Wine Package Manager

Jarrhed · Post by **Jarrhed** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 3:48 pm

I am considering writing a program for a package manager for Wine. This package manager will be Open Source and licensed under the LGPL sense it will be written using Visual Studio 2010 (in .NET Framework 2.0). It will be run within Wine, not in mono in Linux. I know there is something already out there like this (wine-doors) but in my opinion it is poorly written and just isnt that good overall. My questions are:

1. Would this application be able to gain popularity
2. Would it be useful

If people find it useful and most people think it would have a decent user-base then I will write it. I plan to call it WineManage if the answers to the above questions are Yes.

vitamin · Post by **vitamin** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 7:33 pm

Jarrhed wrote:it will be written using Visual Studio 2010 (in .NET Framework 2.0). It will be run within Wine, not in mono in Linux.

This is really poor choice of a platform. If it can't run without anything MS then don't bother.

Jarrhed · Post by **Jarrhed** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:01 am

But at the same time it will be a lot simpler to write, I could write a Linux version and a Windows Version, the program itself can run in mono but the paths and everything would be messed up if I ran it in Linux with mono, mono on Windows should be fine as, it doesn't use WPF or anything. It uses 2.0 for compatibility so there should be no problems there. The installer would have Mono built-in

Kingoftherings · Post by **Kingoftherings** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 1:16 am

Wine really isn't reliable enough to make it a Windows app. Maybe two or three releases down the road your program may just stop working, and then work again the next release.

And I don't know how Visual Studio makes anything simpler. Maybe if you're a drag n' drop kinda guy, or you don't want to manage your own build system.

Jarrhed · Post by **Jarrhed** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 1:29 am

I doubt it would stop working randomly, imo Wine has gotten a lot better than it used to, for example CSS hasn't broke for a longtime and Mono has been known to work for a longtime, they even used to release a version specifically for wine. Worst comes the worst I could just release an installer with .NET Framework 2.0 but I highly doubt that will be needed

Post by **dimesio** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:55 am

You seem to be under the impression that wine-doors is the only app trying to do this. You might want to take a look at the rest of the competition before investing a lot of work into yet another Wine package manager.
http://wiki.winehq.org/ThirdPartyApplications

Vincent Povirk · Post by **Vincent Povirk** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:47 am

On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 1:29 AM, Jarrhed<[email protected]> wrote:

I doubt it would stop working randomly, imo Wine has gotten a lot better than it used to, for example CSS hasn't broke for a longtime and Mono has been known to work for a longtime, they even used to release a version specifically for wine. Worst comes the worst I could just release an installer with .NET Framework 2.0 but I highly doubt that will be needed

If you use the .NET framework that essentially means that for the Wine
community it might as well be closed source. Most people do not have
Visual Studio 2010 and would not be able to compile your program.
Relying on a .NET interpreter (either MS or mono) adds an extra layer
where things break and makes everything harder to debug.

Whether or not the project is useful to begin with, this language
choice would make it less useful for Wine.

James McKenzie · Post by **James McKenzie** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:37 pm

Jarred Sumner wrote:

I am considering writing a program for a package manager for Wine. This
package manager will be Open Source and licensed under the LGPL sense it
will be written using Visual Studio 2010 (in .NET Framework 2.0). It will be
run within Wine, not in mono in Linux. I know there is something already out
there like this (wine-doors <http://wine-doors.org>) but in my opinion it is
poorly written and just isnt that good overall. My questions are:

1. Would this application be able to gain popularity
2. Would it be useful

+1 for an installer for Wine. Don't forget the Uninstall functions as
well. Winetricks is used to install Microsoft packages, but I'm
assuming that you will take this further.

James McKenzie

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:44 pm

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Jarred Sumner<[email protected]> wrote:

Â Â I am considering writing a program for a package manager for Wine. This
package manager will be Open Source and licensed under the LGPL sense it
will be written using Visual Studio 2010 (in .NET Framework 2.0). It will be
run within Wine, not in mono in Linux. I know there is something already out
there like this (wine-doors <http://wine-doors.org>) but in my opinion it is
poorly written and just isnt that good overall. My questions are:

1. Would this application be able to gain popularity
2. Would it be useful

If people find it useful and most people think it would have a decent
user-base then I will write it. I plan to call it WineManage if the answers
to the above questions are Yes.

Windows doesn't have this...I don't see how it would help
Wine...especially if it depends on .NET.

There are plenty of projects that attempted to do this, but none
really lasted (PlayOnLinux is the exception).

--
-Austin

Jarrhed · Post by **Jarrhed** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:29 pm

But at the same time, it's not using anything that Mono does not have fully implemented, but why it would only work in Wine is because of the path for the installers. The actual program would run fine under Mono so it can be as open source as Mono is just as long as I convert it from Visual Basic to C#, and I still haven't done any of the actual coding I've just made part of the install wizard and I'm almost done with that part. When I'm done with that I will create an uninstaller similar to that of Programs and Features in Windows Vista or Add or Remove Programs in XP. After that there will be a 3rd tab page for Manage and it will have a few scripts that will do various common things that people have to do to use other programs.

This wouldn't be a package manager like Synaptic or Yum, it would be a very simple one that just downloads and installs software for you. Updates may come later, depending on how the userbase is for this. I believe if advertised correctly and if I code it well it would be used. I'm deciding whether to use SQLite as a database where it would download and query it for the software so it can be updated without me having to physically release a new update of the software but I may or may not do that, haven't decided yet.

Here's a picture of what the wizard looks like:

This is how the ui will look for now, it will be tabs but it may change a bit.

The winrar extract thing is because WinRAR messed up and I haven't restarted my computer yet or explorer

vitamin · Post by **vitamin** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:36 pm

Jarrhed wrote:But at the same time it will be a lot simpler to write, I could write a Linux version and a Windows Version, the program itself can run in mono but the paths and everything would be messed up if I ran it in Linux with mono, mono on Windows should be fine as, it doesn't use WPF or anything. It uses 2.0 for compatibility so there should be no problems there. The installer would have Mono built-in

Then as I said, don't bother. If you have to install dotnet that means you have to have valid windows license. Which defeats the whole purpose of Wine.

You can't do everything from within Wine. Things like new wineprefix can not be made from within Wine. You have to make native Linux application.

Jarrhed · Post by **Jarrhed** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:48 pm

Then as I said, don't bother. If you have to install dotnet that means you have to have valid windows license. Which defeats the whole purpose of Wine.

But like I just said, it wont be needing .NET it will be using Mono which does not require a Windows license but the program itself will be needed to run in Wine otherwise installing software won't work

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:49 pm

On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Jarrhed<[email protected]> wrote:

But at the same time, it's not using anything that Mono does not have fully implemented, but why it would only work in Wine is because of the path for the installers. The actual program would run fine under Mono so it can be as open source as Mono is just as long as I convert it from Visual Basic to C#, and I still haven't done any of the actual coding I've just made part of the install wizard and I'm almost done with that part. When I'm done with that I will create an uninstaller similar to that of Programs and Features in Windows Vista or Add or Remove Programs in XP. After that there will be a 3rd tab page for Manage and it will have a few scripts that will do various common things that people have to do to use other programs.

This wouldn't be a package manager like Synaptic or Yum, it would be a very simple one that just downloads and installs software for you. Updates may come later, depending on how the userbase is for this. I believe if advertised correctly and if I code it well it would be used. I'm deciding whether to use SQLite as a database where it would download and query it for the software so it can be updated without me having to physically release a new update of the software but I may or may not do that, haven't decided yet.

Here's a picture of what the wizard looks like:

This is how the ui will look for now, it will be tabs but it may change a bit.

I'm not saying you can't do it. It's your time/code, do as you want. I
just don't think it's worth the effort.

FWIW, wine's already got an uninstaller. Time would be better spent
improving that.

Keep in mind, as vitamin said, that you can't handle everything inside
a wine app, i.e., wineprefixes, since by definition wine must have one
already to be running.
--
-Austin

Jarrhed · Post by **Jarrhed** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:07 pm

I will most likely end up releasing a Wine version and a Linux version, like the version for Linux would be only to do anoying tasks that need to be done outside of Wine and vice versa for the Wine version. I plan for the Wine version also to be compatible with Windows so you can use it as a software installer from within Windows

Jarrhed · Post by **Jarrhed** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:29 pm

My plans may change for this program but here are my plans;

3 Tabs

1st Tab - Install
When you click the Install tab it would start a wizard to guide you through installing software. It would be simple, you select a category, then an application off the list based on category then click Install. All the applications are either Gold or Platinum on the Wine AppDB list as of the release of the program. This tab would only be available in the Wine Version
2nd Tab - Remove
I would create an Uninstaller that has a bit more features than the built-in Wine Uninstaller. This wouldn't be as heavily developed as the Install tab
3rd Tab - Manage
This tab would have scripts and registry patches that are commonly needed for various programs and games to work. This would only be runnable in Mono mode on Linux

It will be compatible with both Wine and Mono so you will be able to choose which you want to use the most but I will provide an installer that includes Mono but I won't provide one that includes .NET Framework 2.0.

There will be two editions
Wine and Linux
Wine will have the Install and Remove Tab
Linux will have the Remove and Manage tab

If you have any questions or suggestions email me @ [email protected] or just reply to this thread

occhigrigi · Post by **occhigrigi** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:56 am

According to me it's a nonsense making two applications, one the linux side and one the windows side. Everything you can make from a windows point of view can be made from a linux application (you can launch regedit, installers, uninstallers, whatever you need from linux).
If you're a VB guy take a look either at GAMBAS (http://gambas.sf.net) or to KBASIC (http://www.kbasic.com); you'll find a familiar IDE to develop linux applications that can accomplish your target.