What about Darwine?

[mrlynn]

Anyone know about this?

http://darwine.opendarwin.org/

Apparently an open-source attempt to run Windoze apps under OS X.

Sounds like a more promising route than dual-boot, i.e. Boot Camp.


/Mr Lynn

[microchip13]

The current problem with darwine, is it's for PPC, and it has to run PPC compiled windows apps.

Wine, the parent project mentioned on their site that while it won't be compatable with Intel Mac Os X, when it is, they'll make a big deal.


I've toyed with Wine a bit on some of my linux boxes. It's VERY cool. Full graphics support as well. I could almost see Apple buying Wine.

[ztirffritz]

Wine is not for sale, but Apple could implement it into OS X and add some developer support for it. That is exactly what they did with Konquorer web browser and KHTML from the KDE project. They took the open source code and added lots of features to it, fixed a bunch of stuff and created WebKit to work with it. Then they named the product of that project Safari. That is the beauty of Open Source. They can modify the code so long as their modifications are submitted back to the controlling group for integration into the main product tree. The controlling group can toss all of that work into the trash if they don't want it, but if they do want it, it is there for everyone to use. Apple took some flak for the work that they did with Konqueror because they did all kinds of stuff, then just sent a blob of files back to the developers. Initially the Konquoror people were a bit ticked about that, but shortly after that Apple provided WebKit as an open source way to make sense of the changes that they had made.
http://webkit.opendarwin.org/

DarWine is basically a dead project in my opinion because the notion of converting the windows code to PPC is daunting enough for a platform that accounts for only 5-10% of the computers in use, but to do all that work for a platform that is essentially discontinued is just a waste of resources. They need to integrate their work back into the Wine project in my opinion.

Another option along the lines of Wine is Qemu, another open source project. Although, I believe that Qemu is more of a virtual machine project. It will allow linux, windows, BSD, and some other OSs to run within OS X among others as well.

[JEBB]

I agree with mrlynn. Being able to run programs written for Windows without the suseptibilities of Windows to viruses etc. could put Apple and OSX in the drivers seat. Companies would be able to use their current investments and avoid the support problems of Windows. Of course it might create resistance in the IT departments because they wouldn't be needed so much.

[TheTominator]

Amidst the discussion of dual-boot, emulators, and virtualization methods, the WINE project is yet another method of running Windows applications. DarWine is a spinoff of the basic WINE project. I agree with ztirffritz that DarWine is going to wither. But I think WINE for Intel Macs will grow despite the competition from the various other methods.

For the newbies on this issue, it may be worthwhile to clarify the whole "running Windows programs on the Macintosh" arena.

Dual-Boot:
Dual-Boot is starting up the computer into one of two operating systems. You could set up your computer to dual-boot two different versions of Mac OS. Many people having older G3's will choose to boot into OS 9 to run legacy Macintosh software that won't run under their usual OS X. The same principle applies to the new Intel Macs. They cannot boot into OS 9 but they can boot into Windows XP if they are configured correctly. This method requires you to configure your computer with a separate hard drive partition with another operating system installed on it. It requires you to have licenses to two operating systems. To run Windows XP on the new Intel Macs, users will have to purchase Windows XP separately.

Emulators:
An emulator is software that pretends to be a totally separate computer from the one you are using to run the emulator software. Virtual PC for Macintosh is a popular example of an emulator. That Virtual PC software creates a pretend Pentium computer with its own pretend hard drive and pretend video card and so on. This runs slowly on the Macintosh because it is not using the Mac hardware natively. Since this pretends to be a distinct computer, the user needs to provide the operating system software to run on this computer. You can install Windows, Linux, OS/2, DOS, or whatever OS that will run on that specific pretend hardware. The emulated computer runs pretty slowly since the host computer is doing a lot of work to create this pretend machine. This method is very powerful since the pretend machine and the real machine can be completely different such as a PPC Mac and the emulated Pentium. Qemu and Bochs are other examples of emulators.

Virtualization Methods:
A virtualization method is similar in function to an emulator except that it takes advantage of the compatible hardware of the real machine. Instead of translating instructions from one processor language to another, it just translates the context in which these instructions run. The instructions themselves can run at the full speed of the native hardware. There is some performance hit from having to change contexts and to share hardware resources with the underlying computer but the end-user performance is pretty good. Unlike an emulator, the virtual machine provides more complete access to the native hardware and the virtualized machine might be configured like the native hardware instead of being an imaginary machine unlike the real one it is running on (this depends on the virtualization software implementation details). Sometimes this means that the operating system software you run must be able to run natively on the real hardware like it would in a dual-boot scenario. So virtualization has a mixture of dual-boot and emulator functionality. Like those two methods, the user needs to provide their own license for other operating systems to run in this context. Examples of virtualization methods are Parallels, Virtual PC for Windows, Virtual Server for Windows, and VMWare. (Correct me if I am wrong on any of these.)

WINE:
WINE is a very different beast from the previous three methods. WINE does not pretend to be a computer. WINE pretends to be Microsoft Windows itself. Its mission is not to run another operating system that the user provides. Its mission is to let the user avoid purchasing and installing Windows entirely. WINE provides a software translation layer between the Windows-compatible software that you want to install and run (e.g. Microsoft Access) and your native operating system (e.g. Linux). The software runs at full speed and uses your OS's native features. WINE pretends to be the Windows API and does it pretty well but not perfectly since that is a very challenging thing to do for many reasons. Unlike the previous methods, WINE does not make you install windows or set up a distinct pretend machine. You do not need to buy or provide your own copy of Microsoft Windows. Unlike the previous methods, this only enables you run software for Microsoft Windows.

I expect WINE running on the Intel Macs will provide an interesting and powerful alternative to the other options.

[blooz]

Thanks for the little tutorial, Tominator.

[Seacrest]

Okay Tom, but Red or White?

[TheTominator]

Seacrest Wrote:
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> Okay Tom, but Red or White?

WINE Is Not Edible.