Another popular application under Windows is the KMPlayer. This is a media player that relies mostly on the fly up menu -- yet inside its 13 MB, it holds most of the codecs you will need to have to watch your film. However, the application can be configured to use any other external codec.
KMPlayer has tons of options to customize the sound/image quality, and just as many for the subtitles. This is probably the most capable video playing software I've found on the market. Lately, a media library has been added to it; add video to it and you will get a list of videos with thumbnails from which you can choose. In my opinion, it is more powerful than the VLC media player -- and VLC is probably the best media player on Linux.
KMPlayer uses DirectX to make all this happen, so we need to add that first. Use winetricks for this for an easy solution. Please note that the KMPlayer Album Art Plug-in does not work -- or at least, it didn't when I tested it. Therefore, the picture you see below will not happen.
Furthermore, I could not move the window with only the Right Click plus move combo. However, resizing the window and other features were working fine. The drawing of the interface is sometimes blocky, meaning that you'll see an incorrect progress bar. On the other hand, information that otherwise would have appeared on the video surface disappears immediately after its appearance.
The bottom line is that the software is usable. However, some feature will not be available, and be aware that anything may go wrong. During the test period I also met with a situation in which the Enhanced Video Renderer put out a black screen. The sound was playing, but the video was messed up.
Winamp installed fine. Once I started it, the fonts were all messy and the application was not working most of the time. I can see that Wine can output in visual form, however it has too many problems, and in the end, you will spend more time making it work than using it. As much as I like it, I just could not make it work.
I also tried Visual Studio 2008, which failed to install in the end. The setups just refused it to install it. Foxit Reader is an alternative version of Adobe's Acrobat Reader. This works much faster and has multi-tab implemented. A version for Linux has appeared also, however it still lacks capabilities like the multi-tab feature. So it's worth trying to install it. The result was quite acceptable. The setup installed with no problems, and afterward it worked perfectly.
Utorrent is another candidate. This is probably the most lightweight, and many say the best, torrent downloader. The installation process is similar to the one on Windows once you have Wine up and running. The result is just as good, and everything works perfectly.
Finally, I needed a good screen shot taker. I tried out Faststone Capture. The last free version is 5.3, and I installed just this. After installing it, I noticed that the shortcut keys do not work. Nevertheless, everything else works just fine, so if you are okay with manually accessing every function, you can go ahead and install it.
You can install a countless number of applications...not to mention the games that also run with no errors reported. From the latest Prince of Persia to the popular World Of Warcraft, all of these are marked platinum software and run with no problems under Linux via Wine. You can check for information on your favorite application/game in this database.
These software experiments were enough for us to make a conclusion. Wine is an interesting project what certainly has many interesting results to offer. The problem is only that it is not yet complete. Many applications run acceptably; however, there is a chance that you favorite one is not on this list. Nevertheless, if you use Linux and have a favorite Windows application, it is always nice to have it. Maybe it will work perfectly. Wine also offers the possibility of enjoying the best torrent downloading program, so if you already have Linux up and running give it a try.
Otherwise I would not necessarily recommend that you make the change if you are not determined to try out new software designed for Windows. This is, at least for now, simply a tool that widens your software choices under Linux, but it is unable to make all the programs you used under the MS OS work.
If it ever does, however, Wine will be mandatory software for your Linux. This is increasingly likely with the talk dating back to the beginning of this year that Ubuntu may add it to its package. Whether it will be adopted or not remains a secret for now that we will find out eventually.
Thank you for reading my article. I would like to ask you to rate it. If you have any kind of questions related to the article, do not hesitate to ask using the comments tool. Moreover, if you have a favorite application you run via Wine, please share that information with us here on the blog -- tell us how you made it run and how well it works. Thank you. Live With Passion!
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