(rant) Wine sucks

[skyfolly]

can't get thunder(a download manager from china, on windows only) running on it, not even flashget(another one), hmmm, maybe i need to install virtual OS ie. vmware.

how come wine sucks this much?

PS:found virtualbox the saviour!!!

[TheSlipstream]

You really expect them to accommodate an obscure Chinese download manager when stuff like Photoshop is still buggy? Just use an Open Source replacement.

[Polygon]

yeah, cause translating the entire windows API including directx is such a trivial task.

[skyfolly]

You really expect them to accommodate an obscure Chinese download manager when stuff like Photoshop is still buggy? Just use an Open Source replacement.

i know, but i thought it should be suitable for most if not all windows apps. which does not need to be accommodated, i wish. weirdo program, will uninstall it tonight.

nvm

lol

see, i just wanna rant. :popcorn:

BTW: no open source program can replace that two, seriously.

[stimpack]

I am with polygon, the sheer magnitude of reversing Win API and what they have achieved is incredible, so much so that your comment astonishes me completely Skyfolly :)

[Polygon]

BTW: no open source program can replace that two, seriously.

wget

[JillSwift]

i know, but i thought it should be suitable for most if not all windows apps. which does not need to be accommodated, i wish. weirdo program, will uninstall it tonight.

nvm

lol

see, i just wanna rant. :popcorn:Your "rant" casts aspersions on what is hundreds if not thousands of man-hours of work that was given to you freely. You have no reason whatever to rant, complain, or whine about Wine - a compatibility layer that gets better with every release and does a really amazing job considering the hurdles it must overcome.
Have some appreciation for what you've been given, palley, because you aren't owed it.

[AnRa]

You should try DownThemAll! (https://addons.mozilla.org/es-ES/firefox/addon/201) ;-)

[RiceMonster]

Well that's too bad. It's sucks that all their 15 years of hard work has given you a misfortune. Your refund will arrive shortly.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Well I personally ensure you wine has got a LOT better over the years I have used it.
I have used linux since 2004, and back then wine needed command lines just to fire up the command line to fire up wine.
The development team can only do so much though, without co operation from companies like adobe or anything we are almost powerless without a shotgun sometimes.
(loads rounds)

[skyfolly]

.

...............

didn't know open source means no ranting or criticism?

i thought criticism helps people to improve?

i dun like arguing, so this would be my last reply on the thread which i started.

tata.

[JillSwift]

...............

didn't know open source means no ranting or criticism?

i thought criticism helps people to improve?

i dun like arguing, so this would be my last reply on the thread which i started.

tata.As wasted as this is going to be on a retreater:
Open source means constructive criticism, and helping out however you can. Your post was not a critique. It read like a spoiled child whining that they aren't getting what they want right now.

[billgoldberg]

Your "rant" casts aspersions on what is hundreds if not thousands of man-hours of work that was given to you freely. You have no reason whatever to rant, complain, or whine about Wine - a compatibility layer that gets better with every release and does a really amazing job considering the hurdles it must overcome.
Have some appreciation for what you've been given, palley, because you aren't owed it.

Yes he has.

Wine sucks, there I said it.

Most of the time it doesn't work.

I know people have been working long and hard on it, but it still doesn't work.

Do you want you me to give them a pad on the back for trying?

[aysiu]

"It doesn't work" isn't constructive criticism in this context, not to mention that Wine developers don't necessarily waste their time going through Ubuntu Forums looking for threads entitled (rant) Wine sucks.

I've stopped using Wine. I never was too dependent on Windows-only programs to begin with. I used to run FileZilla in Wine, but then the Linux port came out.

I think it's great all the work the Wine developers have put into a sometimes-working solution (depending on the program it's trying to run), especially considering Microsoft isn't trying to make their job any easier, but Wine will likely remain only a patch solution. The real solution is using native Linux programs.

[nick09]

If you want to know how a program is doing check the Application Database (http://appdb.winehq.org/) at least.

[bp1509]

d

[JillSwift]

Yes he has.

Wine sucks, there I said it.

Most of the time it doesn't work.

I know people have been working long and hard on it, but it still doesn't work.

Do you want you me to give them a pad on the back for trying?"It doesn't work" is a whine, not a critique.
"Most of the time it doesn't work." - Really? Where are you getting your stats from? Or do you mean that you can't get it to work most of the time?
Constructive criticism is all that's worth doing in the context of open source when you come across software that's not doing what you need it to do, shy of helping code it yourself. All else is a waste of time.

[RiceMonster]

Frankly I consider it a blessing that I can play Counterstrike 1.6, Diablo II and Starcraft on linux because there's no Linux version.


Yes he has.

Wine sucks, there I said it.

Most of the time it doesn't work.

I know people have been working long and hard on it, but it still doesn't work.

Do you want you me to give them a pad on the back for trying?

Maybe it doesn't work for whatever you want to use, but it works just fine for the games I mentioned above, so it works great for me. Saying "it doesn't work" is just whining and is far from true.

[atoc]

I've been a linux user since '96. I've watched Linux AND Wine grow tremendously in usability and functionality.

The amount of applications that Wine can run NOW is VASTLY greater than from when it first appeared.

I don' use Wine that much any more - the majority of my needs are met by Linux alternatives (free and nonfree. I'm not a zealot) - but for the occasional Windows program that I use (fun stuff mostly - Terragen, some AIR apps, few games) Wine works flawlessly.
Flawlessly doesn't necessarily mean "out of the box" either.

Paying attention to console output when a program barfs under Wine is important.

Flawlessly means that I may have had to download this-obscure-dll or that-obscure-dll to get a program to work, but once I did that - flawless.

[bp1509]

d

[Eclipse.]

Im going to be perfectly honest with you, threads like this really annoy me.

Instead of moaning about software which you forget is free why dont you help out with the development and make it better.

[billgoldberg]

"Most of the time it doesn't work." - Really? Where are you getting your stats from? Or do you mean that you can't get it to work most of the time?


Wine sucks because the whole idea sucks.

If you need windows programs, run windows.

When I said most of the time it doesnt work, that's a fact.

There are hundreds of thousands of programs, and handful fully works with wine.

With fully, I mean 100%.

What do you mean with:

"Or do you mean that you can't get it to work most of the time?"?

Are you saying I can't copy/paste the install instructions on the wine website?

[billgoldberg]

Frankly I consider it a blessing that I can play Counterstrike 1.6, Diablo II and Starcraft on linux because there's no Linux version.



Maybe it doesn't work for whatever you want to use, but it works just fine for the games I mentioned above, so it works great for me. Saying "it doesn't work" is just whining and is far from true.

I didn't said "it doesn't work", I said "most of the time it doesn't work".

That's true.

Download a random .exe and try to get it running fully in wine.

Chance of success? Almost zero.

[RiceMonster]

Wine sucks because the whole idea sucks.

If you need windows programs, run windows.

Well maybe you're like me and you don't want to install Windows just so you can play three or four games with your friends every now and then. By every now and then, I mean like once or twice a month.

[billgoldberg]

Im going to be perfectly honest with you, threads like this really annoy me.

Instead of moaning about software which you forget is free why dont you help out with the development and make it better.

People can say whatever they want about open source software.

If you can't handle it, that's though luck.

[Paqman]

To be fair, Wine does suck. At the moment.

I'm sure the Wine devs would be the first people to look at the vast number of apps on the WineAppDB that don't work well and admit that they still have a long way to go. However, the fact that anything works at all on Wine is very encouraging, and they should be given a monumental pat on the back for all their hard work.

[billgoldberg]

Well maybe you're like me and you don't want to install Windows just so you can play three or four games with your friends every now and then. By every now and then, I mean like once or twice a month.

I have windows installed (10 gb partition) because I play 1 game with friends (counterstrike source).

I don't want to dirty up my ubuntu installation with that windows stuff.

[RiceMonster]

Yeah, I don't see how it makes my Linux install dirty. It's not really that bad having a .wine folder in my home directory. Plus, I don't have to use 10GB or so. Much nicer, if you ask me.

Actually, the only windows software I have on here right now is SkiFREE. Me and my friends haven't played video games in like two months. I don't want to boot into windows to play that.

[CarlosNYB]

Emulation systems, VMware (that is, virtual machines), never were all that efficient or bug-free. The problem is that you are running a substantially resource-intensive application on top of your operating system and then emulating or installing another system on top of that, and then there are issues of translation -- this is very non-trivial.

Similarly, it's non-trivial to deal with hardware with closed-source drivers.

In the 70's and 80's, before the PC clone thing got going, each system only worked with a certain set of limited hardware, and only certain applications worked on the operating system, which was often tailored to the underlying hardware. It was very hard to configure hardware and to port software between radically different systems. The technology has improved since then, but when hardware or software manufacturers do not design their products to be easily portable, or when they close the source code which makes such a port more difficult, there's not much you can do.

[Vince4Amy]

The compatibility success I've had with WINE Is almost as great as Windows it's self, almost all of my applications work with it and I know this will get better. The WINE compatibility rate has increased so much over the last two years.

I've found a lot of the time if an application doesn't work in WINE a little bit of tweaking and some dll tweaking everything works great. And saying "Why not just use Windows" is not valid IMO. For example say I have a small HDD in one of my machines, and Windows does not work right on that machine, but I need to do some web development using Dreamweaver. I can use Linux perfectly on this machine but I also know that DW works on WINE. So in this situation WINE is a great piece of software.

Just because one application does not work on WINE you shouldn't rant at the whole project, especially if you compare how well it works now compared with two years ago.

[stmiller]

...............

didn't know open source means no ranting or criticism?

i thought criticism helps people to improve?

i dun like arguing, so this would be my last reply on the thread which i started.

tata.

You made a thread titled '(rant) Wine sucks'.

I'm not sure what kind of responses you were looking to get from doing that.

You could have made a post in the wine section of this forum with exact details of what is not working and asked for help. Then someone would help you, and possibly fix an issue in the wine project with that software. That would be a better way to do things...

[stinger30au]

can't get thunder(a download manager from china, on windows only) running on it, not even flashget(another one), hmmm, maybe i need to install virtual OS ie. vmware.

how come wine sucks this much?

with firefox in ubuntu you install flashgot - same is flashget and down them all

here is the links

http://flashgot.net/

http://www.downthemall.net/

[JillSwift]

Wine sucks because the whole idea sucks.

If you need windows programs, run windows.Meh. Wine serves me fine for the tiny few things I still need it to do.


When I said most of the time it doesnt work, that's a fact.Wine works most of the time from where I sit. So much for fact.


What do you mean with:

"Or do you mean that you can't get it to work most of the time?"?

Are you saying I can't copy/paste the install instructions on the wine website?Way to project. No, I mean exactly what I asked: were you quoting statistics or talking strictly about your experience?

[tom66]

Wine works almost flawlessly on everything I can throw at it. I do, however, mention 'almost'. Because it is working on a poorly-documented API, and because Windows has precise bugs which have to be emulated perfectly, it can never work 100%.

[Vorian Grey]

I think wine is a great project and the developers deserve kudos for bringing it to this point. It works brilliantly most of the time. It's been 15 long, hard years.

However, I feel it does suck because virtualization has passed wine by, except in gaming. Why configure wine when you can run Windows in virtualbox and run all your programs there? I stop using wine a while ago. It's a brilliant idea but no longer needed except for games, at least IMO.

[tom66]

I think wine is a great project and the developers deserve kudos for bringing it to this point. It works brilliantly most of the time. It's been 15 long, hard years.

However, I feel it does suck because virtualization has passed wine by, except in gaming. Why configure wine when you can run Windows in virtualbox and run all your programs there? I stop using wine a while ago. It's a brilliant idea but no longer needed except for games, at least IMO.

Well, you could pirate Windows, but there is the cost of virtualization. While qemu, VMWare (some editions) and the like are free, Windows isn't. Wine is though.

[init1]

can't get thunder(a download manager from china, on windows only) running on it, not even flashget(another one), hmmm, maybe i need to install virtual OS ie. vmware.

how come wine sucks this much?
Yeah most things don't run in wine.

[pt123]

Use Mutliget downloader, also from China, but has DEBs for Ubuntu.
Can do mutlithreading and is stable.

[Vorian Grey]

Well, you could pirate Windows, but there is the cost of virtualization. While qemu, VMWare (some editions) and the like are free, Windows isn't. Wine is though.
Since Windows comes with nearly every computer that's really not a problem.

[labonaj]

I just got Unreal Tournament to run via wine. I actually think it runs faster than on my windows box. Just beautiful!

[init1]

Wine works almost flawlessly on everything I can throw at it. I do, however, mention 'almost'. Because it is working on a poorly-documented API, and because Windows has precise bugs which have to be emulated perfectly, it can never work 100%.
What? What are you throwing at it? Here's what I've tried with it:
Yahoo Messenger (Has a LOT more features than Pidgin)- Failed
Word Perfect (Didn't actually want it; I was just curious to see if it would work)- Failed
SonicR (Racing game I bought a while back)- Failed
Flyff (RPG that I friend of mine plays)- Failed
A few other apps I've tried- Failed
So yeah, all the apps I try to run fail in wine.

[Linuturk]

wget

[Naralas]

can't get thunder(a download manager from china, on windows only) running on it, not even flashget(another one), hmmm, maybe i need to install virtual OS ie. vmware.

how come wine sucks this much?

This has got to be the shortest rant I have ever read.
Don't worry about download managers, Linux has plenty that I am sure are either clones, damn similar, or just plain better.
Also, sucks? Thats harsh, I mean, a lot of over-zealous Linux users say stuff like "Linux can run anythign Windows can" but Linux IS NOT WINDOWS and it CANNOT RUN EVERYTHING WINDOWS CAN so people making this claim should shut up and stop setting the bar too high, you just set people up to walk out at the first sign of trouble.

[liquidfunk]

My answer to this is, can you do any better? Can you make something better than Wine that allows every Windows program work on Linux. Can you?

Go on then, I'd like to see you try.

Personally I love Wine, I think it's great, and the developers have done something amazing. In fact it's a miracle that something does run at all, considering its not Windows.

If you have such a problem just use Windows.

[frup]

Wine is getting better and better, that's good news.
I don't use wine for anything as everything I need is already OSS. Having said that I follow wine and check on the website regularly, I get really frustrated every time the WWN is missed (lol?)

Wine isn't a solution, it's sort of like the bandaid that keeps the skin together until it heals, isn't wines primary function not to run windows apps but to help windows developers port their programs to Linux?

I wish the wine team luck and progress and hope they never have to finish.

[Delever]

Flat Out 2
Oblivion
Civilization IV

those three work

BUT..!

I can't get sound to work on my obscure .NET game, it crashes after few minutes, probably because of the way I used DirectShow, so...

It sucks.

Yeah. Final verdict.

[Polygon]

What? What are you throwing at it? Here's what I've tried with it:
Yahoo Messenger (Has a LOT more features than Pidgin)- Failed
Word Perfect (Didn't actually want it; I was just curious to see if it would work)- Failed
SonicR (Racing game I bought a while back)- Failed
Flyff (RPG that I friend of mine plays)- Failed
A few other apps I've tried- Failed
So yeah, all the apps I try to run fail in wine.

as wine is not complete nor perfect, its hit or miss on what works

sometimes intensive things like video games and 3d applications work perfect

and then sometimes simple things like a download manager dont.

*shrugs*

[Macintosh Sauce]

WIne doesn't suck. I prefer a Riesling myself... ;) ;) ;)

[Oponium]

WINE does suck, and the idea behind it sucks as well.

Why spend 14 years of development just to support a handful of applications?

I have a better idea: Why don't you just use that time and effort to improve _NATIVE_ applications. It's not like WINE is doing us any good.

[L815]

WINE does suck, and the idea behind it sucks as well.

Why spend 14 years of development just to support a handful of applications?

I have a better idea: Why don't you just use that time and effort to improve _NATIVE_ applications. It's not like WINE is doing us any good.

Why spend your time ranting on why it sucks rather than shutting up and moving on?

[Methuselah]

Personally, I think Wine is great.
It helps to break down artificial limitations..
Hell, in the future it might be an important way to run some legacy applications even after microsoft has moved on.
Look at dosbox.

That said, I have it installed and even downloaded the source but I don't use it that much.
There are native linux applications to satisfy just about every need.
In fact, the most common use for most people is the occasional game.

I think the only danger is that new linux users might be inclined to prefer familiar windows applications that work imperfectly in wine to good native linux applications.
The general rule is to prefer native programs.

[Oponium]

Why spend your time ranting on why it sucks rather than shutting up and moving on?
Does it not make sense? What good is Wine accomplishing? Why am I getting flamed for posting my opinion? Why am I asking you (whoever you may be) all these questions?!

hehe. don't get all sensitive on me, boslick. I never acted like a douchebag towards you, you shouldn't act like one to me.

thx

edit @ above, I can see it (games) as a reason. but:

1) Most games don't work
2) 14 years of development could've gone into making one hell of a game(s).

kul thx

[Polygon]

your topic makes me believe that you have good reasoning for why wine sucks

but instead you claim that it doesnt work with some random chinese download manager and instantly come to the conclusion that the entirety of wine sucks, with no real hard evidence or thought on your part.

So, if it sucks so much....

how come it can run intensive 3d games such as team fortress 2 and world of warcraft?

http://appdb.winehq.org/appimage.php?iId=13545
http://appdb.winehq.org/appimage.php?iId=16713

and even other types of programs, like office 2007?

http://appdb.winehq.org/appimage.php?iId=17488


Yes some programs dont work. You have obviously forgotten that WINE is trying to reverse engineer the entire windows and directx api. this is no small task From the games and programs on their platinum/gold/silver list, they are off to a great start. but dont dismiss the entire project and the hard work of hundreds of people over several years just because your random program doesn't work

and to answer your question, a LOT of stuff DOES WORK. im sure all the linux gamers are very happy that wine is able to run world of warcraft so well. And not to mention other 'killer apps' such as utorrent.

even google has used WINE to help them port some of their applications to linux, try the linux version of Picasa (uses the wine libraries)

it is true that a lot of games dont work, but they were meant to run on windows, while wine is slowly closing the gap on this, if you want things to work 100%, use something that was written and designed for LINUX

[LaRoza]

Windows sucks. I can't use my programs that I compiled for x64 Linux on them.

Honestly, if anything works on Wine, that is a +1. You should have no expectations of it working and anything extra is a bonus.

Every time I have used Wine, it worked perfectly.

[phrostbyte]

Wine has to be the single most complicated open source project in existence. I mean, if you ever even looked at the API you'd know how much of a job rewriting the whole thing would be. Win32 is such a disgusting mess of an API, that almost no one directly codes to it anymore. But it's still there and to run Windows apps in needs to be REWRITTEN. Image having to engineer a giant pile of crap, and make sure that pile of grap works exactly, byte for byte, like the original pile of crap. Tens of thousands of largely inconstant functions. I really feel for the Wine devs, I really do.

But yeah, I use Virtualbox.

[insane_alien]

yep there are thousands of programs out there that don't work on wine. there are thousands more that wouldn't work on linux if it wasn't for wine.

wine is doing the computer equivalent of getting a petrol car to run on bananas and gravel. the fact that it moves at all is a miracle.

[Xanatos Craven]

I don't see the point of this thread, in the slightest bit. You're demanding that a free software project that will take decades to reach full compatibility with Windows' API, if that's even possible with such a ridiculously hard game of cat-and-mouse, support a single program for which there are plenty of decent free replacements on Linux, and this isn't even WINE's site you're complaining on! You could be doing something useful, like filing bug reports for Thunder, but instead you're here wasting everyone's time including your own with nothing but a bunch of hot air.

If you want to run Windows programs without any compatibility issues, run... Windows. Nobody's forcing Linux or WINE on you. Plenty of people here still run Windows as well as Linux for some reason, whether it be work, gaming or whatever. An operating system is just a tool, it's nothing to get all bent out of shape or religious over.

[mrgnash]

Flashgot, Downthemall, wget... sheesh, GNU/Linux is overflowing with download managers, and I can't imagine that they are too lacking in comparison to this 'Thunder' and 'Flashget' -- a download manager can and should only do so much.

If Wine and Linux are so dissatisfactory, go back to Windows.

[fd9_]

Wine is more or less a hack. You can never expect it to work completely, as it probably never will. If you need to use windows software and you can't find an alternative, then you have two options: VM or dual boot. It's as simple as that.

[madjr]

Flashget has spyware. Nuff said

crapware

[samjh]

I don't understand the negativity towards Wine. Sure, it isn't perfect, but it comes pretty close. As others have said, the Wine project's attempt to reverse-engineer and implement the entire Win32 API and DirectX is a herculean task.

What good is Wine? It helps people who wish to transition fully to Linux, a chance to run some popular Windows applications on Linux without having to install Windows on a VM or dual-boot.

There is a lot of rambling about how some obscure Windows software doesn't work on Wine. Fair enough. But Wine also supports some very popular Windows software too. Take a look at the top-10 lists here (http://appdb.winehq.org/). It's quite impressive.

In my experience, Wine runs most of the applications I've tried on it, and runs them perfectly or nearly perfectly:
- Firefox 3
- Sun Java 6 JRE
- Steam
- Counter Strike: Source
- Day of Defeat: Source
- Dev-C++
- Australian Taxation Office E-Tax
- Live for Speed
- Windows Media Player 9
- Warcraft III
- Starcraft
- Call of Duty 2
- Quake Wars: Enemy Territory
- Blender3D
- Adobe Flash Player 9

So yes, you should give them a pat on the back for trying. Imperfection is not a cause to berate 15 years of volunteer work.

[crhylove]

For what Wine is attempting to do, it is AMAZING they have had as much success as they have. For other stuff that wine doesn't run, go and use Virtualbox and TinyXP.

Also, consider the downstream benefactors of Wine code, like ReactOS. Some of these technologies may keep our old win 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, and etc. games playable for years to come, which is really friggin' cool, actually.

[kirsis]

I think Wine rocks. I also think its usefulness is mostly in running games and graphical apps due to how out of place windows gui apps look and feel (+ even if they didnt, they'd violate the gnome HIG).

There'd be less complaints if people didn't hype it up for themselves thinking it's going to let them run every windows app ever made. Instead, look at it as a ported app catalog. Look at the appdb, see what runs, what not, and just go with it.


WINE does suck, and the idea behind it sucks as well.

Why spend 14 years of development just to support a handful of applications?

I have a better idea: Why don't you just use that time and effort to improve _NATIVE_ applications. It's not like WINE is doing me any good.

Had you said this, I'd at least respect you for your honesty.


If you need windows programs, run windows.

Not everybody is willing to dual boot to another partition just to run an app or two. I know I'm certainly not. Don't try to push your fundamentalism on others.


Since Windows comes with nearly every computer that's really not a problem.

Well, it is a problem. Just for a very small number of people :) The reason I started using Linux was because I didn't want to pirate Windows when I built a PC and realized I don't have an OS. I was windowless for a long time, 'till I bought a new laptop with Vista preloaded.



People can say whatever they want about open source software.

If you can't handle it, that's though luck.

True, this. I find it unseemly how people who have valid complaints are told to shut up or gtfo just because it's free.

[BigSilly]

WINE sucks? No way. It plays my GTA Vice City perfectly, and that's all I need it to do! :D

Seriously though, I think it's pretty amazing considering what they are trying to do. I take my hat off to them frankly.

[ExSuSEusr]

Your "rant" casts aspersions on what is hundreds if not thousands of man-hours of work that was given to you freely. You have no reason whatever to rant, complain, or whine about Wine - a compatibility layer that gets better with every release and does a really amazing job considering the hurdles it must overcome.
Have some appreciation for what you've been given, palley, because you aren't owed it.

All those man hours and it still completely sucks. Just because someone puts a lot of effort into something doesn't automatically qualify them for accolades.

Wine has sucked from the start - and it still sucks. It takes a third party ala PlayonLinux to make it work. Doesn't say much about the "thousands of man hours" of a worthless app that does nothing but get users hopes up only to inevitably let them come crashing down.

I hate wine. I would gather that most people who use it hate it. It doesn't work half the time - out of the box - it takes too much work to configure. Then when you get it working - out of the blue for no reason whatsoever it just stops.

Oh I forgot to mention all the side effects of using this crappy application. Like having your window boarders disappear after a wine program crashes.

And, someone mentioned "just use the free alternative..." sorry to burst your bubble but therer are a million programs that people use that are no free alternatives. Rosetta Stone anyone?

What the community needs - is a reliable and quality program that does what wine - after all these years and "thousands of man hours" fails again, and again, and again.

wine is a colosal fail in the world of open source.

[sffvba[e0rt]

Old thread is old and now closed.


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