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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

#91
post #47

But why not just do a translation — 32bit x86 to 64bit x86 doesn’t meaningfully restrict available instructions, then just* plant a bunch trampolines in the low 4gig to the real implementations in the 64bit adds space. * I know this isn’t a trivial “just” but it seems like a plausibly achievable approach to me

[deleted]

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

#92
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.

I'm primarily a Mac user rather than a Linux user. Occasionally there is an app I want to use that just doesn't have a macOS version, so I use WINE because then I can run it nearly-seamlessly. A Windows VM can't conveniently access my files, takes up 20GB of disk space, needs regular updating, takes time to boot and shut down, takes up more screen space than the app window itself, requires a license fee, needs its own 2GB of RAM, etc. If and when WINE works, it “just” runs the app for me.

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

#93
post #23
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.

I exclusively use Linux for work and personal use, and I only use Wine for games. It works surprisingly well, but sometimes requires some arcane tweaking (which you can google, thankfully). I can't see myself using Wine for anything else.

If you've got a tutorial for this I'd be interested (I really wanna run Sq8L on Linux in Renoise)

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

#94

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…

64-bit WINE exists on macOS now, I have it installed on my MacBook Air. But 64-bit WINE can't run 32-bit Windows apps because it's not an emulator, it's a binary loader and a set of system libraries.

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

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the 32 bit code physically won't be part of the distribution. What do you imagine you'd be running?

32-bit Debian chroot on 64-bit Ubuntu? Works, mostly conforms to user expectations, seems decent?

Well yes if you're going to run another distro that's fine. This issue is about that people can't run new Ubuntu. You can't run new Ubuntu in 32-bit.

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

#96
post #15
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.

I used to run foobar2000 in wine, because no other linux media player scratched some of the itches foobar covered. There is even a foobar2000 package in the arch aur so it simply installs like any other pacman managed program. However, once I learned of the wine interface that is available on flathub (for flatpak) I immediately removed wine and its 32 bit components from my system- now that untidyness is neatly conta…

Yes, except now instead of one horrifically over complicated package manager you now have to have two.

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

#97
post #20
post #5

Does the Microsoft Office executable file even come in a 64bit package? It's not Ubuntu's or Wine's fault

Office has been 64bit for 9 years. And this year it's the default.

Almost all Windows installers are 32-bit, even if the application installed is 64-bit. This is so the installer can do something elegant when run on a 32-bit-only system. While this might be changing, 32-bit support is effectively required for almost every Windows application ever released.

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

#98

I have a sneaking suspicion that Microsoft will release their own Wine-a-like subsystem some time soon. It's the missing link, and I can't see them ignoring it given how their direction has changed over the last few years.

I doubt that's the case. Everything they've been doing with WSL is precisely to keep you inside the Windows OS. It doesn't make sense to go the other way and give you a reason to use Linux instead.

> It doesn't make sense to go the other way and give you a reason to use Linux instead.

It makes sense for every business unit except Windows to make it easier to run their software on Linux/MacOS (for desktop software, more the latter, for server software, more the former.) A common shim that lets you so that with the same codebase rather than maintaining separate Linux and MacOS versions or porting the whole existsling software to a cross-platform base rather than a Windows base makes some sense.

Of course it doesn't make sense for the Windows unit to promote Linux, but Windows isn't all of Microsoft.

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

#99
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 usin…

If you're running it in a VM locally on a desktop, my understanding is that you're fine with a normal every-day OS license because the machine itself is what the license applies to. However, MS licensing is needlessly obtuse and, in my experience, nothing short of consulting with about a dozen different "specialists" will even approximate a correct answer, if one even exists.

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

#100
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 usin…

I think you are most definitely correct when you are running Windows on a remote VM, like on an ESX. But I always thought that things would be more lenient when you're running it locally, but I might be mistaken. I'm pretty sure though that an OEM will definitely not be OK.
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