Wine

Wine is a WINdows Emulator which allows a Linux user to play windows games and other programs. Free Geek Tech Support will offer help with installing or configuring wine only in limited circumstances , but it can still be a fun and potentially useful project for the geekier minded adopter. Installing is easy from the command line (apt-get install wine) or from the Ubuntu Software Center. Each user on the system needs to configure the installation using winecfg. Programs can be installed or run by opening the exe file in wine.

Wine Application Database: You can check to see if a specific game or program will work on wine by visiting the wine application database. If the program has already been tested by someone it should contain a page with information on how well the game runs and any notes or instructions for getting the game running properly on Linux.

Installing wine

Wine can be installed using the Ubuntu Software Center under the Ubuntu Applications menu. We recommend the stable version of Wine Ubuntu includes in its repositories (this is the only version we will support) , however might chose to use the latest version available from the official wine repositories if you are installing it yourself. Instructions for installing the latest version of wine can be found here.

Installing Windows Programs in wine

wine-doors is a type package manger for wine that helps assist users in installing some more common windows applications under wine. These programs include Internet Explorer 6, Steam (Half-Life 2, Portal, ect), World Of Warcraft, Windows Media Player, and many others.

For applications not included in wine doors, most windows applications can be installed simply by double clicking on the executable file after wine has been installed. Wine installs programs to a virtual windows drive which can be access by going to the applications menu and selecting wine> Browse Wine Drive. If a program created a desktop icon or start menu item for windows it should be located on your ubuntu desktop and/or under the wine programs menu respectively.

A simular manager is Wine Windows Program Manager which allows right-click launching of Windows apps such as IE standalone installers.

Some tips:

• Programs on multiple cds are often easier to install if you copy all the files on to the hard drive first.
• Many games require high end video cards and the binary drivers for those cards (e.g. NVidia)
• If you want to install the binary drivers for your video card see this page
• Always try to find a standalone installer instead of the popular installer which will depend on a lot of Internet access.