7 ms·

I'm constantly so astonished by how well Wine works these days. I remember the first time I heard about Wine, decades ago, and thinking "yeah, right!" But by Go

by troad 4y ago

I'm constantly so astonished by how well Wine works these days. I remember the first time I heard about Wine, decades ago, and thinking "yeah, right!" But by God, they pulled it off. I would not have been able to move to Linux full-time without Wine. Thanks!

eurekin 4y ago
I wouldn't be surprised, if wine became a "compatibility layer" embedded into a wsl in Windows at some point
- squarefoot 4y ago
  It is already a compatibility layer to run old windows software that Microsoft no longer supports. I use it for making music, and the number of 20+ years old VST plugins that work exceptionally well is astonishing. The only problem I encountered was some of their installers failing because they reported a negative available disk space, presumably because of a bigger new variable overflowing the older smaller one they use. Running them as a older Windows version didn't work, I suspect the only way to make them run would be to implement a WINE flag to pass the installers smaller variables with that data. Aside that, I'm amazed at how good the compatibility is.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    You could just create a smaller filesystem in a file, mount it and export is as a Windows drive in winecfg.
    - squarefoot 4y ago
      I did something similar: made a very small partition on a USB drive and assigned it a drive letter, then tried to install in there. It didn't work because it's the variable that is bigger, not its contents, so whatever value it contains it still overflows the one expected. Short of patching the relevant WINE code (which I don't even know where to start looking for) A XP VM might be the last resort. The software once installed works fine as I experienced by moving to Linux a very old XP install I had on a backup.
pabs3 4y ago
What Windows software do you still need on Linux?
- Avshalom 4y ago
  mostly games for myself but I've also needed it for various weird programs that some professor decided we should use for some homework.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
    It's decent for games on MacOS now too. In particular I was looking at it for playing some FTL mods that are only shipped as windows binaries natively on MacOS a year or two ago (in the end I ended up using Codeweavers Crossover, but I think that the limitations that made me choose Crossover have since been fixed in Wine). I see that a Codeweavers dev is present in this thread (Hi guys, great product, thanks for helping make Wine what it is). I think that there's still a ways to go for Wine on MacOS at least, like for instance I don't think playing No Man's Sky on MacOS via Wine is viable (or at least it wasn't when I tried a few years ago). I think that's more a limitation of the graphics API MacOS uses though. Supposedly a native port is on the way anyway.
- haunter 4y ago
  Excel. Nothing comes close really
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    Do current versions of Excel actually fully work in Wine now? That would be a big deal and if true embarrassing I didn’t know about it.
  - ogogmad 4y ago
    Is this because of compatibility and VBA macros? In a vacuum, what Excel does is straightforward, and there's lots of free alternatives. Don't get me wrong -- I think it's a great program, but I don't see anything unique about it.
minimaul 4y ago
Wine (and Proton by extension) is a marvel. Runs most of my windows software with little to no issue, and is more compatible with older games than Windows 10/11 itself!
- extrememacaroni 4y ago
  Many people are still skeptical about wine and proton but in the future it will become the way to play Windows' existing game library. I always say that if you care about games preservation, you need to look at Linux & Proton. Even if a future version of wine/proton introduces some breaking changes, you can always use an older version for a particular game, much more comfortable than messing with Windows XP VMs and whatnot. Wine and proton frontends are becoming so friendly too. Setting things up on e.g. steam deck is extremely easy, not just for wine but even for emulators (emudeck). Just click some buttons and you get everything set up for you and auto-updated.
  - minimaul 4y ago
    I couldn't agree more, with the addition of dosbox and PCem/86box. There's a ton of titles from the late 90s onwards to ~2010 that don't work correctly on modern Windows - either very unreliable, have something fundamental broken, or don't start at all. This especially applies to games from the from the pre-Vista era - things like DirectSound & DirectDraw being rewritten in Vista broke a lot. In addition, newer GPUs & drivers have broken older games - even big names like The Sims 2 have graphical artifacting - unless you use DXVK! I understand that sometimes this is due to the game doing something incorrect that happened to work okay at the time, but that's still unhelpful if I want to get something to run. Running games from my childhood requires a mix of dosbox (for most classic DOS titles), PCem/86box (for really weird old titles that don't run on anything that isn't win95/98, or DOS titles that relied on 3dfx hardware). Get a bit newer and it's dgVoodoo2 (for games that use old DirectX or Glide), DXVK (even on windows!), or I just give up and run them on Linux with Wine - which usually just works. The odd title still needs some patching (like eg Max Payne, but that's because of a CPU incompatibility with AMD Zen CPUs) - but it's nearly always less hassle than trying to run older titles on Windows 10 or 11.
  - 4y ago
insane_dreamer 4y ago
I gave up on Wine over a decade ago; I had no idea it has improved that much
- szatkus 4y ago
  When I used Wine around 20 years ago it was roullete if the application even starts. A few years ago I realized that it mostly works. Sure, some random little things could not work, some textures could be glitched, but I was confident that at least it will start. And it's constantly getting better (with some occasional regressions here and there, but it's bound to happen).
divan 4y ago
What would be the best way to give another try to Wine on MacOS to get this "works so well" experience?
- mrpippy 4y ago
  CrossOver from CodeWeavers is the easiest way on macOS, you can try it free for 14 days. (disclaimer: also a CodeWeavers employee)
  - divan 4y ago
    Thank you!
heavyset_go 4y ago
It was good even decades ago. Wine is one of those projects that really impressed me back then and still does.
bheadmaster 4y ago
The fact that so many games work well with Wine is extremely impressive. I was playing Skyrim on my Linux laptop and it was a perfectly smooth experience.

by troad 4y ago

eurekin 4y ago

I wouldn't be surprised, if wine became a "compatibility layer" embedded into a wsl in Windows at some point

squarefoot 4y ago
It is already a compatibility layer to run old windows software that Microsoft no longer supports. I use it for making music, and the number of 20+ years old VST plugins that work exceptionally well is astonishing. The only problem I encountered was some of their installers failing because they reported a negative available disk space, presumably because of a bigger new variable overflowing the older smaller one they use. Running them as a older Windows version didn't work, I suspect the only way to make them run would be to implement a WINE flag to pass the installers smaller variables with that data. Aside that, I'm amazed at how good the compatibility is.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  You could just create a smaller filesystem in a file, mount it and export is as a Windows drive in winecfg.
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    I did something similar: made a very small partition on a USB drive and assigned it a drive letter, then tried to install in there. It didn't work because it's the variable that is bigger, not its contents, so whatever value it contains it still overflows the one expected. Short of patching the relevant WINE code (which I don't even know where to start looking for) A XP VM might be the last resort. The software once installed works fine as I experienced by moving to Linux a very old XP install I had on a backup.

pabs3 4y ago

What Windows software do you still need on Linux?

Avshalom 4y ago
mostly games for myself but I've also needed it for various weird programs that some professor decided we should use for some homework.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
  It's decent for games on MacOS now too. In particular I was looking at it for playing some FTL mods that are only shipped as windows binaries natively on MacOS a year or two ago (in the end I ended up using Codeweavers Crossover, but I think that the limitations that made me choose Crossover have since been fixed in Wine). I see that a Codeweavers dev is present in this thread (Hi guys, great product, thanks for helping make Wine what it is). I think that there's still a ways to go for Wine on MacOS at least, like for instance I don't think playing No Man's Sky on MacOS via Wine is viable (or at least it wasn't when I tried a few years ago). I think that's more a limitation of the graphics API MacOS uses though. Supposedly a native port is on the way anyway.
haunter 4y ago
Excel. Nothing comes close really
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  Do current versions of Excel actually fully work in Wine now? That would be a big deal and if true embarrassing I didn’t know about it.
- ogogmad 4y ago
  Is this because of compatibility and VBA macros? In a vacuum, what Excel does is straightforward, and there's lots of free alternatives. Don't get me wrong -- I think it's a great program, but I don't see anything unique about it.

minimaul 4y ago

Wine (and Proton by extension) is a marvel. Runs most of my windows software with little to no issue, and is more compatible with older games than Windows 10/11 itself!

extrememacaroni 4y ago
Many people are still skeptical about wine and proton but in the future it will become the way to play Windows' existing game library. I always say that if you care about games preservation, you need to look at Linux & Proton. Even if a future version of wine/proton introduces some breaking changes, you can always use an older version for a particular game, much more comfortable than messing with Windows XP VMs and whatnot. Wine and proton frontends are becoming so friendly too. Setting things up on e.g. steam deck is extremely easy, not just for wine but even for emulators (emudeck). Just click some buttons and you get everything set up for you and auto-updated.
- minimaul 4y ago
  I couldn't agree more, with the addition of dosbox and PCem/86box. There's a ton of titles from the late 90s onwards to ~2010 that don't work correctly on modern Windows - either very unreliable, have something fundamental broken, or don't start at all. This especially applies to games from the from the pre-Vista era - things like DirectSound & DirectDraw being rewritten in Vista broke a lot. In addition, newer GPUs & drivers have broken older games - even big names like The Sims 2 have graphical artifacting - unless you use DXVK! I understand that sometimes this is due to the game doing something incorrect that happened to work okay at the time, but that's still unhelpful if I want to get something to run. Running games from my childhood requires a mix of dosbox (for most classic DOS titles), PCem/86box (for really weird old titles that don't run on anything that isn't win95/98, or DOS titles that relied on 3dfx hardware). Get a bit newer and it's dgVoodoo2 (for games that use old DirectX or Glide), DXVK (even on windows!), or I just give up and run them on Linux with Wine - which usually just works. The odd title still needs some patching (like eg Max Payne, but that's because of a CPU incompatibility with AMD Zen CPUs) - but it's nearly always less hassle than trying to run older titles on Windows 10 or 11.
- 4y ago

insane_dreamer 4y ago

I gave up on Wine over a decade ago; I had no idea it has improved that much

szatkus 4y ago
When I used Wine around 20 years ago it was roullete if the application even starts. A few years ago I realized that it mostly works. Sure, some random little things could not work, some textures could be glitched, but I was confident that at least it will start. And it's constantly getting better (with some occasional regressions here and there, but it's bound to happen).

divan 4y ago

What would be the best way to give another try to Wine on MacOS to get this "works so well" experience?

mrpippy 4y ago
CrossOver from CodeWeavers is the easiest way on macOS, you can try it free for 14 days. (disclaimer: also a CodeWeavers employee)
- divan 4y ago
  Thank you!

heavyset_go 4y ago

It was good even decades ago. Wine is one of those projects that really impressed me back then and still does.

bheadmaster 4y ago

The fact that so many games work well with Wine is extremely impressive. I was playing Skyrim on my Linux laptop and it was a perfectly smooth experience.