Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#121

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

qcnguy wrote: post #102

goku12 wrote: post #90

Can somebody explain: 1. The exact problem with the Linux ABI 2. What causes it (the issues that makes it such a challenge) 3. How it changed over the years, and its current state 4. Any serious attempts to resolve it I've been on Linux for may be 2 decades at this point. I haven't noticed any issues with ABI so far, perhaps because I use everything from the distro repo or build and install them using the package man…

The model of patching+recompiling the world for every OS release is a terrible hack that devs hate and that users hate. 99% of all people hate it because it's a crap model. Devs hate middlemen who silently fuck up their software and leave upstream with the mess, users hate being restricted to whatever software was cool and current two years ago. If they use a rolling distro, they hate the constant brokenness that com…

[deleted]

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#122

Post by GuestFAUniverse » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:30 PM UTC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longene

Again?

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#123

Post by BirAdam » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:33 PM UTC

senfiaj wrote: post #50

This might offend some people but even Linus Torvalds thinks that the ABI compatibility is not good enough in Linux distros, and this is one of the main reasons Linux is not popular on the desktop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=283s

AppImage, theoretically, solves this problem (or FlatPak I guess). The issue would really be in getting people to package up dead/abandoned software.

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#124

Post by Etheryte » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

vips7L wrote: post #108

Etheryte wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was sufficient interest in it, most performance issues could be solved. Look at Python or Javascript, big companies have financial interest in it so they've poured an insane amount of capital into making them faster.

Isn’t python still the slowest mainstream language?

Being slower than other mainstream languages isn't really a problem in and of itself if it's fast enough to get the job done. Looking at all the ML and LLM work that's done in Python, I would say it is fast enough to get things done.

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#125

Post by 201984 » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

goku12 wrote: post #90

Can somebody explain: 1. The exact problem with the Linux ABI 2. What causes it (the issues that makes it such a challenge) 3. How it changed over the years, and its current state 4. Any serious attempts to resolve it I've been on Linux for may be 2 decades at this point. I haven't noticed any issues with ABI so far, perhaps because I use everything from the distro repo or build and install them using the package man…

The kernel is stable, but all the system libraries needed to make a grapical application are not. Over the last 20 years, we've gone from GTK 2 to 4, X11 to Wayland, Qt 4 to 6, with compatibility breakages with each change. Building an unmodified 20 year old application from source is very likely to not work, running a 20 year old binary even less so.

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#126

Post by senfiaj » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

dralley wrote: post #70

senfiaj wrote: post #50

This might offend some people but even Linus Torvalds thinks that the ABI compatibility is not good enough in Linux distros, and this is one of the main reasons Linux is not popular on the desktop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=283s

While true in many respects (still), it's worth pointing out that this take is 12 years old.

Maybe it's better now in some distros. Not sure about other distros, but I don't like Ubuntu's Snap package. Snap packages typically start slower, use more RAM, require sudo privileges to install, and run in an isolated environment only on systems with AppArmour. Snap also tends to slow things some at boot and shutdown. People report issues like theming mismatches, permissions/file-access friction. Firefox theming complaints are a common example. It's almost like running a docker container for each application. Flatpaks seem slightly better, but still a bandaid. Just nobody is going to fix the compatibility problems in Linux.

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#127

Post by Rochus » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC

Etheryte wrote: post #34

pjmlp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance?

If there was sufficient interest in it, most performance issues could be solved. Look at Python or Javascript, big companies have financial interest in it so they've poured an insane amount of capital into making them faster.

Do you think that "most performance issues" in Python are solved?

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#128

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #95

pjmlp wrote: post #19

Thus reinforcing development tools that target Windows desktop even further, the OS/2 lesson repeats itself. And failing everything else, Microsoft is in the position to put WSL center and front, and yet again, that is the laptops that normies will buy.

Not to worry, Microsoft can't escape Win32 either. They've tried, with UWP and others, but they're locked in to supporting the ABI. It's not a moving target. Proton and Wine have shown it can be achieved with greater comparability than even what Microsoft offers.

While true, people should pay attention that WinRT, the technology infrastructure for UWP, nowadays lives in Win32 and is what is powering anything CoPilot+ PC, Windows ML, the Windows Terminal rewrite, new Explorer extensions, updated context menu on Windows 11,....

It is a moving target, Proton is mostly stuck on Windows XP world, before most new APIs started being a mix of COM and WinRT.

Even if that isn't the case, almost no company would bother with GNU/Linux to develop with Win32, instead of Windows, Visual Studio, business as usual.

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#129

Post by rep_lodsb » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #85

kwanbix wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100% with Linus. I can run a WinXP exe on Win10 or 11 almost every time, but on Linux I often have to chase down versions that still work with the latest Mint or Ubuntu distros. Stuff that worked before just breaks, especially if the app isn’t in the repo.

That’s actually an intentional nudge to make the software packaged by the distro, which usually implies that they are open source. Who needs ABI compatibility when your software is OSS? You only need API compatibility at that point.

So every Linux distribution should compile and distribute packages for every single piece of open source software in existence, both the very newest stuff that was only released last week, and also everything from 30+ years ago, no matter how obscure.

Because almost certainly someone out there will want to use it. And they should be able to, because that is the entire point of free software: user freedom.

Re: Loss32: Let's Build a Win32/Linux

#130

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

cromka wrote: post #30

pjmlp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamers have no other option, and thanks Valve, game studios have no reasons left to bother with native Linux clients. Just target Windows, business as usual, and let Valve do the hard work.

> Gamers have no other option, and thanks Valve, game studios have no reasons left to bother with native Linux clients But they do test their Windows games on Linux now and fix issues as needed. I read that CDProjekt does that, at least.

Not really, most leave that to Valve.