jorl17 writes:
A recent post at WineHQ shows (a google-translation of) the new release of the Linux Unified Kernel (Longene) project where the developers indicate how they've moved WINE's wineserver functionality into kernel-space and used several techniques to make running unmodified x86 Windows binaries on native ARM platforms running Linux and the new Longene kernel module (plus a custom QEMU). They claim they can already run Microsoft Office software such as Powerpoint and Excel at "acceptable" speeds on an ARM 1.0 GHz processor.
Do note that the cross-cpu functionality is currently claimed to be in development for Longene 2.0 and not the current 1.0 release.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Koen on Friday March 28 2014, @10:57AM
I was running MS-DOS 3.21 and WordPerfect 4 on ARM in 1987.
Review in 1988 PCW (PDF) [chriswhy.co.uk]
Manual 1988 (PDF) [chriswhy.co.uk], Manual 1991 (PDF) [chriswhy.co.uk]
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(Score: 4, Informative) by beardedchimp on Friday March 28 2014, @12:06PM
Except that wine is not an emulator. Running fully emulated office in a vm on arm would be painfully slow.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Koen on Friday March 28 2014, @12:37PM
I'm sorry, but you're wrong: if you're want to run x86 binaries on ARM you really need an emulator.
Wine indeed is not an emulator - that's why the solution discussed in the article includes QEMU.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by jorl17 on Friday March 28 2014, @03:18PM
But did you RTFA? It's not just plain emulation. They claim they have built a system which moves most of the functionality into the native side of things. So, for instance, most DLLs are native, and not run in QEMU.
(Score: 2) by Koen on Friday March 28 2014, @03:49PM
Yes, but not far enough. I stopped reading when this guy who could not reach the ReactOS website took the discussion off-topic, ranting about his ISP & proxies... (OK, back to the WineHQ discussion forum.)
Sure, compiling the Wine DLLs to ARM and creating some emulator/native-chimera is a smart move to speed things up. This of course means they are not using the Microsoft DLLs which provide better compatibility (undocumented calls and all that jazz).
Anyway, the software which uses these DDLs still needs to run in an emulator.
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(Score: 1) by jorl17 on Friday March 28 2014, @04:14PM
Right, I wasn't saying you didn't need an emulator, nor was I saying you were wrong in any way! ;]
(Score: 1) by NickM on Friday March 28 2014, @04:46PM
Can you take those native DLLs in the Windows RT SDK if you somehow have a magical license from Microsoft ? Would it work ?