The Muncher project.

[Josh Walker]

I aplolgize for the spelling. I never was any good at english.
The muncher project is the implmentation of wine into a very very unique
distro of linux and used as a true windows clone.

I know, it's not a good name for a project, but it's the best I could come
up with after spinning around in a desk chair for five minutes. I also
know that this isn't the first time anyone has come up with the idea
either, but this is differnt. I have an implentation scheme.

I came up with the idea while working on an mp3 player for my car (which
also runs linux) There are two HDs in my car stereo. The first is a small
512M drive running linux with all the core compents to make xmms work. The
second drive is the mp3 drive, an 8GB removable with FAT32 on it so I can
swap it into a windows box too. The mall Linux drive does all the work.

It struck me one day that wouldn't it be cool at have a real windows
interface for wine. I mean, you can hack the system as much as you can,
but when it comes to it, the explorer start bar and all of the activeX
do-hickies like control panel and My computer are owned by microsoft. So I
devised a plan to make Linux look, run, smell, feel, and act like windows.
The goal is to fool my mom by swapping the OS and seeing if she notices.

The system works muck like the mp3 player in my car. Two partitons, one is
the linux "Macrokenrel" which does all the behind the scenes stuff and the
a fat32 partition, which holds the windows files and that the user only
sees.

The Macrokenel will be a linux partition that has the ability to boot,
starts the devices, and then run the neccary core files. The big ones are
X, FVWM95, the gnome desktop (Just the desktop, no icons, or
panels, no virtual displays, nothing crazy... yet), and wine.

Using glade, I will write little replacements for the ActiveX compents
that are missing, (My computer, Control panel, etc) GTK will handle the
windows "theme" as far as widgets go and fvwm95 is small, sleek, and gives
you the right window dressings and a start button.

I have here a compiled list of what I plan to add.

CORE:
Main Kernel		->	Linux 2.4.1, USB and harware support big
				plus/framebuffer for startup screen
				http://www.kernel.org/

Dos support		->	DosEMU 1.0.1 with FreeDOS .98, depending
				on dos support under wine
				http://www.dosemu.org/
				http://www.freedos.org/

Windows support		->	Wine, the latest
				http://www.winehq.org/

Graphic Display		->	Xfree86 4.0.2 more graphics cards, the
				better font server
				http://www.xfree86.org

DirectX			->	Transgameing

Explorer(GUI)		->	modded FVWM95/Gnome desktop combo

				ftp://mitac11.uia.ac.be/html-test/fvwm95.html
				http://www.gnome.org

Explorer(filelister)	->	gmc (was Midnight Commander, swallowed by Gnome)
				http://www.gnome.org

Explorer(Browser)	->	Mozilla (activeX compent, full browser)
				http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm
				http://www.mozilla.org/

DO-HICKIES & THINGAMABOBS:
These are small apps that are written in gtk (possably quick glide apps)
that mimic the function of native windows apps.

My Computer		->	GTK do-hickie that looks like My Computer
				Launches gmc and the contol panel
				do-hiokie.

System			->	GTK do-hickie that will list devices that
				are valid in /dev
				in a windows format, intermixed with
				kernal modules and stuff from kudzu.

Network Neighborhood	->	LinNeighborhood/Samba
				http://www.bnro.de/~schmidjo/

Trash			->	Gnome's trash

Display Properties	->	GTK do-hickie that edits xf86config,
				xscreensaver, and
				fvwmrc is a windows fimilar way

Dial-up Networking	->	working for an ISP, I know this thing
				foreward and backwards do-hickie that
				writes chat/pppd scripts, easy!

Control Panel		->	Ugh! Do what WinME does. Make it simple
				unless you want complex. Start with
				date/time, internet options, display,
				printers, and totaly ignore add/remove
				programs for now.
				Complex will have date/time, display,
				fonts, internet options keyboard, modems,
				mouse, network, passwords, printers
				regonal settings, scedualed tasks, system

Date/Time		->	simple GTK app

internet options	->	working for an ISP know this foreward amd
				backwards too edits chat/pppd scripts

Printers		->	Wrapper for redhat's printtool w/ tweaks

add/remove programs	->	not gonna touch this with a 10 foot pole.
				maybe later

fonts			->	links to the font dirs in X

keyboard		->	edits keyboard properties and Xkeyboard
				settings who's config file escapes me for
				the moment.

modems			->	chat script tweaking

mouse			->	gtk app that pays with mouse bindings

network			->	know this back and foreward too, grabbs
				info from the loaded kernel modules

passwords		->	password wrapper for xdm, gdm, *dm
				password thingies

regonal settings	->	sets loocale varible

sceduled tasks		->	wrapper for editing the chrontab


It's a big task, but I have faith in myself. I'm going to be build a "base
system" tomarrow (Ceryix 133, 40M ram, Sound Blaster, Matrox graphics
card, and a 814M HD) Feel free to comment. I have no web page on the
porject yet, I don't want to call attention to myself in case it turns out
to be a bigger project that I intended. Maybe we can use a form of this as
a DirectX-compatible only OS that can just run games. Look out X-box ^_^

-Halkun