Wine Now Really Does Windows

FeeDBaCK writes: "As many of you may not know, Wine is currently being ported to Mingw for the ReactOS project. An update to the status of some of the Wine native Dlls under Windows was posted to the wine-devel mailing list. What this means is that there are now some Wine Dlls, which contain no Microsoft code, that appear to be interchangeable with the official Microsoft Dlls with no apparent loss in functionality. These Dlls include imagehlp.dll and riched32.dll. This comes as a great win for Wine, and brings them one step closer to bringing Windows applications to Linux." There's still a list of not-yet-functioning ones, but this is nice news.

Windows DLLs

[Guspaz]

For those of us who own Windows, it's easier to just use the Windows DLLs with Wine. They're more compatible. I mean, most people have an old copy of Win95 or Win98 lying around, right? Regards, Guspaz.

Re:Windows DLLs

[aridhol]

That may be true today for your average home user. What about when a business gets, say, 10 computers, and don't get the Windows licenses to go with them? Sure, they could use the DLLs from their licensed computers, until the Microsoft Police come and bust them for using 10 illegal copies of the Windows DLLs.

Re:Windows DLLs

[ThePlumber2]

Its not a question of the functionality. It is the want (needA) to sidestep the EULA.

awesome

[tps12]

This could really be a boon to IT and any business still shackled to Windows.

Once the Wine hackers have developed drop-in replacements for all of the Windows components, we will essentially have a Windows clone. Then we can start focussing on added functionality.

Has anyone considered merging the Linux and Wine codebases to create a Windows clone? It could be called Windux. The mascot could be Tux's cousin Dux (a duck).

Re:awesome

[yasth]

Ummm ever heard of lindows?

A fully drop in replacement would not be as earth shattering as you would think, as companies would be hesitant to more or less throw thier support agreements out the window. Imagined Tech Support Call:

Tech: Now go to Control Panels,
User: I don't have a Control Panels
Tech: you don't??? It is under the start menu.
User: I don't have a start menu I have a foot menu.
Tech: (Quickly) Current Company policy is not to support linux. Goodbye.

Re:awesome

[einhverfr]

When you combine Mono or Portible.Net with Wine, GTK, X11, and Linux, and when the .NET replacements and Wine are mature, Linux will provide a FAR richer development environment than Windows currently does. Especially with GnomeBasic, and C#.

Like it or not, VB and MS Office are really what has locked up the corporate workstation market. It is the developer community which has made MS successful here, and we may be able to beat them here.

Re:awesome

[FeeDBaCK]

Has anyone considered merging the Linux and Wine codebases to create a Windows clone?

Yeah, it is called Lindows [lindows.com].

Re:awesome

[darien]

Once the Wine hackers have developed drop-in replacements for all of the Windows components, we will essentially have a Windows clone. Then we can start focussing on added functionality.

He he. Let's embrace and extend the Windows APIs...

Re:awesome

[BlastMaster]

It's worked extending the SMB protocol. (i.e. Unix file extensions.) I love Samba!

Re:awesome

[BlastMaster]

A penguin be the cousin of a duck? WTF?

Those Linux birds are breeding inter-species!

Re:I've been waiting for news like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep waiting. They've only ported a few DLL's at this point.

Re:I've been waiting for news like this

[sjeng]

Why don't you just install a dual boot system with the default windows? Then your family can use windows and you use mandrake on the same machine :) I have been doing this for years!
And there is always vmware :)

Re:I've been waiting for news like this

[egghat]

Install Codeweavers Wine.

Worked very smooth for me, if you follow the two hints [codeweavers.com].

Bye egghat.

NT

[linuxator]

As i remember, ReactOS is stil based on NT architecture... And as this architecture becomes obsolete in few years, well it will happen in about time ReactOS gets stable and full featured.

Anyhow, Reactos rules for their concept, but is staying far behind Big Brother..

Nope

[isolation]

I'm one of the core ReactOS developers and one of the main peple working on the WINE port to mingw and you are so wrong. The NT core is not going anywhere. Look at 2k/XP and guess what its NT with a nicer GUI. The only major changes are ACPI/PNP and WDM drivers. Plus once our work is done on the kernel and porting WINE I can start on a mono port with WinForms so we will have .net.

Of course we still need someone to get our GDI working so we really can have "windows" =P

Re:Nope

[linuxator]

Well WDM drivers are exactly what i got in mind when mentioning NT core. And also, ReactOS team should post more news (even minor ones) on reactos.com...;)

It's a really good project and wish you all good luck with it.

Re:Nope

[isolation]

I will discuss this with our webmaster and see if we can get more info.

Normaly we follow a 180 release cycle and post news then. If you follow our development closely the 0.0.x branch should only last untill we get windowing going. Windoing is the goal for 0.1.0 and I would like to see Windowing/Networking be done for 0.2.0. The current CVS tree can just about self-host with mingw-gcc =)

Re:Nope

[Cmdr Taco (luser)]

its NT with a nicer GUI

Nah. It's NT with a different GUI. Maybe mainstreamed a little, since NT's original inception was as a 'professional' OS. Nicer? No. Just different. Annoyingly different. Feels almost like they made some of the changes from NT to 2K while thinking of ways to retire old MCx certificates and force recertification whilst the base technology remains the same.

Re:NT

[Pseudonym]

Even if that were true, you're missing the point. We still have FreeDOS.

NT isn't actually too badly designed as OS designs go. Most of the problems with developing under NT actually have little to do with the kernel proper (e.g. OLE2, DLL hell etc).