[Wine] Fwd: first time IE6 woes

[L. Rahyen]

On Monday July 16 2007 20:25, James Hawkins wrote:
> On 7/16/07, Duane Clark <fpga at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > James Hawkins wrote:
> > > On 7/16/07, Duane Clark <fpga at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > >> Richard Duran wrote:
> > >>> Didn't get any responses first time out...
> > >>
> > >> If your goal is to run ie6, I strongly suggest that you go to
> > >> http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page
> > >>
> > >> Download and install that. It is much easier than trying to get ie6
> > >> running yourself.
> > >
> > > Please don't promote ies4linux on winehq mailing lists.  We already
> > > have enough problems with that project as is.  The proper thing for
> > > Richard to do is to file a bug report in winehq's bugzilla.  With your
> > > suggestion, he'll happily install ies4linux, and we lose another
> > > useful bug report.  Richard is certainly free to run any app he wants,
> > > including ies4linux, especially as a workaround in the meantime, but
> > > to shoo away every user that wants to run ie6 in Wine out of the box
> > > is irresponsible and bad for the project.
> >
> > I have to disagree with you (and please keep in mind that I have been
> > using Wine for 7 years and have a couple dozen patches committed). This
> > is a user mailing list, and if the goal of a user is to run ie6, then we
> > should help them to do that.
> >
> > For most applications, a bug report might be helpful. This is certainly
> > not the case for ie6. This is a high profile application, and no
> > additional bug reports are going to speed it along. If the goal of a
> > user is to run ie6, I will continue to promote ies4linux, until such
> > time as running it under Wine is not a pain in the butt. Because
> > frankly, ies4linux is a very good program.
>
> You miss the point entirely.  If such a program as ies4linux exists
> and is promoted, then there is no incentive to fix entirely valid bugs
> in Wine affecting ie6, bugs that probably also affect other
> applications as well.  Promoting ies4linux helps no one in the long
> run.  I don't even mind if you mention ies4linux as long as you make
> it very clear that it is only a temporary workaround, and that a bug
> report should be filed.  If you'll take a look at the backtrace
> Richard posted, Wine is crashing in mshtml. This is a perfect
> candidate for a bug report.  Searching through bugzilla with 'ie6' as
> the title, there are 11 bug reports, none of which is similar to this
> bug.  If you're still reading this Richard, the developers of the Wine
> project would really appreciate if you could file a bug at [1] for
> this problem.
>
> [1] http://bugs.winehq.org
>
> Thanks,
> James Hawkins

	I agree here with James Hawkins. We *may* suggest ies4linux but only as a 
*workaround*. Before suggesting this we *must* explain that user *should* 
create a proper bug report if there is no similar one in bugzilla yet.
	This will help WINE to be better and maybe to run IE without ies4linux or 
native overrides at some point  in the future.
	I want to say here that ies4linux isn't very good project. Why? Because it 
doesn't help WINE at all. What that means for end user? That all problems 
discovered by ies4linux author will not be reported to bugzilla and therefore 
will not be fixed: WINE developers must *know* about the problem to fix it.
	In fact, ies4linux is just a set of scripts for doing native overrides and 
installation of some software automatically. But these overrides don't work 
well: IE works very bad with win2000 version set in winecfg (this is 
*necessary* for many or even most application to actually use IE), many 
programs don't work with big amount native overrides (because ies4linux 
author only cares about IE not other programs which may need to use it), and 
ies4linux cannot really support IE7 because this require proper *fixes* in 
WINE. Someone should write proper bug reports to help developers of WINE 
project to make such fixes. Native overrides is *workaround* not a fix!
	I don't say that workarounds is bad thing. This is good thing if it is used 
in a *proper* way. That is: user fill a proper bug report and then wait for a 
fix maybe helping in some way by answering some questions from developers. 
While waiting he/she *may* want to use a workaround. And if some *specific* 
dll override (*not* 20+ of native overrides but just 1 or maybe 2) helps as 
an workaround then this is also useful to mention in bug reports.
	And also I want to say here additionally that ies4linux doesn't help me very 
much to solve my personal problems related to using IE. I need to be able to 
use win2000 version without troubles, I need working WINE installation not 
broken by improper native overrides. Even IE5/6 by itself suffers from these 
problems after ies4linux installation. Many pluging needs at least win2000 
and some of them don't work because of "not perfect" native overrides; even 
IE5/6 without additional plugins has a lot of bugs even after installation of 
latest ies4linux. So ies4linux isn't even a universal workaround. It may help 
(or may not) some users in some ways but don't expect it to be good because 
this workaround is far from perfect. This is actually doesn't matter: even if 
it was perfect this doesn't magically help WINE project. Users must help it 
by writing bug reports for the problems they find while using WINE.
	If you want to get to work something under WINE perfectly and you are not a 
developer or havn't a time to write a fixes yourself please don't forget to 
fill a bug report for problems you found (one problem per one bug report)! 
Thanks!