At one point in time, I was pretty good with Unix & C (C++) programming but things change and I got away from that for a number of years. When it comes to Wine Im pretty much of a noob. Right now, the only contribution I feel I can make to the project is by testing applications. Ive noticed that the majority of applications in the AppDb seem to be games, so I think it might be helpful to have more information about non-game applications. But when I install some of my applications, they fail miserably. So, I look around for information to help getting my applications to work (using Google, AppDb and the like) and I find instructions on how to install DirectX and use the DLL overrides. I do this and now my applications work much better than with the builtin DLLs. The program that didnt work before, now works. So, I guess Ive done a bad thing. When you dont have a good grasp of the theory, you fall back on the empirical. Id also like to say that on some forums Im considered somewhat of an expert. In those settings I am sometimes guilty of providing a kurt answer when someone asks a question that has been asked and answered within the last week. However, hostility in a forum, particularly on the part of experts, can be very counterproductive to a project. It tends to drive away people who could become enthusiastic supporters. If someone feels he is trying to do the right thing and gets slapped down by experts he may just opt out altogether or worse, become an active detractor. I would like to better understand the theory of how the parts of Wine hook together. Some of the issues involve the implementation of DirectX and .NET under Wine. Unfortunately, I really have not found the sort of explanation that answers my questions. There seems to be one group who well understand the issues and feel that they dont need to be explained and another group who are struggling with the most basic concepts and a gulf in between. I think that the project is running well ahead of the documentation and this is part of the problem. For instance, in this thread it has been mentioned that there are actually a few native DirectX DLLs that one might need to use. In the FAQ a few DLLs are listed where you must use the builtin and not much is said about the rest. I think it would probably be a good idea for the FAQ to be updated with a list of all the DirectX DLLs, what services they provide and which ones should work 100% as builtins, which ones may still have issues and which ones need to be installed from native DirectX. This would certainly have prevented me from installing DirectX with a lot of overrides. But as I said, if this list exists, I have not found it.
