[Wine] Re: Difference Between WINE and an Emulator

[The Ghost In The Machine]

In comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine, Draco18s
<draco18s2_DOES_NOT at LIKE_SPAM_hotmail.com>
 wrote
on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:40:51 -0400
<MPG.1f4a9bd1137ac4749896ec at news.teranews.com>:
> I've got someone who doesn't understand that WINE
> Is Not an Emulator and apparently doesn't get the FAQ
> on the site.  I personally don't use WINE (still 
> being on Windows kinda avoids the need), so I don't
> really have the knowledge to argue this much farther.
> Here's his latest point (formating in clasic 
> usenet style below), I need something simple that says, "no."

I'll admit to wondering myself.  WinE is a series of
library routines and maybe a wineserver that among other
things can translate Win32 calls into X ones, and File,
Process, etc. calls into basic Unix/C library ones, and
a whole lot of other stuff.

It of course is not an instruction emulator in the Bochs
sense, but it does emulate Win32.  Of course the computational
parts in the game/utility/etc. it can simply run natively,
since it also understands how to load Intel PE files -- Windows
.EXE offerings -- and set them up properly.

It therefore gets reasonably good performance.

So what does it matter, really?  It does the job, probably better
than native Windows. :-)

>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Draco18s
>
>>Blue wrote:
>>Well, no matter how you put it...
>>
>>It allows you to run windows-only programs, in a Linux enviroment, and from 
>>what i can see on screenshots, it runs the program window, inside a linux-
>>program window.
>>
>>So no matter how detailed you might explain, it will still be an emulator to 
>>me...
>>
>>Just look at game emulators for PS2, GBA, N64, etc... It runs an emulation of a 
>>console game, in a window, in your windows... so basically, something that isnt 
>>suppose to run on your comp, is still beeing runned, on a system that isnt 
>>suppose to be able to run it.
>>It also translates data and IO back and forth, making you play the game as it 
>>was intended to, on the system normally not beeing able to do it.
>>And what is it called?
>>
>>Yeah, an Emulator.
>>
>>This thing looks the exact same way, and does the exact same thing; Allowing 
>>you to run something on your OS, that isnt suppose to be possible to run, by 
>>translating data and IO back and forth.
>>
>>So no matter what you say, I will still see it as an emulator, and referr it 
>>like one too.
>>And FYI, i have had lots of friends that used WINE, and they all called it "A
>>Windows Emulator".


-- 
#191, ewill3 at earthlink.net
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