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Wine 9.9 (Dev) – Run Windows Applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and macOS
- shmerl 2y agoLooking forward to someone making an OpenGL extension to support running 32-bit programs in Wine that need translation to OpenGL with new Wow64 (i.e. without 32-bit runtime). Right now it has bad performance.
- alchemist1e9 2y agoWhat are some applications that people run under Wine that are most useful? I currently use VM for windows but would be interested in what HN users of Wine find as most helpful uses of Wine.
- clearleaf 2y agoI see wine as being pretty much obsolete so I'm interested too in finding out what people are using wine for at this point.
- greenknight 2y agoI am curious as to why you think wine is obsolete? Proton uses wine heavily, so there is a massive market with the steam deck using wine to run their games.
- autogn0me 2y agoWow
- wolf89618 2y ago[dead]
- anticorporate 2y agoFor me, I have a few pieces of older hardware with proprietary Windows applications and no Linux equivalent. A 10 year old Cricut and a 15 year old scanner. Also, some 16 bit Windows applications that probably won't even run on current Windows, like the Windows Entertainment Pack that shipped with Windows 3.1. You can pry that version of Tetris from my cold, dead hands. Of course, I also use the version of Wine that's built into Steam for nearly every game I play.
- kcb 2y agoPretty much has only gotten more relevant over time. Since the advent of Proton there are even less native Linux games being released.
- porphyra 2y agoYeah, for example, The Talos Principle, which was championed as a great example of a game that works natively on Linux, decided to go with a Windows-only release with Proton support on Linux for the sequel, The Talos Principle 2. To be fair, though, the game does run flawlessly via Proton.
- SuperNinKenDo 2y agoMy main, everyday use at the moment is I use it to run a Chinese dictionary software called Wenlin. Its THE Chinese dictionary software, for Desktop at least. Interestingly, if you have access to the source, which takes some effort but is available after some paperwork, it has tools to compile specifically for greater Wine compatibility. Besides that, I run Excel 2003, because nothing else even comes close to the power of Excel+VBA. I also run some old multimedia educational software, as well as a multimedia Encyclopaedia Britannica. A really nice tool to work with timing transcripts to audio and then using them for shadowing/chorusing, called WorkAudioBook. Some old typing tutors for Chinese. Would LIKE to run Paint.NET like someone mentioned elsewhere. Winamp and foobar2000, two media players that are simply unbeaten by anything on Linux, and believe me I've tried everything. Although at the moment I'm committed to running mpd, so they're not getting as much use now. Also games obviously.
- heavyset_go 2y agoGames, mostly. Every once in a while I'll find a Windows-only toolchain or something that works well in WINE. If I'm going to use a Windows app I'll see if it runs in WINE first before breaking out a VM, it's convenient like that.
- porphyra 2y agoApart from games, there are many CAD tools such as Rhinoceros 3D which don't work in Linux and have no open source equivalents.
- threePointFive 2y agoAnnecdotally, from my dad who is a controls engineer programming PLCs for manufacturing equipment, the proprietary toolchains needed for the PLC control language runs better under Wine.
- gausswho 2y agoFor me, WINE + yabridge means I can run Windows audio plugins (VST) within Bitwig (a Linux native DAW or digital audio workstation). And there's more interesting plugins than I have days left to explore. Now that doesn't mean I don't have other issues trying to do sound in Linux, but things have been improving considerably in the last couple years. Pipewire is also pretty solid now.
- JeffeFawkes 2y agoBeing able to use VSTs outside of windows sounds fantastic! How's the latency? Would you mind sharing some details about your setup? I'd love to use my Steam Deck as a tiny VST host for live play.
- shmerl 2y agoGames. I practically never use it for anything else.
- yodon 2y agoYes! Yes! Yes! It sounds like Wine might be able to run Paint.NET again. That's pretty much the only app that still has me reaching for Windows at this point. https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55513 https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55513
- dadoum 2y agoHave you tried Pinta before? In my experience it was a bit buggy but maybe it would have suited your needs.
- bluedays 2y agoWhat about paint.net is drawing you in from windows
- yodon 2y agoSimple easy UI and enough capabilities to accomplish the occasional manual image editing tasks I need as a dev, in a free and open source tool.
- GartzenDeHaes 2y agoThere's almost no learning curve if you know Photoshop versions 6.0 - CS6. From this point of view, Pinta has a bit of a learning curve, or maybe there's some bugs, or maybe it doesn't like my system colors. It also seems (not sure) to lack common brush and tool settings, although maybe it draws differently than PS.
- porphyra 2y agoJust curious: what's the point in running Steam in Wine nowadays? It seems that every Windows game in Steam that I've tried recently (Helldivers 2, Hades 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Talos Principle 2, etc) have been flawless in Steam for Linux since Steam will run them with Proton. Even non-steam games such as Starcraft II work well by adding battle.net setup.exe to Steam as a "Non-Steam game", and selecting Proton as the compatibility layer.
- ProfMeowsworth 2y agoFor Linux maybe, but for Mac the situation is different. If there’s no Mac version, it won’t run.
- porphyra 2y agoHmm but Wine doesn't work on recent versions of macOS or Apple Silicon anyway, right? But hopefully the Apple Game Porting Toolkit makes it easier for Mac users to play games...
- cyberpunk 2y agoI think that’s not right — there’s even a commercial product (code weavers crossover) which is exactly this — wine for Apple silicon which can run amd64 windows games on apple silicon).
- porphyra 2y agoCrossover uses Rosetta in order to run on Apple Silicon afaik.
- kcb 2y agoIt does work.
- bhaney 2y agoI very regularly use wine on the latest version of macOS on Apple Silicon.
- geokon 2y agoI've used Wine occasionally, and I like how it has its own file space - everything lives in a directory that kinda looks like Windows. But I've always wondered, does it provide isolation? Does Wine function as a container? Or do executables have full system access? And does anyone have a good summary of the 32 bit executable story? Those are always problematic on Ubuntu but I never had a clear picture as to why
- bilegeek 2y agoEvery program I've run under Wine has read/write access to any directory you own. AFAIK the only way to containerize Wine is via OS-level LXC/Jails/etc, but under X11 that still leaves the GUI wide open unless you have your own X11 stack in the container and run remote desktop or something (which is possible! You can even use VirGL for 3D accel.) Not sure about Wayland, probably still a good idea to have an isolated stack. It'd be cool if they made that easier to do via Wine itself, but that's probably a bit out of scope.
- giomasce 2y agoNo, Wine is not a container. The Windows application is free to make any Linux syscall with the privileges of the user running Wine. You shouldn't run an untrusted application in Wine any more than you would do for regular Linux applications.
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