Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/30/06, William Knop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Parsing a windows inf hardly belongs anywhere but wine. Actually, Troy makes that point rather well in an earlier mail: This is not true. The existing action-on-CD-insertion programs provided by the desktop environment try to detect the contents of the CD to see what they should do, so they will be looking for the autorun.inf file. Additionally the autorun.inf file format is designed to include specifications of different commands for multiple environments, so if autorun.inf files are to be respected at all it makes sense that they should also be able to start a native Linux executable or shell script (discovered from an [autorun.linux.i386] section, for example). There is nothing in this that requires or enhances the Win32 API facilities that Wine seeks to provide. Only once the native Windows executable has been identified as the only (or best) target for autorun would Wine become involved, when the program in the desktop environment invoked Wine to run the executable. Sorry, I missed this one (mailer digest mode). Hmm... You're saying the autorun.inf format is os-independent? If so, I was unaware, and I agree that the functionality belongs elsewhere. Will
Re: wine autorun utility
Forgive my lazyness and my bad english, but IMHO most of discussion resembles MS Corporation behaviour by trying to decide what is good for a user, and what is not. Hey, just let the user or his admin to decide this. IMO there should be just one checkbox in winecfg that rules autorunability. * On Fri, 30 Jun 2006, Tim Schmidt wrote: > KDE and Gnome already have similar functionality. No reason the parser > can't go there (where, perhaps, people might be a little less hostile to > the idea?) Right, but then it still should be nice to find a way for Wine to know if KDE/Gnome is set to autorun win32 apps. And a way to toggle this KDE/Gnome setting. This way could let user/admin to manage autorunability from winecfg by clicking mentioned checkbox. Otherwise user/admin would complain about Wine inability to integrate with the rest of a graphical system :-/ And of course, the autorunability should be disabled by default when graphical environment knows/says nothing about autoruns. Just likes all my neighbouring win-admins do for their customized/unattended XP setups. Hm, someone should show this thread to KDE/Gnome/FreeDesktop folks, IMHO. I am off this task ;)
Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/30/06, William Knop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Parsing a windows inf hardly belongs anywhere but wine. Actually, Troy makes that point rather well in an earlier mail: This is not true. The existing action-on-CD-insertion programs provided by the desktop environment try to detect the contents of the CD to see what they should do, so they will be looking for the autorun.inf file. Additionally the autorun.inf file format is designed to include specifications of different commands for multiple environments, so if autorun.inf files are to be respected at all it makes sense that they should also be able to start a native Linux executable or shell script (discovered from an [autorun.linux.i386] section, for example). There is nothing in this that requires or enhances the Win32 API facilities that Wine seeks to provide. Only once the native Windows executable has been identified as the only (or best) target for autorun would Wine become involved, when the program in the desktop environment invoked Wine to run the executable. --tim
Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/30/06, William Knop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Yeah, then in that situation the user wouldn't run `wine --media- autorun /mountpoint/autorun.inf` either. I fail to see your point. Hey... If all you want to do is write a parser for autorun.inf files and attach it to a command line switch, that sounds pretty easy. Where's the patch? That said, as others have mentioned, KDE and Gnome already have similar functionality. No reason the parser can't go there (where, perhaps, people might be a little less hostile to the idea?) --tim
Re: wine autorun utility
--- Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thursday 29 June 2006 21:13, Vitaliy Margolen > wrote: > > Chris if you think that autostart is such a great > idea - you are very > > welcome to start sending patches in. And if they > are reasonable enough they > > might get in. But if you want to rant about that > Linux doesn't have some > > absolutely required "feature" that windows has - > this not the right place. > > This sounds like you missed my point. My argument > isn't that autorun is cool > and Linux should have it (when in fact KDE *does* > have it, to some degree), > my argument is that Windows has it and it's not > inherently detramental (since > the user would be instructed to manually do what > autorun does automatically > anyway, and hence have the same effects), so Wine, > if it is trying to match > Windows feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug, should > have it too. IMO, of > course. Exactly. Windows is such a ubiquitous OS that it sets the standards for all others. Users see Windows autoruning stuff, so when Linux doesn't, "Windows is better". > If I knew how dbus and hal worked, I would probbly > try to make the necesarry > patches. But as I'm not familiar with Win32 or > Wine's internals, I'm not > really qualified to work on it, at this time. I'm > just a user voicing my > opinion. > Chances are it's probably going to work better (and raise fewer objections from developers) if you start wine from the Gnome or KDE autorun, rather than try make wine autorun stuff internally. (Autoruning stuff internally in wine is problematic: both wine and Gnome/KDE could be trying to autorun something at the same time!) I've used hal and dbus before: they're not as bad as they look. Look at wine's explorer, it uses them to both monitor hardware for changes and query hardware properties. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: wine autorun utility
On Friday 30 June 2006 15:47, William Knop wrote: > 2) The line you refer to I believe would put detecting media inserts > on the desktop environment side, and the parsing and execution of > windows autorun inf files on the wine side. This is not true. The existing action-on-CD-insertion programs provided by the desktop environment try to detect the contents of the CD to see what they should do, so they will be looking for the autorun.inf file. Additionally the autorun.inf file format is designed to include specifications of different commands for multiple environments, so if autorun.inf files are to be respected at all it makes sense that they should also be able to start a native Linux executable or shell script (discovered from an [autorun.linux.i386] section, for example). There is nothing in this that requires or enhances the Win32 API facilities that Wine seeks to provide. Only once the native Windows executable has been identified as the only (or best) target for autorun would Wine become involved, when the program in the desktop environment invoked Wine to run the executable. -- Troy Rollo - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: wine autorun utility
On Jun 30, 2006, at 2:01 AM, Tim Schmidt wrote: On 6/30/06, William Knop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 1) While I agree maintaining a staunch security policy is important, that has nothing to do with autorun. Making the user browse to find an executable is not security. Yet again... when a user sticks an audio CD in his computer and gets a rootkit because of autorun, that's _b_a_d_ That user isn't going to browse out to the rootkit and install it him/her self. Yeah, then in that situation the user wouldn't run `wine --media- autorun /mountpoint/autorun.inf` either. I fail to see your point. Will
Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/30/06, William Knop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 1) While I agree maintaining a staunch security policy is important, that has nothing to do with autorun. Making the user browse to find an executable is not security. Yet again... when a user sticks an audio CD in his computer and gets a rootkit because of autorun, that's _b_a_d_ That user isn't going to browse out to the rootkit and install it him/her self. --tim
Re: wine autorun utility
On Jun 30, 2006, at 1:08 AM, Troy Rollo wrote: On Friday 30 June 2006 14:52, William Knop wrote: Um hold on a second. Clearly many developers have different ideas about what's reasonable. Actually I don't think that's true. As far as I can see all of the *developers* participating in this thread agreed that autorun (1) is a bad idea and should not be implemented, and (2) is on the other side of the demarcation line between Wine and the desktop environment. I would be surprised if any significant number of developers disagreed with these two points. As for the first, it reflects the difference between Windows' security model and the Unix/Linux security model (the difference being that the latter systems actually have a model deserving of the label "security"). As for the second, an end user may well not understand the distinction between Wine's role and that of the desktop environment, but a developer should. Wine is for making Windows applications (and native applications coded to the Windows API) run - I am not aware of any developer who thinks it should be a complete reimplementation of Windows. 1) While I agree maintaining a staunch security policy is important, that has nothing to do with autorun. Making the user browse to find an executable is not security. 2) The line you refer to I believe would put detecting media inserts on the desktop environment side, and the parsing and execution of windows autorun inf files on the wine side. Hell, the user would have to run `wine --media-autorun /mountpoint/autorun.inf`. That has to be as secure as the user running `cd /mountpoint/somedir; wine ./some.exe`. Will
Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/30/06, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: This sounds like you missed my point. I think you're missing our points Chris... it's not inherently detramental (since the user would be instructed to manually do what autorun does automatically Yeah. The Sony rootkit users would have gladly followed the instructions on their _audio CDs_ telling them to install software that prevented fair use and installed illegal software. We're not talking about preventing legitimate use of auto-running CDs. We're talking about a sound, simple, and easy way to prevent illegitimate exploitation. If you can develop a way for Wine to automatically determine whether or not an executable on removable media is something useful or a rootkit, then you may get a little more enthusiasm for this 'feature'. --tim
Re: wine autorun utility
On Friday 30 June 2006 14:52, William Knop wrote: > Um hold on a second. Clearly many developers have different ideas > about what's reasonable. Actually I don't think that's true. As far as I can see all of the *developers* participating in this thread agreed that autorun (1) is a bad idea and should not be implemented, and (2) is on the other side of the demarcation line between Wine and the desktop environment. I would be surprised if any significant number of developers disagreed with these two points. As for the first, it reflects the difference between Windows' security model and the Unix/Linux security model (the difference being that the latter systems actually have a model deserving of the label "security"). As for the second, an end user may well not understand the distinction between Wine's role and that of the desktop environment, but a developer should. Wine is for making Windows applications (and native applications coded to the Windows API) run - I am not aware of any developer who thinks it should be a complete reimplementation of Windows. -- Troy Rollo - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/29/06, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: If you notice, Sony got into a lot of trouble over that. And the problem wasn't autorun. The problem was that the disc installed the rootkit anyway /even if the user said no/. The same exact thing would've happened if the user had to browse the CD and double-click setup.exe, or whatever the file was called. Should Wine disable running .exe files because they may install rootkits on users' machines? Of course not, because that would be couter-productive to what Wine is trying to achieve. It's the same thing with autorun. It may or may not cause problems, but it's the user's responsibility to take proper care of their machine. It's just as true in Windows as it is in Linux, or any other OS. [skip to the last paragraph to get to the point; I thought this other stuff was necessary and now I don't, but I also don't feel like deleting it having already written it] I'm not sure we should install programs in that way on Linux. I think one of the most noticeable differences between Linux and Windows for most people is how you install software. In Windows, you get an exe file from somewhere (hopefully from someone you can trust), and you run it. You then follow the instructions, possibly reboot the computer, and then when you're done you expect the program to be installed and working. If it doesn't work, you complain to the authors of the software. In Linux, most of the software you need will be provided by your distribution. If you're on, say, gentoo, you type "emerge software", and when it's done you expect the program will be installed and working (in this case, you don't have to do anything; you just wait). If it doesn't work, you don't complain to the authors, you complain to gentoo. If it turns out to be an upstream bug, it gets passed along to the authors. If it turns out to be a bug in gentoo, then hopefully they fix it. Of course, Linux users can also do something similar to what the Windows users do and handle the whole process themselves. Then they'll report problems directly to the authors. Now, here's the part where I reward you for reading this far and tell you what this has to do with Wine. Wine users get software from the authors, try to install it themselves, and expect it to work. Then when it doesn't work they complain to Wine. That's backwards. Unless they checked the appdb first, probably no one from Wine claimed it would work to begin with. Yes, most people aren't like that, and yes, people should report bugs. But they shouldn't act like someone said it would probably work if no one has. I think this is a good reason to have something like Wine Doors. For applications that are known to work, possibly with some override or hack, someone could write an installer and vouch for the workingness of at least some apps. People who don't know how to do things like overrides can use the installer. If something doesn't work (and you should expect it to work if there's an installer that's supposed to work on that wine version) then those users have somewhere to complain to. Conversely, applications without installers would be hit-and-miss. You'll have to do a bit more work for those, and you may be paving the way for others by submitting testing data, writing howtos, bug reports, an installer, maybe even fixing something in wine. So it's clear that they might not work. Now, when you make someone's environment say "This CD has a program on it, shall I run it?", you're making the claim that this will probably work. That's just not true. It probably will not work as well as it's supposed to. I'd much rather have people go to a package manager, the applications database, the documentation, ANYWHERE where they will not be promised something that isn't true, even if it makes Wine seem harder to use. -- Vincent Povirk
Re: wine autorun utility
Gee sounds like a "great" idea. We all waiting too see some patches...
It sure would be cool to have:
- Multiuser Wine
- Wine stable enough to run as service (err hmm whatever the hell
that means...
ah you mean daemon ?)
- Run something more complicated then 'printf("hello world\n");'
without X
- Talk to WMs to show icons and ask questions.
Chris if you think that autostart is such a great idea - you are
very welcome to
start sending patches in. And if they are reasonable enough they
might get in.
But if you want to rant about that Linux doesn't have some
absolutely required
"feature" that windows has - this not the right place.
Vitaliy
Um hold on a second. Clearly many developers have different ideas
about what's reasonable. It makes sense to obtain a semblance of
unanimity and mutual understanding before taking action. You
shouldn't go around quashing discussions like that.
Will
Re: wine autorun utility
On Thursday 29 June 2006 21:13, Vitaliy Margolen wrote: > Chris if you think that autostart is such a great idea - you are very > welcome to start sending patches in. And if they are reasonable enough they > might get in. But if you want to rant about that Linux doesn't have some > absolutely required "feature" that windows has - this not the right place. This sounds like you missed my point. My argument isn't that autorun is cool and Linux should have it (when in fact KDE *does* have it, to some degree), my argument is that Windows has it and it's not inherently detramental (since the user would be instructed to manually do what autorun does automatically anyway, and hence have the same effects), so Wine, if it is trying to match Windows feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug, should have it too. IMO, of course. If I knew how dbus and hal worked, I would probbly try to make the necesarry patches. But as I'm not familiar with Win32 or Wine's internals, I'm not really qualified to work on it, at this time. I'm just a user voicing my opinion.
Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/29/06, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: If you notice, Sony got into a lot of trouble over that. And the problem wasn't autorun. The problem was that the disc installed the rootkit anyway /even if the user said no/. The same exact thing would've happened if the user had to browse the CD and double-click setup.exe, or whatever the file was called. Should Wine disable running .exe files because they may install rootkits on users' machines? Of course not, because that would be couter-productive to what Wine is trying to achieve. It's the same thing with autorun. It may or may not cause problems, but it's the user's responsibility to take proper care of their machine. It's just as true in Windows as it is in Linux, or any other OS. Of course. You're right. Everyone's computers _should_ run arbitrary code from any un-authorized source automatically without the user's knowledge or permission. I was wrong. The fact that Windows ran _anything_ upon inserting a CD meant to contain audio only is crap. I understand that Sony exploited a 'feature' of Windows. It's all Sony's fault. Blame Sony. Problem is, that philosophy pushes the trust all the way out to the people who want to install rootkits on your computer. Bad idea. Better to trust Wine not to do anything to endanger your computer without your explicit attention. --tim
Re: wine autorun utility
Thursday, June 29, 2006, 8:33:24 PM, Chris wrote:
> On Thursday 29 June 2006 07:49, you wrote:
>> what is the gain of autorun, while i dont have wine running? would not
>> the common user expect, once she knows, that wine support autorun.inf,
>> that she can insert a cd and away it goes? while the explorer.exe is
>> not running permanently - e.g. via xinitrc - then i still would have to
>> deal with starting my setup.exe by hand. i have my doubts, that wine is
>> the correct place to implement this - but something like hotplugd or
>> whatevernowadaysdoesthetrickwithcdroms should handle this?
> One could think of Wine as a service, and start it with X if they wanted, so
> they could then run Windows programs whenever they wanted with potentially
> faster startup times, and with Windows "features" like autorun, and with a
> persistant Windows state (eg. instead of being shut down when all Windows
> programs close, it would stay around until Wine itself is explicitly
> stopped). Or, like me currently, they could run a Windows desktop/taskbar
> replacement in a Wine virtual desktop with managed windows off on a seperate
> X desktop and pretend to have Windows running along side X.
> I'd think if Wine were trying to "emulate" Windows as much as possible, it'd
> be backwards to not have autorun capabilities. As I said before, autorun.inf
> needs to be parsed anyway since it can define an icon to use for the drive,
> so if you're going to automatically parse it to load an icon, why not also
> ask (one time only) if the user wants to turn autorun on or off to run the
> defined program?
Gee sounds like a "great" idea. We all waiting too see some patches...
It sure would be cool to have:
- Multiuser Wine
- Wine stable enough to run as service (err hmm whatever the hell that means...
ah you mean daemon ?)
- Run something more complicated then 'printf("hello world\n");' without X
- Talk to WMs to show icons and ask questions.
Chris if you think that autostart is such a great idea - you are very welcome to
start sending patches in. And if they are reasonable enough they might get in.
But if you want to rant about that Linux doesn't have some absolutely required
"feature" that windows has - this not the right place.
Vitaliy
Re: wine autorun utility
On Thursday 29 June 2006 20:31, Tim Schmidt wrote: > The Sony rootkit fiasco alone should be enough to end this conversation. If you notice, Sony got into a lot of trouble over that. And the problem wasn't autorun. The problem was that the disc installed the rootkit anyway /even if the user said no/. The same exact thing would've happened if the user had to browse the CD and double-click setup.exe, or whatever the file was called. Should Wine disable running .exe files because they may install rootkits on users' machines? Of course not, because that would be couter-productive to what Wine is trying to achieve. It's the same thing with autorun. It may or may not cause problems, but it's the user's responsibility to take proper care of their machine. It's just as true in Windows as it is in Linux, or any other OS.
Re: wine autorun utility
The Sony rootkit fiasco alone should be enough to end this conversation. Period. Say what you want about the theoretical integrity of the media, and the user's security habits. The fact is that hundreds (possibly thousands or millions) of _real_ people were infected by rootkits because of autorun and an unscrupulous corporation. As you've so aptly demonstrated, average users are all too willing to trust people who don't deserve to be trusted. If Wine can protect some of those people sometimes, great. If Wine can protect people without any developers having to do any work, that's simply amazing. Well done Wine devs. --tim
Re: wine autorun utility
On Thursday 29 June 2006 07:49, you wrote: > what is the gain of autorun, while i dont have wine running? would not > the common user expect, once she knows, that wine support autorun.inf, > that she can insert a cd and away it goes? while the explorer.exe is > not running permanently - e.g. via xinitrc - then i still would have to > deal with starting my setup.exe by hand. i have my doubts, that wine is > the correct place to implement this - but something like hotplugd or > whatevernowadaysdoesthetrickwithcdroms should handle this? One could think of Wine as a service, and start it with X if they wanted, so they could then run Windows programs whenever they wanted with potentially faster startup times, and with Windows "features" like autorun, and with a persistant Windows state (eg. instead of being shut down when all Windows programs close, it would stay around until Wine itself is explicitly stopped). Or, like me currently, they could run a Windows desktop/taskbar replacement in a Wine virtual desktop with managed windows off on a seperate X desktop and pretend to have Windows running along side X. I'd think if Wine were trying to "emulate" Windows as much as possible, it'd be backwards to not have autorun capabilities. As I said before, autorun.inf needs to be parsed anyway since it can define an icon to use for the drive, so if you're going to automatically parse it to load an icon, why not also ask (one time only) if the user wants to turn autorun on or off to run the defined program?
Re: wine autorun utility
William Knop wrote: On Jun 29, 2006, at 8:59 PM, Vitaliy Margolen wrote: Thursday, June 29, 2006, 12:02:38 PM, William Knop wrote: Having the ability to autorun cds is most definitely not a misfeature. Of course it's not. It's the perfect means of distributing trojans, backdoors, rootkits and other very useful software an every CD, including DVDs and music CDs. If your assuming said media is compromised in such a way, requiring the user to manually run the executable will not protect him. The fact is, most media is not compromised. Software publishers ensure they are not. Most windows users can trust their software publishers. For those who cannot, they can simply click "No" when the dialog pops up. Or they can set it to never autorun. Or they could set it to virus-scan before autorunning. Everybody's happy. One thing I'm sure of: If regular guy Joe Schmo has to run executables from CDs manually, he will either say CDs don't work in wine or say that wine is a PITA to use. I totally agree, autorun is a must (ok put in all the checks) but wine is being put together for the average user isn't it, that means if they put in a CD they expect it to do something, and don't care whether it's 100% secure, (that's the job of the virus/spyware detection software). Now wouldn't that be something wine with AVG/Spybot/Adaware buildin. Although I heard today Microsoft has just done that, a security suite for windows of course you have to pay a subscription otherwise they can't guarantee windows will be secure, mmm ... However, seeing as you can't even install a multi CD game in wine without the game complaining about the fact it can't find CD 2, perhaps priorities need to be sorted. What's the point of autorun when the app throws a wobbly when it gets to CD2
Re: wine autorun utility
Thursday, June 29, 2006, 7:37:16 PM, William Knop wrote: > On Jun 29, 2006, at 8:59 PM, Vitaliy Margolen wrote: >> Thursday, June 29, 2006, 12:02:38 PM, William Knop wrote: >>> Having the ability to autorun cds is most definitely not a >>> misfeature. >> Of course it's not. It's the perfect means of distributing trojans, >> backdoors, >> rootkits and other very useful software an every CD, including DVDs >> and music >> CDs. > If your assuming said media is compromised in such a way, requiring > the user to manually run the executable will not protect him. The > fact is, most media is not compromised. Software publishers ensure > they are not. Most windows users can trust their software publishers. That's what SONY been telling all along... Vitaliy
Re: wine autorun utility
On Jun 29, 2006, at 8:59 PM, Vitaliy Margolen wrote: Thursday, June 29, 2006, 12:02:38 PM, William Knop wrote: Having the ability to autorun cds is most definitely not a misfeature. Of course it's not. It's the perfect means of distributing trojans, backdoors, rootkits and other very useful software an every CD, including DVDs and music CDs. If your assuming said media is compromised in such a way, requiring the user to manually run the executable will not protect him. The fact is, most media is not compromised. Software publishers ensure they are not. Most windows users can trust their software publishers. For those who cannot, they can simply click "No" when the dialog pops up. Or they can set it to never autorun. Or they could set it to virus-scan before autorunning. Everybody's happy. One thing I'm sure of: If regular guy Joe Schmo has to run executables from CDs manually, he will either say CDs don't work in wine or say that wine is a PITA to use.
Re: wine autorun utility
Thursday, June 29, 2006, 12:02:38 PM, William Knop wrote: > On 6/29/06, Vincent Povirk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> On 6/29/06, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > One could argue Windows itself is a mis-feature. :P Isn't the point of >> > Wine to >> > duplicate Windows, feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug? IMO, autorun >> > capabilities should be included, though I personally don't care if it's on >> > or >> > off by default, as long as there's an option in winecfg. I'll just turn it >> > off myself. Or perhaps even a popup notification upon the first detected >> > autorun-capable disc, asking if you want to turn autorun on or off. >> > autorun.inf needs to be parsed anyway, since it can set an icon for the >> > drive. >> No, I think the point of Wine is to run Windows programs on top of >> Unix. We don't need autorun to run Windows programs at all. Wine often >> leaves out features that are in Windows because they aren't needed to >> get Windows programs to run. >> >> Running whatever code happens to be on a cd without asking the user is >> a very bad idea. I don't want to see it happen, and I think most real >> Wine devs probably feel the same way. >> >> Gnome already has a feature that can ask the user what to do when a cd >> is inserted. KDE probably has a similar feature. I think they'd be the >> people to ask if you want something like Windows' autorun. > Having the ability to autorun cds is most definitely not a misfeature. Of course it's not. It's the perfect means of distributing trojans, backdoors, rootkits and other very useful software an every CD, including DVDs and music CDs. Vitaliy.
Re: Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/29/06, Vincent Povirk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 6/29/06, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One could argue Windows itself is a mis-feature. :P Isn't the point of Wine to > duplicate Windows, feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug? IMO, autorun > capabilities should be included, though I personally don't care if it's on or > off by default, as long as there's an option in winecfg. I'll just turn it > off myself. Or perhaps even a popup notification upon the first detected > autorun-capable disc, asking if you want to turn autorun on or off. > autorun.inf needs to be parsed anyway, since it can set an icon for the > drive. No, I think the point of Wine is to run Windows programs on top of Unix. We don't need autorun to run Windows programs at all. Wine often leaves out features that are in Windows because they aren't needed to get Windows programs to run. Running whatever code happens to be on a cd without asking the user is a very bad idea. I don't want to see it happen, and I think most real Wine devs probably feel the same way. Gnome already has a feature that can ask the user what to do when a cd is inserted. KDE probably has a similar feature. I think they'd be the people to ask if you want something like Windows' autorun. Having the ability to autorun cds is most definitely not a misfeature. Most people who use windows do not want to or are incapable of hunting around a cd for the correct executable to run the installer for their game or whatever. Sure wine is not catering to those people right now, however it will in the future if all goes well. I agree that autorunning all cds without ever asking the user is not good, however the feature itself is not bad. Asking the user is clearly the solution. Windows is simply not designed to have the average user perusing software directories. Will's $0.02
Re: wine autorun utility
Thats what I meant. On 6/29/06, Vincent Povirk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 6/29/06, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One could argue Windows itself is a mis-feature. :P Isn't the point of Wine to > duplicate Windows, feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug? IMO, autorun > capabilities should be included, though I personally don't care if it's on or > off by default, as long as there's an option in winecfg. I'll just turn it > off myself. Or perhaps even a popup notification upon the first detected > autorun-capable disc, asking if you want to turn autorun on or off. > autorun.inf needs to be parsed anyway, since it can set an icon for the > drive. No, I think the point of Wine is to run Windows programs on top of Unix. We don't need autorun to run Windows programs at all. Wine often leaves out features that are in Windows because they aren't needed to get Windows programs to run. Running whatever code happens to be on a cd without asking the user is a very bad idea. I don't want to see it happen, and I think most real Wine devs probably feel the same way. Gnome already has a feature that can ask the user what to do when a cd is inserted. KDE probably has a similar feature. I think they'd be the people to ask if you want something like Windows' autorun. -- Vincent Povirk
Re: wine autorun utility
On 6/29/06, Chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: One could argue Windows itself is a mis-feature. :P Isn't the point of Wine to duplicate Windows, feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug? IMO, autorun capabilities should be included, though I personally don't care if it's on or off by default, as long as there's an option in winecfg. I'll just turn it off myself. Or perhaps even a popup notification upon the first detected autorun-capable disc, asking if you want to turn autorun on or off. autorun.inf needs to be parsed anyway, since it can set an icon for the drive. No, I think the point of Wine is to run Windows programs on top of Unix. We don't need autorun to run Windows programs at all. Wine often leaves out features that are in Windows because they aren't needed to get Windows programs to run. Running whatever code happens to be on a cd without asking the user is a very bad idea. I don't want to see it happen, and I think most real Wine devs probably feel the same way. Gnome already has a feature that can ask the user what to do when a cd is inserted. KDE probably has a similar feature. I think they'd be the people to ask if you want something like Windows' autorun. -- Vincent Povirk
Re: wine autorun utility
On Thursday 29 June 2006 06:48, David D. Hagood wrote: > I strongly DISAGREE - as others have pointed out, the auto-running of > CDs is a severe mis-feature of Windows, one which we should NOT duplicate. One could argue Windows itself is a mis-feature. :P Isn't the point of Wine to duplicate Windows, feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug? IMO, autorun capabilities should be included, though I personally don't care if it's on or off by default, as long as there's an option in winecfg. I'll just turn it off myself. Or perhaps even a popup notification upon the first detected autorun-capable disc, asking if you want to turn autorun on or off. autorun.inf needs to be parsed anyway, since it can set an icon for the drive.
Re: wine autorun utility
On Thu, Jun 29, 2006 at 08:48:31AM -0500, David D. Hagood wrote: > Vijay Kiran Kamuju wrote: > >hi, > > > >I think HAL for linux should handle the automatic mounting and > >autorunning it take care. > >So it should be a part of HAL. > > > >my 2 cents. > > > > I strongly DISAGREE - as others have pointed out, the auto-running of > CDs is a severe mis-feature of Windows, one which we should NOT duplicate. > > Now, I could agree with the idea of a program that, upon receiving a > DBUS notification of a CD insertion, looked to see if there was an > autorun.inf file, and then *asked the user what to do*. IF the user then > said "Yes, please run this disk" then the program would parse the > autorun.inf file. > > Ideally, such a program would also maintain a database of CDs already > seen, and would allow the user to define an action for the CD that would > happen automatically - an action that may have NOTHING to do with the CD > itself. But the default action, for CDs never before seen should be "ask > the user". cd programs/explorer/ vi hal.c Ciao, Marcus
Re: wine autorun utility
Vijay Kiran Kamuju wrote: hi, I think HAL for linux should handle the automatic mounting and autorunning it take care. So it should be a part of HAL. my 2 cents. I strongly DISAGREE - as others have pointed out, the auto-running of CDs is a severe mis-feature of Windows, one which we should NOT duplicate. Now, I could agree with the idea of a program that, upon receiving a DBUS notification of a CD insertion, looked to see if there was an autorun.inf file, and then *asked the user what to do*. IF the user then said "Yes, please run this disk" then the program would parse the autorun.inf file. Ideally, such a program would also maintain a database of CDs already seen, and would allow the user to define an action for the CD that would happen automatically - an action that may have NOTHING to do with the CD itself. But the default action, for CDs never before seen should be "ask the user". Equally ideally, there should be a standard for *nix autorun files, that would allow for a bit more than "infect^Wrun this" - something like an XML file describing the disk, a set of possible actions (run a script, run an existing program, perform some "standard action" like "play as DVD", "run music program"), and the "autorun" program would be part of the operating environment, and would present a meaningful menu to the user.
Re: wine autorun utility
hi, I think HAL for linux should handle the automatic mounting and autorunning it take care. So it should be a part of HAL. my 2 cents. bye, VJ On 6/29/06, Ivan Leo Puoti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Segin Noname wrote: > So I wrote this little program. To be totally honest I don't see the point, in 99.999% of CDs I've ever seen autorun starts some file in the root folder of the CD (start.exe, setup.exe, install.exe, runme.exe, in any case something obvious) and the CD usually comes with instructions telling you which one to run, so I don't see why one would look in the autorun.inf file in the first place, or run the cd with your program, when they could run the right exe directly. So your program would only be useful if it worked like the real autorun, pulled the CD drive every second or so, and automatically read the CD's autorun.inf and started the appropriate exe. Many people (including me) would find that annoying, but I guess it's a windows feature some people may like. Ivan.
Re: wine autorun utility
Segin Noname wrote: > So I wrote this little program. To be totally honest I don't see the point, in 99.999% of CDs I've ever seen autorun starts some file in the root folder of the CD (start.exe, setup.exe, install.exe, runme.exe, in any case something obvious) and the CD usually comes with instructions telling you which one to run, so I don't see why one would look in the autorun.inf file in the first place, or run the cd with your program, when they could run the right exe directly. So your program would only be useful if it worked like the real autorun, pulled the CD drive every second or so, and automatically read the CD's autorun.inf and started the appropriate exe. Many people (including me) would find that annoying, but I guess it's a windows feature some people may like. Ivan.
Re: wine autorun utility
Segin Noname wrote: (FYI: I have no internet connection at the moment, so I say 'hi' to all Wine developers!) Wine is nortorious for NOT supporting Autorun. Many people would say that is a fearute. Ivan.
