The fact that Python 2.x is dropped is causing some problems

May 12, 2015 14:57 GMT  ·  By

The PlayOnLinux is an application based on Wine that allows users to install and run Windows games, and the developers are seriously considering a major upgrade.

One of the major changes announced for Ubuntu 15.10 is the adoption of Python 3.x and deprecation of the 2.x branch. PlayOnLinux is built with Python 2.x, so it's easy to understand why they need to make an adjustment and fast. The problem is that the developers of PlayOnLinux will need to rewrite a big part of the PlayOnLinux, and it's a difficult task, especially since they are moving to Java.

"Our main problem is that wxpython (even wxpython 3.0) does not support Python 3.X. PlayOnLinux v4 code is really ugly and we really don't want to maintain it any longer. Moreover because of the bad design, changing wxpython to another library would take as much, or even more effort as rewriting completely the program," wrote Quentin Paris on the official forums.

The new PlayOnLinux 5.x branch has the Phoenicis code name, and it's still in the planning stages. On the other hand, Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) is scheduled to launch in October 2015, which means that they have plenty of time to make this work. As a sidenote, reworking the PlayOnLinux interface won't bring better performance in games, but it will bring some usability improvements.