i got the news from MacBytes.com
there is now a sourceforge project for porting Wine to OS X named "Darwine"
if you dont know what "wine" is, its a way to run most Windows apps on a linux platform...now its being ported to OS X. for more info about wine for linux, go here
just thought i would let everyone know 
Excellent! Now my mom wont have to buy that other program, good ol open source!
Im under the impresion that unix software realy doesnt have to be 'ported' at all.
Code has to be sometimes ported depending on where it is running. Like alot of the time things are ported between Linux and BSD, vice versa and between other varients of linux and unix. I just hope that this port of wine is more stable than it is under linux.
They are probably going to have to put in some HLE because as the name says, WINE Is Not Emulation. It's not just as simple as porting between distributions but different CPU's, as windows software is made for x86.
*edit*
How interesting, if the screenshot they have on the front page is real it looks like they are making progress already. The applications however look ugly and the lack of a drop shadow makes me question the validity but it's interesting.
AHA! They use BOCHS for x86 emulation. Where on x86 wine doesn't use emulation because it's on the same hardware the applications originally ran on.
"Is the Darwin/Mac OS X release of Wine currently able to run Windows executable (.exe)?
No. We are today working on integrating an x86 emulator in wine in order to run Win32 exe on a PowerPC Box. But on Darwin-x86 Win32 exe should run within wine."
Very cool, a truly useful project.
Wouldn't it be neat if OSX could run Windows apps out of the box?
In fact, Apple should really help w/ WINE like they did with KHTML and others.
Still, it's going to have to use emulation, which defeats the purpose of WINE in a way. Basically,this is saying "you still have to use emulation, but at least you dont have to pay for Windows".
Too bad apple couldnt "broaden it's horizons" and do like with iTunes
and release more software for the ol' beige box eh? Running a unix based
OSX for pc... I'd switch. OS's
But then they'd kill their high priced machines... Sigh...
~Ob¹
Originally posted by contrasutra@Jan 28 2004, 06:22 PMVery cool, a truly useful project.
Wouldn't it be neat if OSX could run Windows apps out of the box?
In fact, Apple should really help w/ WINE like they did with KHTML and others.
Still, it's going to have to use emulation, which defeats the purpose of WINE in a way. Basically,this is saying "you still have to use emulation, but at least you dont have to pay for Windows".
Well yeah, practically, because WINE means "Wine Is Not Emulation" though on OSX it IS so they if they wanted to be accurate would have to take off the N and call it DARWIE which means DARWIE Is Emulation, heh
contra, i agree, it would be truely awesome for apple to work with them and be able to have it run windows apps right out of the box. that would gain some market share from a certain Redmond, Washington company that has a lot, dont you agree?
Originally posted by smoke@Jan 28 2004, 10:52 PMWell yeah, practically, because WINE means "Wine Is Not Emulation" though on OSX it IS so they if they wanted to be accurate would have to take off the N and call it DARWIE which means DARWIE Is Emulation, heh
WINE stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator". It still isn't, and it never will be. It simply doesnt have the code for it.
They are using WINE + BOCHS. So the WINE part is still not emulating.
mmmm....technicalities.
Originally posted by lostspyder@Jan 28 2004, 04:59 PMIm under the impresion that unix software realy doesnt have to be 'ported' at all.
True, but anytime you move an app from one OS to another, you always have to deal with references; i.e., file locations, helper files, etc. While most of the code is already in place, you'd be surprised how much there is to change.
About Darwine itself- it looks very promising, and assuming that it could run Win apps at or near native speed, it would be a boon for OS X and the Mac in general.
-godpunk
No, it CANT run at "near native" speed, because unlike the real WINE, its EMULATING. This will slow it down drastically.
Just try out BOCHS, its an x86 emulator, and you'll get an idea of the speed.
And if you're using a truly cross platform language like java or python, you wont have to do ANY work if you code the app right.
Originally posted by contrasutra@Jan 30 2004, 06:29 PMAnd if you're using a truly cross platform language like java or python, you wont have to do ANY work if you code the app right.
absolutely, im taking a class in college for java...last semester was great because we got to use the red-hat lab and code right in emacs (well, they told us to use pico, but i preferred emacs). this semester we have to write in J-Builder. right now, im leaning towards emacs on the linux platform, but maybe J-Builder just scared me at first.
contra, if i write a java program with a GUI in OS X or linux, how well will it convert to Windows? will the GUI have to be re-written, will it work fine, or do i not know what i'm talking about yet (because we havent touched writing GUIs yet)?
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