11.04 Wine

[GiuHei3u]

To Wine or not to Wine that is the question.
All I know is Wine will allow Window programs to run in Ubuntu. What are the pro and cons in this? Is the integrity of Linux compromised by this?

Thank You

[Mark Phelps]

First of all, Wine will only run SOME Windows apps. If you are serious about wanting to use Wine, then the first thing you need to do is go to the WineHQ website, use the Application Compatibility tool and search for the ratings for each of the apps and versions you want to use.

If the app is not listed, it probably won't work. If it is listed, and the rating is less than Gold, so much will NOT work for that app, that it will be a waste of time installing it.

There are add-ons like Winetricks and Play On Linux that will ease installation of Windows apps, but at the end of the day, none of them will make the apps work better.

Second, you have to actually install the apps you want to use. You can't point Wine to an existing installation in a different partition.

And finally, you should post Wine-related questions in the Wine subforum here. That will get faster and better responses.

[forrestcupp]

The integrity of Linux is not compromised with Wine. Wine creates a folder in your /home folder where it creates a fake "C:\" drive structure. Even if you intentionally installed a Windows virus, the worst it could do would be to corrupt the /.wine folder and the Windows apps you have installed in it. In that case, you could just delete that folder and reinstall the Windows apps you need, and you're good to go. And that's even unlikely. There have been people who have tried to install viruses with Wine, and it didn't do much harm.

As far as Wine itself goes, it wouldn't corrupt your Linux install any more than any other program you've installed from the Software Center.

It doesn't work flawlessly with all Windows programs, but it's definitely a good tool to have installed. Windows apps that do run well with Wine generally will work more smoothly than in a virtual machine. But we always have virtual machines for the things that don't work well with Wine.