[Wine] Re: Wine on non-Unix platforms

[SpawnHappyJake]

> But, for that matter, why limit Wine to just Windows? ARM has jumped from smart phones to tablets, with netbooks on the way, and low powered notebooks planned in the future. Microsoft is even making an ARM version of Windows 8... which of course, won't run x86 Windows software. This "post PC world" thing might be for real. It seems like the only truly safe and universal platform is the web.


I, and others, are hoping that the release of Windows for ARM will result in people making Windows/ARM programs that could work in an ARM WINE (no processor emulation). Then WINE on ARM stuff might be practical. Maybe even on a jailbroken iPhone or Android phone?

But as far as thinking that the only safe universal platform is the web...maybe. The beauty of compiled programming languages is that you can compile for whatever processor architecture/ operating system combo you want the program to run in/on. There are major exceptions, such as what WINE is facing. One can't simply take the WINE source code and compile it for Windows. But notice that even the same WINE source code can be compiled for several operating systems. I'm sure they had to be accounted for in the source code (quartz vs X, etc.), but with many simpler programs written in C, C++ and the like, they can be compiled for Mac, Windows, Linux...anything. I'm sure even for different architectures. You just have to have the compiler for what you want it to run on.

In many ways, C is a universal platform. Or D. Or C++. Except you aren't translating the program while you run it. It's translated once and ready to go. More efficient.

And then there's paravirtualization. You can have an operating system that flat out doesn't care about hardware.

What about online virtual machines or virtual machines up for download? If your audience isn't ready to switch or even dual boot with Linux, perhaps a downloadable virtual machine with WINE and some games already installed would be a good start. I seem to remember reading that VirtualBox doesn't support OpenGL, but if that's true, how can Linux function in it? I know that Zeckensack's wrapper disagrees with VirtualBox, though. Zeckensack's wrapper actually works in WINE. There is a build of QEMU that has OpenGL that might support Zeckensack's. And there's also VMGL.

Cheers,
Jake