News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Wine Staging by dingdingdang on Tuesday September 15, 2015 @07:22PM (#10223740)
I wonder what it would take to create/put-together a minimal window manager and stripped down version of Linux wired to run Windows software as its default mode or purpose. Would it rival ReactOS or is Wine simply too unstable to truly serve as a "whole" OS?
Re:Wine Staging by bkeroack on Tuesday September 15, 2015 @07:43PM (#10223810)
Google "Lindows". A company tried to do exactly this circa 2001.
Re:Wine Staging by nitrogen on Wednesday September 16, 2015 @12:29AM (#10224686)
I happened to work there. Their app store was a much bigger focus internally than the ability to run Windows apps. I think one of their bigger mistakes was charging for Free Software apps in their Click-n-Run app store.

The company's probably long enough gone that I can mention there was an easter egg in earlier versions of the app store client, with developer credits. You had to queue apps to install such that their first letters spelled Click-n-Run, then press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-C. The easiest way to do it was using KDE2's dcop -- DBUS has nothing on DCOP's ease of use and discoverability.

Re:Wine Staging by icebraining on Tuesday September 15, 2015 @09:08PM (#10224109)
It came with the added fun of having Microsoft sue them, just to have the court say that "Windows" in the OS context is not a defensible trademark!
Re:Wine Staging by marrs on Wednesday September 16, 2015 @08:52AM (#10226145)
At which point MS settled out of court and kept Lindows in business for many years to come.
Re:Wine Staging by frozenport on Tuesday September 15, 2015 @08:33PM (#10223991)
The hallmark Windows apps dont run in WINE: Office, VS, Photoshop. The only advantage of the distro would be for games.
Re:Wine Staging by voltagex_ on Tuesday September 15, 2015 @09:50PM (#10224235)
Visual Studio 2015 - https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI..., needs more investigation

Office 2013 - https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI... - at least this has a backtrace in the bug report

Photoshop - https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI... - CS6 might work!

Re:Wine Staging by voltagex_ on Tuesday September 15, 2015 @09:43PM (#10224219)
Help me submit bug reports for them then - first, which versions are you targetting?
Re:Wine Staging by bananaoomarang on Tuesday September 15, 2015 @07:43PM (#10223809)
This is something I have thought about before. Perhaps more useful would be a desktop shell/WM that automatically manages bottling, plugs into PlayOnLinux when it makes sense etc. Building a usability and automated layer over Wine could compete with RiskOS I think.