Easy usage of native DLLs in Linux programs

[Maarten Lankhorst]

Radovan Skolnik schreef:
> Hello!
>
> I have found this old thread dealing exactly with what I need: 
> http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2006-April/046779.html
>
> It basically proposes a work to be done to allow loading native Windows DLLs 
> into Linux binaries (for example loading WinAmp plugins into 
> xine/mplayer/gst/...).
>
> I am in the need to use a small DLL (no GUI, just few APIs that are all 
> already implemented) which I have no source code to.
>   
Unfortunately it isn't easy, wine manages everything itself. As far as I
can tell, the easiest way is to compile your own program as a winelib
binary, then you can link to windows dll's. This is the most performance
effective way to do this.

If you really want to create a .so it wouldn't be impossible but just
harder:
- Create a winelib app that when it is run it calls the functions as
above, and listens on a socket, or has another way (except linking in
any way) to communicate.
- Make a shared library (.so) that will run the above program, then
communicates with it and uses that program for every dll call. The
winelib app will probably need its own WINEPREFIX so it can run
undisturbed by other influences.

While possible this isn't trivial.

Regards,
Maarten