using windows dlls from within linux ?

[Florian Baumgartner]

Hi,

I'm just implementing software to support some USB devices
under linux. Fortunately the manufacturer published an API description
and even a Windows SDK, so things are going rather well.

Unfortunately the device requires some very specific encoding
algorithms, which are not part of the API and the SDK, but are
provided by a windows dll (no source available).

The question now is whether it is possible to access this dll
from within linux? I guess this is a rather common problem, so
there might be some kind of wrapper mechanism available allowing
to load and use that library from within linux programs.

Is there any support provided by wine, or are there other
projects related to that topic ?

thanks ...
bye ...

--
Florian Baumgartner, Computer Science Department, Purdue University
mail: baum...@cs.purdue.edu phone: (1) 765 496 2718

[Bill Medland]

"Florian Baumgartner" <baum...@cs.purdue.edu> wrote in message
news:3D12174A...@cs.purdue.edu...

Theoretically as far as I know it is possible for a Linux program to access
Windows DLLs through Wine, but considering the area you are talking about I
wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work for this case.

Bill

[Florian Baumgartner]

Bill Medland wrote:

>>The question now is whether it is possible to access this dll
>>from within linux? I guess this is a rather common problem, so
>>there might be some kind of wrapper mechanism available allowing
>>to load and use that library from within linux programs.
>>
>>Is there any support provided by wine, or are there other
>>projects related to that topic ?
>>
>>thanks ...
>>bye ...
>>
>>
>>--
>>Florian Baumgartner, Computer Science Department, Purdue University
>>mail: baum...@cs.purdue.edu phone: (1) 765 496 2718
>>
>>
>>
>Theoretically as far as I know it is possible for a Linux program to access
>Windows DLLs through Wine, but considering the area you are talking about I
>wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work for this case.
>

Well, what's the special problem of that area ? Even if this dll is used
by some
software accessing an USB device, it seems to do nothing hardware/USB
related at all, but
simple provides a single function to convert some data.

I also have some sample software for Windows, initializing that dll and
calling the
function. Of course the dll will probably depend on other Windows related
software/dlls/APIs, but that's what's wine might be able to provide.

What I'm really looking for is any type of documentation covering that
topic. I'm really
surprised that I was not able to find anything related, since it seems
like a very common
problem to me.

bye ...

Probably
I do not use the proper keywords on my search,

Do you know any source of documentation for that problem. I found some
sources
using windows dlls for video and audio codecs, but nothing more general.

--
Florian Baumgartner PhD, Computer Science Department, Purdue University

[Andreas Mohr Usenet 04/2002]

Florian Baumgartner <baum...@cs.purdue.edu> wrote:
> Do you know any source of documentation for that problem. I found some
> sources
> using windows dlls for video and audio codecs, but nothing more general.

You don't want a full Winelib set.
What you want is hacked-together Wine DLL support, e.g. as done by
the avifile project.
That should enable you to simply interface with some DLL.

--
Andreas Mohr, Renningen, Germany
In case you need to contact me after expiry of temporary email address:
my eternal (hopefully) email address is frqr2001 at the domain sneakemail.com