1 <!-- *** Wine FAQ *** -->
2 <title>Wine FAQ
</title>
5 <qandadiv id=
"About-this-FAQ"><title>About this FAQ
</title>
7 <question id=
"Who-maintains-this-FAQ">
8 <para>Who maintains this FAQ ?
</para>
11 <para>Dave Gardner maintained it from
1995-
1998.
</para>
12 <para>Douglas Ridgway (ridgway@winehq.com) took it over in
1999.
</para>
13 <para>Andreas Mohr (amohr@codeweavers.com) converted it to FAQ-O-Matic in
2000.
</para>
14 <para>Dimitrie O. Paun, Keith Matthews and Thomas Wickline reorganised it in
2002.
</para>
15 <para>For suggestions/additions/complaints regarding this FAQ, please send an email to
16 <ulink url=
"mailto:wine-faq@winehq.org">wine-faq@winehq.org
</ulink></para>
20 <question id=
"What-is-the-copyright-on-the-FAQ-And">
21 <para>What is the copyright on the FAQ? And how may I use it?
</para>
24 <para>The original Wine FAQ, which this FAQ was based on, was copyright
© 1995-
1998 David Gardner.
</para>
25 <para>It may be reproduced and modified under the same terms as Wine itself.
</para>
29 <qandadiv id=
"General-Questions-about-Wine">
30 <title>General Questions about Wine
</title>
33 <question id=
"What-is-Wine-and-what-is-it-supposed-to">
34 <para>What is Wine and what is it supposed to do?
</para>
38 Wine is a program which allows the operation of DOS and MS
39 Windows programs (Windows
3.x and Win32 executables) on UNIX operating systems such as Linux.
40 It consists of a program loader, which loads and executes a Windows
41 binary, and a set of libraries that implements Windows API calls
42 using their UNIX or X11 equivalents. The libraries may also be used
43 for porting Win32 code into native UNIX executables, often
44 without many changes in the source. Wine is free software,
45 and its license (contained in the file LICENSE
46 in each distribution) is the LGPL.
52 <question id=
"Is-Wine-an-emulator">
53 <para>Does Wine emulate a full computer?
</para>
57 No, as the name says, Wine Is Not a (CPU) Emulator. Wine just
58 provides the Windows API. This means that you will need an
59 x86-compatible processor to run an x86 Windows application, for instance from Intel or AMD. The
60 advantage is that, unlike solutions that rely on CPU emulation, Wine
61 runs applications at full speed. Sometimes a program run under
62 Wine will be slower than when run on a copy of Microsoft Windows, but
63 this is more due to the fact that Microsoft have heavily optimized parts of their
64 code, whereas mostly Wine is not well optimized (yet). Occasionally, an app
65 may run faster under Wine than on Windows. Most apps run at roughly the same speed.
71 <question id=
"Are-here-any-alternatives-to-Wine">
72 <para>Are there any alternatives to Wine?
</para>
76 Yes, there are. You can use
<ulink url=
"http://www.vmware.com">VMWare
</ulink> to run a Windows installation inside a virtual machine,
77 or use
<ulink url=
"http://www.win4lin.com">Win4Lin
</ulink>
78 to run a specially adapted Windows version on Linux.
79 Both solutions cost money for both the software itself
80 and a Windows license.
83 Note that, like Wine, they can only use the hardware platform that
84 the target programs were originally compiled for (see below).
90 <question id=
"Difference-between-Wine-and-emulators">
91 <para>What is the difference between Wine and x86 hardware emulators?
</para>
95 There are two free x86 hardware emulators:
96 <ulink url=
"http://bochs.sourceforge.net">bochs
</ulink>, and
97 <ulink url=
"http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/plex86">plex86
</ulink>.
101 Plex86 is the open-source free-software alternative for VMWare,
102 VirtualPC, and other IA-
32 on IA-
32 "Virtual PC products." It
103 can only run on the IA-
32 architecture.
107 Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-
32 (x86) PC emulator
108 written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation
109 of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently,
110 bochs can be compiled to emulate a
386,
486 or Pentium CPU. Bochs is capable
111 of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux,
112 Windows®
95, DOS, and recently Windows® NT
4.
116 Both are licensed under the GPL. Bochs is older than plex86, seems to be
117 easier to install, but plex86 will run faster because plex86 uses a just in
118 time binary compiler.
121 The drawback of all emulators is that you need a version
122 of Windows in order to run Windows, and that they all have an
123 impact on performance. Wine also gives much better desktop integration - for
124 instance, programs use your standard window manager, system tray icons will
125 appear in your tray area (if you have one), and you can run programs direct from the
126 command line and the menus. The clipboard also works seamlessly.
133 <question id=
"Why-would-anyone-want-Wine-Windows-suck">
134 <para>Why would anyone want Wine? Doesn't Windows suck?
</para>
138 First Wine is not about running Windows but about running Windows
142 So if all your computing needs are fulfilled by native Unix
143 applications, then you do not need Wine and should not be using
144 it. However, if you depend on one or more of the tens of
145 thousands of Windows applications, then Wine is the best way to
146 use it without giving up on Unix. Let's look at the alternatives
150 The most obvious alternative is to dual-boot. This is the solution
151 that provides the best compatibility. However it requires that you
152 acquire a Windows license and then dedicate a good chunk of your
153 hard-drive to Windows. But the worst is yet to come. Each time you
154 will want to use that application you will have to reboot to
155 Windows. This is especially significant if external factors dictate
156 when you must use this application (e.g. credit card to process,
157 email to retrieve from a Lotus Notes server). Then you will find
158 yourself forced to close all your Linux applications just to run
159 that one Windows application. You may quickly get tired of this, or
160 will find that such a situation is impossible to justify in a
161 business environment.
164 The next solution is to install virtual machine emulation software
165 such as VMWare, Win4Lin or Plex86. Then you can use windows
166 applications without suffering such a big disruption. But it still
167 requires that you acquire a Windows license and dedicate as much
168 disk space to Windows. Furthermore you will pay for the added
169 convenience: if using VMWare or Win4Lin you have to buy another
170 license, and more importantly you now have to dedicate a good chunk
171 of your computer's memory to the virtual machine. Performance will
172 take a significant hit too.
175 Using Wine lets you avoid all of that overhead: Windows license,
176 hard-drive space required by Windows, memory and performance hit
177 taken by emulated virtual machines. Now you can start your Windows
178 application straight from your regular desktop environment, place
179 that application's window side by side with native applications,
180 copy/paste from one to the other, and run it all at full speed.
183 It is also a pretty vital part of migrating a large organisation,
184 you can't change a
5000 desktop setup overnight without a lot of risk.
190 <question id=
"Which-one-of-the-different-Wine-packages">
191 <para>Which one of the different Wine packages out there is good for me?
</para>
195 Currently there is a broad selection of different Wine packages/versions:
200 <term><ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com">Wine
</ulink></term>
203 This is the
"standard" source distribution of Wine. Its license is
204 the LGPL, it can be downloaded for free.
210 <term><ulink url=
"http://rewind.sourceforge.net">ReWind
</ulink></term>
213 This is a forked Wine tree that got created when Wine changed its
214 license from X11 to the more restrictive LGPL, in order to let
215 people continue to maintain an X11 licensed Wine version. Its
216 license is X11, it can be downloaded for free.
222 <term><ulink url=
"http://www.transgaming.com">Transgaming's WineX
</ulink></term>
225 This is TransGaming's Wine version specially suited for
226 games. It includes more mature Direct3D support than
227 WineHQ, although these days WineHQ has quite advanced
228 D3D support as well. Most of the code is under the AFPL
229 and can be downloaded for free.
232 However Transgaming also distributes binaries that contain
233 improved copy protection support (needed for many
234 games), support, and other enhancements. These packages are
235 only available in binary form to subscribed customers
242 <term><ulink url=
"http://wine.codeweavers.com">CodeWeavers' Wine preview
</ulink></term>
245 This is a special packaged version of the standard Wine tree
246 which has a nice setup for easy installation. License LGPL, free
247 download. It's pretty old now, and not recommended for general use.
253 <term><ulink url=
"http://www.codeweavers.com/products/crossover/">CodeWeavers' Crossover Plugin
</ulink></term>
256 Special Wine installation to be used for running Windows
257 Netscape browser plugins such as e.g. QuickTime in Linux
258 browsers. Costs $
24.95.
259 Well worth it (very stable and useful packaging).
265 <term><ulink url=
"http://www.codeweavers.com/products/office/">CodeWeavers' Crossover Office
</ulink></term>
268 Wine version with special packaging to make sure almost all
269 important Office type programs work pretty well. Costs $
54.95.
270 Seems to be well worth it so far according to some comments.
271 (note: you're supporting a company actively contributing to Wine
272 if you decide to buy either Plugin or Office.)
278 <term><ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.org/download/">Other packaged versions of Wine
</ulink></term>
281 Various Wine packages can be downloaded for free from
282 Wine HQ. They are not officially packaged by Wine HQ, and as
283 such may have some configuration inconsistencies.
292 <question id=
"Whats-the-history-of-Wine">
293 <para>What's the history of Wine?
</para>
297 The Wine project started in
1993 as a way to support running Windows
3.1
298 programs on Linux. Bob Amstadt was the original coordinator, but turned
299 it over fairly early on to Alexandre Julliard, who has run it ever
300 since. A
<ulink url=
"news:comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine">newsgroup
</ulink>
301 was created in July
1994. Over the years, ports for
302 other Unixes have been added, along with support for Win32 as Win32
303 applications became popular.
306 For more information, see
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/about.shtml">
307 http://www.winehq.com/about.shtml
</ulink>
313 <question id=
"What-is-the-current-version-of-Wine">
314 <para>What is the current version of Wine?
</para>
318 A new version of Wine is distributed about every month. You will be
319 able to keep up on all the latest releases by reading the newsgroup
320 <ulink url=
"news:comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine">
321 comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine
</ulink>, or by visiting the
322 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com">Wine HQ homepage
</ulink>. When
323 downloading Wine from your FTP site of choice (see
324 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/download.shtml">the Download page
</ulink>
325 for some of these choices), you can make sure that you are getting
326 the latest version by watching the version numbers in the distribution
327 filename. For instance, the distribution released on October
31,
2002
328 was called Wine-
20021031.tar.gz. Patch files are also available. If
329 you are current to the previous version, you can download and apply
330 just the current patch file rather than the entire new distribution.
331 The patch filenames follow the same conventions as the monthly
332 distribution.
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml">
333 Read-only CVS
</ulink> access is also available.
339 <question id=
"What-is-the-current-Status-of-Wine">
340 <para>What is the current Status of Wine?
</para>
344 As of mid
2003, Wine consists of about
1.4 million lines of code,
345 written by more than
550 developers from dozens of countries around
346 the world. Wine is in active use by an estimated
100K people. Wine
347 implements more than
90% of the calls in popular Windows
348 specifications such as ECMA-
234 and Open32.
351 You may also want to look at the
352 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/about/index.php?status">
353 Status page
</ulink> for a global view on Wine's implementation progress.
359 <question id=
"When-will-Wine-be-finished">
360 <para>When will Wine be finished?
</para>
364 Large software projects are never finished, only released. In any
365 case Wine is chasing a moving target since every new release of
366 Windows contains new API calls or variations on the existing ones.
369 Because Wine is being developed by volunteers, it is difficult to
370 predict when it will be ready for general release. But due to the
371 much increased interest by companies in porting apps via Wine, Wine
372 development is constantly getting more and more active. Right now
373 we are working on releasing Wine
0.9 in
2003.
379 <question id=
"Who-is-responsible-for-Wine">
380 <para>Who is responsible for Wine?
</para>
384 Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. Please see the
385 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/source/AUTHORS">AUTHORS
</ulink>
386 file in the distribution for the complete list. Some companies that
387 are or have been involved with Wine development are CodeWeavers,
388 TransGaming, Corel, and Macadamian.
394 <question id=
"folks-who-contributed-money-or-equipment">
395 <para>Who are the folks and organizations who have contributed money or equipment to the Wine project?
</para>
399 People and organizations who have given generous contributions of
400 money, equipment, or licenses, include:
402 <itemizedlist spacing=
"compact">
404 <para>David L. Harper
</para>
407 <para>Bob Hepple
</para>
410 <para>Mark A. Horton
</para>
413 <para>Kevin P. Lawton
</para>
416 <para>The Syntropy Institute
</para>
419 <para>James Woulfe
</para>
423 VMWare Inc. (
<ulink url=
"http://www.vmware.com">
424 http://www.vmware.com
</ulink>)
429 Corel (
<ulink url=
"http://www.corel.com">
430 http://www.corel.com
</ulink>)
438 <question id=
"What-undocumented-APIs-are-not-understood">
439 <para>What undocumented APIs / interfaces are not understood? Would
440 seeing Microsoft source help?
445 The best would be if the Windows API was fully documented, so Wine
446 could be a perfect
"clean-room" implementation. Seeing the source
447 code might make it harder to prove that no copyright violations have
448 taken place. That said, the documentation is often bad, nonexistent,
449 and even misleading where it exists, so a fair amount of reverse
450 engineering has been necessary, particularly in the shell (Explorer)
451 interface. The biggest problem facing Wine though is simply lack of
452 manpower. At one point, over
5000 people were working on Windows
2000.
453 While Wine doesn't need to replicate all of Windows (we only cover the
454 parts needed to make Windows programs work), that's still nearly
10 times
455 more people working simply on one release than have
<emphasis>ever
</emphasis>
456 worked on Wine, in the history of the project.
462 <question id=
"Is-TransGamings-last-patch-included-in-Wine">
463 <para>Is TransGaming's latest patch included in the standard Wine release?
</para>
470 TransGaming makes money via a subscription service and the license
471 of their WineX tree is incompatible with the Wine license. Thus
472 WineX patches cannot be integrated into the Wine tree without
473 express permission by TransGaming. They have submitted some
474 of their work for integration into Wine, most notably DirectDraw
475 and some DirectSound work, and such work has been integrated into
476 the Wine tree. However it seems unlikely they will submit their
483 <question id=
"Will-there-be-a-Windows-version-of-Wine">
484 <para>Will there be a Windows version of Wine?
</para>
488 Some people are working on getting Wine code to compile on Windows.
490 <itemizedlist spacing=
"compact">
493 Cygwin (
<ulink url=
"http:/www.cygwin.com">
494 http://www.cygwin.com/
</ulink>)
499 Reactos (
<ulink url=
"http://www.reactos.com/">
500 http://www.reactos.com/
</ulink>)
505 There's some progress, so a Wine version that's usable on Windows
506 might be available at some time.
512 <qandadiv id=
"What-do-I-need-in-order-to-use-Wine">
513 <title>What do I need in order to use Wine?
</title>
515 <question id=
"Under-what-platforms-will-Wine-run">
517 Under what hardware platform(s) and operating system(s) will
523 Wine is being developed specifically to run on the
<emphasis>Intel x86
</emphasis> class of CPUs under certain UNIXes that run on the x86 platform.
524 Winelib however is capable of porting Windows program
<emphasis>source code
</emphasis> to other platforms also, not only x86.
527 Thus running Windows programs via Wine on other platforms (e.g. MacOS X) is
<emphasis>not
</emphasis> possible; the only way to run Windows code
528 on MacOS X would be to take Windows program source code and recompile it for e.g. MacOS X using Winelib.
531 The following will list the x86 operating systems supported by
532 Wine; Winelib support for other platforms keeps evolving,
533 so it's not specifically listed here.
536 NetBSD, OpenBSD, Unixware, and SCO OpenServer
5 worked at one time,
537 but Wine now requires kernel-level threads which are not currently
538 available (or understood by the Wine team) on those platforms.
541 The Wine development team hopes to attract the interest of other
542 commercial UNIX and UNIX clone vendors as well.
545 BeOS: porting efforts used to be pretty strong, but BeOS has severe
546 limitations in Unix call support, so a port will probably never
550 FreeBSD: Should work, with limitations in specific areas (mainly
551 missing device/hardware support).
554 Linux/x86: Works, and as the most popular platform for both
555 developers and users, it is the best supported platform of all.
561 <question id=
"What-minimum-CPU-must-I-have">
563 What minimum CPU must I have in my computer to be able to run Wine
564 and MS Windows applications smoothly?
569 We need to differentiate between Wine and Winelib here.
572 Wine won't run on any x86 CPU less than an
80386 due to address
573 management limitations.
576 It is known to also work in the
80486 and upwards compatible CPUs.
577 The basic test is, if you can run X11 now, you should be able to run
578 Wine and MS Windows applications under it.
581 As always, the faster your CPU, the better. Having a math coprocessor
582 is unimportant. However, having a graphics accelerated video card
583 supported by X will help greatly.
586 Depending on your application you may find that faster speeds are
587 required for sensible use. We can't give specific advice on that due
588 to the vast range of applications out there. However the rule of
589 thumb is that if your application runs fine on Windows, it should
590 run fine on the same platform in Wine.
596 <question id=
"How-much-disk-space-will-Wine-take">
598 How much disk space will the Wine source code and binaries take on my
604 You need approximately
250 megabytes of free hard drive space to
605 store and compile the source code. Wine also needs about
18 megs in
606 your /tmp directory. And about
50 MB are needed to do a make install.
609 Binary packages, especially those not containing debug information,
610 have much lower disk space requirements, usually in the
20MB range.
616 <question id=
"What-other-software-do-I-need-to-compile">
618 What other software do I need to install, compile and run
624 Many development tools are needed in order to compile Wine.
625 A list of required packages for several distributions is included in
626 the README (
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/source/README">
627 http://www.winehq.com/source/README
</ulink>).
630 To run Wine, you will need the following:
633 <itemizedlist spacing=
"compact">
635 <para>The compiled Wine binary
</para>
638 <para>A properly configured wine.conf file (or ~/.winerc file)
</para>
641 <para>An installed and working X Window system
</para>
644 <para>Some Windows programs to test
</para>
650 <question id=
"How-much-RAM-do-I-need">
652 How much RAM do I need to have on my UNIX system to be able to run
653 Wine and MS Windows applications smoothly?
658 If you can run X smoothly on your UNIX system now, you should be
659 able to run Wine and MS Windows applications just fine too, depending
660 on how memory hungry the application is.
663 A Wine workstation will work with
16 megabytes of RAM and a
16
664 megabyte swap partition as long as you have a reasonable graphics
665 card. Most applications will run reasonably with
64/
64 Mb,
666 interactive games are likely to need more. You can run Wine with
8/
8,
667 but it is going to be unusably slow and very constraining on the
668 applications you can run. If you wish to be part of the development
669 team and program Wine itself, be aware that the debugger is rather
670 memory intensive. Some have suggested that
64 megabytes is the
671 minimum RAM needed for Wine development, although some are able to
672 work (albeit slowly) with
24 megabytes of physical RAM and lots of
679 <question id=
"How-long-does-Wine-take-to-build">
680 <para>How long does Wine take to build
</para>
684 Wine is getting to be quite large, and building from scratch takes a
685 lot of processing. As of September
2002, compile times were around
20
686 minutes on an Athlon
1200 with
640 Mb and
45-
50 minutes on a Cyrix
687 300 with
64 Mb. If you have a CVS copy, you may not need to rebuild
688 the whole thing every time you update.
693 <question id=
"I-have-a-Drivespaced-partition">
695 I have a Drivespaced, Doublespaced or Stackered DOS partition. Can
696 Wine run MS Windows binaries located in such a partition?
701 Yes, but only if the operating system supports mounting those types
702 of drives. There is a Linux file system driver called dmsdos that
703 will allow read/write access to Doublespaced and Drivespace
1.0
704 drives. More specifically, it supports mounting DOS
6.0 and
6.2
705 Doublespaced, DOS
6.22 Drivespaced, and Windows
95 Doublespaced
706 compressed partitions (read and write access works fine, but write
707 access is slow). It can be found at
708 <ulink url=
"ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/filesystems/dosfs/">
709 ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/file systems/dosfs/
</ulink>
715 <question id=
"Do-I-need-to-have-a-DOS-partition">
716 <para>Do I need to have a DOS partition on my system to use Wine?
</para>
720 You do not need a licensed and installed copy of DOS or MS Windows to
721 install, configure and run Wine. However, Wine has to be able to
722 'see' an MS Windows binary (i.e. application) if it is to run it.
728 <question id=
"Does-MS-Windows-need-to-be-installed">
730 Does MS Windows need to be loaded into that partition in order to
731 run MS Windows programs under Wine?
736 Many folks have successfully installed and run programs
737 in their UNIX filesystem without having a DOS partition or MS
738 Windows. However, in many cases you need a directory and file
739 infrastructure that is similar to an existing Windows installation.
740 Some applications' installation programs want to distribute some of
741 the package's files into the /windows and /windows/system
742 directories in order to run, and unless these exist on your UNIX
743 file system, those programs will not install correctly and probably
744 will not run well, if at all. Most packages will set that up for you
745 as part of the install process.
748 If you have a DOS partition with MS Windows installed in it, make
749 sure that your UNIX system can 'see' this partition (check your
750 /etc/fstab file or mount the partition manually) so that Wine can
751 run the MS Windows binaries located in the DOS partition. To run
752 without a DOS partition, you need to set a UNIX path to be your
753 drive C, and make sure that the /windows and /windows/system
754 directories point to some place that actually exist.
757 Here's an example, copied from a machine which has no DOS partition
758 but successfully runs Wine:
768 System=c:\windows\system
770 Path=c:\windows;c:\windows\system;c:
773 In
<filename>/var/lib/wine/windows
</filename>, you will need to
774 install a
<filename>win.ini
</filename> config file that you might
775 find on a typical MS Windows
3.1 machine. The directory
776 <filename>/var/lib/wine/windows/system
</filename> should exist, but
777 doesn't need to contain anything. However, to use MS DLLs, you can
778 copy them into that directory. Note that this is a contravention of
779 the Windows licence unless Windows is properly installed on the
780 machine. If you have DOS/MS Windows installed on your system, you can
781 mount that partition at bootup by modifying the file
782 <filename>/etc/fstab
</filename> in your UNIX partition (assuming that
783 the UNIX kernel supports the DOS/MS Windows filesystem type).
786 If you edit this file by hand, it should contain something similar
790 /dev/hda1 /dosc msdos uid=
0,gid=
100,umask=
007 0 0
793 This will allow you to read and write to the DOS partition without
800 <question id=
"If-Wine-completely-replaces-MS-Windows">
802 If Wine completely replaces MS Windows, will it duplicate all of the
803 functions of MS Windows?
808 Most of them, yes. However, some applications and applets that come
809 with MS Windows, such as File Manager and Calculator, can be
810 considered by some to be redundant, since
32-bit UNIX programs that
811 duplicate these applets' functions already exist.
817 <question id=
"Will-I-install-on-any-UNIX-file-system">
819 Will I be able to install MS Windows applications in any flavor of a
825 Wine is written to be file system independent, so MS Windows
826 applications will install and run under virtually any file system
827 supported by your brand of UNIX.
833 <question id=
"Will-Wine-run-only-under-X">
834 <para>Will Wine run only under X, or can it run in character mode?
</para>
838 Most of Wine's development effort is geared towards MS Windows' GUI,
839 but some limited support for character mode has appeared, by setting
840 <parameter>GraphicsDriver=ttydrv
</parameter> in wine.conf's
841 <parameter>[wine]
</parameter> section.
844 Wine's infrastructure is already somewhat prepared for supporting
845 other graphics drivers than x11drv, but no real
"alternative"
846 graphics driver has been developed yet.
852 <question id=
"Will-Wine-run-under-any-X-window-manager">
853 <para>Will Wine run under any X window manager? Does it require a window manager at all?
</para>
857 Wine is window manager independent, so the X window manager you
858 choose to run has (almost) no bearing on your ability to run MS
859 Windows programs under Wine. Wine uses standard X libraries, so no
860 additional ones are needed. Wine has its own window management,
861 which acts like MS Windows. It can be turned off to use the native
862 window manager by modifying Managed or Desktop settings as described
863 in
<command>man wine.conf
</command>.
869 <question id=
"Will-32-bit-applications-run-under-Wine">
870 <para>Will
32-bit Windows
95/
98 applications run under Wine?
</para>
874 Yes,
32-bit programs are now about as well supported as
16-bit
881 <qandadiv id=
"FAQ-Getting-Wine">
882 <title>Getting Wine
</title>
884 <question id=
"Where-can-I-get-Wine">
885 <para>Where can I get Wine?
</para>
889 Because of lags created by using mirror, word of this newest release
890 may reach you before the release is actually available at the ftp
891 sites listed here. The sources are available from the following
897 <ulink url=
"http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/wine/development/">
898 http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/wine/development/
904 <ulink url=
"ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/ALPHA/wine/development/">
905 ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/ALPHA/wine/development/
912 <ulink url=
"ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/unix/linux/mirrors/sunsite.unc.edu/ALPHA/wine/development/">
913 ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/unix/linux/mirrors/sunsite.unc.edu/ALPHA/wine/development/
920 <ulink url=
"ftp://orcus.progsoc.uts.edu.au/pub/Wine/development/">
921 ftp://orcus.progsoc.uts.edu.au/pub/Wine/development/
928 It should also be available from any other site that mirrors
929 ibiblio.org. For more download locations, see
930 <ulink url=
"http://ftp search.lycos.com.">lycos
</ulink> Some of
931 these ftp sites may archive previous versions of Wine as well as the
932 current one. To determine which is the latest one, look at the
933 distribution file name, which will take the form
934 Wine-YYYYMMDD.tar.gz. Simply replace YYYYMMDD in the distribution
935 file name with the numbers for year, month and date, respectively.
936 The latest one is the one to get.
939 Wine binary packages are available for several OS'es and
941 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/download.shtml">
942 the download page
</ulink> for the most recent list.
948 <question id=
"Is-there-a-CVS-tree">
949 <para>Is there a CVS tree?
</para>
953 Current Wine sources are also available via anonymous client/server
954 CVS. You will need CVS
1.9 or above. If you are coming from behind a
955 firewall, you will either need a hole in the firewall for the CVS
956 port (
2401) or use SOCKS.
959 To login to the CVS tree, do
962 export CVSROOT=:pserver:cvs@cvs.winehq.com/home/wine
966 Use
"cvs" as the password (without the quotes). Note that
967 <filename>/home/wine
</filename> is a path on the server, not on your
968 machine. To check out the entire Wine source tree (which may be
972 cvs -z
3 checkout wine
975 or if you just want a subtree, or individual file, you can do that
979 cvs -z
3 checkout wine/ANNOUNCE
982 Be aware, though, that getting the entire Wine source tree via CVS
983 is pretty slow, especially compared to getting Wine from an FTP
984 mirror near you. For a CVS mirror list, see
985 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml">
986 http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml
</ulink>
989 Patch files are also available, so that you don't have to download,
990 install, and configure the entire distribution each week if you are
991 current to the previous release. Patch file release names follow the
992 same numbering convention as do the general releases, and take the
996 Wine-YYYYMMDD.diff.gz
999 Patch files are available from the same sites that distribute the
1000 full release. To upgrade to a new release by using a patch file,
1001 first cd to the top-level directory of the release (the one
1002 containing the README file), then do a
"make clean", and patch the
1006 gunzip -c patch-file | patch -p1
1009 where patch-file is the name of the patch file something like
1010 Wine-YYYYMMDD.diff.gz. You can then re-run ./configure, and then run
1014 If you are mirroring the Wine distribution from the tsx-
11 site and
1015 wish to be listed here in this FAQ, please add it to the
1016 "things to go into the documentation" area.
1022 <question id=
"Can-I-get-Wine-using-cvsup">
1023 <para>Can I get Wine using cvsup?
</para>
1027 The CVS mirrors don't offer cvsup support yet, but the main server
1028 does. Use a
<filename>wine.sup
</filename> file of:
1031 *default host=cvs.winehq.com
1033 *default prefix=/cvs/wine
1034 *default release=wine
1037 # If your network link is a T1 or faster, comment out the following line.
1040 *default use-rel-suffix
1047 <qandadiv id=
"Installing-And-Configuring-Wine">
1048 <title>Installing and Configuring Wine
</title>
1050 <question id=
"How-do-I-compile-the-Wine-source-code">
1051 <para>How do I compile the Wine distribution source code?
</para>
1055 See the README (
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/source/README">http://www.winehq.com/source/README
</ulink>) for instructions.
1056 Additionally, you may want to set the
<parameter>TMPDIR
</parameter>
1057 environment variable
<command>TMPDIR=~/tmp
</command> or
1058 <command>TMPDIR=/tmp
</command> (if you are root).
1064 <question id=
"How-do-I-install-Windows-in-Wine">
1065 <para>How do I install Windows in Wine under Linux?
</para>
1069 Simple answer: you CAN'T. Windows demands direct access to the
1070 hardware and cannot get it with Wine and UNIX in the way
1073 Wine is supposed to be primarily used WITHOUT Windows. If you want
1074 to use a Windows installation, then use an existing installation
1075 alongside the UNIX installation (see the dual-boot HOWTO for your OS
1076 for more details). Or alternatively use the cabextract utility to
1077 extract Windows install archives to a directory that you want to use
1078 as Wine's Windows tree.
1084 <question id=
"How-do-I-configure-Wine-to-run-on-my-system">
1085 <para>How do I configure Wine to run on my system?
</para>
1089 Wine requires that you have a config file as
1090 <filename>~/.wine/config
</filename>. The format of this file is
1091 explained in the
<filename>wine.conf
</filename> man page. The file
1092 <filename>documentation/samples/config
</filename>
1093 (
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/source/documentation/samples/config">
1094 http://www.winehq.com/source/documentation/samples/config
</ulink>)
1095 contains a config file example. More explicit directions can be
1096 found in the
<filename>README
</filename> file
1097 (
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/source/README">
1098 http://www.winehq.com/source/README
</ulink>) that will be located in
1099 the base Wine directory after you gunzip and untar the distribution
1106 <question id=
"How-do-I-upgrade-configuration">
1107 <para>How do I upgrade Wine without losing my working configuration?
</para>
1111 Upgrading the wine installation does not affect the existing wine
1112 configuration. So after upgrading wine you still have the old (working )
1119 <question id=
"If-I-use-Windows-which-versions-OK">
1120 <para>If I want to use a Windows install, which versions are OK?
</para>
1124 Either use a classic no-windows install (Wine is getting better all
1125 the time) or use a Win9x install (Win95,
98,
98SE, ME). DON'T
1126 configure Wine to use an NT-based Windows install (NT, Win2K, WinXP).
1129 In general, most Windows installations contain vast quantities of garbage
1130 that can confuse Wine and make it less reliable. If you can, it's best to
1131 install the programs you want into Wines fake windows drive.
1137 <question id=
"If-I-use-Windows-which-one-works-best">
1138 <para>If I use a Windows install with Wine, which one works best?
</para>
1145 I'd say Win98SE is the best version to use with Wine, as it's fairly
1146 widespread amongst developers and relatively old. Using Win2K files
1147 is
<emphasis>definitely
</emphasis> worse than a plain no-windows
1148 Wine install, and Win ME is said to be problematic, too (as probably
1149 no developer uses it). In short: all Win9x
<= W98SE are good.
1155 <question id=
"Installing-Visual-Basic-apps-wont-run">
1157 Installing applications generated by Visual Basic won't run. What
1163 Make sure you have all the VB runtime libraries installed. You may
1164 need to use the native DLL vbrun60.dll. You can get some from dll-files.com.
1170 <question id=
"When-I-click-on-exe-file-nothing-happens">
1171 <para>When I click on *.exe file in my file Manager, nothing happens.
</para>
1175 The normal Wine releases don't have .exe extensions registered for
1176 Wine in KDE/Gnome yet. You have to open a terminal window instead
1177 (often an icon showing a
"black screen") and type something like:
1180 cd /my/windows/program/directory
1184 Or alternatively you could download the CodeWeavers Wine preview
1185 which includes .exe extension registration for KDE/Gnome and a nice
1192 <question id=
"bash-wine-Command-not-found-What-can-I-do">
1193 <para>bash
"wine: Command not found" What can I do?
</para>
1197 Try to relogin into bash. That might fix it.
1200 If it doesn't, then make sure the wine binary is in your
1201 <parameter>PATH
</parameter>.
1207 find / -name
"wine" -type f -perm +
111
1210 to find the path where the wine binary is in. Then check whether
1211 <parameter>PATH
</parameter> includes it:
1217 If not, add that e.g. to
<filename>/etc/profile
</filename> by doing:
1220 export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/wine/binary
1226 If you used a package manager (
<command>rpm
</command> or
1227 <command>apt
</command>) - Verify your packages. The package
1228 <filename>winesetuptk.rpm
</filename> is only a front-end for
1229 making a meaningful config file, it DOES NOT install the wine
1233 For complete packages, use
<ulink url=
"http://www.rpmfind.net/">
1234 www.rpmfind.net
</ulink> or the
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.org/download/">
1235 Download
</ulink> section.
1241 <question id=
"How-do-I-remove-Wine-from-my-Computer">
1242 <para>How do I remove Wine from my Computer?
</para>
1246 All you have to do is to type:
1249 rm -fR \[/path/\]Wine*
1252 Make sure that you specify the exact path when using the powerful
1253 <command>rm -fR
</command> command. If you are afraid that you might
1254 delete something important, or might otherwise delete other files
1255 within your filesystem,
<command>cd
</command> into each Wine
1256 subdirectory singly and delete the files found there manually,
1257 one file or directory at a time.
1260 Neither the Wine developers and programmers, nor the Wine FAQ
1261 author/maintainer, can be held responsible for your deleting any
1262 files in your own filesystem.
1268 <qandadiv id=
"About-running-Wine">
1269 <title>About running Wine
</title>
1271 <question id=
"How-do-I-run-an-MS-Windows-program">
1272 <para>How do I run an MS Windows program under Wine?
</para>
1276 When invoking Wine, you must specify the entire path to the
1277 executable, or by filename only. For example to run Windows'
1278 solitaire, type any of the following:
1283 <command>wine sol
</command> or
<command>wine sol.exe
</command>
1284 (using the search path to locate the file).
1289 <command>wine c:\\windows\\sol.exe
</command>
1290 (using a DOS filename).
1295 <command>wine /usr/windows/sol.exe
</command>
1296 (using a UNIX filename).
1301 <command>wine
"c:\windows\sol.exe"</command>
1302 (using quoted DOS filename).
1307 The path of the file will also be added to the path when a full name
1308 is supplied on the command line.
1315 <question id=
"Wine-cannot-find-MS-Windows-on-my-drive">
1317 I have installed and configured Wine, but Wine cannot find MS
1318 Windows on my drive. Where did I go wrong?
1323 If you have a DOS partition, first make sure that you have mounted
1324 it, either by putting the entry into
<filename>/etc/fstab
</filename>,
1325 or by manually mounting it.
1328 Remember too that unless your version of UNIX can see through it, or
1329 you are running a utility that can see through it, your DOS
1330 partition must not be located on a Drivespaced, Doublespaced or
1331 Stackered partition, as neither Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD or Wine can
1332 natively 'see' files located in these compressed DOS partitions.
1335 Check your path statements in the
<filename>wine.conf
</filename>
1336 file. No capital letters may be used in paths, as they are
1337 automatically converted to lowercase.
1343 <question id=
"Parts-of-my-app-do-not-work-What-is-wrong">
1345 I was able to get various MS Windows programs to run, but parts of
1346 them do not work. What is wrong?
1351 Wine is not complete at this time, so some of each programs'
1352 features may not work. They will in time as more of the MS
1353 Windows API calls are included in Wine.
1359 <question id=
"Menus-do-not-work-how-can-I-exit">
1361 I have run various MS Windows programs, but since the program menus
1362 do not work, how can I exit these programs?
1367 Kill the xterm shell window that you called up to run your MS
1368 Windows program, and the X window that appeared with the program
1375 <question id=
"My-app-doesnt-work-what-can-i-do">
1377 My program doesn't work, what can I do?
1382 If you are a programmer and know C, then start debugging
1383 Wine and help us make it better! If you can't, then you will
1384 have to either convince a Wine developer to try and make your
1385 program work (there must be a downloadable version or demo for
1386 that), or hire somebody to do it for you. If this application
1387 is an internal corporate application, you may be able to hire a
1388 Wine developer to do consulting work for you on the matter.
1391 Alternatively, you may be able to get the app working by
1392 taking native DLLs from a Microsoft Windows install, and using
1393 them (set the dlls to native in the config file). Not all DLLs
1394 can be replaced that way - in particular DirectX cannot be, nor
1395 can some core system DLLs like user, ntdll, kernel32 etc
1401 <question id=
"Can-I-use-Wine-with-other-Linux-Distros">
1402 <para>Can I use Wine with SuSE, Peanut or other Linux Distro's?
</para>
1406 You can use Wine on any sufficiently recent Linux installation. The
1407 amount of work getting Wine up and running depends on whether there
1408 are proper packages available or a source compile has to be done.
1414 <question id=
"Does-Wine-work-with-AMD-Processors">
1415 <para>Does Wine work with AMD Processors?
</para>
1419 Yes, it does. Wine should work on any processor compatible with
1420 the Pentium or greater.
1426 <question id=
"Can-I-launch-Unix-app-from-Windows-app">
1427 <para> Can I launch a Unix program from a Windows program?
</para>
1431 Sure, Wine supports that. Just enter the unix program name wherever
1432 a program has something that it's supposed to execute, and it
1438 <question id=
"Error-with-installshield-6">
1440 I get
<quote>Error installing iKernel.exe: (
0x1400)
</quote>
1441 when running an Installshield
6 installer.
1446 If you get the error
"Error installing iKernel.exe: (0x1400)" at any
1447 point, it's probably because there are leftover processes from a
1448 previous try. You can verify this with the command
1450 <para><prompt>$ <
/><command>ps augxw | grep wine
</command></para>
1452 If that command shows old copies of wine running your setup,
1453 you need to kill them before you can run the setup program.
1454 If there are no other Wine programs running, you can kill them
1455 all with the command
1457 <para><prompt>$ <
/><command>killall wine
</command></para>
1459 If you're also running Wine programs you care about, you'll
1460 have to kill off the old Setup instances one by one using
1461 kill and the individual PIDs (or perhaps Wine's spiffy Task Manager,
1462 which doesn't exist yet).
1465 You should repeat the
<command>ps
</command> to make sure the old
1466 Wine processes are gone.
1472 <qandadiv id=
"Getting-help">
1473 <title>Getting help
</title>
1475 <question id=
"Is-there-any-documentation-for-Wine">
1476 <para>Is there any documentation for Wine?
</para>
1480 Yes, see
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.org/support.shtml">
1481 http://www.winehq.com/support.shtml.
</ulink>
1487 <question id=
"I-have-written-some-documententation">
1489 I couldn't find the answer to my question in the documentation, but
1490 I've written a document explaining how to solve it. What should I do?
1495 Updates and additions to the Wine documentation directory should be
1496 sent to the wine-patches mailing list at
1497 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml">
1498 http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml
</ulink>. Website and FAQ
1499 additions should be added to the appropriate Wine Knowledgebase
1506 <question id=
"Is-there-a-Usenet-newsgroup-for-Wine">
1507 <para>Is there a Usenet newsgroup for Wine?
</para>
1511 Yes, and it's called
1512 <ulink url=
"news:comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine">
1513 comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine
</ulink>. The newsgroup serves as a
1514 place for users and developers to discuss Wine, and for minor
1515 announcements for the general public. Major announcements will be
1516 crossposted to other appropriate newsgroups, such as the following:
1521 <ulink url=
"news:comp.os.linux.announce">
1522 comp.os.linux.announce
</ulink>
1527 <ulink url=
"news:ccomp.windows.x.announce">
1528 comp.windows.x.announce
</ulink>
1533 <ulink url=
"news:ccomp.emulators.announce">
1534 comp.emulators.announce
</ulink>
1539 If your Usenet site does not carry these newsgroups, please urge
1540 your ISP's sysadmin to add and/or uplink them.
1546 <question id=
"Is-there-a-World-Wide-Web-site-for-Wine">
1547 <para>Is there a World Wide Web site for Wine?
</para>
1551 Wine HQ (
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com">http://www.winehq.com
</ulink>) is the official site.
1557 <question id=
"Is-there-an-IRC-channel-for-Wine">
1558 <para>Is there an IRC channel for Wine?
</para>
1562 Sure. It's channel
<filename>#WineHQ
</filename> on
1563 <filename>irc.freenode.net
</filename> see
1564 (
<ulink url=
"http://freenode.net">http://freenode.net
</ulink>).
1565 Usually several Wine developers hang out there just to help YOU ;-)
1571 <question id=
"I-think-I-found-a-bug-How-do-I-report-it">
1573 I think I've found a bug. How do I report this bug to the Wine
1579 Bug reports should be submitted to our online Bugzilla system
1580 (
<ulink url=
"http://bugs.winehq.com">http://bugs.winehq.com/
</ulink>).
1581 You should include at least the following:
1586 The Wine version tested
1591 The Windows application name, including the version, and, if
1592 applicable, a URL the application can be downloaded from
1597 A brief description of the bug
1602 The relevant part(s) of the output of the Wine debugger
1607 A screenshot of the visual problem, if applicable
1612 For more information about reporting bugs please see the
1613 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.org/Docs/wine-user/bug-reporting.shtml">
1614 How to report a bug
</ulink> section of the Wine Users Guide.
1620 <qandadiv id=
"Helping-Wine-or-becoming-a-Wine-developer">
1621 <title>Helping Wine or becoming a Wine developer
</title>
1623 <question id=
"How-do-I-become-a-Wine-developer">
1624 <para>How do I become a Wine developer? What do I need to know?
</para>
1628 If you can program C, that's a good start. Download the sources via
1629 CVS, subscribe to the mailing lists, look around the source, and pay
1630 attention to the comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine newsgroup and the
1631 mailing lists (
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml">http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml
</ulink>). See if there's anything
1632 that you think you can fix or work on. You won't have much trouble
1633 finding areas that need work in Wine (grep for FIXMEs in the source).
1639 <question id=
"How-can-I-contribute-to-the-Wine-project">
1640 <para>How can I help contribute to the Wine project, and in what way(s)?
</para>
1644 You can contribute programming or documentation skills, or monetary
1645 or equipment donations, to aid the Wine developers in reaching their
1649 For a list of ideas of how you can help, please consult the
1650 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/about/index.php?contrib">
1651 Wine contrib page
</ulink>.
1657 <question id=
"I-want-to-help-beta-test-Wine">
1658 <para>I want to help beta test Wine. How can I do this?
</para>
1662 Wine still consists of some Alpha code at this time. However, anyone
1663 is welcome to download the latest version, and try it out at any
1670 <question id=
"I-wrote-some-code-I-would-like-to-submit">
1672 I have written some code that I would like to submit to the Wine
1673 project. How do I go about doing this?
1678 Patches are greatly appreciated and should be submitted to the
1679 wine-patches mailing list
1680 (
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml">http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml
</ulink>). Also see this page for
1681 a description of what happens to submitted patches.
1687 <qandadiv id=
"Developing-programs-using-Wine-WineLib">
1688 <title>Developing programs using Wine/WineLib
</title>
1690 <question id=
"Can-I-use-Wine-to-port-Win32-sources-to-Unix">
1691 <para>Can I use Wine to port my Win32 sources to Unix?
</para>
1695 That is the idea of Winelib. Right now you may still have some
1696 difficulties, but this is changing all the time. Read the
1697 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.org/Docs/winelib-user/">Winelib User's Guide
</ulink> for info.
1703 <question id=
"Will-MFC-work-with-Wine-What-do-I-need-to-do">
1704 <para>Will MFC work with Wine? What do I need to do?
</para>
1708 Wine is not implementing an MFC replacement nor does it intend to.
1709 However it is possible (with a lot of work) to compile the MFC from
1710 source and thus produce an
<filename>mfc42.dll.so
</filename> library.
1714 <ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.org/Docs/winelib-user/">Winelib User's Guide
</ulink> for how to do this.
1720 <question id=
"Are-there-commercial-apps-ported-using-Wine">
1722 Are there any commercial applications which have been ported
1728 A few examples of applications using Winelib:
1733 Corel's WordPerfect Office Suite
1739 (
<ulink url=
"http://www.ability.com/linux/abilitylinux.php">http://www.ability.com/linux/abilitylinux.php
</ulink>)
1745 (
<ulink url=
"http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/dl/swws/swwsgddb-p">http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/dl/swws/swwsgddb-p
</ulink>)
1750 Many other important applications have already been ported. (we are
1751 speaking of several top
500 applications here)
1757 <question id=
"How-can-I-detect-Wine">
1758 <para>How can I detect Wine?
</para>
1762 You really shouldn't want to do this. If there's a quirk in Wine
1763 you need to work around, it's much better to fix it in Wine (after
1764 all you're a developer, so you should be able to gather enough help
1765 and knowledge to fix it for real).
1773 <qandadiv id=
"Wine-HQ-issues">
1774 <title>Wine HQ issues
</title>
1776 <question id=
"Why-are-the-maillists-set-to-reply-to-author">
1778 Why are the maillists set to reply to author, not to mailing list?
1783 There are very valid reasons for doing so.
1789 <question id=
"How-to-unsubscribe-from-the-mailing-lists">
1790 <para>How to unsubscribe from the mailing lists?
</para>
1794 Please see:
<ulink url=
"http://www.winehq.org/development/#ml">http://www.winehq.org/development/#ml
</ulink>
1803 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
1806 sgml-parent-document:("wine-devel.sgml" "book" "part" "chapter" "")