Install Wine on Linux Distribution

Posted on July 11th, 2020

In this tutorial, we can check how to Install Wine on Linux Distribution.

Wine is an open-source compatibility layer that helps the Linux and Unix based operating systems to run the Microsoft Windows applications. Wine is free of cost. The Wine provides a software library called Winelib. The developers can use this library to compile the Windows application to run them on the Linux and Unix based systems. The Wine was initially known as ‘Wine is Not an Emulator’. The Wine translates the API calls of Windows to POSIX calls by eliminating the memory and performance penalties to integrate the Windows application into your POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Unix, macOS, and BSD.

In this knowledgebase, you learn about the two different ways to install Wine on a Linux Mint server. The two methods by which we can install Wine on Linux Mint are:’

  1. Using the GUI.
  2. Using the command-line.

Install Wine on Linux Mint 19.1 Using the Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Log in as a root user to the Linux Mint server.

Open ‘Software Manager’ from the menu bar.

On the Software Manager window, search for ‘Wine’ in the repository.

Select ‘Wine-stable’ from the list.

Click the ‘Install’ button next to Wine-stable to install the latest stable version of Wine on your system.

The system prompts ‘Additional software are going to be installed’. Click the ‘Continue’ button to install Wine and its dependencies.

Then, it prompts for authentication. Enter the root password and click the ‘Authenticate’ button.

Install Wine

 

The installation may take some time, and the installation files get stored under the ‘/opt/wine-stable/’ directory.

After the installation, add the ‘/opt/wine-stable/bin/ directory to the user path.

Then, open the ‘.profile’ file using any of the text editors.

$ nano ~/.profile

At the end of the file, paste the following line.

export PATH="$PATH:/opt/wine-stable/bin"

Save and close the file.

After that, shut down and log in again for the changes in the .profile file to take effect.

Install Wine on Linux Mint 19.1 Using the Terminal

Log in to the server as a root user.

Open the terminal by using the keyboard shortcut ‘Ctrl+Alt+T’ or click the terminal icon.

Check which OS bit is running on your server by using the following command.

 # uname -p

If you have a 32-bit system, you should get the output as ‘x86,’ and if it is a 64-bit system, then the output of the above command should be ‘x86_64’.

If you have a 64-bit system, run the following command to enable the 32-bit architecture on the system.

# dpkg --add-architecture i386

Execute the following command to download the public key for the Wine repository.

# wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

Then, import the generated key to the system keyring.

# apt-key add winehq.key

Execute the following command to add the Wine repository.

# apt-add-repository ‘deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ bionic main'

After that, update the package repository cache by executing the following command.

$ apt update

Then, run the following command to install the stable version of Wine.

$ apt install –install-recommends winehq-stable

 

Steps Post Installation

Before downloading any Windows application ‘.exe’ file, perform the following process. First, execute the following command in the terminal to run the Wine configuration program.

# winecfg

This above command creates a ‘.wine’ directory under the home directory. The .wine directory is also known as a wine bottle or wine prefix. Also, a virtual C drive gets created under the home directory.  This above command then installs the Wine Gecko and Wine Mono package. After the installation of Wine Gecko and Wine Mono packages, close the Wine configuration window.

Basic Steps to Install Windows Programs on Linux with Wine

  1. First, we need to download the ‘.exe’ the installer file to your systems hard drive.
  2. Open the file manager.
  3. Right-click and select the ‘Open With Wine Windows Program Loader’ option from the context menu.
  4. Then, follow the instruction for the installation.

If you could not see the ‘Open With Wine Windows Program Loader’ option in the context menu, do the following:

Open the terminal by clicking the terminal icon or use the keyboard shortcut ‘Ctrl+Alt+T’.

Switch to the directory in which the ‘.exe’ file is available by using the cd command.

Then, replace the <program-name> flag with the actual name of the program that you want to execute in the following command.

# wine <program-name>.exe

For example, if you want to install the backup and sync program that is available under the ‘Downloads’ directory, run the following commands.

# cd /Downloads/

# wine installbackupandsync.exe

 

Conclusion

Wine is an open-source compatibility layer that helps the Linux and Unix based operating systems to run the Microsoft Windows applications. Wine is free of cost. The Wine provides a software library called Winelib. The developers can use this library to compile the Windows application to run on the Linux and Unix based systems. The Wine was initially known as ‘Wine is Not an Emulator’. You can install Wine on your Linux distribution by using both terminal and graphical user interface (GUI). We hope that this knowledge base was helpful to you. Please comment below for any questions or queries. If you are an InterServer customer, please reach out to our support team for further help.

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