Thinking of converting............to Mac!

[Robert De Brus]

I've been using Linux on all the machines on my network, but I have a Win7/Linux dualboot on my gaming machine.  Wine (a Windows emulator for Linux) still isnt advanced enough for most Windows games;  I still have trouble getting it to recognize my optical drives.

Wine Is Not an Emulator

It does what it does. It is not meant to be "advanced". Windows isn't advanced enough to run Linux programs either.

For all intents and purposes, it is an emulator.   And  by advanced I meant 'progressed'.  If they didnt care about compatibility, then whats the point of the Wineapp database?  It would just be nice to be able to run games out of the box a bit easier, right now WINE has nothing but problems with optical drives.  I'd love to be able to totally ditch Windows tomorrow, and Wine being able to run very old programs (Win 3.1, Win95) that is a huge attraction to me, as MS doesnt seem to give a lick about backwards compatibility.

[Rosarium]

For all intents and purposes, it is an emulator. 

What does it emulate?

 And  by advanced I meant 'progressed'.  If they didnt care about compatibility, then whats the point of the Wineapp database?

They care about one thing and it is not supporting individual applications.

It would just be nice to be able to run games out of the box a bit easier, right now WINE has nothing but problems with optical drives.

It would be nice, but that is mainly the responsibility of the game programming company. I don't complain that I can't run PS3 games in my XBox 360 for example.

[Robert De Brus]

What does it emulate?

Windows DLLs.  Right I know, its technically a 'layer' but it still fakes them.

They care about one thing and it is not supporting individual applications.

Tell me, if they dont care about application compatibility, what do they care about? 

It would be nice, but that is mainly the responsibility of the game programming company. I don't complain that I can't run PS3 games in my XBox 360 for example.

Except that MS never had a stated goal of getting PS3 games to run on Xbox.   

I am a little confused as to what you think Wine is intended for; is it the ability to run more and more Windows programs,  and if not, then what is it intended for?

[Rosarium]

Windows DLLs.  Right I know, its technically a 'layer' but it still fakes them.

Wine's not that kind of emulator

When users think of emulators, they think of programs like Dosbox or zsnes. These applications run as virtual machines and are slow, having to emulate each processor instruction. Wine does not do any CPU emulation - hence the name "Wine Is Not an Emulator."

Some people argue that since Wine introduces an extra layer above the system a Windows application will run slowly. While technically true, Wine is no different from any other software library in this regard; even newer versions of Windows must load extra resources to support older applications.

Importantly, the combination of Wine and Unix can sometimes be faster than Windows itself. This is especially true when the system has good drivers and the application isn't exposing any Performance Related Bugs.

Tell me, if they dont care about application compatibility, what do they care about? 

Implementing the Windows API I think.

Except that MS never had a stated goal of getting PS3 games to run on Xbox.   

No, but the point was this:

Copyright (c) 1993-2010 the Wine project authors (see the file AUTHORS for a complete list)

Wine is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License is included in the Wine distribution in the file COPYING.LIB. If you did not receive this copy, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.

I am a little confused as to what you think Wine is intended for; is it the ability to run more and more Windows programs,  and if not, then what is it intended for?

I tyhink you are confused for whose responsibility it is. Wine is a free software project originally intended to be a compatibility layer for Windows 3.1 on POSIX systems. It is constantly chasing a changing target and it is not intended to replace Windows. Try it with its target software (legacy Windows software) and you'll see it works near perfectly. I've used Wine for software which Windows no longer could run.

Wine is not really designed to be a drop in replacement for the latest Windows release. Since Windows is developed quite slowly, it can catch up quickly, but that is just a plus.

[Robert De Brus]

Windows DLLs.  Right I know, its technically a 'layer' but it still fakes them.

Wine's not that kind of emulator

When users think of emulators, they think of programs like Dosbox or zsnes. These applications run as virtual machines and are slow, having to emulate each processor instruction. Wine does not do any CPU emulation - hence the name "Wine Is Not an Emulator."

Some people argue that since Wine introduces an extra layer above the system a Windows application will run slowly. While technically true, Wine is no different from any other software library in this regard; even newer versions of Windows must load extra resources to support older applications.

Importantly, the combination of Wine and Unix can sometimes be faster than Windows itself. This is especially true when the system has good drivers and the application isn't exposing any Performance Related Bugs.

Tell me, if they dont care about application compatibility, what do they care about? 

Implementing the Windows API I think.

Except that MS never had a stated goal of getting PS3 games to run on Xbox.   

No, but the point was this:

Copyright (c) 1993-2010 the Wine project authors (see the file AUTHORS for a complete list)

Wine is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License is included in the Wine distribution in the file COPYING.LIB. If you did not receive this copy, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.

I am a little confused as to what you think Wine is intended for; is it the ability to run more and more Windows programs,  and if not, then what is it intended for?

I tyhink you are confused for whose responsibility it is. Wine is a free software project originally intended to be a compatibility layer for Windows 3.1 on POSIX systems. It is constantly chasing a changing target and it is not intended to replace Windows. Try it with its target software (legacy Windows software) and you'll see it works near perfectly. I've used Wine for software which Windows no longer could run.

Wine is not really designed to be a drop in replacement for the latest Windows release. Since Windows is developed quite slowly, it can catch up quickly, but that is just a plus.

I wasnt wanting it to be a free Win7 (which I dualboot with), I actually had in mind Win98 era games, although I've found that it can do Steam-based games near flawlessly.