it practically screams that there's a developer that is interested in working on that part of Wine. That puts you much closer to having your bug worked on than other bugs which may rely on unimplemented chunks of an API that perhaps no one is currently interested in developing.

Re:Every windows application

[cynyr]

http://www.wine-doors.org/ (i've never used it.)

You could always create foo.desktop files that i can then click on on my desktop, or in the menus of your favorite DE. most file managers will let you tell it what program to use to open files with a certain file extension. just tell it to open *.exe with wine. there is also winecfg, shipped with wine, that lets you set audio settings, and lib overrides, and such. Also regedit exists as well.

Re:Every windows application

[Khyber]

Has ReactOS even reached real usability, yet? Last time I tried it, it sucked.

Re:Every windows application

[Kjella]

If you encounter a regression and don't submit a bug report for it, then you deserve what you get. Wine developers do pay attention to regressions, especially if someone does a regression test (git is really great for that job).

I did. After a ton of bisect tests (yes, they ask YOU do to it, not them) it turned out to be the gecko version, which didn't really give much of anything and the instructions to build that was arcane to say the least. It took many more months before finally it was patched, then broken a few months later then fixed again a few months after that. Also, you largely underestimate how many applications graciously ignore unimplemented functions without really suffering problems, but then go boom once WINE starts half implementing them. That happened to me on several installers and yes bugs were filed and eventually resolved but it effectively broke a lot that was working. yay. I assume it's probably not working properly for some other application I don't know about since someone's working on it, but if your application was working fine then it can really only go downhill from there. The same happened on something that was harmless graphical glitches but the "fix" started to crash instead, don't get me wrong overall it gets better but sometimes it definitively gets worse before it gets better.

Re:Every windows application

[Minwee]

I think Wine needs a usability team.

Thanks for volunteering.

Re:Every windows application

[10101001 10101001]

With all due respect, Crossover sucks when it comes to usability. Managing Windows/Linux shortcuts seems to be a joke, at best. The documentation on cxmenu is, to put it nicely, utterly confusing. cxsetup really sucks when it comes to doing all sorts of the regular things you'd expect to be able to do--as much as I like bottles, most the time one is left fiddling on the command-line to actually setup bottles in some sensible fashion because crossover seems heavily designed with the mentality that having separate bottles as a default is some sort of unusual thing.

Then there's the cxinstallwizard, which is geared to Crossover supported programs. If you use one of those apps, then great, Crossover might be for you. If you're like me, and you run all sorts of unsupported programs which means you're left to your own devices, for the most part (yes, technically you can use the cxinstallwizard, but it's generally faster and easier to run an installer from the command-line).

I'm not trying to be all down about Crossover, really. It's just that I'd say Crossover is geared more towards people who want to pay to be guaranteed a fixed set of programs will work. Usability as a general point is rather lacking, primarily in how well Crossover features interact (have fun fiddling around with the whole menus thing so your bottles don't get intermingled in bad ways) and how rather blah things are even when they do work compared to a general expectation of how well they should work (random long pauses in the UI when opening dialogs because seemingly near everything relies upon spawning separate crossover win32 apps to gather data).

Really, a bit better documentation and a generic Crossover terminal for executing Crosover apps in different bottles would probably be more usable. :/

Re:Every windows application

[darkpixel2k]

....with a GUI front end....

Built with Visual Basic I hope!!

No, not VB. We prefer to use a combination of Microsoft Word documents pasted into Microsoft Front Page 97, served up by Microsoft's Personal Web Server. (Yeah. Remember that one? Ugh.)

Re:Every windows application

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't remember crossover (used it about a year ago) letting you install different wine versions and picking and choosing which wine version for which app. In that respect playonlinux (and cedega) have a leg up. And for some apps that get broken on newer wine releases, its a nice feature to lock down certain apps to wine 1.xx while you can play with wine 1.2.x with everything else.

Though mad props to the crossover guys for *hugely* contributing back to wine.

Re:Every windows application

[ChunderDownunder]

Great idea but the ReactOS team are giving away their OS for free.

Re:Every windows application

[hduff]

Big sticking point for me is the current version of QuickBooks Pro. It's as if they deliberately try to co-op more of the farked-up parts of Windows with every release. They offer a Linux server (not client) version -- so they know how to code -- but only for their Enterprise license. Intuit suckles greedily at the Microsoft phallus.

Re:Every windows application

[hduff]

Have you tried PlayonLinux.com? You can get more control with their script-based approach.

Re:Every windows application

[hduff]

http://www.wine-doors.org/ (i've never used it.)

Site returns:
"Very very broken and I don't have time to fix it."

Which pretty much says it all.

Re:Every windows application

[Anonymous Coward]

It already exists: PlayOnLinux

Re:Every windows application

[amentajo]

Wine Doors (and the supporting website linked above) has had a lot of trouble in the past keeping the website running, probably due to its popularity climbing above the level of obscurity required to keep the webserver from melting. The app itself was a Ports-like system for Wine. They kept a repository of customized scripts that would help users install certain free applications, like Notepad++ or even the World of Warcraft Trial, with a click. I personally wasn't very impressed by the size of the repository, and the software was flaky even on the days when the online repository (hosted on the same server as their website) was running properly... but sometimes it worked, in controlled circumstances.

Wine proper has excellent technical merits. Most of my lasting complaints about Wine involve usability and desktop integration, and those complaints are at least addressed by the Vineyard project and/or Crossover's value-added products.

Re:Every windows application

[zaphod777]

They do it is called crossover and it will run you about $40 and it is awesome. http://www.codeweavers.com/

Re:Every windows application

[TheRaven64]

On OS X, there's WineBottler, which lets you wrap a WINE prefix (configuration files and skeleton c: drive) into a .app bundle so you have a complete (redistributable, if you want) bundle for the Windows app.

Re:Every windows application

[shaitand]

If it doesn't work straight off or with a simple well documented fix I don't bother. I look for another solution. Usually the best solution is to run a native app.

Re:Every windows application

[Mathiasdm]

Have a look at PlayOnLinux. It's free and works well enough.

Re:Every windows application

[DaVince21]

Skip the Cheetos, they just dirty your keyboard and mouse. ...Actually, I'm not sure I want to see the state of your keyboard and mouse, now.

Re:Every windows application

[kiddygrinder]

they did a big re-write that's almost over, give it a year and something interesting might be happening

Re:Every windows application

[kiddygrinder]

heh, sounds like the majority of software

Re:Every windows application

[Reziac]

I just looked at both the WINE and Codeweavers reports for CorelDraw/PhotoPaint (my dealkiller app) and it looks like they both suffer the same issues. :(

Re:Every windows application

[Lennie]

ohh, yeah, I've seen that one, maybe that's why I mentioned this. :-)

Very good, keep it up.

While I don't think it's good that people don't program a proper native application, it's good that alternatives exist.

Games?

[ceraphis]

Has this really gotten that much better for games since about a year ago when I last checked it? Back then it seemed like only the major stuff worked like counter strike, WoW and maybe every other source game was at least passable. I don't even know if TF2 worked that well when I checked it out.

Re:Games?

[KDEnut]

The answer is: Yes. I raid 25/10's under wine with no problem. Most games I've tried work just fine.

Heck, even ~80% of the steam games I've tried have worked without any tweaking needed.

Re:Games?

[armanox]

But he is still right. WoW doesn't use the Source Engine.

Re:Games?

[commodore64_love]

>>>I raid 25/10's under wine with no problem

Think WINE 1.2 will run Netscape ISP's Dialup program or Web Accelerator? Last time I tried Wine crashed on both of these these programs. It also didn't run any Internet Explorer more advanced than IE6.

Anticipated question:
"You're still on dialup?"

Yes because I can't afford Cricket's $40/month bill you insensitive clod! /end meme. And also because I can't take my DSL with me when traveling. Plus it makes for a nice backup when the DSL fails.

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're still on dial-up?

Re:Games?

[Randle_Revar]

A number of Touhou games work, and Starcraft works. What else do you need?

Re:Games?

[h4rr4r]

Tether to your cell phone.

Re:Games?

[ceraphis]

(I got modded flamebait? It was a legitimate question!)

All the good old classics and the most popular games worked, and I was thankful, but I just remember noticing that there were a good chunk of games i was interested in at the time that were labeled unplayable on wine hq.

I was devastated at the time that I couldn't switch fully to linux yet because I was even remotely interested in games. Dual booting many times ended with tears for me (due to windows usually) so I've just been running my linux stuff in a VM since then.

TFS says dx9 is well supported and I was wondering if I could take that to mean that almost all games now work if they run in DX9.

Re:Games?

[David Gerard]

The winetricks script installs IE7 now. The app itself works pretty badly, but it works well enough to check rendering or provide a genuine MSHTML.

Re:Games?

[amRadioHed]

"I can't afford Cricket's $40/month bill you insensitive clod!", I assume that means his phone doesn't have a data plan.

Re:Games?

[VGPowerlord]

The winetricks script installs IE7 now. The app itself works pretty badly, but it works well enough to check rendering or provide a genuine MSHTML.

By badly, do you mean "Just like it runs on Windows" or something else?

Re:Games?

[David Gerard]

Ahahaha. I mean that the app interface doesn't render properly and it's a bit weird at times.

Re:Games?

[Khyber]

It's Cricket, fuck no there's no data plan. It's meant to be a portable local phone, for the most part.

Used to have Cricket when I lived in Memphis. They claimed my service area was from Memphis up into Jackson, TN, yet as soon as I left Memphis, no signal, and once I arrived in Jackson, STILL no signal.

But it would work in areas of Mississippi without problem.

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're doing it wrong. Wine is meant to run applications. Dialup programs are more than applications in that they tie in to modem drivers and provide a system service. In other words, they may or may not work, but most likely won't. Wine isn't meant for these kinds of things.

Re:Games?

[cbhacking]

No, he's still wrong. To quote, "... maybe every other source game..."

As in, 50% of Source-engine games (my personal experience is that it's more than 50%, but still not perfect).

Admittedly, that kind of misinterpretation is quite possible given the poor grammar and sentence structure of the OP. CounterStrike (at least, one version of it) is a Source game (to which one does not actually get the source code), which does imply the possibility that he was lumping WoW in with a group of Source games. Additionally, his failure to put a comma before the last item in the list doesn't help, especially since it's only a three-element (and therefore one-comma) list.

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need Netscape ISP's dialup program ? Linux can handle PPP connections just fine on its own,and so can Windows, those dialup programs have pretty much always been a waste of harddrive space, and in some cases also bandwidth (by displaying crappy adds)

and there are plenty of web proxies you can use instead of Web Accelerator.

Re:Games?

[DaVince21]

"Every other source game" as in, about half of them worked. That's how I read it, anyway.

Portal certainly works a lot better than a year ago, though still not great. Anyway, a LOT of commits were made to the DirectX side of things, so that stuff will probably work better now.

Re:Games?

[commodore64_love]

>>>It's Cricket, fuck no there's no data plan. It's meant to be a portable local phone

http://www.mycricket.com/broadband $40 a month for 5 gigabytes of high speed, and dialup speed after you hit that limit

Re:Games?

[Khyber]

There's no way their shitty network can handle any decent network speed. It couldn't even handle dial-up when they advertised that five years ago.

Unless they finally did get bought out by the USGOVT.

Re:Games?

[cj_nologic]

>>>I raid 25/10's under wine with no problem

Think WINE 1.2 will run Netscape ISP's Dialup program or Web Accelerator? Last time I tried Wine crashed on both of these these programs. It also didn't run any Internet Explorer more advanced than IE6.

Anticipated question: "You're still on dialup?"

I would have thought the anticipated question should have been "you need a proprietary Windows application to access your dialup?!". Lots of people still need dialup, most of them use standardised utilities to configure it. My 60 year old mother used a dialup connection on her Linux computer for years, and the only wine she needed was in a glass.

Re:Games?

[pnutjam]

Why are you paying $40 to cricket when you can get a better coverage provider for $45 w/ unlimited talk, text, and data ($30 for a limited 30 day package). I believe they are on verizon's network.

If you prefer Sprint, boost and virgin mobile both offer unlimited text, data, and talk for $60 or less.

I used to use wine...

[foxtyke]

Long ago when I first switched to Linux I made the decision that I would not run a dual boot environment and would instead use Wine to run my apps I NEEDED from Windows on my Linux machine.

Fast forward six months from that switch, I removed the NEEDED applications because I found better ones (hello GnuCash) and haven't used a Windows application or required Wine since then, that was almost 3 or 4 years ago now when I fully switched my desktop to Linux.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Wh15per]

In Linux we trust, all others get VirtualBoxed/VMwared.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Anonymous Coward]

This happened to me also. This seems to happen a lot.

It seems that wine's position in the open source world is to act as a stepping stone between the Windows and Open Source world.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a very special person.

Re:I used to use wine...

[foxtyke]

Gosh, you're SO L33T!

Why do you think the rest of us care?

I know its bad to feed the trolls but here's a thought...

My experience has shown me that I don't need Windows apps as much as I though I needed them, I found better alternatives and while Wine is great at some point you just have to sit back and wonder, "Is it worth it?"

I went through updates which broke previously working applications, I went through configuration edit after edit for each application to get things working and at one point just decided to look for a better way. Don't get me wrong Wine is great for beginning Linux but it really shows the flaws in many Windows programs and with closed source, you can stumble onto one at random even if you're coding to established API for compatibility.

So why my comment? I commented because I felt it showed that Wine helps break the reliance on Windows applications, it's great for transition but not for long haul requirements and I'm not commenting for the sake of commenting, a review of my account can attest to that. You however seem to enjoy placing your finger up your rear trying to tickle the back of your throat hoping something worthwhile will eventually come out of your mouth.

Too bad it is a miss today for you but thankfully, I'm at least not an anonymous coward like you.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Long ago when I first switched to Linux I made the decision that I would not run a dual boot environment and would instead use Wine to run my apps I NEEDED from Windows on my Linux machine.

Fast forward six months from that switch, I removed the NEEDED applications because I found better ones (hello GnuCash) and haven't used a Windows application or required Wine since then, that was almost 3 or 4 years ago now when I fully switched my desktop to Linux.

- Irfanview
- foobar2000
- utorrent

Port me those three apps properly, and then we'll talk.

(Ok utorrent's case is arguable since Transmission offers equivalent functionality. And don't even mention iTunes-like players like Rhythmbox or Banshee. Quod Libet and gmusicbrowser are almost there but not quite)

Re:I used to use wine...

[mister_playboy]

utorrent is working on a Linux port: http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-for-linux-is-coming-finally-100601/

Re:I used to use wine...

[NotBornYesterday]

And to think I used up the last of my mod points earlier. Kudos. Well said.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Anonymous Coward]

I need wine once a year to do my tax. The Australian Tax Office has an app to do your tax online and it's a Windows App. Sometimes there's a bit of rooting around involved. I couldn't submit the details so I had to use my work PC for that. But at least I can still fill in the details. So what was the point I was trying to make? Umm I use wine.

Re:I used to use wine...

[bigstrat2003]

That's great for you and all, but almost every PC game that has ever been released is a testament to why Wine is still necessary (even if not necessary for some).

Re:I used to use wine...

[foxtyke]

That's great for you and all, but almost every PC game that has ever been released is a testament to why Wine is still necessary (even if not necessary for some).

My words only express my experience, nothing more and nothing less.

I encourage those whom play Windows games to use Wine, to get Crossover Games and tell the game publishers, if you have a problem, call it in to support, go to their forums, make a little bit of noise showing your support for the game and your platform of choice, just don't be insane about it.

By all means use the tools available and work to make them better, give your feedback and help support those who work to support your gaming. Don't think that just because you've switched that you can't continue to enjoy your computer as you've done in the past.

And while it may not be perfect, if you're adamant about it and help others on official forums, you show that the market can be viable and that the risk for exploring it can be negligible especially given our normal distribution methods for software over the Internet.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Undead Waffle]

- Irfanview

- foobar2000

- utorrent

Actually I must say foobar2000 is one of the few non-game apps I really do miss on linux. I don't understand why every music player is trying to be a crappy clone of a crappy app (iTunes). I don't need some crazy database system to keep track of my music. I have an organized folder structure for that.

Re:I used to use wine...

[marcansoft]

What's so special about Irfanview? If you want to do batch conversion of images, use the ImageMagick console tools. If you just want to view images, use your desktop environment's image viewer. If you want to edit them, use whatever editing features are built in to your desktop environment's apps (e.g. KDE's gwenview can do some basic editing) or just use GIMP. Each of these tools will likely do its job better than Irfanview.

As for uTorrent, I find KTorrent is quite similar and a great substitute.

Re:I used to use wine...

[kimvette]

Who needs games? Linux comes with plenty of games. There's lbreakout/kbreakout, tuxkart, and . . . ltris.

I used to be a gamer. /shamelessripoffofredvsbluesmacswitchparody

Re:I used to use wine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, there's no replacement for Excel and VB.

I'm aware of OpenOffice, but porting VB macros is a painful experience. Coding macros in VB is cake. Doing the same thing in OOBasic is a mind bending exercise in traversing API documentation and finding the right interfaces to do what you want.

Re:I used to use wine...

[infinitelink]

It's because it's easier, dedicated to a specific task, makes the music organizable by multiple criteria (whereas folders mean there is only one or another organization structure that can be applied) whether through playlists or tagging or metadata, etc., quickly callable by those various criteria...it's the sort of things we're supposed to be able to do with computers already, but which basic OS offerings just don't support: how long has metadata been touted now, and how many file managers integrate it, and how many of those implement it well or in any useful way, make it searchable, etc. etc.? Dedicated apps that build databases of particular content take a lot of hassle out of things. I also have highly organized file and folder hierarchies, by the way, but note that when it comes to music players and the databases they use to sync to portable devices, highly subordinated folder structures are unsuitable for portable player: the greater the depth of the structure, the more searching a device must do; with the databases the moder programs use, it's like it just has to skim the surface of water rather than wading deep down into it.

Those are some reasons why databases are used to keep track of [various particular kinds of files] dude, hope that helps, and have a wonderful night (from my perspective anyways--morning, day, afternoon, evening, whatever).

Re:I used to use wine...

[donstenk]

I had the same experience with Mac. I only bought a Mac when they released them with Intel chips and got mine with VMware straight away as I had many licensed Windows programs.

However, it did not take long to let go of Windows programs, but the option being there made the switch less daunting.

Re:I used to use wine...

[SpzToid]

hello GnuCash

Yes!! And I hope Intuit/Quicken dies painfully! Sort of like SCO, but very much more quickly. GnuCash rocks!

Re:I used to use wine...

[shaitand]

Coding macros in OOBasic is cake. Doing the same thing in VB is a mind bending exercise in traversing API documentation and finding the right interfaces to do what you want.

Seriously, that is called I know API x and this app is hard because it uses API y.

If you can't give up something you have learned and learn something new then computers just aren't for you.

Re:I used to use wine...

[shaitand]

P.S. If you are using that many macros in a spreadsheet you are probably using the wrong tool for the job.

Re:I used to use wine...

[DaVince21]

Hm. I myself find it running a lot just for the interesting games I encounter. Wine works more than adequately for those. Of course, you may not be a gamer, or have enough of games in Linux itself to be satisfied. Or have a console.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Anonymous Coward]

www.design-for-linux.org

We're trying to get the message out that people shouldn't be buying random products- but spending money products that are designed for GNU/Linux to support those who are actually making the effort. And not everybody is. Allot of companies selling to the GNU/Linux crowd cut corners and put out systems and devices that rely on non-free drivers and firmware. They don't work properly and sometimes even have Microsoft licensing attached. These companies are dishonest and what we're doing is making companies spell out what chipsets are in the products they are selling and clarifying that they are designed for GNU/Linux and don't depend on non-free drivers or firmware. As well as fully supporting GNU/Linux (assuming that there is a product within the class of product that does fully support GNU/Linux- you must only sell that or any other product that also meets equal full support criteria).

Re:I used to use wine...

[complacence]

I missed foobar2000 until I installed mpd, mpc and ncmpcpp. I missed ACDSee until I installed feh and imagemagick. I missed utorrent until I installed rtorrent (it goes up to 'r', that's two better).

A few keybindings and custom scripts using libnotify-bin and zenity later, I am much more happy with this setup.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Hurricane78]

If you can tell me, how to get
  Cubase SX 5, Reason 4, Reaktor, lots of VSTs,
  Photoshop CS 5, Dreamweaver CS 5,
  lots of games that are marked as “garbage”
running, then yes, I’ll kick out Windows too.

But it seems, I have not much of a choice.
I looked into Linux music making software. Sorry, but it’s all extremely limited crap. I’m on a pro level, and this stuff isn’t even semi-pro. I need a app, that can do midi and audio in one app, plus VSTs as instruments and effects. Especially good synths, drum machines and reverb effects. Oh, and without something like Reaktor, where I can port my custom synths to, I’m lost anyway. The Ladspa ones are just mind-boggingly bad.

Re:I used to use wine...

[Bertie]

I think you'd be most at home with ktorrent.

Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from running pretty much any Windows application

Except the one you want to run requires about 5 hours of fucking around with Wine only to get about 70% of the functionality working and only 40% of the performance despite having being listed as GOLD PLATINUM UNOBTAINIUM in the wine-db. Hurray!

Re:Never Works Properly

[jijitus]

(sh)It happens frequently.
I tried rc5 with Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (3 gold ratings) and it doesn't run past the splash screen even after installing all dependencies via winetricks

Re:Never Works Properly

[icebraining]

The summary doesn't say it runs "pretty much any Windows application", it says it runs "pretty much any Windows application better than Wine 1.0".

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote was just an excuse to remain on topic and bitch about Wine. That thing has sucked away too many hours of my life.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Korin43]

I've never had problems with a program listed as "Platinum" on the newest version of wine. The problems I have are:

1. A lot of distros ship old versions of wine.
2. A lot of stuff is rated "bronze" (AKA: It might work if you're a wizard).

Re:Never Works Properly

[Jorl17]

I've used Wine for a long time. I've modified its source-code several times to make my apps run and I'm usually around the winehq.org forums.
I can say with a high degree of confidence that it runs most applications flawlessly. Of course, you need to remove many of the new .NET crap, which is ruining the industry for everyone. The only issues I found Wine to have were related to sound. Progressively, I fixed those and got the best out of my Wine installations. Heck, when I cross-compile, I always test my apps in Wine and verify that they are 1:1 with Windows. I constantly run different games in Wine and sometimes with better performance than my windows peers.

Occasionally, you'll have to bring out the nerd in you and do some hacking to get games to work. For instance, it was a long process for me to get Red Alert 3 to work online and via LAN. The forums helped me a lot. It was also difficult to get Age Of Empires III to run, but I did it.

I am only sorry that so many people end up bashing Wine. If they'd waste part of that time in contributing to the community, submitting patches, helping out in forums and irc, or simply stopping complaining, I think we'd be better.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

We can only comment on our experiences, and some of us have had poor ones. Not all of us are coders or have the time to learn a whole new source code base in order to patch whatever bug is being an issue. Me personally haven't gotten one single application working in WINE, either due to horrible performance or just crashing. I've opted for VMs now.

Re:Never Works Properly

[David Gerard]

"I am only sorry that so many people end up bashing Wine."

It's because no-one complains worse than the people getting something for free.

Re:Never Works Properly

[RAMMS EIN]

While I find Wine really impressive and congratulate all the contributors on what has been achieved, one of the persistent problems with Wine is how unpredictable it is. An applications might work flawlessly on one system and be unusable on another. My impression is that this has improved a lot since Wine 1.0 and the policy that newer Wine releases shall not break applications that were working before, and I count that as one of the most significant improvements ever to have been made. Still, if you take a look at pretty much any given application in AppDb, you will find wildly differing degrees of success and contradictory advice about whether patches or winetricks should or should not be applied for best results. There is still room for improvement there.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am only sorry that so many people end up bashing Wine."

It's because no-one complains worse than the people getting something for free.

*glances at DVD+R that has Windows 7 Ultimate x64 written on it*
Ain't that the truth.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

only to get about 70% of the functionality working and only 40% of the performance

I thought that was a feature of everything that is Linux?

Re:Never Works Properly

[NotBornYesterday]

I am only sorry that so many people end up bashing Wine. If they'd waste part of that time in contributing to the community, submitting patches, helping out in forums and irc, or simply stopping complaining, I think we'd be better.

Sure, but my guess is that 99% of the complainers don't have a fraction of the skill required to be helpful. (Disclaimer: I can't code my way out of a wet paper bag, but at least I'm not bitching about something that is free.) If they were that smart, don't you think they would have figured out how to tweak it to do what they want?

Re:Never Works Properly

[cynyr]

Usually the page for a bronze program will have a guide. Sometimes though the "fixes" for one bronze program will break even the platinum ones. You distro is the problem then, I know winehq has a ubuntu repo, and a fedora one as well. i'm not sure about suse, and to be honest not sure about fedora either. I run gentoo and am currently running a svn version of wine because of the previously mentioned SCII and WoW login problems while helping trace down that kernel bug(still not in a non RC or git kernel BTW). Maybe you should look to a rolling release type distro if wine is too old for you on yours. I recommend Gentoo or Arch.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

So people don't have a right to complain when they're presented with the pat answer "So just use wine" when that doesn't work? I've lost count of the number of times I've told a hardcore linux geek that I still keep a windows box for some software and the response has been "so just use [thing that frequently doesn't work and has high overhead]" with the connotation that they've just solved all my problems.

My problem with wine is not wine itself, but that it's seen as an escape clause by annoying people.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but my guess is that 99% of the complainers don't have a fraction of the skill required to be helpful.

Then they shouldn't be using Linux.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

The only issues I found Wine to have were related to sound.

That's probably not Wine's fault, though. Sound on Linux just doesn't work.

Re:Never Works Properly

[MrCrassic]

On this comment:

• Does Outlook on Wine still crash hard when trying to configure it to use RPC/HTTPS? That made using Exchange in Wine really, really hard. (Yes, I know there's DavMail and the plugin for Thunderbird...but Exchange and Outlook are a REALLY nice, and pretty important, combination.
• Does it still include no support for IE7 and IE8? Tried installing both of these versions on OS X via Winetricks (Thanks, Mike!) to test a website I'm developing, and it took ages to go nowhere...

WINE is a great tool...except when it's not. Which is, unfortunately, almost every single time I need that cross-compatibility. Better idea is running a modified WinPE or lightweight Windows installation under a VM; much more stable (for some things)

Re:Never Works Properly

[MrCrassic]

Oops, meant WineBottler...winetricks is the shell script that does all of the application installation magic. Huge gripe I have is that it relies on its maintainers hardcoding SHA1 signatures in the file to verify downloads. If it's outdated, it breaks.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Korin43]

I actually already use Arch, my point was that some people get really bad performance from wine, and the reason is that their distros are shipping old versions.

And I've got some bronze programs to work, but I draw the line at applying my own patches. If a program needs weird settings, I'll give it its own wine prefix, but a patch has the potential to break everything else (and the annoyance rebuilding the package every time there's a new release).

Re:Never Works Properly

[syousef]

"I am only sorry that so many people end up bashing Wine."

It's because no-one complains worse than the people getting something for free.

My time is not free. So it's not free if I waste my time trying to get it to work after being told that it runs almost flawlessly only to find that it's going to take a significant investment of time and require me to become an expert hacker on the project. You see giving something away for free doesn't entitle a developer to be rude, arrogant, condescending abusive or a liar. I've seen all of these behaviours from developers giving something away for "free".

Re:Never Works Properly

[ProzacPatient]

I'd prefer to bash Wine because you get a better idea of whats going on when you run it from the terminal.

*ducks*

Re:Never Works Properly

[kestasjk]

Of course, you need to remove many of the new .NET crap, which is ruining the industry for everyone

I can see how a Wine dev wouldn't like .NET, but I like it just fine and if you're a Windows developer it's an excellent choice. (It even has inroads into Linux via mono, which is surprisingly compatible both at a framework, language and CLR level)

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as Linux. It's "getting better" all the time, yet it's never near usable.

Re:Never Works Properly

[DarkEmpath]

It's because no-one complains worse than the people getting something for free.

People complain when they pay for things too, it just doesn't end up on the websites you visit.

You should have said, "no-one complains worse than the people getting less than they were told they were." There's a difference.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you got it the wrong way round. People don't complain about free software more than they do proprietory software.

People *appear* to end up bashing Wine more than some other software because nobody resents complaints more than someone supplying something for free.

That's not to defend the moaners though.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Jorl17]

I agree with you in the way that a developer shouldn't be rude, arrogant, condescending or a liar. That's because nobody should be like that. I don't, however, think that a developer should support the program if it is such a large scale program such as Wine. It's not MS's developers that support it, its the support department ;)

I would like to know where "However it is not a friendly compatibility layer that you install and suddenly Windows apps can be run just like on Windows with ease" came from. My experiences with the Wine community are not like that. Maybe in a year or two there was a forum member that seemed a bit arrogant, but I realized that he helped everyone and supplied links for the most basic of things.

Furthermore, if you're not going to be a "moderate hacker" or a "console output finder", what are you running UNIX for?

Re:Never Works Properly

[Jorl17]

That's true, I agree with you fully. I also have to add that it isn't always the software that makes it be that fluctuating, but the hardware. Different hardware configurations, particularly related to gfx, end up messing appdb. But I've seen progress and the new policy is amazing.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Jorl17]

Well, the thing is that .NET 2 worked alright. All the new crapware (for you: wonderthing ;)) after that has lead apps to not being run and the appdb to get more bad ratings. It pisses me off to see so many languages out there and watch everyone choose something as non-portable as .NET. Mono has a high degree compatibility level with .NET2, not with the rest, so it isn't portable to make apps for .NET2. It might be more portable to use winelib to enhance them.

Heck, I'd even prefer if they used Java! At least that way, I'd know it'd probably run, as long as they didn't do Windows voodoo with it.

But, sure, I understand that it is good framework for windows developers. It's the "windows" part of that sentence that turns my "windows-alike basher-thingy" on.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so right! Thank you for pointing that out!

Re:Never Works Properly

[schnablebg]

I can say with a high degree of confidence that it runs most applications flawlessly. Of course, you need to remove many of the new .NET crap, which is ruining the industry for everyone.

It is certainly not ruining it for developers who like to write high quality software in modern programming languages quickly. And it's not ruining it for customers that benefit from better software and shorter release cycles. So who is it ruining it for? People that invested their careers in cloning the Win32 API?

Re:Never Works Properly

[Jorl17]

You can read on my answers to this post-tree and see what I think. However, I should add that I do not represent in any way the Wine developers. Hence, they should not be dragged onto the deranged minds of people with nothing else to do but post on slashdot. Also, who said they invested their careers in cloning the Win32 API? Perhaps we've seen a redefinition of career in that very post.

.crap basher out.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some older apps, such as my MIDI sequencer (Evolution Audio) that don't work so well, but that could simply be a side effect of their age. Evol in particular has issues with text rendering - when it updates, it doesn't 'blank' the old text, so you end up with the new characters overlaid on the old ones. The instrument names are garbled, and a lot of it's off alignment as well.

Mind you, I actually have to run Evol using an older version of Wine - 1.01. Anything newer seems to break it outright. :(

Wine's not perfect from my experience, but I wouldn't expect it to be given the task it's trying to accomplish. Despite the issues I'm describing, it still works better than the Linux-based MIDI sequencers I've tried over the last year, and the sequencer doesn't experience the timing issues or slowdown it would on XP when under load, so in some senses it's an improvement.

Re:Never Works Properly

[jlusk4]

Wait, wait... .NET is ruining the industry? Can you tell me how, exactly? I mean -- I know it's Microsoft's gigantic walled garden, but once you accept the horrible reality that some shops really do prefer a MS-only environment... what's so bad about .NET? It's got everything Java has, doesn't it? Is there some computer-sciency reason why .NET is Bad, apart from the whole monopolistic thing? Or is that what you're talking about?

Re:Never Works Properly

[Risen888]

Which is completely unlike proprietary software, except that it's not. All of the above is still true and they've also got the gall to take your money. Sure, sometimes with free software you get what you pay for. But with proprietary software, you pay for what you get.

Re:Never Works Properly

[Jorl17]

Once again, I've expressed my opinion in this post-tree.

In the first post, I was merely bashing .NET. I know that it is useful for win32 developers, but please, don't tell me that it has everything that Java has (no, I'm no Java fanboy). I don't mean in architectural terms, but in portability. Just because they it is portable it doesn't mean it instantly is. MS did not supply any other implementations, nor did they help that much with the development of Mono. What's so bad about Mono, you might ask? Well, it is good enough for .NET 2, but all my apps that are built with something higher than .NET 2 get turned into dust. I cannot run them, that's all. Sure would be better if they tried to effectively port them but...oh wait, they don't want to...

Why must we keep searching for more and more languages to deploy in different timespans? Why must we choose for something as non portable as .NET3 and up? Yes, non-portable!


So, basically, it's what you said; I don't think there's anything wrong with .NET for windows-only developers, though I think that comparing it to Java is off-limits, but I hate the fact that so many developers prefer money to portability. Money for what's right. Sure, who says what's right? Who said it's making them portable and not the other way around? Well, I think we can almost always consider that if something can include X + Y, then it is better than X only. But in this pseudo-theory of mine, I am clearly not respecting variables such as cost, patience, time, etc...

Lastly, the expression "ruining the industry of everyone" is clearly wrong and a fallacy ;)

Re:Never Works Properly

[Anonymous Coward]

... which is to say it promises nothing new. Ok, give me my money back. I need it to buy Windows 7.

Any success stories with Wine

[Anonymous Coward]

I really can't see any point in this anymore, it takes forever to get the configuration correct to run crud like notepad.exe. Major applications don't even get installers running, and they're only copy scripts.

With vmware player allowing the creation of virtual devices these day (for free), picking up a dirt cheap copy of doze for $10 seems like a no brainer. Maybe Wine is like the GIMP, it doesn't know it's dead. Hey, at least the developers have something to put on their CVs and maybe get some fun?

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[_Sprocket_]

My copy of World of Warcraft (from Classic / Vanilla to WotLK) has never seen a Windows system thanks to Wine.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[icebraining]

Windows for $10? Where?

Besides, if it runs, it's faster to run the app on Wine than on a VM. Personally, for the random app I might need to run, Wine has been flawless.

Besides, Wine is more than the binary: winelib is an important part, as it allows programmers to port Windows software more easily, if they didn't start the project with portability in mind.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[Dunbal]

AFAIK Wine and Cedega are still ahead of virtual machines in terms of graphics drivers and gaming. Wine is far from dead.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[Urza9814]

Yea, you could _maybe_ find a copy of Windows 98 for $10...which isn't a bad idea, but I find that the apps that will run on that are also the apps than run flawlessly on Wine. Or Dosbox. Unless it's a pirated copy, there's no way in hell you're getting WinXP, Vista, or 7 for $10. More like $100+. And if you're gonna go pirated, you might as well just go to TPB and get it free.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[Jeremy Erwin]

Yea, you could _maybe_ find a copy of Windows 98 for $10...which isn't a bad idea, but I find that the apps that will run on that are also the apps than run flawlessly on Wine

Ironically, I have difficulty running apps that old on my setup, because win16 is broken on macosx.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[NotBornYesterday]

Success stories? For giggles and grins I ran DVDShrink and ImgBurn under Wine on my Debian system, to see how ripping^h^h^h^h^h backing up my DVDs would go. Ran flawlessly every time. Not one single tweak was needed.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Wine is like the GIMP, it doesn't know it's dead.

The GIMP is still pretty popular, with people who care enough to learn how to use it. Sort of like emacs, except for artists.

Similarly, Wine is built for people who are willing to invest the time and energy to make it work.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what is the "kiosk price" for Windows these days? While TPB is popular with teh kidz, you'll find a lot more regular joes and janes picking up this stuff on DVD from blackmarket dealers around the world. They don't have the interest or skillz for TPB method, and probably not the bandwidth either.

(Not to defend the obvious troll you're replying to. I'm just curious. This stuff is going to be available everywhere that's also loose enough to carry fake rolexes and music/movie disks.)

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[AusIV]

One valuable aspect of Wine, particular the major releases like 1.2, is that it provides an API that developers can target to easily create Linux versions of their Windows programs. As nice as it would be if developers would make a fully native port of their application for Linux, it's often more practical to get something that works passably by tweaking an existing program to work with Wine. Sometimes these can even be compiled against Winelib to create an ELF binary.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[shaitand]

"you'll find a lot more regular joes and janes picking up this stuff on DVD from blackmarket dealers around the world"

Yeah, because you just see those all over the place. Seriously, I've seen one guy selling bootleg dvd's and music outside a store in Miami, once, in my life. I've never seen the same for software.

That is in Miami (along with any other of the populous areas on either FL coast), Chicago, St. Louis, Portland, Albuquerque, Reno, Vegas, I didn't spend much time there but that includes LA as well. I haven't seen street vendors of any kind (except maybe a hot dog cart or the like) outside those larger metro areas. Mostly "street vendors" amounts to bums with gold chains and brand new designer sneakers outside the bus/train/plane stations.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[shaitand]

If you had really done this you'd know DVDShrink hasn't been able to rip 99.9% of movies for years.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[DaVince21]

I really can't see any point in this anymore, it takes forever to get the configuration correct to run crud like notepad.exe.

How many years has it been since you've tried running Wine?!

I mean, sheesh, sure, it doesn't run anything and everything. But the project certainly made leaps and bounds in compatibility and what *can* be run.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[drinkypoo]

Ironically, I have difficulty running apps that old on my setup, because win16 is broken on macosx.

If you want to run a 16 bit windows app, why not install Windows 3.1 into a DOSBOX? For programs THAT old, it usually provides substantially superior compatibility. Unfortunately AFAIK DOSBOX only has IPX networking so that's one potential reason why not. Would like to be proven wrong :/

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[drinkypoo]

If you had really done this you'd know DVDShrink hasn't been able to rip 99.9% of movies for years.

DVDShrink+DVD43 is still one of the best ways to handle DVD ripping/conversion on Windows. I personally use dvdbackup to rip, but then if I want to shrink the DVD for reburning I still use DVDShrink in Wine after running FreeDVD in Wine against the directory, sometimes several times. (For making files, there's OGMRip, which has problems extracting audio sometimes but still makes AVIs for those devices which won't use anything else, unlike Handbrake which is now all but useless.) And on Windows we use HDDVDDecrypter, which I have found to be the best ripper EVAR.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[NotBornYesterday]

Lucky me - I guess my collection must be that magical 0.1%.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[shaitand]

After its ripped (and decrypted) shrink works fine to compress. There are still movies you can rip with shrink but none of them are major blockbuster releases and there are absolutely no new Sony releases you can rip with shrink.

Shrink is fast and its easy. Saying its best (even in its hayday) is a bit like calling ms paint best in a world with gimp and photoshop. CCE (Cinema Craft Encoder) for example will give you much higher quality output than shrink. You won't see a huge difference unless you have a large 40+ inch screen though if shrink didn't have to compress much.

I've done a lot of rips with linux as well using several methods. You can get nice output but unfortunately nothing in the ballpark of the windows tools.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[shaitand]

You must just not be interested in new blockbuster titles or Sony releases. By the time support discontinued for dvdshrink guides already recommended third party rippers. Even those are out of date now.

If you want to rip a new title you need something like DVDFab HD or anydvd HD to defeat the structural tricks that make the disc look like its broken. It rips part way and then fails like there is a scratch on the disc.

After ripping and decrypting you could still shrink with DVD Shrink. DVD Rebuilder is an easy to use front end for Cinema Craft Encoder that will give MUCH higher quality though (CCE comes with a $2k+ price tag though). I mean you are already pirating the movie, why not download a couple torrents?

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[drinkypoo]

I've used CCE to make SVCDs, though not DVDs... but if I'm willing to shrink it then the quality is pretty much irrelevant even on my larger than 40" 1080p LCD.

I've done a lot of rips with linux as well using several methods. You can get nice output but unfortunately nothing in the ballpark of the windows tools.

That has been my experience even though some of the Windows tools which seem to work better are based on mencoder or ffd...

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[Jeremy Erwin]

For many Windows 95/98 games, the installation program was 16 bit; while the main application was 32 bit.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[Reziac]

Not just games. Some major Win9x apps also used a 16bit installer, usually some antique version of InstallShield (probably because it was very expensive to update). You could always tell because the installer would spit up a Win3.x-looking interface.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[NotBornYesterday]

Thanks for the good info.

I mean you are already pirating the movie, why not download a couple torrents?

Actually, I'm not pirating. I already own the stuff I was ripping. I'm working on a movie library server, since it's easier to deal with, and physical media tends to get destroyed around my house. DVDShrink under WINE was one combination I played with.

Re:Any success stories with Wine

[AusIV]

My school has a deal where they can let students on to their site license of recent Windows versions for $10, but in general you're right. Most people can't count on finding a legal $10 copy of Windows.

Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[rsilvergun]

I've played around with wine for IE, but not had much luck, and my bank is IE only :(. Back to Windows...

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[MrEricSir]

IE 7 and 8 are not usable, but that has nothing to do with Wine.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Irick]

Spoof your user agent, not like they can actually tell what browser you are using beyond that.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

my bank is IE only

Then it might be time to change banks.
I know I would if my bank forced me to use IE.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Bert64]

Google ies4linux...
It's a bundle of wine designed specifically to run various versions of ie.
That said, can't you move to another bank? all the banks i've used here work fine with both safari and firefox (havent tried accessing them from anything else).

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you can make any browser 'look' like IE to a website right? I know Firefox and Chrome can do it, and probably all linux based browsers too (don't know much about those myself)

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[knewter]

Is your bank really IE only? Browser spoofing with an extension doesn't work?

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[surveyork]

Switch bank.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Dunbal]

Obvious solution: Virtual box under linux will let you run whatever windows you want. Its graphic drivers are not good enough for most new 3D games (yet), but it certainly will let you do online banking...

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

No.

Oh, you meant when running under wine. Sorry, my mistake.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Tablizer]

But you still have to match the browser's DOM/JS bugs bug-for-bug.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[adamofgreyskull]

I have success with this method but YMMV. Or else run windows in a VM? If you only need it to run IE, you should have no worries whatsoever.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Threni]

IEtab extension for firefox under linux?

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[h4rr4r]

Change banks.
This means you can't even see that stuff on your smartphone.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

IEtab doesn't implement IE on systems that don't have it, it just calls the IE libraries embedded in Windows in a more civilized browser.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[David Gerard]

IE 7 installs in Winetricks but doesn't work too well as an app.

If they really don't support a current Firefox, it's time to find a new bank and tell them why.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[David Gerard]

Ies4Linux is largely unmaintained and obsolete and will break your wineprefix. Install ie6 or ie7 using winetricks. (Preferably each to their own wineprefix.)

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it works on Windows, Wine's goal is to run it, no?

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[YokoZar]

Google ies4linux... It's a bundle of wine designed specifically to run various versions of ie. That said, can't you move to another bank? all the banks i've used here work fine with both safari and firefox (havent tried accessing them from anything else).

Don't do this, the correct way to run IE these days is to get winetricks and run it, then tick the box for either ie6 or ie7, and then run it with "wine iexplore"

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoofing your user agent won't allow Konqueror/Firefox/Safari/Opera/etc. to load ActiveX objects.

Of course, banks that depended on ActiveX should have upgraded to .Net/Silverlight applets aeons ago.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[MrEricSir]

As we're referring to IE, the antecedent of your proposition is false therefore the consequent does not apply.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Several people have suggested that you change banks. When I was looking for a new financial institution several years ago, I narrowed my choice down to two. Upon testing my preferred choice I found the website did not work in the native browsers on linux at the time, so I went with the other one and let the non-working one know why. Since then there are much fewer banks and government sites that won't work in linux but it's still worth doing.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Mathieu Lu]

You can try the Vista + IE8 VirtualBox images provided by Microsoft at no cost: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en

I use this to test websites for IE7 / IE8 under Linux. It should be used only for testing purposes. The images expire after 60 days (just re-donwnload when they expire).

You could probably get Windows to run with your license in VirtualBox too (VirtualBox is similar to Vmware, but Free Software).

Here is a short tutorial for Debian in French that you can run in google translate, though I am sure there are tons of howtos in English on the web:
http://bidon.ca/random/2010-03-13-configurer-virtualbox-pour-tester-ie7-ie8-sous-debian-gnulinux

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Larryish]

Can you get by with changing your user agent in Firefox?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59/

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Leebert]

Obvious solution: Virtual box under linux will let you run whatever windows you want. Its graphic drivers are not good enough for most new 3D games (yet), but it certainly will let you do online banking...

Big VirtualBox fan here (though usually the other way around, Linux on Windows.)

The problem with the solution you're proposing is that VBox requires you to have a valid Windows license. (And a "restore CD" just doesn't cut it...)

For some people, that's a non-starter, and half the point of Wine is to avoid that situation.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[KiwiSurfer]

Obvious solution: Virtual box under linux will let you run whatever windows you want. Its graphic drivers are not good enough for most new 3D games (yet), but it certainly will let you do online banking...

Or switch to a bank that allows you to use open-source software. If my bank told me that I could only do my banking with a certain browser I would be moving my business elsewhere.

I find it interesting that all the banks in New Zealand, where I live, supports (even if only unofficially) Firefox, Chrome, et al for their internet banking. Why do banks in other countries not do the same?

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[tepples]

It appears your point is that IE doesn't work in the first place. In that case, does IE fail on Wine in the same ways that it fails on Windows?

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking freshman logic this summer, I see.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[kestasjk]

You think you sound smart when you write like that? You sound like a pompous pindick

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[shaitand]

Get a new bank. No really, banks more or less all offer the same crappy free ridden services and use the same bogus anti-client reporting systems. And all the major ones charge other people to cash checks you write them at the counter.

The IE only issue sounds like about as big a difference as you'll find between banks.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[shaitand]

Or upgraded away from activex

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[shaitand]

No but an OEM license from a junk'd windows DOES cut it. No matter what myths are spread OEM licenses are completely transferable OEM's are just required to sell them with qualifying hardware.

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[MrEricSir]

Correct!

Re:Are IE 7 or 8 useable?

[Risen888]

For real, stop recommending this. It's not maintained, it's terribly buggy, it leaks memory all over the fucking place, it is no good. It was no good when it was released. Now it's super ultra mega no good. See several other replies to your comment for several better ways to handle this problem.

Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Riddler Sensei]

I've been dual booting Windows and Linux ever since I first got into Linux because of various music applications that I needed for school (Finale, McGamut, etc.). To this day I still reboot to play League of Legends, my games on Steam, and talk to friends on Vent. I don't know about Steam, but with this new release I think I may try to get Vent and League of Legends running on my Slackware installation.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Nadaka]

Steam and source engine games are coming to linux (native, no wine required) "soon". I don't know if that means this year or later.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Anonymous Coward]

You can use Mangler, a native Linux vent client to talk to your friends on vent. And in the meantime you can convince them to use Mumble

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Anonymous Coward]

You can run Vent through Wine 1.0. I do it all the time.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Urza9814]

No idea about Steam, but I used to use Vent for WoW on wine without too many problems. Took a while to configure it properly, but it was more a problem of configuring audio on Wine than configuring audio for Vent (i.e. audio wasn't working for any apps). The fact that I have several soundcards didn't help...

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[h4rr4r]

Steam and source games run great in wine, I have been playing them that way for years. They are even officially supported if you pay for crossover.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[adamofgreyskull]

Don't know about vent, but I've played HL2,Portal,CStrike from Steam under Wine on Slackware for years.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get vent, get mangler, www.mangler.org a linux vent client. Works great, i've been using it for awhile now while playing wow.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[YokoZar]

No idea about Steam, but I used to use Vent for WoW on wine without too many problems. Took a while to configure it properly, but it was more a problem of configuring audio on Wine than configuring audio for Vent (i.e. audio wasn't working for any apps). The fact that I have several soundcards didn't help...

I've experimented with this and I highly recommend just using Mangler (a native app) instead. On Ubuntu there's a PPA you can add to get it in Lucid -- I'll try and integrate it to the distro so we get it in 10.10 without going through an extra step.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Urza9814]

Well, after my initial problems with Vent I found Mangler and decided to give it a shot. I spent a couple hours trying to get it to even install, then decided figuring out my problems with Wine would be easier. Which it was.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[cynyr]

LInux native "Ventrillo" http://www.mangler.org/ Works great for me, it now can output to ALSA not that PA crap*...

*Yes PA is crap, linux is a multi user environment, and i'd like all programs on my computer to make noise at the same time, that includes things like MPD, or any other service that i run. PA only works in a supported config with a single user. See http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/SystemWideInstance and http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/WhatIsWrongWithSystemMode and http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/PulseAudio#PulseAudio_Server

I haven't tried it yet, my music player is mpd as the mpd user, wine until recently did not support it, and the documentation for config is "if you can't figure it out tough shit, it's for distro packagers to figure out."

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Urza9814]

I tried Mangler, but gave up after I couldn't get the damn thing to even install after several hours. And yea, PA sucks. That's why I don't even have it installed.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Undead Waffle]

Last I checked the only thing about vent that didn't quite work is that push to talk only worked when wine was active. So it worked if you were playing a game through wine, not if you were playing a native game. I don't know if this is still true since it's been maybe a year or 2...

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[YokoZar]

Well, after my initial problems with Vent I found Mangler and decided to give it a shot. I spent a couple hours trying to get it to even install, then decided figuring out my problems with Wine would be easier. Which it was.

If you were using Ubuntu it would be as simple as going to the Mangler PPA and copying the lines it shows into Software Sources. Granted, that's still more work than it should be - it should just be in Software Center in the first place.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Urza9814]

Last time I attempted to try Ubuntu, I tried for several days but couldn't get it to install either. Though that was several years ago, it's probably improved since...but anyway, I prefer Arch. Somewhat recently converted from Mandriva, but I'm pretty sure the Mangler issue was on Arch...though maybe not...

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[Anonymous Coward]

ventrilo has had a native alternative (mangler.org) for a while now. steam and source games run fine in wine as long as you don't use pulseaudio.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[tpwch]

Vent has worked in wine for years. I'm using it right now. You just need to download the audio codec since that doesn't come with vent. Just google for msgsm32.acm and put that file in the system32 folder in your wine installation. Getting push-to-talk takes a bit more work, but its doable, just google and you'll find it.

Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting

[drinkypoo]

Last time I checked, and it was a long time ago, Steam worked fine on Windows. When I first tried it, it would not restore backups without help, but everything else worked fine. The next time I tried it, everything worked fine. You will only be able to install and successfully play games based on the Source engine in most cases.

Finally!

[Sooner Boomer]

I can play Solitare on linux!
Oh, wait....

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you just have to wait for some decent graphics drivers.

people still use wine?

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought people were all about VM's now

Re:people still use wine?

[Tapewolf]

Things like Oblivion tend not to run inside a VM very well.

Re:people still use wine?

[Jorl17]

No. From what I've seen, Wine has acquired more and more users recently. You can clearly see that based on forum activity or even commit numbers.

Virtual Machines are slow, no matter what. They require a windows license and they suck when it comes to D3D and even OpenGL. Wine fixes that. It is POSIX-compatible, AFAIK, and it is an excellent study case. It helps people migrate to differet OS/es and it doesn't eat up half your RAM just to launch a crapload of services that come in your typical Windows installation. I've tried both things: VMs and Wine. Once I saw how faster Wine was, and how it never crashed my system, in contrast to the many BSODs I got with games in the VM (direct accelaration enabled), I never looked back.

Also, I like being able to quirk with Wine's code. If I don't like something in an app, I debug it and change Wine to have fun. I can't do that in a VM unless I recompile some core libs (or port Wine's to Windows), but that would be stupid.

Re:people still use wine?

[VGPowerlord]

I haven't tried it for recent games, but VMWare and VirtualBox both support 3D graphics in Windows VMs. VirtualBox is a little more involved to set up, though, and uses the Wine3D library (which only supports DX 8/9).

I have a VMWare Windows XP install just for playing old pre-DX8 Windows games.

Re:people still use wine?

[CamoCoatJoe]

Virtual Machines are slow, no matter what.

Try VirtualBox. I use it all the time, and get near-native speed. "Near-native" meaning that I hardly ever notice any slow-down during normal use, and I've watched videos in the guest without any of the acceleration stuff turned on, without any problems, except in one guest. I've run it on WinXP and Ubuntu 9.10 hosts, with WinXP, Win7 RC, Ubuntu 8.10, and 9.10 as guests. Of course, it does help that I have a dual-core processor.

They require a windows license and they suck when it comes to D3D and even OpenGL. [...] eat up half your RAM just to launch a crapload of services that come in your typical Windows installation.

True. Though VB has experimental support for hardware acceleration, it hasn't worked for me, and I haven't tried to run games in a VM, except once (unsuccessfully).

Re:people still use wine?

[Jorl17]

:) VB is what I usually use as a Virtual Machine. For around 3 years or so, every time I need a virtual machine, I choose VirtualBox. Hence, my criticism goest for that as well (it goes for that in particular ;)). I really don't like to run those many services (another full OS, to be honest), for one app. I've had hardware accel working with VirtualBox -- it wasn't bad, but Wine was still always far superior.

Re:people still use wine?

[CamoCoatJoe]

Is it slow for you for normal CPU work (office s/w, web browsing)? Do you have a dual-core processor?

(I'm just surprised that you're having performance issues with it. Maybe I just don't push it much.)

StarCraft

[bziman]

The only thing I use wine for is to play StarCraft, which it does really well. I don't know how good Wine 1.2 is, but call me when it supports StarCraft II.

Re:StarCraft

[Randle_Revar]

I saw recently that a fix went in to make shadows work correctly in SC2. I guess that probably means it works ok.

Re:StarCraft

[RichMan]

Both Starcraft II and WoW:Cataclysm are getting a through workout by the Blizzard beta testers. So you can expect they will continue to work fine.

A recent Wow patch even found a kernel bug. Bad handling of debug trap instruction.
 

Re:StarCraft

[Batty0ne]

I have Beta for SCII and it's working just fine for me. (Geforce GTX260, Core2 Quad Q8300, 8GB Ram, Feodora 13 x86_64, Wine 1.2.0) WoW:Cataclysm also works quite well.

Re:StarCraft

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD Decrypter, VirtualDub, AVIsynth, MKVtoolix suite, eac3to, and x264 all work well, also. If I could get AnyDVD-HD to work on my BD discs in Wine, my sole WinXP box would probably never be booted.

Re:StarCraft

[gauauu]

The only thing I use wine for is to play StarCraft, which it does really well.

Seriously? I've never had much luck with it. A few questions (not trying to troll, but Starcraft is one of the reasons I still use Windows):

1. Do you play windowed or full screen? If you do fullscreen, how do you get it to change resolutions? (It always whines for me that it can't change resolutions). If you do windowed, how do you get it to trap the mouse so the mouse scrolling is actually usable?

2. What version of wine are you using? The recent ones I've tried make Starcraft run really slowly, but I've heard that certain older versions work Ok.

3. Do you play on battle.net?

call me when it supports StarCraft II.

Have you tried? I've heard it works. I managed to get as far as the battle.net game menus, but didn't try actually running a game (was at work).

Re:StarCraft

[bziman]

1. Do you play windowed or full screen? If you do fullscreen, how do you get it to change resolutions? (It always whines for me that it can't change resolutions). If you do windowed, how do you get it to trap the mouse so the mouse scrolling is actually usable?

I play full screen. I have a Dell Latitude D830 with a widescreen display and nvidia Quadro NVS 140M graphics card, running Ubuntu 8.10 with the restricted drivers. There's a program called nvidia-settings, which allows you to configure your X server. If you go down through the options, there's a setting for "Flat Panel Scaling", and I set it to "Aspect Ratio Scaled" — the default is "Stretched". If you set it to scaled, you'll get full screen apps running with the correct aspect ratio, and in the case of StarCraft, you get vertical black bars on the left and right, and the game looks perfect. The only trick is you have to remember to load up the settings each time you log in by running "nvidia-settings -l". I used to have a system with ATI graphics, and it had a similar configuration option.

2. What version of wine are you using? The recent ones I've tried make Starcraft run really slowly, but I've heard that certain older versions work Ok.

I'm using the vanilla wine that comes from the Ubuntu repository, wine-1.0.1 (though a more recent version of Ubuntu might have a more up-to-date version of wine). My system is wicked fast, but it ran fine under wine even on my old laptop from 2001 (which I retired because the case wore out, not because the system specs were in any way inadequate). The only real difficulty was getting the sound to work properly. In winecfg, I selected "Emulation" for the hardware acceleration, checked "Driver Emulation", and chose the OSS Driver from the choices at the top. I have no idea how or why it works — I spent many, many hours trying various combinations and that's the configuration that ended up working.

3. Do you play on battle.net?

This one was tricky — I'd basically given up on it, until at a LAN party a couple months ago, one of my friends pointed out that the real problem was that I didn't have the latest patches. And the patch installer simply doesn't work under wine. In the end, I copied the important files from my friend's fully updated installation. These are the files I copied:

• BNUpdate.exe
• BroodWar.mpq
• SEditPTG.loc
• Readme.cnt
• License.txt
• License.html
• InstCC.exe
• StarCraft.exe
• StarDat.mpq
• patch_rt.mpq
• battle.snp
• standard.snp
• storm.dll

After that, I had no trouble connecting to BattleNet.

I haven't actually tried StarCraft II... I'm perpetually about five years behind, so it's likely to be a while before I actually get to it. Anyway, I hope this info helps you out!

-brian

Re:StarCraft

[gauauu]

I'll give it a try, thanks!

Re:StarCraft

[Tubal-Cain]

This one was tricky — I'd basically given up on it, until at a LAN party a couple months ago, one of my friends pointed out that the real problem was that I didn't have the latest patches. And the patch installer simply doesn't work under wine...

Since when?

And here come the paid Microsoft trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Random MS Employee that actually keeps up with GNU/Linux stuff: "Wow, Wine 1.2 was released today."
Ballmer: "The fuck does that do?"
Employee: "Allows you to run Windows programs on GNU/Linux."
Ballmer: (throws chair): "WHAT? Did they steal our shit or something?"
Employee: "No, this is a clean reverse engineer of Windows."
Ballmer: (throws another chair) "Is that fucking legal?"
Employee: "There's not much we can do about it..."
Ballmer: "Okay, fuck. Well, at least go out and post FUD and outright lies about it on tech news sites so people will think it's horrible so they'll continue to buy and use our shitty, hacked-together, worthless OS. We'll pay you extra if you succeed in fooling a lot of people."
Employee: "We're on it!"

Re:And here come the paid Microsoft trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, fuck. Well, at least go out and post FUD and outright lies

You mean like you just did by making up this bullshit?

Re:And here come the paid Microsoft trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, fuck. Well, at least go out and post FUD and outright lies You mean like you just did by making up this bullshit?

You mean like you just did by making up this bullshit?

Get out of our fucking boards, you fucking low-life M$ shill.

Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.

Re:And here come the paid Microsoft trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.

Glad you explained that.

Re:And here come the paid Microsoft trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. I see the Wintrolls got mod points this week.

By the way, don't pretend you don't exist. I used to work for a company that worked closely with Microsoft, and they *admitted* they do exactly what I describe -- trolling boards to make their products seem much better by comparison (when they're really not). So don't give me this "you made this up" garbage.

Sad that MS trolls are so afraid of this that they'll mod down an AC from 0 to -1 just to make sure as few people as possible see it.

So um...

[pizzach]

Does Wine have higher compatibility with "mono" apps than mono? By "mono" I mean C#/.net application developed on Windows.

Re:So um...

[Randle_Revar]

Wine doesn't do .NET at all, AFAIK

Re:So um...

[Shados]

I haven't used Wine in years, but according to the wine listing, at least some versions of .NET are fully working.

That being said, while overall the "Microsoft" implementation is more complete (obviously...), the Mono version has many APIs and goodies missing from the "official" version (such as a vastly superior I/O library). In the cases where these libraries can work on the standard version of .NET, it is not uncommon for .NET developers to use them. But not all do.

The mono Reflection lib is another one. I actually wonder if it would work under Microsoft's .NET, because its -way- better than Microsoft's version.

Re:So um...

[David Gerard]

It does .NET 2.0 somewhat, .NET 3.5 hardly at all and Mono. Mind you, Mono does .NET somewhat. I wouldn't expect too much of .NET in Wine, but it's worth a try.

Re:So um...

[cbhacking]

Completely incorrect. Wine has had its own implementation of .NET 1.1 for years, and you could install 2.0. These days, I believe 2.0 is supported out of the box, and you can install the newer versions.

For pure C# (or other .NET language) apps, Mono will do better. However, running Wine will let your .NET apps call native Windows functions (as all too many do), which is the main reason for .NET apps failing on Mono in my experience.

Re:So um...

[Randle_Revar]

I'd be much obliged if you could point out a source for that.

Everything I can find on the subject indicates that you can use Mono, or you can use Wine to install MS .NET. I see nothing about Wine having it's own implementation, and it would seem to be rather redundant.

Re:So um...

[DaVince21]

It is able to use .NET 2.5 at least partially, so maybe? Your best bet is to just try it out, and file a bug on Wine's Bugzilla if it doesn't.

Re:So um...

[pizzach]

In my original post I meant installing the MS .Net framework separately. I am pretty sure they are easy to get. I know Wine doesn't have .Net stuff built in yet, but some people seem to like restating the obvious. MS .Net supports many more application than Mono ever would. Wine indirectly gives you all of .net at your fingertips. Not a subset.

Re:So um...

[Randle_Revar]

Oh, well in that case, yes, that works. Winetricks makes it just a checkbox away. It's still not necessarily 100%, but better than Mono for things that are not written with Mono in mind.

1.2 already?

[Windwraith]

Wow, brings memories of the pre-1.0 phase. Do you remember when only the most basic apps would run in WINE and required a lot of tweaking? Nowadays I can run most apps but Game Maker (Like Hydorah, Spelunky, etc) based games. Even painting and music apps, or games like Touhou or other doujin arcade games work practically out of the box (mostly requiring directx 9 runtimes). I don't play much mainstream, but I have been satisfied with my indie/arcade gaming needs and WINE.
This is only going to get better with time, and I am kind of happy about it. Years ago I had to use virtualbox or use my laptop to run simplistic apps reliably, and it's not the case anymore (in my use case at least, you know, generalizing, anecdotal evidence, your mileage may vary, etc)

Re:1.2 already?

[YokoZar]

Wow, brings memories of the pre-1.0 phase. Do you remember when only the most basic apps would run in WINE and required a lot of tweaking? Nowadays I can run most apps but Game Maker (Like Hydorah, Spelunky, etc) based games. Even painting and music apps, or games like Touhou or other doujin arcade games work practically out of the box (mostly requiring directx 9 runtimes). I don't play much mainstream, but I have been satisfied with my indie/arcade gaming needs and WINE.
This is only going to get better with time, and I am kind of happy about it. Years ago I had to use virtualbox or use my laptop to run simplistic apps reliably, and it's not the case anymore (in my use case at least, you know, generalizing, anecdotal evidence, your mileage may vary, etc)

Spelunky should work now, I specifically remember testing it a few months ago when I was rolling out packages and people kept pestering me about that game.

Re:1.2 already?

[adamofgreyskull]

Do you remember when only the most basic apps would run in WINE and required a lot of tweaking?

Yep. I remember thinking it would never reach v 1.0, just approach it asymptotically until we were running Half Life 10 on v0.9.9999999.

Re:1.2 already?

[Hatta]

Yes. Despite the haters, Wine has come a very long way in a short time. If you focus more on what Wine can do than on what it can't, it's really an amazing project.

Re:1.2 already?

[drinkypoo]

Yes. Despite the haters, Wine has come a very long way in a short time. If you focus more on what Wine can do than on what it can't, it's really an amazing project.

No one's debating that it's an amazing project, but it runs less than half of the software that I own that the AppDB says it will run. I would like to focus on what it can do, but I'm more likely than not to be disappointed even when it allegedly can do a thing. I use Wine to run DVDShrink somewhat regularly, so I am totally cognizant of the benefits. But I'm pretty tired of trying to figure out which patch version of a game will actually run on Wine, etc etc. I know what they are doing is hard and the software is free so shrug, but it doesn't change the facts.

Quickbooks? Quicken?

[bucketoftruth]

I'm not even going to check the website. Pretty much everything worth running already works, except Quickbooks. That's the game killer for real desktop adoption. I completely understand why it's nearly impossible to make it happen, but It would sure be nice if Quickbooks completely worked.

Re:Quickbooks? Quicken?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if their software wasn't complete shit it wouldn't be a problem.
You have a better chance of running Norton under WINE than Quicken.

Re:Quickbooks? Quicken?

[cwarner7_11]

GnuCash broke me of the Peachtree habit. I suspect it could break you of the QuickBooks habit as well...

Re:Quickbooks? Quicken?

[Thing 1]

Hmm, wasn't Quickbooks the one with the ugly DRM that infected the master boot record? Small wonder it's taking so long to port...

Re:Quickbooks? Quicken?

[Anonymous Coward]

does that mean quickbooks completely works under windows? last time i checked it didnt...

What about .net programs?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we have mono (for better or worse), and we have wine. But we still can't run, say, Nikon's CaptureNX under Linux. Talk about chasing tail lights...

Re:What about .net programs?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we have mono (for better or worse), and we have wine. But we still can't run, say, Nikon's CaptureNX under Linux. Talk about chasing tail lights...

Yep. Mono became irrelevant when they decided not to implement WPF.

Wine is still an awesome project though. They really constantly improve and get better and better.

Mass Effect 2

[RichMan]

I'm running Mass Effect 2 quite well.
Ubuntu 9.10 + Nvidia drivers.

Get steam and download a demo for a game if you want to see if it works for you.

Re:Mass Effect 2

[ceraphis]

thats....awesome! Exactly what I was hoping for, sounds like it really HAS changed from when I was using it.

Is it like this now for many of the more recent games or is it kinda spotty?

Play On Linux (Re:Every windows application)

[dopeghost]

Just the other day i discovered Play On Linux which fits this need.

While games are a primary feature it includes support for many of the common apps as well.

In addition to apps with built in support you can find scripts in their forum for recent versions of Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and the like

.

if that happens i'll have to file a bug report

[hirundo]

So now I've got Wine running Cygwin which is running Wine which is running Cygwin, etc., down to 37 layers deep, after which it hangs. I've heard that if I get to 42 layers it will rip a hole in the space-time continuum and collapse the black hole that contains our universe. I'm guessing that would be a bad thing.

Re:if that happens i'll have to file a bug report

[afabbro]

So now I've got Wine running Cygwin which is running Wine which is running Cygwin, etc., down to 37 layers deep, after which it hangs. I've heard that if I get to 42 layers it will rip a hole in the space-time continuum and collapse the black hole that contains our universe. I'm guessing that would be a bad thing.

I read the same thing in the Necronomicon! Many Shubs and Zulls will know what it is like to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day, I can tell you!

Re:if that happens i'll have to file a bug report

[Tubal-Cain]

Is this in a Linux VM?

Any try a Qemu on MIPS running x86-Wine/Starcraft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Qemu compiled on a MIPS let's someone run/translate a Wine compiled for x86 Linux that in-effect run a Win32 Starcraft.

I'm recently buying one of these Linux-based MIPS embedded specialty computers and just want to touch base wether anyone has tried this yet. I know DosEMU is slow, so I can't try much of that. Tho Xevil, Abuse, NetHack, and Quake2 is man-tier for native Linux use on this handheld.

Soothing Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Itunes work on it YET??? Call me when that happens.

As it stands Rhythmbox can see iPhones and Ipod Touch devices, but if you try to add/delete music on it, it freezes up. Then you have to go track down a computer with iTunes on it to fix.

Re:Soothing Apple?

[DaVince21]

File a bug to the Rhythmbox devs?

iTunes seems to work fairly, but don't get your hopes up getting the software to actually detect your hardware. Windows USB driver support is actually out of WIne's scope, but surprisingly enough, still being implemented. It's just not in the official release yet.

Replacement to DOSBox?

[vlueboy]

Vista brings much grief when I attempt to fullscreen my shell sessions even without any games or graphics at all. It's MS's best-kept secret (on the topic of backwards compatibility failure, of course)

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[vlueboy]

To reproduce in your dos window, just do ALT+ ENTER.
"This system does not support fullscreen mode" craftily the fear and blame on the user. Research reveals that Microsoft's NTVM "system" is no longer fully backwards compatible with DOS code from Vista on. OUR hardware is fine on XP. While there are DLL workarounds, they rely on having certain video hardware and screwing with Aero.

Hardcore small businesses abound where they use 20-year-old legacy cash-register or front-desk DOS software meant for fullscreen kiosk setups. It just won't run fullscreen without window-view workarounds where you basically change the font size to really large to and try to keep your staff from clicking on other stuff.

--vlueboy.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[bigstrat2003]

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane. It may be desirable, but you have to accept that if you cling to a legacy system you will have to deal with the increasing support costs for it.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[spazdor]

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane.

http://xubuntu.org/

You're welcome ;)

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[Undead Waffle]

Doesn't work for me on Vista 64 Business. Alt + Enter in a command window does nothing.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[BattleApple]

have you tried this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg565CYO-qo

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[bertok]

Doesn't work for me on Vista 64 Business. Alt + Enter in a command window does nothing.

That's a 32-bit "cmd.exe" window, the grandparent was talking about the 16-bit "command.com" style windows that only exist in 32-bit installations of Windows, because they are actually 16-bit code running in a virtual DOS machine called "ntvdm".

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[BobNET]

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane.

...or a Linux user. DOSEMU+FreeDOS is awesome for old apps (games still run better in DOSBox, though).

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[Anonymous Coward]

try dosbox?

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[NJRoadfan]

If you are using a 32-bit version of Vista/7 (likely if running DOS apps), just install the XP (aka XDDM model) video driver for the video card. It will disable Aero and anything that relies on WDDM acceleration, but full screen text should work again. MS official support for this workaround: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926657

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[samoanbiscuit]

I think bigstrat2003 was talking about applications, as in legacy applications on a modern OS, not a modern OS on legacy hardware..
And this is true, data should not be locked down, so when an application, or system of them (like a business app suite) is not updated in a while, this can be moved to a system that's still alive. I know people complain about feature creep, but the fact is, most updates fix security bugs as well as adding features...

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[1u3hr]

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane.

I do half my work using 1980s DTP software (Ventura GEM). Runs in XP fine full screen in glorious VGA resolution. Prints to Postscript which my HP laser can print as-is; and I can convert to to PDF if I need to exchange files with anyone.

Old software doesn't wear out; it just gets faster as hardware gets exponentially more powerful.

But I will look at running it under Wine, probably a safer bet in the long term than hoping Microsoft doesn't break it.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people always have to ruin YouTube videos with shitty music? As much as I hate WMG and the other major labels, they are doing good by removing the crappy music from what may very well be a good YouTube video.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[vlueboy]

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane. It may be desirable, but you have to accept that if you cling to a legacy system you will have to deal with the increasing support costs for it.

Careful what you mention as "good practice." Computing is already halfway there and geek advice alone isn't fixing the de-facto world to upgrade from IE6 and Win XP en masse. By the time "we" succeed, big corporations will have a lot of 15 year old legacy systems running 20 year old software.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[vlueboy]

Thanks.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[vlueboy]

This is the workaround that I had heard about. Thanks for the official link. Disabling Aero permanently helps my business PCs where dos applications are common, but not my home experience (Aero's flip3d is useful at home)

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[bigstrat2003]

Right, but all the same, it's not reasonable for anyone to expect the world to halt progress for their sake. If it takes that kind of insanity for companies to realize that they have to balance upgrade costs vs support costs, then maybe we should go through that. Not pleasant, I know, but sometimes lessons have to be learned the hard way.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[kestasjk]

Emulators are good, but Linux is less than 20 years old (even if you don't consider 2.0 to be the first real release), and you'll have big problems trying to run old un-updated software, which isn't using some POSIX-compliant subset of linux's functionality, on a modern linux. Windows has, by comparison, much better backwards compatibility (largely because source is more likely to be unavailable which makes maintaining the software manually harder, so the effects are lessened)

(Unless you were saying DOSEMU&FreeDOS only run on linux? They do run on Windows)

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[TheRaven64]

The question was about a 20 year old app on a modern OS, not about a 20 year old app on a new version of the same OS. On *BSD and Linux, I can still run apps written for SCO UNIX or SysV, for example. I can run any of the Win3.x software I've tried under WINE on my Mac.

I can even run DOS and Commodore 64 software under emulation. Really, there's no reason not to expect 20 year old software to work. It's 5-10 year old apps that are likely to be a problem.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[squiggleslash]

Ah, Xubuntu, for all the PCs out there that have approximately 30% less system resources than those required by regular Ubuntu.

I think that means, in practice, it runs great on any PC made between June 16th 2001, and April 20th 2002.

Honestly, what the hell is the point of Xubuntu?

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[drinkypoo]

Honestly, what the hell is the point of Xubuntu?

It's for people who want the ease of use and bloat of Ubuntu while being able to tell themselves they have a light and efficient operating system.

Most of these people should probably try Jolicloud, but I'd wait for 1.0.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[spazdor]

Maybe you just suck at installing. I have it running perfectly quick and responsive on an original 1997 Pentium II.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[pizzach]

Honestly, what the hell is the point of Xubuntu?

The words of a man who walks in with a predetermined opinion and never tries the actual product. Speed is a bullet point, but not a reason in itself to switch. Yes, there are a *number* of reasons to at least try out XFCE.

I just switched to XFCE recently on my netbook after being a Gnome user for 3-4 years. There are definitely reasons enough for it to exist and those reasons will amplify when Gnome 3.0 hits.

It is amazing how many gconf options for gnome are broken nowadays. Can't turn off the desktop because nautilus will be forever restarted to the detriment of your CPU. You set sloppy focus and to only raise the windows when you click, then windows will never come forward even when you click them in the gnome panel. You remove the notification area, and that bug means that you have no access at all to some windows when they are minimized. It's a buggy mess.

Then there are the large number of forced dependencies. You use a vanilla install of gnome, and you have Epiphany/Evolution forced on you. Evolution being the more annoying one. You can't remove them either because they are part of the Gnome base dependencies.

There are enough differences to make the existance of XFCE worth it. That is probably why it still has developers.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[Tapewolf]

DRI GEM Desktop should work in DOSbox. Not 100% sure about printing, though, I've never tried it. It will definitely break on 64-bit windows though, as they can't run DOS or Win16 applications.

The main reason is that AMD64 doesn't support V86 mode in the 64-bit modes. I'm sure Microsoft could have trapped the exceptions and virtualised them if they really wanted to, but they haven't, so it won't work. At that point you will have to run it under some kind of CPU emulation and it was rumoured a while back that Windows 7 was the last 32-bit Windows. I'm not 100% sure whether WINE will allow for running 16-bit apps under a 64-bit linux kernel.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[orkysoft]

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone expecting their 20-year-old legacy system to run on a modern OS is insane.

I do half my work using 1980s DTP software (Ventura GEM).

Yep, I still produce a large amount of our marketing materials on Calamus from the Atari platform. It still does everything we need and our print shop is happy to accept the files without spending time reformatting and cleaning up. The platform is actually emulation with a Linux host.

Still lazy, still can't be bothered to log in, posted by adam.ec

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[squiggleslash]

Just a Pentium II? Really? The last I looked, operating systems need a whole computer to be installed on, not just a CPU. You know, with memory, disk space, etc. ;) And before you get annoyed and say "I meant a COMPUTER with a Pentium II", that's kinda the point - you're not giving me any useful information there by just quoting the CPU it has. It's like saying "O'RLY! I installed Xubunu on a PC with an IDE DISK DRIVE!! YOU SUCK! HAHAH"

I have a Thinkpad with a PII (a 600). and because the maximum amount of RAM I can fit on its motherboard is 168M (I'm not kidding, yes, I know that's a stupid amount of RAM and doesn't make any sense at all. But, honestly, that's the amount of RAM is has. If you don't believe me, go Google around, you'll find that 600s have some kind of weird memory configuration. Hell, it's not even supposed to have that amount officially, it just works anyway) and:

(a) The installation crawled. I mean CRAWLED. It took seconds for the machine to respond to any buttons. The mouse jerked around. And forget about trying to use it as a live disk, it wouldn't do it.

(b) The resulting install is only passably usable. It uses almost as much hard disk space as a full Ubuntu (thus using up most of the 4G drive)

(c) The operating system itself is horrible. It's like all the worst features of GNOME have been retained, and you suddenly miss all the good stuff when it's not there any more, you know, things like Rhythmbox.

It was an interesting project, but if I ever actually need to make the 600 into a usable machine, I'll probably go and install Slackware like God intended. Or even that Gentoo crap. Hell, I bet GNOME under Gentoo would work better than Xubuntu.

I've used Mac OS X (Jaguar) on a 128M PowerPC G3. It was... more usable. Honest. And it had the added benefit of being a full operating system. With iTunes and Quicktime, and iMovie, and, and... well, you get the idea. It swapped a lot, but it was managable. Xubuntu gave me nothing, and took its time to do it.

The recommended installation environment for Xubuntu involves 192M of RAM. The minimum installation environment for Ubuntu needs 256M. That's a pretty small window.

Re:Replacement to DOSBox?

[squiggleslash]

The words of a man who walks in with a predetermined opinion and never tries the actual product. Speed is a bullet point, but not a reason in itself to switch. Yes, there are a *number* of reasons to at least try out XFCE.

You have no idea who I am or what I've done. My words are of someone who tried it, and found that, staggeringly, my 1999 era laptop (Thinkpad 600), upgraded to the max, was barely capable of running Xubuntu at a comfortable speed, and who found Xubuntu lacking in all the areas it needed to be, while retaining the only parts of GNOME I genuinely thought sucked.

I'm the kind of person who hates throwing out computers. In theory, Xubuntu is made for me, at least, it's advertised as being a real GNU/Linux distribution for lower spec PCs. That is, it's supposed to provide a functional environment on lower spec PCs. But as I said above, the window of "lower spec" it's for is surprisingly small. Less than 192M of RAM? You might as well forget it. More than 256M? Well, you might find real Ubuntu works on it without any problems. Poor CPU and graphics card? Chances are it'll be slow as ass whichever Ubuntu variant you install.

I had a 384M 600MHz VIA C3 in the living room for a while running full Ubuntu. It never "needed" Xubuntu. I take a machine that's only slightly less powerful, my 600, and it can't comfortably run Xubuntu - it's there, you can start a Terminal window and do some work in the shell if you want, but otherwise...

Who's Xubuntu for? For the people who have between 192M and 256M of RAM? And those people are going to be happy running something that kinda sorta looks like GNOME, but actually is less functional?

It is amazing how many gconf options for gnome are broken nowadays. Can't turn off the desktop because nautilus will be forever restarted to the detriment of your CPU. You set sloppy focus and to only raise the windows when you click, then windows will never come forward even when you click them in the gnome panel. You remove the notification area, and that bug means that you have no access at all to some windows when they are minimized. It's a buggy mess.

GNOME "just works" for the most part. Yes, if you try to hack the UI to work differently, some features will stop working. That's normal. You'd be hard pressed to find an operating system where that isn't the case. And while GNOME may make "Focus follows mouse" difficult, to suggest Xubuntu lets you do those things is clearly wrong. I tried replacing Xubuntu's abysmal non-spacial file manager, Thunar, with alternatives. The only way to do this was essentially to delete the link pointing to it from /usr/bin. and have it point at an alternative. Interestingly, despite Thunar being touted as (and justified as) low memory, the machine was just as responsive when I pointed it at Nautilus! And no, the change isn't clean, it took a lot of hacking to get that to work, and of course Nautilus opens my home directory upon boot.

Does Xfde via Xubuntu do focus-follows-mouse better than GNOME under Ubuntu? I didn't get that far, and I wouldn't have even if I'd installed it on my T60, or even that aforementioned VIA C3. You see, the issue wasn't just that this supposedly lightweight environment wasn't, it was that I was stuck with a desktop less functional, in many ways, than my Amiga system from a decade and a half ago. My Amiga had all the features that Xfde has, from half-assed media players from the Winamp "era", to the basic word processors (and a pretty good DTP package) and spreadsheets and stuff that did exactly what I needed albeit no more. But the Amiga managed to achieve all of this efficiently, which meant that the applications were responsive and the environment was usable. The UI wasn't a stripped down version of GNOME2 designed by people who didn't know why GNOME was the way it was, it was a well thought out environment that employed multiple desktops, spacial representations an

Lotus Notes on wine..

[Anonymous Coward]

Lotus Notes on wine runs faster than on windows...

Re:Any try a Qemu on MIPS running x86-Wine/Starcra

[cheesybagel]

What? I thought DosEmu only worked in Virtual 8086 mode in i386 (or above) processors. Perhaps you are talking about DosBox.

Thief 1/2 and Unreal-2 engine games.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still hoping these games will one day work perfectly. Thief 1 will always have a place on my hard drive, and the Unreal 2 engine is used by *SO* many games, but there is one mouse-related bug that makes them unplayable. The mouse can escape the window, making it hard to turn 360 degrees.

Re:Thief 1/2 and Unreal-2 engine games.

[Hatta]

We are all waiting for that bug to be resolved. There is a patch, but it requires X.org 1.8. As soon as X.org 1.8 gets into common use I'm sure a fix will be mainlined and we can all play Unreal games on Linux. Patience is a virtue.

Steam

[Rydia]

Hopefully the wine project and Valve are working together on this and that linux version of steam pops up soon. I installed DAO via steam in linux the other day and there was an intermediate step about configuring wine (in the windows version of steam) that gives me some hope.

Re:Steam

[BrianRoach]

No, No, and No.

I hope Steam is not working with Wine in any way, shape or form.

I do hope they are working on Native ports of games like with OSX.

What is the point and goal here?

[rec9140]

Why do we need to run those junky programs from another OS? ?

I see no need for this...

And NO games do NOT count...

Re:What is the point and goal here?

[gringer]

Why do we need to run those junky programs from another OS?

Because we can, and no one else will (not even Microsoft).

hmm

[nomadic]

Soo...Wine actually works now? Because for the entirety of the 90's and into the 2000s it really didn't work that well, yet I was constantly being told by linux fanatics how it could run everything, even though it could run almost nothing properly.

Re:hmm

[Abcd1234]

Here's a thought: quit trolling Slashdot and try it out yourself.

Re:hmm

[nomadic]

Nope, I tried it several times over 10+ years and got burned each time. If you weren't telling the truth then, why should I believe you now?

Does Sketchup 7 Work Now?

[Doc Ruby]

Google refuses to release a Linux version of SketchUp. Even though SketchUp is the editor for Google Earth, and that whole sector of Google's products and services.

SketchUp 7 doesn't work so well on Wine. Not with an Intel embedded graphics chip, anyway. Yeah, I could get a new PC with a new graphics chip, but the old one works well except for these kinds of occasional incompatibilities. Everything else I use in software is free/OSS, so I don't feel like spending money on new HW to run the free SW.

Does Wine 1.2 run SketchUp now? If not, how do we get Google to either release a Linux version, or patch Wine to make it work?

Re:Does Sketchup 7 Work Now?

[macshit]

AFAIK, it's not reallllly Google, rather it's a company that Google bought.

When downloading sketchup it also tries to trick you into downloading "sketchup pro" instead.

It looks like even if they were bought by Google, they're still trying to operate as a proprietary software company.

Re:Does Sketchup 7 Work Now?

[Doc Ruby]

Google bought Keyhole SW several years ago. SketchUp is Google now as surely as any of the many other divisions Google has bought. There's no "trick" into buying SketchUp Pro when you download. It's a separate option on the download page, with the free version featured but the Pro version available for money. Just like any other SW with a free version and pay version with more features. The free version isn't crippled at all, but people I know who use it professionally do use the extra features.

SketchUp is exactly like any other software with a free version from a big company that also makes money from a paid and supported version. Right down to the failure to release a Linux version.

I use both...

[IANAAC]

i thought people were all about VM's now

I use both Wine and VirtualBox for very limited purposes. I have a very old Windows program (actually 2) that I use for translation purposes that I run in Wine. The original companies went out of business, but I'm fairly sure I could find a more up to date program to do what these programs do. But these old programs still suit my needs and really don't see a need to buy another program (there is no Linux version of either of these programs that would do, otherwise I'd be using them, I suppose). The other translation program I have won't run in Wine. I have to use a full VM for it (Trados, for the curious).

I really dislike having to fire up a full VM for that one program, but it's still sort of an industry standard. If I could get it running in Wine, I would rather do that than have to run a VM. Thankfully, I don't need it all that often.

What's the point?

[jlarocco]

I have to admit, I really don't see the point of Wine. If you want to run Windows apps, why not use Windows?

Re:What's the point?

[cwarner7_11]

"If you want to run Windows apps, why not use Windows?" Because these apps that are important to me don't run in newer Windows versions...And Microsoft in all it's wisdom sees no need to insure backward capability...

Re:What's the point?

[__aaxtnf2500]

Because I would rather burn a hundred dollar bill than use it to inflict suffering on myself?

Re:What's the point?

[horza]

I have to admit, I really don't see the point of Windows. If you want to run Windows apps for free and without the hassle or rebooting, why not use Wine?

Phillip.

Re:What's the point?

[mqduck]

I have to admit, I really don't see the point of Wine. If you want to run Windows apps, why not use Windows?

Because I want to run Windows apps and use Linux. What's there to not understand about that?

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

What cock are you smoking?

Re:What's the point?

[jlarocco]

Because I want to run Windows apps and use Linux. What's there to not understand about that?

That's as silly as saying, "I want to live in France, but only speak Chinese."

Nobody's going to stop you, but you should realize you're making things more difficult than they need to be.

And the only thing you're proving is that you've turned a decision over operating systems into a religious issue. Or that you're too cheap to buy a $300 Windows PC. Or that you're a masochist.

Re:What's the point?

[onuras]

I am using only one win32 application (yes WoW). Why should I use Windows?

No usb Support

[cwarner7_11]

Since the only reason I need Windows apps is to preserve legacy software for which I can find no replacement for (i.e., "ancient" data acquisition hardware for which the manufacturers no longer provide support), Wine is a good solution, except for one fault- no usb support. Since newer computers are coming without traditional com ports, usb support is critical. That dictates that one must use VirtualBox or some other virtual system with Windows installed. Wine works better, requires less tweaking to get things up and running, and generally runs applications faster than most of the virtual machines i have played with...

Re:No usb Support

[drinkypoo]

Since the only reason I need Windows apps is to preserve legacy software for which I can find no replacement for (i.e., "ancient" data acquisition hardware for which the manufacturers no longer provide support), Wine is a good solution, except for one fault- no usb support. Since newer computers are coming without traditional com ports, usb support is critical.

Why do you need USB support? The OS handles that. It sounds like you need to use a USB to serial converter. You plug it in and Linux detects the hardware, it creates a tty. Then you link the tty to a file in your .wine directory and it shows up looking like any other serial port in Wine. It sounds to me like you don't understand that Wine Is Not an Emulator, it is just some libraries and a windows program loader. It doesn't take over functions of the kernel, it wraps around various other libraries and presents alternate interfaces to them which will be understood by windows software.
Sounds to me like you're either spreading FUD or just spreading plain old ignorance. Even my motorola phone works better on Linux that it does on Windows now because on windows 7 x64 I can't get the driver to recognize and charge my phone even by following instructions, but it "just works" on my Linux system. And furthermore, even though I'm connecting it via USB, I just get a tty (USB0 I think) which I can then link to Windows (as, say, COM3) and then open with the serial interface in Mobile Phone Tools.
Now, Wine IS supposedly adding some USB driver support for some reason I can't fathom, but it's not relevant to connecting serial devices, which are practically all supported by Linux.

Re:No usb Support

[King InuYasha]

They are adding USB support because of iTunes. 'nuff said.

Re:No usb Support

[simpz]

And TomTom and other SatNav update software, that despite the hardware being based on Linux the darn update software is Windows only!! USB wine support should fix that.

The only bank in town

[tepples]

my bank is IE only

Then it might be time to change banks.

Or it might not if your bank is the only bank with branches and free ATMs in town. Otherwise, the ATM owner and your bank charge you a combined $5 service fee every time you get money out of your checking account, and you can't deposit any cash or checks that you receive.

Re:The only bank in town

[shaitand]

Get an account with a real bank and keep the crappy account. Deposit checks and then transfer out to your real bank, transfer in when you need cash (or just use your debit).

In the modern world where you can use your debit card pretty much anywhere for any purchase of 50 cents or more with no fees how often do you really need cash? For that matter, unless you are running a business, how often do you receive cash and checks? Or really cash, you can mail check deposits.

If you absolutely have to have a physical presence I'd couple it with a real account and use it for temporary funds holding. Maybe attach it to an all digital account.

Can't afford $480/yr you insensitive clod

[tepples]

I can't afford Cricket's $40/month bill you insensitive clod!

Tether to your cell phone.

commodore64_love can't afford the cell phone carrier's $40/month bill you insensitive clod!

Oh just get Windows 7

[Sycraft-fu]

Seriously, I get a little tired of the "Ahhh MS has left XP behind!" types. Ok, I will give some credit initially. When Vista launched it required a heavy amount of resources for the day, and many people felt it was a poor OS (I disagree with most of their claims, but regardless). Fine, however now 7 is out. It has received large amount of acclaim as a good OS, is less resource intensive at the low end, and driver support is quite good. It is a very worthwhile upgrade, if you want to support new systems.

Also, XP is being discontinued. Support runs out in 2014. While that isn't critically close, it means it is time to look at beginning to retire XP systems so by the time 2014 gets here, it is a non-issue.

So, if you want to run DX 10 or 11 software, get 7. It is a good OS, and you've no real excuse. If your system has hardware powerful enough to run those apps at usable speed, it is powerful enough to run 7 no problem.

You cannot expect support and new features in old software forever, unless you pay a hefty maintenance fee (and even then you don't always ge tnew features). XP is nearly 10 years old. time to put it to rest on new systems and use 7.

No people complain when you over claim

[Sycraft-fu]

Wine, and in particular Wine fanboys, sell it as a sure fire way to run Windows apps on Linux. They happily point to success stories and say "See you can ditch Windows, just run your stuff in Wine! Look how well Office runs!" People then try it and discover three things:

1) It is complex as all get out. You don't just go and start Wine and run a Windows installer to put your application on. No, it is way fucking complex in many cases. Even people familiar with virtualization are amazed at how complex it gets.

2) It works poorly in many cases. A "working" app in Wine speak seems to mean "runs". It may have massive glitches. Most people take working to mean "Works fully with some minor glitches." Even so of the top apps have some rather noticeable glitches.

3) Plenty of stuff doesn't work at all, and there's no readily apparent reason. It just fails.

For example I was trying to move to a Linux desktop at work, to learn more about Linux and its working in our setup. However, being work, I had to be able to get everything done. So I tried Linux AV software and it was crap, couldn't do what I needed to do. I went and asked our Linux head if he'd be willing to help see if Wine could run Sony Vegas. He said sure. After 3 days of fairly intense work and research, he said no, he could find no way to make it run. He was pretty good too, he didn't blow this off he really tried.

So that's why people get mad. Wine shouldn't be marketed as a Windows compatibility layer. Wine is more of an experimental program that can help some Windows software run sometimes. If you want to get your hands dirty and mess around with some complex stuff, maybe it can make things happen. However it is not a friendly compatibility layer that you install and suddenly Windows apps can be run just like on Windows with ease.

People get mad because it is oversold, and because it is something they want. They hear "Windows on Linux," and get all excited. They can use Linux now and not have to sacrifice their computer experience. Then they try it and find no, they can't actually and get real angry.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[David Gerard]

All of this is true, and the project itself makes no bones about it. That said, it's always worth trying - these days, it's more surprising when a Windows app doesn't work at all than when it does.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[Kjella]

For example I was trying to move to a Linux desktop at work, to learn more about Linux and its working in our setup. However, being work, I had to be able to get everything done. So I tried Linux AV software and it was crap, couldn't do what I needed to do. I went and asked our Linux head if he'd be willing to help see if Wine could run Sony Vegas. He said sure. After 3 days of fairly intense work and research, he said no, he could find no way to make it run. He was pretty good too, he didn't blow this off he really tried.

The best place to check is the WineHQ application compatibility database. It'd have told your sysadmin in much less than three days that people have gotten it to run but "Installing this was a mission though." and the best anyone's been able to give it a silver rating. The last test report is from almost a year ago though, it'd be very nice if your sysadmin took five minutes to write up a test report to tell others what he found. Anything less than a gold rating should not be used in a production environment, and even then I'd read the notes to see if it's gold because of functionality flaws or installation complications (to get a platinum rating the application must install without special configuration).

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[Anonymous Coward]

Stcraft-fu:

People get mad because it is oversold...

David Gerard:

All of this is true...

...these days, it's more surprising when a Windows app doesn't work at all than when it does.

Case in point right there folks.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[drinkypoo]

The best place to check is the WineHQ application compatibility database.

The WineHQ compatibility database is nearly fucking useless because it continually reports apps as working flawlessly when they don't even install. This is probably because wine is a moving target and they occasionally break something that has been working because Windows is such a minefield. Still, probably 90% of the games I've tried on Wine that said they worked great don't work at all. Wine is cool if you want to run Photoshop or something, but I have had to keep a Windows installation and a virtual machine around to cover the many many cases where it's totally useless.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[Jorl17]

"So that's why people get mad. Wine shouldn't be marketed as a Windows compatibility layer. Wine is more of an experimental program that can help some Windows software run sometimes"

How-so? What the hell were you thinking to say that? I understand all your other points and agree to a certain degree with most, but I can't see why Wine isn't a windows compatibility layer. It is an implementation of the Windows API so it is also a compatibility layer. Much like MONO is to .NET. I suppose that, following that logic, if a Javascript implementation has glitches on your specific pages (not standardized ones), then it mustn't be considered a "Javascript compatiblity layer / implementation".

Also, the people at Wine never advertised it as something that "just works" or something that "runs xx% of all apps". They are very nice people who help out when they can, and I'm proud to be able to talk to some of them. What they have achieved it far more than what we will all probably do. Have you browsed through Wine's source? That's amazing, giant, somewhat organized and a true work of art.

"However it is not a friendly compatibility layer that you install and suddenly Windows apps can be run just like on Windows with ease."
Yes, that one is mostly true. The thing is that Wine is the implementation. If you want user-friendliness, then get CrossOver, WineDoors, WineSkin or other apps. Besides, when I first arrived at Linux, my Ubuntu came with Wine (or I instaled it...). I only had the need to mess with Wine's insides about 2 years later. Until then, it ran most of my apps (some of them comple), with a simple point-and-click thing.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[Draek]

Really? in my experience nearly all mentions of Wine are along the lines of "hey, it's fairly hit-or-miss but perhaps Wine can help you, give it a try" rather than "use Wine, it can run every Windows app flawlessly!". Hell, even Wine's own website states that it doesn't run everything so where you got the hype from I have no idea.

And in Wine's favor, my experience with them have been that nearly all apps either work out-of-the-box or don't at all. The ones that work-but-require-a-day-of-editing-config-files are more of a rarity that can be safely ignored by normal people since that issue will most likely be fixed by next version anyways. And if you absolutely *need* some specific app right here right now, well, you should've used VirtualBox to begin with.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[moonbender]

Wine is a moving target, but the AppDB is still the opposite of useless. There's a large number of games that only run with some workaround applied, which is often document in the compatibility report or the (sometimes lengthy) discussion.

Can't say that I've had your experience -- in most cases, games that the AppDB reports as working end up working for me, too. I wouldn't want to give a percentage though, since I've only tried this with maybe a dozen games so far. Usually it's just not worth the hassle.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[cj_nologic]

For example I was trying to move to a Linux desktop at work, to learn more about Linux and its working in our setup. However, being work, I had to be able to get everything done. So I tried Linux AV software and it was crap, couldn't do what I needed to do. I went and asked our Linux head if he'd be willing to help see if Wine could run Sony Vegas. He said sure. After 3 days of fairly intense work and research, he said no, he could find no way to make it run. He was pretty good too, he didn't blow this off he really tried.

You're approaching it the wrong way. If the existing linux-specific software is not acceptable, and the only alternative is to run some windows software, then run it on windows - especially for AV stuff (that gets really pernickety about HW and drivers for sound and graphics cards, and even on Windows can be difficult to get right).

Then you need to lobby your boss. If running everything on Linux is beneficial for your business, but you are unable to do so because of the lack of suitable software, then you need to get your boss to agree to allocate a certain percentage of your time to improving the software portfolio for AV stuff on Linux. Say, spend every Friday afternoon for the next year testing and bug-reporting on existing Linux alternatives. Won't cost your boss a lot, but may mean that in a year or two's time you are able to ditch your Windows box and the proprietary software you run on it, and migrate to an open source solution you have had a hand in developing and making sure did what you needed it to do.

Then you can happily run some non-critical but useful tools using wine while performing your main tasks using a native application.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[Reziac]

I just spent some time looking through the reports for CorelDraw/PhotoPaint -- I *need* PhotoPaint, with the scanning and image paste functions intact, and there is no viable alterative (that doesn't make me want to hurt someone). What you say is evident there -- ratings are all over the place, and it appears that the user's level of tolerance for faults and breakage is what's really being measured. :( I did note that those who gave it lower ratings had more specific complaints and were apparently more-regular users of the program.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[Hurricane78]

Actually, it isn’t. Yes, the DB says it works. But it’s bullshit. I tried CS 2, 3, and 4. I am an expert and can hack up pretty much everything until it works. It’s the same problem I have with all Wine stuff:

1. There is a missing or buggy function in a dll.
2. You replace the dll with a native one.
3. But that native one also triggers a buggy feature in a library it builds on.
4. ...
5. You end up at the non-replacable internal Wine libraries.

The only stuff I could get to “work”, lacked major functions and could not be used for serious business.
I mean
music production
Video production
Desktop publishing
accounting/banking software
and Games.
Which is pretty much everything that’s not a special business solution software. Which works when it’s old, but not a chance when it’s new.

So, I’m really actually left with not a single app I need, that is in an acceptable state.

So unless someone comes over and proves me wrong, I consider Wine an early alpha that will always stay an early alpha.

Re:No people complain when you over claim

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying running an app that needs to use USB, in particular a USB serial port (or a USB-to-serial adapter).

I would very much like to run a couple of apps for my amateur radio emergency work, such as Outpost Packet Manager, but can't because my TNC is connected to a USB-serial adapter and heaven forbid that WINE notices that there's an FTDI chip tied to the USB port and reacts to it appropriately. And, no, simply doing a symbolic link between /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyS0 (or whatever) doesn't cut it, nor does pharting around with symbolic links in ~.wine/dos_devices. Perusal of the various Wiki pages, particularly the one for USB, was very disheartening, pointing to pages and pages of patches for a much earlier version of WINE that no one bothered to bring forward to the 1.2 pool.

So, yeah, there's an overselling problem here, big time. USB has been around long enough for WINE to actually learn how to talk to it. It simply hasn't happened, and I'm sick of tripping over the hug lump that was swept under the rug. Maybe if enough folks speak up, the Powers That Be will realize that perhaps this ought to be a mandatory criterion for the next release.

And, no, my personal coding skills aren't up to the challenge, and I don't know enough about Windows to understand how to monkey with registry settings and the like. Maybe if some attention were diverted away from games to real-world basic configuration requirements, WINE might be(come) worthwhile.

MOD PARENT UP

[David Gerard]

*applause*

Re:Wow, I'm the first!

[DaVince21]

I could have gotten first, and yet I didn't comment. You know why?

Because I'm not a jackass whose only interest it is to get "first" posts.

Business? It's more likely than you think.

[tepples]

In the modern world where you can use your debit card pretty much anywhere for any purchase of 50 cents or more with no fees how often do you really need cash?

Individuals running yard sales tend not to have suitable merchant accounts. Neither does my barber. My dentist gives a discount when paying with cash instead of a card. I guess I could get cash back when I buy milk at Walmart*.

For that matter, unless you are running a business

Ordinarily, the kind of business I want to run would take Google Checkout and PayPal, where the money would stay inside the ACH system. But I do get paid to mow a relative's lawn; does that count as a business?

how often do you receive cash and checks?

Cash: Birthday, Christmas, repayments of small loans to family members, and lawn mowing income. Checks: It took years for my employer to switch to a payroll processor that offered direct deposit.

I bashed wine in the past, but 1.2 is pretty good

[sick_soul]

I bashed wine quite a bit in the past, but I admit that 1.2 is a pretty good release.

I follow the wine project and source code daily,
I have my own patches to fix problems with multiple apps that do not work out of the box,
and I still think there are serious problems with how the project is managed.

But I admit that there is progress, and 1.2 could be a good starting point for people that never really tried wine out in the past.

Wine Ubuntu

[helix2301]

Wine has gotten better over the years I remember the last version on Ubuntu sound was still an issue. I really hope they have worked those issues out I can't wait to test Ubuntu 10 with new wine 1.2

usb Suppot

[cwarner7_11]

You are right- I am attempting to utilize a serial to usb converter, which works fine with Linux, and works fine under VirtualBox with Windows 98SE guest (Specifically, a Keyspan 19HS). I have not been able to get it to function in Wine. I have gone through all the procedures for linking serial ports to Wine, I have tried the old work-around that shows up on the Wine site, and I have not been able to get Wine to recognize the port. The legacy software I am trying to preserve (all of which functions well in VB with Win 98SE) involves drivers, parsers and converters for proprietary data structures from equipment no longer supported by the manufacturer. I have on occasion be able to work around this by snooping the data stream and developing my own parsers and converters (sing Excel in VB- haven't got it working in Wine), but one must know the communications protocol and data structure and have a lot of time for experimentation. We are talking about maintaining the utility of legacy equipment that amounts to several thousand dollars worth of investment that still functions properly and serves my needs. Replacing the older equipment for newer equipment that only marginally expands the capabilities that I use just does not make sense. I use Wine for a number of applications, and find it better, in most cases than VB, from the standpoint of speed, mostly. I especially like Excel 2000 on Wine, which has capabilities not available in OpenOffice Calc or any other OpenSource spreadsheet I have looked at (specifically, FFT capabilities- and the graphics are a whole lot faster). If you have a solution that can give me access to the usb to serial converter through Wine, I would be most greatful. The solution provided in the documentation does not work in my setup. I am not making derogatory comments about Wine- I am trying to encourage the expansion of its capabilities to enhance its utility for my applications. I have posted very similar comments on the Wine site directly, and the response has been that usb support is a low-profile issue for the Wine developers.

Re:usb Suppot

[Creepy Crawler]

I had this same problem recently. I was using a Belkin USB-Serial adapter for controlling a ICOM multiband scanner. It uses a windows program to control it over the serial port, with a lineout for output.

I installed WINE and proceeded to hook up the hardware. I plug in the USB-Serial. Linux autodetects and is device /dev/ttyUSB0 everything good so far.
I then try to figure out how to get Wine to see the serial port, as it only accepts com0-com9. Yuck. So, documentation states to make a symlink to the device.

chmod 0777 /dev/ttyUSB0 # its my laptop and im not worried
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/COM0

I started back up the ICOM software control, aimed it at COM0 and it works perfect. Well, aside its a win95 program and a bad gui, but its working perfectly as they designed.

utorrent's scheduler

[Anonymous Coward]

the scheduler in utorrent is much nicer than the single interval speed change offered in trans. it really is an essential feature as almost every isp has on and off peak quotas.

i realise ktorrent has a timetable but it was somehow far more cluttered and complex than utorrent yet less functional.

running utorrent through wine was interesting, particularly getting a script to translate a unix path into a wine/windows drive letter path, so that nautilus/browser file association would automatically open the torrent in utorrent and start it downloading into the correct directory.

after all that utorrent under wine uses 60% cpu on this 1.6ghz p4, whereas under windows its less than 2%. so for low cpu usage i have to stick with rtorrent.

usb Support

[cwarner7_11]

You may just have solved the issue for me. In the link, you link to ~/.wine/dosdevices- I missed the .wine part... I'll be giving this a try- if I can get around this issue, I may be able to finally abandon Windows completely...

Hahahahahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell computer did you install it on? Vista, that unstable, bug-ridden, unusable piece of shit that everyone hates so much works and has always worked perfectly on my (Dell) computer. Likewise 7 on my parents' which was a custom build. No crashes, plenty of photo editing (on both) so no problems with graphics files, tons of audio editing (with Adobe Audition, which I'd assume is as bug-ridden as the rest of Adobe's software, and yet still no crashes). Anecdotal evidence is apparently rubbish all around, so all I have is a sample of two where Vista/7 work perfectly against yours where it was an utter pack of shit, so while I'm not doubting your experience at all it all went fine for me.

The indexing is a pain in the arse and churns the hard drive like a mother though.

Disclaimer: this was actually typed on a Macbook Pro, my Vista machine is still stuck in a basement a thousand miles away because I've moved recently. And my Vista machine is dual-booting with Arch Linux. Or I may have swapped it to Ubuntu just before the move. I forget - I was planning to, anyway. Platform agnosticism is the way to go...

Humor fail

[complacence]

BRB finding a stone to crawl under. Please disregard the parenthesis.

The single most important question of all:

[Hurricane78]

I have a whole Windows XP installed on another partition. Why can’t the damn thing just get over itself, and use all those libraries and stuff, while just replacing the few core libaries that all the other libraries use to communicate with the kernel?

I know that this was possible in earlier versions of Wine, and it would make everything work 100%! Without a stupid reboot or slow VM.

OT Question

[nu1x]

Hello there fellow /.er from Norway (as I deducted from your long term posts, correct me if wrong), I have a totally OT question:

I, together with my friend, are going to Norway in a few days, to travel, and also make some cash back collecting (and selling where appropriate) forest berries. Do you have any idea how to find the (trading places, markets or some such) who buy them in bulk ? I looked all over but it's not really apparent on the internet for those not proficient in Norwegian.

Any pointers in how to find them (is there a method ? Company names, anything ?).

Pardon me for such inquisitiveness, don't answer if you do not want to :P

Just fishing for info ...

Thanks in advance.

Re:search sucks in win7

[denis-The-menace]

In XP, you can search INSIDE files for a text string *provided XP knows of the file extension*.

In Windows 2000, you could do this with ANY file extension.

In Windows 7, sorry. You can't do that anymore. No workarounds unless you go 3rd party.

So, if I want to look for a key word inside my 400+ VBS scripts using Windows 7 I AM FSCKed!

Re:search sucks in win7

[Soul-Burn666]

Except of course if you check the radio button under:
Windows Explorer -> Organize -> Folder and search options -> Search -> Always search file names and contents.

Why this is not default is probably because MS thought people won't want to search inside files for non-indexed directories.

After you choose that, searching for something searches files and contents. Searching for name:somefilename will search for "somefilename" in filenames.

Also check this out for some more advanced search syntax.