Getting help on Wine

[stefandoesinger]

Hello,

I am a Wine developer who works on Direct3D support for Wine, and I noticed that there are a lot of Wine-Related questions in this forum. One issue Wine and Wine users have is that the information about getting apps to run is spread over hundreds of places. So I kindly ask you to check the wine resources for informations on how to get apps to run. Basically:

* If it is solely a Gentoo problem like problems with the ebuild, ask the gentoo people

* Want to know if an application works, and how to get it to work? See appdb.winehq.com . If your application is not in there, add it! You can put your experiences and tricks to get an app running there

* Also check out wiki.winehq.com, it contains more general information

* Check out http://wiki.winehq.org/KnownIssues

* Found a bug in an app? File it at bugs.winehq.com. However we need GOOD bug reports which illustrate the problem as detailed as possible(Screenshots, Crash traces). Query for bugs to see if the problem has been reported already. If you have multiple broken apps, file one report per bug. If you file a bug "My 3 favorite games(X, Y and Z) do not work", no one will look at it. Do not expect a bug fix withhin days, all the developers are pretty busy, but if there is a bug in our bug tracker it won't get lost.

If you need more help:

* There is an end-user IRC channel #winehq, and a developer channel #winehackers on freenode. YOU REALLY WANT TO ASK AT #winehq for help on getting apps to run, if you do that in #winehackers you will be ignored, kicked or banned. Also note our channel rules in #winehq:
-> Check the appdb first.
-> If you have a question, ask it, do not ask "Can someone answer me a question"
-> winetools are not supported, cedega, winex and crossover have their own channels
-> If it is a 3D game make sure that your 3D acceleration works. If you can play tuxracer you should be fine, if tuxracer doesn't work wine can't work either.
-> Do not paste logs. Use some paste website like www.pastebin.com
-> Use the newest wine version. There is a LOT work going on for games, so you want to be up to date . If you do not use the newest version, state WHY. Sometimes there are temorary regressions which stop a game from working.

Examples for bad questions:
"Can someone help me?"
"May I ask a question?"
"Does application XYZ work in wine?"

Example for a good question:
"Application xyz does not work because it crashes at startup with the crash trace found at <some pastebin link>. I am using wine version 0.9.xy and I already checked the appdb".

Writing patches:
If you hacked into the wine code and have a fix which makes your game work, you may want that fix to go into the mainline wine code. To your fix in read http://www.winehq.com/site/sending_patches and send your fix to wine-patches@winehq.com. But note

* Application-specific hacks will not be committed. Period!
* Writing a test case proving that your patch is correct is very helpful to get your patch in and to avoid the bug to come back later.
* Alexandre Julliard is the sole committer and he is a Royal Pain In the Ass (RPITA), worse than 5 quality assurance departments together. Be prepared to fix your patch over and over to get it in.
* Alexandre's time is limited, so he cannot comment on every broken patch that is sent. The developers of the affected libraries try to comment on patches and give suggestions, but sometimes they are away or have no time to do so. If your patch is not applied for a few days, and you get no reply, feel free to ask for suggestions at wine-devel@winehq.com or #winehackers.
* Use git, not cvs
* to see if your patch was applied see http://source.winehq.com/git/?p=wine.git;a=shortlog

[mikegpitt]

Thanks for the information. I think so many questions get posted here is just because the gentoo community is pretty helpful and have experienced many problems and know of possible solutions. Typically when I run into any issues related to linux I come here first then look elsewhere.

I agree that wine info is spread thoughout the net though.

[kfiaciarka]

I've got a problem with setting audio in winecfg: (latest wine but no cvs/git)