On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, John Summerfield wrote:
>On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, Richard Troth wrote:
>
>> What WINE does is intercept the Windows system calls.
>> (gross simplification) WINE runs on any x86 Unix because they
>> share the same instruction set. The Windows programs execute
>> whatever x86 code they contain, but when a system call is made
>> it traps to WINE and is handled with Unix resouces.
>>
>> WINE does not run on just any Linux because the
>> instruction set must be x86. Gotta be Linux on a PC.
>
>I wonder whether that is actually true. I have a Windows NT 4 CD here
>someplace, and as I recall it supports two architectures.
>
>I don't recall whether the other is Alpha or Sparc or something else.
>According to the book, it supports MIPS 4X00, Alpha, PowerPC.
On Intel you have the option using the Windows binaries that are
trapped into native Linux calls. On anything but Intel you must
compile your Windows sources for your target system and use the Wine
libaries that are also compiled for the same target platform.
>
>Wine itself might port quite easily. Actually getting the proprietary
>applications to run might be more challenging.
>
Wine can certainly be ported :-) However, you will only be able to run
the Windows applications you have the source for and can compile
for Linux on zSeries (see above).
>>
>> WINE also does not cover all of the Windows system.
>> There are a lot of Windows programs that won't work
>> because they can't find what they need because the WINE growers
>> haven't been able to reverse engineer that part of Windows yet.
>> I thinkthe problem is a lot tougher even than SAMBA w/r/t rev eng.
>
>That's logical: Samba only implements a small part of the total Winows
>API, and that part has some commonality with OS/2.
Ingo
--
Ingo Adlung
Linux for zSeries - Architecture & Design
mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - phone: +49-7031-16-4263
|---------+---------------------------->
| | |
|---------+---------------------------->
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
|
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, Richard Troth wrote:
> What WINE does is intercept the Windows system calls.
> (gross simplification) WINE runs on any x86 Unix because they
> share the same instruction set. The Windows programs execute
> whatever x86 code they contain, but when a system call is made
> it traps to WINE and is handled with Unix resouces.
>
> WINE does not run on just any Linux because the
> instruction set must be x86. Gotta be Linux on a PC.
I wonder whether that is actually true. I have a Windows NT 4 CD here
someplace, and as I recall it supports two architectures.
I don't recall whether the other is Alpha or Sparc or something else.
According to the book, it supports MIPS 4X00, Alpha, PowerPC.
Wine itself might port quite easily. Actually getting the proprietary
applications to run might be more challenging.
>
> WINE also does not cover all of the Windows system.
> There are a lot of Windows programs that won't work
> because they can't find what they need because the WINE growers
> haven't been able to reverse engineer that part of Windows yet.
> I thinkthe problem is a lot tougher even than SAMBA w/r/t rev eng.
That's logical: Samba only implements a small part of the total Winows
API, and that part has some commonality with OS/2.
--
Cheers
John.
Join the "Linux Support by Small Businesses" list at
http://mail.computerdatasafe.com.au/mailman/listinfo/lssb
