Peng’s links for Thursday, 15 January

• Desktop Linux: “I’m Linux” contest open for video entries. Back on Chrismukkuh Eve I mentioned a contest from the Linux Foundation for videos spoofing the Apple and Microsoft adverts. The contest isn’t open just yet but you can start uploading your vids, so if you have a video get it in. Who knows, you may get a free trip to Tokyo in October.
• João Pinto: Development Plans for 2009. João, the person behind the GetDeb family of websites has posted some of what they have in store for the new year. Check out his post, and if you’re able to help with any of the projects please let them know.
• Lucas Rocha: New friends of GNOME. Have you ever wanted to find some way to help the devs of your favorite open source software? The GNOME team has a brand new way you can help their devs, mostly by helping funnel some cash to them to let them spend more time working on GNOME projects. I know the economy is in the dumps, but now may be the best time to help your friendly open source developer. I’m not talking hundreds of dollars, and even just buying a tee, mug, etc., will help in a real way.
• Jon Beebe: Theming Wine. Did you know there’s a way to make apps running under WINE look more like the theme you have running? WINE’s theming capabilities are kind of limited, but Jon has links to articles telling you how to do it.
• Ryan Troy: Recent Ubuntuforums Downtime. If you tried to use the Ubuntu Forums lately you know they were having some issues. Ryan was kind enough to post some information on exactly what went wrong.
• Karl Lattimer: Wine-doors 0.1.3rc1 released. WINE and CrossOver aren’t the only ways to run Windows apps on GNU/Linux, and Wine-doors is getting ready to ship an update. If you run WINE apps you should consider helping make wine-doors even better.
• Jun Auza: Free Software Song Rocks! Have you heard Richard Stallman’s “Free Software Song”? Jun has the lyrics, as well as a story about how it was written, as well as links to sone recordings of it. Plus you can see Stallman himself singing it in a video!

WTF are the Picasa devs thinking?

[Updated to include screenshots for the benefit of Google's Dan Kegel, below. -Peng]

Back on this post I keep seeing comments about using WINE with Picasa, and I always wonder why someone’s running Picasa under WINE when there’s a native Linux version of Picasa 3. Or so I thought.

While checking out the Google-Labs-Picasa-for-Linux group I saw a list of help topics on the WINE AppDB, and in the process of looking at that to try to diagnose why we have so much trouble with fonts in Picasa I saw that Picasa 3 is now shipping with a built-in version of WINE. So that’s why I keep seeing mentions of Picasa on that thread.

I tried several variations of the steps I followed to get the fonts working properly in WINE, including copying the fonts that I use as my default fonts to Piaca’s WINE folders, but it’s all to no avail. I also tried disabling Compiz while running Picasa and it didn’t make too much improvement in readability.

But this simply begs the question that has been asked on the Picasa/Linux group: Why the frak don’t we have a true GNU/Linux native build of Picasa 3? Most of us who run Linux distros do so because of a specific, conscious decision to move away from MS Windows. And now Google is showing a Windows app poorly disguised as a native Linux app? It’s things like this that make people hate Google with the heat of a thousand nuns.

They’re also making what IMO is a pretty dumb call regarding Compiz. On the Picasa 3 FAQ I see that it doesn’t even support Compiz. Their reasoning?

Compiz is an experimental compisite window manger that is still in development. We will make sure Picasa works with Compiz once it stabilizes and becomes more mainstream.

Do they even know what they’re talking about? Compiz Fusion is experimental? Note to the Picasa devs: Compiz Fusion is very damned stable, and I think being included in a major GNU/Linux distro (Ubuntu has shipped it by default since at least Hardy) is pretty mainstream.

I’m going to have to think about rolling my Picasa back to version 2.7 for Linux, which is still available. I’m getting pretty damned tired of having to deal with idiotic dev decisions, which is why I’m writing this in Epiphany rather that Firefox, and why I’m going to have to think long and hard about whether I want to upgrade to 3.1 when it rolls out simply so I can support it for Mac4Lin. Seeing that the Picasa devs are trying to pull a fast one on us makes me hope they all got coal in their Chrismukkuh stockings. And I bet they wonder why so many Linux users are spewing venom in their direction over the lack of a true native GNU/Linux version of their app.

Silly devs.

Updated 3:00pm to include screenshots of Picasa 3.0.5744-02 on my Ubuntu 8.10 box. First a look at how Picasa 3 looks with Compiz running. Click on the image to see it at full size.

And now a look at Picasa 3 for Linux running under Metacity.

In both cases they’re mostly usable, as long as you don’t need the link in the upper right part of the window or want to change the WINE settings. The regedit tricks I used for both my normal WINE installation as well as my CrossOver installation don’t seem to do a bloody thing for Picasa’s WINE installation. I do see there seems to be a way to force Picasa 3 to use an existing WINE setup, but it still boils down to one question: Why should I have to deal with WINE at all if I installed Picasa 3 for Linux? Call me stubborn if you want. You might just be right, but should an app branded as a Linux app force me to have to use a Windows workaround to run it? That’s where I keep coming up with a definite NO.

Peng’s links for Thursday, 4 December

• Stefano Forenza: Has Torvalds finally won? The father of Linux once said that he’d have won if Microsoft ever makes an app for Linux. Some people might say that the availability of a beta version of Moonlight, GNU/Linux port of Silverlight, means Torvalds got his win. But Stefano isn’t so sure.
• Jono Bacon: Governments And Free Content Policies. The current website for president-elect Obama used to protect their content with a traditional copyright. But not anymore. Jono has the details, if not the scoop.
• xkcd: xkcd store. You love reading the strips. You may even have some of them on your fridge or the wall of your cubical. Now you can slap it on your clothes. If you order by the 12th you’ll get it by Chrismukkuh Eve if you’re in the States. If you’re in the EU they’ll try to get it to you in time, but you need to order soon.
• TualatriX: Ubuntu Tweak became Brothersoft Editor’s Picks! Congrats to the gang at Ububntu Tweaks for their latest, and very well deserved, honor. And he says the next version “will come soon.”
• Uwe Hermann: Playing Starcraft on Linux using Wine. I wasn’t sure how big a deal this is until I mentioned it to a Windows-loving roomie and big-time gamer, and he was impressed. That tells me that I need to post a link to the story, especially since it’s a tutorial.
• Dr. Horrible News: DVD Launch on Amazon! Earlier this year we had the joy of enjoying a three-part video written specifically and produced for the web by Joss Whedon and company. The DVD is finally coming on the 19th of December, and it will include “Commentary! The Musical!” I can’t wait. Amazon also has a behind-the-scenes clip you can watch for free. Now if we could only buy a CD or tracks without having to go through iTunes. Do I need to have Jayne Cobb have a talk with Joss about it?
• Biella Coleman: FLOSS Manuals. I’m going to cheat here and tell you that Beilla has a very short post about an easy way to get manuals for a wide range of free and open source programs. You definitely want to go get the links from her. And my little blurb about her post is longer than her post is, but she’s got the links you want.
• Nick Ali: Linux Basics Classes at Micro Center. If you need a nice introductory course to using GNU/Linux you better get to MicroCenter and reserve a seat. Nick’s got the date and links.
• MJ Ray: Do Your Shop Photos Leak? Do you take pictures with a digital camera and then post them online? You may be sharing more information than you realize.
• Mozilla Developer News: Firefox 2.0.0.18 users to be offered a free upgrade! Firefox 2.x will soon reach the end of it’s support, and the Mozilla devs are giving users one more chance to use their upgrade mechanism to get Firefox 3 without having to manually download and install it. Although this is one user who is damned sorry to see Firefox 2 reach the end of its security updates, and I can’t promise it won’t be used from time to time. The interface is still better than Firefox 3’s because it doesn’t need remove-ons just to keep the default behavior that Firefox users have been using for so long. And Firefox 3.1 is going to bring the need for even more remove-ons. Sometimes I hate Mozilla devs with the heat of a thousand nuns because of some of the add-ons they fold into the base product. What the hell happened to using add-ons to add new behaviors rather than removing them?

Peng’s links for Tuesday, 25 November

• Launchpad News: Launchpad 2.1.11: OpenID support and now easier to contact other people. I love it when a software updates provide an extra goodie. If you were trying to find a good OpenID source (my blog isn’t so great since I share it with Nanci and I keep getting ID’d as my little sister) and you have a membership on Launchpad you may have found a great resource. Too bad I was at one site that didn’t accept the ID, but I’m not sure if that’s a Launchpad issue or an issue with the other site.
• Anirudh Acharya: Mac4Lin featured in Linux Magazine. Mac4Lin 1.0 is working toward a second release candidate but that’s not keeping the folks at Linux Magazine from giving it a nice article in the January issue. Ani’s got a PDF of the article you can download, as well as an updated pack with the new versions of the GTK scripts and a new uninstall script that one of our users was kind enough to contribute.
• Scott Ritchie: Redesigning WineHQ.org. The WINE team is working on a redesign of their website and is asking for feedback on the new design.
• E-LINUX.it: No more Microsoft Internet Explorer for the 2010 soccer world cup. When I first saw the headline on Google News I thought it would be a report of Microsoft loosing a contract, but it’s actually a great look at the hazards of doing web design to fit a single browser. I especially love this statement: “Must work on all browsers – If you don’t you get to lose 1/3 of your audience.” That goes for designing for any browser, whether it’s IE, Opera or Firefox. You should always design to standards, not to a browser. And don’t worry, the article is in English so you won’t have to worry about finding your Babel fish.
• Ceci Connolly/Washington Post: Doctors Are Slow to Start Writing Prescriptions Online. My doctor’s started sending my prescriptions straight to my pharmacy, which is really nice. No longer will have have to drop off my script, then go do some shopping to kill enough time until my new meds are ready.
• The Media Equation/NYTimes.com: Google Seduces With Utility. David Carr admits to using a ton of Google services, and he’s getting a little worried about it.

[RESOLVED] Does anyone know what borked WINE this week?

Somehow in the past week I went from having apps I could use with no trouble to not being able to see squat in WINE windows. I made a thread on the Ubuntu Forums about the issue yesterday but haven’t gotten a request so I’m throwing the query out here as well as you can see in the screenshots I included with the post.

This is what I get when I try to run winecfg. As you can see there’s no text, not even the text on the tabs themselves, so it’s impossible for me to set anything. I can’t even set the version of Windows used because I can’t see which version is which.

I tried blowing away both WINE and CrossOver Pro to try to undo any changes I had made, and I’ve tried several different themes, all to no avail. When I try a program called Gentibus CD (formerly known as VistaCD), which worked fine in CrossOver a few days ago, it’s now so borked I can’t even load my old cd database so I can try to import it into a Linux-native app.

I’m at my wits end. I don’t even know at what point things screwed the pooch although I’ve tried enough things that I should have rolled them back by now if it were something I had done. Does anyone have any ideas what I’m missing?

Updated 3 November 3:30 pm EST: It looks like an Nvidia regression is causing the issue. In fact now that I think about it the issues started after installing the beta drivers. Now that I have it narrowed down I guess I can reboot and use the onboard Intel graphic subsystem to get the apps installed and set up in Crossover Pro. Then I can switch back to my normal Nvidia setup to get most of my tasks done. Although hopefully now that we know it’s aregression we can get the bug squashed before too much longer. I’ll keep posting updates as I get them.

RESOLVED 6 November 7:30 am: Thanks to comment #144, from Peter Remmers, on Launchpad bug #251107 I was able to get this issue resolved. It turns out there is an entry on the WINE FAQ that I completely missed on several passes through the page.

6.18. Using wine over remote X11 sessions and No text or damaged text displayed

Please make sure not have added any fonts to wine. Font conflicts can sometimes cause a similar issue. If a fresh wine prefix.(A copy of wine that nothing has been done to yet) Is having this problem. Try setting following in registry

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\X11 Driver]
"ClientSideWithRender"="N"

Place above in text file and it can be inserted into registry by “regedit settings.txt”.

This was report as been required of OS X on the 1 Dec 2007. This may change. Please apply only as required.

What I did was simply place the text file, which I called settings.txt, into ~/.wine/drive_c and in Terminal run

env WINEPREFIX="/home/[YourUsername]/.wine" regedit settings.txt

Updated 9 Dec: You should use your username to identify the location of your home folder. I don’t think your system would have a clue as to the location of my /home directory, unless you also have a user named Peng. My bad.

I’m not sure if I needed to run the env WINEPREFIX="/home/peng/.wine" but I did just to make sure it would run. The response I got was simply

:~$

which means it ran the command with no problems. Since I have CrossOver Linux Pro installed on this box I used Applications > CrossOver > Run a Windows Command. Then I clicked the Browse button, set the filetype to All files (*), located the file (which I had copied into ~/.cxoffice/win98/drive_c just to make it easier for me), selected settings.txt and clicked Open. I edited the command to put regedit in the front and clicked Run. (The dialog box was widened to show you the entire command I ran.)

Now I have full use of both the WINE configuration window and my Windows apps under CrossOver Linux Pro.

Thanks to everyone who helped diagnose and resolve my issue. And Peter? I owe you a brew.

Peng’s links for Wednesday, 22 October

I do have some other links I want to share with y’all today.

• Ubuntu Productivity: Re: Switch to Ubuntu Linux not Apple Mac OS. A Kubuntu user asked why people are going from Windows to the Mac OS but not to Ubuntu, and the Ubuntu Productivity blogmaster brings the not so great news: Ubuntu, and Linux distros in general, simply have a way to go before they’re as ready for Windows users than OSX is right now. Case in point from my own experiences: My local library will let you download eBooks, but they require either Mobipocket or Adobe’s Digital Editions version of their Reader software. Adobe’s app is different from their Acrobat Reader software, and is a Windows based program that has been ported to the Mac but they haven’t released a Linux version yet. The Windows version can run under WINE, but I’ll be damned if I could find a way to get the sucker so I could try it with a little software vino. Bottom line? Too many firms simply haven’t started supporting Linux yet, and that’s not even counting the game developers.
• Frank Taylor/Google Earth Blog: Links: Planet Search, Interactive KML, FlightSim, iPhone GPS. First there was the Sky layer, now you can fly through Our Solar System. Plus a new goody for fans of FlightSim in Google Earth, which reminds me I wanted to check out the openGL version of YS Flight Simulator.
• Beyond the Forecast: Human Biometeorology. Mish Michaels over in the WBZ Weather Center wrote a great piece on why our body can let us know when weather changes are coming. There was a nice piece she did for the five o’clock news yesterday but I can’t find it online yet. Hopefully I’ll have an update for you with a link before too long.

Peng’s links for Saturday, 20 September

• DesktopLinux.com: Ubuntu to fund Linux development. Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Ubuntu parent (and Free Software Day 2008 sponsor) Canonical has hired a team of designers to make Linux the most usable operating system in the world.
• Markus Thielman: Flash 10 RC2 for Ubuntu Hardy. Adobe has updated Flash 20 to a second release candidate (aka version 10.0.10.12) with a bunch of new features and bug fixes, and Markus was kind enough to package it and make it available the updated flashplungin-nonfreebeta his PPA. Being in his PPA means that if you’ve added his PPA to your software sources list you’ll get the update in your next upgrade cycle. (Markus’ post was written on Tuesday and I didn’t have it flagged properly for my last links post. My bad.)
• Nick Bauermeister: How to set up Compiz Fusion 0.7.4. With Compiz Fusion’s  update to 0.7.4 earlier this year (available with Ubuntu Hardy) came some new goodies you can play with. Nick once again has an updated post for how to Desktop Effects to get some really cool effects, like using the Desktop Cube and setting up transparencies, as well as making your cube into an aquarium with the Atlantis plugin. Alas, I believe the Desktop Sphere comes in a new version of CF but he still has some great settings. If you are a Linux user and use Compiz Fusion Nick’s post should be bookmarked, whether you usually bookmark pages or not.
• Scott Ritchie: “Native Ports” are not better. Many people love to rant about how using programs like WINE to run apps is bad and how devs should simply port their favorite app/game/whatever to Linux. Scott, being a pretty smart guy, gives the rant a reality check and points out that properly bringing an app to work nativity in Linux is a ton of work.
• Wine HQ News: Wine 1.1.5 Released. Speaking of WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator), the WINE devs have rolled out yet another update, with “substantial JavaScript implementation” a quite a bit more. If you have WINE HQ on your repository list you should have gotten the update this morning. If you don’t, what are you waiting for?
• Alan Pope: No competition. Have you seen the Microsoft ads with Jerry Seinfeld? They’ve been replaced by ads that take aim squarely at Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads. But those ads remind Alan of something that happened to him at a pub not to long ago.
• Ed Bott: Apple continues to deceive users. You may remember Nanci’s post from March about Apple trying to shove Safari down the throats of Windows users who have installed iTunes and the ruckus Apple got for doing it. It looks like they’re doing it again, and this time they’re not even respecting the user’s decisions on what not to install. Thanks to Asa Dotzler for bringing the matter to my attention.
• Marius Nestor: Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 6 Screenshot Tour. When I wrote about Ubuntu Intrepid Alpha 6 being released yesterday I didn’t know about this, but the good people at Softpedia have once again put together a snapshot tour of how the Ibex is coming along. I would have added this to yesterday’s post but I wanted to make sure all of our readers got this update. Thanks again to sharks from the Ubuntu Forums for letting me know this latest tour was available.

Before I hit the Publish button on this post I wanted to join Matthew Helmke in urging everyone in the United States who are eligible to vote but haven’t yet registered, check out this very comprehensive list of info on voter registration in the USA. Being a republic, the voters here don’t actually make the decisions, we elect people who will make them for us. Do you really want someone else to pick who’s going to make decisions that affect so many areas of your life, especially with the current economic crisis? If you’re a convicted felon you may want to see if you’re eligible to vote again. Some states, including Virginia and Florida, have decided that some felons are eligible to vote again. You may be able to vote again, too, so check with your local Registrar of Voters to see if you are.

[UPDATED] HowTo: Run WINE programs with GNOME Do

Since I got a new color PDA recently I’ve been throwing a lot more pictures on it. The new PDA, like my old black & white one, is a Sony Clié and comes with Sony’s PictureGear Lite app for putting pictures and movies on my PDA, and since I finally have a color PDA I’m more interested in putting pictures on it to share with friends that I run into. But to move pictures (and movies) onto my PDA requires running PictureGear, a Windows program that runs on Linux under WINE, and I couldn’t find a good way to run WINE apps via GNOME Do. Until I was dealing with my Do/Synaptic issue that I posted about earlier this morning.

I already had a Nautilus window opened to my /usr/share/applications directory with admin rights (via sudo nautilus), so I opened a regular Nautilus window to /home/peng/.local/share/applications/wine/Programs and went into the directory that held the launcher for PictureGear Lite. I dragged the launcher for PictureGear to the sudo nautilus window with /usr/share/applications open, while holding down the Ctrl key to do a drag and copy, and placed a copy of the PictureGear launcher into /usr/share/applications.

The new launcher didn’t have an icon, but I simply went into the launcher’s Properties window clicked the icon button and selected the appropriate icon from /home/peng/.local/share/icons, which is the directory that WINE stores icons for Windows programs that have been installed. Once I had the correct icon selected I simply closed the Properties window.

After I fix the icon for my new launcher I closed GNOME Do and reopened it, to force Do to grab the new launcher, and then started typing PictureGear. Lo and behold, I was able to launch PictureGear Lite from within GNOME Do!

I’ll need to go back into the launcher’s properties screen to add a description, but I’m able to start a Windows app that I use almost daily without having to reach for the menus.

Updated 24 May 2009: If you want to do this procedure for applications that were installed with CrossOver Linux rather than WINE the path you want to find the launchers to copy from will be ~/home/.cxoffice/[bottle_name]/desktopdata/cxmenu/xdg-applications. From there simply drill down through the folder hierarchy and drag the appropriate .desktop file. When I did that I didn’t need to manually set the icon, which is a step that you may not have to perform.

[UPDATED] Peng’s links for Friday, 22 August

[Updated to include an update for WINE. -Peng]

• muted articulation. I found this blog while checking the August 2008 Desktop Screenshot Thread and there are some great articles on it, especially one about timelapsed backgrounds in GNOME and his post on browser quirks. This blog belongs in your RSS reader, and I’m hoping we’ll get him on at least the Ubuntu Weblogs planet soon. Btw, if you’re looking for some ideas on things you can do to freshen up your desktop you should try to take the time to go through this month’s desktop screenie thread, and as many months as you can. I’ve gotten some nice ideas from those threads. It does take some time every day to get caught up (we’re up to 92 pages as of this writing) but it’s always worth the time to me. My only real problem is that I’ve got a lot more wallpapers for my rotation after getting some of the ones used on other people’s desktops. They’re that nice.
• Jonathan DiCarlo: Tabbing Through the Tabs and More Questions (and No Answers) about Tabs. Jono has some nice info on using tabs in Firefox, especially moving from tab to tab. I’m not sure if his ideas will be incorporated into Firefox, but if not I hope it becomes an extension. It would sure make moving between tabs easier, especially when I have several tabs open on a single site, which happens a lot more often for some of us than you may realize.
• Gervase Markham: Two Ways To Become a Beta Tester. A short but simple post showing the difference between how Microsoft and Mozilla, and for that matter most of the open source community, looks at beta testing.
• DesktopLinux.com: Linux to gain anti-virus software. McAfee is wanting to protect “Linux-based laptops and MIDs (mobile Internet devices) from ’security challenges.’” Does this mean programs like Clam AntiVirus are crap? Or does it simply mean that McAfee sees the growing popularity of Linux and figures people will get around to start writing Linux malware sooner or later and wants to start cashing in on it now? (For the record, Linux users don’t really need anti-virus software at this point because it’s so difficult to write and spread that kind of malware on the Linux platform.)
• Launchpad News: Launchpad 2.1.8: Bugzilla and Trac plugins now available, plus karma for commits. Launchpad, the bug tracking software from Canonical (parent company of the Ubuntu Linux distribution) just gets better and better. The plugins for Bugzilla and Trac make it even easier to link upstream bugs, thus getting fixes where they belong faster.
• Kevin DuBois: Tips for spawning GUI’s from the Command Line. Some people love the command line, some people prefer Gui’s (graphical user interfaces). But did you know there’s a way to start a program from the command line without having to tie up a Terminal window while it runs? I didn’t either. I’m going to have to remember Kevin’s info for later use.
• Aaron Leventhal: Firefox and OS X’s VoiceOver … Reading the Magic 8 Ball. OSX has some nice accessibility tools like their VoiceOver screen reader. Unfortunately they’re proprietary tools and it’s just not that easy for other programs to use them. But the Mozilla devs are bound and determined to find a way to make things easier to use for people with disabilities.
• andrewsomething/Ubuntu Forums: Contributing to Intrepid. While I really wish this has been posted to a blog on Planet Ubuntu rather than as a topic on the UF, this is a must read for anyone wanting to help get the next version of Ubuntu ready to ship in October. No programming knowledge, let alone experience, required, just the willingness to install and run Intrepid and help report bugs. Intrepid is still in development and may cause major breakage at any point, so it should not be run on your primary computer, but if you have a second computer you can run it on we’d love to have you help test it.
• WINE HQ News: WINE 1.1.3 Released. I know, another new version of WINE? You betcha, and there are a number of improvements, including “many installer fixes” and “tweaks for better PulseAudio support.” It’s not available in the Ubuntu repos yet, but this may be one of those programs you get directly so you can keep up with updates. Update Sat 23 Aug 8:00: When I checked for updates this am I saw wine_1.1.3~winehq0~ubuntu~8.04-0ubuntu1 presented to me as an update. I believe it’s in hardy-proposed, but I couldn’t confirm that. It should be available to all Ubuntu Hardy users before too long.
• Miia Ranta: If I really knew how to code… A member of Planet Ubuntu shares her wish list. You’ve got to love her emote at the bottom of her post. One of these day I may have to join her in that emote. [Get your mind out of the gutters. It's not that kind of emote. lol]
• Lydia Pintscher: Nerrivik released. You’re thinking “WHAT released???”, but Nerrivik is the code name for the first beta of Amarok 2.0, the next version of the KDE media player I use on my GNOME box, even though it means I have to install some KDE libraries. Amarok used to be my primary media player until I discovered MPD/Sonata. Check out the screenshot that Lydia posts, then go read the release notes. (Her link takes you through Digg, mine gets you there directly. No offense, Lydia.)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Scott Ritchie’s WINE follow-up

Last Wednesday I posted a link to an article by Scott Ritchie, the person responsible for maintaining the WINE packages for Ubuntu, about how much WINE sucks. I promised a link to his follow-up article when he posted, and he finally published the promised follow-up. It turns out that his Comcast ‘net connection was down for three days. And Comcast called on day three to remind him that his bill needed to be paid online. Ouch!

Instead of simply complaining about the ways that the most popular software that lets Linux users run Windows programs sucks, he’s gone point by point and tells how he’s working to fix the issues.

He also states that his work on WINE is taking up more and more time, and he may be looking for donations to allow him to work on WINE on a full-time basis. I may not be able to donate much, but I’ll definitely contribute something to the cause.

---

This is going to take the place of today’s omnibus links post. The only other thing I was going to blog this morning, other than the loss of Isaac Hayes, was a baseball-themed post that I decided not to post after all. I should have more to post tomorrow.

May your week suck much less than it can, and even less than the current incarnation of WINE does.