win32 apps on linux

Story: Should Desktop Linux go LUKTotal Replies: 13
Author Content
shyster

Jun 27, 2009
7:53 AM EDT
I can install wine and run a few win apps, but who needs them?

Anything that remotely benefits Microsoft is repugnant to my sense of basic human fairness and justice.

We still have one old win2k box which answers the phone and serves as an OCR and scan/fax platform.

Everything else works better in Linux, including gscan2pdf for scanning to pdf files, and all our old dos apps run great in dosemu.

A pox on Gates and company:)
bigg

Jun 27, 2009
8:06 AM EDT
> Anything that remotely benefits Microsoft is repugnant to my sense of basic human fairness and justice.

I don't see how it would benefit Microsoft in any way. EVERY piece of hardware on the market will eventually have a driver for at least one version of Windows.
nikkels

Jun 27, 2009
8:20 AM EDT
""Everything else works better in Linux,""

BS

EDIT: If you were referring to " your " appz on " your" system, my apologies, otherwise, it stands.
tracyanne

Jun 27, 2009
8:36 AM EDT
The way I see it, if this makes it easier to use hardware on Linux, it can only be a good thing.
phsolide

Jun 27, 2009
9:01 AM EDT
I'd warn against adding umpty-million Native NT system calls to Linux:

1. The API design of native NT system calls is bad. Apparently, the kernel has to watch for a page fault in some tricky part of system call handlers. This lead to a lot of early NT exploits.

2. You don't really want a kernel with a mix of philosophies. The Mach 2.x kernel (apparently now used by Apple) has just just a mix of philosophies. The Unix stuff battles with the Mach stuff for control. Security and performance loose: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.41.3...
Sander_Marechal

Jun 27, 2009
9:24 AM EDT
It can't be done anyway. The NT kernel does much more than the Linux kernel. In order to add all of Win32/NT to the Linux kernel you'd have to put X.org and a vast amount of other software in the kernel as well.
gus3

Jun 27, 2009
9:46 AM EDT
Kernel-mode Linux!

http://web.yl.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~tosh/kml/

/me ducks and runs like h311...
herzeleid

Jun 27, 2009
12:28 PM EDT
Quoting:It can't be done anyway. The NT kernel does much more than the Linux kernel.
Surely you've heard that any turing machine can emulate any other turing machine? Could you provide an example of something that you suppose the nt kernel can do that the linux kernel can't?
gus3

Jun 27, 2009
12:34 PM EDT
Quoting:Could you provide an example of something that you suppose the nt kernel can do that the linux kernel can't?
Let Steve Ballmer think he's the king of the IT world?

Guarantee a revenue stream for Symantec and McAfee?

Hold governments and corporations in a financial straight-jacket? ...oh, wait, that's the lawyers, not the kernel...
azerthoth

Jun 27, 2009
2:06 PM EDT
running apps in wine, thats fine by me ... adding it into the kernel ... have you lost your mind? The security aspects alone boggle then mind.
Sander_Marechal

Jun 27, 2009
5:01 PM EDT
Quoting:Could you provide an example of something that you suppose the nt kernel can do that the linux kernel can't?


All the Win32 Windowing and GDI functions for starters. It's not about what the Linux kernel can or cannot do. It's about what it actually does or does not do. The Linux kernel exposes much less functionality than the NT kernel, this you can't map the NT kernel API to the Linux kernel. You'd need to fold back a considerable amount of userspace applications into the kernel.
chalbersma

Jun 27, 2009
6:54 PM EDT
Sander I think you missed the turing machine point.
tracyanne

Jun 27, 2009
6:56 PM EDT
I was under the impression, possibly mistaken, that the Windows API [translator?] would not have to be built into the kernel.
Sander_Marechal

Jun 27, 2009
8:44 PM EDT
Quoting:Sander I think you missed the turing machine point.


No I did not. I invite you to reimplement Win32 in XSLT, which is turing complete. There's a difference between what's theoretically possible and what is practically achievable.

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