Wine Basics for Beginners

Introduction

The article is devoted to Wine and all aspects of its use. The network is very
a lot of information, there are various setup guides and more. I
I will try to combine everything so that everyone can achieve
maximum success, within their abilities and of course the possibility
programs. So, let's begin.

Wine is a separate implementation of the Windows API, not an emulator, like most
think. Not once was repeated, but here it will be appropriate. This makes the project
unique and interesting for users of various systems, opens up various
ways to implement your ideas. The uniqueness lies in the fact that
This program can run Windows applications in Ubuntu and in other
Linux systems, as well as FreeBSD and Mac OS X. True, there is
their "pitfalls". Some think it will be easy to go with one.
systems to another, in this case, we are considering Windows and Linux.

The fallacy is that people think that they can run from
under Wine various software to which they are used and it is convenient for them to work in it.
How not cool just nothing happens. To earn our favorite software under
Wine needs to sweat, reread a bunch of manuals and weigh this volume.
information. Of course, not quite the software will have to be “puffed up”, but you have to be ready for everything. The Wine project develops very quickly, but until stable operation
very far. But I think that in the near future all the main software, as well as games
will work on it stably.
')

Wine installation

The first question of a person who has just switched to Linux (in our case
Ubuntu): "How will I run programs from Windows?". He starts searching for this
theme and naturally stumbles upon Wine.
The second question: "How to put it?". There are two ways: Put from
official repositories or compile most of the sources. We'll consider
both options.

Option 1: Install from the repository.

It's all very simple. Go to Applications // Standard // Terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.3

We are waiting for the completion of the installation ...
Everything! Wine is installed and you can try to install games and programs.

Option 2: Compile from source.

1. Download the source from the official site, there they are present. In my case
this is Wine 1.3.11 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wine/files/Source/wine-1.3.11.tar.bz2/download).

2. Unpack the source.
Then we enter the following commands in the terminal:

go to the directory into which the source code archive was unpacked:

cd wine-1.3.11/

Before compiling, you must enable OpenGL support. If we do not do this
applications that need OpenGL will not work. In the terminal:

gedit tools/wineinstall

Find the line that starts with CONFARGS =, and then enter the necessary ones in it
build options. In our case, the line will look like this:

CONFARGS="--with-opengl --disable-debug --disable-trace"

We get dependencies:

sudo apt-get install auto-apt checkinstall
sudo auto-apt -y run ./configure

We collect:

make

Install via package creation instead of make install

sudo checkinstall

Everything. We are waiting for the end of the installation.

There is also an intermediate option for Jedi on debian-based distributions. Briefly:

apt-get source wine1.3
sudo apt-get build-dep

Now the most interesting thing: download the required version of wine from the official site, unpack it, and copy the debian directory from the source directory of the original wine1.3 package there. Do

debuild

and we have a * .deb package for ubunt / debian with all the necessary patches for the distribution, almost like from the official repository, but only a new version. In addition, it is still then possible to safely remove it also through apt-get.
Consider the pros and cons of each of the options.

Option 1.
Pros:
1. For us, everything is already collected and no need to puff, everything is already ready for use.

Minuses:
1. We will not be able to apply a patch, for example, to improve the work of a toy.
2. Not stable work on some video cards.

Option 2.
Pros:
1. Ability to apply patches to improve performance
2. Stable work with non-stable video card drivers.

Minuses:
1. There is no menu in the Applications, which is not convenient. You have to do everything from the console,
go to the settings of Wine for example.
2. The installation process is too long, depending on the power of your computer.
1. There is no menu in the Applications, which is not convenient. You have to do everything from the console, go to the Wine settings for example. "

You can add it yourself through the System - Options - Main menu

I prefer the second option. Wine installed in this way works
better than the repository installed. But this is just my little IMHO.

Installation of programs and games

First we go to appdb.winehq.org Above, in the search engine we drive
the name of the game or program and see what is written there. Usually described there
tests on various systems, recommendations for stable operation and much more.

If the program works without problems, then install it with a pure soul.
simple click. If this is some kind of serious game or program and without
shamanism with a tambourine is not enough - it means you need to create a separate prefix * for
our dances. * All Vine files are stored in the prefix, or also called a bottle (according to the anology with wine). There inside this bottle are all the files on the C drive, the registry, the individual settings, and so on.

Such bottles can be any number.

It may just be some kind of software that behaves very whimsically under Vain and it needs some crutches that will interfere with the normal operation of other Vine applications. Then just put this software in a separate bottle (prefix) and any settings will not affect other programs.

When the Vine is started for the first time without the specified prefix, ~ / .wine is used. If the prefix does not exist, the vine will create it and fill it with default contents, create and fill with files the directories C: \ windows, C: \ Program Files, C: \ users. Plus a clean registry will be created.
Go to our home directory and create a new directory. For example .wine2.
Then go to the terminal and enter:

WINEPREFIX="/home/username/.wine2/" winecfg

Everything. Separate prefix created. It stores various registry configurations and the programs themselves.
Installation of the program is also made through the console.

WINEPREFIX="/home/username/.wine2/" wine /media/DVD/setup.exe

There is an installation process and most importantly in a separate prefix.
Then we run the already installed program, also from the console and watch the output.

There may be errors in the output, stating that there are no necessary components and libraries. AT
winetricks will help us to install the missing components (see below)

What does this give? It gives stable operation of applications in its prefix, if
a lot of programs will work in one prefix, sooner or later it will become clogged
which will cause other programs to crash. Therefore, you need to use separate
prefixes if you don’t want to customize everything many times.

Winetricks

In the correct setting of the prefix will help us winetricks.
Winetricks is a script that installs various components that
required for the operation of the application, such as DirectX, Vcredist and more.
How does this script work? It downloads libraries and components from
Microsoft-ovsky resources. Exactly and not otherwise. Why this script
need a This greatly simplifies working with Wine. Without the script, we would have climbed and
searched for the necessary components, and here everything is already done, you just need to tick
and click "Install" Also this script helps to edit the registry,
enter there various keys. And besides this, winetricks has a lot of settings.
and functions.

To familiarize yourself with it, just type winetricks in the terminal

Registry Editing

In the terminal we enter:

regedit

We are in the registry. We do not need to edit anything, we will only add.

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software / Wine / Direct3D.

If there is no Direct3D directory, then do not despair. I am writing this to make the reader understand
somewhere you need to edit or add.

In the terminal:

winetricks ddr=opengl orm=fbo glsl=disabled videomemorysize=1024
(1024 )

All these parameters appear in the registry. This can be viewed in the folder above.

What does this give? It improves gaming performance, speed and general games.
work from this is better, but it is only for games.

Playonlinux

There is also PlayOnLinux. This is a separate program that uses Wine,
but there more everything is automated and configured. The program itself will download the desired
Wine, installs the components and creates a separate prefix. But this does not mean that
everything will work perfectly. May not work at all. So I give my
preference to ordinary Wine, manual tuning and the work of one’s own brain, rather than
automated program.

Pros:
Everything is automated and we essentially do not need to do anything.
You can hold multiple versions of Wine and apply them to different prefixes.
The program itself creates prefixes.

Minuses:
Everything that the program does, installs and downloads is impossible to predict.
All that the program does can be done by hand, this is + to human knowledge.
The program "Robot" never compares with the human brain.

Mounting CD / DVD images

On Windows, there is a utility for this called Daemon-Tools. It is very comfortable
and not replaceable utility. A person has a question: Is there an analogue of this
wonder utility? Answer: There are many better Windows utilities. Called she
Cdemu To install it, we need to enter only three commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cdemu/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cdemu-daemon cdemu-client gcdemu

Add an applet to the panel, specify the path to the image and enjoy life. Not what
there will be no problems and Wine will perfectly define the image. If the applet is not found take the time to reboot.
In the terminal, enter the command:

sudo service cdemu-daemon start

If the service does not start when the system starts (“The daemon is not configured at the system startup”), you can fix it like this:

sudo update-rc.d cdemu-daemon enable

Running games in a separate X server

This can shine a whole book, but I stopped at one way that I always use:

Go to the virtual terminal:

Ctrl + Alt + F1
login: ******
password: ******

We manually launch a new copy of the X server:

xinit -- :2
wine //c//game.exe

The gain from this is not big, but I personally have enough of it. I repeat:
There are many ways to run in a separate x-server and each person is free to choose.

Conclusion

All these tips, the basics that everyone should know who wants to
use Wine to achieve your goals. Everything else is in your hands. If a
you want to reach your goal no matter what, and hope is already leaving, not
never despair, for the solution may be in your face. To sit
on two chairs is possible, but for this you need desire and nerves of steel. A wish
- a thousand opportunities, not a desire - a thousand reasons.

This material was written for the “First competition of Russian-language articles for the OS
Ubuntu "(konkurs.ubuntu.ru)
The author of the article is Vladimir Kacharmin aka rootboot
Contacts: Skype root.boot2, email verda.info@gmail.com