One time I had to run a very old version of Eagle CAD on Linux and it turned out that even tho I had a native Linux version, it was easier to run the windows version in wine! I guess stable interfaces have their advantages.
I have a half-joking, half-serious thought: has anyone written a desktop environment for Linux that uses the Win32 API? Since Win32 is much more stable than Qt and GTK, it would be easier to target that API. The side bonus is API compatibility with Windows.
This might not have been viable 25 years ago when KDE and GNOME were in their infancy, but WINE has come a very long way since then. Standardizing on Win32 would eliminate the churn of dealing with Qt and GTK major version revisions.
It baffles me as to why. I think it’s hilarious how Linus is so careful to not break user space (for good reason) and all the user space libraries break every week.
Back when IDA Pro for Linux & macOS was finally released, they decided to make every OS a separate license purchase. The net result of this was that every single person I knew who used it just kept buying Windows licenses and using it under WINE when they wanted to use it on their other computers.
liontwist|1 year ago
linguae|1 year ago
This might not have been viable 25 years ago when KDE and GNOME were in their infancy, but WINE has come a very long way since then. Standardizing on Win32 would eliminate the churn of dealing with Qt and GTK major version revisions.
IshKebab|1 year ago
nullpoint420|1 year ago
JackSlateur|1 year ago
Source software is the way to go (compiled specifically for one version of thé targeted OS, you sont have many issue)
Distribution opaque binaries are indeed not the best way, even if you can do it easily with static linking
aseipp|1 year ago