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> WoW64 thunks are implemented for essentially all Unix libraries, enabling a 32-bit PE module to call a 64-bit Unix library. Once the remaining direct PE/Unix

> WoW64 thunks are implemented for essentially all Unix libraries, enabling a 32-bit PE module to call a 64-bit Unix library. Once the remaining direct PE/Unix calls have been removed, this will make it fully possible to run 32-bit Windows applications without any 32-bit Unix library. Woo! No more giant pile of i386 dependencies!

Koshkin 4y ago
I am probably misreading this, but: what is the use case in which a Windows program must call a Unix library?
- dark-star 4y ago
  Every windows program has to (eventually) call a Linux library, since Wine emulates Windows on top of Linux. Take for example "decoding an MP3 frame". A 32bit program calls a Windows API to decode an MP3 frame, that gets intercepted by Wine and forwarded to libmpg123. Since it's a 32bit program, you need (or needed, until now) the 32bit mpg123 library to handle the request. So it's not a matter of a Windows program actually calling a Linux library, but rather Wine forwarding the function call Forwarding 32bit calls to 64bit functions sounds simple, but it is incredibly complex. It might be simple for a function that only takes an int as argument, but on Windows, functions often take pointers to Windows structures, and those structures are often different between 32 and 64 bit. You have to translate them on-the-fly....
  - tarotuser 4y ago
    Wine emulates Windows APIs. You would need something like qemu to do arm->x86-64 to do CPU emulation and then use WINE to run Windows programs on a Raspberry Pi.
    - skrowl 4y ago
      https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 can do it a little lighter than a full qemu VM
    - dark-star 4y ago
      I think your comment went to the wrong post. I know how Wine works, and in my example I explicitly said "API". And I don't think I ever said something about ARM or the RaspberryPi? My point was to explicitly make it simple to understand, as most people don't know what thunks are, or trampolines, or the differences between protected mode and long mode. And yes, I called Wine an emulator, because that's what it is...
  - tomkarho 4y ago
    > Every windows program has to (eventually) call a Linux library, since Wine emulates Windows on top of Linux. Obligatory reminder: Wine Is Not Emulator.
    - chungy 4y ago
      The word is overloaded and the implication that emulator means ISA emulation is why Wine for a time adopted that expansion. It still very much emulates the Windows ABI and API. It's original name was "Windows Emulator", even, hence the abbreviation Wine.
- johnny22 4y ago
  Wine itself did the calling in it's own dlls/exes. Now there's a more clear split between the unix side and the windows side.
  - Koshkin 4y ago
    Of course! These "Windows programs" must indeed be Win32 DLLs provided by Wine. Thanks.
- oynqr 4y ago
  Think a second about how Wine implements Win32.
- jononor 4y ago
  WINE is implemented using Unix libraries underneath. And since it essentially supports and entire modern OS, there is quite a bit of depdencies. The wine package available in Arch Linux for example depends on 72 lib32-* packages. The majority of these are just 32 bit compiled versions of standard libraries that a user on x86_64 will have a native 64 bit version of already.
  - chungy 4y ago
    There's a lot of redundancy and obsolete stuff in the main repo Wine package. I maintain wine-stable and I have just 45 lib32 dependencies. To compare: Main repo wine: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/abf380b1deda2ae65d28ff1f8f74d2c7ee11c7dd/trunk/PKGBUILD https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/abf380b... AUR wine-stable: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=wine-stable&id=1fdd52306664892accc69a14a6f14914e76ad557 https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=wine-...
    - Svenstaro 4y ago
      Please make a bug report about how we can improve the package if you have the time. I'll see that it's taken care of, then.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
chungy 4y ago
Eventually. Wine 9.0 will probably have the goal accomplished, but it's not practical to use quite yet. :)
- sbjs 4y ago
  I hope they codename it Dine.

Koshkin 4y ago

I am probably misreading this, but: what is the use case in which a Windows program must call a Unix library?

dark-star 4y ago
Every windows program has to (eventually) call a Linux library, since Wine emulates Windows on top of Linux. Take for example "decoding an MP3 frame". A 32bit program calls a Windows API to decode an MP3 frame, that gets intercepted by Wine and forwarded to libmpg123. Since it's a 32bit program, you need (or needed, until now) the 32bit mpg123 library to handle the request. So it's not a matter of a Windows program actually calling a Linux library, but rather Wine forwarding the function call Forwarding 32bit calls to 64bit functions sounds simple, but it is incredibly complex. It might be simple for a function that only takes an int as argument, but on Windows, functions often take pointers to Windows structures, and those structures are often different between 32 and 64 bit. You have to translate them on-the-fly....
- tarotuser 4y ago
  Wine emulates Windows APIs. You would need something like qemu to do arm->x86-64 to do CPU emulation and then use WINE to run Windows programs on a Raspberry Pi.
  - skrowl 4y ago
    https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64 can do it a little lighter than a full qemu VM
  - dark-star 4y ago
    I think your comment went to the wrong post. I know how Wine works, and in my example I explicitly said "API". And I don't think I ever said something about ARM or the RaspberryPi? My point was to explicitly make it simple to understand, as most people don't know what thunks are, or trampolines, or the differences between protected mode and long mode. And yes, I called Wine an emulator, because that's what it is...
- tomkarho 4y ago
  > Every windows program has to (eventually) call a Linux library, since Wine emulates Windows on top of Linux. Obligatory reminder: Wine Is Not Emulator.
  - chungy 4y ago
    The word is overloaded and the implication that emulator means ISA emulation is why Wine for a time adopted that expansion. It still very much emulates the Windows ABI and API. It's original name was "Windows Emulator", even, hence the abbreviation Wine.
johnny22 4y ago
Wine itself did the calling in it's own dlls/exes. Now there's a more clear split between the unix side and the windows side.
- Koshkin 4y ago
  Of course! These "Windows programs" must indeed be Win32 DLLs provided by Wine. Thanks.
oynqr 4y ago
Think a second about how Wine implements Win32.
jononor 4y ago
WINE is implemented using Unix libraries underneath. And since it essentially supports and entire modern OS, there is quite a bit of depdencies. The wine package available in Arch Linux for example depends on 72 lib32-* packages. The majority of these are just 32 bit compiled versions of standard libraries that a user on x86_64 will have a native 64 bit version of already.
- chungy 4y ago
  There's a lot of redundancy and obsolete stuff in the main repo Wine package. I maintain wine-stable and I have just 45 lib32 dependencies. To compare: Main repo wine: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/abf380b1deda2ae65d28ff1f8f74d2c7ee11c7dd/trunk/PKGBUILD https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/abf380b... AUR wine-stable: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=wine-stable&id=1fdd52306664892accc69a14a6f14914e76ad557 https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=wine-...
  - Svenstaro 4y ago
    Please make a bug report about how we can improve the package if you have the time. I'll see that it's taken care of, then.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

chungy 4y ago

Eventually. Wine 9.0 will probably have the goal accomplished, but it's not practical to use quite yet. :)

sbjs 4y ago
I hope they codename it Dine.