Wine: Your Experiences

[ninjatux]

I hadn't use Wine in years. I really did like the Codeweavers products, but unfortunately they only released an unsupported build of Crossover Games for PC-BSD/FreeBSD. Looking at the AppDB, I decided to give Wine another shot. I had already replaced OpenOffice with Microsoft Office Mac 2008 on my MacBook Pro (don't ask-I needed to). For the same reason, I needed Microsoft Office 2007 (don't ask-I needed to). So, I installed Wine and then installed Office 2007. Everything went fine. Word and Excel ran very well, but Powerpoint required an override, which was no hassle. I also installed Adobe Photoshop CS, which runs well. I would've gone for a newer version, but it's the latest legitimate version of Photoshop I have for Windows. I have CS4 Master for Mac.

In my experience, Wine has matured quite a lot since the alpha and beta days. I remember Wine being a nightmare to use, but these days, it's become quite seamless. So, I'm very happy that I was able to change my workflow to accomodate my needs because using Windows does not make me happy. I've included some screenshots of me running some apps through Wine via X11 forwarding on my Mac (long story).

What's everyone else's experiences with Wine?

[vermaden]

Generally works very good, I run Opera + Flash 10 @ WINE without any problems.

Also Fallouts and other older games run great.

[Oliver_H]

It's pita, it lacks a stable development and if you are in need of some applications for prof. work then you're really lost. That's my experience since early versions. Maybe it's okay for 'desktop-games' at home, but thanks God we do have virtualization nowadays. That said, maybe you're able to run some games 'today' but you don't have any guarantee that you can run those 'tomorrow' in a new version of wine. One can easily compare this style of development with that of the Linux kernel. And remember this is not just a simple rant but a fact and major point of criticism since years. But your mileage may vary and maybe it sucks less for some low profile work/game.

[robbak]

It is going to take a long time for that opinion of Wine to die. It isn't true, and hasn't been for some time now.
Regressions are rare, as there are too many developers using the popular applications on wine, will only ever happen if you update, and the solution is a quick backgrade (or, preferably, a few days sending emails, negotiating with developers getting the regression fixed, if you have time).
Or you could stick with the stable releases. Wine 1.0.1 is out, but the speed of development in wine means that the development version is much more capable - but if stable works, then it will always work.

[Oliver_H]

>It isn't true, and hasn't been for some time now.

Maybe we have just a different view of quality. Therefore I'm using *BSD instead of Linux and yes, if I have time - and sometimes I have a lot - I'm reporting problems and help testing.

[xmorg]

Wine runs very well in my opinion. I mostly play games with it, but I have installed a few graphics apps. For me its hard to get .net apps working. Mono works for .net sometimes but not all the time.

[Ninguem]

I find that a good Cabernet Sauvignon makes a wonderful complement to a light dinner or conversation.

For cooking, I prefer Madeira from the Madeira Islands, a good tawny port, and the occasional sherry.


If you're looking for an affordable beverage that would compliment a Big Mac or Whopper, I suggest MadDog 20/20. Nothing but the best for my friends.

[phoenix]

Following up on that, I find a very large glass of very cheap wine really helps when trying to figure out why some apps just won't run under wine. Although, more expensive rye/whiskey/scotch also helps to smooth over the rougher edges.

[Ninguem]

!!


As far as the application goes, I find that it is memory and CPU intensive on Debian. I have not run it on FreeBSD as of yet. You would probably be better off running XP or what-have-you in Qemu- personal preferences, use whatever you want- and running the said needed application there.

By the way, http://packages.debian.org/unstable/main/brewtarget . Looks like the concept of "free as in beer" is slowly becoming a reality.

FreeB(eer)S(,)D(uh!)

!!

[WClark2]

Never really had much use for wine. But I did install it once and it was ok. A little buggy but its still better than using windows. :P

[punk0x29a]

I like to play games [system shock ftw! ] so I try to keep wine on a bleeding edge. And, damn... It works WAY better than WinXP.

Especially with all those tweaks and tricks that are available now; especially for bit older software... [ And I don't really like those modern, plastic games. True lover of a video entertainment must look in direction of indie land nowadays, methinks... ]
Few years ago I couldn't run anything on it, and now it has outrunned M$ itself!
If only wine could run photoshop/ableton/put proffesional, closed and popular software name in here/... Well...
B.G. would have to turn his attention on Monsanto as a full time job ]:->