Windows PortableApps under WINE
Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 17:54
Afternoon, boys & girls.
I've always used WINE in Puppy. Despite Linux having an equivalent for pretty much anything that Windows offers, there's still the odd occasion when you want to do something for which there is no direct equivalent. Either that, or you're so used to using a particular application in Windows that's it's more hassle than it's worth to learn the Linux equivalent.
In the last couple of years, I've discovered that many of the apps/programs offered at PortableApps.com will happily run under many versions of WINE. I can't speak for the more recent offerings (I use those compiled by version2013), since, like many people, I've settled on the one version of WINE that works for me. In my case, this happens to be WINE 1.7.51.
(Don't forget, this is something that requires a wee bit of experimenting. WINE functionality often 'breaks' between versions; regressions are not at all uncommon, although the WINE Project are steadily getting better at this, release by release).
I thought it might be handy for some of you to know which portable apps are known to definitely work with WINE & Puppy.....bearing in mind that this can be a bit of a lottery, and use of the WineHQ database is strongly recommended.
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The Portables I've tried that work for me under 1.7.51 are as follows (and do bear in mind that I've only begun to scratch the surface here; there's a lot more available than I've listed here, many of which I, personally, don't have a use for.) There's a huge section of portable games, for instance...
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Graphics
IrfanView - image editor and viewer.
LaZPaint - as above.
PhotoFiltre - editing & processing of photos.
Dia - good for doing diagrams.
Fotografix - very simple version of Photoshop.
SmartDeblur - used for deblurring/sharpening of images. I know Geoffrey uses this one, and has re-built a version that gets rid of certain annoying start-up features.
PicPick - very similar to our native Linux app, 'HotShots'.
Documents/word processing
Jarte - the well-known basic w.p., based on the Windows 'Notepad' engine. Actually chock-full of neat little features.
SumatraPDF - another well-known, very basic PDF viewer.
Notepad++ - again, based on the Notepad 'engine'.....basically, a way more full-featured version of Notepad.
Multimedia
SMPlayer - the portable version actually works OK under WINE.....so long as you don't push it too hard!
VLC - ditto, as above.....although not quite as stable.
(EDIT - 25/01/20: Just to add for the above pair of media players, that with a much more modern and capable processor/RAM combo, both actually work extremely well.....and in fact VLC is probably more stable than SMPlayer in this scenario!)
TAudioConverter - an exceptionally easy-to-use converter for audio formats.....which works well, and quite quickly.
AVIScreen Classic - a very neat, easy-to-use little screen recorder app.
Odds & ends
Telegram - the portable will often work where the Linux native version won't, due to glibc requirements.
7-Zip portable - needs no introduction.
PWGen - this generates random passwords. It does have its uses!
PopMan - I've found this one just today; it's a very lightweight email notifier/viewer. Works nicely, too; it can all be accessed/controlled via its tray icon.
(EDIT:- Just tried out, literally a few minutes ago (18:30), 'VirtualMagnifyingGlass'. Self-explanatory, of course.....but works really, really well. Again, runs from a tray icon; you can change its appearance, change the size of the area you want to magnify (and add/remove a border for the magnifier), invert colours, zoom up and down via the mouse wheel.....all sorts of nifty tricks. And everything works as it should.
Not bad at all.....and extremely useful.)
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The one thing to remember about these things is crucial; you do NOT 'install' these as you would normally do with Windows apps running under WINE - Mikeslr will back me up on this one. You run the 'installer' (really just an 'archiver'), which merely unpacks them into a location of your choice. I keep mine in a remote folder, called 'PortableApps', sym-linked into /root of each Pup, and referenced/started via custom Menu entries I've made up for them.
You can also just drag the .exe file of each app onto the desktop, then rename & tart-up with an icon, if so desired.
This is only for starters. I'd love to hear from anybody else who's got any other portables running/working successfully for them. We could expand this into an index for these things!
Mike.
I've always used WINE in Puppy. Despite Linux having an equivalent for pretty much anything that Windows offers, there's still the odd occasion when you want to do something for which there is no direct equivalent. Either that, or you're so used to using a particular application in Windows that's it's more hassle than it's worth to learn the Linux equivalent.
In the last couple of years, I've discovered that many of the apps/programs offered at PortableApps.com will happily run under many versions of WINE. I can't speak for the more recent offerings (I use those compiled by version2013), since, like many people, I've settled on the one version of WINE that works for me. In my case, this happens to be WINE 1.7.51.
(Don't forget, this is something that requires a wee bit of experimenting. WINE functionality often 'breaks' between versions; regressions are not at all uncommon, although the WINE Project are steadily getting better at this, release by release).
I thought it might be handy for some of you to know which portable apps are known to definitely work with WINE & Puppy.....bearing in mind that this can be a bit of a lottery, and use of the WineHQ database is strongly recommended.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Portables I've tried that work for me under 1.7.51 are as follows (and do bear in mind that I've only begun to scratch the surface here; there's a lot more available than I've listed here, many of which I, personally, don't have a use for.) There's a huge section of portable games, for instance...
************************
Graphics
IrfanView - image editor and viewer.
LaZPaint - as above.
PhotoFiltre - editing & processing of photos.
Dia - good for doing diagrams.
Fotografix - very simple version of Photoshop.
SmartDeblur - used for deblurring/sharpening of images. I know Geoffrey uses this one, and has re-built a version that gets rid of certain annoying start-up features.
PicPick - very similar to our native Linux app, 'HotShots'.
Documents/word processing
Jarte - the well-known basic w.p., based on the Windows 'Notepad' engine. Actually chock-full of neat little features.
SumatraPDF - another well-known, very basic PDF viewer.
Notepad++ - again, based on the Notepad 'engine'.....basically, a way more full-featured version of Notepad.
Multimedia
SMPlayer - the portable version actually works OK under WINE.....so long as you don't push it too hard!
VLC - ditto, as above.....although not quite as stable.
(EDIT - 25/01/20: Just to add for the above pair of media players, that with a much more modern and capable processor/RAM combo, both actually work extremely well.....and in fact VLC is probably more stable than SMPlayer in this scenario!)
TAudioConverter - an exceptionally easy-to-use converter for audio formats.....which works well, and quite quickly.
AVIScreen Classic - a very neat, easy-to-use little screen recorder app.
Odds & ends
Telegram - the portable will often work where the Linux native version won't, due to glibc requirements.
7-Zip portable - needs no introduction.
PWGen - this generates random passwords. It does have its uses!
PopMan - I've found this one just today; it's a very lightweight email notifier/viewer. Works nicely, too; it can all be accessed/controlled via its tray icon.
(EDIT:- Just tried out, literally a few minutes ago (18:30), 'VirtualMagnifyingGlass'. Self-explanatory, of course.....but works really, really well. Again, runs from a tray icon; you can change its appearance, change the size of the area you want to magnify (and add/remove a border for the magnifier), invert colours, zoom up and down via the mouse wheel.....all sorts of nifty tricks. And everything works as it should.
Not bad at all.....and extremely useful.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The one thing to remember about these things is crucial; you do NOT 'install' these as you would normally do with Windows apps running under WINE - Mikeslr will back me up on this one. You run the 'installer' (really just an 'archiver'), which merely unpacks them into a location of your choice. I keep mine in a remote folder, called 'PortableApps', sym-linked into /root of each Pup, and referenced/started via custom Menu entries I've made up for them.
You can also just drag the .exe file of each app onto the desktop, then rename & tart-up with an icon, if so desired.
This is only for starters. I'd love to hear from anybody else who's got any other portables running/working successfully for them. We could expand this into an index for these things!
Mike.