[Wine] What is Wine? (And what is it really for)

[Nigel Henry]

On Monday 23 January 2006 17:27, GuruLounge - MailLists wrote:
> Hell with it!  When folks first get introduced to Linux and WINE I just
> tell 'em -- It's a Windows Emulator.  They get the picture right away.
> Then if they're around long enough and interested enough then I can let
> 'em in on the details..
>
> Jeff

Hi Jeff. See bottom of posting.
>
> On Mon, 2006-01-23 at 11:23 -0200, André Carvalho wrote:
> > You probably get more confused when people tell you that wine is an
> > implementation of the Windows API, but if you don't know what API means,
> > this definition doesn't help much.
> >
> > API (Application Programming Interface), is the interface that a
> > computer system or application provides in order to allow requests for
> > service to be made of it by other computer programs, and/or to allow
> > data to be exchanged between them.
> >
> > That's what Wine is trying to do, make the applications "think" they are
> > running on Windows because all the dlls needed and services are provided
> > by Wine.
> >
> > Also, if you are a programmer, you could compile your programm using
> > wine libraries and make it run easier on Wine.
> >
> > Wine is not an emulator.
> >
> > André Carvalho.

Hi Again Jeff. I agree that for most Windows users, that makes the most 
sensible explanation, without getting into technicalities. This is perhaps 
OT, but what concerns me is the attitude of some Windows users that are 
moving to Linux with Wine. There appear to be some that want the security 
aspects of Linux, but want to move their Windows environment wholesale over 
to the Linux machine, effectively acting as parasites on the back of a more 
secure OS. I say this having seen a recent posting of someone wanting to get 
the Windows desktop running with Wine. I mean. If you're so obsessed with MS 
Windows, then just keep all your security up to date. If you genuinally want 
to move to Linux, then do so, and hopefully the few Windows apps that you 
want to take with you will either work or not. If not. Give Wine a bit of 
time. There's a lot of hard work going on trying to get this stuff to work. I 
still have XP & ME, which go on line now and again to get 3rd party security 
updates. I suppose I should just trash them and free up some harddrive space, 
but ME has all the Mars Explorer stuff on it, and XP still has some of my 
music apps. Also, having them still on the harddrive makes it easy to borrow 
the odd .dll to perhaps get one of my music apps working with Wine. In fact 
one .dll got Savihost to work with Wine for some VSTi's. I'd better not go 
on, as this is getting seriously OT. Nigel.