Why isn't everyone compiling wine

Sat May 22 13:52:26 CDT 2004

I've been lurking on this mailing list for several months now as a new user
to Linux and to Wine.  I agree completely with what Leo is saying.  Windows
users in general will all have their favourite software they want to run, be
that a game or a specific application they cannot do without.  Linux may
well have a viable alternative, but some people just like to use what they
already know and not waste time learning some new program to do the same
thing.

So we turn to Wine.  I have to say I have had mixed results, largely I admit
due to not spending enough time digging into the root causes and various
other problems I have has with Linux in general.  For example the video
editing program I use TMPEG Encoder worked first time in Wine with no
messing about, largely I suspect because the programmers wrote it to be self
contained.  The same is true of Hunter.  However Paintshop Pro 7 did not
want to play, and to be honest I haven't had time to really look into why.

Having said that, to address the original point, Windows users will not move
to Linux unless they are presented with a simple alternative to Windows.
They will not "simply compile X Y or Z" for two reasons:

1.  They will not know how, and regrettably there are those in the Linux
community who assume knowledge and are unwilling to help other than "say
"RTFM".  There are also those I am happy to say such as this list who WILL
help and all credit and thanks to those of you who offer solutions to us
poor ignorant Linux newbies :)

2.  If dependencies are not satisfied TELL THE USER which ones they are, so
they have a fighting chance of resolving the problem.  Not all Linux
installs are that kind.  Dependencies not being satisfied smacks of "You
need Internet Explorer 5 to install this program", only it is a much worse
situation because at least with this message you are told One Program which
will fix the problem.  Far preferable to Linux telling you to find half a
dozen obscure packages and not having the kindness to tell you where to
look.

Dependencies are the one thing preventing wholesale moves to Linux.  I
recently installed a new Nvidia Geforce FX5600 and Nvidia were good enough
to provide ONE program to run and idiot proof instructions (just as well,
they're dealing with ME here ;)).  That was painless.  However, getting a
reliable software DVD player is a nightmare due to dependencies.

Unless ex-Windows users are presented with "all in one" installers like the
Nvidia one there will be no wholesale move to Linux.  We are used to
"doubleclick Setup.exe" and it does its' stuff.  I have been using computers
20 years, 8 of them in Windows, so I am prepared to do a bit more than the
average user.  But that's me, and the average button pushing user will look
at a dependency demand and reinstall Windows.  All it needs is for an
installer to include the necessary files *should they be needed*, or even if
the package is on a website, at least include links to the pages for all the
dependencies if they are not in the package.

Anyway I think I've wandered off topic here, so apologies if I have and I'll
get off my soapbox :)

Kind regards,

Julian

-----Original Message-----
From: wine-users-admin at winehq.org [mailto:wine-users-admin at winehq.org]On
Behalf Of Ivan Leo Murray-Smith
Sent: 22 May 2004 15:46
To: jorishuizer
Cc: wine-users
Subject: Re: Why isn't everyone compiling wine

> I'm not running
> gentoo - but wine isn't a stable product yet and I think you should grip
> every stability there where you could get it - shouldn't the winehq site
> *recommend* custom compiling? It's all automated so everyone should be
> able to do this...
I doubt you'll get any extra stability compiling from source, as long so
your
using the correct binary for your system.
Back when everybody compiled, a considerable percentage of the support
requests
where caused by people compiling without some optional headers, for example
the
cups headers aren't usually installed, so lots of people said wine didn't
print,
and we had to tell them to install the cups headers. Wine has a lot of
optional
libs, cups, ICU, openGL, ssh, artsd, alsa and so on, it's quite a long list,
and
the fact that now most people use binaries that have support for all these
libs
saves a lot of time. Also, compiling wine, actually compiling anything,
isn't
user friendly. Imagine a winxp user that installs linux, then wants to try
wine,
spends hours getting all the minimal dependencies installed (gcc, make
&friends), then he can't print nor play 3d games, and we tell him to go to
http://bla and get header X, and then to http://blabla and get header Y,
then he
gets the wrong version, and starts asking what a header is, and so on. The
next
day that user will throw his linux CDs away with the remains of the launch.
Wine
needs usability, wine can now create the .wine directory itself, so, if you
want
to run an app that works on wine, you just install the RPM in a few seconds
(Compiling can take various hours on a old PC), click on the app, and it
just
works. This means that more users can use wine, without being computer
geeks,
and that also means more feedback, and consequentially more motivation for
developers (If a developer is trying to get a game working, he'll feel more
motivated if he knows dozens of people are waiting for that game to work on
wine). Also, if something goes wrong when building, it will take lots of
learning, and lots of time to fix, if the user is new to these sort of
things.
And the user may not care about debugging wine, in most cases he want it to
install and run quickly and easily.
So, for all these reasons, the users that don't want to waste time and want
to
just try wine and see if/how it works, binaries are the best option. And
anybody
wanting to do something more advanced (Debugging, cvs regression testing and
so
on) will build from source, possibly downloading from CVS.

Ivan.

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