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Is WINE the best Windows emulator for Linux?
Archon
Member #4,195
January 2004
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... and is free?

I guess "best" would be a mixture of "easy configuration" and "most complete".

RallyMonkey
Member #4,615
May 2004
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Wow, it is the only free Windows emulator I know...

NOTICE: This post's grammar/spelling/puncuation is definitive. English is frequently inaccurate.
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Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Wine Is Not an Emulator though... ;)
What Wine does is implement the Win32 API and a loader for Win32 executables in Linux. It's probably your best and only (free) option to run Windows programmes in Linux.
The alternative are true emulators, such as vmware, that are not free and (obviously) quiet a bit slower.

Archon
Member #4,195
January 2004
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Will Windows Longhorn release its source code? If so, wouldnt that make WINE easier to make and Windows easier to emulate / use externally?

Kris Allen
Member #4,639
May 2004
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Microsoft? ... source code?? That's just crazy talk.

- Kris

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Quote:

If so, wouldnt that make WINE easier to make and Windows easier to emulate / use externally?

Yes.

Quote:

Will Windows Longhorn release its source code?

Hmm... wild guess... no.
There is an open-source Windows based operating system out there though... I think it's called ReactOS. I might decide to check it out if at some point I find that Windows 98 no longer does what I need from Windows.

Archon
Member #4,195
January 2004
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Is there a LiveCD Distro that I can test WINE with without uninstalling my current OS (and all the Linux stuff)?

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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If you have linux installed, just run wine on it. otherwise, knoppix might have wine.

--
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ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
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Pay attention to Bochs if you have a Windows CD. VMWare is the best PC emulator, though you must pay for it.

--
RB
光子「あたしただ…奪う側に回ろうと思っただけよ」
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Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Why would you have to uninstall your current OS to run Wine? If you already use Linux, as I take it you have, just download the latest stable release and configure && make && sudo make install.
If you don't have Linux installed, Knoppix may be good to look at, but otherwise, you don't have to uninstall Windows either to install Linux.

Archon
Member #4,195
January 2004
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How would I choose between distributions. I've been doing some small reading about Knoppix and I found that SuSE also has a LiveCD. It is 1.3GB while Knoppix is 700MB (there is also Game Knoppix which I do not know is about).

CGamesPlay
Member #2,559
July 2002
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It's GNOPPIX, GNOME KNOPPIX. Wine isn't an OS, it's (for your purposes) a program that you can download, install, and use.

--
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Kanzure
Member #3,669
July 2003
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Knoppix 3.7 has Wine - no configuration/compiling on your end needed. Burn the ISO, slip it in, boot, and click "Wine". Find your Windows EXE, ie notepad, and off you go. :)

Matt Smith
Member #783
November 2000

ReactOS is a complete replacement for WinNT, so you need either a clean partition or a PC emulator. Or you can boot it off the live CD.

QEMU is another PC emulator which is 5 to 15 times faster than Bochs, in tests by Linux Format mag.

Rash
Member #2,374
May 2002
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There seems to be a notion that something shouldn't be called an emulator unless it actually emulates something on the hardware level down to every single instruction. I, on the other hand, have no problem whatsoever calling Wine an emulator.

Derezo
Member #1,666
April 2001
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WINE is an emulator ::)

Quote:

To strive to equal or excel, especially through imitation

or, the technical definition

Quote:

To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.

If WINE is not an emulator, then what does it do? :P

"He who controls the stuffing controls the Universe"

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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Quote:

If WINE is not an emulator, then what does it do? :P

(IIRC the the workings of WINE) In one sense, it's a wrapper.

-----sig:
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"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

RallyMonkey
Member #4,615
May 2004
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If WINE was an emulator, why would the acronym be "Wine Is Not an Emulator"?

NOTICE: This post's grammar/spelling/puncuation is definitive. English is frequently inaccurate.
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"Puppet Sex!!!!" - Goalie Ca

Derezo
Member #1,666
April 2001
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Someone made a mistake? It executes software for another platform and fits the description of an emulator perfectly. How it's done on the inside is really somewhat irrelevant, because it's functionality is that it immitates another system.

Why is it not an emulator, is what I'm asking. Just because someone says it's not? ::)

You can call a pile of crap a brown mountain, but it's still a pile of crap. ;)

"He who controls the stuffing controls the Universe"

BAF
Member #2,981
December 2002
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ReactOS. .. never heard of it.

and as Evert so nicely put it...

Quote:

Wine Is Not an Emulator though... ;)
What Wine does is implement the Win32 API and a loader for Win32 executables in Linux. It's probably your best and only (free) option to run Windows programmes in Linux.
The alternative are true emulators, such as vmware, that are not free and (obviously) quiet a bit slower.

it IMPLEMENTS. it doesnt EMULATE :P

Derezo
Member #1,666
April 2001
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;D :P

"He who controls the stuffing controls the Universe"

Archon
Member #4,195
January 2004
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I thought WINE was 'WINdows Emulator'. Calling WINE 'WINE Is Not an Emulator' is as weird as 'GNU is Not Unix'...
Anyway, I am downloading Knoppix with the WINE wrapper. However I have found another 'version' or something hosted by ftp sites that is 75MB... The one I am downloading is 650MB. Is the 75MB a reduced version?

RallyMonkey
Member #4,615
May 2004
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It is called a recursive acronym.

NOTICE: This post's grammar/spelling/puncuation is definitive. English is frequently inaccurate.
---
"Puppet Sex!!!!" - Goalie Ca

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Quote:

Calling WINE 'WINE Is Not an Emulator' is as weird as 'GNU is Not Unix'...

Tell them about it...
\begin{edit}
You forgot about Allegro Low LEvel Game ROutines...
\end{edit}

Anyway, it's accurate. An emulator is a program that allows you to run binaries build for one architecture on a different architecture. It interprets the machine code.
Wine loads the Windows executable and initializes a set of wrappers that allow a Windows program to run in Linux through a Win32 interface. Would you call Cygwin a UNIX emulator in Windows? It provides a UNIX api around the Win32 library. Wine does the reverse, with the difference that you don't have to recompile your program to run it, but can use the native Windows binary (I don't know how hard it would be to get a Linux binary to run in Windows in the same way. I suppose it would be possible, but noone seems to have taken the trouble to do it, probably because you can normally just recompile for Windows anyway because you have source, or because there is a Windows version available too).
Wine also doesn't work on non-intel machines, because the program simply runs on the local processor (in real time). A true emulator would work on a different architecture too.

Archon
Member #4,195
January 2004
avatar

Quote:

non-intel machines

My AMD wont run it?

Also, what about the 2 Knoppix downloads sizes?

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