On Sat, 2002-06-01 at 15:10, "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 1 Jun 2002, at 14:25, Bill and/or Chris wrote: > > > Win4Lin supports any Windows application, because you are actually > > running Windows in a virtual console, kind of like SoftWindows for the > > Mac. However, I have heard (this may be out of date) that Win4Lin > > doesn't support DirectX. > > Anything in your version of Windows that depends on direct hardware > access of any kind will not work when running under Linux, unless the > emulator has trapped for all those calls and knows how it should handle > them. Not even all of MS Office works in these environments (Access > doesn't work, for instance). >
The same could be said about Windows NT/2K/XP. None of them allow direct hardware access, either. Yet Finale works fine on those operating systems. > > I have been able to get Finale running using Wine, though. The only > > thing is that the correct fonts don't display. > > There are plenty of programs that do not run successfully on the Windows > emulators (using the term loosely), and anything that depends on real- > time data (such as MIDI support in Finale) will likely never run very > well with that many extra layers involved. > Having not even gotten to that point, I'm not concerned with the MIDI capabilities of Finale under Wine. I can always just save as a MIDI file, then play the file with KMidi, if need be. > > What I would like to see is a port of Finale over to Linux/BSD. The > > port shouldn't be too hard, as the source code is open. As soon as Coda > > ports Finale to Linux, I will once again start buying the upgrades. > > Maybe they could write a command-line utility that would be compatible > > with MacOSX, Linux and BSD, kind of like what Lilypond and Mup have > > done. Then, they could either write the GUI wrapper themselves, or > > leave it to the open source community to write. > > I don't think a Linux port of Finale is likely, unless Coda is careful > when they port for OS X to plan ahead for porting to plain-vanilla > Darwin, which would then make it easier to port to another UNIX, such as > Linux. But the big problem here is that the core OS itself has not all > that much to do with most of the problems Coda faces in creating Finale, > which is mostly all about user interface. Code would need to re-write in > a fashion that would work with multiple window managers, Aqua in the case > of OS X, who-knows-what in the case of an Intel port of Darwin, and one > of KDE or Gnome for Linux. Each of those is almost as much of a challenge > as creating a version for Windows and Mac that maintains feature parity > and interface consistency. You're basically assuming that Code would take > on the expense of supporting 2 or 3 additional platforms in addition to > the two they struggle so mightily (and incredibly successfully, I might > add) to support right now. > That's why I suggested a command-line program like Lilypond or Mup. No porting problems there, just recompile on a different machine. > > It would be awfully nice if Coda could create a Linux version, but I just > don't think they are big enough. There's also the whole Open Source issue > to consider, as they would be straitjacketed into making Finale Open > Source if they used any Open Source components in building LinFin (and > it's almost impossible to not do so, as it would mean completely re- > inventing the wheel for almost everything). > Hogwash. That is pure MS FUD. There are plenty of closed-source applications for Linux. Three of them being Opera, Netscape and StarOffice. > I'm sure Coda in principle would love to port to Linux, but as a business > proposition, I doubt it will happen until Linux has a substantially > larger market share on the desktop, and especially among those in the > music business. Linux is certainly taking over high-end video and digital > effects these days, but that's a long way from a consumer product. > Well, since Hollywood is using Linux now, can the music industry be too far behind? --Bill _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
