Re: Desktop-specific Kernel Patch - win4lin?
On Sat, Oct 02, 2004 at 11:04:13PM +0200, Christoph Wiesen wrote:
> > Why use a different kernel at all? That sounds like major PITA to
> > maintain.
>
> I had the impression there were some things that make a special ddd
> kernel a good idea.
> Like some form of auto mounting (though that seems to be completely
> possible in userspace),
Exactly.
> a bootsplashscreen,
Well, that seems to be desirable at some point (Ubuntu is aiming for it,
AFAIK), and I don't see why support for it should not be in the stock
Debian kernel.
> performance improvements like seen in other distributions and
That's pretty vague.
> > What's wrong with using WINE or Crossover Office? You do not need to
> > use a kernel patch for that (and in case Win4Lin needs a valid
> > Windows license, you don't need that either)
>
> I have not tried CrossOver Office but I know it runs supported
> applications (like MS Office or IE) better than Wine, but I've always
> found Wine to be a bit lacking if your really need a certain app to
> work. My specific 'benchmark' here is Corel Photo-Paint since that's
> an application actually needed
Needed by you, it seems. Other people seem to be fine with GIMP, and I
don't see why this should be part of *Debian*-desktop, it could be part
of a another, "Support non-free software to better run Windows apps"
sub-project.
> > I don't see how executing Windows applications will further the goal
> > of Linux on the Desktop. Others might have a different opinion.
>
> Yes, that's a whole topic of it's own I think. Using and maintaining
> several windows systems myself I disagree. It's simply not possible
> for many users to leave all their long used windows applications
> behind and start from scratch with Linux - even though they might want
> to leave Windows behind, they can't just leave the applications.
I agree that this might be a problem, but I fail to see why this is
relevant for Debian. We didn't do anything special to support dosemu
back in the days, we didn't use fvwm95 as default WM back in the days,
and I wonder why we should support Windows nowadays - even more so as
finally most common applications seem to have better free counterparts.
But then, I do not do the work for debian-desktop currently, so I do not
get to choose :)
> Thus I think providing easy means to keep using existing applications
> in a new environment is an important step to attract new users. It's
> just like having known applications like Firefox, gaim, psi or Opera
> available on Windows helps Linux adoption since users can stick to
> what they already know and don't have to re-learn _everything_,
IMHO applications such as web browsers or chat clients which need much
learning are broken anyway - but I might be spoiled by GNOME :)
Michael
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