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259 lines
9.5 KiB
Text
259 lines
9.5 KiB
Text
<chapter id="introduction">
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<title>Introduction</title>
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<sect1 id="what-is-wine">
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<title>What is Wine?</title>
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<para>
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Written by &name-john-sheets; <email>&email-john-sheets;</email>
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</para>
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<sect2>
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<title>Windows and Linux</title>
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<!-- general description of wine, what does it do? -->
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<para>
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Many people have faced the frustration of owning software that
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won't run on their computer. With the recent popularity of
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Linux, this is happening more and more often because of
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differing operating systems. Your Windows software won't run
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on Linux, and your Linux software won't run in Windows.
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</para>
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<para>
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A common solution to this problem is to install both operating
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systems on the same computer, as a <quote>dual boot</quote>
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system. If you want to write a document in MS Word, you can
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boot up in Windows; if you want to run the GnuCash, the GNOME
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financial application, you can shut down your Windows session
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and reboot into Linux. The problem with this is that you
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can't do both at the same time. Each time you switch back and
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forth between MS Word and GnuCash, you have to reboot again.
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This can get tiresome quickly.
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</para>
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<para>
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Life would be so much easier if you could run all your
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applications on the same system, regardless of whether they
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are written for Windows or for Linux. On Windows, this isn't
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really possible.
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<footnote>
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<para>
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Technically, if you have two networked computers, one
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running Windows and the other running Linux, and if you
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have some sort of X server software running on the Windows
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system, you can export Linux applications onto the Windows
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system. Unfortunately, most decent win32 X servers are
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commercial products, many of which cost quite a lot.
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However, this doesn't solve the problem if you only own
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one computer system.
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</para>
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</footnote>
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However, Wine makes it possible to run native Windows
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applications alongside native Linux applications on a Linux
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(or Solaris) system. You can share desktop space between MS
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Word and GnuCash, overlapping their windows, iconizing them,
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and even running them from the same launcher.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>Emulation versus Native Linking</title>
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<!-- emulator vs. Winelib -->
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<para>
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Wine is a UNIX implementation of the win32 libraries,
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written from scratch by hundreds of volunteer developers and
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released under an open source license. Anyone can download
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and read through the source code, and fix bugs that arise.
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The Wine community is full of richly talented programmers
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who have spent thousands of hours of personal time on
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improving Wine so that it works well with the win32
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<firstterm>Applications Programming Interface</firstterm>
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(API), and keeps pace with new developments from Microsoft.
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</para>
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<para>
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Wine can run applications in two discrete ways: as
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pre-compiled Windows binaries, or as natively compiled X11
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(X Window System) applications. The former method uses
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emulation to connect a Windows application to the Wine
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libraries. You can run your Windows application directly
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with the emulator, by installing through Wine or by simply
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copying the Windows executables onto your Linux system.
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</para>
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<para>
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The other way to run Windows applications with Wine requires
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that you have the source code for the application. Instead
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of compiling it with native Windows compilers, you can
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compile it with a native Linux compiler --
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<command>gcc</command> for example -- and link in the Wine
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Libraries as you would with any other native UNIX
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application. These natively linked applications are
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referred to as Winelib applications.
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</para>
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<para>
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The Wine Users Guide will focus on running precompiled
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Windows applications using the Wine emulator.
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<ulink url="http://wine.codeweavers.com/docs/winelib-user/">
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The Winelib Users Guide</ulink> will cover Winelib
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applications.
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</para>
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<!-- the development model -->
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<para>
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</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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<!-- *** Not really useful as is, but may be able to recycle this elsewhere...
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<sect1 id="getting-started">
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<title>Getting started</title>
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<para>
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Written by &name-john-sheets; <email>&email-john-sheets;</email>
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</para>
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<para>
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Wine can be pretty intimidating at first. The Wine
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distribution consists of over two thousand files and half a
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million lines of source code
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<footnote>
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<para>Crudely calculated from running <command>find . | wc
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-l</command> and <command>cat `find . -name "*.c"` | wc
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-l</command>, respectively, from a fresh CVS checkout.</para>
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</footnote>,
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and is probably one of the steepest learning curves in the
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open source world. This chapter will give you a crash course
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in the important topics you need to know to get started with
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running Wine applications.
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</para>
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</sect1>
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-->
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<sect1 id="wine-stats">
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<title>Wine Requirements and Features</title>
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<para>
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Written by &name-andreas-mohr; <email>&email-andreas-mohr;</email>
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</para>
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<sect2 id="system-requirements">
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<title>System requirements</title>
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<para>
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In order to run Wine, you need the following:
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</para>
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<para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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a computer ;-) Wine: only PCs >= i386 are supported at
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the moment. Winelib: other platforms might be
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supported, but can be tricky.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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a UNIX-like operating system such as Linux, *BSD,
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Solaris x86
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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>= 16MB of RAM. Everything below is pretty much
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unusable. >= 64 MB is needed for a "good" execution.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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an X11 window system (XFree86 etc.). Wine is prepared
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for other graphics display drivers, but writing
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support is not too easy. The text console display
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driver is nearly usable.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="wine-capabilities">
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<title>Wine capabilities</title>
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<para>
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Now that you hopefully managed to fulfill the requirements
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mentioned above, we tell you what Wine is able to do/support:
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</para>
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<para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Support for executing DOS, Win 3.x and Win9x/NT/Win2000
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programs (most of Win32's controls are supported)
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Optional use of external vendor DLLs (e.g. original
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Windows DLLs)
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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X11-based graphics display (remote display to any X
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terminal possible), text mode console
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Desktop-in-a-box or mixable windows
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Pretty advanced DirectX support for games
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Good support for sound, alternative input devices
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Printing: supports native Win16 printer drivers,
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Internal PostScript driver
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Modems, serial devices are supported
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Winsock TCP/IP networking
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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ASPI interface (SCSI) support for scanners, CD writers,
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...
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Unicode support, relatively advanced language support
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</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Wine debugger and configurable trace logging messages
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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</chapter>
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<!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
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Local variables:
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mode: sgml
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sgml-parent-document:("wine-doc.sgml" "set" "book" "chapter" "")
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End:
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-->
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