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Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux?
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Subject: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 29 Dec 03 - 06:26 AM Is there anyone who can tell me whether it would be possible to run my VB5 program HARMONY under WINE? I don't have any experience of WINE, and don't know what restrictions there may be, or whether it can cope with VB programs. (HARMONY only uses standard WINDOWS controls & DLL's, as well as the VB run time DLL) If not, what sort of changes might be needed? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: treewind Date: 29 Dec 03 - 09:49 AM Increasing numbers of things work under Wine. My guess is that VB programs will work if you install the VB libraries (DLLs) first. (Don't ask me how you do that!) Have you (a) tried it (b) checked at http://www.winehq.org I've just done the latter, and it seems VB progarams can run under Wine. Whether yours will, there's only one way to find out. Wine does have good sound support, if Harmony needs that. In general what doesn't work is programs that use very obscure and rarely-used Windows APIs, so your chances look good. Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: mack/misophist Date: 29 Dec 03 - 10:03 AM I won't try to offer advice on something I haven't done myself. However, if wine isn't quite good enough, the developers - Codeweavers - offer the latest and greatest version for a small fee before GPLing it. That might do the trick. I suspect the VB libraries go in the fake_windows folder but I wouldn't speculate on exactly where. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 29 Dec 03 - 01:00 PM Thanks - I don't yet have Linux installed so I can't try it myself. All sound is MIDI, so that should work OK. Is there anyone who HAS tried it? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: mack/misophist Date: 29 Dec 03 - 03:14 PM pavane: If you don't yet have linux installed, may I suggest that the two easiest distros for a newbie to run are Libranet and Knoppix? The first is cheap, with e-mail support, the second is free to download, with no support that I know of. Also, check out linuxquestions.org. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 30 Dec 03 - 07:32 AM I did have it installed on my laptop, but unfortunately the partition got corrupted before I had a chance to install WINE. (I think it clashed with the nonDos partition used for suspend mode.) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 30 Dec 03 - 07:55 AM Pavane, I can't try it on my current P200 linux box but I do have an empty hard drive on my Athlon XP box onto which I could install Linux for a while. I'll give it a week to see what responses you get. If you still have no answer, I'm prepared to give it a whirl and see what happens. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: mack/misophist Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:14 AM I'm not aquainted with 'Harmony'. If it's a free download, say where to find it and I'll see if it runs for me. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST Date: 30 Dec 03 - 12:13 PM Yes it is a free download (At least for the first month) and I am prepared to give full (lifetime) registration for volunteer testers. Download (3.5mb) is available from www.greenhedges.com (Sample abc files are included) HARMONY provides a wide range of features including: Import: Read most abc single-voice tunes, including aligned lyrics and chord symbols Import abc tunes with with chords (notes) and multiple voices Read multi-voice abc tunes which have aligned lyrics in each voice Import simple MIDI files Open several tunes at a time Create: Create a new (empty) tune ready to add notes Fast keyboard entry of tunes or additions to tunes Create a random tune in a selected style (including chords & percussion) and mode Display: Display the score, either one voice or several voices (Scalable) Colour the notes depending on pitch Select font for headings and lyrics Automatically beam notes correctly, and re-beam when editing Lyric: Import and align lyrics from text file Display score including aligned lyrics in any or all voices Display several verses of aligned lyrics Display tonic sol-fa names instead of lyrics Display abc note names (when imported from abc) instead of lyric Display actual note names instead of lyric Modify: Edit/add/delete individual notes and other musical items (with full undo) Copy and paste notes and groups of notes within a tune Copy and paste between different tunes Automatically add chords (notes and/or symbols) to a melody (HARMONY is aware of and supports modal tunes) Automatically add harmony voices (e.g. 3rd, 4ths, 5ths, above the melody, or unison) Add a percussion voice based on repeating a single bar pattern throughout the tune Apply user-defined styles to notes, to allow use of all MIDI facilities (such as pitch bend, tremelo) Select MIDI Instrument Print: Print score (scalable) Show Preview Create and print Melodeon or anglo concertina tablature Tune Processing: Transpose, either in steps or to a named key Convert reel to hornpipe (many hornpipes have been wrongly transcribed as reels) Make tune into a round (2 or 3 parts) Audit the tune structure, reporting on wrong length bars Reverse the tune Play: Play complete tune via MIDI (optionally with or without repeats) Play selected voices Play parts according to abc part specification (P: command) Play selected notes Save and Export: Save in HARMONY format Export to MIDI, with lyrics or chords (karaoke style) Export to abc, several options available Export to songwright (limited) Bulk processing: Add chords (names) to all or selected tunes in an abc tunebook Rewrite abc tunebook sorted into title sequence |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 31 Dec 03 - 05:22 AM Jon, If you could, that would be great. Thanks |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 31 Dec 03 - 10:18 AM How about the text2midi format that has been used on Mudcat? I am not sure my ancient machine could handle it - what's the minimum specs? Robin |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: mack/misophist Date: 31 Dec 03 - 11:18 AM Wine says that Harmony installed properly but it crashes on startup. I suspect the problem is the location of the VB files. So far, no joy. Jon is quite clever and probably a much better geek than me. Wait for his report. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: pavane Date: 01 Jan 04 - 05:24 AM Thanks mack/m... Did you get any error message? There are a few things HARMONY does at startup which may be relevant: a) Reads and Updates the registry with details of file paths b) Reads the list of latest files from the registry, if any c) sets up default fonts It uses the current path as a default, e.g. after initial installation (But I imagine most Windows programs do the same) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: mack/misophist Date: 01 Jan 04 - 11:34 AM No error messages. If you know how to use a back trace, I can send you that, though. They're usually too big to post here. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: pavane Date: 01 Jan 04 - 12:53 PM No, I am not familiar with it, thanks. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: Mark Clark Date: 01 Jan 04 - 04:41 PM Neil, I've been doing a little light research on your behalf and have found a product called Phoenix from Janus software that might let you port your existing VB code to a native Linux environment. If that actually is realistic, you can still serve all users from a single code base since it's possible to create i86 executables under Linux that will run natively under Win32. You'd probably need to replace your registry logic with something that uses .harmonycf files in the current user's home directory but a lot of your existing code would probably work as is. If you find a way to run Win32 native apps under Linux, you'll probably still have to replace the registry code. If Phoenix actually does what you need, I think it would allow you to target Mac OS X as well. That would be a boon for quite a few Catters.This isn't exactly what you're looking for but it might be an alternative. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: pavane Date: 02 Jan 04 - 06:03 AM Mark, Thanks for the info. I can't actually try it out myself until I can get Linux reinstalled, which may not be for some time, but I will certainly investigate. Havint two versions, one for Windows and one for everyone else wouldn't be too much of a problem |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 02 Jan 04 - 07:04 AM Pavane, I'll probably fail but I should be able to give it a try on Linux by Monday. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 05 Jan 04 - 08:11 AM Just had another thought. HARMONY uses some WINDOWS API calls, particularly 'BitBlt' which seems to be the only way I can draw onto the toolbar buttons. This could easily be a problem for WINE. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 10 Jan 04 - 05:25 AM Sorry about the delay Pavane. A few other things cropped up and I still haven't got round to trying it... I should have time this weekend. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 11 Jan 04 - 01:46 PM OK, I've finally had a go and have failed... I've tried the latest version of Wine available (wine-20031223~) I think. Having spent over an hour downloading an RPM for Mandrake only to find it was for versions 9.1+ and I have 8.1, I opted for a compiling a version from here. The compile took about 45 minutes but everything went worked. I had no problems with your set up program for Harmony3 but I get the following messages when I try to run the program: fixme:ole:CoRegisterMessageFilter stub fixme:ole:OLEPictureImpl_Load Create Icon Failed fixme:dialog:MSGBOX_OnInit task modal msgbox ! Not modal yet. I then get a pop up messagebox saying "Error - Unexpected Error". On closing that I get the "CoRegister..." message again. I have tried searching Google for the first 2 (I assume) MS function calls but have not really found anything that helps me although a MS page indicated the first one is in ole32.lib. The only other thing I have tried is setting Wine to use a copy of ole32.dll I have in my Win2K system instead of the Wine "builtin" one. This produced a long list of compliants when I tried to run Harmony under Wine - Presuambly other DLL settings would need to be changed if ole32.dll is "native". Anyway that's as far as I can go. I doubt that there would be any point but if you did want to follow anything up, please contact me either via email (jon@folkinfo.org) or using the folkinfo website. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: treewind Date: 11 Jan 04 - 02:00 PM Pavane, if you are serious about making a multi platform application there is the WxWindows toolkit. You'd probably have to recode it in C ("just a simple matter of programming"!) and I think the way it works is you make standard platform independent library calls and the Linux and Windows versions of wxlib are wrappers for the X and Windows native APIs. Audacity uses wxwindows, apparently very successfully, and it may be relevant that Audacity is another audio application. Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST Date: 12 Jan 04 - 07:58 AM Thanks Jon. Anahata, I have considered this route before. If I started recoding it in C, I might just be finished by the time Windows becomes obsolete... There are now at least 80k lines of code to rewrite, including a dozen classes, plus 30 or so forms, and C is not my strongest language. It was ORIGINALLY written in the only language I had available in 1995(before LINUX became popular), which was QuickBasic in DOS. Each upgrade, first to VB3, then to VB5, took over a year (of my little free time) in a supposedly compatible language! And there are still things the DOS version could do which the VB version does not, like one-finger play. (Actually, I did also have COBOL, but I don't think anyone in their right mind would consider writing a music program in THAT) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 12 Jan 04 - 08:02 AM Jon, I will look through the code to see exactly what it does at startup, before it displays the spash screen. I think the 'Unexpected error' MIGHT be one of mine. Thanks for all your work. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 12 Jan 04 - 08:06 AM Actually COBOL is a very elegant language - Prof Nyssen made us write a inner level Data Dictionary server in the bloody thing as our second year UQ second stage Cobol subject - when we had introduced indexed files... :-0 - the one thing it DOES excel at is file processing... Robin |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 12 Jan 04 - 08:59 AM In the past, I have written my own preprocessor which implements recursion, amongst other things, in COBOL. (But it's a bit like that story about the dog standing on its hind legs.) Of course, Mainframe COBOL is a bit more limited than Microfocus. What it needed, and I provided, was a source processor which let you code in shorthand, and would expand all datanames and language words before compiling. |
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Subject: For propeller-heads only From: Mark Clark Date: 12 Jan 04 - 02:42 PM Ah, the joys of COBOL. COBOL is not without its uses and I confess I've written hundreds of thousands of lines of the stuff myself—though not any in the last 25 years. But when I began developing programs professionally, the program was still considered to be the flowchart. Debugging was done at one's desk and only when throughly debugged was the machine code to implement it entered—one instruction at a time—into the computer. There was no compiler, assembler nor operating system and flowchart symbols represented exactly one machine instruction. My first high-order language was FORTRAN followed by assembler and LISP. I had several years of professional experience before taking a position requiring COBOL. It's difficult to express and painful to recall what an unpleasant experience that was. It was easy to learn and master but so mind-numbingly verbose as to give one writing cramps trying to express any meaningful algorithm. By comparrison, PL/I was a breath of fresh air. I remember leading a development project once in which the nightly processing exceeded its alloted schedule by more than three hours. Careful profiling revealed the time was being spent in a numeric conversion routine developed at another location. It was a 600 line COBOL program converting decimal strings to base 32. I replaced it with a 50 line assembler routine and thereafter the whole system ran in 45 minutes. COBOL may be many things but one thing it is surely not is elegant; at least not in any mathematical sense. Grace Hopper notwithstanding, I don't think there are any influential computer scientists with a high opinion of COBOL. Familiar quotes include: These and many other condesending quotations about COBOL, plus every other computer programming language, may be enjoyed in detail at sysprog.net. Enjoy.Another of my favorite quotations is “I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.” — Stephen Hawking - Mark |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 12 Jan 04 - 04:01 PM I've never had the "pleasure" of writing anything in COBOL. I was quite horrified when I first saw COBOL code though. It's ages since I looked at it but doesn't it even use MULTIPLY BY where a simple * works fine for most people? The only little bit of formal training I had was with (Turbo) Pascal and we used JSP as the method rather than flowcharts. I'm trying to remember a quote from a book I bought when I wanted to learn a little C/C++. The author divided programs up into programs written for programmers and included Pascal and C in that group. He put COBOL and BASIC into something like programs written for non-programmers. Some BASICs have of course changed a lot - I'd say for example the VB script I use for ASP pages has more in common with Turbo Pascal than it did with the first BASIC (Commodore) I tried. One really big difference is VB script allows functions whereas with Commodore basic all you had was GOTO and GOSUB which could only be referenced by a line number. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 13 Jan 04 - 02:02 AM Well COBOL was designed in olden daze... and it was a good idea at the time, just like sending a robot to Mars, and having it bounce around like a beach ball.... It was very good at certain types of data handling - if you set up your data structures (and Prof Nyssen would not let us start coding until data structures had been approved! - took us nearly 3 weeks for that stage!) correctly and elegantly, then many data moves are very simple and NON-verbose... For lots of mathematical processing COBOL was definitely not to be preferred over Fortran - when I was at UQ - we used to link together fragments in many languages and hope it would all work - er, I mean... Other languages can do wonderful things but then who in their right mind would desigh a language with out any form of input/output so that every body had to write their own input/output sections? :-) FORTH forever! "And Moore stumbled, and came FORTH" Robin |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: Mark Clark Date: 13 Jan 04 - 11:26 AM Right you are, Robin. Moore thought of his threaded interpretive language (TIL) as a fourth generation programming language. Do you know why he spelled it FORTH instead of FOURTH? Designing good data structures is the key to any successful program but the agonizing expression of those structures in COBOL has more to do with accountants, managers and legacy unit record equipment than it does computing. I've been trying to find the source for a quote I always liked from a very well known computer scientist. It went something like: COBOL was designed so that it could be read by non-programmers. Nobody could seriously have believed this; no one reads programs, not even programmers read programs.I don't have time to wade through my library trying to find the source. Maybe it will come to me. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 13 Jan 04 - 01:11 PM JSP eh (Jackson Structured Programming, I presume) In all the years I used it, I NEVER met anyone who used Inverted routines - and that is what distinguishes JSP from, say Yourden. They all used to say 'We don't understand Program Inversion, so we don't use it'. So they weren't really using JSP at all! |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 13 Jan 04 - 07:38 PM there's a site which discusses weird and useless programming languages - a guy invented one in which every command was a pernutation of 4 letters upper and lower case - hysterically funny... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 13 Jan 04 - 08:20 PM OK now this thread has drifted so far, time for me to ask for a computer lesson. Mark Clark said "Designing good data structures is the key to any successful program". I can see that in some ways, eg. at folkinfo and the Annexe, my databases are by far the most important things to me - I mean weaknesses there can only lead to problems elsewhere - the sites can only ever be as good as the underlying data structure allows. (it's one bit even a hacker like me did plan on pen and paper using ERDs - not saying I get anything as best as it could be or "right" but I do try). Where I wonder is how would data structures apply to say a user interactive game. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 14 Jan 04 - 02:55 AM Funny thing, I am currently working on 'interactive gaming' (Lotto online). JSP is a data-driven program design method, (as distinct from Yourden, which is process-driven) and one cornerstone is that EVERY program has at least one serial data stream, whether a file or a conversation. The interaction of a user with a game is one such serial data stream. This can be demonstrated by programs which can capture the sequence of keypresses, mouse clicks etc, to a file and play them back to the program. What Michael Jackson (No, NOT that one) didn't say is that the structure of one data stream can be validly represented in many different ways, depending on the use you want to make of it! PS does anyone have the article which describes how to shoot yourself in the foot in a variety of different programming languages? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST Date: 14 Jan 04 - 06:25 AM I don't know about "a variety of of different" languages, but Bjarne Stroustrup (who invented C++) is alleged to have said words to the effect of: "in C++ you're less likely to shoot yourself in the foot than in C, but if you do you're more likely to blow your whole leg off". Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: Mark Clark Date: 14 Jan 04 - 03:51 PM I responded to Jon in a PM at Folkinfo. Mudcat was down I wasn't convinced there is large Mudcat audience for computer science. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: Ed. Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:10 PM Not a large Mudcat audience for sure, Mark. I, for one, would however have been interested to read your reply to Jon's question on data structures. Maybe you could post it here, or PM me either here or at folkinfo? Thanks Ed |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 14 Jan 04 - 06:26 PM The audience may not be very large, but is enthusistic and extremely grateful to be included in the process. Just like audiences for Folk Music. I too would appreciate the info. :-) Robin |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 14 Jan 04 - 06:32 PM I'll start a new thread in the BS section. It's probably best not to continue this in the music section. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,Jon Date: 14 Jan 04 - 06:42 PM Another thought for trying to move is perhaps one day someone will come up with more info/ solutions on the original subject and may not want to wade through "clutter". I've started a thread here |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Windows programs under WINE on Linux? From: GUEST,pavane Date: 15 Jan 04 - 07:24 AM Yes, we do seem to have had a bit of thread creep here! |
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