WineX (& DOSEMU and everything in between)

[lazygamer]

So I've gotten the feeling of dislike for WineX at these forums. What can you guys tell me about it, and why is it disliked/hated?


[edit - title changed a little - Calum]

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ]

[Calum]

it's proprietary. well, it is based on a gpl thing (wine) but they chose to release some halfassed addons that are proprietary (also you need to rent them, you can't even pay a oneoff fee). Also, i gather they used an older, non GPL version of wine, so they wouldn't have to contribute their code back to the community, so basically they are making money off of other people's sweat and good intentions.

although i don't know much about it, and i have never used it, so i could be wrong!      

edit - also, it helps you run windows programs which just keeps the shackles on for that bit longer. why run linux if you're still fucking using MSword? and more to the point, how will game developers realise people want their games to be released as linux natives, if people are all renting copies of wineX and buying windows copies of the games?

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ]

[slave]

I only use it to play warcraft 3, which it does very well.  Normal wine can't run it because it doesn't have all the safedisk copy protection crap in it.

[lazygamer]

What's the name of that DOS emulator again? Does it work really good?

It is true about being shackled by still using your Wind0ze programs, but im a gamer, and I need my crack!    

Still, im much more willing to try and master Linux just so I can use Wine decently. It matters not if 2001-2002 games don't work good on WineX/Wine, you think I can run 2001-2002 games good on 433 mhz?    

Oh and WineX has directX support in it and Wine doesn't right? Almost everything uses DirectX, so woulden't that make Wine rather shitty?

See I've been growing complacent with Wind0ze, complancency is a danger. Reading this article on "The path Microsoft is going with Windows XP"(something named like that)" made me more inspired again.

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: lazygamer ]

[Calum]

you are correct about directx.

re: emulating dos, it's dosemu. to install it in linux, you need to download and compile the dosemu package and the dosemu-freedos package. the actual DOS part, freedos, is available as a seperate OS (search for it on the net) but i couldn't get it to install, and it only supports fat16 filesystems!  

i plan to install it as an emulator in linux too, but haven't yet...

[lazygamer]

Hmmm I see. Well here is what I want. I want to be able to run Dos GAMES with a good compatibility rate and all the goodies IE:no quirks, full sound. I want to do this from Linux directly, no reboots. I want something that has superior compatibility with Dos games to Windows XP, and at least even compatibility with Windows 95, possibly even exceeding it.

Can I get this? Or am I pipedreaming?    

Speed is meaningless, my system would has so much power(for dos), that even in an emulated enviroment, some of those old games would STILL need a slowdown program!  

[Calum]

i don't know how realistic that is.
i will soon be trying out dosemu though, nd will post here. why don't you do the same?
i don't know if i will be able to answer yr sound q though, as i have a sis7018 snd card, you likely have a more soundblastery one...

[voidmain]

Not all of WineX is proprietary (closed source that is). You can download the CVS source for free. I did and installed StarCraft using WineX and it plays perfectly. But I don't particularly like the concept of Wine and WineX. I would rather have application/game vendors put out native Linux ports. Having wine gives them less incentive to port. On the other hand it gives you a way to run some of the apps written for MS OSs until there is a port, or for those that have no plans of porting.

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Crunchy(Cracked)Butter]

Why can't another games company (like did Loki) just start up again and say "Hello, we do linux ports of windows games"!

[Calum]

lazy: just donloaded dosemu (and dosemu-freedos) it is very very easy to install and run, and very satisfactory in many ways however it doesn't properly emulate DOS. It's free and is a small download though, and will enable you to DOS without rebooting for no money, so it is well worth your download. you need to get dosemu-xxxxx.tgz and you need to also get dosemu-freedos-bin.tgz, put them in the same directory as each other and do 'tar -xvzf name' for each one. then cd into the directory called 'dosemu' and type './dosemu -home' and you will find a working DOS which can access the A: drive, and your linux home directory will be on drive D:
Enjoy! i couldn't get my sound working of course, but i can't in DOS anyway...

[lazygamer]

Well, I looked at Dos emu website. No sound emulation.      

Sorry but im the type of person who desires excellence, I'd rather not play my dos games then play them with no sound.

However, I've been looking around a bit. Woulden't it be possible to use Bochs OR Plex86 under Linux to run MS-Dos? What about Dr Dos? I heard that is free for non-commerical users. Is MS-DOS still one of the best, or is there better out there? See MS-DOS is not free, and free stuff is much easier to find for download. Anything else besides DR DOS or MS-DOS?

Now that I think about it, I do have MS-DOS lying around on a disk somewhere...

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: lazygamer ]

[Calum]

well, i haven't tried DR-DOS, but X11 says it's better than dosemu i think...

as for which is better, i am sure that FreeDOS(DOSEMU) is better for some things, DR-DOS is better for some things and MSDOS is better for some things too. the point is that most DOS programs are written for MSDOS. If they had all been written with FreeDOS in mind then that would be the best DOS to run them on. I think for max compatibility you should run them in MSDOS, but that involves rebooting and it means you cannot run linux at the same time.
As for using a windows emulator to run DOS, i don't know, but i bet it's possible. Maybe you could run microsoft command.com or cmd.exe using wine for instance?
I don't know...

[lazygamer]

Doesn't Bochs and Plex86 basically run "an OS inside an OS"? I think that would be very useful for me. Shoulden't that be able to run MS-DOS?

[emh]

quote:Originally posted by lazygamer:
Well, I looked at Dos emu website. No sound emulation.        

I thought they said on their website that there was sound emulation, just that it wasn't perfect yet.  Where did you read that there wasn't sound blaster emulation?

[voidmain]

VMware runs MS-DOS very well. But I can't tell you how it does with Sound in games as I haven't tried it. Plus it's probably out of your price range. It's free to try for 30 days though.