[games-discuss] Cant get Wow working in Wine

[James Cornell]

On 7/28/2009 2:17 PM, Joseph wrote:
> MPlayer build.. FAIL! :(
> 
> Still fails actually a bit worse as well. No Video at all, and audio config option under gmplayer doesn't even show OSS; only sun audio.  Seeing as now the mplayer cant even play the video. sux0rs.
> 
> I am glad i didnt blast my pseudo working build of mplayer...
> 
> My old mplayer source doesnt even rebuild since b117... so i cant get it to bind to OSS driver. Seriouly frustrating mess trying to use this OS for anything other than word processing & JavaDev( yes im sure there are countless other uses I have not explored, however it is a crap shoot for any type of multi media entertainment or recreation. Which is a shame.
> 
> VirtualBox cant find the display adapter.. or no suitable one. Im running V3 soo yeah looks like im out of luck. Im going to get kicked from my guild if i don't sort something out. As much as i hate it, it looks like I may have to go crawling back to the POS M$ Windows environment, or deal with the headaces of getting my gentoo environment working again. 
> 
> The fact i cant get video working for mkv's @ 720 working is... well, coupled with the fact I cant find a working solution for WoW ( which prior to loading OpenSolaris i researched an read all was ok for both ) basically makes the OS less valuable that windows 95. Event with it crashing @ least you could enjoy your machine for something other than work. 
> 
> On the list of things not working the pptp connector for OpenSolaris( also in spite of the rants and raves that it does work ) doesn't seem to install or work. 
> 
> The RealPlayer installation doesnt work. You have to ./reaplay in the extracted installers directory. The installation procedure and moving of .so's to firefox plugins doesnt happen AT ALL. Where this is not an issue directed at the OS as much as RealPlayer.. its jsut par for the course of a long list of undocumented "issues". (Please do not mis interpret what i am saying about real player.. It "works" just Cant watch cspan or anything embedded in browser fro realplayer or open a a native file. I have to run the binary then open the source document for the media... which is fine if its not embedded in browser )
> 
> All of the packages and services that works and that are native to Solaris are fantastic, however use of 3 party software is daunting at best which is a real OS killer in a desktop Market. We'll see i'll tough it out and try and continue to find solutions to my issues for a while. But it looks like Im going to have to buy a netbook @ the very least. which is just more crap to carry when traveling. Which make me evaluate whether or not to just load the M$ back onto my hardware.
I totally understand your frustration and have in the past found the
same to be true regarding all issues noted.  The whole issue is that
development is in limbo with open-sound/sada being integrated into b115,
just three builds before the current public of the -dev repository.
Changes to wine need to be made to make it work, and I would suggest
that maintainers for Solaris try and see if it works with pulseaudio,
which in theory could plumb the audio from deviating apps such as Wine.

The audio issue alone is enough to pull hairs out, and the legal issues
are a big problem, but are a result of Sun being a US-operated company.
 They cannot take any chances regarding integration of patented codecs
which they do not have sub-licensing rights to do so with.  While MP3
works, their general stance on MPlayer since it enables users to use
these encumbered formats, is to ignore its existence, and not to stretch
the truth, it's as if there is a real conspiracy regarding getting it to
work on Solaris.

The decrepitude de-facto installation of GCC is quite dated and
ill-suited for MPlayer, and as you noted even the GCC4 spin through
Blastwave, which has less legal obligation than Sun also fails to build.
 The requirements to get MPlayer built are to modify three environment
variables, make sure you have the whole GNU tool-chain and not just the
compilers, which for the most part can be obtained via the gcc-dev
package cluster.

As much problems as pulseaudio had, and the general misconception that
it was originally intended for Alsa, precluding itself from use with
OSS, I believe that it truly is one of the better options to integrate
all these mismatching frameworks.  The community and internal resources
cannot cover modifying everything all at once, and only through time and
hopefully the continuation of OpenSolaris development after the Oracle
merger would solve these issues.

I suggest that if you wholeheartedly need to now use your system for
such uses, that you take lightly the facts you have found about the
state of OpenSolaris, and use Windows if it fits your purpose.

To go with something other than Windows, just because it's open-source
or has a more transparent development process is certainly not a good
enough reason to give up all the things you expect to be able to use.  I
expect things to change, and it is not the developers intention for all
of these issues to exist, but alas they do and you need to make a more
realistic judgment and just go with it.

I hope to see you from time to time give OpenSolaris a good try again,
because no software is static, but at the moment it's not just going to
be fixed in 2 weeks.

The current intentions make it hard if not impossible to at this time
deal with corner cases and it is not the intent to be able to within
even a reasonable timeframe deal with issues that would potentially
allow it to supplicant something as robust and well-supported as
Windows.  That is not going to happen with any open-source operating
system, but at times by individual case the dependence can be broken,
but you shouldn't shoot yourself in the foot believing it's the end all
be all to go with.

- James