I have tested all my systems developed in Delphi (in Windows XP) on Wine (OpenSuse Linux) and they work perfectly. My question is: should I start distributing my systems (on a local basis that I can support) as Wine ready or are there other issues I should take into account?
+14
A:
You could do what Google does and package Wine with the application. That way there's no fear that Wine will change something in the future and prevent your app from working.
Mark A. Nicolosi
2008-10-14 18:06:53
Very wise suggestion - thanks very much!
mm2010
2008-10-14 18:11:46
From what I understand, WINE has stabilized significantly over the last year, so this may not be as much of an issue any more.
Joel Coehoorn
2008-10-14 18:18:33
Yes, they have taken the plunge and released a stable version called Wine 1.0
mm2010
2008-10-14 18:24:37
not as much as packaging Wine, but link with it and deploy ELF executables, not EXE files.
Javier
2008-10-14 18:32:49
Javier: this is not necessary, there is no real gain to doing that, performance or otherwise.
niXar
2008-11-03 14:27:21
Alternately test against a particular build of Wine and certify against that. It seems to be what most software vendors do.
Adam Hawes
2009-02-04 04:45:08
+3
A:
Yes it would be a good idea. All that can help communication between the worlds of Linux and Windows is a plus. It would be even better if you can have your code compile natively in Linux.
stephanea
2008-10-14 18:18:49
I'll have to use Lazarus for that (native compile) which is a bit of work initially. Our market is very cost sensitive over here and it may help sales.
mm2010
2008-10-14 18:22:43
+2
A:
Personally, I'd love to see apps available that are 'pre'-crossplatform like you've described.
@Mark's answer is also a good idea: distributing a statically-linked edition of Wine, while it would make your product bigger, would ensure that it will run, even if a newer edition exists that breaks something (I'm reminded of places that ship their 'own' JRE to ensure their tool runs correctly).
Maybe there should be a move made in the Wine community to have "made for Wine" stickers/logos available?
warren
2008-10-14 18:19:44
+1
A:
I would post a notice that your application has been certified to work with WINE version whatever, and that it may or may not work with other versions of WINE. You should consider testing your application with the beta and rc versions of wine to ensure they will remain compatible during release cycles.
It is simple enough to sandbox you WINE installations.
+1
A:
Getting your application to build with Free Pascal and Lazarus would be a huge gain on Linux systems, at the cost of some pain to you.
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
2008-10-22 01:23:15
+3
A:
You should list Wine as a supported platform, say which version of Wine you've tested with, and ask to get added to the list of apps that support wine at http://wiki.winehq.org/AppsThatSupportWine
+1
A:
IF you application runs in Wine, can you not try compiling it natively and linking against the winelib?
Adam Hawes
2009-02-04 04:46:53