SEIV on Linux

[liga]

has anyone tried to run SEIV on a Linux machine with wine or something similar ?

Good or Bad news ?

Before reading and installing wine on my PC I would like to know if it is for a good result ...

thank you
Liga

[dogscoff]

OK, here's the rply I got. Doesn't really answer our question but it sounds promising.

"Ah, I've heard of Wine. I don't have it though. I hear it's pretty flakey,
and doesn't work very well - mainly because windows evolved much faster
than they could keep up. I don't even know if they're still working on it.
I do have an alternative though, that guys here at university swear by -
and it really seems to work (although, again I don't have it, mainly
because I'm running an old Linux distribution and I'm pretty thick when it
comes to Unix admin). It's called VMWare. I've seen it running and you'd
really not know. I went to a meeting in London a month or so back and the
guy was running linux on his laptop. He started up this VMWare program,
hit the boot button, and another PC started up in a window. He hit the
fullscreen, and it looked like a normal PC. Windows 2000 started, and he
used Powerpoint to deliver his presentation. It was solid, and fast, and
looked exactly like a Windows PC. And when it crashed, he just killed the
VMWare app, and restarted it. It's not a free program - but there's ways
and means."


------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

[dogscoff]

OK, here's the rply I got. Doesn't really answer our question but it sounds promising.

"Ah, I've heard of Wine. I don't have it though. I hear it's pretty flakey,
and doesn't work very well - mainly because windows evolved much faster
than they could keep up. I don't even know if they're still working on it.
I do have an alternative though, that guys here at university swear by -
and it really seems to work (although, again I don't have it, mainly
because I'm running an old Linux distribution and I'm pretty thick when it
comes to Unix admin). It's called VMWare. I've seen it running and you'd
really not know. I went to a meeting in London a month or so back and the
guy was running linux on his laptop. He started up this VMWare program,
hit the boot button, and another PC started up in a window. He hit the
fullscreen, and it looked like a normal PC. Windows 2000 started, and he
used Powerpoint to deliver his presentation. It was solid, and fast, and
looked exactly like a Windows PC. And when it crashed, he just killed the
VMWare app, and restarted it. It's not a free program - but there's ways
and means."


------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

[Baron Munchausen]

It sure would be nice to have SE IV on Linux. I've heard that Wine will run many Win95/98 compatible programs but it's unpredictable which ones work and which do not. But notice that some people are complaining about the time it takes to run a turn already. Adding another layer of 'emulation' to the underlying system wouldn't help that. It's better to have the game run in native Linux under X or something like that.

[Mephisto]

I think I remember that SE4 was written in Delphi so there is some hope. AFAIK there is now Kylix, the Delphi for Linux. As it seems you can compile your windows code without changes in Kylix to Linux. I'm no programmer but it sounds at least possible to get a linux Version of SE4.

[dogscoff]

I know a few ppl who run Linux - I'll see if I can talk them into trying out the SE4 demo under emulation.

If they (or anyone) can get it to work then I might go linux - don't actually *need* windoze for anything else.

To run wine I assume you'd need to have a Version of windows installed within the emulator - is this right?


------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

[Taqwus]

Data point re: SE4 via Wine --

Using a basically untweaked installation of Wine (as per SuSE 7.2), not changing any options except to point it at my Win2K directory, SE4 did in fact load and run. With appropriate permissions, it appears to be able to load and save games as well.

The game was significantly slower, but that might have something to do with the fact that I forgot to switch CDs (CMBO was loaded) and kept the CD music option on... plus, I've got a Vortex card, so sound support tends to be flakey. That might cause problems with some programs; I don't know if Wine is one of them.

More annoying was a visual quirk, where *rotated* ship images (anything but facing up) were not displayed. Cloaking circles were present, but not the ships themselves (when rotated). Maybe it's fixable by tweaking colors, resolution, or library options -- the defaults were mostly to use Wine's built-in libraries rather than the actual Windows Versions. Beam weapons, incidentally, did show up (slowly).



------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

GNU's Not Unix! - the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
site claims that Linux was written by GNU. I was looking there to see if they had a free C Compiler (no soap). If Linux is public domain software, it should see lots of computer tools for developers provided free or at nominal rates before long, that's my next search. Just thought people interested in Linux might be interested in GNU....

A Hotbot search on "free compiler language" matches 153,300. Add "AMD-K6" cuts that to 1200. Obviously I have to get a bit more particular. I am just interested in what compiler with integrated tool suite I can get for free to run on my Compaq Presario 5240 under windows 98 (year 2000 update 2). Anybody here develop in that environment ?

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 03 August 2001).]

[Taqwus]

If you're looking for a free C/C++ compiler for Linux, there's gcc (which IS by Gnu folks.. unlike the kernel...). Non-miniature distributions usually include gcc as compiler, plus GNU make, various binary utilities such as an assembler, GNU's C library, and a linker. There's gdb, the GNU debugger, and ddd, a GUI front-end to gdb. Various text editors, such as Emacs and vim, typically have support such as syntax highlighting, parentheses matching, and allowing a separate frame with compiler output.

gcc happens to be common on many Unices, although in general if there's a vendor compiler it may be MUCH better in terms of optimizations and so forth.

I've no experience with Linux IDEs, however; am strictly a text-editor / CLI compiler guy, never having liked even IDEs for DOS and Windows. There are some available, IIRC, but I can't comment on 'em.

Incidentally, gcc came out with a recent 3.0 release. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-ft pole yet, because of all the non-trivial stuff that's been changed. Oh, and Linux, and its GNU Public License, is definitely not public domain. Mr. Stallman would probably go berserk if told it was.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[liga]

Thank you all ... so now I have a reason to try to mount wine (VMWare is expensive) on my PC.

bye bye
Liga