Google Labs has released Picasa for Linux, ported using Wine by CodeWeavers. The free Picasa download is available now. My Take: The software requirements are fairly hefty in that some features require cutting edge programs like HAL and a 2.6+ kernel, but this is fantastic news for Linux users. Picasa is an excellent program that rivals iPhoto. Update by AS : Google ported Picasa using Wine, but it was still a LOT of work and the result was completely effective. Please read more on the WineHQ mailing list. Update 2: You do not need Wine installed to run this - it's a self-contained Wine lib. Also, the Picasa download apparently doesn't work from all countries. Update by TH: Here's a review.
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Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:2005-07-25
Member since:2006-02-17
It's not running "under WINE" but using libwine. If you have the Win32 source code, the libwine library provides a native implementation of that API for Linux/UNIX. Thus, you can compile the code as a native application and do away with the overhead of WINE itself.
While I have not done it myself, I have talked to several people that have ported Win32 apps using libwine, and the general consensus is that it is very straight-forward and pretty quick to do. I suspect, for example, if Intuit wanted to make QuickBooks for Linux they could put 2 guys on it and turn it out in a week or two and maintain a common code base between Windows and Linux. Not that they will. Intuit gets thousands of requests for it and their policy is to explicitly ignore all user requests for porting their applications.
Member since:2006-05-27
Nope.
It's simply a self-contained version of Wine. No Winelib or anything.
From WWN 314,
http://www.winehq.com/?issue=314http://www.winehq.com/?issue=314#Pi...
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Many people assume that when porting a Windows app to Linux using Wine, the best thing to do is link Winelib into the application to create a native Linux application. Not so! It's just as effective, and a heck of a lot easier, to run the same binary on both Windows and Wine. So that's what the Picasa team did. Picasa for Linux uses slightly different text messages, but the .exe file is identical for both Windows and Linux.
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Member since:2005-09-01
Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:
2005-07-06
"ported"? wtf? Making an app run under Wine is *not* 'porting' it. If that is the case, then I've ported all kinds of programs to linux