A fascinating and ambitious open source project, Wine attempts to solve the complex problem of running Windows executables on Linux.Although Wine is not a new project, the growing expectations for the Linux desktop and growing demand for Linux applications make it relevant today. This article introduces Wine and suggests ways to get hands-on experience with its internals.
A Taste of Wine: Transition from Windows to Linux
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
wow! first time I get to be the first comment! About the subject, though, WINE’s great, for users who want to keep using their favorite windows-based applications under linux. No need for windows anymore. Way to go WINE!
yes wine is great especially with dependency walker. saves you time on knowing what win32 app dll is needed in win32 enviroment than the debug message. winex is good for games too and crossover office too.
From Windows to Linux if you intend to use the box as a windows box…
talk about using the wrong tool for the right job.
Because maybe you just have one windows app you need and a raft of *nix apps.
IBM promoting wine?
this sounds very good!
Because maybe you just have one windows app you need and a raft of *nix apps.
Judging from the article it’s cheaper to buy a Windows box next to your Nix box and run the apps rather than hazzling with some semi working application like Wine…
But I guess working time is not calculated into TCO, as it usually isn’t when Linux is involved…
The Wine is really bitter. Well at least the transition part.
You know what has always struck me as funny. Linux users will jump up and down about how their system emulates Windows. Well my response to that is do you want a car that emulates a BMW or do you want a BMW. For all intents and purposes, a Saturn emulates a BMW pretty well, it might be feature less, but it is closer to free than a BMW is.
I guess Linux is just the Saturn of the car world.
“Judging from the article it’s cheaper to buy a Windows box next to your Nix box and run the apps rather than hazzling with some semi working application like Wine… ”
Almost everyone is going to own a copy of Windows 98 already, anyway. Rather than having another noisy piece of hardware running and needlessly guzzling desk space and power, just install the Wine package provided by your distribution, copy across the Win98 native DLLs, and fire it up to see if it runs the app you’re after.
It’s neither time-consuming nor particularly involved. If it still doesn’t work, sure, look elsewhere, but you’re a fool if you just judge from the article without at least giving it a try first.
I appreciated the objectivity and candidness of this article. They indicated where things would be arduous for average users (and people like me who are tired of these kinds of things, too) and made fair explanations for the not so shiny details (meaning, they were fair to all parties: the developers, the geeks and the basic users).
“Like most applications under Linux, Wine must be installed at the command line. The user must return to the command line to run an application under Wine.”
Hmm. In fedora core, I installed Wine with Synaptic, and start Windows apps by clicking on them. No CLI involved.
It’s a small point I know, but I disagee with the use of the word ‘must’.
My installation of SuSE 8.2 has a good version of WINE built-in. However, it’s far from perfect. It runs the Windows version of AIM reasonably well, and it runs the CDE Desktop encyclopedia VERY well…but that’s as much sucess as I’ve had. Maybe others have done better. I’m not knocking WINE’s value or importance….but, I had a need recently to run Windows-based apps…so I installed Windows 2000. In my situation, “almost-as-good” isn’t good enough.
jm
Yet Another Car Analogy.
A Windows PC is like a car with an internal combustion engine: obnoxious, loud, bad for the environment but all over the place. Everyone has one (or two)
A Linux (or *BSD) PC is like an electric powered car: silent, environmently friendly, in short the future. (OK, unlike a REAL electical car, this one is cheaper than the gas guzlers)
However, finding a recharging station is very hard: there are not enough electric cars to create the demand to make rechargers economically valid so the gas stations only sell gas. (sounds familiar?)
Now, a Linux PC with Wine is a bit like a hybrid car…. It has an electical motor, but also has a small combustion engine. This engine is there to tide you over till you find a recharging station. The hope is that when gas stations see the increasing number of electrical cars flocking to those stations with both gas AND electricity they will also start installing electrical chargers. When enough stations have them, why would one still buy ‘regular’ cars? Additionally, all those hectolitres of gazoline you bought during the Y2K scare are not lost and can also be used by your car of the future.
Like all other car analogies, I know this one stinks….
The Wine that comes with distributions is usually old, altered, incomplete, or just not set up very well. Winehq.org recommends downloading the latest version, removing the distribution’s version of wine, and replacing it with the latest release. Doing this fixed a lot of issues for me.
What realy pisses me off is when people say how wine emulates windows, and how you move to Nix to get away from that. If wine emulates anything, it emulates the windows api. That lets you run windows programs. It doesn’t give Unix it’s own bsods, or makes you run windows explorer.
Windows programs aren’t the reason people leave windows. Those programs don’t taint Nix with “windowsness.” A program is a program! The user doesen’t give a rat’s behind if the program was written for windows, he/she just cares if it runs well.
Yes, “native” programs are better. In *most* cases a program will not be ported. How many of you still have a great 5+ year old game that isn’t even sold anymore? Will it be ported? Nope. How about ones that are some what affiliated with MS? Nope. I think that we need to be a little more realistic. To declare a program is infereor do to the platform it was created for, is merely excessive pride.
I for one, will purchase a winex license the day they get my beloved HaloPC to run. Heck I’ll buy 5 of ’em, just get me my HaloPC!
I use wine to play win95 games that are incompatible with XP. I have a 2nd computer running a Knoppix hd-install and use wine daily. I do love it so. It gets better with every version.
Why don’t I use win95 or 98 on that second computer? Because I also use the internet on that second computer and don’t want worms / virii etc. I also like modern web browsers and modern hardware and USB devices. (Besides my friggin PCI Linksys Ethernet card doesnt even get detected by win98.)
If you people out there love DOS games like I do, give DOSBOX a try. It runs on windows or linux. Its pretty slow right now, but give it a year or so.
I find the best way to use WINE is to have a dual boot system (Linux and Win 98 SE for me, you might have a different combo). I then not only have access to the native DLLs, but can install the app on Windows first and then run it on Linux afterwards – it’s usually the installer that falls over if you try to do it on the Linux side. I mount the Windows filestore read-only on Linux to play it safe.
I managed to get IE6 SP1 to work in Red Hat 8.0 using the May 2003 version of Wine, but every version since then simply doesn’t work 🙁 Good job I kept the RPM of that release handy…
Another reason why you perhaps wouldn’t want to run Windows 9x native is the stability. There’s no such issue when running Games with WINE in Win9x mode; it works, or it doesn’t.
Right now, I’m working from home on my Mandrake machine, because Flash MX on Windows 2000 at work can’t go 2 minutes without crashing. I can’t even import a PNG file without the application just disappearing.
Running here under Wine, it’s stable as a rock. Faster too, thanks to Linux’s memory management.
>>>Re: Re: Why move?
By Anonymous (IP: 213.80.61.—) – Posted on 2004-04-07 11:09:40
Because maybe you just have one windows app you need and a raft of *nix apps.
Judging from the article it’s cheaper to buy a Windows box next to your Nix box and run the apps rather than hazzling with some semi working application like Wine…
But I guess working time is not calculated into TCO, as it usually isn’t when Linux is involved <<<<
Dude where in the article did you see any price figures?
The authors did not mention any price for anything. An if you check the website WineHQ or Transgaming i believe winex and wineHQ is free. Please check your figures again and see which is cheaper… ugh!
Our complete office is runing on Linux and we only have IBM Lotus Notes runing on Wine and it run’s without any problems. Because we do develop on Lotus Notes/Domino, we have installed Internet Explorer 6.01 with SP1 and serval patches (we need IE for the diffrend ActiveX components you can use in Lotus Notes). Installing software on Wine is easy as 1-2-3. But some things don’t go very well.
Most stuff from the Microsoft Web-Update works. Those things wich do not work directly in the Windows-Update are downloaded localy and then extracted with “wine package-name.exe /T”C:Temp” /C /Q” and then installed manually (it’s is easy. You can read the INF file and then apply the fix or install according the commands in the INF-File.)
Anyway… Wine is for us just another way to run applications on Linux. We don’t see it as an evil technology or anything in that direction. For us it is importat that we can run our needed environment and we do not care if just one of our applications needs Windows technology to run. With Linux we have the possibility to choose and the technology is available on Linux. So why not using it?
An second computer as an alternative with an runing Windows installation is no option for us, since we need to be mobile (we do consulting and development) and one notebook is enought.
Dualbooting could be an option, but at the end we would be forced to switch from one to the other system, all the time. And this is in no way an environment, where you can be productive.
“Well my response to that is do you want a car that emulates a BMW or do you want a BMW.”
You can’t compare cars to operating systems? OSs are a platform and cars are full products which don’t need add-ons to be usefull!
Try it this way: suppose you have Saturn that has a great audio system (windows with some very good app), and you’re thinking about buying a BMW, but your saturn’s audio system can’t be tranferred to it because of lack of compatibility (linux or any *BSD). If you can find a suitable adapter (wine) you can install your audio system in the BMW, and there you have the best of the two: a great car (linux) with a good audio system (very good win app).
gftp, the ftp gui client that comes bundled with redhat 8/9 and fedora, is ok, but nothing like flashfxp in usability…
so, i used wine to install flashfxp, and it worked just fine,
now i do all my ftp’s from within linux using flashfxp via wine
check it out
http://www.linux-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=438
cheers
I don’t understand the hostility from some Windows users in regards to Linux users using Wine to run Windows apps. When a business or home consumer plan to upgrade, Linux is the cheaper alternative to Windows. With Wine there is no need to toss your Windows apps since you can continue to use them on Linux. There are thousands of Linux alternatives to Windows which are free but for programs that don’t have a Linux port or Linux alternative program then there is Wine. I myself don’t use basic free Wine but instead paid the small cost for CrossOver Office and WineX which includes support. For the most part I rarely have need for Wine except to play my games such as Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, etc.
Anyone that is interested in knowing more about what Linux has to offer can read this http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.html