got an idea / am i totally insane? - Tech Support Forums

originel · July 23rd, 2002, 11:58 PM

i've rather recently discovered Linux and absolutely love the community and what it has done for me. so i've been wanting to give something back. today i had an idea as to what to do:

it deals with wine (a lot). what i want to do is create a new interface for wine and implement a lot more of the windows/dx APIs so that most normal programs work under it (including games). i also want to create a front-end that makes it a lot easier to install proggies using wine, maybe perhaps something like a separate program you start that you can use to intsall windows progs and also adds them to the K menu (or whichever wm people are using). basically i want it to be rather easy for windows progs to be installed in Linux so even newbies can use it.

the idea is absolutely huge, and i would try and get a lot of people to help. and i also wouldn't actually start coding for a year or so (till i know more programming and also become familiar with the windows APIs, wine, and the Linux environment in general). but i really want to try and make this work.

the reason i thought of this was i was talking with some friends about linux at work (we were having probs with our windows machines), but, as always, i admitted i still used windows for a few proggies. as many of you know i strongly dislike windows and microsoft, but that has little to do with this. basically i want to get rid of windows forever, and also contribute back to the community which has been so great to me.

is this in any way possible (i'm willing to spend a lot of time and work with as many people as necessary)? i realize winex is out there, which suggests it is possible. oh yeah i also would want this to be GNU, since i believe that winex goes against everything Linux stands for (another story). do you guys think i am totally crazy for thinking this. also if anyone has any suggestions about how to approach this, pitfalls to avoid, whatever, i'd appreciate a lot of feedback.

krohnjw · July 24th, 2002, 12:02 AM

Originel, actually you can get Winex for free, through CVS, legally.
It is only the packaged versions you must pay for.

I should also add that while that is a large uptaking, it would be very welcome. Anything you can add to the linux community is great. If you are willing to learn the API's and the coding then more power too you. I'll be rooting for you

originel · July 24th, 2002, 12:08 AM

hmm.. will have to look into that. everything i found at their site i had to pay for (even to download).

July 24th, 2002, 12:12 AM

Too much wine, originel?

Nice idea, but before you get too far see if there isn't already a project like that going on. http://www.linux.org/projects/software.html

These linux programmers don't like to have their toes stepped on!

Cheers
Mick

Jeordiewhite · July 24th, 2002, 12:13 AM

Wine in linux is no where It could be, but It would allow me to do so much more in linux.
If you actually had some really descent wine, you would have a huge number switching over.
Finally the curse would be broken, No more MS.

Redwolf · July 24th, 2002, 12:15 AM

The biggest obstacle you will have to overcome is DirectX. Hard to replecate.

One idea is making it easy to use a Windows partition with WINE. It can be done, but not bery easily.

Good luck dude

originel · July 24th, 2002, 12:20 AM

hmm. that's a good idea Redwolf. i glanced around sourceforge and didn't see anything like this, but i'll have to check out linux.org though. the biggest thing i want to do (the thing that's most different) is to add an easy to use interface to wine (i might even start out adding just a gui interface to wine, see how easy/hard that is)

vass0922 · July 24th, 2002, 12:33 PM

I would highly suggest starting with a GUI. Yes DirectX will be rather difficult seeing as you're basically getting a list of functions and what they do and what they return and try to duplicate that on the linux side. Now that makes it sound easy but the hard part is also duplicating on the little intricacies that developers know is there so they code around it. They even code the bugs that are in DirectX because they know people code around it or they code specifically for it.
Learning to interface with wine with a GUI is a good idea to start out with

Lay out a battle plan (hate that part, I just like going in and start coding

lol ). May want to consider which language you want to code the GUI in seeing as they may change how you'll interface with everything.
Good luck

originel · July 24th, 2002, 03:36 PM

actually vass, i've already been planning some. this morning at work i was thinking about it a lot and decided i better really plan this out. (hehe i'm also just like you, i love to just start coding right away). it'll get way confusing really fast otherwise.

i've been thinking about this and i have divided it into 3 areas, each of which, when finished will create a fully functional proggy.

1 just the gui, which will interface with winex (for now). it will keep a list of games that you have set up for winex, and it will also allow multiple profiles for games (say one pretty profile, and a fast profile) in which you can tweak the winex settings. so to start a game you simply start the proggy, then click "run" (or whatever) to run the game. right now i'm on lunch break, but when i get off this afternoon, i'll draw up a layout to see what you guys think.

2. a re-write of wine to include dx that will replace winex, and interface better with the gui.

3. set up the gui so that you can install games through this program. that way you don't need to have a windows partition at all, the whole reason for this program. this will obviously require a lot of additions/rewrites to wine itself to "simulate" more of an actual invironment (The first thing that comes to mind is the registry).

1 is pretty easy, should only take a few weeks. 2 and 3 will be really hard though, and will take a while, plus i know i can't do it by myself. the reason i set them up in this order is if i can't get one to work, i still have functioning stuff from below.

i'm probably going to do this in c++, since its the language that i program mfc stuff in, and also the language i'm most familiar with. i'll prolly develop it in KDevelop, unless you guys have something that is better (i'm all ears here, i have done very little linux programming). some ideas i had though.

vass0922 · July 24th, 2002, 04:15 PM

Umm winex doesn't require a windows partition

It just requires a folder of its own, normally its called /c but certainly doesn't require it to be on fat32

One thing you're going to have to watch out for is that you're not stepping on toes.
I'd suggest never looking at the WineX source code because if you do you maybe tempted to use their code and if yours is even remotely similar it may get ugly for you.

I don't get the 'faster' version?