Changelog:
* documentation/faq.sgml
Answer this eternal question:
Can I use Wine to make the Windows driver for my network card /
graphics card / scanner / etc. work on Unix?
Index: documentation/faq.sgml
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/wine/wine/documentation/faq.sgml,v
retrieving revision 1.13
diff -u -r1.13 faq.sgml
--- documentation/faq.sgml 28 Jul 2003 19:06:10 -0000 1.13
+++ documentation/faq.sgml 20 Aug 2003 20:24:25 -0000
@@ -187,6 +237,40 @@
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
+ <question id="Use-Windows-driver-with-Wine">
+ <para>Can I use Wine to make the Windows driver for my network card /
+ graphics card / scanner / etc. work on Unix?</para>
+ </question>
+ <answer>
+ <para>
+ The goal of Wine is to make it possible to run Windows applications
+ on Unix, not Windows drivers or VxDs.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Drivers and Windows applications belong to different worlds.
+ Applications run in user mode and use the APIs provided by
+ the kernel and the other user mode dlls. In contrast, drivers
+ are loaded in the Windows kernel, i.e. in ring 0 instead of ring
+ 3, have to deal with specific memory management issues, and use
+ instructions not available to regular applications. This means
+ they would not be able to run in Wine since Wine runs entirely
+ in user mode. Rather you would have to modify the Linux kernel.
+ But in addition, drivers use a completely different API from
+ regular Windows applications. So the work performed on Wine would
+ not even be of any use for such a project. In other words, making
+ it possible to use Windows drivers or VxDs on Unix would be a
+ completely separate project.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ However, if you want to reuse Windows drivers on a non-Microsoft
+ operating system we recommend that you have a look at
+ <ulink url="http://www.reactos.com/";>ReactOS</>.
+ </para>
+
+ </answer>
+ </qandaentry>
+
+ <qandaentry>
<question id="Which-one-of-the-different-Wine-packages">
<para>Which one of the different Wine packages out there is good for me?</para>
</question>
--
Francois Gouget fgouget@free.fr http://fgouget.free.fr/
"Lotto: A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
"Windows: Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
