Wine

or

Leaving Windows Behind? Bring your apps with you!

 

Dan Kegel

Cebit 2009

www.kegel.com/cebit

 

DRAFT

Click on each image to find out more

The opinions expressed in this talk are my own, and not those of my employer

Pay attention, there will be a quiz at the end


 

 

 

The world is changing...

 

 

 

 


The world fell in love with Windows in 1995

CTV: "Millions of computer buffs swarmed into stores..."


but some people are starting to look elsewhere


 

 

 

People are switching to the Mac

 

 

 

 


Mac now has 10% of the market


These coffee-lovers seem to prefer the Mac


 

 

 

People are switching to Open Source

 

 

 

 



Firefox and Webkit/Safari now have 30% of the browser market (up from 25% last year)


 


OpenOffice has 2 million downloads per week

 


Governments all over are switching to Firefox, OpenOffice, and Linux

Reasons given include:

Encourage competition in the software market
Independence from software suppliers
Lower mid-to-long term cost
Easier to maintain
More secure
Local jobs


 

 

 

People are switching to the Web

 

 

 

 


Broadband adoption 30% in EU, 50% in US


120 million people use Web email each day


 

 

The Web has multiple killer apps

 


New Web browsers run Javascript fast enough to handle more complex apps snappily


With HTML 5, Web apps will work even when offline


 

 

 

People switching to small, cheap computers

 

 

 

 


Cellphones with awesome web browsers now cost $199


Dell Mini 9n netbook: $250


In short, people now are much freer to switch away from Windows.


 

 

 

Why switch?

 

 

 

 


Fine, people are switching away from Windows, and entire nations are considering switching to Linux.

So what? I'm comfortable with Windows.


Linux comes with tens of thousands of free applications

and free updates


With Linux, there's no worrying about activation,
and you can install it as many places as you like


With Linux, every programmer in the world
is potentially available to fix bugs for you.
You can even dive in yourself, if you're so inclined.


With Linux, you're never forced to upgrade to a new version

And with Ubuntu Linux, new versions are always free


Linux has only 1% to 2% as many viruses as Windows (netlux.org)

PARIS, Feb 7, 2009 (UPI) -- A computer virus infected French military databases and grounded some navy fighter jets for two days last month, a navy spokesman says.
HOUSTON, Feb 7, 2009 (Houston Chronicle) -- Houston shut down part of its municipal court operations Friday, cancelling hearings and suspending arrests for minor offenses after a computer virus infected hundreds of its machines.
ENGLAND, Jan 20, 2009 (BBC) -- A computer virus is continuing to affect the Ministry of Defence's systems. Up to 70 sites, including several Royal Navy ships and RAF bases, have been affected

If you have to cut a million bucks from your IT budget,
switching to free software can save a lot on software updates

"There are more in the 'mad as hell' category than I've ever seen," said [an analyst] regarding customers' feelings about [MS] Software Assurance.


Some organizations are running Linux pilots to improve their bargaining position


 

 

 

Running Windows Apps... without Windows?

 

 

 

 


OK, you've convinced me, I guess I should try switching to Linux.
But there's just one more thing:



I have this old app I need to run... can I take it with me?



Sure, you could run those apps in virtual Windows sessions with VMWare...

... but then you're not saving any money. And it's slower, too.

Why can't Linux just run Windows apps?


Linux cloned Unix
Can't we clone Windows, too?


As it turns out, yes. Here, have some Wine!


Wine is a free implementation of the Windows APIs

It can run thousands of Windows applications, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop... and vital apps like World of Warcraft and even VeggieTales Dance Dance Dance


 

Wine Is Not an Emulator

It's a catalyst

Wine makes it easier to switch operating systems

You can install Wine in Ubuntu Linux with "Add/Remove Applications"


If you need the latest test version, you can download it from WineHQ.org


Firefox is listed as Platinum
so it should work well


To install Windows Firefox, just double-click on its installer


After installing Firefox, it shows up in the user's menus under Wine


Wine stores your "C: drive" in your home directory under .wine/dosdevices/c:


Powerpoint 2007 is listed as Silver
because you have to use Winecfg to work around a bug


Six mouse clicks and one word later, Powerpoint is happy


Safari 3.2 is listed as Bronze
because https and bookmarks don't work
and you have to install a font to use it


Winetricks makes it easy to safely grab missing fonts or DLLs



Let's take Wine for a test drive!

Hang on, did you say Wine is free?

It's not like elves are doing the work; programmers have to eat, don't they?

If Wine is so good, why give it away for free?


Because doing it as a community project makes it easier for everybody to help

Together, sufficiently motivated users can move mountains



The Wine team is dozens of volunteers
plus a few paid fulltimers

 

 

 

Who should not use Wine?

 

 

 

 


If
you need dozens of Windows apps to all work perfectly
and
you don't want to help track down problems (or pay for support)
then
you might be better off using real Windows in a virtual machine

Things That Don't Work Yet

WPF / XAML
Some copy protection schemes
Some USB drivers (e.g. iPhone sync)
Win64 support
Direct3D 10


 

 

 

Who uses Wine? Should I?

 

 

 

 


If
all the apps you need are known to work with Wine
or
you are willing to pay for support and/or help track down problems
then
Wine might be a good fit for you
First, though, consider replacing Windows apps:

with Linux or Web apps:

because then you have fewer people to blame if something goes wrong


The Czech law firm Kindl & Partners runs Firefox, OpenOffice and Linux on ten computers
They use Wine to run ASPI, a standard Czech legal software package


Xavier School in Manilla has 600 computers
Sticking with Windows would have cost them $50,000 + $25,000 annually
So in 2007, they migrated to Linux

"We are quite comfortable with Open Office as a replacement for MS Office.
Email is provided by Lotus Notes or webmail on Firefox.
We are using Wine every day in high school for WinPlot, and every week in grade school for custom Chinese programs (written in VB6).

The City of Munich has 14,000 workstations.
All run Firefox; about 8,000 run OpenOffice, and 1200 run Linux.
250 workstations use Wine to run Geoinfo, WS-FTP, and a legal reference book.

LiMux is no technical project, but a change management project, dealing with the fears and emotions of people.


Tips for a successful Linux migration

0. Keep it simple
1. Find willing volunteers
2. Switch to open source or web apps (e.g. Firefox) on Windows
3. Then switch just people that need no Windows apps to Linux
4. Let people that need lots of Windows apps keep using Windows
5. Find people that need just a few Windows apps, test with Wine, file bugs, and get help


To see if an app is known to work with Wine, check the Wine App Database


Where to get help when things go wrong:

Free web resources (FAQ, wiki, forums, Bugzilla, etc.)
Inexpensive Commercial support (Codeweavers, Canonical)
Heavy-duty Wine development (Codeweavers consulting)

If you just need a little help, support is cheap...
but implementing missing features can get expensive.


Codeweavers plows most of the revenue from their support offerings into salaries for fulltime Wine developers

Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, the most popular desktop Linux.

Both Codeweavers and Canonical are fanatically devoted to supporting free software.


Wine development is guided by our conformance test suite
Each change to Wine must pass tens of thousands of tests flawlessly


We fix about 150 reported bugs every month
Most are small bug fixes or very small missing features
For each one, we try to add a new conformance test


Wine is under increasingly active development


You say Wine runs Windows apps without Windows?

Doesn't that violate Microsoft's copyright or something?


Clean room design techniques are used to ensure Wine is legal
and free of copyright violations


 

Q U I Z

 

If ohloh.net says Wine cost about 21 million euros to develop so far,
and Wine has 5000 open bugs, costing about 10 million euros to fix,
and the EU has fined Microsoft 1.7 billion euros so far,

 

1. Can you think of an effective way for the EU to encourage competition in the operating system market?
2. How much would each of CeBIT's half-million visitors have to contribute to fix all known Wine bugs?

 

Financial contributions to the Wine project may be made via the Software Freedom Conservancy
but we prefer patches :-)

Questions?

 


Penguin happy because he drank a lot of Wine

Clickable presentation online at www.kegel.com/cebit

 

Text copyright 2009, Dan Kegel

Bar charts drawn with gnuplot (thanks, Tom!)

Images trademarked and copyrighted by their respective trademark and copyright holders, and used here under the fair use doctrine.

The opinions expressed in this talk are my own, and not those of my employer