"Easy" way to remove MFC-dependence AND port to Linux?!

[Uatu]

Found an interesting article here, not sure if you guys saw it already or not: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-mfc/

Basically, apparently there is a very nice widget toolkit called wxWindows that not only works cross-platform, but is very similar in both structure and naming, with MFC.

Perhaps it would be possible to slowly, one by one, convert classes to wxWindows (while ensuring that it works), until finally we would be free of MFC (and thus be able to attract more help with the code) AND have a nice Linux version on our hands as well! (Then even cheap people like me could get in on the code, since we could compile for free.)

I'd much rather draw pictures than write code, but that's another story...

Anyway, I have recently dived into Linux (still very much a newbie), so... Was thinking that it would be nice to have a Linux version of DC, too!

[manikus]

My understanding is that it's basically the same with all of the alternatives to MFC. They all do about the same thing, and in fact most of them are easier to code for than MFCs are. The issue as has been explained to me by Tarlanon et al is that it's an all or nothing proposition because of the base files that are being called for the DC code.

As for linux, welcome, welcome! For an immediate DC fix, trying installing Wine (at least version 1.17). This will let you use the editor exactly like on Windows. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to play any of the games yet. but I'm working on it and as soon as I can figure it out, believe me, everyone will hear about it.

[Uatu]

Ha ha... I am still at the level where installing packages are big trouble for me (Arrrgh!!)

[manikus]

Which linux distro are you using? Odds are that Wine will have a pretty detailed explanation of what you need to do to install it.

[Uatu]

Ubuntu (actually, the Helix version of it)...

[manikus]

I'm also using Ubuntu (at home, but Red Hat at school). What the heck is 'helix'?

[Uatu]

Helix is a forensic distribution (i.e., it is meant to be booted from a CD, and will not change anything on the computer's hard disk) based on Ubuntu, but I installed it anyway. I am suspecting that a lot of things have been cut out of this particular Ubuntu (because they can write to the disk), which makes things difficult... So I guess I may try just plain ol' Ubuntu

[manikus]

Gotcha. That sounds kind of cool actually. It sounds like an interesting way to let people try out linux without fear of screwing up their system.

But, as you point out, there is a lot of stuff that you wouldn't be able to do. You could not save even text documents or graphics files...is it only to the HD, like could I create a text doc and save it to a flash drive?

Anyways, I recommend Ubuntu (I'm still using Hardy Heron - 8.04). As a matter of fact, as soon as I can afford an external hard drive, I will be wiping windows from my main machine and running linux on it. [Don't worry, I won't leave DC. I'm going to run a virtual server and have an instance of XP Pro.]

[Uatu]

Well - you can still mount any drive you like, it just doesn't mount automatically. (Well, if you install it to HD, it does mount that HD, since, well, it is running off of that HD.)

[manikus]

So you can still mount any disk and change the data on those? Does it have the 'terminal' the tool that allows command line expressions? It might be a more complete distro than you think.