licensed windows API in linux???

Person_1873 · 02-07-2008, 12:39 AM

is there any software simmilar to wine that you can install, but have a windows license and actually be able to run "ANY" windows app in linux? what's to stop that from happening anyway?

i don't want to emulate/virtualise because my cpu isn't VT compatible or whatever so...

pixellany · 02-07-2008, 06:46 AM

As a practical matter, I think the only way to run ANY Windows app is to run on Windows. (including running on Linux in a VM).

This said, I believe that any Windows app can be made to run on WINE/CrossOver if the author/vendor cooperates. Codeweavers (vendor of CrossOver) happily accepts money for helping to get an application running.

Person_1873 · 02-08-2008, 04:46 AM

yea i'm aware of this, i do have a windows instalation, i just dislike windows, i wan't to dump windows completely, but until wine, cedega or crossover are good enough to be able to run all win XP apps at least, i'm not going to dump my win installation,

i'm a heavy gamer, but linux doesnt have any support for any of my favorite games, i was just hoping that there was a way that you could have the full blown win32 API without the GUI running in a simmilar fashion to wine in linux

Matir · 02-08-2008, 07:35 AM

I can't imagine Microsoft ever creating a Windows API to run on top of Linux -- seems like it wouldn't do they much good, even if they could license it. (Losing OS means they lose a lot of software sales too.)

pixellany · 02-08-2008, 08:04 AM

Many moons ago, I asked the people at Codeweavers why it was so difficult to get WINE up to 100%. My simple logic was based on the presumption that MS publishes information on how to develop for Windows---therefore anyone should be able to make it work going the other way. I forget the exact conversation but I think it carried the message that I did not really understand Windows programming. (But then, I already knew that....

)

Without actually installing and running Windows, I think WINE is as close as you get.

Person_1873 · 02-10-2008, 05:57 AM

hmm, i just don't see why someone couldn't with microsoft sdl'd create an environment in which you could basically use your win XP or vista CD/DVD to install an API is all...

the only bit that microsoft would supply would be the base OS...

also is it possible to virtually separate a dual core processor and essentially run 2 OS's side by side using 2 different video cards and peripherals through the one PC? like this?

Code:

/----------------------------------------\
|     OS 1          |       OS 2         |
|----------------------------------------|
|                                        |
|           Hardware                     |
\________________________________________/

jlinkels · 02-10-2008, 09:09 AM

Sure that can be done. There is a variety of solutions, ranging from one extreme (a Windows API on a Linux system) thru a VM, thru utilizing a dual core processor, thru separate hardware and eventually you end up with two separate boxes, whether or not sharing one external hard disk.

But you don't need a dual core processor per se to do this. From the i386 on the concept of a virtual processor was know, which enables you to run each process as if it were running in a separate hardware processor. The reason that recently dual and quad core processors came in the market is that single core processors could not further be optimized are made run faster. Now *finally* Windows and Windows programs were able to perform decent multithreading it pays off to have multiple cores.

The basic architecture has not been changed though, i.e. what is possible with two cores has always been possible with one core.

Since your proposal is still based on some hardware sharing, you'd still need some co-operation between the OS-es to determine who is the boss over which hardware and when. OS-es expect to be the single boss, and are not designed to co-operate. That is why usually one OS is the host for another guest VM.

If your problem is gaming, I cannot do else but recommend a Windows system as host and running Linux in a VM. Any other solution on a Linux platform won't work as I think most games expect to have a Windows API which is down to the hardware as much as possible.

Just my

jlinkels

Person_1873 · 02-10-2008, 10:39 PM

right... i was sorta thinking of a virtual host under both OSes controlling hardware as a normal OS would but only have the task of giving each OS resources

lazlow · 02-11-2008, 12:24 AM

You essentially just described Vmware.

Person_1873 · 05-26-2008, 05:00 PM

ok, but is there an OSS alternative to vmware?

XavierP · 05-26-2008, 05:08 PM

Qemu will run Windows in a similar fashion to Vmware.

Person_1873 · 05-26-2008, 05:10 PM

but can you install it as a standalone bootable system without a host?

jlinkels · 05-26-2008, 09:09 PM

VirtualBox is OSS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Person_1873

but can you install it as a standalone bootable system without a host?

Do you mean whether it is possible to have a normal running system first and then start it as part of your VM?

Check http://www.virtual-box.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows

jlinkels