win4lin on puppy?

Using applications, configuring, problems
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ben

win4lin on puppy?

#1 Post by ben »

hi all,

is there any way to run win4lin in puppy?
that would solve the occasional compatibility problem...
thanks,

ben

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#2 Post by Guest »

With what ?

Bloated buggy crap software ?

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Lobster
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#3 Post by Lobster »

Hi Ben :)

There are people working on Wine to allow Puppy to run Windows software (a lot of which is of high quality and runs better than some Linux 'programs') I am not sure how that is going or when it is ready. What are you hoping to run? Maybe there is a Linux equivalent . . .

Anyone?

PS.
Don't mind BladeH he escapes his handler sometimes . . . we might have him neutered . . . yowch!
Last edited by Lobster on Sat 27 Aug 2005, 09:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Bruce B

#4 Post by Bruce B »

As far as I can tell you, the main criteria is the patched kernel.

I doubt Win4Lin has got around to patching the particular kernel Puppy uses. They do have pre-patched for most major distros.

I think they have some generic kernels also, but I don't know that for a fact, just something I vaguely recall.

I don't think anyone has reported on using Win4Lin on Puppy.

I guess you can try and install it with one of their kernels, the worst that could happen is you screw everything up. :)

Bruce B

#5 Post by Bruce B »

bladehunter wrote:With what ?

Bloated buggy crap software ?
I have a technique for installing Windows 95b without the media player, Internet Exploiter v3.2 and other extras in Win4Lin. In that kind of installation Windows weighs about 30 MB and moreover it runs faster than native speed in Linux. It is sort of cool to see Windows boot in just a few seconds.

That's in the past, now I'm happy enough with the Linux offerings that I don't have need for any Windows software. In other words, Linux meets my computing needs just fine.

ben

windows

#6 Post by ben »

folks, i share the same emotions, but... facts are facts.

at this moment, i use some windows software that i couldn't find a linux equivalent of:

-- trellix (the most user-friendly webpage creator software imho)
-- calypso email (stores all my emails and settings in 1 file, like puppy does)
-- trillian (advanced multi-network chat sw with webcam/audio support)
-- audacity (has linux version though... never tried)
-- sibelius (to write/read music with midi equipment)
-- mobiledit (sim-card/mobile phone manager sw)
-- magicsim (to put many SIM cards on one: no need to change cards when crossing the border)
-- QQ (chinese chat software, shameless and ugly ICQ copy, but most chinese only know QQ, so...)
-- active worlds 3D web environment, virtual world
-- VoIP buster, free (well, 1 euro) voice over IP
-- Proxy hunters (to circumvent the Great Chinese Firewall)
-- Fwink (to put webcam image on the net, to monitor my companies)
-- Kurso de Esperanto, sw teaching the esperanto language
-- Amiglobe, world almanach and globe
-- Pegasus Picshow, to make .exe slideshows
...

and countless other sw titles that ONLY work on windows, dammit, e.g. my blackberry connection sw, nokia suite, etc etc etc

not to talk about my tablet pc, where i can't even boot puppy :-(

let's face it: no matter how crappy and bulky windows is, we are still FORCED to use it, sometimes. i am also trying to get FREE, of course, like every sane person, but reality drags me back all the time.

here in China sometimes i need to write/read Chinese, and on Puppy i cannot do it. frustrating.

crossing the border to HK (same country, 2 different cities, we talk about 30 kms) i must use another card, because although there are "double" SIM cards available, they are BLOODY expensive, so most people with a little IQ above 100 buy 2 different cards and change it at the border. it's cumbersome, but can same hundreds of dollars every month.

china is a big zoo, living here you need to be equipped with exotic things like proxy hunters, to be able to get to the website you wanna see (the govt blocks almost everything with something interesting content). i couldn't find any sw for linux that would automate this. i need to manually find a new proxy every 2-3 days the govt blocks the old one we are using.

i love puppy, and advocate it vehemently, but i would just love it a lot MORE if i could run a win98 in a window, like i did on lindows, ubuntu, etc.

would be nice... a minimalistic installation of windows in a file. sounds sexy :-)

ben

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Re: windows

#7 Post by Lobster »

-- trellix (the most user-friendly webpage creator software imho)
There is no good enough WSIWYG HTML creator in Linux - I agree
-- calypso email (stores all my emails and settings in 1 file, like puppy does)
I think the email client in Mozilla is better (and still being developed) - what does Calpso do that Mozillas or Thunderbird can not?
-- trillian (advanced multi-network chat sw with webcam/audio support)
Interesting a lot of people like this. I think Gaim is good. Less ads and glitz but no camera support - true . . .
-- audacity (has linux version though... never tried)
yep - we need that as a dotpup - an excellent program - the Pups inbuilt recorder is useful.
-- QQ (chinese chat software, shameless and ugly ICQ copy, but most chinese only know QQ, so...)
Yep to be honest Puppy was only gonna be in English it is only recently we are looking to support other languages. It is not one of Barrys priorities as far as I know - other things take precedence.
-- active worlds 3D web environment, virtual world
Yep great fun and hey you get to wear an ozzie hat . . .
-- Proxy hunters (to circumvent the Great Chinese Firewall)
Ah yes that is thing with walls - they keep people in as well as out . . .
-- Fwink (to put webcam image on the net, to monitor my companies)
Any companies that could put Pup in hardware?

My personal position is that I have gained far more from using Puppy and whilst that continues I will be continuing. That your needs are met by Windows would seem to suggest two partitions or Puppy XP or making a customised Puppy - so many ways to go with this . . .
What do others think?
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#8 Post by Guest »

Looking at your list I'd suggest you'd keep on using windows, especially for the stuff that has to interact with "third party" hardware devices...


I do it myself, I switch between win2k and Puppy

Robbie Soles

#9 Post by Robbie Soles »

Until you've coded in pure assembly for a win32 platform you have no idea how bloated VC,VB delphi and the rest are...and no other "support files" needed.

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#10 Post by Lobster »

Which reminds me - NASM - the dotpup assembler - anyone use it?
I want to have a go (done a tiny bit of assembler experimentation - just to keep up my geek street cred) - maybe we should start a new thread . . .
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solution = machine

#11 Post by raffy »

Hey, Ben, good to see you here, neighbor!

Why don't you put some of your company resources to churning out hardware loaded with Puppy? And make it dirt-cheap so the people of the world become so happy that they throw flowers at your feet wherever you go? (except that you always go around in a heli and limo by that time :wink: )

Try dropping by the Puppy Power section and check on some links there (like this) so you know that this is serious business.

Ntavo.com seems to have a branch in China, check this out.

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#12 Post by Nathan F »

Back to the original topic of win4lin. I haven't ever even tried win4lin, so I can't comment on it much, but I have been working on getting a running wine for Puppy. It's a more challenging task than it appears at first. Every time I get past one obstacle I find another one. At first the problem was that wine wants to run as a no-priviledged user, whilst Puppy is normally run as root. What caused the problem was that spot couldn't access the Xserver. I did some digging and found a way around that. There also seem to be some missing dependencies like gettext. Anyway, I've gotten the winelauncher to start, but so far every application dies silently. I only got this far by grabbing a Mandrake rpm as I couldn't get wine to build on the system.

I've been way too busy with work lately to put a whole lot of time into getting wine running. Most of my attempts were just on a whim and I've probably only put a few hours total into it. I don't believe the problems are insurmountable, but my fear is that by the time all of the dependencies are met you're looking at a lot of mb's worth of software.

Like I said, though, all of this was done on a whim. I don't find that there's any Windows software that I can't live without. Some of it is wonderful and of course much of it is better designed from a user interface perspective, but if one takes the time to learn how to use the native apps then there isn't much that you can't get done using just open source software.

ben

reflections

#13 Post by ben »

thanks you all for your useful comments.. i will check out the links in due time.

just a quicky re why some of the windowz appz i listed are "better" (although there _may_ be some opensource alternative, just i haven't found it yet):

calypso (as i said before) saves _all_ my prefs, messages, even attachments, etc in 1 (=one) single file. this file, of course, grows by time, now after five years it's close to 200MB, but i prefer it this way... i can then save this 1 file anywhere (like on a usb hard drive or usb memstick, whatever), and open it on any other computer, just using calypso.. (yes, alas, calypso is not a single exe file, only the install program is such, subsequently you must install it on the guest computer, that's the downside, but a minor one). so with 2 files (calypso.exe installer and my mailbox file) i can continue working on my emails like i left it. this is kind of convenient. i haven't yet figured out how i can backup/restore my settings and mails with sylpheed...

activeworlds is an ingenious solution (actually quite old, i built my first house, then still for free, back in 1995) to have a physical and a virtual world, identity... imagine, u can build a realistically looking house, garden, whatever u like and u can virtually meet people there... even do biz. u can even build a virtual world on your own (costs some bucks, but it's money well spent, if u continue growing it and invite passengers or clients there to do biz virtually). alas, the front-end program is only in an .exe format. sux.

same for the other apps i mentioned: i couldn't yet find any better alternatives.

re wysiwyg htm editor, i am an avid fan of SVG and Barry is a genius, i love EVE and sodipodi, i just gotta transform my site to a 2D DVG environment, i think it may work nicely then... i got used to use trellix, it's extremely easy to work with it... so when my clients need a website, i can design one, and let them continue working on it (saves me time and trouble)... but it needs Windows. if i could emulate/run windows under Puppy, that would be just GREAT, then just like carrying Puppy with u in your pocket, you could carry a working Windows hibernated in 1 file...

again, this store-everything-hibernated-in-one-file concept is just too good, i am getting greedy, would like to have it all :-)

and i was just a little disappointed when i tried to compile win4lin under puppy and it didn't work.. i have the install files, if anyone wanna try it and play with it... it's an older, but perfectly working version of win4lin, i installed and run it before on my Lindows partition. it was just great to have lindows up and running, and every time i needed a windows sw, just booted up win98 under win4lin, worked perfectly. even faster than the native win98 on the same drive :-)

but lindows is commercial sw, i can't recommend it to my clients (here in China people are extremely stingy, even a 1 dollar software they would prefer to steal rather than paying for it), besides, lindows is on a full 650 MB cd, loaded with unnecessary gadgets like help files, and it comes with 2 different CDs, one Live, one Install, it makes the whole thing a little bulky.

puppy indeed fits in my wallet, along with a 660MB pc flashdrive, lovely combination. there is room for a 150 MB mini-win98 installation, but can't get it working. hence my posting here... :-)

wine would be nice too... anything that can get some of my apps working.

puppy is nice, and gradually i am trying to learn to miss my win programs, but isn't it nice if you just don't need to miss them?

same for my mac, btw. i love macs... and on my mac i have virtual pc too. but it's DAMN slow, i dunno why... on pcs, virtual pc is fast. on macs, it's SLOW. impractical, i only use it in case of emergency...

let's hope someone with more technical expertise than me will suddenly have the urge to customize wine for puppy :-)

ben
hk

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#14 Post by danleff »

There is no good enough WSIWYG HTML creator in Linux - I agree

What about Nvu? I use it all the time in Linux. I'll have to try it with Puppy.

I will probably get flamed for this again, but Wine runs only a very limited number of Windows programs, but is coming along slowly.

I would not expect that Wine will run the apps. that you want easily anyway.

Of course, someone may prove me wrong, i hope.
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ben

puppy rulez!!!

#15 Post by ben »

folks...

after having tested a couple of other live cds (knoppix/dsl, slax, linspire), i must say: PUPPY LINUX RULEZ!!!

absolutely amazing...

it's the only distribution as far as i know, that

1. runs on my old nec fine nx fn23c p233/96ram machine
2. saves everything in 1 file (cool!)
3. runs entirely from ram (fast, convenient, cdrom is free to use for other purposes)
4. has virtually every crucial app already on the cd, or ready as a pupget
5. played my dvds
6. burned my cds

all without a hiss (well, some manual adjustment here and there, excusable)...

applause for barry keuler, in fact, he deserves to earn some more respect than just applause... i am now thinking day and night how to team him up with a chinese hardware manufacturer, to make a new, harddisk-free device. anyone wanna join in?

ben
P.S. Yeah it would be nice to run Windows application within Linux in a virtual machine, but... can live without it :-)

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Making a new device

#16 Post by raffy »

You can start a new thread here.

Check out previous threads: about thin PCs and the Ntavo device (company has branch in China).

(The non-profit org being discussed there may not apply in this case, but feel free to make proposals. After all, you are in HK, where business is supposed to be easy.)

One advantage of a pre-installed Puppy in new (but cheap) thin PC is zero configuring problem. The other, more important advantages are low-cost and fast computing!
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

ben

#17 Post by ben »

Folks,

Any progress on Win emulation in Puppy?
I am afraid the kernel patch that comes with it won't wory on the new kernels...
Haven't tried yet though...

Why having Windows work in a window would be convenient?
Well, I just bought a wireless mobile net card, and it doesn't have a Linux driver, only for Windows. So, I cannot get online wirelessly with Puppy. Sucks. (I am talking about MOBILE TELEPEHONE NETWORK, not 802.11b. I wanna use GPRS or CDMA networks, and they work fine in Windows, but not in Puppy).

Also, I couldn't find any webcam so far, that I could use with Puppy either.

Any idea?

Ben

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#18 Post by noip »

Ben,

As you probably know, win4lin (the win9x version) needs a kernel patch to enable it to work. Netraverse claims the latest version for WinXP does not, which is a step forward.

HOWEVER

You will probably find that things like wireless support etc won't be there. In the original win4lin (which worked very well) there is only basic support for ports - there was nothing for USB for example, and I'd say that the same sort of thing would be true for the latest XP support in win4lin (happy to be proven wrong).

WINE

Whilst this is approaching the 0.9 version, it's support for I/O ports is still not what you want for your card. Sorry to say. Having said that, what they have achieved is brilliant, nothing less.

I understand the frustration with wanting to use Linux and having no drivers for you peripheral card, but unfortunately until manufacturers get past the idea that Linux is a product of the devil, we may have to wait a few months for an enthusiastic person to write a driver.

Rgds

GS

ftgs

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#19 Post by rarsa »

Also, I couldn't find any webcam so far, that I could use with Puppy either.
If you go to the spcaxx home page you will see the compatibility list.

I posted the spcaxx driver in the same post where I talk about Mercury videoconference http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... ht=mercury. Have a look.

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