Re: [Sheflug] Re: TopPage info for Sheffield Linux User Group

[Al Hudson <nospam [at] york.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 19 May 2000, Craig Andrews wrote:

> > Not necessarily. Wine does two things: emulates a running Windows system,
> > and provides a compatibility layer for native Linux programs to access
> > Windows API functions. 
> 
> Yes, Windows API (eeeeurgh!)

What's specifically wrong with the win api then?

> > I don't see why the linux code would be less dodgy than the windows code
> > by the same programmers?
> 
> Well lets see... The windows code is designed for the Windows API, and not
> for Linux.

What do you mean by linux? GNOME code is designed for the GTK API (among
others), obviously that must be just as bad.

> Also, its a windows executable.

So what? It's i386 machine code. It runs exactly the same speed. Do you
think linux executables run badly under BSD? By the same logic they ought
to.

> Wine may not be an emulator,
> but its damned close enough!

No, it isn't.

> Native Linux code using GTK+, QT, Motif etc etc  for the GUI would a) be
> able to take advantage of Linux specific stuff (X is nice once you get to
> know it, security is always good etc.)

Why can't Wine take advantage of Linux specific stuff? It's just an
API....

> instead, you get the dodgy bug
> ridden world of M$.

Erm... Wine wasn't written by Microsoft....

> On top of that, it's not even running on its own
> platform! What ever happened to ELF, glibc, etc etc etc...

Or misc binaries ?

> What I'm trying to say is that the code by the programmers may or may not
> be dodgy, but the use of another OS' API on top of another,

Again, I draw your attention to Linux on BSD, Java executables, misc
binaries, vmware, ...

> using a bugged
> class library (I assume MFC was used?)

What's bugged about MFC (I doubt it was MFC used) ?

> Aside from all this, the code will be bulky 

Not really. A lot of Wine is wrapper; it doesn't provide functions, linux
does.

> like a Java VM), and very slow. MS Paint using wine takes about 2 mins to
> open on my K6-2/500, due to all the wine stuff.

Using released Wine binaries? They're all compiled -g aren't they?

> Also, file permissions are
> a pain, as is printing,

And printing isn't a pain under linux ?! ;)))

> and the widgets used (does anyone elses copy of
> wine use Win16 widgets (sorry, controls)

You can choose.

> else. In short, don't do it. Especially with a decent, free (if you
> GPL) cross platform library like QT.

QT's open, not GPL'd (at least, most people's install of QT is ;). But
still, I'd argue that there's nothing specifically wrong in using
cross-platform libraries. People don't particularly have a problem with
wxWindows, et al, I don't see why people should have a problem with Wine.

Cheers,

Alex.


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