Wine

Program Info

Terminal Command	wine [program or .exe name]
Program	URL http://www.winehq.org

Wine is not an emulator! Wine is not an emulator! Say it again with meokay, don't. We can stop now. They are pretty adamant about that whole "not an emulator" thing over at the Wine camp. I imagine a scenario like you would find in Orwell's 1984. I say in a hushed whisper, "Wine is an emulator." Then there is a knock at the door. The men come to take me away to Room 101.

Wine is a compatibility layer between Linux and Windows. You don't need a copy of Microsoft Windows to run a program through Wine. Wine creates an alternative application program interface (API) that runs on top of Linux and uses no Windows code. Windows programs can run with this alternative API, similarly to how they run on the Windows API. The Wine developers say that Wine is still under development and isn't ready for general use yet. Still, Wine is probably the most well-known program in Linux right now for running Windows programs and is widely used.

Wine is often included with your distribution's install disks. You can either install Wine from the install disks or download the program from the WINE Web site. Make sure you get the very latest version available for your distro. Each new version of Wine usually has important improvements. (The Wine Configuration screen is shown in Figure 13.1.)

Figure 13.1. The Wine setup wizard.

The easiest program to try first in Wine is Microsoft Notebook. Remember the plain-text editor in Windows? That's the one. Some versions of Wine even install the Windows programs Notebook and Minesweeper for you to try. To find out what other programs have been run in Wine, check out the applications database at http://appdb.winehq.org/. The programs listed have not necessarily been run successfully in Wine, but the database lets you know how well each program has been reported to run and includes user comments.

Wine requires a Windows C: drive, or at least a fake version of it. The usual location that Wine creates for the C: drive is /home/[username]/.wine/fake_windows. This location can be different, depending on the package or source you installed Wine with. To install Windows programs to run in Wine, you need to run the Windows installer for the program in Wine, which is often on your Windows program's CD. When you get the installer to run and finish, you use the program's executable file (.exe) to run the program.

Now I think I can say that I have gotten a Windows program to run in Wine without a hitch only once or twice. Remember, Wine is a work in progress. Most programs require tweaking to run, and many programs simply will not run. When you run into problems, read up on the program in the Wine application database to see how other users got the program to run. Quite often the solution to getting a program to run in Wine is to install the program in Windows and then copy over the executable file and .dll files to the Linux directory for that program in Wine.

Now do you see why I warned you? Don't worry, there is at least one other solution that is easier than Wine. You probably don't want to mess with Wine unless you enjoy tweaking and problem solving. If you're looking for something to use in a professional office environment, Wine probably isn't ready. Wine is one of those Linux issues that can be a pain to work with but you feel like you're helping a good cause. So, if you are the tweaking type, you can help make Wine easier to use and more dependable in the future by working with it and reporting your experiences in the applications database.