[Wine] HOW TO START WINE

[L. Rahyen]

On Saturday March 15 2008 02:45:05 James McKenzie wrote:
> You must not have been around when Window95 was introduced.  It was a
> massive leap forward.  Too bad the Mac interface did not fair as well.

	Yes, it was. But "was" is main word here. Difference between XP and 2000 is 
much less than between Windows 3 and 95. And many people think that Vista is 
much worse than XP, but other people think otherwise ("it's better"). In other 
words, this is a matter of individual opinions... And almost no one today 
consider Windows 95 as user-friendly (but I remember how I was using it in 
the past)... So opinion can change with time (especially when you can pick up 
better alternatives - say Windows XP instead of Windows 95).
	"Opinions and preferences can change with time for individual user and might 
be different between different users" - this is what I actually want to say 
here.

> Linux with Gnome or KDE is much second-class, or even third-class as far
> as a user friendly interface.

	This isn't true. I have used MS-DOS, and then Windows up to XP for years (and 
even never tried Linux at all). But it was so ugly and slow (after few months 
of active use after each reinstall) that I decided to switch to Linux 
(otherwise it was just difficult to use my PC). And even today, I have 
Windows XP in VMWare to run some Autodesk programs. And I'm very unhappy with 
its GUI. I do not even mention here instability of Windows, etc. (and that it 
is necessary to reinstall Windows from scratch sooner or later) - that's 
another story.
	In Linux I have not only great and convenient GUI and months of uptime but 
also it's fast even after few years of use, many upgrades, etc... And BTW, 
whole my family uses Linux without trouble. Even my old parents use it 
successfully (they know very little about computers so good GUI is essential 
for them).
	So it is incorrect to say that "on Linux UI is worse than on 
Windows" (or that "on Linux UI is much better than on Windows). This is a 
matter of individual taste. At best we can say something like "Linux has 
learning curve X for certain set of tasks Z for group of users Q, and Windows 
has learning curve Y for this (or similar) group of users". But that's all. 
You (or anyone else) cannot actually tell what is better for everyone. 
Because for everyone it is better to have a choice.

	*	*	*

	Conclusion (and what actually I want to say). What UI is better is always 
*individual* opinion (as you can see my opinion is different than yours - and 
this is OK, nothing wrong here).
	Someone like MacOS and think it is better than both Windows and Linux. 
Someone likes Linux more than anything else... And don't say things 
like "Linux UI is second-class" or that "Windows UI is second-class". This is 
pointless. Why? Because there is *no* widely-accepted definitions for 
these "classes". Main reason for this - lack of agreement what is perfect 
user interface.
	For example, all people know what is perfect circle. But no one knows what is 
perfect user interface. And in fact there is no such thing at all - perfect 
interface should be different for different users (and this is of course 
impossible to implement reliably in modern PC's yet for obvious reasons).

	So please, let's discuss something WINE related instead; 
discussion "Windows or Linux: what is better?" is offtopic here (but it is of 
course OK to say what we should improve in WINE to make it more 
user-friendly).
	Discussing individual tastes is OK but discussing whose tastes are better 
*isn't*.