Wine, the project that lets Linux users run Windows apps within Linux, has released a major update that fixes a number of bugs and includes 64-bit support.

Wine 1.2 includes a new set of icons, a number of fixes for video rendering improving Windows gaming and better font anti-aliasing and handling of desktop link files.

Wine has always been a controversial app in the Linux community with purists claiming Wine is exactly what Linux doesnt need a Windows crutch that just undermines claims that Linux can do anything Windows can do. Rather than relying on Wine, the argument goes, Linux users should concentrate on improving the Linux apps that cover the same territory.

While theres some merit to that argument, there are also some Windows apps that simply dont have any Linux equivalent. If you need such an app, Wine might be able to spare you the pain of dual booting, but its getting increasingly difficult to find Windows apps that lack a Linux counterpart.

In one of my past articles I made a bold assessment that it appeared Transgaming might be dropping support for their Cedega Wine software. However it now appears that Cedega might be hanging in there - After more than a year of silence there was finally an update posted in Cedega's "Den" (announcements section). The post promises the certification of two games, Torchlight and Defense Grid: The Awakening, that happen to work well under their "recently" released 7.3.3 engine (The latter of the two pleases me greatly, I had purchased DG on Steam over the holidays and it does not function properly under Wine/CXGames as of yet). Also provided is a very vague "Development Update" that promises better OpenGL performance and mentions that at some point in the near future we should see a more detailed development plan - Alas two weeks later and still nothing.

This is the 360 issue of the World Wine News publication. Its main goal is to introduce Wineconf 2009! It also serves to inform you of whats going on around Wine. Wine is an open source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix. Think of it as a Windows compatibility layer. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely alternative implementation consisting of 100% Microsoft-free code, but it can optionally use native system DLLs if they are available. You can find more info at www.winehq.org

This week, 75 posts consumed 91 K. There were 33 different contributors. 18 (54%) posted more than once. 22 (66%) posted last week too.

Registry tools

So for wine-doors 0.2 I need to have the ability to create registry patches between two bottles. The reason for this is our bottles architecture is unique in that it allows you to merge dependencies into the bottles by means of symbolic linking and registry patching. So for instance if I have two bottles, one of which is a bottle which depends on the first then the files from the first will be symbolically linked into the second, then the registry patches will be applied and voila, one bottle does not (in theory, and its mostly down to implementation) have the ability to break out of its bottle and into the wine system at large.

If you use Solaris or Solaris Express, you may want to also use Wine to install Windows programs. There are few ways, but I will write about my favorite - one that uses SFE repository, which enables you to use other fantastic open source programs not packaged for Solaris yet.

First things first. You need Sun Studio IDE. SFE is a repository of rpm-like .spec files with few other arguments needed in Solaris environment. For building packages you'll need pkgbuild tool, Java Deskopt System Common Build Environment (you don't need source, only binaries). JDS-CBE requires/recommends a few packages available at Solaris DVD but not typically installed. The list is given at above link. Both JDS-CBE and SFE repository recommend using Sun Studio 11 with latest patches. Remember, patches are important, they fix bugs but also enable Sun Studio to use some of GCC extensions. I personally have compiled wine and it's prerequisits with Sun Studio Express, the development version of Sun Studio and I suppose you could use Sun Studio 12.
While you are downloading said software, you need to take away from your compilation user "Primary Administrator" role and give it "Software Installation" role. If you don't know what I mean, simply issue the following (as a root or as Primary Administrator) and some day take your time to read about RBAC: