Wine installed by default

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hoppel
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Wine installed by default

Post by hoppel »

Hi,


how about including Wine into the default installation? It's one thing people need urgently at the beginning when switching from Windows. And I'd like to have Wine-doors also to be included, for two reasons: firstly because I think it would be good for newbies who might know that there is Wine, but doesn't know about Wine-doors (which seems to be a pretty important tool to use Wine efficiently to me). Secondly, because I experienced problems using Wine-doors on my system which I haven't solved yet, and I fear that I have to wait till the next Mint release to get it to run (although I installed it on a friends computer without problems).

I consider this to be a 'small' wish, but it would be easily implemented...
DeuxEx

Re: Wine installed by default

Post by DeuxEx »

Hi there,

I agree, wine should be integrated to mint by default!
Lots of people ask me, when I tell them how nice Linux is, if Linux can run windows software.
My answer as to be yes.... BUT, you have to install a software called wine and configure it and you might wonna install wine doors to, so it will be easier.

Would be cool, if I just could say YES, with Linux Mint you can.


oli
DeuxEx

Re: Wine installed by default

Post by DeuxEx »

I think most Linux distros are very similar. For someone experienced with Linux will be able to customise everything to his needs almost on any distro.
But what I think the Linux community needs, is a distro which is easy to use and makes an easy switch from Windows to Linux. Ubuntu is a very good distro for that matter, but Mint goes much farer, even gnome locks on mint more like windows then on ubuntu.

So why not making this distro even an easer switch for windows users by adding wine.
Experienced user will know how to get rid of wine much faster then people new to Linux world would be able to install wine.

It is also good for mint publicity. Linux that can run Windows software too, out of the box, an some of them even faster then on Windows itself, that gives a lot of attention.

It is only 33mb, so what is the problem? It dosnt makes the system slower, or if it is not in use it dosn t user any more resources. At least not that I heart of.
Oli
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clem
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by clem »

Hi,

Wine is a great app and a great project and I can see why it's popular and why a lot of people would want to use it. Now, having said that, the purpose of Linux Mint is to make the best desktop operating system ever (sorry for the superlatives, and of course it's all relative), not to make it easy for people to switch from Windows to Linux.

Don't get me wrong, if people like Linux Mint and find it easy, if people thanks to that ease of use leave Windows and adopt Linux, then it's great news and I'm obviously happy to contribute to that. But my main focus is not for people to migrate and to ease that migration. You're saying the panel layout and the menu look more similar to Windows than they do in other Gnome desktops. Great, but the reason it does isn't because we want Windows users to feel at home in Linux Mint, it's simply because we think it's better that way (easier access to common tools through the menu, more screen space with a single bar). We don't want to set ourselves apart from Windows like some distros do (by making obvious efforts into looking somewhat as different as possible to any other desktop), but we're not trying to resemble Windows either.

Linux Mint is a desktop designed primarily to please Linux Mint users. If we can help people migrating from Windows then we're happy to do so (network autobrowsing is an example of that for instance), but if we need to compromise the comfort of Mint users by adding or changing things which only appeal to people making the transition we're not working at making a good desktop anymore, we're working at pleasing users which are primarily using something else... why would we go against what we think is an ideal configuration for Mint users to attract another user-base?

A very strong concept in the Main edition is to provide the tools which are necessary for users to enjoy their desktop for everyday tasks. To achieve this we provide one application per task and we are selective as to which tasks are important to all. You can see for instance that we're not including the gnome-games package for the very simple reason that this is something we don't feel is as important as a web browser, a mail reader or any other central part of a desktop operating system. Of course it should be easy to add to the system but it shouldn't be there among other things by default. The ability to run Windows applications on Linux Mint is fantastic and I can see where you're coming from, but so is the ability to remotely login to an X server, to run gameboy games or to launch virtual machines. There's so much you can do with a Linux system, but it's up to you to add these features as we don't feel they're relevant in defining what an ideal desktop should do. Emulating another operating system simply isn't in the scope of what the default install should do.

Now, what we can do is to setup Wine the way people want and to package it so that when you actually install it, it runs out of the box without any configuration. We can add that to our repositories and even to the software portal. We could also look into a way to make a compatibility layer for windows apps (by using Wine in a transparent mode) so you can run them directly without even knowing that Wine is installed by default in Linux Mint. But when it comes to actually have an item in the menus saying "Windows Emulator", no.. definitely no. My first reaction as a user would be "Why is that here? Why would I want that?". Bundling things people don't need/want is IMHO very bad. It's like having a mugshot applet in your panel when you don't even use mugshot or know what it's about, it's like having Java Web Start installed by default (I know.. we need to do something about that :)). Your desktop is your home, it should feel at home. As a Mint user we hope you share our vision and feel at home. You can set up Mint as an alternative desktop to suit the way you're using Windows and are relying on it but it's not designed for this primarily and we'll only ease that process when it doesn't make us reach compromises.

To conclude with this topic I'd like to make a comparison with the OpenOffice.org project. Their word processor application supports the DOC format, when they started out, they were in the same position as Linux desktops are in comparison to Windows (that is, a 2% vs 90% market share situation). Most of their users migrated directly from Microsoft Office and had their entire collection of documents encrypted into DOC. Did OpenOffice.org eased the migration? Yes they did, they supported DOC. Did they compromise as to what their vision of an Office might be? Not at all, since day one they looked into making what they though the best format should be and they stuck to that. If you run OpenOffice.org Writer nowadays you can see how it both supports DOC and ODT, the thing is: It would make sense for 90% of users (still running Windows and a lot of them only recently migrating to OO) to have OpenOffice.org default to the DOC format. It makes sense for OpenOffice.org core users and devs though to follow what they thing is right, irrelevant to the current market and user-base situation and to choose ODT as default.

Sometimes we even go against what our own users think and make a bold decision and stick to it. You probably remember the controversy when we boldly said we preferred stability over security and stubbornly decided to remove the update manager in Celena. Even now in Daryna with mintUpdate which is technically a better solution, a lot of non-Mint users (and users we lost by making that decision, also) strongly disagree with the idea of filtering updates. The concept of missing any security update, to them, is total nonsense. But it's what we think is right, no matter what most people think, so that's what we do.

90% of desktop users run Windows. Soon or later Linux will become popular and the user base for most distributions (especially ones that are easy to use) will be made of far more many newcomers than actual core Linux users. It will make more and more sense over time to include technologies like Wine and please Windows users... but the thing is, it won't make sense to us to change our vision for some pragmatic convenience.

I hope we never do. I can see how similar ideas got into distros like Linspire and recently Linux XP and Pioneer Linux. I'm not judging them and I think it's great that they exist, that people have a choice into an easy transition and for people who simply want this kind of alternative. But it's definitely not my vision and I don't want to ever go in that direction.

I take your point and I'll look into both packaging a preconfigured Wine for ease of use and an eventual invisible wine layer for Windows compatibility by default in Mint (maybe a similar idea to what IBM OS/2 used to do) but as for Wine coming into the default software selection and making its entry into the menu, it is not going to happen.

Clem.
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Deuxex

Re: Wine installed by default

Post by Deuxex »

Hi Clem.,

thank you for your detailed responds.
I like Linux mint, no I even love it :)
If mint will have an easy pagage for wine, pre-configured so that it would be easyier to use and fit to the design of gnome, would be great!

I agree now, nothing should be in the distro by default, which will not be used by most people. A distro should be as light as possible (not like vista ;) ).
I saw the new installer in the blog, and this looks amazing, if people could access cnr, get deb all over the mint installer... I would just say ... WOW...

Just one more thing, could you do the design of the mint installer more like apt-get (but maybe improved, so that it would be more interactive like "software of the day" and comments and stills on every software e.t.c.), because I just like to browse in the software rep. to see whats there, and if I have to browse on 3-4 webpages; mint, ubuntu, get deb, cnr, and have to compare the software I wonna install on every page to see which one is the most recent version would not be the best solution.

But Mint is definitly going in the direction where I wonna follow. :D

Keep up the good work!
Oli
hoppel
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by hoppel »

Hi clem,


I totally agree about your vision of a small distribution, and I didn't want a migration orientated Linux. But, as you pointed out, there is this idea of core applications and I think WINE is one of them. I see no reason why the ability to launch a Windows application would be less important than the ability to open a text document or play a mp3. Of course everyone can disagree on the need of every of those applications - there are many distributions coming without mp3 support although nearly every user has mp3's and wants to hear them - one reason why I stick to Mint :roll:
I don't expect I will succeed convincing you about including WINE, but I disagree about your argumentation. Anyway, that isn't really bad, so continue your great work :-)
jbaerbock
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by jbaerbock »

I could use the same argument on compiz. Personaly it is one of the first things I uninstall since I prefer a more simple smooth desktop. I can uninstall it but sometimes things still stay behind. Same can be said for Wine, lots of people use and like it but why not leave that upto the person using Mint? As previously mentioned you can easily use mintInstall to get wine and wine isnt as hard to configure as it used to be.
hoppel
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by hoppel »

Well, the problem for me isn't WINE - it's WINE-doors. It doesn't work, I don't know how to fix it and I'd like to have it out of the box for that reason.
jbaerbock
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by jbaerbock »

Wine-Doors only installs some things and most of the time does not work for me either, so I'd agree keep it out by default.
hoppel
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by hoppel »

oh, I meant "working out of the box" aka pre-installed by default so that I have nothing to do to get it working.
hoppel
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by hoppel »

Maybe there could be a mintinstall-package of wine-doors... that would help me.

And I totally agree with BlahBlah_X: Wine isn't just a newbie thing. Sure, many people can switch to Linux completely and find a replacement for every software they need. But there will be Windows only software for ever, and since Wine offers a way to get it to work it's an enhancement of everyday life. A dual-boot system or a Windows in Virtualbox is nice but needs time and consumes system resources. With Wine even some games are running (for many people the only reason to keep Windows).

Sometimes I think it's getting kinda religous ("And Mint still isn't polluted with a windows registry, dlls, .exes executing"). I mean, getting more apps from a different operating system is an enrichment, nothing more or less. Maybe it would be easier to accept for some people if it weren't a Windows but instead an Apple Emulator...
It reminds me of the good old days when I still used my Amiga and I knew my enemies (mainly Atari). There is no rational point in it but it makes discussions in the Linux community difficult - never mention the forbidden W-word... My idea of a good os is one that copies every nice function of other os's and adds its own ideas to it. And even Windows has nice goodies. Although I'd rather like to see some Amiga concepts copied :-D
hoppel
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by hoppel »

I doubt that vulnerabilities of Windows system code can harm a Linux system while running Wine - because there's no Windows installed. I think your argument is weak. And of course it's religious ;-)
But never mind, it's not that important for me, it was just an idea.
Fred

Re: Wine installed by default

Post by Fred »

Well, I can see how some people want Wine by default, but there are far more Linux users that don't use Wine than do.

There is a big difference between Wine and a codec. Wine is a full operating environment. It does have Windows security implications, occupies valuable space, and consumes cpu cycles. If you want a Wine environment on your computer that's fine. I just don't want it on mine.

For those that want Wine I have two suggestions:

1) Learn to install and use it. After a little study, it isn't really that hard.

2) Purchase CodeWeavers "CrossOver Linux" and install it. Nothing to do but click a few buttons with a mouse.

Enjoy life, :-)

Fred

EDIT: Discloser: I am not a Windows user. I have not used Windows for many years, except for projects for friends from time to time.
hoppel
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by hoppel »

It's completely ok for me, that there are people who want a Windows free system - I belong to them myself but I need WINE for it... and I think that there es a misunderstanding: This thread isn't all about WINE, it's more about WINE-doors. But maybe my problems occur because that program is just buggy. So I have to wait for a better version.
kayakaholic

Re: Wine installed by default

Post by kayakaholic »

Erm isnt wine supposed to be included by default with Ubuntu Hoary? Will that mean that it will be included in Elyssa anyway? Or will the developers remove it?
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clem
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Re: Wine installed by default

Post by clem »

Hi,

I didn't see any plans from Ubuntu to include it in Hardy. If that is the case their implementation will get reviewed and a decision will be made as whether we want to add it as well, or not. With every release of Ubuntu we look at their innovations and their new additions, we review them and we eventually add some of them to Mint.

The ideal solution for me would be if wine could act as a series of libs, a bit like Mono or QT. You install some Windows application, directly from the repo.. (I'm talking about freeware here of course) it's packaged as a deb, it depends on the wine-lib packages which get installed as well. No Wine entries in your menu, no config, nothing at all. Just the working result. You remove the application and its dependencies and everything is gone. Now if we could get that to work, that would be cool.

If you look at Picasa for instance, it comes packaged as a deb. The only problem is that it's staticly bundled with wine. If we had the same schema in a dynamic kind of way we'd make everyone happy.

Now having said that, that's food for thought for the Wine devs and for the devs of these Windows apps. I have no intention in spending too much time on this as I can't even think of any non-Linux application I actually miss under Linux (hmm.. ok, maybe there's Civilization and a few other games but they're not free...).

I can see the need for people making the move but honestly, the main reason I think people want to run windows software under Linux is simply because they're used to them and not comfortable enough with Linux yet.. it's only a matter of time before they make the move to better alternatives.. it's quite an opiniated statement I guess :)

Windows devs can't be bothered to port or at least package their app for Linux, and Linux devs can't be bothered to port or at least package windows apps for Linux. It's a fact the same way the editor has no interest in seeing the software run under Linux, most Linux users have no interest in running something that's not designed to integrate well with their environment.

I can see how this could be solved but I honestly don't see it happening. I mean who's going to put the efforts into this? Most people don't even like to run KDE apps under Gnome, no wonder Wine isn't that popular.

I will think about it though and I promised that if I could ease the process somehow without harming the Linux user's experience, I would make a little contribution to improving this under Mint.

Clem.
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