642 lines
18 KiB
HTML
642 lines
18 KiB
HTML
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Emulation and Virtual Machines</TITLE
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><META
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK
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REL="HOME"
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TITLE="The Linux Gamers' HOWTO"
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HREF="index.html"><LINK
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REL="PREVIOUS"
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TITLE="Miscellaneous Problems"
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HREF="x762.html"><LINK
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REL="NEXT"
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TITLE="Interpreters"
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HREF="interpreters.html"></HEAD
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><BODY
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CLASS="SECT1"
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CLASS="NAVHEADER"
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><TR
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><TH
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COLSPAN="3"
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ALIGN="center"
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>The Linux Gamers' HOWTO</TH
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="10%"
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VALIGN="bottom"
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><A
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HREF="x762.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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WIDTH="80%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="bottom"
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WIDTH="10%"
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HREF="interpreters.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="100%"></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT1"
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><H1
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CLASS="SECT1"
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><A
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NAME="AEN809"
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></A
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>10. Emulation and Virtual Machines</H1
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><P
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>Linux gets ragged on a lot because we don't have the wealth of games that other platforms
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have. Frankly, there's enough games for me, although it would be really nice to have some of the
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bleeding edge games and classics like Half-life and Carmageddon. Fortunately, we have more
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emulators than you can shake a stick at. Although playing an emulated game is sometimes not quite
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as fun as playing it on the native machine, and getting some of the emulators to work well can be
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a difficult task, they're here, and there's alot of them!</P
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><H2
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN812"
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></A
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>10.1. What is a virtual machine?</H2
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><P
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><A
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NAME="VM"
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></A
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>A "real computer" provides an operating system many things, including a
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CPU, I/O channels, memory, a BIOS to provide low level access to motherboard and I/O
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resources, etc. When an operating system wants to write to a hard drive, it communicates
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through a device driver that interfaces directly with the hardware device memory.</P
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><P
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>However, it's possible to give a program all the hardware resources it needs. When it
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wants to access a hard drive, give it some memory to write to. When it wants to set an IRQ,
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give it some bogus instructions that lets it think it set an IRQ. If you do this correctly,
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then in principle, there's no way for the poor application to know whether it's really
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accessing hardware or tricked by being given resources which simulate hardware. A virtual
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machine is the environment which tricks applications into believing they're running on a real
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computer. It provides all the services that a real computer would provide.</P
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><P
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>VM's were used initially in the 1960's to emulate time shared operating systems, but
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these days we use them to run software which was written for foreign operating systems, or
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more commonly, an entire operating system. Because of the nature of the VM, the foreign OS
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can't tell the difference between operating in a VM or in a "real" machine.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><H2
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN818"
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></A
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>10.2. Apple 8-bit</H2
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><P
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>All the 8-bit Apple ][ emulators require a copy of the original ROM, for whichever
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system you want to emulate, in a file. If you search hard enough, you can find file copies of
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the ROMs for the Apple ][, ][+, ][e, ][c and //gs. They are still copyrighted by Apple, and
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you can only use them legally if you actually own one of these computers.</P
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><H3
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><A
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NAME="AEN821"
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></A
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>10.2.1. KEGS</H3
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><P
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>KEGS is an Apple II emulator written by Kent Dickey <TT
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CLASS="EMAIL"
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><<A
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HREF="mailto:kentd(at)cup(dot)hp(dot)com"
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>kentd(at)cup(dot)hp(dot)com</A
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>></TT
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>
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which was originally written for HP-UX, but improved and customized for Linux. It runs
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under X at any color depth, and supports changeable memory sizes, joysticks, and sound.
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KEGS boots all Apple II variants, and supports all of the Apple ]['s graphics modes. I
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can't find a working homepage for this application.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><H3
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><A
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NAME="AEN825"
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></A
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>10.2.2. apple2 and xapple2</H3
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><P
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>The SVGAlib based <TT
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CLASS="FILENAME"
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>apple2</TT
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> and X based <TT
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CLASS="FILENAME"
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>xapple2</TT
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>
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can emulate any Apple ][ variant except for the //gs. The interface is a bit funky, but
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usable. Configuration is also a bit funky; this emulator would benefit from an SVGA or X
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based configuration tool. It supports the undocumented portion of the 6502 instruction set
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which some games rely on. <TT
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CLASS="FILENAME"
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>apple2</TT
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> is currently being maintained by
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Michael Deutschmann <TT
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CLASS="EMAIL"
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><<A
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HREF="mailto:michael(at)talamasca(dot)ocis(dot)net"
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>michael(at)talamasca(dot)ocis(dot)net</A
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>></TT
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> and seems to be
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developed at a slow but constant pace. I don't think this application has a
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homepage.</P
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></DIV
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><H2
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN832"
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></A
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>10.3. DOS</H2
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><H3
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><A
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NAME="DOSEMU"
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></A
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>10.3.1. <SPAN
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CLASS="APPLICATION"
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>dosemu</SPAN
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></H3
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><P
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>dosemu <<A
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HREF="http://www.dosemu.org"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.dosemu.org</A
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>> is the canonical DOS
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emulator on Linux. When you think of DOS, don't think of things like PROCOM PLUS OR OTHER
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PROGRA~1 WHICH HAVE SHORT NAMES AND ARE IN ALL CAPS. There are some real classics that were
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written for DOS like Carmageddon, Redneck Rampage and Tomb Raider. dosemu can run these.
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Unfortunately, it can take alot of effort to get dosemu to work, and of Jan 2002, the sound
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code is somewhat broken. Not a big deal when you're trying to run Wordperfect or an old
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database application. It's an absolute show stopper for gaming. Getting dosemu to work
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well is not easy, but unfortunately, for DOS games it's the best avenue. Good luck. If you
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have success using dosemu, I would like to hear from you. </P
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></DIV
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><H2
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><A
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NAME="AEN839"
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></A
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>10.4. Win16</H2
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><H3
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><A
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NAME="AEN841"
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></A
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>10.4.1. Wabi</H3
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><P
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><SPAN
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CLASS="APPLICATION"
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>Wabi</SPAN
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> is a commercial Win16 emulator. That is, it'll run
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Windows 16-bit applications from a Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 or Windows for Workgroups
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3.11 environment. <SPAN
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CLASS="APPLICATION"
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>Wabi</SPAN
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> was originally created by SCO Unix a
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long time ago and then was purchased by Caldera sometime in mid year 2001.</P
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><P
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>Wabi is fast and does a good job for what it does, although I've heard it said that
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wabi for Solaris is more stable than Linux. It might be useful for playing older Win16
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games, but there are three problems:</P
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><P
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></P
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><UL
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><LI
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><P
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>You must have a licensed copy of Windows 3.1/3.11 or WfW
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3.11.</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>Wabi is awfully expensive for what it does.</P
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></LI
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><LI
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><P
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>Wabi doesn't work under 32bpp or 24bpp color.</P
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></LI
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></UL
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><P
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>Wabi does NOT do DOS itself, but it looks like it can use a DOS emulator as a
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backend for running DOS programs. There was talk about Wabi 3.0 which would've done
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Win32 emulation, but AFAIK, this project was shelved indefinitely. I think Wabi will run
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under Linux on all architectures (can someone verify this?)</P
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></DIV
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><H2
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CLASS="SECT2"
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><A
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NAME="WIN32"
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></A
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>10.5. Win32</H2
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><H3
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><A
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NAME="WINE"
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></A
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>10.5.1. <SPAN
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CLASS="APPLICATION"
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>wine</SPAN
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></H3
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><P
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>Wine <<A
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HREF="http://www.winehq.com"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.winehq.com</A
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>>, which bears the GNUish
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acronym "Wine Is Not An Emulator" is a non-commercial implementation of the Win32 API.
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The reason why it's not an emulator is subtle and not of much interest to most non
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computer scientists, so we'll call it an emulator here (it really does run-time
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translation of calls to the Win32 API to POSIX/X11 calls). Wine has come a long way, and
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is capable of emulating many important programs, which is great news for Linux users who
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want this sort of stuff.</P
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><P
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>Wine does <TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>not</TT
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> provide the DOS API, so you can't use it
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to run DOS applications. For that, you should look at dosemu (<A
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HREF="x809.html#DOSEMU"
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>Section 10.3.1</A
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>).
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Wine has never been too good at implementing DirectX, although a number of games are known
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to work under wine. For gaming you might want to look at winex (<A
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HREF="x809.html#WINEX"
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>Section 10.5.3</A
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>).</P
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><P
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>In addition to run-time translation of the Win32 API to POSIX/X11 (it runs Windows
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applications on Linux), wine also does compile-time tranlation of the Win32 API to
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POSIX/X11 (it compiles Windows application source code on Linux). In this sense, wine is
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a Windows-to-Linux porting utility. The x86 architecture isn't required, but is
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recommended since it allows actual x86 binary execution as well as direct DLL
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usage).</P
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><P
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>You can use wine `with Windows', which means that wine uses libraries that actually
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come with Microsoft Windows itself. This is legal only if you own a copy of Windows which
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isn't currently being used on a computer. It's said that wine has the best success when
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run with Windows. You can also run wine without Windows. The people at <A
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HREF="http://www.winehq.com"
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TARGET="_top"
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>winehq</A
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> are writing their own set of libraries called
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<TT
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CLASS="LITERAL"
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>libwine</TT
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> which implements the Win32 API with no Microsoft code at
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all.</P
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><P
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><A
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NAME="WINELICENSE"
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></A
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>Wine was originally licenced under the MIT/X11 license, so
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it could be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. In mid 2002, parts of
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wine were re-licensed under the LGPL so that it could only be used for non-commercial
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puposes. This presents a problem for companies like Transgaming (<A
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HREF="x809.html#WINEX"
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>Section 10.5.3</A
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>)
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and prompted a fork of wine called ReWind (<A
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HREF="x809.html#REWIND"
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>Section 10.5.2</A
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>).</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><H3
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><A
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NAME="REWIND"
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></A
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>10.5.2. <SPAN
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CLASS="APPLICATION"
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>rewind</SPAN
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></H3
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><P
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>Rewind <<A
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HREF="http://rewind.sourceforge.net/"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://rewind.sourceforge.net/</A
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>> was started by
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Eric Pouech (a wine developer) and Ove K<>ven (a winex developer) in response to <A
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HREF="x809.html#WINELICENSE"
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>wine's license change</A
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>). It started out life as a snapshot of
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the last version of wine which was completely licensed under the MIT/X11 license. The aim
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is to keep rewind MIT/X11 based so that companies like Transgaming can offer wine based
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products.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><H3
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CLASS="SECT3"
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><A
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NAME="WINEX"
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></A
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>10.5.3. <SPAN
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CLASS="APPLICATION"
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>winex</SPAN
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></H3
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><P
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>Winex is released by a company called Transgaming <<A
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HREF="http://www.transgaming.com"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.transgaming.com</A
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>>. The developers take wine (see <A
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HREF="x809.html#WINE"
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>Section 10.5.1</A
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>) and add DirectX / DirectDraw support. Although winex is commercial, they
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have an interesting business model.</P
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><P
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>The end user (you) can download the source code for free. However, for 5 US dollars
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per month, you can become a subscriber of Transgaming. Being a subscriber of Transgaming
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gives three major benefits:</P
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><P
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></P
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><UL
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><LI
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><P
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>Subscribers can download convenient packaged versions of winex in deb, rpm
|
|||
|
or tar.gz format whenever they want, including updates. They have also more functionality
|
|||
|
than the publicly available tarball: the latter is an older version which lacks some of
|
|||
|
the newest features, like support for copy protected programs.</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
><LI
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>There are monthly polls where subscribed users can take votes on what they
|
|||
|
want winex developers to work on. For instance, they can vote for things like "Improve
|
|||
|
support for copy protected programs", "Better Installshield support" or "Improve DirectX
|
|||
|
8.0 support". As far as I can see, the developers really do listen to the subscriber
|
|||
|
polls.</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
><LI
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>The Transgaming website has a few user support forums. On one hand, they
|
|||
|
use the most godawful, horrible, confusing, wasteful, moronic format I've ever seen and I
|
|||
|
hope to god I never see a forum with a format as bad as Transgaming's. On the other hand,
|
|||
|
you can ask for help and the developers are VERY good about getting around to your answer;
|
|||
|
their vigilance is quite impressive. Non-subscribers can browse the forums, but only
|
|||
|
subscribers can post (and therefore, ask for support).</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
></UL
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>The developers of winex were going to release their Installshield, DirectX and
|
|||
|
DirectDraw enhancements to wine "every so often". In return, as wine maturation improved,
|
|||
|
the winex developers were going to take the new versions of wine and use them for winex.
|
|||
|
However, since the birth of Transgaming, parts of wine have been re-licensed under the
|
|||
|
more restrictive GNU LGPL license (<A
|
|||
|
HREF="x809.html#WINE"
|
|||
|
>Section 10.5.1</A
|
|||
|
>). This basically means that
|
|||
|
versions of wine that are released past the date of the re-licensing can no longer be used
|
|||
|
by winex. Therefore, winex will now be based on rewind (<A
|
|||
|
HREF="x809.html#REWIND"
|
|||
|
>Section 10.5.2</A
|
|||
|
>).</P
|
|||
|
></DIV
|
|||
|
><DIV
|
|||
|
CLASS="SECT3"
|
|||
|
><H3
|
|||
|
CLASS="SECT3"
|
|||
|
><A
|
|||
|
NAME="WIN4LIN"
|
|||
|
></A
|
|||
|
>10.5.4. Win4Lin</H3
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>Win4Lin <<A
|
|||
|
HREF="http://www.netraverse.com"
|
|||
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|||
|
>http://www.netraverse.com</A
|
|||
|
>> is a commercial
|
|||
|
product by Netraverse. Like vmware (<A
|
|||
|
HREF="x809.html#VMWARE"
|
|||
|
>Section 10.5.5</A
|
|||
|
>) it uses the virtual machine
|
|||
|
approach to running Windows applications, so you'll get a big window from which you can
|
|||
|
boot Windows and run all kinds of Windows applications. Unlike vmware, Win4Lin only does
|
|||
|
Windows 95/98/ME, but this turns out to be better for gamers. Because Win4Lin
|
|||
|
concentrates on these operating systems, reports say that it's faster and does a better
|
|||
|
job at running games under these operating system than vmware. It's also much cheaper
|
|||
|
than vmware. The most recent version of Win4Lin as of June 2003 is 5.0. It suffers
|
|||
|
nevertheless from some limitations:</P
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
></P
|
|||
|
><UL
|
|||
|
><LI
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>It does not support DirectX or DirectDraw, while vmware has "limited"
|
|||
|
support for DirectX.</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
><LI
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>It only supports serial and parallel devices. This is important for
|
|||
|
people who use USB joysticks. Note that vmware supports up to 2 USB devices.</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
><LI
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>As of June 2003, expect to pay $89.99 without printed docs and $99.99 with
|
|||
|
printed docs. In addition, there isn't an evaluation copy available, although you get a
|
|||
|
30 day money back guarantee. However, since it's commercial you do get tech support.
|
|||
|
vmware is considerably more expensive.</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
><LI
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>Like vmware, you're required to have a licensed copy of Win95 or Win98.
|
|||
|
Win4Lin cannot use an existing Windows installation the way wine can.</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
><LI
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>It only runs on x86 architectures.</P
|
|||
|
></LI
|
|||
|
></UL
|
|||
|
></DIV
|
|||
|
><DIV
|
|||
|
CLASS="SECT3"
|
|||
|
><H3
|
|||
|
CLASS="SECT3"
|
|||
|
><A
|
|||
|
NAME="VMWARE"
|
|||
|
></A
|
|||
|
>10.5.5. VMWare</H3
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
><A
|
|||
|
HREF="http://www.vmware.com"
|
|||
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|||
|
><SPAN
|
|||
|
CLASS="APPLICATION"
|
|||
|
>VMWare</SPAN
|
|||
|
></A
|
|||
|
> is a
|
|||
|
virtual machine that runs multiple operating systems simultaneously on a standard PC:
|
|||
|
supported OSes include Microsoft ones, Linux, Novell Netware and FreeBSD. You can among
|
|||
|
others use it to run a MS Windows OS and launch your favourite game there. You can even
|
|||
|
run another Linux under Linux; useful is you want to test another distro for instance.
|
|||
|
Amazing! Now for the bad sides. You should definitely have a good configuration in order
|
|||
|
to run it; they claim the minimum is a 500MHz x86 CPU with 128MB RAM, but a faster
|
|||
|
processor and at least 256MB RAM seem to be the bare minimum if you want reasonable
|
|||
|
performance. Not all Linux distributions are supported: newest RedHat's, Mandrake's and
|
|||
|
Suse's are, but you're out of luck if you have an other version and/or distribution (like
|
|||
|
Debian). Moreover, <SPAN
|
|||
|
CLASS="APPLICATION"
|
|||
|
>vmware</SPAN
|
|||
|
> has only limited support for DirectX,
|
|||
|
and you might not be able to play recent games.</P
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>See <A
|
|||
|
HREF="http://www.vmware.com"
|
|||
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|||
|
>http://www.vmware.com</A
|
|||
|
> for more information. It's not very
|
|||
|
cheap (about 300$ for the Workstation version), but you can get a 30 day evaluation
|
|||
|
copy.</P
|
|||
|
></DIV
|
|||
|
><DIV
|
|||
|
CLASS="SECT3"
|
|||
|
><H3
|
|||
|
CLASS="SECT3"
|
|||
|
><A
|
|||
|
NAME="AEN921"
|
|||
|
></A
|
|||
|
>10.5.6. What should I choose?</H3
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>First of all, you should try an emulator. Although some games may work with <A
|
|||
|
HREF="x809.html#WINE"
|
|||
|
>wine</A
|
|||
|
>, you'll probably get the most success with <A
|
|||
|
HREF="x809.html#WINEX"
|
|||
|
>winex</A
|
|||
|
>: its DirectX support is constantly improving. As of version
|
|||
|
3.1, the DirectX 8 support is nearly complete, but this may not be the case with older
|
|||
|
DirectX versions (are consequently older games).</P
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>You might also try a virtual machine like <A
|
|||
|
HREF="x809.html#WIN4LIN"
|
|||
|
>Win4Lin</A
|
|||
|
> or
|
|||
|
<A
|
|||
|
HREF="x809.html#VMWARE"
|
|||
|
>VMWare</A
|
|||
|
> instead of an emulator. If your goal is to run
|
|||
|
Win95/98/ME applications on Linux, without USB and on the x86 architecture, Win4Lin's cost
|
|||
|
and focus on Win95 type OS's make it a better choice than vmware. However, if you must
|
|||
|
have USB support or run Linux on a platform other than x86, vmware is your only
|
|||
|
option.</P
|
|||
|
><P
|
|||
|
>Now if your goal is to run Win95 type OS games under Linux, Win4Lin almost seems
|
|||
|
better than vmware. The show-stopper is the fact that vmware has limited DirectX support
|
|||
|
while Win4Lin has none. This fact alone makes both Win4Lin and vmware unsuitable for most
|
|||
|
hardcore gaming purposes. But if you're going to give it a try, you're more likely to
|
|||
|
have success with vmware.</P
|
|||
|
></DIV
|
|||
|
></DIV
|
|||
|
></DIV
|
|||
|
><DIV
|
|||
|
CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
|
|||
|
><HR
|
|||
|
ALIGN="LEFT"
|
|||
|
WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
|
|||
|
SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
|
|||
|
WIDTH="100%"
|
|||
|
BORDER="0"
|
|||
|
CELLPADDING="0"
|
|||
|
CELLSPACING="0"
|
|||
|
><TR
|
|||
|
><TD
|
|||
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
|||
|
ALIGN="left"
|
|||
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|||
|
><A
|
|||
|
HREF="x762.html"
|
|||
|
ACCESSKEY="P"
|
|||
|
>Prev</A
|
|||
|
></TD
|
|||
|
><TD
|
|||
|
WIDTH="34%"
|
|||
|
ALIGN="center"
|
|||
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|||
|
><A
|
|||
|
HREF="index.html"
|
|||
|
ACCESSKEY="H"
|
|||
|
>Home</A
|
|||
|
></TD
|
|||
|
><TD
|
|||
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
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|
ALIGN="right"
|
|||
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|||
|
><A
|
|||
|
HREF="interpreters.html"
|
|||
|
ACCESSKEY="N"
|
|||
|
>Next</A
|
|||
|
></TD
|
|||
|
></TR
|
|||
|
><TR
|
|||
|
><TD
|
|||
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
|||
|
ALIGN="left"
|
|||
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|||
|
>Miscellaneous Problems</TD
|
|||
|
><TD
|
|||
|
WIDTH="34%"
|
|||
|
ALIGN="center"
|
|||
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|||
|
> </TD
|
|||
|
><TD
|
|||
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
|||
|
ALIGN="right"
|
|||
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|||
|
>Interpreters</TD
|
|||
|
></TR
|
|||
|
></TABLE
|
|||
|
></DIV
|
|||
|
></BODY
|
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|
></HTML
|
|||
|
>
|