[COLUG] WINE and IE4Linux

[Dave Maxwell]

On Tue September 11 2007, charles morrison wrote:
>ld be nice if I had a way to change the WINE search path to find IE6
> installed under IE4Linux, or some one come up with a version of it for a
> normal WINE user.
>

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This is an excerpt from the script that actually starts ie4linux 
(~/ies4linux/bin/ie6):

export WINEPREFIX="/home/<your home dir>/.ies4linux/ie6"

If you export that WINEPREFIX before running other installers, then you may be 
able to install other software in the same bottle that ies4linux is using. 
That same prefix would also have be exported before running the installed 
softwares.  Short launcher scripts would be your friend there. 

The problem here is that a wine install sufficiently contorted enough to let 
IE run may not be good for much else.  I never had much luck using Wine as a 
general Windows replacement.  I think it is an ok way for a software vendor 
to quickly "port" something to Linux like Google did with Picasa.  Google had 
the ability to tweak both a local install of Wine and Picasa until all 
aspects of the software worked correctly.  I also would like to see more 
attention paid to Winelib which allows Windows source code to built on Linux.  
Again, either the Wine side or the source can be adjusted until well working 
software results.

I've been playing around with Wine for years and don't ever see it suceeding 
as a general Windows software launcher.  As a targeted solution, I believe it 
has some utility.

If you absolutely positively MUST run J. Random Windows software under Linux 
then something like Qemu or VMWare is more likely to be successful.  I use 
such things to quickly accomplish a Windows-only task before returning to my 
regularly scheduled Linux experience.

Dave


-- 
Old age is always fifteen years old than I am.
		-- B. Baruch