Wine is a software application which allows Unix-like computer operating systems run programs that were originally written for Microsoft Windows. The Wine developers released the first beta version of Wine (version 0.9) on October 25, 2005 after 12 years of development.
Installing Wine
It’s recommended that you installed the latest version of Wine, unfortunately the version that is included in Ubuntu is often a few versions behind. To get the latest version you’ll need to edit the /etc/app/sources.list and add Wine’s own apt repository.
$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Enter the following at the end of the file:
deb http://wine.sourceforge.net/apt binary/
After the changes have been done, run the following command to update the package cache:
$ sudo apt-get update
Finally to install Wine with the command:
$ sudo apt-get install wine
During the installation it will recommend you to install the msttcorefonts (Micrsoft True Type fonts) and cabextract (a tool for extracting the conts of Microsoft .cab archives) as well.
$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts cabextract
Configuring Wine
To configure Wine run the Wine configuration utility:
$ winecfg
Note this utility doesn’t need a sudo user to run it.
Once the command is executed, the Wine configuration directory will be created in /home/username/.wine. As well, a tabbed Wine configuration interface will appear. The interface will allow you to adjust various parameters of your Wine installation for the currently logged in user, e.g, the version of Windows that you want Wine to behave like, but everything will work fine with the default settings.
If you want to add a CD-ROM drive:
- Click on the “Drive” tab.
- Click on the “Add” button to create a new Windows D: drive
- Click on the “Browse” button to select the path to your CD-ROM e.g. /media/cdrom0
- Click on the “Apply” button to finish.
Installing a Windows Application
To install an Windows application just type the wine command e.g.
$ wine "utorrent.exe"
If you are using an application that works with Wine, the installer will launch and install the application into the mock Windows filesystem in your .wine directory. After the installation has completed you will be able to find the installed program under the menu “Applications” -> “Wine”.
If it doesn’t show up you can run the application in the command prompt:
$ wine "c:\\Progam Files\\utorrent\\utorrent.exe"
