Wine Running On A N900 (Maybe Pandora Too...)

[SomeGuy99]

Wineboot doesn't even take a second for me. And it really depends on what you have in your wine install. I'm not even sure what wineboot does. In theory wine itself should ask for much initialization anyway as it mainly forwards calls to the host.

I can only talk about my own experiences. In Ubuntu it takes about 10 seconds to load on first usage. This is on a Pentium M, 1.7ghz laptop. I've used Wine on lighter distros such as Puppy Linux (on various machines), and it didn't seem much better. Once loaded it does start apps pretty quickly, I just get the delay while Wine first loads (on a fresh Linux boot).

No, wine+linux is not slower than windows. On my old PC it's faster in nearly every case. I didn't test it on my new PC but would expect similar results as this is what I often hear. Only some things which are not optimized yet or more complex things are slower. However, especially older games are usually way faster in wine than on windows.
Not sure about the winamp problem, but it might even be a problem with the window manager, not wine directly.

I'd love to use whatever version of Wine you have. It's always been slower for me! Am I doing something wrong?

No, I think the bug is well known about. I recall reading about it on the Wine buglist not that long ago. People were recommending a more modern Winamp (version 5). In the old version of Winamp, you have to move the window extremely slowly, or it flies out of the viewable screen area!

Qemu was designed for simplicity (at least I found an PDF claiming that) and portability. Qemu was not really designed for x86 to x86 tho. I would assume Qemu does the full thing while VirtualBox takes some optimized route.

Okay, but that doesn't make sense to me. Is there some delay when the program looks at an x86 instruction, and then simply executes that instruction? Does the analysis cause a delay?

 

[TitanUranus]

Well, as far as I'm aware, whoever said (sorry I read this long thread and forgot names) Qemu was crap, it's come a very long way since I first used it. From what I recall it used to recompile everything even on x86 hardware (which it would have to do on ARM). So it should be well coded for recompiling by now!

Also, I used XDSL on the xbox too, It even had full flash video support in firefox, though it was a bit slow (piss poor ram).

As for WinCE on xbox I could never get it working, on any of the 5 or 6 xboxes I modded for friends. So it did nothing, but it did it so splendidly and efficiently cant we emulate an xbox with winCE installed just to see how much CPU it takes pandora to do that quality of nothing?

 

[SomeGuy99]

As for WinCE on xbox I could never get it working, on any of the 5 or 6 xboxes I modded for friends. So it did nothing, but it did it so splendidly and efficiently cant we emulate an xbox with winCE installed just to see how much CPU it takes pandora to do that quality of nothing?

That's the spirit! Just do stuff because we can, and tests the limits (not being sarcastic).

Of course, none of this is relevant for x86 on ARM; direct hardware access isn't useful when the hardware is entirely different.

I sort of assumed that Qemu would simply virtualise if no translation was needed. And if Qemu is slower than something like VirtualBox in practise, then doesn't that mean Qemu isn't as efficient as it could be?

But yeah, this is all very academic. I don't imagine a developer will appear out of nowhere and write their own x86 to ARM translator - we'll end up using or adapating Qemu won't we?

 

[kingoddball]

I CAN RUN FALLOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MarkoeZ]

Now we just need Exophase to come in and tell us all why ARM can't cut it for the same task (I honestly do look forward to reading it).

Fuck you, ARM is awesome

Is it better than PowerPC? (Come on, I know you can do it. Give me a long and rambling explanation that I'll barely understand but find massively interesting anyway)

Well this just made me lol , interesting subject nonetheless

Just taking Wine as an example: It's slow to boot (22 seconds in the N900 video. It doesn't sound like a lot maybe, but if you're really interested in loading a Windows application and Wine isn't already initiated, that adds an irritating delay before your app loads).

22 seconds, i guess that's without windows 3.11? say it even takes 2 minutes to load up. I'd still like to play around with it. Yeah, dosbox too

 

[SomeGuy99]

22 seconds, i guess that's without windows 3.11? say it even takes 2 minutes to load up. I'd still like to play around with it. Yeah, dosbox too

It's not actually running Windows 3.11 as such.

Have a read, it can explain more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)

 

[MarkoeZ]

22 seconds, i guess that's without windows 3.11? say it even takes 2 minutes to load up. I'd still like to play around with it. Yeah, dosbox too

It's not actually running Windows 3.11 as such.

Have a read, it can explain more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)

Ok i agree with you that i should review my posts when it's late, knew this, but have not used wine yet

But i was commenting on the time it took to get something loaded. and for the rare apps i'd like to try, i would not mind waiting a while, and seems to be less then

 

[SomeGuy99]

22 seconds, i guess that's without windows 3.11? say it even takes 2 minutes to load up. I'd still like to play around with it. Yeah, dosbox too

It's not actually running Windows 3.11 as such.

Have a read, it can explain more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)

Ok i agree with you that i should review my posts when it's late, knew this, but have not used wine yet

But i was commenting on the time it took to get something loaded. and for the rare apps i'd like to try, i would not mind waiting a while, and seems to be less then

Every time I've used Wine (like in Ubuntu), it works something like this:

Linux Boots...

Log into Linux Account

Gnome loads...

Now i'm in Linux. Alright!

Navigate to my Windows executable...

Double Click on it (mime gives it a wine icon and associates it)

Wait...

Wait...

Okay I've waited to like 10-15 seconds.

App suddenly appears on screen! Yeah!

I double click on another executable.

Wait...

I've waited about 1 second or less. The same as in native Windows.


If I kill Wine through the proccess viewer it has to load all over gain, otherwise it lives in RAM (I think) till I launch another Windows binary.

Now the question remains, what happens with my Pandora? Do I want Wine to sit there, unused and munching on my RAM? It may be likely that you launch Wine anew for each app, in which case you have to...

...

...

wait.

 

[Exophase]

Are you sure that a G3 is more powerful than a Cortex-A8? I recall the G3 being compared to the Pentium 2 in performance, and tables showing the A8 is more comparable in MIPS to a Pentium 3? I'm sure you can tell me the correct information.

Yes I'm sure, although it isn't absolute that some application on A8 won't match or exceed G3. Pentium 3 is a Pentium 2 with SSE and (eventually) faster cache. G3 at 600MHz with 256KB on-die L2 is much more comparable to Pentium 3 600MHz.

G3 and P3 are both triple-issue out-of-order designs, while Cortex-A8 is dual-issue and in-order, and that's where it'll get most of its performance advantage.

G3 also has better scalar FPU, but A8 wins in having SIMD FPU (and integer). G3 has twice as much L1 cache, A8 has bigger branch prediction tables. G3 has a 64-bit bus, A8 (on OMAP3) has a 32-bit one that I believe is higher clocked, but they say latency is not good.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Yes I'm sure

Okay, thanks for the information. I wonder why PPC Linux is so slow then? I think the version I was using was Ubuntu 6.06, that was the last officially suported release from Canonical. More recent versions didn't boot, probably because the Imac has some issues (to even get 6.06 to boot, you need to manually edit the X.org settings).

For some reason though, using the bare terminal on that machine is beautiful - the text displays at full 1024x768, in a really nice font, and it scrolls like a dream. Don't ask me why, but it looks breath-taking on such a lovely CRT screen. Command lines and CRT monitors were made to be together, it has that hacker vibe (even better in green).

I think I might keep the Imac around forever, and use it to remote-shell into other machines. It's just far too classy and timeless.

 

[MarkoeZ]

Every time I've used Wine (like in Ubuntu), it works something like this:

Linux Boots...

Log into Linux Account Gnome loads... Now i'm in Linux. Alright! Navigate to my Windows executable... Double Click on it (mime gives it a wine icon and associates it) Wait... Wait... Okay I've waited to like 10-15 seconds. App suddenly appears on screen! Yeah! I double click on another executable. Wait... I've waited about 1 second or less. The same as in native Windows. If I kill Wine through the proccess viewer it has to load all over gain, otherwise it lives in RAM (I think) till I launch another Windows binary.
Now the question remains, what happens with my Pandora? Do I want Wine to sit there, unused and munching on my RAM? It may be likely that you launch Wine anew for each app, in which case you have to...

...

...

wait.

i hope i'm not the the only one that finds it amusing just to try if it works?

 

[SomeGuy99]

i hope i'm not the the only one that finds it amusing just to try if it works?

Nope! Ignore the detractors, they just lack the pointless-adventure gene.

I'm sure people rolled their eyes at the first guy to walk out of Africa (when humanity was still half-monkey).

 

[bzar]

I'm sure people rolled their eyes at the first guy to walk out of Africa (when humanity was still half-monkey).

Humans are still 98% monkey

 

[Namo]

Yay, Starcraft at 2fps ftw

Just a matter of optimizing

There is a N64 version of Starcraft, though I never played it (probably sucks). It might have a couple of frames per second more.

The N64 version did suck in comparison to the pc version. Never tried it with the n64 mouse support though so who knows....

It didn't suck in my opinion. Spent many a saturday morning blasting my brother with nukes via split screen, and to be honest, Starcraft 64 is the only iteration of Starcraft I actually like.

 

[multiplex]

Okay I've waited to like 10-15 seconds.

App suddenly appears on screen! Yeah!

I double click on another executable.

Wait...

I've waited about 1 second or less. The same as in native Windows.

I've seen Wine act like this depending on the machine's network configuration. First point is to check that localhost is configured correctly, but there are probably also things like routing, IPv6 and multiple network interfaces that could play a part.

 

[davidgro]

Okay I've waited to like 10-15 seconds.

App suddenly appears on screen! Yeah!

I double click on another executable.

Wait...

I've waited about 1 second or less. The same as in native Windows.

I've seen Wine act like this depending on the machine's network configuration. First point is to check that localhost is configured correctly, but there are probably also things like routing, IPv6 and multiple network interfaces that could play a part.

On my Kubuntu system I have the Wine PPA enabled, so every two weeks it upgrades, and the first launch after an upgrade it takes probably 10-15 seconds to "Update configuration" or some such. Then every launch after that is fast. I just checked and could not find any wine processes running (are there any that don't contain "wine" in the name?) after I closed my test program (skifree) but launching it again takes about 1 second.

 

[borgqueenx]

*skips all the technical talk and asks*:
what does this mean for pandora ATM, and maby for the future?

 

[MonkeyChops]

already answered.

Yay, Starcraft at 2fps ftw

 

[borgqueenx]

already answered.

Yay, Starcraft at 2fps ftw

That was not sarcastic? And i have no idea what that game uses. What about other possibilities?

 

[SomeGuy99]

That was not sarcastic? And i have no idea what that game uses. What about other possibilities?

Notepad! Hey... don't gimme that look... I like Notepad okay?