1 <chapter id="introduction">
2 <title>Introduction</title>
5 <title>Overview / About</title>
8 <title>Purpose of this document and intended audience</title>
10 This document, called the Wine User Guide, is supposed to
11 be both an easy installation guide and an extensive reference guide.
12 Thus while it completely explains how to install and configure Wine,
13 it also tries to document all configuration features and support areas
14 of the Wine environment as a whole.
17 It tries to target both the new Wine user (aka "bloody newbie"),
18 by offering a step by step approach, and the experienced Wine
19 user or expert, by offering the reference material mentioned
22 The whole document has been extensively rewritten (in other
23 words: the document then deserved to be called a document :-) by
24 &name-andreas-mohr; <email>&email-andreas-mohr;</email> in
30 <title>Burning questions and comments</title>
32 If during reading this document there is something you
33 can't figure out, or think could be explained better, or
34 that should have been included, please immediately mail to
35 either the &name-web-admin; <email>&email-web-admin;</email> or
36 the &name-wine-devel; <email>&email-wine-devel;</email>, or
38 <ulink url="http://bugs.winehq.com/">Wine's Bugzilla</ulink> to
39 let us know how this document can be improved. Remember, Open
40 Source is "free as in free speech, not as in free beer": it can
41 only work in the case of very active involvement of its users!
45 Note that I can't say that I'm too impressed with the amount
46 of feedback about this Guide that we have received so far
47 since I added this paragraph many months ago...
53 <title>Content overview / Steps to take</title>
55 This section will try to give you a complete overview of
56 how to go all the way to a fully working Wine installation
57 by following this Guide.
58 We <emphasis>strongly recommend</emphasis> following every
59 single relevant step of this Guide, since you might miss important
60 information otherwise.
63 First, we start by explaining what Wine is and mentioning
64 everything else that's useful to know about it (that's
65 covered in this very chapter that you're reading a part of right now).
68 In order to be able to use Wine, you need to obtain a copy of
69 its files first. That's the purpose of the next chapter, <link
70 linkend="getting-wine">Getting Wine</link>: it tries to show
71 you how Wine can be installed on your particular system
72 (i.e. which installation methods are available in your case),
73 and then it explains the various methods: either getting Wine
74 via a binary package file suited for your particular system,
75 or getting it via a Wine <glossterm>source code</glossterm>
76 archive file, or getting the most current Wine development
77 source code via <glossterm>CVS</glossterm>.
80 Once you got your copy of Wine, you might need to follow the
81 next chapter <link linkend="compiling">Compiling</link> if you
83 Otherwise, the next chapter <link
84 linkend="installing">Installing Wine</link> will explain the
85 methods to use to install the Wine files to some location
86 on your system (alternatively the chapter <link
87 linkend="compiling">Compiling</link> will explain first how to
88 compile Wine if you choose to use Wine source code).
91 Once Wine is installed on your system, the next chapter <link
92 linkend="config-wine-main">Configuring Wine</link> will
93 focus on the available configuration methods for Wine: there are
94 either graphical (e.g. WineSetupTk) or text mode (wineinstall)
95 configuration helper applications available that will
96 fully configure the Wine environment for you.
97 And For those people who dislike a fully automated
98 installation (maybe because they really want to know what they're
99 doing), we'll describe how to manually set up a complete Wine
100 environment configuration.
103 Once the configuration of the Wine environment is done, the
104 next chapter <link linkend="running">Running Wine</link>
105 will show you how to run Wine and how to satisfy
106 the requirements of certain Windows programs.
109 In case you run into trouble, the chapter <link
110 linkend="bugs">Troubleshooting / Reporting bugs</link>
111 will list and explain some common troubleshooting and debugging
118 <sect1 id="what-is-wine">
119 <title>What is Wine?</title>
123 Written by &name-john-sheets; <email>&email-john-sheets;</email>
124 Modified by &name-dustin-navea; <email>&email-dustin-navea;</email>
129 <title>Windows and Linux</title>
130 <!-- general description of wine, what does it do? -->
132 Many people have faced the frustration of owning software that
133 won't run on their computer. With the recent popularity of
134 <ulink url="http://www.tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/index.html">
135 Linux</ulink>, this is happening more and more often because
136 of differing operating systems. Your Windows software won't
137 run on Linux, and your Linux software won't run in Windows.
140 A common solution to this problem is to install both operating
141 systems on the same computer, as a <quote>dual boot</quote>
142 system. If you want to write a document in MS Word, you can
143 boot up in Windows; if you want to run GnuCash, the GNOME
144 financial application, you can shut down your Windows session
145 and reboot into Linux. The problem with this is that you
146 can't do both at the same time. Each time you switch back and
147 forth between MS Word and GnuCash, you have to reboot again.
148 This can get tiresome quickly.
151 Life would be so much easier if you could run all your
152 applications on the same system, regardless of whether they
153 are written for Windows or for Linux. On Windows, this isn't
154 really possible, yet.
157 Technically, if you have two networked computers, one
158 running Windows and the other running Linux, and if you
159 have some sort of X server software running on the Windows
160 system, you can export Linux applications onto the Windows
161 system. A free X server is available at
162 <ulink url="http://xfree86.cygwin.com/">http://xfree86.cygwin.com/</ulink>.
163 However, this doesn't solve the problem if you only own
167 However, Wine makes it possible to run native Windows
168 applications alongside native Linux applications on any Unix-like
169 system. You can share desktop space between MS Word and GnuCash,
170 overlapping their windows, iconizing them, and even running them
171 from the same launcher.
176 <title>What is Wine, and how can it help me?</title>
177 <!-- emulator vs. Winelib -->
179 Wine is a UNIX implementation of the win32 Windows libraries,
180 written from scratch by hundreds of volunteer developers and
181 released under an Open Source license (think of it as a
182 Windows compatibility layer for Linux and other similar
183 operating systems). Anyone can download
184 and read through the source code, and fix bugs that arise.
185 The Wine community is full of richly talented programmers
186 who have spent thousands of hours of personal time on
187 improving Wine so that it works well with the win32
188 <glossterm>Application Programming Interface</glossterm>
189 (API), and keeps pace with new developments from Microsoft.
192 Wine can run Windows applications in two discrete ways: as
193 pre-compiled Windows binaries (your average off-the-shelf
194 program package e.g. available on CD), or as natively compiled
195 <ulink url="http://www.xfree86.org/#whatis">X11 (X-Window
196 System)</ulink> applications (via the part of Wine that's called
197 Winelib). If you're interested in compiling your Windows program
198 source code, then please refer to the Winelib User's Guide
199 instead, which explains this particular topic.
200 The Wine Users Guide however will focus on running standard
201 Windows applications using Wine.
204 <!-- the development model -->
209 <sect2 id="wine-capabilities">
210 <title>Wine capabilities</title>
213 Now that we're done with the boring introductory babble,
214 let us tell you what Wine is able to do/support:
220 Support for running Win32 (Win 95/98, NT/2000/XP), Win16 (Win 3.1) and DOS programs
225 Optional use of external vendor
226 <glossterm>DLLs</glossterm> (e.g. original
232 X11-based graphics display (remote display to any X
233 terminal possible), text mode console
238 Desktop-in-a-box or mixable windows
243 Pretty advanced DirectX support for games
248 Good support for sound, alternative input devices
253 Printing: PostScript interface driver (psdrv) to
254 standard Unix PostScript print services
259 Modems, serial devices are supported
264 Winsock TCP/IP networking
269 ASPI interface (SCSI) support for scanners, CD writers,
275 Unicode support, relatively advanced language support
280 Wine debugger and configurable trace logging messages
288 <!-- *** Not really useful as is, but may be able to recycle this elsewhere...
289 <sect1 id="getting-started">
290 <title>Getting started</title>
293 Written by &name-john-sheets; <email>&email-john-sheets;</email>
297 Wine can be pretty intimidating at first. The Wine
298 distribution consists of over two thousand files and half a
299 million lines of source code
301 <para>Crudely calculated from running <command>find . | wc
302 -l</command> and <command>cat `find . -name "*.c"` | wc
303 -l</command>, respectively, from a fresh CVS checkout.</para>
305 and is probably one of the steepest learning curves in the
306 open source world. This chapter will give you a crash course
307 in the important topics you need to know to get started with
308 running Wine applications.
314 <title>Other, often "Enhanced" Wine offerings</title>
317 There are a number of offerings that are derived from the standard Wine
318 codebase in some way or another.
321 Some of these are commercial products from companies that actively contribute to Wine.
324 These products often try to stand out or distinguish themselves
325 from Wine, e.g. by offering greater compatibility or much easier
326 and flexible configuration than your average standard Wine
327 release. As such it is often a good idea to shell out some bucks
328 for the commercial versions, especially since these companies
329 contribute a lot of code to Wine, and plus, I'm sure they'll be happy about your support...
331 <table><title>Various Wine offerings</title>
332 <tgroup cols=3 align="left">
335 <entry>Product</entry>
336 <entry>Description</entry>
337 <entry>Distribution form</entry>
344 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/rewind">ReWind</ulink>
347 ReWind is a Wine version derived from the old BSD
348 licensed Wine tree (it's the "completely free" BSD license fork of the currently LGPL'ed Wine).
349 Due to its BSD license it can't incorporate some Wine
350 patches that get licensed under the more restrictive
351 (or: protective) LGPL license by their authors.
354 Free, Open Source: BSD license
360 url="http://www.codeweavers.com/products/office">CodeWeavers CrossOver Office</ulink>
363 CrossOver Office allows you to install your favorite
364 Windows productivity applications in Linux, without
365 needing a Microsoft Operating System license. CrossOver
366 includes an easy to use, single click interface, which
367 makes installing a Windows application simple and fast.
376 url="http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxofficeserver">CodeWeavers CrossOver Office Server Edition</ulink>
379 CrossOver Office Server Edition allows you to run your
380 favorite Windows productivity applications in a
381 distributed thin-client environment under Linux, without
382 needing Microsoft Operating System licenses for each
383 client machine. CrossOver OfficeServer Edition allows you
384 to satisfy the needs of literally hundreds of concurrent
385 users, all from a single server.
394 url="http://www.codeweavers.com/products/crossover">CodeWeavers
395 CrossOver Plugin</ulink>
398 CrossOver Plugin lets you use many Windows plugins
399 directly from your Linux browser. In particular CrossOver
400 fully supports QuickTime, ShockWave Director,
401 Windows Media Player 6.4, Word Viewer, Excel Viewer,
402 PowerPoint Viewer, and more...
405 Commercial; Demo version available
411 url="http://www.codeweavers.com/technology/wine/">CodeWeavers
415 The Wine preview is a usually slightly older Wine release
416 that's been tested as extra stable.
417 It includes the graphical installer winesetuptk,
418 allowing for easy configuration.
421 Free, Open Source: LGPL license
426 <ulink url="http://www.transgaming.com">TransGaming Technologies WineX</ulink>
429 WineX is a Wine version derived from the old BSD licensed Wine tree, with currently better support for Direct3D and DirectX software than standard Wine, and with added copy protection support for multiple types of copy protection e.g. used in games.
433 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/winex">free CVS
434 download</ulink> of reduced version (no copy protection
443 <sect1 id="wine-stats">
444 <title>Basic Wine Requirements</title>
448 Written by &name-andreas-mohr; <email>&email-andreas-mohr;</email>
449 Modified by &name-dustin-navea; <email>&email-dustin-navea;</email>
454 This section only mentions the most basic system requirements of
455 Wine, in order to ease your Wine "purchasing decision" ;-)
456 For an up-to-date much more detailed list of requirements for
457 compiling and/or installing Wine,
458 please read the REQUIREMENTS section of the <ulink
459 url="http://www.winehq.org/source/README">README</ulink> file,
460 which is also available in the main directory of a Wine source code tree.
463 In case of a binary Wine package, these Wine requirements will
464 probably be fulfilled automatically by the package installation
465 process; if you want to have a look at the detailed requirements
466 nevertheless (which definitely can't hurt!), then I'd like to
467 mention that the README file can also frequently be found in the
468 documentation files directory of a Wine package.
471 <sect2 id="system-requirements">
472 <title>System requirements</title>
474 In order to run Wine, you generally need the following:
480 <literallayout>A computer ;-)</literallayout>
481 <literallayout> Wine: only PCs >= i386 are supported at the moment.</literallayout>
482 <literallayout> Winelib: selected other platforms are supported, but can be tricky.</literallayout>
487 A UNIX-like operating system such as Linux, *BSD,
488 Solaris x86, ReactOS, Cygwin
493 >= 32MB of RAM. Everything below is pretty much
494 unusable. >= 96 MB is needed for "good" execution.
499 An X11 window system (XFree86 etc.). Wine is prepared
500 for other graphics display drivers, but writing
501 support is not too easy. The text console display
502 driver (ttydrv) is nearly usable, so you don't
503 necessarily have to install X11 if you don't need it for
504 the programs you intend to run (in other words: mainly
505 for text mode programs).
514 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
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