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WINE Support

Former Member

[Forgive me for such a noob question.  I'm not well versed in Linux and have never tried to use WINE.  That said...]

 

Will the RPi support an installation of WINE; specifically WINE running ContaCam?

 

I am interested in running ContaCam (http://www.contaware.com), a Security Serveillance application with motion detection, DVR, integrated web server, supporting webcams, WDM and DV, and IP cameras.  It's feature set is exactly what I need and I am familiar with the application.  I know ContaCam will run in WINE, but I have no idea if WINE will run on RPi and even if it will then are the resources required by ContaCam available.  When looking at Windows Task Manager, I see that ContaCam is taking about 65,000 K in resources.

 

Thanks in advance,

Andrew

  • Interesting question.  I've seen a few folks asking if it will run Windows which it definately can not.  However, if their interest is to run a specific Windows app like you, then I could see how WINE could be a good solution.

     

    There is a developer VM that Russell Davis created which allows folks to get started building software for the Raspberry Pi on their x86 computers.  You might want to check it out and see if WINE is an available package for either of the existing RPi distros (the VM includes all 3).  If not, you can try to compile compile it in the VM.  Here's more info on the dev VM:

     

    http://www.element14.com/community/message/47127

     

    Cheers,

    Drew

  • in reply to fustini

    Thanks.  I was thinking of trying the VMs, but thought I'd ask first.  I've used VMs quite a few times, but never paid much attention to the RAM & CPU settings.  If I recall, they default to a percentage of the RAM that I have avaliable and utilize as much CPU as they can.  I guess I'll need to look and see if these VMs throttle these settings to something realistic for RPi (256mb/700mHz).

     

    Thanks again,

    Andrew

  • in reply to Former Member

    Actually, I just realized that I wasn't thinking about ARM versus x86.  I think a Windows x86 VM wouldn't run on an ARM device like the Pi (and memory would probably be an issue, too).

     

    I also suspect that a x86 Windows app wouldn't run on ARM with WINE either.  But one way to find out would be to use the developer VM to try to compile WINE for the Raspberry Pi.  (The point of the developer VM is that is has scratchbox setup which allows you to build [aka cross-compile] software for any of the 3 ARM Linux distros available for the Raspberry Pi.)

     

    Cheers,

    Drew

  • in reply to fustini

      I guess it comes back around to my original question, "Will the RPi support an installation of WINE..."?  I can do the experimentation myself, but if someone already knows the answer then it will let me use the time to move on to other areas of the project.

     

    And if it turns out that ContaCam can't be run then I'm open to suggestions of a reasonably full featured application that will at the least detect motion (with sensitivity adjustments), capture still images of the triggering event, and capture video of the triggering event.

     

    Thanks again,

    Andrew

  • in reply to Former Member

    I vaguely recall a university project called CUCAM which might have the souce code available for cross compile.  Somewhere I think I have the bundle downloaded.

  • in reply to fustini

    I know I'm going to have to go to the foot of my stairs and hang my head in shame, but I wonder if the Windows 8 Arm OS due out later this year would be capable of running on a Pi or similar.

  • in reply to bodgy

    No, Wine won't run - at all.  Wine only runs on x86 systems, it is not a processor emulator and cannot translate x86 code into Arm code, it only provides an alternative API implementation for Windows OS calls.

     

    No, Windows 8 won't run - at all.  MS only permit Win8 to run on Arm systems that are designed ONLY to run Win8 and which prevent any other OS being installed to replace it - clearly not the Raspberry Pi, then.

     

    The answer to both these questions is in http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs - sorry it's not the news you were hoping for, but no chance.

  • Think about it. You have 256MB RAM. You then want to run Wine on it, and Windows on top of that and some Windows applications on top of that. Even if Wine did work your Pi would melt under the strain. If you want to run Windows applications the solution is to get a PC.

  • Read the FAQs    Doh!  I totally missed it.  I should perform text searches instead of just scanning the list.

     

    For the memory issue, I was thinking of running Wind2K, which is pretty light.  But I had/have no idea of the weight of Linux or WINE, or how efficient Linux/WINE could swap memory to a card.  In the long run, it doesn't matter as ARM is the limiting factor.

     

    The light is slowly coming on...  I just hadn't realized how limiting ARM might be.  So far I haven't found existing motion detection software that runs on ARM.  I hope it doesn't kill my project before it gets off the ground.

     

    Thank you  RorschachUK for pointing me to the definitive answer.