wine users - Apr 2009 - Wine on Ubuntu 8.04 FreeNX with Mac OS X 10.3 NX client

Hello,
We have Ubuntu 8.04 running with FreeNX server on our 'remote desktop
server' linux machine.
We can connect to the Ubuntu machine with the NoMachine NxClient from Windows,
Linux and Mac OS 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5.
We also have Wine 1.0 installed on the Ubuntu machine, and we run a variety of
Windows applications and utilities in the remote desktops from clients on all 3
systems (Windows, Linux, Mac)... except with Mac OS X 10.3.
In the case of the Mac OS X 10.3 NxClient, fonts are not rendered correctly (I
would even say not at all) for the applications running under Wine. Menus,
buttons, etc. are all empty, except for inactive buttons where some grayed out
text is rendered. The Wine configuration panel itself is not rendering any text
(titles, tabs, menu, buttons, etc. are all empty).
I believe this must have to do with some fonts used by Wine or the FreeNx server
that must be rendered locally on the X11 of the client machine, or served by the
Ubuntu machine, but I have no clue on how I can fix this.
The whole environment is to be deployed for a business application to be
accessible via remote desktop and we have at least 15 machines with Mac OS X
10.3, so this is quite critical.
Any comments, suggestions ... and of course solutions will be greatly
appreciated.

optimaco wrote:
> 
> In the case of the Mac OS X 10.3 NxClient, fonts are not rendered correctly
(I would even say not at all) for the applications running under Wine. Menus,
buttons, etc. are all empty, except for inactive buttons where some grayed out
text is rendered. The Wine configuration panel itself is not rendering any text
(titles, tabs, menu, buttons, etc. are all empty).
> 

http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-3b18ce54edb7ea108c8f08945bc52812c4e3ef71

optimaco <wineforum-user at winehq.org> wrote on April
1st:
>
>The whole environment is to be deployed for a business application to be
accessible via remote
>desktop and we have at least 15 machines with Mac OS X 10.3, so this is
quite critical.
This sounds like an April Fools joke, but if it is not, the solution would be to
upgrade.  Apple no longer supports MacOSX 10.3 and is ending support for 10.4. 
As a matter of fact, what version of Wine are you running on your MacOSX 10.3
Macs as I understand it will not run on Intel Macs and Wine does not run well on
PowerPC Macs.

James McKenzie

> http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-3b18ce54edb7ea108c8f08945bc52812c4e3ef71
Well, this does indeed fix the problem on Mac OS X 10.3 systems running the
NoMachine client.
The Wine configuration panel looks fine now, and so does our custom business
application.

The Wine registry key is only valid for the user account for which the setting
was applied (as the name HKEY_CURRENT_USER suggests).
Is there a way to apply this setting so that it is valid for all users ?

> This sounds like an April Fools joke, but if it is not, the solution would
be to upgrade. Apple no longer supports MacOSX 10.3 and is ending support for
10.4.
The reason for us to move to a centralized Ubuntu desktop server is in fact to
get out of this Apple imposed 18 months upgrade frenzy, which can quickly become
costly in a business environment.
The problem here was not to run Wine on Mac OS X, but to run Wine on Ubuntu and
connect to this Linux remote desktop from a Mac client via FreeNX.
Anyway, thanks for trying to help.

optimaco <wineforum-user at winehq.org> wrote on April
6th:
>Sent: Apr 6, 2009 5:12 AM
>To: wine-users at winehq.org
>Subject: [Wine] Re: Wine on Ubuntu 8.04 FreeNX with Mac OS X 10.3 NX client
>
>
>The reason for us to move to a centralized Ubuntu desktop server is in fact
to get out of this
>Apple imposed 18 months upgrade frenzy, which can quickly become costly in a
business environment.
>
>The problem here was not to run Wine on Mac OS X, but to run Wine on Ubuntu
and connect to this >Linux remote desktop from a Mac client via FreeNX.
Thank you for the explanation.  Now that I understand your situation, good luck
with switching over to Linux from MacOSX.  You may find that your 'upgrade
frenzy' will become more frequent, not less.  This does raise the TCO and
makes maintenance of your system's harder.  However, the availability of
help is greater with Linux than it is with a Mac (in most cases.)

I, for one, am glad that I moved from Linux/Intel to MacOSX/PPC then
MacOSX/Intel.

James McKenzie

> If the users share a common machine, you can adjust
> /usr/share/wine/tools/wine.inf to have that registry entry.
We do have a common machine shared by all users, as this is a centralized Linux
(virtual) desktop server based on FreeNX server, for ease of maintenance and
client OS independence.
I edited /usr/share/wine/wine.inf and added the following in the [Misc] section:

Code:
HKCU,Software\Wine\X11 Driver,"ClientSideWithRender",,"N"


Now any user (even newly created) automatically gets the key entry in the Wine
registry upon login.

Thanks to all of you for your invaluable help. Nothing beats the power of the
open source community !