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.
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 LGPL.
52 <question id="Is-Wine-an-emulator">
53 <para>Is Wine an emulator?</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. The
60 advantage is that, unlike solutions that rely on emulation, Wine
61 runs applications run at full speed.
67 <question id="Are-here-any-alternatives-to-Wine">
68 <para>Are there any alternatives to Wine?</para>
72 Yes, there are. You can use <ulink url="http://www.vmware.com">VMWare</ulink> to run a Windows installation inside a virtual machine,
73 or use <ulink url="http://www.win4lin.com">Win4Lin</ulink>
74 to run a specially adapted Windows version on Linux.
75 Both solutions cost money for both the software itself
76 and a Windows license.
79 Note that, like Wine, they can only use the hardware platform that
80 the target programs were originally compiled for (see below).
86 <question id="Difference-between-Wine-and-emulators">
87 <para>What is the difference between Wine and x86 hardware emulators?</para>
91 There are two free x86 hardware emulators:
92 <ulink url="http://bochs.sourceforge.net">bochs</ulink>, and
93 <ulink url="http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/plex86">plex86</ulink>.
97 Plex86 is the opensource free-software alternative for VMWare,
98 VirtualPC, and other IA-32 on IA-32 "Virtual PC products." It
99 can only run on the IA-32 architecture.
103 Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator
104 written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation
105 of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently,
106 bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486 or Pentium CPU. Bochs is capable
107 of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux,
108 Windows® 95, DOS, and recently Windows® NT 4.
112 Both are licensed under the GPL. Bochs is older than plex86, seems to be
113 easier to install, but plex86 will run faster because plex86 uses a just in
114 time binary compiler.
117 The drawback of all emulators is that you need a version
118 of Windows in order to run Windows, and that they all have an
119 impact on performance.
126 <question id="Why-would-anyone-want-Wine-Windows-suck">
127 <para>Why would anyone want Wine? Doesn't Windows suck?</para>
131 First Wine is not about running Windows but about running Windows
135 So if all your computing needs are fulfilled by native Unix
136 applications, then you do not need Wine and should not be using
137 it. However, if you depend on one or more of the tens of
138 thousands of Windows applications, then Wine is the best way to
139 use it without giving up on Unix. Let's look at the alternatives
143 The most obvious alternative is to dual-boot. This is the solution
144 that provides the best compatibility. However it requires that you
145 acquire a Windows license and then dedicate a good chunk of your
146 hard-drive to Windows. But the worst is yet to come. Each time you
147 will want to use that application you will have to reboot to
148 Windows. This is especially significant if external factors dictate
149 when you must use this application (e.g. credit card to process,
150 email to retrieve from a Lotus Notes server). Then you will find
151 yourself forced to close all your Linux applications just to run
152 that one Windows application. You may quickly get tired of this, or
153 will find that such a situation is impossible to justify in a
154 business environment.
157 The next solution is to install virtual machine emulation software
158 such as VMWare, Win4Lin or Plex86. Then you can use windows
159 applications without suffering such a big disruption. But it still
160 requires that you acquire a Windows license and dedicate as much
161 disk space to Windows. Furthermore you will pay for the added
162 convenience: if using VMWare or Win4Lin you have to buy another
163 license, and more importantly you now have to dedicate a good chunk
164 of your computer's memory to the virtual machine. Performance will
165 take a significant hit too.
168 Using Wine lets you avoid all of that overhead: Windows license,
169 hard-drive space required by Windows, memory and performance hit
170 taken by emulated virtual machines. Now you can start your Windows
171 application straight from your regular desktop environment, place
172 that application's window side by side with native application
173 windows, copy/paste from one to the other, and run it all at full speed.
176 It is also a pretty vital part of migrating a large organisation,
177 you can't change a 5000 desktop setup overnight without a lot of risk.
183 <question id="Which-one-of-the-different-Wine-packages">
184 <para>Which one of the different Wine packages out there is good for me?</para>
188 Currently there is a broad selection of different Wine packages/versions:
193 <term><ulink url="http://www.winehq.com">Wine</ulink></term>
196 This is the "standard" source distribution of Wine. Its license is
197 the LGPL, it can be downloaded for free.
203 <term><ulink url="http://rewind.sourceforge.net">ReWind</ulink></term>
206 This is a forked Wine tree that got created when Wine changed its
207 license from X11 to the more restrictive LGPL, in order to let
208 people continue to maintain an X11 licensed Wine version. Its
209 license is X11, it can be downloaded for free.
215 <term><ulink url="http://www.transgaming.com">Transgaming's WineX</ulink></term>
218 This is TransGaming's Wine version specially suited for games.
219 It includes Direct3D support (thus its DirectX support is much
220 more complete than Wine's). Most of the code is under the AFPL
221 and can be downloaded for free.
224 However Transgaming also distributes binaries that contain
225 improved copy protection support (needed for many
226 games), support, and other enhancements. These packages are
227 only available in binary form to subscribed customers
234 <term><ulink url="http://wine.codeweavers.com">CodeWeavers' Wine preview</ulink></term>
237 This is a special packaged version of the standard Wine tree
238 which has a nice setup for easy installation. License LGPL, free
245 <term><ulink url="http://www.codeweavers.com/products/crossover/">CodeWeavers' Crossover Plugin</ulink></term>
248 Special Wine installation to be used for running Windows
249 Netscape browser plugins such as e.g. QuickTime in Linux
250 browsers. Costs $24.95.
251 Well worth it (very stable and useful packaging).
257 <term><ulink url="http://www.codeweavers.com/products/office/">CodeWeavers' Crossover Office</ulink></term>
260 Wine version with special packaging to make sure almost all
261 important Office type programs work pretty well. Costs $54.95.
262 Seems to be well worth it so far according to some comments.
263 (note: you're supporting a company actively contributing to Wine
264 if you decide to buy either Plugin or Office.
270 <term><ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/download/">Other packaged versions of Wine</ulink></term>
273 Various Wine packages can be downloaded for free from
274 Wine HQ. They are not officially packaged by Wine HQ, and as
275 such may have some configuration inconsistencies.
284 <question id="Whats-the-history-of-Wine">
285 <para>What's the history of Wine?</para>
289 The Wine project started in 1993 as a way to support running Windows 3.1
290 programs on Linux. Bob Amstadt was the original coordinator, but turned
291 it over fairly early on to Alexandre Julliard, who has run it ever
292 since. A <ulink url="news:comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine">newsgroup</ulink>
293 was created in July 1994. Over the years, ports for
294 other Unixes have been added, along with support for Win32 as Win32
295 applications became popular.
298 For more information, see <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/about.shtml">
299 http://www.winehq.com/about.shtml</ulink>
305 <question id="What-is-the-current-version-of-Wine">
306 <para>What is the current version of Wine?</para>
310 A new version of Wine is distributed about every month. You will be
311 able to keep up on all the latest releases by reading the newsgroup
312 <ulink url="news:comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine">
313 comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine</ulink>, or by visiting the
314 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com">Wine HQ homepage</ulink>. When
315 downloading Wine from your FTP site of choice (see
316 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/download.shtml">the Download page</ulink>
317 for some of these choices), you can make sure that you are getting
318 the latest version by watching the version numbers in the distribution
319 filename. For instance, the distribution released on October 31, 2002
320 was called Wine-20021031.tar.gz. Patch files are also available. If
321 you are current to the previous version, you can download and apply
322 just the current patch file rather than the entire new distribution.
323 The patch filenames follow the same conventions as the monthly
324 distribution. <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml">
325 Read-only CVS</ulink> access is also available.
331 <question id="What-is-the-current-Status-of-Wine">
332 <para>What is the current Status of Wine?</para>
336 As of mid 2002, Wine consists of over 1 million lines of C code,
337 written by more than 300 developers from dozens of countries around
338 the world. Wine is in active use by an estimated 100K people. Wine
339 implements more than 90% of the calls in popular Windows
340 specifications such as ECMA-234 and Open32.
343 You may also want to look at the
344 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/about/index.php?status">
345 Status page</ulink> for a global view on Wine's implementation progress.
351 <question id="When-will-Wine-be-finished">
352 <para>When will Wine be finished?</para>
356 Large software projects are never finished, only released. In any
357 case Wine is chasing a moving target since every new release of
358 Windows contains new API calls or variations on the existing ones.
361 Because Wine is being developed by volunteers, it is difficult to
362 predict when it will be ready for general release. But due to the
363 much increased interest by companies in porting apps via Wine, Wine
364 development is constantly getting more and more active. Right now
365 we are working on releasing Wine 0.9 in 2003.
371 <question id="Who-is-responsible-for-Wine">
372 <para>Who is responsible for Wine?</para>
376 Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. Please see the
377 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/source/AUTHORS">AUTHORS</ulink>
378 file in the distribution for the complete list. Some companies that
379 are or have been involved with Wine development are CodeWeavers,
380 TransGaming, Corel, and Macadamian.
386 <question id="folks-who-contributed-money-or-equipment">
387 <para>Who are the folks and organizations who have contributed money or equipment to the Wine project?</para>
391 People and organizations who have given generous contributions of
392 money, equipment, or licenses, include:
394 <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
396 <para>David L. Harper</para>
399 <para>Bob Hepple</para>
402 <para>Mark A. Horton</para>
405 <para>Kevin P. Lawton</para>
408 <para>The Syntropy Institute</para>
411 <para>James Woulfe</para>
415 VMWare Inc. (<ulink url="http://www.vmware.com">
416 http://www.vmware.com</ulink>)
421 Corel (<ulink url="http://www.corel.com">
422 http://www.corel.com</ulink>)
430 <question id="What-undocumented-APIs-are-not-understood">
431 <para>What undocumented APIs / interfaces are not understood? Would
432 seeing Microsoft source help?
437 The best would be if the Windows API was fully documented, so Wine
438 could be a perfect "clean-room" implementation. Seeing the source
439 code might make it harder to prove that no copyright violations have
440 taken place. That said, the documentation is often bad, nonexistent,
441 and even misleading where it exists, so a fair amount of reverse
442 engineering has been necessary, particularly in the shell (Explorer)
449 <question id="Is-TransGamings-last-patch-included-in-Wine">
450 <para>Is TransGaming's latest patch included in the standard Wine release?</para>
457 TransGaming makes money via a subscription service and the license
458 of their WineX tree is incompatible with the Wine license. Thus
459 WineX patches cannot be integrated into the Wine tree without
460 express permission by TransGaming. They have submitted some
461 of their work for integration into Wine, most notably DirectDraw
462 and some DirectSound work, and such work has been integrated into
463 Wine tree. However it seems unlikely they will submit their Direct3D
470 <question id="Will-there-be-a-Windows-version-of-Wine">
471 <para>Will there be a Windows version of Wine?</para>
475 Some people are working on getting Wine code to compile on Windows.
477 <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
480 Cygwin (<ulink url="http:/www.cygwin.com">
481 http://www.cygwin.com/</ulink>)
486 Reactos (<ulink url="http://www.reactos.com/">
487 http://www.reactos.com/</ulink>)
492 There's some progress, so a Wine version that's usable on Windows
493 might be available at some time.
499 <qandadiv id="What-do-I-need-in-order-to-use-Wine">
500 <title>What do I need in order to use Wine?</title>
502 <question id="Under-what-platforms-will-Wine-run">
504 Under what hardware platform(s) and operating system(s) will
510 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.
511 Winelib however is capable of porting Windows program <emphasis>source code</emphasis> to other platforms also, not only x86.
514 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
515 on MacOS X would be to take Windows program source code and recompile it for e.g. MacOS X using Winelib.
518 The following will list the x86 operating systems supported by
519 Wine; Winelib support for other platforms keeps evolving,
520 so it's not specifically listed here.
523 NetBSD, OpenBSD, Unixware, and SCO OpenServer 5 worked at one time,
524 but Wine now requires kernel-level threads which are not currently
525 available (or understood by the Wine team) on those platforms.
528 The Wine development team hopes to attract the interest of other
529 commercial UNIX and UNIX clone vendors as well.
532 BeOS: porting efforts used to be pretty strong, but BeOS has severe
533 limitations in Unix call support, so a port will probably never
537 FreeBSD: Should work, with limitations in specific areas (mainly
538 missing device/hardware support).
541 Linux/x86: Works, and as most popular platform for both developers
542 and users, it is the best supported platform of all.
548 <question id="What-minimum-CPU-must-I-have">
550 What minimum CPU must I have in my computer to be able to run Wine
551 and MS Windows applications smoothly?
556 We need to differentiate between Wine and Winelib here.
559 Wine won't run on any x86 CPU less than an 80386 due to address
560 management limitations.
563 It is known to also work in the 80486 and upwards compatible CPUs.
564 The basic test is, if you can run X11 now, you should be able to run
565 Wine and MS Windows applications under it.
568 As always, the faster your CPU, the better. Having a math coprocessor
569 is unimportant. However, having a graphics accelerated video card
570 supported by X will help greatly.
573 Depending on your application you may find that faster speeds are
574 required for sensible use. We can't give specific advice on that due
575 to the vast range of applications out there. However the rule of
576 thumb is that if your application runs fine on Windows, it should
577 run fine on the same platform in Wine.
583 <question id="How-much-disk-space-will-Wine-take">
585 How much disk space will the Wine source code and binaries take on my
591 You need approximately 250 megabytes of free hard drive space to
592 store and compile the source code. Wine also needs about 18 megs in
593 your /tmp directory. And about 50 MB are needed to do a make install.
596 Binary packages, especially those not containing debug information,
597 have much lower disk space requirements, usually in the 20MB range.
603 <question id="What-other-software-do-I-need-to-compile">
605 What other software do I need to install, compile and run
611 Many development tools are needed in order to compile Wine.
612 A list of required packages for several distributions is included in
613 the README (<ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/source/README">
614 http://www.winehq.com/source/README</ulink>).
617 To run Wine, you will need the following:
620 <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
622 <para>The compiled Wine binary</para>
625 <para>A properly configured wine.conf file (or ~/.winerc file)</para>
628 <para>An installed and working X Window system</para>
631 <para>Some Windows programs to test</para>
637 <question id="How-much-RAM-do-I-need">
639 How much RAM do I need to have on my UNIX system to be able to run
640 Wine and MS Windows applications smoothly?
645 If you can run X smoothly on your UNIX system now, you should be
646 able to run Wine and MS Windows applications just fine too, depending
647 on how memory hungry the application is.
650 A Wine workstation will work with 16 megabytes of RAM and a 16
651 megabyte swap partition as long as you have a reasonable graphics
652 card. Most applications will run reasonably with 64/64 Mb,
653 interactive games are likely to need more. You can run Wine with 8/8,
654 but it is going to be unusably slow and very constraining on the
655 applications you can run. If you wish to be part of the development
656 team and program Wine itself, be aware that the debugger is rather
657 memory intensive. Some have suggested that 64 megabytes is the
658 minimum RAM needed for Wine development, although some are able to
659 work (albeit slowly) with 24 megabytes of physical RAM and lots of
666 <question id="How-long-does-Wine-take-to-build">
667 <para>How long does Wine take to build</para>
671 Wine is getting to be quite large, and building from scratch takes a
672 lot of processing. As of September 2002, compile times were around 20
673 minutes on an Athlon 1200 with 640 Mb and 45-50 minutes on a Cyrix
674 300 with 64 Mb. If you have a CVS copy, you may not need to rebuild
675 the whole thing every time you update.
680 <question id="I-have-a-Drivespaced-partition">
682 I have a Drivespaced, Doublespaced or Stackered DOS partition. Can
683 Wine run MS Windows binaries located in such a partition?
688 Yes, but only if the operating system supports mounting those types
689 of drives. There is a Linux file system driver called dmsdos that
690 will allow read/write access to Doublespaced and Drivespace 1.0
691 drives. More specifically, it supports mounting DOS 6.0 and 6.2
692 Doublespaced, DOS 6.22 Drivespaced, and Windows 95 Doublespaced
693 compressed partitions (read and write access works fine, but write
694 access is slow). It can be found at
695 <ulink url="ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/filesystems/dosfs/">
696 ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/file systems/dosfs/</ulink>
702 <question id="Do-I-need-to-have-a-DOS-partition">
703 <para>Do I need to have a DOS partition on my system to use Wine?</para>
707 You do not need a licensed and installed copy of DOS or MS Windows to
708 install, configure and run Wine. However, Wine has to be able to
709 'see' an MS Windows binary (i.e. application) if it is to run it.
715 <question id="Does-MS-Windows-need-to-be-installed">
717 Does MS Windows need to be loaded into that partition in order to
718 run MS Windows programs under Wine?
723 Many folks have successfully installed and run some small programs
724 in their UNIX filesystem without having a DOS partition or MS
725 Windows. However, in many cases you need a directory and file
726 infrastructure that is similar to an existing Windows installation.
727 Some applications' installation programs want to distribute some of
728 the package's files into the /windows and /windows/system
729 directories in order to run, and unless these exist on your UNIX
730 file system, those programs will not install correctly and probably
731 will not run well, if at all.
734 If you have a DOS partition with MS Windows installed in it, make
735 sure that your UNIX system can 'see' this partition (check your
736 /etc/fstab file or mount the partition manually) so that Wine can
737 run the MS Windows binaries located in the DOS partition. To run
738 without a DOS partition, you need to set a UNIX path to be your
739 drive C, and make sure that the /windows and /windows/system
740 directories point to some place that actually exist.
743 Here's an example, copied from a machine which has no DOS partition
744 but successfully runs Wine:
754 System=c:\windows\system
756 Path=c:\windows;c:\windows\system;c:
759 In <filename>/var/lib/wine/windows</filename>, you will need to
760 install a <filename>win.ini</filename> config file that you might
761 find on a typical MS Windows 3.1 machine. The directory
762 <filename>/var/lib/wine/windows/system</filename> should exist, but
763 doesn't need to contain anything. However, to use MS DLLs, you can
764 copy them into that directory. Note that this is a contravention of
765 the Windows licence unless Windows is properly installed on the
766 machine. If you have DOS/MS Windows installed on your system, you can
767 mount that partition at bootup by modifying the file
768 <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> in your UNIX partition (assuming that
769 the UNIX kernel supports the DOS/MS Windows filesystem type).
772 If you edit this file by hand, it should contain something similar
776 /dev/hda1 /dosc msdos uid=0,gid=100,umask=007 0 0
779 This will allow you to read and write to the DOS partition without
786 <question id="If-Wine-completely-replaces-MS-Windows">
788 If Wine completely replaces MS Windows, will it duplicate all of the
789 functions of MS Windows?
794 Most of them, yes. However, some applications and applets that come
795 with MS Windows, such as File Manager and Calculator, can be
796 considered by some to be redundant, since 32-bit UNIX programs that
797 duplicate these applets' functions already exist.
803 <question id="Will-I-install-on-ony-UNIX-file-system">
805 Will I be able to install MS Windows applications in any flavor of a
811 Wine is written to be file system independent, so MS Windows
812 applications will install and run under virtually any file system
813 supported by your brand of UNIX.
819 <question id="Will-Wine-run-only-under-X">
820 <para>Will Wine run only under X, or can it run in character mode?</para>
824 Most of Wine's development effort is geared against MS Windows' GUI,
825 but some limited support for character mode has appeared, by setting
826 <parameter>GraphicsDriver=ttydrv</parameter> in wine.conf's
827 <parameter>[wine]</parameter> section.
830 Wine's infrastructure is already somewhat prepared for supporting
831 other graphics drivers than x11drv, but no real "alternative"
832 graphics driver has been developped yet.
838 <question id="Will-Wine-run-under-any-X-window-manager">
839 <para>Will Wine run under any X window manager? Does it require a window manager at all?</para>
843 Wine is window manager independent, so the X window manager you
844 choose to run has (almost) no bearing on your ability to run MS
845 Windows programs under Wine. Wine uses standard X libraries, so no
846 additional ones are needed. Wine has its own window management,
847 which acts like MS Windows. It can be turned off to use the native
848 window manager by modifying Managed or Desktop settings as described
849 in <command>man wine.conf</command>.
855 <question id="Will-32-bit-applications-run-under-Wine">
856 <para>Will 32-bit Windows 95/98 applications run under Wine?</para>
860 Yes, 32-bit programs are now about as well supported as 16-bit
867 <qandadiv id="FAQ-Getting-Wine">
868 <title>Getting Wine</title>
870 <question id="Where-can-I-get-Wine">
871 <para>Where can I get Wine?</para>
875 Because of lags created by using mirror, word of this newest release
876 may reach you before the release is actually available at the ftp
877 sites listed here. The sources are available from the following
883 <ulink url="http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/wine/development/">
884 http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/wine/development/
890 <ulink url="ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/ALPHA/wine/development/">
891 ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/ALPHA/wine/development/
898 <ulink url="ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/unix/linux/mirrors/sunsite.unc.edu/ALPHA/wine/development/">
899 ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/unix/linux/mirrors/sunsite.unc.edu/ALPHA/wine/development/
906 <ulink url="ftp://orcus.progsoc.uts.edu.au/pub/Wine/development/">
907 ftp://orcus.progsoc.uts.edu.au/pub/Wine/development/
914 It should also be available from any other site that mirrors
915 ibiblio.org. For more download locations, see
916 <ulink url="http://ftp search.lycos.com.">lycos</ulink> Some of
917 these ftp sites may archive previous versions of Wine as well as the
918 current one. To determine which is the latest one, look at the
919 distribution file name, which will take the form
920 Wine-YYYYMMDD.tar.gz. Simply replace YYYYMMDD in the distribution
921 file name with the numbers for year, month and date, respectively.
922 The latest one is the one to get.
925 Wine binary packages are available for several OS'es and
927 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/download.shtml">
928 the download page</ulink> for the most recent list.
934 <question id="Is-there-a-CVS-tree">
935 <para>Is there a CVS tree?</para>
939 Current Wine sources are also available via anonymous client/server
940 CVS. You will need CVS 1.9 or above. If you are coming from behind a
941 firewall, you will either need a hole in the firewall for the CVS
942 port (2401) or use SOCKS.
945 To login to the CVS tree, do
948 export CVSROOT=:pserver:cvs@cvs.winehq.com/home/wine
952 Use "cvs" as the password (without the quotes). Note that
953 <filename>/home/wine</filename> is a path on the server, not on your
954 machine. To check out the entire Wine source tree (which may be
958 cvs -z 3 checkout wine
961 or if you just want a subtree, or individual file, you can do that
965 cvs -z 3 checkout wine/ANNOUNCE
968 Be aware, though, that getting the entire Wine source tree via CVS
969 is pretty slow, especially compared to getting Wine from an FTP
970 mirror near you. For a CVS mirror list, see
971 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml">
972 http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml</ulink>
975 Patch files are also available, so that you don't have to download,
976 install, and configure the entire distribution each week if you are
977 current to the previous release. Patch file release names follow the
978 same numbering convention as do the general releases, and take the
982 Wine-YYYYMMDD.diff.gz
985 Patch files are available from the same sites that distribute the
986 full release. To upgrade to a new release by using a patch file,
987 first cd to the top-level directory of the release (the one
988 containing the README file), then do a "make clean", and patch the
992 gunzip -c patch-file | patch -p1
995 where patch-file is the name of the patch file something like
996 Wine-YYYYMMDD.diff.gz. You can then re-run ./configure, and then run
1000 If you are mirroring the Wine distribution from the tsx-11 site and
1001 wish to be listed here in this FAQ, please add it to the
1002 "things to go into the documentation" area.
1008 <question id="Can-I-get-Wine-using-cvsup">
1009 <para>Can I get Wine using cvsup?</para>
1013 The CVS mirrors don't offer cvsup support yet, but the main server
1014 does. Use a <filename>wine.sup</filename> file of:
1017 *default host=cvs.winehq.com
1019 *default prefix=/cvs/wine
1020 *default release=wine
1023 # If your network link is a T1 or faster, comment out the following line.
1026 *default use-rel-suffix
1033 <qandadiv id="Installing-And-Configuring-Wine">
1034 <title>Installing And Configuring Wine</title>
1036 <question id="How-do-I-compile-the-Wine-source-code">
1037 <para>How do I compile the Wine distribution source code?</para>
1041 See the README (<ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/source/README">http://www.winehq.com/source/README</ulink>) for instructions.
1042 Additionally, you may want to set the <parameter>TMPDIR</parameter>
1043 environment variable <command>TMPDIR=~/tmp</command> or
1044 <command>TMPDIR=/tmp</command> (if you are root).
1050 <question id="How-do-I-install-Windows-in-Wine">
1051 <para>How do I install Windows in Wine under Linux?</para>
1055 Simple answer: you CAN'T. Windows demands direct access to the
1056 hardware and cannot get it with Wine and UNIX in the way
1059 Wine is supposed to be used WITHOUT Windows primarily. If you want
1060 to use a Windows installation, then use an existing installation
1061 alongside the UNIX installation (see the dual-boot HOWTO for your OS
1062 for more details). Or alternatively use the cabextract utility to
1063 extract Windows install archives to a directory that you want to use
1064 as Wine's Windows tree.
1070 <question id="How-do-I-configure-Wine-to-run-on-my-system">
1071 <para>How do I configure Wine to run on my system?</para>
1075 Wine requires that you have a config file as
1076 <filename>~/.wine/config</filename>. The format of this file is
1077 explained in the <filename>wine.conf</filename> man page. The file
1078 <filename>documentation/samples/config</filename>
1079 (<ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/source/documentation/samples/config">
1080 http://www.winehq.com/source/documentation/samples/config</ulink>)
1081 contains a config file example. More explicit directions can be
1082 found in the <filename>README</filename> file
1083 (<ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/source/README">
1084 http://www.winehq.com/source/README</ulink>) that will be located in
1085 the base Wine directory after you gunzip and untar the distribution
1092 <question id="How-do-I-upgrade-configuration">
1093 <para>How do I upgrade Wine without losing my working configuration?</para>
1097 Upgrading the wine installation does not affect the existing wine
1098 configuration. So after upgrading wine you still have the old (working )
1105 <question id="If-I-use-Windows-which-versions-OK">
1106 <para>If I want to use a Windows install, which versions are OK?</para>
1110 Either use a classic no-windows install (Wine is getter better all
1111 the time) or use a Win9x install (Win95, 98, 98SE, ME). DON'T
1112 configure Wine to use an NT-based Windows install (NT, Win2K, WinXP).
1118 <question id="If-I-use-Windows-which-one-works-best">
1119 <para>If I use a Windows install with Wine, which one works best?</para>
1126 I'd say Win98SE is the best version to use with Wine, as it's fairly
1127 widespread amongst developers and relatively old. Using Win2K files
1128 is <emphasis>definitely</emphasis> worse than a plain no-windows
1129 Wine install, and Win ME is said to be problematic, too (as probably
1130 no developer uses it). In short: all Win9x <= W98SE are good.
1136 <question id="Installing-Visual-Basic-apps-wont-run">
1138 Installing applications generated by Visual Basic won't run. What
1144 Make sure you have all the VB runtime libraries installed. You may
1145 need to use the native DLL vbrun60.dll
1151 <question id="When-I-click-on-exe-file-nothing-happens">
1152 <para>When I click on *.exe file in my file Manager, nothing happens</para>
1156 The normal Wine releases don't have .exe extensions registered for
1157 Wine in KDE/Gnome yet. You have to open a terminal window instead
1158 (often an icon showing a "black screen") and type something like:
1161 cd /my/windows/program/directory
1165 Or alternatively you could download the CodeWeavers Wine preview
1166 which includes .exe extension registration for KDE/Gnome and a nice
1173 <question id="bash-wine-Command-not-found-What-can-I-do">
1174 <para>bash "wine: Command not found" What can I do?</para>
1178 Try to relogin into bash. That might fix it.
1181 If it doesn't, then make sure the wine binary is in your
1182 <parameter>PATH</parameter>.
1188 find / -name "wine" -type f -perm +111
1191 to find the path where the wine binary is in. Then check whether
1192 <parameter>PATH</parameter> includes it:
1198 If not, add that e.g. to <filename>/etc/profile</filename> by doing:
1201 export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/wine/binary
1207 If you used a package manager (<command>rpm</command> or
1208 <command>apt</command>) - Verify your packages. The package
1209 <filename>winesetuptk.rpm</filename> is only a front-end for
1210 making a meaningfull config file, it DOES NOT install the wine
1214 For complete packages, use <ulink url="http://www.rpmfind.net/">
1215 www.rpmfind.net</ulink> or the <ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/download/">
1216 Download</ulink> section.
1222 <question id="How-do-I-remove-Wine-from-my-Computer">
1223 <para>How do I remove Wine from my Computer?</para>
1227 All you have to do is to type:
1230 rm -fR \[/path/\]Wine*
1233 Make sure that you specify the exact path when using the powerful
1234 <command>rm -fR</command> command. If you are afraid that you might
1235 delete something important, or might otherwise delete other files
1236 within your filesystem, <command>cd</command> into each Wine
1237 subdirectory singly and delete the files found there manually,
1238 one file or directory at a time.
1241 Neither the Wine developers and programmers, nor the Wine FAQ
1242 author/maintainer, can be held responsible for your deleting any
1243 files in your own filesystem.
1249 <qandadiv id="About-running-Wine">
1250 <title>About running Wine</title>
1252 <question id="How-do-I-run-an-MS-Windows-program">
1253 <para>How do I run an MS Windows program under Wine?</para>
1257 When invoking Wine, you must specify the entire path to the
1258 executable, or by filename only. For example to run Windows'
1259 solitaire, type any of the following:
1264 <command>wine sol</command> or <command>wine sol.exe</command>
1265 (using the search path to locate the file).
1270 <command>wine c:\\windows\\sol.exe</command>
1271 (using a DOS filename).
1276 <command>wine /usr/windows/sol.exe</command>
1277 (using a UNIX filename).
1282 <command>wine "c:\windows\sol.exe"</command>
1283 (using quoted DOS filename).
1288 The path of the file will also be added to the path when a full name
1289 is supplied on the command line.
1296 <question id="Wine-cannot-find-MS-Windows-on-my-drive">
1298 I have installed and configured Wine, but Wine cannot find MS
1299 Windows on my drive. Where did I go wrong?
1304 If you have a DOS partition, first make sure that you have mounted
1305 it, either by putting the entry into <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>,
1306 or by manually mounting it.
1309 Remember too that unless your version of UNIX can see through it, or
1310 you are running a utility that can see through it, your DOS
1311 partition must not be located on a Drivespaced, Doublespaced or
1312 Stackered partition, as neither Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD or Wine can
1313 natively 'see' files located in these compressed DOS partitions.
1316 Check your path statements in the <filename>wine.conf</filename>
1317 file. No capital letters may be used in paths, as they are
1318 automatically converted to lowercase.
1324 <question id="Parts-of-my-app-do-not-work-What-is-wrong">
1326 I was able to get various MS Windows programs to run, but parts of
1327 them do not work. What is wrong?
1332 Wine is not complete at this time, so some of each programs'
1333 features may not work. They will in time as more of the MS
1334 Windows API calls are included in Wine.
1340 <question id="Menus-do-not-work-how-can-I-exit">
1342 I have run various MS Windows programs, but since the program menus
1343 do not work, how can I exit these programs?
1348 Kill the xterm shell window that you called up to run your MS
1349 Windows program, and the X window that appeared with the program
1356 <question id="Can-I-use-Wine-with-other-Linux-Distros">
1357 <para>Can I use Wine with SuSe, Peanut or other Linux Distro's?</para>
1361 You can use Wine on any sufficiently recent Linux installation. The
1362 amount of work getting Wine up and running depends on whether there
1363 are proper packages available or a source compile has to be done.
1369 <question id="Does-Wine-work-with-AMD-Processors">
1370 <para>Does Wine work with AMD Processors?</para>
1380 <question id="Can-I-launch-Unix-app-from-Windows-app">
1381 <para> Can I launch a Unix program from a Windows program?</para>
1385 Sure, Wine supports that. Just enter the unix program name wherever
1386 a program has something that it's supposed to execute,and then it
1392 <question id="Error-with-installshield-6">
1394 I get <quote>Error installing iKernel.exe: (0x1400)</quote>
1395 when running an Installshield 6 installer
1400 If you get the error "Error installing iKernel.exe: (0x1400)" at any
1401 point, it's probably because there are leftover processes from a
1402 previous try. You can verify this with the command
1404 <para><command>$ ps augxw | grep wine</command></para>
1406 If that command shows old copies of wine running your setup,
1407 you need to kill them before you can run the setup program.
1408 If there are no other Wine programs running, you can kill them
1409 all with the command
1411 <para><command>$ killall wine</command></para>
1413 If you're also running Wine programs you care about, you'll
1414 have to kill off the old Setup instances one by one using
1415 kill and the individual PIDs (or perhaps Wine's spiffy Task Manager,
1416 which doesn't exist yet).
1419 You should repeat the <command>ps</command> to make sure the old
1426 <qandadiv id="Getting-help">
1427 <title>Getting help</title>
1429 <question id="Is-there-any-documentation-for-Wine">
1430 <para>Is there any documentation for Wine?</para>
1434 Yes, see <ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/support.shtml">
1435 http://www.winehq.com/support.shtml.</ulink>
1441 <question id="I-have-written-some-documententation">
1443 I couldn't find the answer to my question in the documentation, but
1444 I've written a document explaining how to solve it. What should I do?
1449 Updates and additions to the Wine documentation directory should be
1450 sent to the wine-patches mailing list at
1451 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml">
1452 http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml</ulink>. Website and FAQ
1453 additions should be added to the appropriate Wine Knowledgebase
1460 <question id="Is-there-a-Usenet-newsgroup-for-Wine">
1461 <para>Is there a Usenet newsgroup for Wine?</para>
1465 Yes, and it's called
1466 <ulink url="news:comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine">
1467 comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine</ulink>. The newsgroup serves as a
1468 place for users and developers to discuss Wine, and for minor
1469 announcements for the general public. Major announcements will be
1470 crossposted to other appropriate newsgroups, such as the following:
1475 <ulink url="news:comp.os.linux.announce">
1476 comp.os.linux.announce</ulink>
1481 <ulink url="news:ccomp.windows.x.announce">
1482 comp.windows.x.announce</ulink>
1487 <ulink url="news:ccomp.emulators.announce">
1488 comp.emulators.announce</ulink>
1493 If your Usenet site does not carry these newsgroups, please urge
1494 your ISP's sysadmin to add and/or uplink them.
1500 <question id="Is-there-a-World-Wide-Web-site-for-Wine">
1501 <para>Is there a World Wide Web site for Wine?</para>
1505 Wine HQ (<ulink url="http://www.winehq.com">http://www.winehq.com</ulink>) is the official site.
1511 <question id="Is-there-an-IRC-channel-for-Wine">
1512 <para>Is there an IRC channel for Wine?</para>
1516 Sure. It's channel <filename>#WineHQ</filename> on
1517 <filename>irc.freenode.net</filename> see
1518 (<ulink url="http://freenode.net">http://freenode.net</ulink>).
1519 Usually several Wine developers hang out there just to help YOU ;-)
1525 <question id="I-think-I-found-a-bug-How-do-I-report-it">
1527 I think I've found a bug. How do I report this bug to the Wine
1533 Bug reports should be submitted to our online Bugzilla system
1534 (<ulink url="http://bugs.winehq.com">http://bugs.winehq.com/</ulink>).
1535 You should include at least the following:
1540 The Wine version tested
1545 The MS Windows program name and, if possible, the version number
1546 of the software tested
1551 A brief description of the bug
1556 The relevant part(s) of the output of the Wine debugger
1561 A screenshot of the visual problem, if applicable
1566 For more information about reporting bugs please see the
1567 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/Docs/wine-user/bug-reporting.shtml">
1568 How to report a bug</ulink> section of the Wine Users Guide.
1574 <qandadiv id="Helping-Wine-or-becoming-a-Wine-developer">
1575 <title>Helping Wine or becoming a Wine developer</title>
1577 <question id="How-do-I-become-a-Wine-developer">
1578 <para>How do I become a Wine developer? What do I need to know?</para>
1582 If you can program C, that's a good start. Download the sources via
1583 CVS, subscribe to the mailing lists, look around the source, and pay
1584 attention to the comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine newsgroup and the
1585 mailing lists (<ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml">http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml</ulink>). See if there's anything
1586 that you think you can fix or work on. You won't have much trouble
1587 finding areas that need work in Wine (grep for FIXMEs in the source).
1593 <question id="How-can-I-contribute-to-the-Wine-project">
1594 <para>How can I help contribute to the Wine project, and in what way(s)?</para>
1598 You can contribute programming or documentation skills, or monetary
1599 or equipment donations, to aid the Wine developers in reaching their
1603 For a list of ideas of how you can help, please consult the
1604 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/about/index.php?contrib">
1605 Wine contrib page</ulink>.
1611 <question id="I-want-to-help-beta-test-Wine">
1612 <para>I want to help beta test Wine. How can I do this?</para>
1616 Wine still consists of some Alpha code at this time. However, anyone
1617 is welcome to download the latest version, and try it out at any
1624 <question id="I-wrote-some-code-I-would-like-to-submit">
1626 I have written some code that I would like to submit to the Wine
1627 project. How do I go about doing this?
1632 Patches are greatly appreciated and should be submitted to the
1633 wine-patches mailing list
1634 (<ulink url="http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml">http://www.winehq.com/dev.shtml#ml</ulink>). Also see this page for
1635 a description of what happens to submitted patches.
1641 <qandadiv id="Developing-programs-using-Wine-WineLib">
1642 <title>Developing programs using Wine/WineLib</title>
1644 <question id="Can-I-use-Wine-to-port-Win32-sources-to-Unix">
1645 <para>Can I use Wine to port my Win32 sources to Unix?</para>
1649 That is the idea of Winelib. Right now you may still have some
1650 difficulties, but this is changing all the time. Read the
1651 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/Docs/winelib-user/">Winelib User's Guide</ulink> for info.
1657 <question id="Will-MFC-work-with-Wine-What-do-I-need-to-do">
1658 <para>Will MFC work with Wine? What do I need to do?</para>
1662 Wine is not implementing an MFC replacement nor does it intend to.
1663 However it is possible (with a lot of work) to compile the MFC from
1664 source and thus produce an <filename>mfc42.dll.so</filename> library.
1668 <ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/Docs/winelib-user/">Winelib User's Guide</ulink> for how to do this.
1674 <question id="Are-there-commercial-apps-ported-using-Wine">
1676 Are there any commercial applications which have been ported
1682 A few examples of applications using Winelib:
1687 Corel's WordPerfect Office Suite
1693 (<ulink url="http://www.ability.com/linux/abilitylinux.php">http://www.ability.com/linux/abilitylinux.php</ulink>)
1699 (<ulink url="http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/dl/swws/swwsgddb-p">http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/dl/swws/swwsgddb-p</ulink>)
1704 Many other important applications have already been ported. (we are
1705 speaking of several top 500 applications here)
1711 <question id="How-can-I-detect-Wine">
1712 <para>How can I detect Wine?</para>
1716 You really shouldn't want to do this. If there's a quirk in Wine
1717 you need to work around, it's much better to fix it in Wine (after
1718 all you're a developer, so you should be able to gather enough help
1719 and knowledge to fix it for real).
1727 <qandadiv id="Wine-HQ-issues">
1728 <title>Wine HQ issues</title>
1730 <question id="Why-are-the-maillists-set-to-reply-to-author">
1732 Why are the maillists set to reply to author, not to mailing list?
1737 There are very valid reasons for doing so.
1743 <question id="How-to-unsubscribe-from-the-mailing-lists">
1744 <para>How to unsubscribe from the mailing lists?</para>
1748 Please see: <ulink url="http://www.winehq.org/development/#ml">http://www.winehq.org/development/#ml</ulink>
1757 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
1760 sgml-parent-document:("wine-devel.sgml" "book" "part" "chapter" "")