WineForGNewSense

Does Wine work with gNewSense? I would like to use Windows applications in gNewSense.

Even if it works, why do you want to use it? The most windows applications are non-free, and therefor they have nothing to do on your freedom computer. The few which are free, as in freedom, do got a native Gnu/Linux version and you should use them.

However, i do know it exists free programs only having a Windows version. Like SportTracks.

Just install a Ubuntu package if you cant fint it in the gnewsense repository.

The only proprietary thing I need is Windows games. I don't know if you agree but I think that free as in freedom games will never catch up to proprietary games. However, for an operating system, my opinion is different.

I really hope there will be a 64 bit version...atleast an alpha which I can file a million bug reports for but that's another topic..

One of the key points about understanding gNewSense, and all Free Software Systems, is to understand that its goal is to be completely Free Software. While I need to do more research into weather or not Wine itself is Free Software, it's goal is to run Non-Free Windows Programs. When thinking this through, Wine runs contrary to the goals of the Free Software movement. Free Software isn't about giving a free (monetary wise) way to runs as many Windows programs as you can. It's a political, social, and technological movement for Free (as in Freedom) Software. This is also, from my understanding at least, why React OS is not listed as a recommended installation. Although comprised mostly, if not entirely, of Free Software; its goal is to be compatible with as many proprietary Windows drivers and programs as possible.

Also, I do not agree that Free Software Games will always, or even now, lag behind. I guess it depends on what you consider to be the golden age of gaming. I consider the late 80s to the earls 2000s as the golden age. Much of what is being made now in Free Software, 2D wise, reflects the age of Starcraft (BOS Wars), Doom (Freedoom), and Worms (Wormux.) To me, Free Software is reliving what was the most inventive age of video gaming. And, in doing so in Freedom, there is a level of customizability that you will never find with Non-Free Software. People brag about level editors and the ability to port in skins on Proprietary Games. In Free Software games you can truly add, extend, and re-haul the entire game to your taste. So, to me, Free Software is re-living the height of video gaming with an unparalleled amount of customizability.

Now for those of you who want to look outside of the 90s and want video games close to, on par with, and surpassing today's games; there are some options. As it stands now, from my limited understanding of the topic; 3D is somewhat harder on Free Software Systems because of 3D Hardware Acceleration issues with Non-Free Drivers.

What you have to understand is that there is no lack of 3D Free Software games. Especially first person shooters. I see them as far more innovative because the user can, just like with everything in Free Software, customize every inch of the game from the ground up. Also, the games are updated regularly and as such enjoy constant revamping and improvements. Where most Non-Free games will release, patch, have maybe one expansion pack, then be lost in the dust of time forever; Free Software games generate huge communities that constantly update, fix, balance, and re-invent the games.

To say that gaming is lagging on Free Software is to not understand the true speed and power Freedom truly brings to the spirit of the development process. People are far more likely to work on software they know will be used and appreciated by everyone and that will last forever. Rather than software that is sold, Non-Free, and is not able to be easily legally tampered with. This type of Non-Free software hinders the creative spirit of community development whereas Free Software heightens it.

So, in short, some may argue Free Software already surpasses proprietary. I argue that if it doesn't already, it has the key potential of doing so very quickly.

Although I would like all games(art) to be Free, I don't think this is possible. Forgive the use of the term, but the Open Source development methodology hasn't shown itself to be viable when so much money goes into creating blockbuster hits, and the alternatives to the commercial versions(freeciv and sid meier's civilizations) are usually, while enjoyable and fun to play, not as good(although they do improve and will probably superscede their non-free counter-parts). There are great FOSS games out there, and I make an effort to support the development of them... although because gnewsense has removed part of the subsystem to power 3d in X, I can't experience some of them - even if I use a free driver like radeonHD or whatnot.

I think there could be an exception to some games. They could be considered more art than software - because its not the code that matters, it is the animations, models, sprites, the story, the content and presentation of the game that make it what it is - art. Code just powers it. Because I don't want to modify and "improve" the great works of art throughout history - I likewise do not want to do so with most games, because they are also art that I respect, and treasure the memories of.

Although I may be fooling myself so I can justify wasting time playing around with non-free games(every now and then, I feel like playing Baldur's Gate 2) - I don't necessarily think it is totally immoral or wrong. They are trivial things that don't harm a free software ecosystem - if you consider them to be more art than software. I don't think we should abandon these works - we have tools to maintain and preserve them - such as DosBox and WINE, allowing us to use free software to experience them.

Note, I only really use WINE to run Ares P2P, and WASTE(a darknet application that a couple friends use), they are both Free.

I dare say they are anything but harmless. In my talks with many of my peers (I am 19) I find increasingly that once they learn that 100% adoption of Free Software would mean laying down their controllers to Mario and Halo, they arn't so keen on Freedom anymore. As said before, and as you noted, the Free Software games have the potential to and eventually will surpass their non-free counterparts. It is in their nature due to the open development method. While it is true that BOS Wars is not, right now, exactly Starcraft; it is also clear it could be Starcraft and more with proper development of new content.

I find that the largest hindrance to Free Software gaming are the tools and mindset you just described. Some people grew up loving non-free video games and thus, but their emotional attachment to them, want to see them as somehow not hurting Free Software. It's almost as if they are some guilt pleasure we want to keep for ourselves for fear of taking the plunge into the Free Software world completely.

It is because of mass adoption this mindset, and the proliferation of tools like wine, that people excuse playing non-free games. Instead of cutting off the non-free games from their lives and working on creating Free alternatives; they continue to feed the non-free machine and line the non-free pocketbooks.

Considering most of my peers see video gaming as the most important reason to keep using Windows as apposed to switching over to Free Software; I must conclude that it is non-free gaming more than anything else that keeps my people from being able to reach for Freedom fully.

I am guessing no one played alien arena?????????

Well, that requires 3D and nobody has yet to explain to me in an easy to understand and easy to fallow way on how to get 3D working with gNewSense. How do I get 3D to work? I looked at this page http://free3d.org/ and am thinking of buying a new card because mine is not supported well here. But I don't want to but unless someone can assure me before hand that Free Software Systems can indeed run 3D on it.

If I buy a Matrox MGA G400/G450 (rev 03) can I get it to play 3D games on Free Software Systems with the mga driver?

Thank you.

AFAIK to get 3D working on any system we need 2 thing, the OS Software and the Hardware Software (drivers) to use this feature.
On gNewSense we had to remove some parts of xserver-xorg and mesa, due non free related stuff, that change braked 3D on the system. Here to read the announcement.
And now on the Hardware driver side, if we can find free hardware drivers that supports 3D, then we would only hack mesa and xserver-xorg to get 3D on gNewSense. For nvidia cards there is the nouveau project, i heard that Intel video cards has free drivers for 3D. Can anyone confirm?\\ Any interested on this gNewSense development?

"Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3000 (Intel G965 Express Chipset) works beautifully in 3D with the free i810 X driver." -FSF

http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/video

I thought something along with lines was true about gNewSense. However, does that apply to Blag? For instance, the Sound Driver problem was a problem that originated because of the fact that gNewSense is a purified version of Ubuntu and came from Ubuntu. Where as Blag is a purified version of what I think is Red Hat.

To that degree, is it possible that Blag still has 3D as it still has sound?

My question is more of how to get 3D running on any Free Software System. It seems such a irony for there to be so many Free Software 3D games yet everyone plays them on Ubuntu and Windows. There almost has to be a way to get them to play on Free Software.

I guess I really don't understand the difference between a chipset and a graphic card. I tried to do some research on the topic and Wikipedia said,

"In computing, the term chipset is commonly used to refer to a set of specialized chips on a computer's motherboard or an expansion card. In personal computers based on Intel Pentium-class microprocessors, the term often refers to a specific pair of chips on the motherboard: the northbridge and the southbridge."

From this I gather a chipset can either be on a card or a motherboard, but in the case of Intel is usually on the Mother Board. I was really hoping to be able to get 3D working without having to buy a whole new motherboard. However, whereupon researching this model, I have come to realize the prices do seem to be more reasonable than some of the cards I've been looking at.

I guess I have two questions.

1: This model seems to be kind of low in price. As such, is 3D performance really high enough to smoothly play games like Nexuiz in a 1024*768 resolution?

2: How hard is it to get 3D working? I can install packages from Synaptic Package Manger. Anything beyond that I pretty much need to be handheld through the process. If it is more challenging than installing a package from Synaptic, where will I find a person or a site who can calmly lead me through the process?

@Ark74

Intel has free video drivers which are installed by default on gNewSense and work very well considering their lack of power.

ATI support is getting there with the free radeonHD driver which is in the repositories (xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd).

nVidia support from the nouveau project which is still in the early stages unfortunately.

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1: From experience with Sauerbraten, while the Intel drivers are very good, they probably don't have enough power to run Nexuiz in 1024x768 smoothly.

2: 3D is currently broken in gNewSense. If I understand the situation correctly, 3D under GNU/Linux is provided by OpenGL. Unfortunately, part of the OpenGL implementation is non-free. Until someone rewrites and recreates this piece of non-free code it won't work. Which is a real shame.