Newbie question

[Tim Golden]

A.T.Hofkamp wrote:
> On 2008-07-09, |e0 <p0q0b0d at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So, i can't use wmi module on linux?
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 9:14 AM, Lamonte Harris <pyth0nc0d3r at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I think the win32 module is only for windows.
>>>
> 
> Welcome to the world outside MS.
> 
> Many python modules don't actually do anything than passing on calls to an
> existing underlying library. They are cheap to make, and make it possible to
> use the functionality of the library from a Python program. The down-side is,
> as you have discovered, that you need the underlying library to make it work.

And this is of course true both ways. Python users under Windows miss out
on about half [*] of the os module since it's just handing off to the *nix system
calls. At the same time, *nix users won't be able to add Shell Namespace
Extensions or use the Windows API to monitor directory changes.

> So, the answer is no, you cannot use wmi under a non-MS OS. (But what did you
> expect, given that wmi means WINDOWS Management Instrumentation?) 

I don't know if anyone's tried to get something like WMI running under
Wine. In principal it might work but I suspect it would involve a lot of
time and effort. Strictly, WMI is an implementation of the WBEM [2] 
standards. Googling around suggests that implementations exist
for Linux but I've no idea how mature or robust they are, and I'm
quite sure they're not going to be using a Windows API model for
their interface.

TJG

[1] A pardonable exaggeration
[2] http://www.dmtf.org/standards/wbem/