Winetricks game verbs - good or bad? (was: Re: New winetricks 20110117-alpha: new verbs dxdiag, firefox4, ut3, hegemonygold_demo, ...)
On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Vitaliy Margolen wine-devel@kievinfo.com wrote:
On 01/17/2011 11:30 AM, Dan Kegel wrote:
New version 20110117-alpha adds the following new verbs:
firefox4 - beta9 of Firefox's new web browser ut3 - the first-person shooter Unreal Tournament 3 (requires dvd)
Isn't that exactly why we marked all other scripts like this a "third party unsupported tools"?
I suspect PlayOnLinux got the cold shoulder because they use old versions of wine, they use their own patches, they don't have a 'real' version control system for game scripts, and they didn't communicate with the wine community. So problem reports from PlayOnLinux users weren't very helpful for Wine developers.
Winetricks doesn't encourage users to run old or patched wine, and I'm not a stranger on wine-devel.
In fact, if we play our cards right, winetricks might actually reduce the number of clueless support requests. People have trouble following the HOWTOs in the appdb. A winetricks verb for a game should be like a perfectly automated little implementation of the HOWTO, with bug workarounds clearly marked, and skipped automatically when using new enough wine. Better still, since it's automated, we can run it nightly to make sure it doesn't break.
What concrete problems do you see with winetricks having verbs for popular games? - Dan
On 01/17/2011 01:15 PM, Dan Kegel wrote:
What concrete problems do you see with winetricks having verbs for popular games?
Does it cover Steam'ed versions? Different languages? How about conflicts between setups for different games under one wineprefix? Or conflicts with existing installed software under the same wineprefix?
The only scenario that would be fine with me, if winetricks will allow new prefix only for complete software installs. And refuse to install into existing one.
Vitaliy.
On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 8:31 PM, Vitaliy Margolen wine-devel@kievinfo.com wrote:
On 01/17/2011 01:15 PM, Dan Kegel wrote:
What concrete problems do you see with winetricks having verbs for popular games?
Does it cover Steam'ed versions? Different languages?
I'm curious why you ask - would covering (or not covering) Steam or different languages lead to poor quality bug reports? I guess you're afraid of people complaining about the tool and not about Wine?
How about conflicts between setups for different games under one wineprefix? Or conflicts with existing installed software under the same wineprefix?
The only scenario that would be fine with me, if winetricks will allow new prefix only for complete software installs. And refuse to install into existing one.
The author of PlayOnLinux agrees with you; that's how that tool works.
I do have code for that, but I haven't turned it on yet, since it raises some UI issues. I could make it the default for app installs once I iron those out. - Dan
To pick up where we left of. On 01/17/2011 02:23 PM, Dan Kegel wrote:
On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 8:31 PM, Vitaliy Margolen wine-devel@kievinfo.com wrote:
On 01/17/2011 01:15 PM, Dan Kegel wrote:
What concrete problems do you see with winetricks having verbs for popular games?
Does it cover Steam'ed versions? Different languages?
I'm curious why you ask - would covering (or not covering) Steam or different languages lead to poor quality bug reports? I guess you're afraid of people complaining about the tool and not about Wine?
I'm talking about system being in a different locale. And you trying to install an English program. Some installers don't like that. Also number of system directory paths would be different. Alternatively what if user wants to install not English version of say FireFox?
As far as games go, most steamed versions don't really require an installation, steam downloads them and runs re-distributable installers that game requires.
I guess where I'm going with it, is how much will winetricks install to satisfy each program? And how well this list will correspond to environment?
How about conflicts between setups for different games under one wineprefix? Or conflicts with existing installed software under the same wineprefix?
The only scenario that would be fine with me, if winetricks will allow new prefix only for complete software installs. And refuse to install into existing one.
The author of PlayOnLinux agrees with you; that's how that tool works.
I do have code for that, but I haven't turned it on yet, since it raises some UI issues. I could make it the default for app installs once I iron those out.
This will be highly beneficial for everyone. User will be able to easily remove programs, and you won't need to deal with conflicting requirements. Also this will guarantee that default prefix is left untouched.
Vitaliy.
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Dan Kegel -
Vitaliy Margolen