Linux and/or WINE

P

pbryan

New member
I'm probably rehashing an old question and debate. It's probably about time. :)

A minority of computer users use non-Windows (Linux and Mac OS) as their operating systems. Some of us would like to use RealFlight on such platforms without having to install full-OS virtualization software like VMware, VirtualBox or Parallels.

These platforms can run Windows applications via the WINE open source project, and its commercial derivatives, such as CrossOver and WinOnX. It would be great to get RF7 running on these.

So, questions:

1. Have you tried to run RF7 under WINE? Were you successful? If not, what were the issues you saw?

2. I understand RealFlight requires its proprietary USB hardware, because it uses this as a part of its copy protection regime. Is this still true under RF7?

3. If RF7 were made to work under WINE, would you use it? I'm trying to get some sense of the demand from our teensy minority of users.
 
This is not something we've ever tried at Knife Edge. As you said, you're probably looking at a very small number of users who would be interested in such a thing. But if you ever do get it working, by all means post the details here. We'd be interested to know that it could be done and how, and that way the info would be available to anyone else looking for the same thing.
 
Here is my take and it's NOT the "offical" line from KE.

pbryan said:
A minority of computer users use non-Windows (Linux and Mac OS) as their operating systems.
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The majority of this minority tend to be the MAC OS users, not Linux people.

pbryan said:
Some of us would like to use RealFlight on such platforms without having to install full-OS virtualization software like VMware, VirtualBox or Parallels.
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Not going to happen. Realflight is Windows based and requires Windows API's.

pbryan said:
These platforms can run Windows applications via the WINE open source project, and its commercial derivatives, such as CrossOver and WinOnX. It would be great to get RF7 running on these.
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Wine and some of the other Linux programs have multiple modes of operation. These are often confused.

Wine and Crossover ( I have not played with WinOnX) permit an almost full installation of Windows. This permits greater DirectX support. The operations are intercepted closer to the operating system.

The lower level version/mode of Wine Crossover emulates Windows API's under Linux intercepting API calls at a high level. You do not have DirectX support in most cases, or when you do it is very limited.


pbryan said:
So, questions:

1. Have you tried to run RF7 under WINE? Were you successful? If not, what were the issues you saw?
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I've tried versions up to 6.5 on Wine/Crossover. I've also tried the demo.

Issues:

Realflight requires a LOT of RAM, you have to have fairly large resources available under Linux to run Realflight under Wine/Crossover.

Realflight requires DirectX and accelerated video. Wine/Crossover's implementation is not a full native emulation of DirectX. The video capabilities that are available are fairly low end as a result ( e.g. no particles on boards that actually support it ).

Realflight has no direct access to the USB bus as Linux controls the hardware. As a result Realflight does not recognize the Interlink as a valid controller.

The demo DOES run in Windowed mode only but it runs very poorly even on good hardware.


pbryan said:
2. I understand RealFlight requires its proprietary USB hardware, because it uses this as a part of its copy protection regime. Is this still true under RF7?
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You betcha!

That is why an "upgrade" path is available.



pbryan said:
3. If RF7 were made to work under WINE, would you use it? I'm trying to get some sense of the demand from our teensy minority of users.
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Absolutely not.

I use Linux for a lot of things, but not for gaming nor for extensive 3D & Multimedia.

Even with the availability of Steam based Linux games, those games are reminiscent of early 3D offerings being somewhat rudimentary in scope and technology.

You don't see "Call of Duty Ghosts" coming out for Linux ( nor the Mac ).

So my Entertainment Room and TV connected computers all run Windows.

That is not likely to change in the near future.

That one other sim which has a native Mac & Linux port has seen very FEW sales for those platforms so as a result version updates have fallen far behind... as have all of their updates.

No, short of game consoles, PC's are the platform of choice for things like this.

In turn RC users are a fairly limited market to begin with.
 
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Following up:

Windows software running in Linux of necessity runs in a type 2 virtualization environment.

Newer processors with VM machine support permit type 1 ( hardware ) based virtualization...

Macs and Linux machines only use the former which is why Bootcamp works so well on Macs while other solutions do not.
 
mike4 said:
Yes, by adding some sticks to the upcoming steam controller would be cool.
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Never going to happen. The Interlink/Interface is part of the Realflight Copy Protection. This is after all A RC SIMULATOR with some challenges/games that assist you in learning how to fly and hone your existing real life RC aircraft flying skills.
 
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Why not? I have Rage, Wolfenstein, Photoshop etc. working perfectly on Wine/playonlinux. KnifeEdge could simply help a little with the USB development on Wine, if they're to lazy to fully support SteamOS/Linux.
To not support SteamOS in the future will simply shrink their marketshare with the upcoming SteamBoxes.
 
Wow, that will surely get you some support calling them lazy.

It is a business decision... It takes a lot of money to develop and test a new product... and there is also the possibility of fraud and theft. I would think that it would be much easier to hack a USB stick. I certainly don't speak for KE, but I just don't see it happening.
 
Mike4

Please read the above discussion.

To reiterate.

Realflight is based upon Windows API's. Wine does not fully emulate those API's though of late it is improving.

The only way Realflight will run on Linux will be under an emulator or VM and it is up to the developers of the Emulator ( Wine ) to make the programs run.

Rage, Wolfenstein, Photoshop, etc. were NOT re-written to work under Wine. instead Wine caught up with them, but still has not fully caught up with other applications.

Those developers, like Knife Edge, were NOT "Lazy" in not supporting "SteamOS/Linux" in your view, yet they didn't do a thing.

Posting such specious arguments is not going to get you anywhere.

As far as the SteamBoxes, be on the lookout for more emulation or visualization options under SteamOS... but that is something the Wine/Linux developers will do with some aide from Steam... That will NOT be done by the major game developers.

In the mean time, dual boot Windows.
 
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I triple boot Ubuntu/Win10/OSX86 for years. I guess you've only used Wine on Mac, because on that os Wine is years behind Linux.
Well but I don't talk about Wine but SteamBoxes. Realflight would only become one of more than already 1400 Linux games. Surely a business decision, no doubt.
 
mike4 said:
I guess you've only used Wine on Mac, because on that os Wine is years behind Linux.
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No I use Wine on PC/Linux installs exclusively as you could have gleaned from my earlier posts and comments about Wine and Realflight.

But was there a point to your statement?

mike4 said:
Well but I don't talk about Wine but SteamBoxes.
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No difference. It's up to the Emulator developers to make things work.

In turn SteamBoxes either use emulation for games or native programs that were written/ported to run directly on Linux. The latter are few.

mike4 said:
Realflight would only become one of more than already 1400 Linux games. Surely a business decision, no doubt.
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Realflight caters to a very specific and limited crowd.

There is another RC sim already up on Steam, and it is easy to see that their sales have not been that great, though Steam gave them additional penetration of the U.S. market they did not have before.

They also have a native Linux version that thus far has not been released on Steam that I know of.
 
opjose said:
In turn SteamBoxes either use emulation for games or native programs that were written/ported to run directly on Linux. The latter are few.
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Seems you have no clue of what you're talking about.

- Steamboxes will only be available from November onwards
- No steamos games use emulation as far as I know
- Already, prior to steamboxes, we have not few but more than 1400 games.

Bye Bye
 
You can buy them.

A friend of mine has a Alienware Alpha. It came with the Xbox controller and no keyboard or mouse. lt also came with Windows but he dual boots a copy of steam OS on it. He has a few games in steam OS but the majority are still windows based. Steam was preloaded and the factory load boots to steam big picture mode for Windows.
 
mike4 said:
Seems you have no clue of what you're talking about.

- Steamboxes will only be available from November onwards
- No steamos games use emulation as far as I know

Bye Bye
Click to expand...

Your lack of knowledge is quite embarrassing. "Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt"

Many Steam games use emulation wrappers to work in Linux.
The mechanism is not exposed to the end user, so they do not see things like a Wine startup but it is emulation none the less. The libs that do so are pre-installed with SteamOS itself.

You can verify this with the SteamOS developers on their forums. You can also find the emulation libraries on the Alpha and other units.

There are even many older Steam games that run under the old x86 DosBox emulator. From the user's perspective they are merely entering and exiting a Linux game, though it is really running under DosBox.

Steam boxes use the SteamOS. It is the same mechanism on those machines.

Very few Windows games have been natively ported ( re-written ) to run in Linux as the cost of doing so is too much for most game development houses, and the rewards are small.
 
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