Auteur : http://www.winehq.org/
Date : 3 March 2004 (18 May 2004)
Licence : GNU General Public License
Logiciel : Wine (Notice Framasoft)

Wine

binaries from 8 to 12 Mo | Linux | GNU/LGPL | development: no version but date version

In the still underdeveloped Windows-Linux "cohabitation" world, Wine project is mentionned by everyone but concrete result seem to be still waited... [1]

A bit of its story

Started in 1993 [2], it was an hyper dynamic project whith tremendous hope for ability, within a few months, to make work your Windows softwares with Linux... At same period, I had pass diploma of an engineering french "Grande École" and Wine future was being The tool to give to Linux its deserved success [3].

Small annoying stuff and hopes

Unfortunately it is to note today that, if project has good progression, its promises are still promises and that functional softwares for basic users are... commercial items... as Wine Licence is LGPL (Lesser General Public Licence)...

Wine is "sponsored" by CodeWeaver which extremely expensively (according our very own feeling) sells CrossOver and Wine principal developers are employed by CodeWeaver...

Another company also makes (and sells) developments on Wine but related to games [4]...

Moreover, if one goes in softwares working with Wine database... for near all average user software (office, instant messaging with voice and webcam, drivers, etc) there are links to CodeWeaver website... Currently, of CodeWeaver sponsoring is more openly admitted by CodeWeaver and WineHQ team (thus more honest) but situation is still annoying if comparing it with some other LPGL projects.

Because when people try to install Wine rpm installation is near systematically a failure..

Some manage to install it and make it works. but it is very often from "sources" and thus using "compilation"...

Then results seem to be "extraordinary" but few will be abla (at project present stage) to install Windows softwares... and then some will still not work... Thus project usability for a newbie is strongly compromised, however we hope to see Wine, one day, to reach same level of accessibility as Open Office which is also LGPL but very largely usable in non commercial version... this usability is for a lot in its success [5] makint that its user base size is far more developped than the Wine one. As Wine remains "confidential" as a command line and compilation elite reserved product [6].

Now as we talk about remaining difficulties and hopes, [7] what is Wine?

Wine, or more exactly WineHQ, is not an emulator because an emulator simulates full operations of an hardware or software...

Thus an emulator work is heavy for your computer because it reproduces, in any event, all hardware operations (and sometime some or all from host operating system) which could have been used "just as they are" instead of being "replicated". A good example of a GNU/GPL emulator [8] is Bochs

But, then, Wine does what? In fact Wine virtualizes your PC which supports Wine while letting did major part of instructions by the real processor and only does necessary operations to create "illusion" that another computer is working. Virtualsators are thus faster and offer, in theory, a better support of the virtualized machine.

However that, Wine adds, to this virtualisation, MS windows softwares instructions translation to Linux operating system which thus manages the known as Windows softwares as if it were Linux softwares (or almost).

The result, when it works [9], should be even lighter than an emulator of PC like Bochs which emulates "only" a computer and thus requires a valid licence and a Windows installation to work, even than a computer virtualisator which simulates, with more lightness, a computer but also requires a licence and a Windows installation to work... Indeed computer emulators and virtualisators require:
licence and Windows installation
launching and operation of Windows
to make work your Windows softwares.

Whereas functional Wine should not need that...

Conclusion

Thus we await, impatiently, for a development in General public of an usable by all Wine version, version which will not fail to cash back on project contibuting companies, same way we can already note it through Open Office project.

Moreover "Google" visits typology, on French profile, does not leave any doubt about the difficulty felt by common run of people with the use of Wine:
"tutorial wine linux"
"how to install wine on linux mandrake 9.2"
"download complete WineX"
"use wine mdk"
etc.

On the other hand: It would seem that some Mandrake 9.2 happy users reach to manage installation and running "without any problem".

But to be myself a Mandrake 9.2 user [10] and to have tried the experiment with, I await more precise details on from elected people on computer whom Wine is working on.

Accordingly, I already proposed that community takes part in a tutoriel writting (for installation with compilation and installation with rpm) which would sufficiently complete and detailed to be accessible to all and to help the progression of the Migrating People.

[1] but are a very important concern as some Windows software Linux use exclusion, which list depends on concerned user, is one of the major obstacles to work on Linux since last years when graphical interfaces reached a much better ergonomics level

[2] thus in the late century ;opp

[3] but, sadly, Linux is still far from having a large public success today, more than 10 years afterwards

[4] and has the sulfurous reputation, on the forums linuxiens, to "not fully give back", to the "Open Source" project, obtained improvements

[5] including commercial sucess for Sun, since this company sells more than Open Office alone

[6] those who, in the long term, are supposed to become a minority between linuxians... when Linux will have reached its level of deserved success and will be on all work stations or almost

[7] and it is necessary in order to be in Framasoft "accessiblity above all" line

[8] but which perfectly settles and works from rpm packages

[9] see higher "Small annoying stuff and hopes"

[10] I confess "download edition" but I cannot buy all CDs to test them in "commercial" version, and maybe, also, is there the problem key?... perhaps are "good rpms which work" on the paying version of Mandrake 9.2?

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> Wine , le 16 February 2005 par vejux (0 rép.)

I have Fedora linux core 3.. so I have downloaded rpm from winehq, insalled verry easily.. and it runs without any problem..

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> Wine , le 4 August 2004 par mecolik (0 rép.)

Hi, I wish to give my opinion on Wine. I’ve tried it several months ago on a Gentoo system to be able to use Foobar2000 (a great WIN32 audio player). Installation works like that : ‘emerge wine’ Simple, no ? Next step, run wine, it will create a default config. Download Foobar setup file and launch it with : ‘wine foobar081.exe’ , next, next and it is done.

Now, Foobar can be run : ‘wine path_to_exe/foobar2000.exe’.

Three months ago, I had to modify the wine config file and copy one dll to have a good looking gui. With the latest release of Wine, all is working by default. So, Wine let me run a powerfull windows audio player with Linux (Gentoo) by launching three commands in bash. I wanted to give another view on Wine, as I found this article negative.

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