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Wine is a software application which aims to allow Unix-like computer operating systems on the x86 architecture to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows.Wine also provides a software library known as Winelib which developers can compile Windows applications against to help port them to Unix-like systems. The name 'Wine' derives from the recursive acronym Wine Is Not an Emulator.
While the name sometimes appears in the forms "WINE" and "wine", the project developers have agreed to standardize on the form "Wine". The Wine developers released the first beta version of Wine (version 0.9) on October 25, 2005 after 12 years of development. Version 1.0 is scheduled for June 2008 Released under terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), Wine is free software. As of mid-2007, Wine runs some software with good stability and most software with minor issues.[citation needed] Most native Microsoft Windows DLLs necessary for the execution of 32-bit Windows binaries have compatible Wine counterparts.
The developers of the Direct3D portions of Wine have continued to implement new features such as pixel shaders to increase game support.
Wine can also use native DLLs directly, thus increasing functionality, but then a license for Windows is needed unless the DLLs were distributed with the application itself. winecfg is a GUI configuration utility included with Wine. winecfg makes configuring Wine easier by making it unnecessary to edit the registry directly. Wine cannot currently run 64-bit Windows applications;
however, it can run on 64-bit operating systems. Since almost all Windows applications are currently available in 32-bit versions, support for 64-bit Windows applications is a low priority, planned for after version 1.0. On a 64-bit Linux system, support for 32-bit Windows applications is handled by linking with 32-bit versions of Wine's shared library dependencies. In a 2007 survey by desktoplinux.com of 38500 Linux desktop users, 31.5% of respondents reported using Wine to run Windows applications.
This plurality was larger than all virtualization programs combined, as well as larger than the 27.9% who reported not running Windows applications. Some applications, in order to work properly with Wine, require more tweaking than simply installing the application, such as manually configuring Wine to use certain Windows DLLs.
The Wine project does not integrate such workarounds into the Wine codebase, instead preferring to focus solely on improving Wine's implementation of the Windows API.
While this approach focuses Wine development on long-term compatibility, it makes it difficult for users to run applications which can run using workarounds. Consequently, many third party applications have been created to ease the use of these applications which don't work "out of the box" within Wine itself.
The Wine wiki maintains a page of current and obsolete third party applications. Wine-Doors is an application-management tool for the GNOME desktop which adds functionality to Wine. Wine-Doors is an alternative to WineTools which aims to improve upon WineTools' features and extend on the original idea with a more modern design approach. WineBot is an application-management tool which should act in a similar way as native Linux package managers like apt/dpkg/rpm.
The project aims for data compatibility with Wine-Doors, in addition to providing a platform to track the hacks necessary to install certain applications and provide a framework for automated regression testing for the Wine project. WineTricks is a quick and dirty hack style script to install some basic components required for Wine to run correctly. IES4LINUX A utility to install all IE's right from version 4 to 6 and soon will also support IE7, currently IE7 engine is installed if you select it (in beta stage). WineLocale An extension utility to enable Wine to run windows programs that require non-unicode character support, like Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Chinese, Greek.
There is some documentation on the Ubuntu forums to use this tool. PlayOnLinux is an application to ease the installation of Windows games using Wine.
It uses an online database of scripts to apply to different games that need special configurations and if the game is not in the database, a manual installation can be performed. Aside from games, any other programs can also be installed and each one is put in a different container (WINEPREFIX) to prevent interference of one program in another and provide isolation, the same way that CrossOver Office's bottles work.
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