[HN Gopher] Wine-Staging 11.1 Adds Patches for Enabling Recent P...
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Wine-Staging 11.1 Adds Patches for Enabling Recent Photoshop
Versions on Linux
Author : LorenDB
Score : 111 points
Date : 2026-01-25 14:42 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
| andrewstuart2 wrote:
| I'd be pretty thrilled if I could run Lightroom on Linux.
| Photoshop is great too but Lightroom is my main app for my
| biggest hobby and I've had to buy myself a whole MacBookPro just
| to do it without dual booting Windows, which really raises the
| mental barrier for me to jump in and edit photos, which makes me
| want to take them a lot less.
|
| I've tried Darktable and it's pretty impressive software and
| could probably handle most of my needs. But apparently I'm now
| that old guy who's been using software X for 20 years and refuses
| to change his ways because it's not worth it. At least when it
| comes to Lightroom.
| hxorr wrote:
| You could run in a VM - check out WinBoat which allows
| individual apos in a containerised Windows install to integrate
| seamlessly with your linux desktop environment
| tambourine_man wrote:
| But no hardware acceleration, AFAIK, so that's a no-go for
| any graphically intense app.
| doener wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749508
| diath wrote:
| This is just for the installer so it saves you the "install on
| Windows and move files to Linux" step however the Adobe suite
| still runs poorly in WINE.
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| Curious if someone could enlighten me-
|
| How much of these sorts of patches are specifically checking if a
| certain application is running, and then changing behavior to
| match what that application expects? And how much of it is simply
| better emulating the Windows API in general?
|
| I think there are benefits to both approaches, not criticizing
| either one. I'm just curious if the implementation of a patch
| like this is "We fixed an inconsistency between Wine and Windows"
| vs "We're checking if Photoshop is running and using a different
| locking primitive" or whatever.
| spijdar wrote:
| I can't speak to this case specifically, but it's worth
| pointing out that Windows itself applies many patches for
| specific applications, so it follows that Wine could be obliged
| to mimic that behavior in cases where the application relies on
| it.
| superb_dev wrote:
| Not just Windows, it's pretty common all over the place. I
| know for a fact web browsers and GPU driver will do the same
| Telaneo wrote:
| A tale as old as time.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/windows-95-went-
| the-...
|
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20031015-00/?p=42.
| ..
|
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160418-00/?p=93.
| ..
| YokoZar wrote:
| In general free open-source Wine has been developed with the
| philosophy of of not allowing application-specific code.
| Crossover (and presumably Photon), however, allows such patches
| for supported applications.
|
| Patches can be motivated by specific apps, of course, but
| generally the requirement is to complete the patch
| implementing/fixing some API in a generic way, proven by
| additions to the test suite showing the same behavior on
| Windows.
| charcircuit wrote:
| The opposite it true too. Wine doesn't allow any code that
| isn't used. You have to find a specific app that uses it. If
| you don't know an app that calls a portion of a API you can
| not implement it even if the official documentation and
| behavior of using it on Windows makes it obvious how it
| should be implemented.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| The vast majority of Windows applications uses probably 1% of
| the API. That's why you can play a lot of games or run a lot of
| different apps and they mostly seem to work and only usually
| the obscure features like the help section or something might
| not work correctly.
|
| In this case it looks like Adobe was doing a bunch of stuff
| related to Internet explorer that was critical to even having
| the basic functionality of their installer or launchers
| working.
|
| Oftentimes if you take a program that is not running correctly
| or at all you can look at the log output and see a large stream
| of unsupported or partially supported API calls.
| LexiMax wrote:
| What is preventing Microsoft from pulling an Oracle and suing
| Valve, CodeWeavers, or individual Wine maintainers for re-
| implementing Win32?
|
| This question has been nagging at me for a while. Regardless of
| how much validity there is to the lawsuit, I imagine that going
| to trial would be supremely risky, because if you happen across
| _anybody_ working on Wine that saw something they weren 't
| supposed to, you could sink the whole project.
|
| I cannot imagine Microsoft sitting by and quietly letting their
| Windows monopoly vanish between their fingers. Selling Windows
| may not be their primary focus these days, but why give up an
| advantage like that?
| some-guy wrote:
| If anything Microsoft will give up their advantage by making
| Windows 11 a UX dumpster fire. If Windows 11 had an official
| way to turn off all of the garbage and opt out of their
| monopolistic PM-brained "features" a lot of us who switched to
| Linux probably wouldn't have happened.
| dlahoda wrote:
| i was using wsl2. and got weird slowness and high cpu.
| appeared it was their built in antivirus(av). i disabled av,
| but it autoenabled later and did same. it is possible to
| secure windows other way without active protection btw.
|
| i used git on wsl2. it got weird issues with git connectivity
| over wifi. github ticket not solved. one of most popular and
| essential dev tools is not stably working in wsl2.
|
| many rust crates supported only mac, bsd and linux. nobody
| cared windows.
|
| so even without ux of recent version, i had to leave.
|
| for my wife is still run windows.
|
| but. she had fully official surface laptop with official
| office. not 3rd party or pirated things.
|
| and... office became very very slow just typing... it was 3
| years ago.
|
| i have run script disabling all things. it good for 3rd year
| now.
|
| but how they managed to make their laptop new one, with all
| their things so bad?
| shmerl wrote:
| It will kill GitHub I suspect. Who will trust them if they can
| pull the plug on open source projects using the dumb "API is
| copyrightable" claim? I'd say last time they tried to pull that
| by backing Oracle in that legal case, they already damaged
| their reputation enough.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| There's no way. GitHub is already pretty hostile, but the
| only people who care -- like in most hostile platform cases
| -- are the ones who are directly affected.
| shmerl wrote:
| It's a reputational thing. There is already a trend of
| exodus from GitHub. This Oracle style garbage will just
| exacerbate it. Whether they care - who knows, but it can be
| a reason.
|
| But in general - as a developer you surely don't want to
| host your projects using someone who thinks APIs are
| copyrightable.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| I think there are two reasons this hasn't happened: (1) Wine
| might be useful to Microsoft at some point for providing
| backward compatibility in Windows itself; (2) it would be an
| extremely bad look/PR disaster to go after this project after
| spending so much time and money positioning yourself as an open
| source supporter
| sirjaz wrote:
| Also, to add the current CEO doesn't care about the OS. All
| he cares about is the stock price, and his AI mistake.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| This stuff will never ever ever work real and reliably enough
| for Microsoft to care.
|
| Normal people don't want to use Linux. Normal people can't even
| install an OS. None the less fight kernel regressions for days.
|
| I can even imagine Microsoft coming out with MS Linux one day
| and contributing to Wine. That's far more likely at this point.
| snailmailman wrote:
| It _does_ work reliably enough though. A huge portion of
| games on Linux do so via pretending to be windows via wine
| /proton. It's what allows the Steam deck to exist as a
| product at all.
|
| And Linux on those handheld devices out-performs windows to
| such a degree that Microsoft _has_ noticed and is trying to
| make windows perform better on those devices, basically
| making a gaming mode / handheld mode for their Xbox Ally.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| It's not nearly enough to matter to Microsoft. An absolute
| tiny percentage of desktop computers/laptops run Linux.
|
| This is actually a good thing if you're hoping WINE avoids
| a legal fight with Microsoft. It doesn't matter who's
| right, Microsoft has deep enough pockets to drag anyone
| through expensive litigation.
|
| I'm an active Linux user and I play tons of games via
| Proton. But this isn't something I'd suggest to normal
| people. I've spent more time than I'd like to admit keeping
| Linux working.
|
| They also served as a foundation for much of my career
| growth. But I understand it's not for everyone.
| ezst wrote:
| I don't think it matters very much. It's not a matter of
| "if" but of "when": one is consistently getting worse,
| and the other is measurably getting better and more
| compatible with the former. Unless of a drastic paradigm
| change, Linux will see more and more users. Trump
| dismantling of the global system of trade might also add
| another nail to this coffin (the recent talk by Cory
| Doctorow at CCC gives a good picture of how and why).
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Actually you might be right.
|
| I'm always open to being wrong. At a minimum European
| governments should switch to a Linux distro based in
| Europe like Open Suse.
|
| I don't believe this is going to be enough of a dramatic
| shift where Microsoft would see it worth while to try and
| shutdown WINE.
|
| This is a good thing though, if Microsoft really wanted
| to they could sue WINE. Even if WINE isn't doing anything
| wrong, Microsoft could easily make things really
| difficult.
|
| We saw this with Nintendo and the Switch emulators.
|
| Maybe I came across as a bit harsh, I run multiple Linux
| computers, I just can't see this being a realistic
| concern for Microsoft
| ezst wrote:
| > I just can't see this being a realistic concern for
| Microsoft
|
| I think Microsoft strategy for Windows shifted a long
| time ago, from being their most precious engineering
| product, to a necessary component for their sales teams
| to bundle B2B services. The focus went from "pleasing
| users and enabling things" to "seeking rent in the
| gregarious corporate world by building a captive
| monopoly". I suppose that makes perfect shareholder-
| sense, but that leaves the door open to a competition
| that actually wants to make operating systems, in the
| traditional way.
|
| Now that this model is being threatened, with a real
| geopolitical incentive to leave captivity and to
| reconsider past practices (like OEM installs), I think
| it'd be silly for Microsoft not to immediately course-
| correct. And that means doing something much more
| significant than suing Wine: without trade agreements,
| the US has no jurisdiction and no IP that's worth a dime
| outside of its borders. That means doing something that,
| for once, would put them so much ahead of the competition
| that choosing Microsoft would be a no-brainer. I don't
| believe Microsoft has it in itself to execute such a
| thing.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > It's not nearly enough to matter to Microsoft. An
| absolute tiny percentage of desktop computers/laptops run
| Linux.
|
| It matters enough to launch WSL, WSL2, etc. which are the
| "embrace & extend" part of the strategy.
| shmerl wrote:
| It already works for gaming reliably enough.
| tumult wrote:
| Oracle lost Google v. Oracle.
| foresto wrote:
| The main issues I'm aware of are whether APIs are
| copyrightable, and if so, whether implementing them qualifies
| as fair use.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_...
| .
|
| (And, of course, Microsoft would also have to consider whether
| such a lawsuit would have greater benefits than costs. I would
| like to think that customer goodwill has more than zero value,
| for example.)
| tadfisher wrote:
| Going back a bit further:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment%2C.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade
|
| This fact pattern (reimplementing API functions for emulation
| or interoperability) tracks even more closely with the
| Connectix case than Oracle. Google reimplemented a huge swath
| of the Java API surface so developers could reuse libraries,
| but actual applications still needed porting, so there's less
| protection from a fair use perspective; and even then copying
| APIs was still ruled to be fair use.
|
| I just don't see how Microsoft could contort the facts to
| achieve a meaningfully different outcome. It doesn't matter
| if APIs are copyrightable if copying them is fair use for
| just about any purpose.
| oxguy3 wrote:
| First, they probably wouldn't win. Oracle lost Google v Oracle.
| Wine is pretty serious about clean-room principles -- they
| won't accept a patch from anyone who's ever so much as looked
| at Microsoft-owned source code.[1] Valve has the means and
| motive to fight a lawsuit to the bitter end.
|
| Second, it would be a PR disaster. "Microsoft sues to kill the
| Steam Deck" is an awful look for the company. Their strategy in
| recent years has been to say "actually we like Linux now" and
| play friendly to try to win developers; this would run
| completely counter to that. There may not be much of an
| immediate consequence to this, but in the long run I think we'd
| see developers try to reduce their reliance on
| Microsoft/Windows.
|
| Third, I don't think it would actually stop the tide. Wine and
| Proton are a big piece of the movement away from Windows, but
| they're not the only piece. The legal process would take many
| years to play out; during that time, we'd likely see tons of
| movement on making it easier for developers to create native
| Linux builds, and perhaps even new projects that try to find
| other ways to do Wine-like things without actually
| reimplementing Win32. Losing Wine would be a huge blow, but I
| don't think it'd be the end of the story.
|
| [1]: https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Submitting-
| Patch...
| fragmede wrote:
| > Second, it would be a PR disaster. "Microsoft sues to kill
| the Steam Deck" is an awful look for the company.
|
| If the alternative is losing the entire Xbox market? Money
| makes people and companies do funny things.
| dark-star wrote:
| How is the Xbox market related to SteamDeck? SteamDeck
| plays PC games (which XBox doesn't), and XBox plays its own
| console games (which PCs and thus the SteamDeck don't)
| Telaneo wrote:
| The Venn diagram of Xbox games and PC games is very close
| to the Xbox circle just being completely inside the
| larger PC circle. The number of Series S/X exclusives is
| literally zero at this point, at least I'm fairly sure,
| and if there are any, my bets are on them being
| shovelware. The Xbox One only has one exclusive game of
| note, which is Halo 5.
|
| I don't think the performance of the Steam Deck is up to
| play all Xbox games at Series X quality, but that's a
| nitpick assuming future Steam Decks arrive.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Another point that makes everything different is that MS has
| contributed to the wine project. They've both sent in code
| changes to wine itself and they donated mono to the wine
| project.
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