WIN4LIN

Message

pinnockio · Post by **pinnockio** » Tue Jun 18, 2002 12:04 pm

Hello,

Does anybody has got any experience with Win4Lin under Gentoo and where I could get a working version without paying for a licence fee? I first want to try before I buy :-.

Kind regards,

A belgian Gentoo user

taskara · Post by **taskara** » Tue Jun 18, 2002 12:06 pm

they don't have a trial version, but they do have a money back gaurantee.
u can buy it, and if u can't use it, then they refund in full.

pinnockio · Post by **pinnockio** » Tue Jun 18, 2002 6:13 pm

Well,

I know that VMWare can't be installed the standard way in Gentoo because of it not using any rc0 ... rc6 runlevels. Or are there some other kind a like programs available beside win4lin, bosh, Wine, VMWare (the free unstable ?86? project). The fact is I only wan't to use a stupid dictionary written for Windows, but doesn't work under Wine because of it making to much use of child-windows

.

Kind regards,

a belgian Gentoo user

delta407 · Post by **delta407** » Tue Jun 18, 2002 6:15 pm

Correct, VMware can't be installed the standard way; hence, there's an ebuild for it. "emerge vmware-workstation"

pinnockio · Post by **pinnockio** » Wed Jun 19, 2002 10:40 am

Oeps, didn't notice there was an ebuild available for it

Thx!!

a belgian Gentoo user

cf25 · Post by **cf25** » Mon Jul 08, 2002 8:06 pm

actually win4lin has a trial version. you just have to email them and ask for it. they will send you a serial # that expires in like 30 days or something. but you get the whole working version. its kinda nice actually. i tried it back when i had a suse workstation. its kindof a pain to have to install windows in linux though. seems sacreligious!

klieber · Post by **klieber** » Mon Jul 08, 2002 8:20 pm

I've had extremely good luck with VMWare -- it's a robust, mature, stable product. The downside, of course, is that it costs a fair chunk of change. (though you can save money if you're a student/teacher/professor or know of one who can buy it at the academic price.)

It does have a 30-day trial version and, as delta407 pointed out, an ebuild as well.

--kurt

Robert · Post by **Robert** » Mon Jul 08, 2002 10:31 pm

I use Win4Lin on Gentoo and have also used Vmware. Win4Lin is much much much faster than Vmware, but has a few limitations that Vmware does not have.

Win4Lin runs Win98se seemingly at full speed, but does not support directx and directdraw which rules out several popular video formats and about 99% of games. Win4Lin does not work with the preempt patches and Netraverse will not likely add preempt support until some major distro like Redhat starts using it (according to them). It also does not support USB. In addition, from what I understand Win4Lin will never run Windows 2000 or XP (bleh), but is limited to the dos based Win9x versions. Win4Lin does not support the Gentoo Kernel, so you must patch a vanilla Kernel with 2 patches available from the Netraverse website. Currently I am using 2.4.19-pre10 w/the low latency patch and the Win4Lin patches (applied before the 2.4.19-pre patches) and it's running great.

All shortcomings aside, Win4Lin does not even compare to Vmware when it comes to speed. Im running an AthlonXP 2000+ on a A7v333 (KT333) w/ 768megs of DDR333 and Vmware is still to slow for my tastes. The only real advantage it has over Win4Lin (for me) is support for Preempt, the Gentoo Kernel and USB.

--
Robert Brown

klieber · Post by **klieber** » Mon Jul 08, 2002 10:54 pm

Robert wrote:In addition, from what I understand Win4Lin will never run Windows 2000 or XP (bleh), but is limited to the dos based Win9x versions.

Yikes! Really? I didn't realize that. Do they have any sort of plan for the non-Win9x future? MS support for Win9x is likely to die in the next couple of years. (if it hasn't already)

--kurt

Robert · Post by **Robert** » Mon Jul 08, 2002 11:29 pm

Yikes! Really? I didn't realize that. Do they have any sort of plan for the non-Win9x future?

Yep ;( Here are a few snips from a review of Win4Lin located at: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1112

<snip>
So, what they do really, is changing some system calls in the kernel (hence the need for a custom Win4Lin kernel) and then they are loading a DOS-alike environment in the form of a "server". When you load Windows9x, Windows thinks that it runs on top of DOS and not on top of Linux!

<snip>
The down part is that this technique can only load Windows operating systems that are mostly relying on DOS. Having support for WindowsNT/2000 and XP is a completely different kettle of fish. And of course, it can't run any other alternative operating system other than specific versions of Windows.

--
Robert Brown

abhishek · Post by **abhishek** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 5:33 am

I think win98 is the most useful oos to dualboot with anyway, becuae as far as i know, wine works the best with it(dont know if it wors with 2k). Microsoft support used to be somewhat decent(although this support is far better:)) I remember my probs got transferred pretty high sometimes, and i think my win98 was out of warrenty. Oh well. Loosing suppourt from ms shouldnt really influence ur os choice. Even if they suppourt ME but not 98, 98 is 50 billion times better.

klieber · Post by **klieber** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 11:19 am

data_the_android wrote:Loosing suppourt from ms shouldnt really influence ur os choice.

Except that, typically as MS drops support for an OS, so do manufacturers drop support for creating drivers for said OS.

Anyway, this is straying OT. Point is, if you're going to use Win4Lin, simply be aware that it only supports Win9x for now.

--kurt

sleon · Post by **sleon** » Tue Jul 09, 2002 11:49 am

WIN4LIN rocks!! But it works only with kernels until 2.4.18(there is steel no patch for 2.4.19 to make win4lin conform kernel)
Also you need to install and compile rpm , to be able to install win4lin.

But then all programms , such as phtoshop 7 oder flash mx oder alls programms, that don't need
DirectX will work without any problems!
WIN4LIN is much quicker than VMWARE

Cheers sleon|tuX

Robert · Post by **Robert** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 12:22 am

sleon wrote:WIN4LIN rocks!! But it works only with kernels until 2.4.18(there is steel no patch for 2.4.19 to make win4lin conform kernel)

Just a note here: You can use Win4Lin w/ 2.4.19-pre/rc by applying the Win4Lin patches on the vanilla 2.4.18 source, then applying the 2.4.19-pre/rc patches ..and any other patches you desire. I use the low latency patch also

Works fine

sleon · Post by **sleon** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 6:08 am

@Robert
Oh, thx.
Didn't know that

Robert · Post by **Robert** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 6:27 am

Heh, guess I am just a bit late since 2.4.19 is just came out ;p. Netraverse is beta testing preempt support. Hopefully it will be in the new kernel patches ;)

-darkstar- · Post by **-darkstar-** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 10:11 pm

I've patched the kernel (2.4.19) but the installer says that there's an error while loading modules... what can i do?

Thx

ebrostig · Post by **ebrostig** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 10:22 pm

-darkstar- wrote:I've patched the kernel (2.4.19) but the installer says that there's an error while loading modules... what can i do?

Thx

How about: "Post the errors?"
That would probably help us a lot in understanding your problem.

Erik

-darkstar- · Post by **-darkstar-** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 10:37 pm

thank you, but i've resolved... the rpm install the init.d file a wrong location... now all works perfectly...

ejwahl · Post by **ejwahl** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 1:10 am

Robert,

Where can I get the 2.4.19-pre/rc patches you refer to?

Thanks,

Robert · Post by **Robert** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 2:32 am

ejwahl wrote:Robert,

Where can I get the 2.4.19-pre/rc patches you refer to?

Thanks,

That post was made when 2.4.19 was in the rc stage. Now that 2.4.19 final has been released, there is no need for such patches ;)

The patches I was referring to before are available at the kernel.org archives.

Currently I am running 2.4.19 vanilla with 3 patches:
preempt-kernel-rml-2.4.19-2.patch,
Kernel-Win4Lin3-2.4.19.patch
and the mki-adapter.patch

The preempt patch is available at:
http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/peop ... rnel/v2.4/

and the Win4Lin patches can be had at:
http://www.netraverse.com/member/downlo ... _patch.php

The latest Win4Lin supports the preemptable kernel well.

--
Robert Brown

ejwahl · Post by **ejwahl** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 3:16 am

Thank you!

Are you using the low-latency patch as well or is that not needed since you have the preempt patch?

Robert · Post by **Robert** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 3:34 am

ejwahl wrote: Are you using the low-latency patch as well or is that not needed since you have the preempt patch?

I have considered adding the low latency patch to the mix as well, but have not had time lately to experiment much. It may very well further improve performance with this combination..

I would be glad to read about your experiences if you go this route.

--
Robert Brown

ejwahl · Post by **ejwahl** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 4:06 am

Robert,

I patched a vanilla 2.4.19 kernel with the Win4Lin, mki-adapter, low-latency and preempt patches and all went well. I have no benchmarks to measure any performance gains but it **seems** pretty snappy. Everything's working as it should, including Win4Lin, of course.

Thanks for the patch recommendations!

divinerites · Post by **divinerites** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:50 pm

ejwahl wrote:Robert,

I patched a vanilla 2.4.19 kernel with the Win4Lin, mki-adapter, low-latency and preemption patches and all went well.

Thanks for the link to kernel.org for the preempt patch, but the low latency on gentoo.org seems old (2.4.16) and i got some errors. Is there any link to kernel.org (i couldn't find it) for an up to date low latency patch ?

Is there a possibility for an automated script (ebuild ?) to make Win4lin working from vanilla_sources.

Anyway thanks all for the good advices.

Didier.

WIN4LIN

WIN4LIN

trial version

problems...

Re: problems...

up2date low latency patch ?