wine users - Apr 2001 - Running Under Windows

Hello,

I write a commercial marine navigation and tidal current prediction
application for Windows 3.1 (compiled with Borland c++ 3.1). I am
considering releasing this or a variant of this under something like
Linux. My goal is to continue to develop bells and whistles but to share
the load with others. No particular commercial goals.

In order to get recreational sailboat racers to use it I would like the
public version to run under Windows too, if that is possible. Getting
them to use any software while racing is a challenge. Getting them to
install an OS that is not Windows will be nearly impossible.

I am an electrical engineer and optical engineer but not a professional
programmer. I have been programming, as necessary, since the mid 1960's.
So I cannot exactly claim to be new to computers. But I will say that I
do not keep up with the software business. I am only vaguely familiar
with Linux capabilities.

In the last 2 weeks I have connected with Linux Users Groups in Columbia
and Laurel MD. They have given me some ideas.

Any suggestions on how to tackle this? 

Is there another Newsgroup where I should post this??

You can get a look at last years demo at
http://www.clark.net/pub/thubin/aocs . The sample screens there are
several years old and come from an old DOS version of the program. The
downloadable demo runs under Windows 3.1 or better.

Tom Hubin
thubin@clark.net

Tom Hubin <thubin@clark.net> wrote:
: Hello,

: I write a commercial marine navigation and tidal current prediction
: application for Windows 3.1 (compiled with Borland c++ 3.1). I am
: considering releasing this or a variant of this under something like
: Linux. My goal is to continue to develop bells and whistles but to share
: the load with others. No particular commercial goals.

: In order to get recreational sailboat racers to use it I would like the
: public version to run under Windows too, if that is possible. Getting
: them to use any software while racing is a challenge. Getting them to
: install an OS that is not Windows will be nearly impossible.

: I am an electrical engineer and optical engineer but not a professional
: programmer. I have been programming, as necessary, since the mid 1960's.
: So I cannot exactly claim to be new to computers. But I will say that I
: do not keep up with the software business. I am only vaguely familiar
: with Linux capabilities.

: In the last 2 weeks I have connected with Linux Users Groups in Columbia
: and Laurel MD. They have given me some ideas.

: Any suggestions on how to tackle this? 

Wine's purpose is a twofold:
- supply a runtime environment on X86 machines to run windows (3.1|32S |32)
executables  
- supply a compiletime environment on any unix like machine to build genuine
executables from win32 sourcecode. win31|32s cross-compilation is only
partial supported and few enhancements are to be expected.

As your program is only win31, the second possibility is a no-op. So what
you can do is 
- try possibility one. As you have the source and a build environment,
chasing errors in Wine's runtime implementation might be easier to find than
in binary only programs. Making available a buildable version showing errors
might help wine hackers to tackle problems.
- port your application to win32 and go to possibilty two again. Again
errors might surface and providing code showing that error might help.

PS: Unzipping cuwin.zip and running "cd win31; wine cuwin.exe" brings
up a
program showing much functionality. A course testing didn't show a crash. So
give wine a try and look yourself for errors.

Bye

-- 
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------