Wine 6.0 Released With A Plethora Of Improvements For Windows Software On Linux
Wine 6.0 stable is now officially available as the annual stable release for this open-source project allowing Windows games and applications to run on Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like platforms.
Among the many highlights for Wine 6.0 are core modules now being implemented in Portable Executable (PE) format, the initial (experimental) Vulkan back-end for WineD3D as an alternative to OpenGL, DirectShow and Media Foundation support, and a redesign of their text console implementation.
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(Score: 0, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @04:20AM (82 children)
Does anyone in real life actually use Wine for more than just screwing around wasting their time? If someone wants something on windows, and they're on Linux, they spin up a VM or dual-boot. I've literally never in my adult life met a single person that used Wine for anything.
Like, what is the point of this? What I do find quite a bit is people using the linux subsystem in Windows, for personal use. For running a windows app? You spin up windows and just run it there. Yes, you can run some games with various levels of effort or success. You can run photoshop and lose your saved work once in a while. I don't think anyone actually does any of this.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday January 15 2021, @04:29AM (18 children)
Pretty soon Wine will be the only form of standalone Windows you can run. Get used to screwing around with it if you don't want real Microsoft snitchware or faux Chromebook terminal.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Friday January 15 2021, @04:42AM (2 children)
Microsoft® Windows® Linux® will become the world's most popular Linux distro within a year of launch.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 15 2021, @08:48AM (1 child)
Yeas, yeas, yeas!!! I'll finally get to run my old MSOffice 2000 that I bought on CD, on a Windows system (via Wine).
At the time, Win98 was crashing on me all the time!!
As they say, patience is a virtue.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @12:22PM
Office 97 for the win. No call home, no authorization (except a long key to type in). And as a bonus it's pretty darn fast on more modern hardware. The only thing it doesn't seem to do well on Win7 is print (so I print and make pdfs with Open/Libre Office).
I was told to use Word 97 for an engineering book, back about 20 years ago, and it was painfully slow (minutes) on some operations. Not any more!
(Score: 3, Funny) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @04:44AM (14 children)
Windows is not snitchware. There are cheaper home-oriented versions that are. If you are a professional, you don't use those. The windows I use does not collect data, does not phone home, and even the windows updates it installs don't come from a microsoft server. Heck, you'd be surprised to know there are many deployments of windows that don't even have a gui - text terminal only.
let me give a car example of what you're saying.
"I'm looking to buy a sedan. Ford makes the F150 - a truck - so they're not a company to buy a sedan from."
Pretty soon, wine will be gone, because no one is using it, no one is interested in using it, and as windows applications start using newer microsoft APIs, you won't be able to run anything current on it.
The main reasons windows for the dumb home user is snitchware: they record how the dumb home user uses the system so they can design it better for those dumbasses. They promote products in there because without having onedrive pop up, gramma running windows home edition wouldn't know she can store data in the cloud. They promote other products to make money, because the home version is much cheaper in cash cost. Same reason websites show ads - so you don't have to pay to view them.
So no thanks, I don't plan on getting used to screwing around with it. I plan on living in the real world. I suggest you give that a try as well.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @05:09AM (8 children)
We, the Joe Public, would like access to this Mythical Version of Windows. We would not be whining so much.
All we see though, is 100 zetabytes per day of evidence of the exact opposite of your "happy, corporate experience."
May I throw a spanner in your works?
Oh really, how certain are you? Just because MS Marketing say so in the glossy brochure, does not mean it don't happen.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @03:48PM (6 children)
Joe Public needs to buy a non-home edition of windows, and disable telemetry in the system policy. This is what is done on literally every personal computer and server in literally every office. and you literally do that on a non-corporate installation with two clicks. Yes, it is "opt-out," except on most laptops you create one image where you "opt-out" and install that image on every computer.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/configure-windows-diagnostic-data-in-your-organization [microsoft.com]
I am certain, because if Microsoft tells companies like General Electric, Kirkland & Ellis, and the US Treasury that they are not collecting data, and they are found to be lying, they get sued out of existence.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @04:48PM (4 children)
Joe Public doesn't need Microsoft or Apple. Joe Public would be better off using a decent install of Linux with a complimentary copy of LibreOffice. Screw the whole Office365 subscription model, screw the whole Apple walled garden. Opt-out of the tracking by taking their money elsewhere. https://system76.com/desktops/thelio-r1/configure [system76.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @05:14PM (3 children)
Joe Public is better off using an iPad or Chromebook and using browser based apps.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @05:56PM (2 children)
No, Joe Public is suckered into that, because convenience, etc. They sucker punch you with the data tracking, and vendor lock-in. Joe Public just doesn't know they've been sucker punched, because they're on the Netflix/DisneyPlus/Hulu/Amazon Prime drugs.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @12:55PM (1 child)
Joey has no other use for a computer than social media and videos. Why would he ever want a bulky and expensive PC or outrageously priced laptop?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 19 2021, @04:19PM
I am hoping that most people have more than two brain cells to rub together, unlike the character Joey from the TV Show "Friends".
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2021, @10:37PM
Poor Joe Public, gets what big-box and the OEM supply. Should not have to fork over another USD500* for a fake "off switch", which is just a registry entry.
As for GM, the US Treasury, etc - they can start up their sueball engines. If you trusted MS for 1 picosecond, you trusted them far too long. The Beast never sleeps and always slurps - see other replies where "pro" version leak like a busted dam.
* just a stab at the extortion. Almost any extra us$ on top is WAY out of reach for most people outside the USA.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @06:41PM
Here's that version of Windows you needed. https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=popos [distrowatch.com] You might need to install Wine+PlayOnLinux and take a few minutes to learn the new interface, but it should work pretty good.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @09:12AM (3 children)
I can confirm that Windows 7 Pro, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 2008 Server and Windows 2012 server *all* have telemetry that they try to send back to Microsoft.
Some of it gets blocked by my PiHole and I can see that. I can also see it as https traffic passing through my router/firewall.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @03:52PM (2 children)
"have telemetry" as an option - yes. using telemetry - that's your choice. so if you use telemetry, don't bitch about it. You can turn it off in group policy with a couple of clicks, which is done on every office computer before the OS image is loaded, and every computer of anyone "tech enough" to be concerned about telemetry.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @06:32PM
Except that's really not true.
The GPO settings you refer to (whether local group policy or AD GPOs -- I prefer AD GPOs for obvious reasons) are only applicable to Windows 10 *Enterprise*, Education editions and Windows Server 2016 [microsoft.com].
There are no clean, simple ways to disable telemetry on Windows 7, 8/8.1,10 (Pro editions) or Windows Server 2008R2/2012R2 [petri.com].
Besides, Windows 10 Enterprise requires either a volume licensing (VL) or cloud licensing contract [spiceworks.com], both of which are *annual subscriptions.
Which, if you're running just a couple machines at home or one or a few VMs is a ridiculous proposition. Especially since the VL program requires a minimum of 5 licenses at USD$84/year. That's $420/year, which is more than *double* the cost of a *perpetual* license for Pro versions in just one year. Even assuming a 3 year refresh cycle (although why would you buy new licenses for the same shit, but I'll go with it anyway) and 5 licenses (both VL and just straight retail Pro licenses), VL is 20% more expensive. And if you don't need 5 licenses, VL is, comparativly, even more expensive.
And I don't pay full price myself (IIRC, it was $40 or so for a perpetual Windows 10 license) as I can purchase my licenses at employee prices at the Microsoft Store (but that's not available for most people).
tl;dr: So what?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @07:44PM
You're a fucking retarded windows user. You think because you turned off telemetry that MS is now not collecting any data? lmfao.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @01:03PM
Ford stopped making sedans on July 31, 2020.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/ford-has-now-built-its-last-sedan-a-sad-milestone/ [motorbiscuit.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @04:36AM
It exists at this point only as a testbed for ReactOS code.
(Score: 2) by edinlinux on Friday January 15 2021, @04:39AM (8 children)
Yes, I use it for winamp (which sounds great with dfx) and irfanview, among other things
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @04:56AM (6 children)
winamp runs natively on linux if you don't like qmmp
have you tried xnviewmp or digikam?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @06:34AM (3 children)
winamp runs natively on Linux? can you substantiate that claim with a link to some usable instructions or build? does it work better than winamp on wine? is it a recent version? only reference I can find is an alpha of version 3 released in 2001
to install winamp with playonlinux takes a few minutes, is a non-technical task and works perfectly most of the time
and no qmmp is not an option. no xmms is not an option. looks like winamp is not winamp
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @09:08AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacious_(software) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @09:14AM
lol nice one. xmms came so close but wasn't because it's playlist randomisation just isn't
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @03:40PM
that version was released in 2001. it was updated last in 2020, according to mywinamp.com
if that site is wrong, i'm wrong. i haven't used winamp since 2000 so don't have a personal anecdote.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday January 16 2021, @03:45PM (1 child)
A lot of users in my circles stuck with Winamp because of the availability of input plug-ins to play obscure formats, particularly video game console music formats. Does this Winamp for Linux support the same input plug-ins as Winamp for Windows?
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 16 2021, @05:16PM
Of this, I have no idea. I tried it I think 15 years ago but never actually used it - all I saw online is that the project was updated as late as last year, but didn't try it. I'm going to guess none of the plugins work if no one ported them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday January 15 2021, @08:55AM
AlphaCentauri runs flawlessly on Wine.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @04:43AM (7 children)
I use it for three applications at this point:
1) The stitching of Panorama images (Hugin sometimes works better, but 80% of the time much worse).
2) Processing stereo photographs. There seems to exist only ONE pretty ancient Windows95 era application for this.
3) Irfanview, because of the way it can work with EXIF data, write comments INTO the file (not create sidecars, hidden folders and garbage).
Wine 6.0 hey? I can look forward to that being actually deployed in the Debian / Ubuntu / Mint line around.... shall we guess 2035? Arch / Manjaro maybe a year before that?
(Score: 1) by multistrand on Friday January 15 2021, @05:28AM (2 children)
Will exiftool do #3? I don't know about sidecars etc., and I only use it to strip metadata, but it looks pretty complete:
https://exiftool.org [exiftool.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2021, @10:55PM
exiftool is CLI, where iView is GUI. GUIs for exiftool are shaky at best. This (cough) should be (cough) already a feature in gthumb, pix, even GiMP, etc...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2021, @11:01PM
While were talking about exiftool - what tags can one remove in images and videos that in Linux generate a .comments folder with XML files of metadata whenever you just open them to view? I have not been able to ID that pestilent tag or tags.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @05:33AM
Wine is the backend of steam-protondb. fuckface has history of spreading ignorance all around and world would be a better place if he spent as much time researching as he does spouting nonsense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @06:12AM (1 child)
I made a stereo photograph in linux with imagemagick (google "composite -stereo").
or were you talking about something more complicated than that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2021, @10:58PM
Actually quite a bit more complicated, but thanks, I will look into what ImageMagick can do.
The hard to find Stereo Photo Maker - sorts out alignment and can output various options, swap left-right, and tons more - all with a decent, intuitive UI. A proper fully Linux replacement would be most welcome, but so far none exists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2021, @10:32PM
Well, paint me impressed. Just an hour ago, Manjaro(Arch) updated to Wine 6.0. On the other desk... my Mintuntubian is on 5.0 and will be for (_indeterminate_).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @05:35AM (3 children)
I used it to play Starcraft 2 back in the day. (I don't game as much now.. unfortunately Age of Empires doesn't work under Wine, so I don't play Age of Empires.)
I still use it for usenet browsing, as I don't like the Linux clients. I also used it to try and get a Filemaker/a database working, various 3d modeling software (limited success), -- anything that is Windows only that I need to do, I try it in Wine first.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Friday January 15 2021, @03:15PM
AOE works in steam via proton and seems to have some versions that work in wine:
https://www.protondb.com/search?q=age%20of%20empires [protondb.com]
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=762 [winehq.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @05:50PM (1 child)
Uhh..., Starcraft 2 is relatively new . . . err..., okay 11 years old, but I mean. Not that old! (Maybe I'm just too old?)
Apparently some versions of Age of Empires work with Wine, as someone posted. Still, with the release of the new AoE remakes and how good Steam support is with Linux. It might work fine.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @06:37PM
My brain is cooked, the post above mine already mentioned the whole AoE thing . . .
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @06:07AM (1 child)
I use it for games. I installed steam, steam uses proton, which is, as far as I understand it, a custom version of wine. only way metro exodus will run on my system. I also used it at some point to install steam for windows, so that I could install hammer (level editor for portal 2). And I used it to install some game-like education thing that my son got from school --- I guess it will be fun when the teacher starts asking for word documents and I send back odt files.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by multistrand on Friday January 15 2021, @08:38AM
No doubt you know you can export as a word file from Open/LibreOffice but I've found complicated documents with special formatting often fail to translate right. The bigger issue that no government agency should require a commercial format -- it's like a backdoor tax where the government forces you to pay Microsoft.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @06:19AM
We use it for a couple of things. For one thing it allows us to run 16 bit code and those that would require the NTVDM, and use certain driver support software on some of our machines. It can be much easier and secure than trying to get Windows to do the same thing. In addition to us, plenty of people find CodeWeavers products cost effective and they upstream work to WINE quite a bit. I know a couple of businesses that have paid for them to implement the work in WINE.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @06:24AM (4 children)
dude.... winamp
I've been using Linux on all my personal PCs and almost exclusively for work since 2001. Never really been a windows user, went straight from DOS to UNIX like systems. Yet I have that one windows app that life just isn't the same without. Surely everybody has?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @09:22AM (3 children)
No. Just no. It most certainly is *not* worth giving up
Winamp/xmms/Audacious Really whips the llama's ass [youtube.com]
And there's WebAmp [github.com] too. You can demo/check it out here [webamp.org]
Don't fuck with people's Winamp. People get shot for less.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @03:53PM (1 child)
Oh neat, thanks for the link!
My music player of choice - at least until you showed me webamp - was Groove Basin, https://github.com/andrewrk/groovebasin [github.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @05:58PM
You are welcome.
By the way, I haven't screwed with it all the much, but IIUC WebAmp even supports all those custom WinAmp skins too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @01:04PM
What's so great about it? I just use mpd or mpg123.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Friday January 15 2021, @09:13AM
It helps to get around the problem of 'spin up windows' on a computer where it is not installed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Friday January 15 2021, @09:26AM (2 children)
Yes, I do.
I don't have any Microsoft Windows licences. Never have. I started on MacOS and transitioned to using Linux for my personal use many, many, years ago (before PowerPC Macs)
However, I use on a daily basis some old, obsolete equipment* for which there is no modern equivalent. The software that runs on it also runs on an emulator that runs on Windows. So when I do some testing, I can run the emulator software on Wine on (AMD64) Linux. I suppose I could get hold of a Win95 licence from somewhere and spin up a VM**: but I don't want to run Windows as such, just this emulator (which isn't available natively as a Linux executable).
*Hasn't been manufactured for about two decades. The manufacturer ceased supporting the equipment a long time ago, and exited that line of business.***
**I'm not sure there is any legitimate, legal way of generating a Win95 VM, or a Win98 VM. One possible method might be to get hold of some original installation media (CDROMS, for example), but the CD version of the last release of Windows 95, OEM Service Release 2.5 (Version 4.00.950C) is probably not widely available.****
***When the old, obsolete equipment stops working, I will have a problem. It has already been repaired twice, and needs some components replacing now. I'm hoping for a modern equivalent and have been watching developments for the last 5 years.
****I'm aware you can find ISOs on the Internet, and licence keys. Note I said "legitimate, legal".
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @05:07PM (1 child)
All you need is an official Win95/98 license and install CD, should be able to get a legal VM up and running that way. You should be able to find some original install media with license codes on eBay. Wouldn't even need a VM, if you find yourself an old ThinkPad Laptop or whatever to load it on. Or you could try and see, if it could work with Wine. Or you could see, if ReactOS is feature complete enough/stable enough to work for you.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday January 15 2021, @09:14PM
Wine *is* stable enough for me: that is the solution I use. I don't need a Windows VM: I was pointing out that I, at least, used Wine for something other than mucking about and wasting time.
But thanks for the input. I may well end up buying some legal Windows install media from eBay, just for the fun of spinning up a VM. Once I have got to the end of my current task-list.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday January 15 2021, @11:21AM (2 children)
LTSpice makes Wine a necessity on Linux for anyone who dabbles in electronics. With KiCAD there's a (by now) outstanding EDA suite, but their simulation was only recently added and isn't "there" yet. LTSpice is the "go-to" choice. There is no native Linux version, but they make sure it runs fine under Wine.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday January 15 2021, @02:49PM (1 child)
I've used ngspice before (with the GEDA EDA suite), but I admit that was many moons ago. Still, the wiki page says it is still being actively developed, if it is of use to you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngspice [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday January 15 2021, @08:56PM
I've found GEDA to be an incomprehensible mess, while I reasonably got up to speed with KiCAD even in its awkward 4.x version (but they are since re-discovering the Mac HIG from 1986, step-by-step, and 6.x is much, much neater). The ngspice website is no help with the listing the "frontends", of which the majority seems to just somehow provide some third-rate plumbing.
I note that KiCAD uses a "ngspice shared" backend, but they're not there yet in terms that you pick from the parts database and have the simulation set up. That will eventually come, and then they take over, and ngspice will be the "canonical" backend.
But for the time being, nothing can beat LTspice in ease-of-use for quickly rigging up a handful of components and checking out their behaviour. It has a somewhat shitty nonconformist GUI from the times when the bad CAD habits developed parallel to proper HIG, but it's bearable for small things. One has to figure out some obscure LT opamp equivalents of the classics (e.g. LM358, NJM4558, TL072), to avoid managing imported components, but again, that's easy.
(Score: 2) by leon_the_cat on Friday January 15 2021, @12:07PM
Yes I use airwave so my linux daw's can run windows VST's.
(Score: 2) by knarf on Friday January 15 2021, @12:19PM
I use it to run Sketchup (2016 version) on Linux, on older hardware (Thinkpad T42p from 2004). It works fine, no reason to install Windows here.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @02:12PM
*Huge* amongst the musical community for running windows VST plugins...although there are some awesome DAWs running under Linux, there are things that simply don't exist in the open source world that any studio is simply expected to have at hand - Kontakt, the Waves platform, Lexicon, IK Multimedia stuff. There's also no alternative for something like RX for audio file rescue and destructive editing (do not mention Audacity, that's like gimp vs PS - or not even that good), many hardware consoles come with only windows/mac support software, for example the Studio One stuff. Native MIDI on linux is generally stuck in the 1990s. Wine solves all of that. VMs are shit for audio, high latency, crap integration.
No, there are no credible alternatives for these things in the Linux world. Yes I know Sony runs their picture studios on Linux/Harrison - they also have millions of dollars to get whatever they need coded in-house.
Being someone in a developing country, I can't afford Apple, and MS sucks ass. Wine allows me to use the operating system that I am comfortable with and can afford to run, and provides me with with excellent compatibility.
> I've literally never in my adult life met a single person that used Wine for anything.
Then today, I hope I have educated you! Not everyone uses GNOME, a text editor and browser. Computers are used for far more things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @03:01PM
The fact that people's games don't work well on Linux is something that has significantly held back the desktop. But now Proton allows a lot of Steam games to just work, even if they're literally Windows exes, and that's boosted Linux adoption. Proton uses Wine behind the scenes, so updates to Wine could be beneficial to increase compatibility and frame rate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @03:45PM (1 child)
I use Steam on Linux for gaming, and Steam's package of Wine is called Proton. I run the following games in Steam Proton with zero issues: Blood Bowl 2, Bloons TD 6, Dragon Age: Origins, Driftland: The Magic Revival, Grey Goo, Hades, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, King's Bounty: Crossworlds, Unstoppable Gorg, Warparty. I also use Wine outside of Steam to install and run Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void and Heroes of the Storm.
I did not have to do anything exotic to get most of these to work, the most complex part was switching most of the games from running the default version of Proton to the latest version. For any game that didn't work automatically in Steam, I click Manage -> Properties -> Compatibility -> checkbox "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" -> click the highest number of Proton, currently 5.13-5.
I've read on random discussion forums that Valve, the makers of Steam, have been pouring resources into Wine and Proton. Maybe that's true or maybe the volunteer Wine contributors are just extra motivated. Wine improved dramatically in the last three years.
There are still things that don't work. The latest AAA games use DirectX APIs that Wine doesn't support yet. And the DRM in some games, like Roblox, won't work either. The DirectX emulation keeps improving, but I'm not sure if some of the DRM (not that you want it) would ever work on Wine.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @04:35PM
Very much my experience, though I've not tried running the latest games on Linux. While SteamOS seems to have fizzled out, Linux support for Steam has never been better. Here's hoping that Wine continues to get better.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @04:31PM (4 children)
Apparently, you don't play games and/or don't use Linux to play games. Why spin up an entire VM to run a program, if a compatibility layer lets you run it natively? Steam is also doing quite well with Windows game compatibility on Linux. I was able to install a Windows only game very easily using Steam. Steam is really doing wonders for Linux gaming. Back to Wine though, Civilization II "Just Works" with Wine on Linux. I ended up needing to install wine32 as well for 32-bit infrastructure, but it works without needing to use some hacked executable for 64-bit compatibility. Also with a little fiddling, I was able to get Civilization IV to run stably on the same machine. Some sort of directx_36 or something like that fix and a msxml3 or whatever fix. Going from memory, that's probably enough to figure it out or just search for "Civilization IV Linux Wine crashing unstable" or something like that. I recently setup an AMD Quad-Core, 8GB RAM, 1GB GPU, Linux desktop for my Dad. He wanted to be able to play Civ II and Civ IV, which is essentially all he ever does on the computer. Civ II worked great, Civ IV seemed to work great for me, but was unstable after playing for 30 mins or so. I was able to look up stability issues with Civ IV and Wine, changed those couple of settings and voila! It just worked after that. I've got a 256GB SSD on the way too. Once I set him up with that, he should be good to go for a long time to come. Considering he didn't like the newer Civilization game I got him.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @04:58PM (3 children)
I don't play games on linux. In fact, a few years ago, I dumped dual-boot and just went with windows with the linux subsystem.
I understand that spinning up a VM or dual-booting doesn't make sense to run a single application. A very old application. Out of the 3 games I play, 2 run in dosbox, and the 3rd has a community following so they've updated it to work well on the latest windows.
For your dad, it sounds like it would have been a hell of a lot easier for everyone involved to just put windows on his PC and be done with it.
So what it sounds like to me, is the reason you use Wine, is not to run a windows app in Linux. It's to run something really old, that probably doesn't even work well in a current version of Windows anymore. So you're using it like dosbox.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 15 2021, @05:38PM
DOSBox is super awesome for DOS games. Civilization II is a pain to get semi-functional in Windows 10. Civilization II works very well in Wine and doesn't require some weird executable hacks. He was using a dual-core Windows Vista machine. That thing needed to die, so I fixed him up with some freebie hardware I got. He's happy, since it plays the games he wants, and I'm happy that he's got a decent computer. He'll be even more happy when I get that SSD installed, he just doesn't know it, yet.
Ultima VII works good on DOSBox, but Exult makes Ultima VII even more awesome.
DOS games I still play from time to time:
*Not including Ultima VII, because it requires a huge time sync. I've also played it through multiple times and it just doesn't have that much replayability* Still, it's worth playing, if you've never played it. Just make sure to use Exult.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Saturday January 16 2021, @07:29AM
I play games on Linux, but I tend to avoid games that would require me to run wine. (I know a few"ports" that used wine or something similar, but if it's the developer's problem, I don't care.) I would never want Windows 10 on my home network.
During the pre-release testing (I don't call it alpha or beta, since that seems to be the home & pro editions) they actually had an "on by default" feature that sent your wireless password to everyone on all of your contact lists. They advertised it as "Wi-Fi Sense". It wasn't an accident.
Any company that thought that was a good idea long enough to deliberately let that out the door can't be trusted with security.
They made it opt_in after the bad press it drew and it sounds like it still is. I could see a "send this network credential (or selection of credentials) to this contact or selection of contacts" feature. But "send it to everyone" as the only option is the most useless options at best if not dangerous. Use this stuff if you want to create plausible deniability that you've been hacked.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/07/windows-10-shares-your-wi-fi-with-contacts/ [krebsonsecurity.com] (First hit in a google search. There were several.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 16 2021, @01:16PM
Actually, Civ IV doesn't even run on windows 10. Works just fine under Linux+wine though.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Friday January 15 2021, @05:44PM
"Like, what is the point of this?"
It helps Microsoft claim that Linux is a competitor in anti-trusts lawsuits?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stretch611 on Friday January 15 2021, @06:26PM
First off let me discuss dual booting...
Its a Pain-in-the a$$. Dual booting is a great way to waste half your day or more. Whether you use windows or linux, there is a reason why we have embraced multi-window desktop environments with multi-tasking: it allows us to be much more productive. While writing a document, we can switch to a spreadsheet to see the latest sales figures, we can swap to a web browser to look up some information online, we can swap to email or instant messaging app to as a colleague a question all without having to save the document exit the word processor, load up the other application do what we need to do, exit that application, restart the original application and continue exactly where we left off. What moron would willfully do that in this era of computing? It is a real waste... and you are telling me that instead of just exiting an application,. you want to shut down one OS and the restart a different one just to use a different application? You must either be a masochist, or deliberately want to waste your time.
While dual-booting may be ok for the occasional game that you want to play and will not work with wine (or have a native linux version) It will get extremely tedious if there is even a slight chance that you would ever need to access any information on the other installed O/S. Honestly, this is the exact reason why I stopped buying new windows games 15 years ago... Back then WINE worked well, but often failed with new titles... and this is with games... the things for use in your liesure time... I could never have done this with any application needed for work.
As for virtual machines...
This solution only works if you have a lot of memory, a high-end CPU, and an application that does not need a dedicated GPU.
You need a ton of memory to support not only the different applications, but also 2 separate operating systems. Applications in the same vm/os (or host os) share the available memory that is available. The OS's will not share but each require their own dedicated memory. This will essentially use twice as much memory as normally needed (unless the VM is using a very old OS and/or application.) While developer machines tend to have a lot of memory (and some gamers) for most people this is not practical.
CPU... Twice the OS's, Twice the bloat... enough said.
GPU... As I mentioned if an application needs a dedicated GPU, this is a great way to freeze or crash your VM... unless it is a very old application. So games, apps like Photoshop, and Cad systems you will be lucky to run at all on a VM.
While I have a high end machine (Ryzen 7 3800x CPU, 64GB RAM, nVidia RTX 2070 Super w/8GB RAM) the dedicated GPU part leaves me without the VM option in many cases; so, IMHO there are only 2 viable solutions use WINE/Proton or eschew windows software completely. I have chosen the latter and it has worked well for me.
For the record... I think WINE/Proton is a remarkable piece of software to efficiently do what it does and work for the vast majority of programs. I think that is is wonderful to allow gamers to switch to linux and have the majority of their gaming library work. But, I believe in supporting those developers that actually support linux so that is where I spend my money. I really have only used WINE/Proton with older games that I have some nostalgia for. My steam account has over 1,300 games and 80% of those run on native linux (with almost all of the others being in my library due to bundles.) With over 1,000 native linux games, it is easy to avoid windows applications as long as there ins't an application that you can't live without.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @07:41PM
i'm using it to learn about some old proprietary business application my client is still using. I haven't used it much besides this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @09:35PM (7 children)
Which assumes that they have, or are willing to buy, a licence for windows.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 15 2021, @10:21PM (6 children)
>have, or are willing to buy, a licence for windows
it absolutely does not, and i'll let you figure out why on your own. in addition, since we're talking about something that only runs old stuff, we're talking about winXP-level and up. there may exist a person who has never had a license for any windows installation xp and up, and that may be you. you're very alone in that space.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday January 16 2021, @03:58PM (5 children)
There exist a lot of people who have never had a retail Windows license. Retail licenses are transferable from an old PC to a new PC or to a VM. The OEM license bundled with a PC, by contrast, is not.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 16 2021, @05:13PM (4 children)
You absolutely can transfer an OEM license from one PC to another. It literally works. I hate to say google it, but google it and follow any of the instructions on any of the links on the first page of results. It's a very commonly done thing, and it absolutely does work.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday January 16 2021, @07:59PM (3 children)
You can. You may not. An answer from a Windows Insider MVP moderator on a Microsoft Answers page [microsoft.com] states that doing so violates the license:
It is less expensive to purchase another license than to pay damages for having infringed copyright through a prohibited attempt to transfer a license. It is even less expensive to use Wine.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 16 2021, @11:06PM (2 children)
>It is less expensive to purchase another license than to pay damages for having infringed copyright through a prohibited attempt to transfer a license
ok buddy. now here I am running a cracked version of visio and torrenting a movie, like literally everyone else has done their entire lives. but it's cool - you keep thinking you're so important that microsoft has a team tracking down when you've moved your win10 license over to a new laptop.
you know what's less expensive? living in the real world and not making up ridiculous barriers for yourself. what's less expensive for me time-wise, is just firing up windows to run windows apps instead of screwing around with a half-working for half the apps Wine.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Sunday January 17 2021, @03:23AM (1 child)
I am well aware that a lot of people are in the habit of infringing copyright as a way of life. People who intend never to start a business will probably get away with it. But for people who do run a business, it's also the sort of thing that can come back to bite someone. Hard. Publicly recommending that people pirate Microsoft's Windows operating system en masse and then starting a video game studio seeking to publish on Microsoft's Xbox consoles won't be pretty, I predict. So it isn't necessarily about what I personally do as much as what I may publicly recommend to others without running the risk of secondary liability for inducing infringement, as in MGM v. Grokster.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday January 17 2021, @11:04AM
Ah, so despite literally everyone on this thread replying that they use Wine to run old games and winamp, you're going to win this argument by assuming they're using Wine to run a business, one that does not have a license agreement with MS and ownes no copies of Windows, and MS is going to go after them. Gotcha. The mental gymnastics are very entertaining - please go on, I'm having a good time reading your bs.
Here in the real world, literally everyone has a whole bunch of old windows licenses laying around, and all those people are 100% safe using them on a different PC. And notice I gave you the part of your fantasy world where Wine was running on a Linux install on a different PC. Because for 99% of the cases, the PC it's running on came with windows, and someone reimaged it to Linux and is perfectly compliant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @10:57PM
A while back, I used WINE to run a Halo server. It performed far better than just about every other Halo 1 PC server out there - probably because they were all using shared hosting and the folks paying providers to host the halo server would load up their server with a ton of STUPID scripts that would bog down their server.
Either way, I was proud to host one of the best-performing Halo 1 PC servers around... and through WINE no less.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday January 16 2021, @02:44AM
I've used WINE tons over the years. I've used WINE in the past for:
- Running all sorts of games, including older games like MM7/8 and newer games like Grimrock 2.
- Running various versions of WordPerfect.
- Running various versions of Microsoft Office.
I currently use WINE at work as part of an automated testing system for a software product that is developed on Linux but deployed on both Linux and Windows. We didn't have good testing for Windows before, since our primary testing scripts are Linux-based, so running the WINE-wrapped tools through our existing testing infrastructure has already found a number of Windows-specific bugs that we've been able to put down in the short time it's been operational. WINE has been an important piece of software for the Linux community for a very long time, and I've seen it get more and more complete and more and more useful as time has gone on. At this point, in my experience, it will pretty much run anything you can throw at it except maybe a little bit of stuff released in the past two or three years. (And Windows kernel drivers, of course.)
Yes, you can also use a VM, and you can even dual boot. I've done both of those, too. Both VMs and WINE have gotten good enough, though, that the only dual-boot computer left in my orbit is a work machine we use for testing a portion of our product that interacts with a hardware USB device and so isn't amenable to virtualization or WINEing. The ranking is this:
1. WINE is best if it works. Same filesystem, execution is fully scriptable in the standard Linux ways, no need for a separate OS with a separate IP address and whatnot. Almost as good as native.
2. If WINE doesn't work, or you already have a Windows VM set up and don't want to bother with setting the program up in WINE, and the program isn't graphics or resource intensive, and you don't need scripting, VMing works pretty well. Not as seamless as using WINE, but not bad.
3. Dual boot is a last resort.
I currently don't have anything running in WINE on my personal machine now. That's because the only Windows game I play right now is a game I have loved for a very long time (Heroes 3) and which uses DirectPlay for multiplayer. Historically, WINE would run the game, but not the multiplayer, so I VMed it. It's an old enough game that that works well, so I haven't bothered to try to get it running in WINE again.
Especially since the multiplayer is such a bitch to get working right even in native Windows. See, it only works over a local subnet, and only if the local subnet is above every other subnet in the Windows networking stack. I had to install a VPN to play it with anyone not in the same house, then I had to go in and mess with the ranking of the VPN relative to other networking interfaces. It was utter hell, and I have no desire to try to get that PITA working in WINE since it works with the VPN. Not really WINE's fault, that.
The only other Windows program I use is a stupid work VPN that doesn't have a Linux version, and it's an OS driver, so it would never work with WINE.
Oh, wait, look at the work website! That stupid work VPN actually DOES have a Linux version now, even though it didn't before. No one in the IT department bothered to tell me they started supporting their stupid VPN in Linux even though I specifically asked them to tell me if they ever started supporting their VPN in Linux. Typical, that. But yay!
Thanks for being a stupid troll, fakefuck39. You just made my whole weekend.
(Score: 2) by optotronic on Saturday January 16 2021, @03:06AM
I use it a couple times a week for HanDBase Desktop.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday January 16 2021, @04:07PM
I use Wine to run bgb, a Game Boy emulator; Dn-FamiTracker, a chiptune music tracker; and OpenMPT, a sample-based music tracker. Dn-FamiTracker and OpenMPT are under a free software license, but their use of MFC precludes a quick port. Until very recently, when the debugger version of FCEUX (an NES emulator) was ported from Win32 to Qt, I used Wine to run FCEUX for Windows. And lately, while compiling a history of retro game emulation, I've also used Wine to test the accuracy of older emulators that were not ported to Linux or whose Linux port relies on shared library versions no longer widely available. And some people use Winamp in Wine for the wide variety of input plug-ins for niche formats that FFmpeg-based players can't decode yet.
These are much more expensive workarounds, both in time and in money, than sticking with Wine where it works.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @09:19AM
Foobar2k under Wine is the best Linux media player I found.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday January 15 2021, @06:14PM (1 child)
If you check here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25778088 [ycombinator.com]
and search for "WSL", you'll see someone confirms that Wine 6 DOES run on WSL!
This enables Windows users to run EXE files.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Pino P on Saturday January 16 2021, @04:02PM
If Wine 6 in WSL can run 16-bit Windows applications under 64-bit Windows, it might be worth a try just for that.