A glass of "Wine" Anyone?

[Digit]

I've seen a few discussions on this forum now, and of course, being someone yet to complete my move to linux, i'm still quite low down on the learning curve, still looking through all the "which linux should i get" and "will my software run on Linux" type threads.

on such threads i still so often see people dishing out advice as if its still such a cut and dry thing.

have they never heard of Wine?  or is it that Wine simply doesnt live upto its very exciting and lofty claims.

basically, wine is supposed to allow you to run all the software you were using on windows on Linux.

... or did i read their website wrong?

[WMD]

quote:Originally posted by Digit:
basically, wine is supposed to allow you to run all the software you were using on windows on Linux.

That's the idea, yes, but simply put, it doesn't always work.  And many apps require certain configuration to work in Wine.

[mobrien_12]

Wine's objective is a 100% compatibility layer.  It's been 9 years since the wine project started and they are still not there.  Many programs work very very well.  Others do not work at all.  IT may not be possible to achieve this target because there are secret API's in Windows that MS doesn't document but uses internally.

Look at the application database to see what I'm talking about.

[worker201]

Considering the different ways that Windows handles memory and disk access and the intercomplications of the registry and the dll system, I'm surprised anything works at all.

Fortunately, wine has thousands of people trying it out with just about every piece of software imaginable, and sharing their experiences.  Such info is readily available from their website.

[pofnlice]

Hell...and I can't even figure out how to fire wine up...oops...did I say that?

[Refalm]

quote:Digit: basically, wine is supposed to allow you to run all the software you were using on windows on Linux.

Wine never said: "we guarantee that you can run all Winblows softwarez on your Linuz install, ".

There's no warranty, so instead, be greatful for the Windows programs that do run on Linux  

Or check out CrossOver Office or Cedega for commercial solutions that do guarantee certain things.

[Digit]

Thinking out loud again

ok.  so what about emulators (sorry, i cant remember their names)... do they then still suffer the same problems and hurdles of Microshafts secret coding?

wine...
when starting up (*ahem* TRYING to start up) a program using wine, it gives a little shpeal about how it might work better if you had a win OS instaled somewhere on your machine.  cant give u the exact details of the message cos i dont have my machine with me just now.  ... so it looks like a dual boot might be the way to go after all. damn.  that means i'll have microsoft software installed on my machine again.  ew.  i better work on getting my next computer finished.

woops... almost forgot to check out crossover and cedega.....

cedega sounds great... if i wanted to play games.    
i dont.
     

     
so...
maybe i'm going about this the wrong way.  to continue to seek out the software designed to run on windows and a way to run them on my new OS, i'm only encouraging them to continue to develope for windows and ignore Linux and other opperating systems.
I should be looking up their Linux alternatives!

... and maybe sending a few emails to software developers (adobe being my number 1 priority) and others to get behind Linux like the hardware guys (IBM for example) have done might help push things forward a little too.

thnx for the replies everyone, and big thanks to refalm/bob for the links.    

[ October 02, 2004: Message edited by: Digit ]

[WMD]

quote:when starting up (*ahem* TRYING to start up) a program using wine, it gives a little shpeal about how it might work better if you had a win OS instaled somewhere on your machine. cant give u the exact details of the message cos i dont have my machine with me just now. ... so it looks like a dual boot might be the way to go after all. damn. that means i'll have microsoft software installed on my machine again. ew. i better work on getting my next computer finished.

Well, it depends.  With Windows really installed, you can use the native DLLs instead of Wine's, but that isn't always necessary (and, in fact, some work better with Wine's stuff).  For example, last week at school I got the game Pocket Tanks for Windows to work without use of any Windows DLLs (I actually had the Wine config pointing to a "fake" windows directory instead of the real one on the machine).  I was shocked that I pulled that off.

I myself haven't tried to install any programs directly through Wine; I've only run them from an existing Windows partition.  The installer is known to work for some apps, but I don't know personally how that works or where stuff gets installed.

[Refalm]

Btw, this link is very, very, very useful:

http://frankscorner.org/