Wine Ported to OpenBSD

(marc.info)

177 points | by iamnothere 2 hours ago

18 comments

  • t-3 35 minutes ago
    https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports&m=179241414029592

    > I doubt much will be merged upstream. Many updates we have can technically run on other OSes (%gs stubs won't be built on Linux because %gs is correctly set, SIGUSR1 will work but less optimally, etc). However I picked an approach where everything that is done for OpenBSD is just marked as OpenBSD only. I did that purely to simplify my life while I was working on it and clearly mark the changes.

    > When I was talking to Wine maintainers a month ago, they were hesitant to accept even patching Wine so it compiles for OpenBSD, mostly because it's another OS they will have to support and keep operational, while the %gs stub fix is something they definitely cannot take upstream. They are very hesitant to take anything that is changing the "emulated" application code.

  • haunter 50 minutes ago
  • RunSet 57 minutes ago
    Especially welcome news now that OpenBSD is shaping up to be a refuge from slopcode.

    https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=177411620801633&w=2

    • greyw 38 minutes ago
      OpenBSD will probably fall even further behind
      • freedomben 24 minutes ago
        Yep, drivers are one of if not the biggest blocker in my experience, and that's an area AI can help immensely
        • segmondy 1 minute ago
          Then vibe up the ones you need for yourself.
      • vdombr 16 minutes ago
        Yeah, they won't have a chance to rewrite cp and mv in Rust.
        • greyw 11 minutes ago
          I mean OpenBSD's utils cant even match GNU's coreutils so I think they have bigger problems
          • ninjin 8 minutes ago
            "Can't even match GNU's coreutils"? Care to elaborate? Last time I checked OpenBSD is pretty much in line with Posix and there are plenty of us that consider many of the GNU extensions to be anti-features.
            • greyw 4 minutes ago
              Thats exactly what I mean. I dont care about Posix or the whining about "anti-features". The BSD stuff is a clear subset that doesnt get the job done.

              Posix is more an art form documenting the far gone past rather than a practical tool

      • noosphr 14 minutes ago
        If you don't break the law you do indeed fall further behind people who do.

        Nothing in that post is against using an LLM. It's all about copyright:

        >Since every file in OpenBSD has been continually verified to ensure correct Copyright, and we've even deleted code which has incorrect Copyright, the chances of us accepting such new code with such a suspicious Copyright situation is zero.

        Once the current bubble pops we're going to see a lot of litigation over copyright enfringement by LLMs. Currently no one wants to rock the boat because everyone hopes to make a trillion dollars from AI, Oracle included. Once they see they can't the knives are going to come out and I wouldn't want to be Linux at that point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America

        • greyw 6 minutes ago
          Copyright will adapt.

          Also my personal opinion about copyright _in the FOSS domain_ is that I simply dont care. Copyleft as the GNU folks like to call it is just using the copyright laws to achieves certain free software objectives. If that doesnt work anymore there will be another fix

    • smlacy 39 minutes ago
      Wow, I honestly didn't think HN would succumb to the AI := Slop perspective.
      • ranger_danger 11 minutes ago
        Although Theo seems to imply AI code is not welcome, this commit says Claude was used: https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/9c2b8e445a0bdfafdd6148...
        • ninjin 4 minutes ago
          Plenty of issues that have been patched recently found using such tools as well. OpenBSD's policy remains largely the same as always: You need to understand the patch you propose and they need to be maintainable. The link elsewhere in this thread is mainly discussing large patches where it is unclear if the LLM drew too heavily on code elsewhere.
      • lionkor 35 minutes ago
        I think it's the complete saturation of the platform with members who make it feel like HN is a platform for people to boast about how many tokens they burnt to rewrite something that already worked fine.

        It polarizes people to either join the "the LLM is my god" crowd or the "if AI touches the repo, it's all slop" crowd.

        The careful balance is rarely discussed, probably because that's the part that still takes work.

        • runeb 12 minutes ago
          I would hope that lazy polarization found some resistance on this particular forum
        • kingcauchy 27 minutes ago
          It really depends on the post anymore. Have had a lot of really thoughtful discussions about the nuance that came out of HN convos. Seems like most businesses and people are still just trying to figure out.
    • hias 14 minutes ago
      how do you think they made this wine port lol?
      • ranger_danger 11 minutes ago
        Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
        • baq 6 minutes ago
          at this point in the timeline you need evidence to the contrary, safe to assume most code is AI generated or AI assisted at the very least
  • philipallstar 38 minutes ago
    Missed opportunity to call it Port.
    • kingcauchy 30 minutes ago
      Probable being reserved for the OpenBrandSherryDaquiri rebranding.
  • ataraxia937 11 minutes ago
    I find it amusing and appropriate that the surname of the author of that message is Frohwein. "Happy wine" in German.
  • brynet 36 minutes ago
    I OK'd this port. I apologize in advance.
  • BlackRabbit1 55 minutes ago
    Finally I can run Zonealarm on OBSD
  • Bluescreenbuddy 1 hour ago
    Good lord this is awesome
  • CodeCompost 1 hour ago
    That is awesome. I take it I can't run this with nVidia.
  • imagetic 23 minutes ago
    Yes. More of this.
  • raverbashing 15 minutes ago
    I wonder what's the state of 3D/OpenGL support on OpenBSD or if the games run into too many problems here
  • j45 18 minutes ago
    I remember reading once how far away something like this way to work - for all the time that BSD has kept servers and networks safer than other options, it's nice to see things like WINE making it there as well.

    Its hard to not think of the possibility that BSD might offer new or different advantages to keeping legacy windows applications safe until there is a willingness to adopt or develop alternatives.

  • saurilabs 33 minutes ago
    This is awessome!
  • ericfrederich 1 hour ago
    My first thought was this must have something to do with the development momentum around the PS5 but that apparently runs FreeBSD not OpenBSD.
  • throwaway27448 1 hour ago
    Out of curiosity, how much work/what sorts of openbsd-specific details must be addressed to get such a port working?
    • coldpie 31 minutes ago
      You can download the attachment and take a look at the patches. Wine already supports FreeBSD and macOS, so it's not tooooo crazy hard to add another BSD/Unix to the pile. Looks like there's a few Unix APIs that have drifted, so the patches add some #if OpenBSD style stuff to avoid using some symbols that don't exist on OpenBSD. The gs register stuff is by far the most complex bit. IIRC that register is used for thread-local storage on Windows, but for other purposes on other OS's, so handling access from win32 binaries to the gs register is a big problem when porting to a new OS.

      On the whole it looks well written to me, especially with how complex & low-level these areas of Wine are. Good work to the author. I'd encourage them to try upstreaming it if they're interested. Some of it looks a little hacky, which upstream will object to, but maybe they could get some help cleaning it up, which will avoid having to maintain a diff and result in an even better port.

      Edit: Oh, looks like they already talked with upstream https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports&m=179241414029592 It's not a huge diff to maintain, so maybe that is the better route. Great work either way.

  • ndbe 1 hour ago
    Insane work!

    There's even the remaster of The Witcher running! If I had money I would simply gift to those guys.

  • hahahoo 39 minutes ago
    [flagged]
  • rskeens 52 minutes ago
    [dead]