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Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

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Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#81

Post by toomuchtodo »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #60
toomuchtodo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can grab free Windows VMs that Microsoft provides for browser testing. They expire after 90 days, but they are usable for the purposes you mention (except gaming). https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...

Okay, I'll be that guy this time: Why the downvotes? This is a bit hacky and only allows temporary systems, but it appears to be functional, free-as-beer, and works fine for these random one-off cases.

Don't worry about the downvotes friend, they are merely silly internet points. Someone might come across the comment in the future and find it helpful, and that's all that matters.

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#82

Post by kitsunesoba »

richard_todd wrote: post #8

I immediately wondered about macOS, which is dropping 32-bit support as well. One of the first links I found[1] seems to say that there is no 64-bit wine on macOS regardless of library issues, due to an ABI incompatibility. So on the surface it seems like the world is shifting under wine's feet, and they are going to need to do a second level of emulation eventually to keep 32-bit stuff running. [1]: https://forum.wi…

Could this be as “simple” (I am aware significant work would be required) as bolting qemu onto the backend of WINE? It’s also becoming more common for OS vendors to ship virtualization toolkits (Hypervisor.framework for instance), could those be an option?

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#83

Post by Razengan »

ionised wrote: post #35
scrollaway wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find asking these kinds of questions to people using professional software like that is akin to asking a professional c++ programmer "why not lisp?". Imagine you spend a career training on something and random people just tell you to do something else.

You spend a career training in skills, not training in specific tools. If you limiting yourself to a single tool and refusing to learn anything else you are doing yourself a disservice.

You have the skill of writing messages. Why not do it with a hammer, chisel and rock?

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#84

Post by coldpie »

richard_todd wrote: post #8

I immediately wondered about macOS, which is dropping 32-bit support as well. One of the first links I found[1] seems to say that there is no 64-bit wine on macOS regardless of library issues, due to an ABI incompatibility. So on the surface it seems like the world is shifting under wine's feet, and they are going to need to do a second level of emulation eventually to keep 32-bit stuff running. [1]: https://forum.wi…

The change Ubuntu is proposing is far less harsh than what macOS is doing. Unlike macOS, Ubuntu will still run 32-bit processes, you just have to provide all of the userspace libraries. Applications like Steam for Linux already do this for binary compatibility reasons, so their usecase won't change much.

Wine's official Ubuntu packages currently rely on the OS to provide these userspace libraries. They would "only" need to change to also build and ship the rest of the libraries, instead of relying on the OS to provide them. Meanwhile on macOS, you can't even run 32-bit binaries, working around that is a much, much larger task.

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#85

Post by q3k »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #60
toomuchtodo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can grab free Windows VMs that Microsoft provides for browser testing. They expire after 90 days, but they are usable for the purposes you mention (except gaming). https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...

Okay, I'll be that guy this time: Why the downvotes? This is a bit hacky and only allows temporary systems, but it appears to be functional, free-as-beer, and works fine for these random one-off cases.

Per the license terms [1]:

You may use the software for testing purposes only. You may not use the software for commercial purposes. You may not use the software in a live operating environment.

[1] - https://az792536.vo.msecnd.net/vms/release_notes_license_ter...

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#86

Post by dragonwriter »

deng wrote: post #54
momokoko wrote: post #7

I'm curious about Wine's usage and relevance at this point in the Linux desktop story. My assumption is that Linux users(myself included) that use Windows applications(not games), tend to just run a VM in seamless mode for Windows functionality. I would be curious if others had any insight(anecdotal or otherwise) about Wine usage these days.

> My assumption is that Linux users(myself included) that use Windows applications(not games), tend to just run a VM in seamless mode for Windows functionality. Running in a VM requires an additional Windows license. I'm not even sure if you're allowed to use an OEM license for a VM, or if you need proper retail or even one of those "VDA licenses". It's precisely this kind of stuff why I still use Wine.

> Running in a VM requires an additional Windows license. I'm not even sure if you're allowed to use an OEM license for a VM, or if you need proper retail or even one of those "VDA licenses".

Of I understand correctly, and I might not, you either need an Enterprise license or a VDA subscription and you need the user PC that will access the VM to also have its own desktop (pro or enterprise) license if you aren't using a VDA subscription x (that it, it is a license precondition for the VM license that the PC has its own license in addition to any licenses for VMs.) Windows desktop VM licensing seems to be oriented around corporate VDI setups, not desktop-on-desktop local VM use.

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#88

Post by pgcj_poster »

momokoko wrote: post #7

I'm curious about Wine's usage and relevance at this point in the Linux desktop story. My assumption is that Linux users(myself included) that use Windows applications(not games), tend to just run a VM in seamless mode for Windows functionality. I would be curious if others had any insight(anecdotal or otherwise) about Wine usage these days.

A lot of people use computers that don't get reasonable performance with a Windows VM.

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#89

Post by tombert »

postit wrote: post #76

In the current state of technology, wine doesn’t make sense anymore. 20-ish years ago was impossible to have an interchangeable application between two OS, without a huge effort on porting and adaptations trade off. Now we have the web applications running in a handful of different systems. We’re also watching the people theorizing supporting webassembly binaries directly in the kernel. If you don’t want to run a web…

First off, there are plenty of older Windows applications that currently exist that aren't going to get a port to a modern web app any time soon that work perfectly fine with Wine; even Microsoft doesn't support running Windows 3.1 programs anymore. You could argue that nothing from that era is worth preserving, but are you saying that applications like DOSBox, Snes9X, or UAE aren't useful?

Second, while I definitely support the push to web technology, I'd still rather have something on Linux or Mac than nothing, and often times Wine is the only realistic way of doing that. I agree it's a little annoying when you buy a "Linux" app, and it's just a wine wrapper, but at the same time, at least it's officially supported and works. I didn't get upset with SEGA when I bought the Sega Genesis collection and it used emulation instead of native ports.

Re: Wine Developers Concerned with Ubuntu Dropping 32-Bit Support

#90

Post by Arkanosis »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #81
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll be that guy this time: Why the downvotes? This is a bit hacky and only allows temporary systems, but it appears to be functional, free-as-beer, and works fine for these random one-off cases.

Don't worry about the downvotes friend, they are merely silly internet points. Someone might come across the comment in the future and find it helpful, and that's all that matters.

Well said. As the person you replied to, I find your answer helpful. Thank you!
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