4 ms·

This really is interesting news for me. I actually moved to a full Linux stack a few years ago when I bought a new computer and discovered that my trusty engin

This really is interesting news for me. I actually moved to a full Linux stack a few years ago when I bought a new computer and discovered that my trusty engineering software wouldn't install on Windows 8 or 10 due to some of Microsoft's many backwards-incompatibilities. Imagine my excitement when I discovered that Wine would run it flawlessly! So, as much as this announcement sounds unnecessary at best, if another part of my job needs me back on Windows 10 someday, I may come back to this.

exclusiv 10y ago
I just switched completely to Linux just recently and thought I'd have some issues with necessary Windows software. There was definitely some learning curve to getting Adobe Photoshop CC setup using PlayOnLinux/Wine but it seems to work well. I'm very happy even with terrible bluetooth support in comparison to Windows. I couldn't get a Logitech mouse to pair with the Dell XPS Developer edition. Tried all the command line tricks with bluetoothctl and hcitool. I plugged in a really cheap Kinivo USB bluetooth dongle I had laying around from a headset and it worked easily. Go figure.
- snuxoll 10y ago
  Strange, I haven't had any issues with my XPS 13 (9333) or my work-issued Lenovo W540, both of which have been paired with my Microsoft Designer Keyboard/Mouse - go into GNOME Settings, pair, done (of course, they don't work during boot, would be nice if someone could figure out how to get bluetooth devices to work in the initrd so I could use them to type in my encryption passphrase - on the other hand it's probably for the best I'm typing it on a physically wired keyboard).
- ropeladder 10y ago
  I had endless trouble getting my logitech wireless audio receiver to work in Windows 8 & 10. Works way better in Linux Mint (though it still forgets the pairing pretty often; but that's way less annoying than simply being unable to connect).
- Glyptodon 10y ago
  I've had the occasional weird experience with bluetooth on multiple OSes.
- Toenex 10y ago
  If you are using Logitech Unifying Receivers I've found Solaar [https://pwr.github.io/Solaar/ https://pwr.github.io/Solaar/] to be very good.
wcummings 10y ago
WineOnWindows was a thing before Windows had Linux compatibility, you can build it with wingw. Running old windows apps is a valid use case for wine these days.
- davidgerard 10y ago
  I looked into this a few years ago; if this actually runs stuff in Wine, then this is actually a first.
- muterad_murilax 10y ago
  Sure, maybe build it. But could you actually * run * Wine on Windows before this? (Without using VMs or coLinux/andLinux, that is.) I hear a lot of people claim that, but I've yet to see any actual proof. :)
  - jacobush 10y ago
    When I looked at it "only" built DLLs. IIRC.
  - lmm 10y ago
    I ran Wine on Services for Unix back in the Windows XP days. Actually used it to run the Riven installer so I could play that (the game itself played fine, but the installer wouldn't run for me). The one wrinkle was having to build without freetype (freetype is a pain to build anywhere and I never managed to build it on SFU) so the font metrics were all way off, but that didn't make things unusable.
alkonaut 10y ago
> my trusty engineering software wouldn't install on Windows 8 or 10 due to some of Microsoft's many backwards-incompatibilities. I have seen nearly no software that doesn't work in a backwards compatible way on windows. Tha's the thing microsoft does best of all. What was it that became incompatible with Win8 that meant a piece of software that installed on Win7 now wouldn't install? The last app that stopped working for me was some 16bit vb apps I had but those run just fine in a virtual 32bit XP I can fire up (and in the "xp mode" when that was availble).
- vertex-four 10y ago
  It tends to happen with really poorly written niche industry-specific software that Microsoft don't realise exists, so can't test.
  - alkonaut 10y ago
    Yes, I'm in exactly that situation (making industry specific windows desktop software) so I'm very interested in hearing about the specific issues here. Obviously any developer can screw up and do thigs like "if !winVersion.StartsWith(...)" and there is not much microsoft can do about that, apart from naming windows 9 windows 10... But even broken and buggy API's tend to be maintained by microsoft just because they can't test all the software floating around that depends on it. So it's usually very very hard to accidentally make a program run on Windows version N but not on Windows Version N+1
    - coldpie 10y ago
      There's one game that depends on winmm callbacks being called on a separate thread because the game actually calls SuspendThread() from within the callback! During the mmdevapi move around Vista/7, MS switched to calling the callbacks from the application thread and the game now deadlocks. It does work in compatibility mode, though. https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3930#c71 https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3930#c71
    - vertex-four 10y ago

exclusiv 10y ago

I just switched completely to Linux just recently and thought I'd have some issues with necessary Windows software. There was definitely some learning curve to getting Adobe Photoshop CC setup using PlayOnLinux/Wine but it seems to work well. I'm very happy even with terrible bluetooth support in comparison to Windows. I couldn't get a Logitech mouse to pair with the Dell XPS Developer edition. Tried all the command line tricks with bluetoothctl and hcitool. I plugged in a really cheap Kinivo USB bluetooth dongle I had laying around from a headset and it worked easily. Go figure.

snuxoll 10y ago
Strange, I haven't had any issues with my XPS 13 (9333) or my work-issued Lenovo W540, both of which have been paired with my Microsoft Designer Keyboard/Mouse - go into GNOME Settings, pair, done (of course, they don't work during boot, would be nice if someone could figure out how to get bluetooth devices to work in the initrd so I could use them to type in my encryption passphrase - on the other hand it's probably for the best I'm typing it on a physically wired keyboard).
ropeladder 10y ago
I had endless trouble getting my logitech wireless audio receiver to work in Windows 8 & 10. Works way better in Linux Mint (though it still forgets the pairing pretty often; but that's way less annoying than simply being unable to connect).
Glyptodon 10y ago
I've had the occasional weird experience with bluetooth on multiple OSes.
Toenex 10y ago
If you are using Logitech Unifying Receivers I've found Solaar [https://pwr.github.io/Solaar/ https://pwr.github.io/Solaar/] to be very good.

wcummings 10y ago

WineOnWindows was a thing before Windows had Linux compatibility, you can build it with wingw. Running old windows apps is a valid use case for wine these days.

davidgerard 10y ago
I looked into this a few years ago; if this actually runs stuff in Wine, then this is actually a first.
muterad_murilax 10y ago
Sure, maybe build it. But could you actually * run * Wine on Windows before this? (Without using VMs or coLinux/andLinux, that is.) I hear a lot of people claim that, but I've yet to see any actual proof. :)
- jacobush 10y ago
  When I looked at it "only" built DLLs. IIRC.
- lmm 10y ago
  I ran Wine on Services for Unix back in the Windows XP days. Actually used it to run the Riven installer so I could play that (the game itself played fine, but the installer wouldn't run for me). The one wrinkle was having to build without freetype (freetype is a pain to build anywhere and I never managed to build it on SFU) so the font metrics were all way off, but that didn't make things unusable.

alkonaut 10y ago

> my trusty engineering software wouldn't install on Windows 8 or 10 due to some of Microsoft's many backwards-incompatibilities. I have seen nearly no software that doesn't work in a backwards compatible way on windows. Tha's the thing microsoft does best of all. What was it that became incompatible with Win8 that meant a piece of software that installed on Win7 now wouldn't install? The last app that stopped working for me was some 16bit vb apps I had but those run just fine in a virtual 32bit XP I can fire up (and in the "xp mode" when that was availble).

vertex-four 10y ago
It tends to happen with really poorly written niche industry-specific software that Microsoft don't realise exists, so can't test.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  Yes, I'm in exactly that situation (making industry specific windows desktop software) so I'm very interested in hearing about the specific issues here. Obviously any developer can screw up and do thigs like "if !winVersion.StartsWith(...)" and there is not much microsoft can do about that, apart from naming windows 9 windows 10... But even broken and buggy API's tend to be maintained by microsoft just because they can't test all the software floating around that depends on it. So it's usually very very hard to accidentally make a program run on Windows version N but not on Windows Version N+1
  - coldpie 10y ago
    There's one game that depends on winmm callbacks being called on a separate thread because the game actually calls SuspendThread() from within the callback! During the mmdevapi move around Vista/7, MS switched to calling the callbacks from the application thread and the game now deadlocks. It does work in compatibility mode, though. https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3930#c71 https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3930#c71
  - vertex-four 10y ago