Winelib advantage?

Question

Are there any advantages to compiling my windows application with winelib for Linux users? Why not just give them .exe and let them run it with Wine? It seems like extra work is not needed.

Answer 1

You might want to read the advantages and disadvantages of using Winelib.

Answer 2

Quote Chapter 1. Introduction to Winelib - 1.1. What is Winelib? :

What you get by recompiling your application with Winelib is the ability to make calls to the Unix API directly from the Windows source code.
This allows better integration with the Unix environment than allowed by running an unmodified Windows application in Wine.
Another advantage is that a Winelib application can be relatively easy to recompile to non-Intel architectures and work there without the need for slow processor software emulation.

Answer 3

See this

Anon: As I understand it, all winelib compatible applications are not true linux binaries, but some> are half torn between win32 binaries and Linux binaries? What is the advantage of porting> (using winelib) as opposed to running win32 binaries under wine?

Dimi Paun: These are real Linux binaries (ELF format), but they need to be set up a bit (for> Windows compatibility) before they run. But yes, running Win32 (PE) executable files instead is a real feature, the same speed, etc. But having a Winelib port allows you to better integrate with Unix env, which may be what you want for a “true” Linux application.

Answer 4

One good reason is that it can provide some insurance against regressions in Wine. If you test your code with version A from Winelib and statically link this version to your program, then the regressions in the newer version of Wine will not break you.

Answer 5

It seems that this topic shows that compiling against winelib is a way to improve the quality of wine by raising a question about compilation proofs that should not arise if wine (hence winelib) was a great replacement for the win32 api implementation. For your application in it, this is a way to check compatibility with wine.

Answer 6

I think it makes sense to divide the application into OS-independent .exe and several OS-specific.dll, .dll.so and .dll.dylib. These dynamic libraries allow you to access the Mac OS X and Linux APIs from a single exe.