Thread: Wine 1.0

Wine has had a provisional date set for it's 1.0 (initial feature freeze) release - 6th June 2008

http://wiki.winehq.org/WineReleasePlan

So is this release supposed to be more official or what? Any new features or just more stability and compatibility?

1.0, I believe (but documentation's a bit thin on the subject) means that all documented Windows API functions have been implemented within Wine

This means, if you have made a windows program
and it uses the "proper" Windows interfaces (not any undocumented "back-door" hooks into the kernel)
Wine will run it

For those who don't know
Wine is a complete reimplementation of the Windows API sub-systems, built on top of a different kernel (Eg. Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.)
the X windowing system (as used by said kernels)
and OpenGL

Wine is not an emulator
It's a compatibility layer
in fact, Wine is an acronym, for just that
Wine Is Not an Emulator

Instead,
when a Windows program makes a call to any Windows system function, the call is understood by Wine, and translated to the equivalent native system call

Code:

void Win32_draw_window_on_screen(args)
{

    // some argument reshuffling takes place
    // so it conforms with the equivalent
    // Linux call

    Linux_draw_window_on_screen(args);

}

What does this mean?

Well, your *nix system understands, and can execute windows binaries as if the program was native to your platform with negligible performance cost.

Why am I making such a big thing about this?

Well, the fact that the Windows binary execution environment has been completely recreated within *nix systems could see a few interesting shifts in the Windows world

First, and probably the most obvious
the biggest barrier to OS migration will be lifted.
the good old,
"I'd love to dump Windows for another OS, but I need to run program x which is Windows only, so I can't"

Second, is the possibility of "back-ports" being made for previous editions of Windows

calls to DirectX 10 functions, for example, being mapped to the equivalent OpenGL functions means DirectX 10 games running on Linux (or mac, or whatever)

It also means, Wine running on XP (yes, you can run Wine on Windows) providing a DirectX 10 back-port (via OpenGL) to Windows XP

**
Note:
DX10 is not scheduled for the 1.0 release
1.0 deals with a feature complete kernel implementation and associated sub-systems, only

Possibly full DX9 will be in 1.0 (seeing as it's currently at 95% completion now)
but, full DX10 (currently at 0%) will be in a future release

So basically... much more likely to work with anything? That is pretty sweet. Does that mean it also will be QUICK in running things? For example, I can run (an older version of) iTunes now, but it is very, very slow. Will this improve?

possibly

but, again, I reiterate
publicly documented API interfaces

with something like Itunes, there may well be undocumented hooks into the kernel (DRM, and such)

Itunes 7.6 is currently rated "silver"
meaning some stuff works, some doesn't
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...sion&iId=10543
(buying from the Itunes store, in particular, is not working)

slightly off-topic,
but give Amarok or Exaile a go
(I know for a fact Amarok can sync to all ipods, except the touch)

Rule of thumb, you're a lot better off running native apps, if available, than running Windows apps on Wine
If you don't use the Itunes store, and don't own a touch, you should be good to go with native Linux media players

but anyway....

Flash CS3 still has a garbage rating which makes me sad as thats the biggest thing holding me back to windows. They're working on it tho. It's pretty big (and will probably be carried through with photoshop CS3 which is relatively high priority) so when its done, that'll be awesome for me.

Everything else I do, is already pretty much supported in wine now which is awesome. So, I'll wait for that then jump the sinking windows ship <3.
50% of the time i'm on the computer, I'm fooling around with flash and AS3 =/