Linux and Astra

[thelostsoul]

Anyone else try to get Astra to work on Linux? I made some progress, but it still isn't usable since I can't get the plugins page to work so that I can enable connections...

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/9546/screenshotyo1.th.png (http://img526.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshotyo1.png)

[j.patton]

Just out of sheer curiosity is there a native Linux build, or are you using WINE?

[ninom]

it's wine

[j.patton]

I assume that's Ubuntu? Which build of WINE?

[joeblow1102]

i think the screenshot says which version of wine it is. 0.9.31

[Sjoerd]

I've tried it too :)

I have chatted with several people on it, but I just can't get into preferences (need the Mozilla component, I know... can't get that far).

[thelostsoul]

Hmm, when I click prefs, it crashes, with no understandable explanation (at least not to me). In order to get that prefs window open I had to click the 3 dots in the lower part of the screen (to load the manage my connections window) and then go from there. I don't see what the Mozilla component would do...but I guess I'll install it and see what happens next time I'm in Linux...

Wondering though, any idea how to make the skins look nicer?


(and just to answer the previous questions, though most were answered: Yes it is WINE, yes it is 0.9.31, and yes it is Ubuntu 6.10).

[wagnerr52]

I tried to get this working on my (old) laptop when it first came out. After about 5 minutes of load time, it finally started up. I wasn't able to resize the contact list, and it defaulted to being able to see ~5 contacts, making it relatively unusable. Anyone else have this issue?

[Sjoerd]

Hmm, when I click prefs, it crashes, with no understandable explanation (at least not to me). In order to get that prefs window open I had to click the 3 dots in the lower part of the screen (to load the manage my connections window) and then go from there. I don't see what the Mozilla component would do...but I guess I'll install it and see what happens next time I'm in Linux...

Wondering though, any idea how to make the skins look nicer?


(and just to answer the previous questions, though most were answered: Yes it is WINE, yes it is 0.9.31, and yes it is Ubuntu 6.10).
It crashes because it can't initialize an HTML viewer (Trillian preferences seems to use Internet Explorer :( ).

To make the skins look nicer, you have to tell Wine to let the program itself manage it's window borders (don't know where the setting is out of the top of my head)

[wagnerr52]

I found some tool called 'WineTools' that allow you to set up a fairly capable initial environment. First thing I did before even trying was install IE and flash player under linux.

[Sjoerd]

I found some tool called 'WineTools' that allow you to set up a fairly capable initial environment. First thing I did before even trying was install IE and flash player under linux.

Trillian runs without those steps, though...

Somehow trillian crashes even after installing wine_gecko (seems like wrong coordinates)...

People who want to talk to me about Linux and Astra: my astra is "Sjoerd Job"

[j.patton]

I'm not part of the Astra test (so forgive my ignorance), but is Astra Windows 9x compatible (95/98/Me)? If not then that's the problem. WINE simulates a 9x environment and is not compatible with NT-based (2K, XP, Vista) apps.

I've worked some with WINE and WineTools, but only on Red Hat/Fedora. For some reason I've ran across some apps that just refuse to work. Astra may be one of them.

[Sjoerd]

I'm not part of the Astra test (so forgive my ignorance), but is Astra Windows 9x compatible (95/98/Me)? If not then that's the problem. WINE simulates a 9x environment and is not compatible with NT-based (2K, XP, Vista) apps.

I've worked some with WINE and WineTools, but only on Red Hat/Fedora. For some reason I've ran across some apps that just refuse to work. Astra may be one of them.

As far as I know, the problem isn't that it's not 9x-capable (first of all, it most likely is, second of all: Wine has w2k/wxp support)... Older versions of wine simulated a 3.11 enviroment though ;)...

Most of it runs fine, it really does, only preferences seems to be out of bound for me :).

[j.patton]

...second of all: Wine has w2k/wxp support

Apparently I hadn't been keeping up on my documentation. I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing that out to me. :)

[Kilroy]

I haven't done much playing with wine and windows apps (nor had the time to with school). Is there a possibility that XP apps would work with Cedega? Cedega is really made for playing Windows games (such as Battlefield Series, or WoW), but with that added support is it possible that Trillian could work better? Just a suggestion for someone with more time than I to try out.

[realnc]

The Linux user doesn't want to emulate windows. He wants native programs. Asking Linux users to use Wine/Cedega is like asking a Windows user to use a Unix emulator.

If Astra is written decently, it shouldn't be hard to port to Linux/Unix. I'm a programmer myself and I know. However, if Astra makes use of the Windows API directly without a portability layer, then it's NOT written decently and porting will probably mean that the same code base can't be used for both Windows and Linux. As a result, a Linux port is rather unlikely.

It depends on how good the person/persons who took the design decisions are doing their job. :)

[Sparks]

Trillian 3.1 and earlier used native Win32 code extensively everywhere in the program. Porting would've been... not impossible, but prohibitive.

Trillian 4.0 has been redesigned and reworked. The core still does a lot of Win32 stuff for the sake of performance, but the mediums and plugins are all portable; they aren't allowed to do any UI, and have to go entirely through the Trillian core for anything else.

All the plugins compile on Linux and Mac OS X now, for instance. That's how the web version works; all the mediums and whatnot are the Linux copies behind the scenes. Same ones that would be loaded if there was a Linux native version of the client... but there's a specialized client version which loads them to use in the web client.

It's part of why 4.0/Astra has taken so long... it was a 'throw it out, rethink it, and rebuild it' situation. The program IS much more portable now, even if the focus during alpha is still on the Windows build.

[thelostsoul]

WINE IS NOT AN EMULATOR!

That is all.

[realnc]

WINE IS NOT AN EMULATOR!

That is all.
So isn't Cygwin. Not go use it?

[wagnerr52]

The name WINE actually stands for WINE Is Not an Emulator.

'realnc' is saying that most users will not want to have to run an external translation program to run Trillian under Linux. This is just the same as few users want to have to run Cygwin to run POSIX apps under Windows. Its not that there's anything wrong with doing so, just that its somewhat of an inconvenience to have to do so.

[realnc]

Wine is not an emulator, but so what? What if it was, lol? The result is same. An alien GUI implanted into the system with strange dependencies all over the place and the program screaming "what the hell am I doing in here!?"

"Somewhat of an inconvenience" is an understatement.

[Jimbo]

Wine is not an emulator, but so what? What if it was, lol? The result is same. An alien GUI implanted into the system with strange dependencies all over the place and the program screaming "what the hell am I doing in here!?"
Most apps look completely native under Wine, the strange dependencies only factor in if the original app has strange windows-only dependencies (such as IE), and the program has no idea it's running on a compatibility layer. It asks for its dlls and it gets them. It calls APIs and the expected reply is received. Just because they don't always work as expected doesn't mean that they aren't usable. I have used plenty of windows apps in Wine including Bittorrent clients, chat clients, web browsers, etc. I am fine with having a Windows compatibility layer in my Linux machine if it means that I can run programs that weren't designed to be run in Linux. The same goes for Windows. I'm fine with running Cygwin in Windows so that I can run Linux apps. There are some really powerful CLI Linux tools, and it's nice to be able to use them in Windows too.

[realnc]

I don't quite understand what we're arguing about here. If it's something like "we don't need a Linux port of Trillian because we can use Wine," then I disagree.

Edit:
And no, apps running in Wine don't look "native," not by any stretch of the imagination.

[thelostsoul]

I just said that Wine is not an emulator because above, someone was saying that Wine is and emulator and was treating it as if it was. Windows apps can run under Wine nearly natively. Certain apps are a bit more advanced and won't work properly, but a good amount of apps do run under Wine and look perfectly native.

A Linux port would be nice, but I'm not expecting to see one anytime soon, so trying to get it to run under Linux using wine is still fun....

[MorphiousGX]

OK Based on SPARKS' reply, he is saying that the Alpha release is 'throw it out, rethink it, and rebuild it' situation, and that it IS much more portable now, even if the focus during alpha is still on the Windows build. So my question for SPARKS now is this:

Since you have Mac OS version of Astra, do you have plans for a Linux version? I hope you are going to say YES.

[wagnerr52]

Unless there's something new I haven't heard about, Astra for OSX is not actually for OSX, but rather for Flash 9. There is a flash based web client that runs on anything that supports Flash 9.

[Sparks]

OK Based on SPARKS' reply, he is saying that the Alpha release is 'throw it out, rethink it, and rebuild it' situation, and that it IS much more portable now, even if the focus during alpha is still on the Windows build. So my question for SPARKS now is this:

Since you have Mac OS version of Astra, do you have plans for a Linux version? I hope you are going to say YES.

First off, I'm not a 'he,' I'm a 'she.' Hi, I'm Rachel! :)

Secondly, there is not (yet) a Mac native version of Trillian. Let me elaborate; none of this hasn't been said in interviews with Scott already, but it might help clarify.

1) For purposes of this, think about Trillian as two things. The 'core' program, which accepts requests from plugins and sends data to them to act on, and the plugins themselves.

2) The Trillian 'core' is what you actually run. Right now, there are two versions of the core; one runs natively on Windows, and one (lacking some of those functions, obviously) is written entirely in Flash.

3) The Flash-based version communicates, on the back-end, with copies of the plugins hosted on the server. The server-side is a dummy Linux core; it doesn't do UI or anything, it just loads the plugins and runs them, then passes all the requests back and forth to the Flash version for the UI side of things. When we say the plugins can run under Linux, this is what we mean; the web version loads the same plugins as the native Windows version, but they've been compiled on Linux with gcc instead of Windows with DevStudio.

4) There is not, presently, a version of the native 'core' ported to either Mac OS X or Linux. You can run the Flash-based one on either, but it is still the Flash-based one. Porting the native core to either of them is *not* ruled out. For one thing, it's actually possible now where it wasn't before, which was a big part of why Astra is such a huge rewrite and took so long.

However, the focus is on the Windows native client right now... though the web-based client keeps us 'honest' in terms of keeping the plugins portable (since they must all run on Linux as well).

That help clarify? :)

[thelostsoul]

...as you said, nothing that wasn't said before :)

Anyway, to get more back on-topic, has anyone made any further progress? I haven't updated to b34 yet on Linux, though I'm not really expecting too much more as far as Linux capabilities.

Older versions of Trillian apparently worked fine according the Wine Appdb and with some configurations. Tough for obvious reasons, it won't be quite as easy with Astra...

[Sjoerd]

...as you said, nothing that wasn't said before :)

Anyway, to get more back on-topic, has anyone made any further progress? I haven't updated to b34 yet on Linux, though I'm not really expecting too much more as far as Linux capabilities.

Older versions of Trillian apparently worked fine according the Wine Appdb and with some configurations. Tough for obvious reasons, it won't be quite as easy with Astra...
Well, Astra runs better than Trillian 2.0 / 3.0 on Linux (via Wine), from my experience.

Hoping to get it all working sooner or later :)... Gonna try and code the missing functionality, but the IE-dependency I just can not work around!

[wagnerr52]

but the IE-dependency I just can not work around!

Well... you can try installing IE...

[Sjoerd]

Well... you can try installing IE...

done that ;)... just seems like it somehow doesn't want to load IE as a plugin :(! The MSHTML component is written to use Mozilla.

[wagnerr52]

I got IE installed on my laptop, but Trillian on my laptop (under wine) runs so obscenely slowly, it's not worth it to actually try to do anything. I tried going through the same steps on my desktop, but it wasn't as happy. Probably something to do with running x64.

I fixed my un-resizable Trillian issue. Seems it was fine all the time, but the linux WM overlapped the Trillian skin to the point that I couldn't actually reach the parts of the skin that allowed resizing. I turned off the WM access to WINE apps, and that fixed the issue.

The message windows look fine, but most of the themes don't work with the contact list. Not sure why it would be any different.

Something shows up in the system tray, but it's not the Trillian icon. It also does absolutely nothing. If I minimize Trillian, it's gone forever.

[Sjoerd]

I got IE installed on my laptop, but Trillian on my laptop (under wine) runs so obscenely slowly, it's not worth it to actually try to do anything. I tried going through the same steps on my desktop, but it wasn't as happy. Probably something to do with running x64.

I fixed my un-resizable Trillian issue. Seems it was fine all the time, but the linux WM overlapped the Trillian skin to the point that I couldn't actually reach the parts of the skin that allowed resizing. I turned off the WM access to WINE apps, and that fixed the issue.

The message windows look fine, but most of the themes don't work with the contact list. Not sure why it would be any different.

Something shows up in the system tray, but it's not the Trillian icon. It also does absolutely nothing. If I minimize Trillian, it's gone forever.

Yeah, turning off WM access is necessary for that... Try using another skin (Cobalt, Bleach)...

[wagnerr52]

Try using another skin (Cobalt, Bleach)...

I'm using Bleach, and most of the color themes just show up as flat black. It was the same problem with Cordonata. Although my background is currently black so its almost like transparency works (which also doesn't).

[Hendrick2448]

I know this is a little old of a topic, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would LOVE trillian on Linux. But with the images not showing up. If you still have windows, look in:
C:\Documents and Settings\OWNER\Application Data\Trillian
In there are a few images. Would that cause the black issue?