The single major remaining Wine complaint everyone makes...

MukiEX · Post by **MukiEX** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:22 am

So Wine's main problem right off the bat, the big elephant in the room nobody really talks much about, is that its *appearance and performance in 2D apps is abysmal. It's odd, because 3D apps (after a small framerate drop) perform just fine. Maybe there's some technical explanation as to why 2D applications feel so sluggish by comparison, but that's not what I'm here to discuss.

I think the main reason as to why it bothers me so much that wine *looks horrible and performs badly in anything from Notepad to Office is that if this particular problem was fixed (e.g. had a *much* higher priority on the fixit list than catching up to Adobe's or Microsoft's latest app), Linux would be a significantly better sell on the desktop. As it stands, Windows applications running in any Linux distro look like shoddy second class citizens. Imagine if someone picked up a Linux PC, installed their MS Office student edition, or Flash, or iTunes or whatever, and they couldn't tell that it wasn't a **native Linux app. That bridges the gap in a major way: at that point Linux stops being seen as a separate operating system. Actually, at that point, to most people using Linux for the first time, it'd be seen as some magical PC that doesn't need drivers for new hardware.

This is yet another one of those situations where I really wish I was capable of programming, because this would be at the top of my open source contribution list.

* Non-antialiased fonts, buttons/widgets can't be customized and still have the strict appearance of their Windows 3.1 brethren. No, changing colors isn't enough. It hasn't been for about six years now.
** e.g. it functioned as a native KDE or Gnome app, either one of which most desktop environments can integrate with minimal problems.

Dan Kegel · Post by **Dan Kegel** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:37 am

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 2:22 AM, MukiEX <[email protected]> wrote:

So Wine's main problem right off the bat, the big elephant
in the room nobody really talks much about, is that its
*apperance and performance in 2D apps is abysmal.
It's odd, because 3D apps (after a small framerate drop) perform just fine.

When engineering a complex system, it often makes sense to
worry about correctness first, then performance. Optimizing
something that's broken is a waste of effort. And worrying about
cosmetic problems before things are usable is kind of like putting
lipstick on a pig.

But I agree that Wine is far enough along that it makes sense
to fix performance and cosmetic problems, and although perhaps
you can't tell, some have already been fixed.
I expect we'll see more such improvements after the 1.0 release.
- Dan

Timeout · Post by **Timeout** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:44 am

As I would say over here "I wish I had your problems..."

Personally as long as the buttons are working it's not at that stage important to me that then are looking like Windows or a KDE or Gnome theme.

Like my clients who are interested in the outpout of my work and not how I am doing it (or should they).

Take a "not platinum" application, sometimes getting it to install properly and show all buttons if a journey. If you click the wrong button, everything crash and you loose all your work. I am happy that I can use Office 2003 and I take into account that the tool bar is so tiny. You can't expect a purely Microsoft product be like Linux. If you are expecting it, this would be you are being stuck on the superficial layer.

Users should understand and accept that Linux is not Windows and this stopping seeing Wine as a Windows in Linux. It's just a compatibility layer enabling you to get Windows out of your mind (without having to reboot or use Windows in a virtual PC) and there is nothing less worthy when seeing a button looking like Windows.
The thing less worthy is that the developers didn't take the effort to compile it for Linux and they won't make it until there is such a demand.

In a way, Wine is a tool to maybe increase the demand to put the pressure on the vendors to compile it natively in the first place.

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:19 am

On 23/04/2008, Timeout <[email protected]> wrote:

Take a "not platinum" application, sometimes getting it to install properly and show all buttons if a journey. If you click the wrong button, everything crash and you loose all your work. I am happy that I can use Office 2003 and I take into account that the tool bar is so tiny. You can't expect a purely Microsoft product be like Linux. If you are expecting it, this would be you are being stuck on the superficial layer.

That said, Microsoft in fact work to the maxim that graphic design and
interface polish - "fit and finish" - are of *towering* importance,
because if it looks slick then users believe it is slick, however
badly it may actually work.

Users should understand and accept that Linux is not Windows and this stopping seeing Wine as a Windows in Linux. It's just a compatibility layer enabling you to get Windows out of your mind (without having to reboot or use Windows in a virtual PC) and there is nothing less worthy when seeing a button looking like Windows.

Users don't, and won't, think like geeks, ever.

The polish thing is in fact *really quite important* for Wine and
getting people off Windows and onto ... anything else, really. Look at
the fantastic response Compiz gets, luring people to Ubuntu by sheer
power of bling - and that's still a crappy beta!

But certainly post-1.0 for Wine. Not too far post, I'd hope.

- d.

MukiEX · Post by **MukiEX** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:22 am

Therein lies a problem, however, Most users don't see Windows as Windows. They see it as a PC. As their computer. Fixing Safari 7's installer lasts up until Safari 7.2 comes out. Fixing the backend drawing/widget/font issues has much stronger lastability.

The only reason I bring this up is because Wine as a whole is so close. Heck, stuff like Wine-doors has taken strides to fix the other major Wine problem (a large number of applications that run just fine but have trouble installing). The perspective from a normal desktop Linux user is that Linux on the Desktop is disturbingly close. Fixing that issue in Wine definitely lies on the "last stretch mile" between here and being able to easily recommend Linux PC's at Walmart or Dell or whatever local computer seller is out there.

It's one of those *small things that make a big impact.

* Small as a priority for most Wine/OSS enthusiasts/users/etc. Not so small in terms of implementing it into the source.

Timeout · Post by **Timeout** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:24 am

Let's take Trados for instance. It will be very much an headache in the couple of months to get everything right. It's a .NET application, running VBA, C++ and using Internet Explorer (aside for connection issues only the programmers know why).

Now there is a nice tool developed by the Mono team for softwares compiled using visual studio.
Making it Linux or Mac native would probably mean amongst other to compile it using the compiling utility of Mono instead of Visual Studio, to replace Internet Explorer with Gecko and to rewrite all macros to run with Open Office instead of Word, deliver it with JRE for Linux/Mac + use the natives C++ libraries of Linux/Mac.

Will the vendor do it until there is a return of investment for it? Let alone maybe that they are not experienced in writing for so many open source applications.

Then it will run native and stop being ugly. Even if all buttons were resizable, you will never be able to hide from an experienced user that it was made for Windows (at the latest when it crash and it ask you if you want to send an error message to microsoft).

Timeout · Post by **Timeout** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:32 am

David Gerard wrote:
That said, Microsoft in fact work to the maxim that graphic design and
interface polish - "fit and finish" - are of *towering* importance,
because if it looks slick then users believe it is slick, however
badly it may actually work.

I don't think so. All People I know in my family have XP although some had their computer delivered with Vista. If they don't get what they want, it's regardless how it looks like. For my mother for instance, she would need a PC with switching on and 4 buttons: Internet, Photo, Office and E-Mail.
To set up the polish you have to know how to use a computer. Even Windows as it is is too much for her.

Users don't, and won't, think like geeks, ever.

The polish thing is in fact *really quite important* for Wine and
getting people off Windows and onto ... anything else, really. Look at
the fantastic response Compiz gets, luring people to Ubuntu by sheer
power of bling - and that's still a crappy beta!

I beg to differ. It took me months to get the printer, the video card, the keyboard, the router etc working properly on a not configured PC. When switching to Linux you have to be prepared to learn.

Dan Kegel · Post by **Dan Kegel** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:34 am

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 4:19 AM, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote:

... Microsoft in fact work to the maxim that graphic design and
interface polish - "fit and finish" - are of *towering* importance,
because if it looks slick then users believe it is slick, however
badly it may actually work.

Windows actually works pretty well for 99% of users.
Wine works pretty well for maybe 5% of users.

As Wine starts running more users' apps, we'll definitely
want to improve our polish. Until then, forgive us if most
wine developers concentrate on getting apps working at all.
- Dan

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 6:51 am

On 23/04/2008, Timeout <[email protected]> wrote:

David Gerard wrote:

That said, Microsoft in fact work to the maxim that graphic design and
interface polish - "fit and finish" - are of *towering* importance,
because if it looks slick then users believe it is slick, however
badly it may actually work.

I don't think so. All People I know in my family have XP although some had their computer delivered with Vista. If they don't get what they want, it's regardless how it looks like. For my mother for instance, she would need a PC with switching on and 4 buttons: Internet, Photo, Office and E-Mail.
To set up the polish you have to know how to use a computer. Even Windows as it is is too much for her.

But then, see Mac OS X. It has the slick polish *and* the robust functionality.

The polish thing is in fact *really quite important* for Wine and
getting people off Windows and onto ... anything else, really. Look at
the fantastic response Compiz gets, luring people to Ubuntu by sheer
power of bling - and that's still a crappy beta!

I beg to differ. It took me months to get the printer, the video card, the keyboard, the router etc working properly on a not configured PC. When switching to Linux you have to be prepared to learn.

Computers are stupid, annoying and don't work ... and I speak as a
professional of decades' experience. That's actually a *really bad*
thing. Users should be able to do stuff without messing around with
crap.

Mind you, I think Ubuntu beats Windows for out-of-the-box usability
... on decently supported hardware.

In the server world, no-one sells an x86 server without good Linux
drivers - doing so would be business suicide. Desktops aren't there
yet, but Dell is pressuring its suppliers to have good Linux drivers
for components.

And Wine on Linux is already a better Windows than Vista.

I think we're wandering off topic here

My point is, it's harder
than it should be now, but the example of Mac OS X proves it's
possible to do much, much better on usability than Windows or Linux do
now. And a bit of polish in Wine will reduce the grating on users'
nerves.

- d.

msclrhd · Post by **msclrhd** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:01 am

I am a huge fan of Wine and have started contributing to it over the past year. With every new release it seems that more and more things work and that is a remarkable achievement. The fact that *any* (as in at least one) Windows application works at all on Linux is amazing.

That said, there are still things that don't work and a lot of stuff that is unimplemented. The task gets even harder with every release of Windows when they add even more functionality.

I am a Windows GUI developer by trade and am an avid keyboard user. If something does not look right, or work well with the keyboard, I am *well* aware of that. One of my goals is to improve the look and feel/usability of Wine as a whole, and is on the radar of other developers as well. Given that, I prefer a system that *works* and is stable, and will tolerate the odd quirk if it does not crash.

Wine does not have an army of developers like Windows does, which usually means that how the UI looks and behaves is not a priority. There are also technical challenges like optimising the DIB graphics engine, which will improve 2D performance on games and other apps that do extensive 2D graphics (this is on the CodeWeavers teams agenda to be fixed).

Another area is the look of the system when you install and use a Windows theme (such as the Zune theme). This is something that annoys me, but there are technical issues to get the buttons and other controls themed correctly. I would also like the window frame themed correctly when Windows draws it.

Dan Kegel · Post by **Dan Kegel** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:02 am

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 4:50 AM, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote:

And Wine on Linux is already a better Windows than Vista.

Maybe for you, but not for anybody who needs, say,
this year's version of Photoshop or Quicken.

Timeout · Post by **Timeout** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:24 am

[/quote]
... on decently supported hardware.
[quote]

That's the problem. The user has to pick the hardware together and hope it works.

On windows, you can buy computer + keyboard + printer together in a package. Most people are not using more. Nobody even think about compatibility.

I tried to get my father to Linux, entered the SD card in the computer and card ruined.

Buying one Linux ... well (in Austria), I'm still waiting that the first hardware producer sells something with Linux as a set (I won't put it together myself like now anymore).

Linux will have only a chance when the end user forget what is a driver, because nobody wants to bother with that. Hardware compatibility is also important. I have a 4 years old printer with a Linux driver - which is failing to work because the driver is probably too old and there is no new. At least the Cups rpm driver is not installing.

Wine is really for people already wanting to take the step - for the rest - maybe later.

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:26 am

On 23/04/2008, Dan Kegel <[email protected]> wrote:

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 4:50 AM, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote:

And Wine on Linux is already a better Windows than Vista.

Maybe for you, but not for anybody who needs, say,
this year's version of Photoshop or Quicken.

OK, it's a better Windows 98 than Vista ;-p

What makes Wine a serious substitute for Windows is not IMO the huge
apps like Office or even Photoshop - it's the thousands of little
business crapware applications which small businesses utterly rely on,
but the company disappeared years ago. I'm more surprised when such
things don't run on Wine than when they do. (We run such an app on
Wine at work.)

Catching up with the very latest stuff (apps using .NET 2.0, VC8, etc)
does of course require new stuff in Wine.

- d.

Dan Kegel · Post by **Dan Kegel** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 7:54 am

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 5:08 AM, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote:

What makes Wine a serious substitute for Windows is not IMO the huge
apps like Office or even Photoshop - it's the thousands of little
business crapware applications which small businesses utterly rely on,
but the company disappeared years ago. I'm more surprised when such
things don't run on Wine than when they do. (We run such an app on
Wine at work.)

+1
Abandonware is indeed one of the huge reasons for Wine.

Small apps do tend to run well in Wine -- the larger the
app, the more likely it is to use lots of Windows APIs,
and the more likely it is to run into a bug in Wine.

That said, I know plenty of older apps that don't run well yet.
- Dan

Post by **dimesio** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:05 am

That said, Microsoft in fact work to the maxim that graphic design and
interface polish - "fit and finish" - are of *towering* importance,
because if it looks slick then users believe it is slick, however
badly it may actually work.

That is precisely the reason some of us have switched to Linux. Take a look at the reactions to the initial release of KDE4 in the KDE forums if you really think people want programs that look nice but don't work.

I use my computer to get real work done; I don't give a crap what the toolbar looks like as long as it's functional.

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:09 am

On 23/04/2008, dimesio <[email protected]> wrote:

That said, Microsoft in fact work to the maxim that graphic design and
interface polish - "fit and finish" - are of *towering* importance,
because if it looks slick then users believe it is slick, however
badly it may actually work.

That is precisely the reason some of us have switched to Linux. Take a look at the reactions to the initial release of KDE4 in the KDE forums if you really think people want programs that look nice but don't work.
I use my computer to get real work done; I don't give a crap what the toolbar looks like as long as it's functional.

If you know KDE4 exists, you're not Microsoft's market.

- d.

Post by **dimesio** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:49 am

If you know KDE4 exists, you're not Microsoft's market.

But I used to be. I was perfectly happy with W2K, and would still be using it if it were possible to get drivers for new hardware. Microsoft drove me away. Yes, I am a bit more tech-savvy than most users, but I'm not a geek. IMO, I'm just in the vanguard of a host of dissatisfied customers.

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:13 am

On 23/04/2008, dimesio <[email protected]> wrote:

If you know KDE4 exists, you're not Microsoft's market.

But I used to be. I was perfectly happy with W2K, and would still be using it if it were possible to get drivers for new hardware. Microsoft drove me away. Yes, I am a bit more tech-savvy than most users, but I'm not a geek. IMO, I'm just in the vanguard of a host of dissatisfied customers.

That's still not you

Microsoft's market is the people who sign the
cheques for the corporate desktop. Fit and finish is *very important*.
Flashy demoware is the whole thing, actual work is for mere employees.

Note that the best Microsoft products for functionality are the ones
the people signing the cheques use - Excel for spreadsheets, Outlook
for arranging meetings (and it even comes with a sort of email
client!).

(They tried pushing into the corporate server room from this beachhead
and didn't quite manage it. Servers have to work properly. Hence what
I noted about x86 servers and good Linux drivers.)

Linux on the corporate desktop requires the shiny. Wine to replace the
one obscure piece of business abandonware could do with added shine as
well. Post 1.0

(I think we mostly agree, I'm just bored at work ;-p )

- d.

DARKGuy · Post by **DARKGuy** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:50 pm

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 4:52 AM, MukiEX <[email protected]> wrote:

So Wine's main problem right off the bat, the big elephant in the room nobody really talks much about, is that its *apperance and performance in 2D apps is abysmal. It's odd, because 3D apps (after a small framerate drop) perform just fine. Maybe there's some technical explanation as to why 2D applications feel so sluggish by comparison, but that's not what I'm here to discuss.

I think the main reason as to why it bothers me so much that wine *looks horrible and performs badly in anything from Notepad to Office is that if this particular problem was fixed (e.g. had a *much* higher priority on the fixit list than catching up to Adobe's or Microsoft's latest app), Linux would be a signficantly better sell on the desktop. As it stands, Windows applications running in any Linux distro look like shoddy second class citizens. Imagine if someone picked up a Linux PC, installed their MS Office student edition, or Flash, or iTunes or whatever, and they couldn't tell that it *wasn't* a native Linux app. That bridges the gap in a major way: at that point Linux stops being seen as a seperate operating system. Actually, at that point, to most people using Linux for the first time, it'd be seen as some magical PC that doesn't need drivers for new hardware.

This is yet another one of those situations where I really wish I was capable of programming, because this would be at the top of my open source contribution list.

* Non-antialiased fonts, buttons/widgets can't be customized and still have the strict appearance of their Windows 3.1 brethren. No, changing colors isn't enough. It hasn't been for about six years now.

Well, IMHO, I would love if WINE controls could be "skinned" with more
than .msstyles, maybe trying to use the GTK/QT toolkit to draw the
window controls (specified by a parameter... some crazy windows
programs use a weird way of changing the own window's controls
appearance, such as Garena (previously known as GG Client) or other
games). Then again I guess performance and stability is the main
concern right now.

You can tell WINE to use a Luna .msstyles if you have one though, so
it looks more "at home"

Foulkr · Post by **Foulkr** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 1:47 am

my thought is that the people that are complaining that the buttons and look of programs running in wine are the same ones that allow Microsoft to keep working on their GUI and not focusing on the kernel of their operating systems (anyone remember the talking paperclip in MSoffice?) They're worried about how pretty everythign is and not how it performs. hence the reason that Vista and xp never got rid of the infamous "blue-screen" error. hell when vista calls the screen in their error-logging a blue screen error. the only reason that wine currently exists is the lack of support from main stream distros building an operating version of their programs for linux operatiing systems (may be due to an abundance of distros) but if the people using linux started to use the open source versions available to everyone i.e. openoffice vs msoffice, kpdf vs adobe, etc... it would put a demand on the mainstream distros to start to adapt to at least the bigger distros for linux and provide support for the users running in a unix enviroment. Its all supply and demand, unfortunatly this time in reverse, they have the supply and we don't demand much of a change, we offer them our money instead of trying to force the change we want.

oiaohm · Post by **oiaohm** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 6:48 am

Ok Lets start at the top.

2d issue is part X11 one. There is a hack around it in the registry for direct draw applications. http://wiki.winehq.org/DirectDraw Ie send 2d direct draw threw opengl.

Fix for X11 hopefully should turn up next X11 release providing 2d acceleration in X11. Yes every standard desktop window under X.org at moment is 2d software rendered. Ever wondered why normal X11 windows are slow to render same problem.

Simple fact Linux kernel only really becomes a desktop kernel with 2.6.29 if kernel mode switching goes in. Freeipa project around the same time ie april next year should be getting close to something equal to a ADS for controlling Linux clients.

While X11 can lock up with no way to recover Linux is really not desktop ready.

Distrobutions are not the solutions to the Linux problems. They are nothing more than windows dressing. Install openoffice on debian you don't get sun open office instead you get novel version. This only makes matter worse users really don't know what they are getting. Linux Standard Base when they get around to the common installer format for all distrobutions maybe we can start getting somewhere.

2009 should be a interesting year.

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 7:16 am

2008/11/25 Foulkr <[email protected]>:

my thought is that the people that are complaining that the buttons and look of programs running in wine are the same ones that allow Microsoft to keep working on their GUI and not focusing on the kernel of their operating systems (anyone remember the talking paperclip in MSoffice?) They're worried about how pretty everythign is and not how it performs. hence the reason that Vista and xp never got rid of the infamous "blue-screen" error. hell when vista calls the screen in their error-logging a blue screen error. the only reason that wine currently exists is the lack of support from main stream distros building an operating version of their programs for linux operatiing systems (may be due to an abundance of distros) but if the people using linux started to use the open source versions available to everyone i.e. openoffice vs msoffice, kpdf vs adobe, etc... it would put a demand on the mainstream distros to start to adapt to at least the bigger distros for linux and provide support for the users running in a unix enviroment. Its all supply and demand, unfortunatly this time in reverse, they have the supply and we don't demand much of a change, we offer them our money instead of trying to force the change we want.

For current software, the objection is that Wine doesn't let things
stay exactly the same but with Unix underneath. How reasonable an
objection this is depends on the app - for example, the open-source
equivalents of Photoshop or AutoCAD really aren't substitutes on the
high-end professional level as far as the people working on that level
are concerned.

Lack of good support for .NET 2.0 and apps compiled against recent
VC++ is a reasonable problem to raise when the apps themselves are
open source! (e.g. AutoWikiBrowser, an open-source Wikipedia fast
editor which happens to be written against .NET 2.0).

Wine's killer app in my experience is running old stuff. That one
little Windows app that was keeping you running one Windows box just
to use it - and you can't even *find* the developer any more, let
alone ask them to do a Linux version. Wine runs those better and
better. Often better than XP does, almost always better than Vista
does.

Microsoft would like to keep Windows a moving target, but they're
hampered by their own need for extensive backward compatibility (c.f.
difficulty running old stuff in Vista or XP). So Wine can do better
catching up incrementally than one might expect.

At this stage I'm still more surprised when stuff doesn't Just Work in
Wine than when it does. Which is nice.

- d.

DOS4dinner · Post by **DOS4dinner** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:58 pm

2D Speed? I think 256 color support is more important. Sonic CD in Linux must happen! /sarcasm, slightly...I miss Sonic CD...

Really though. the fact that I can buy some Windows 98 games at goodwill for 99 cents and know they will run in Linux is astounding. I just bought Heretic 2 for $2 and it runs perfectly.