YokoZar
November 17th, 2005, 08:52 AM
What is Wine?
Wine is a free, open source reimplementation of the Windows API. In short, it lets you run Windows programs under Linux. Wine isn't finished yet, so not every application works, however most of the important ones do. For more information, see the Wine User's Guide that I helped write: http://winehq.org/site/docs/wineusr-guide/index
What is Cedega/WineX
Several years ago, a company called Transgaming took the Wine code and turned it into a product called WineX, which was eventually renamed Cedega. This was a commercial fork of Wine aimed at users running games. After Transgaming did this, the Wine developers didn't like the fact that they didn't contribute any code back to the Wine project, so they changed the license to the LGPL. The two programs are now different pieces of software, albeit with similar goals - Cedega is not an "improvement" on Wine, as none of the Wine code that has been written in the past few years is in Cedega. Many applications, including quite a few games, work in Wine and don't work in Cedega.
Transgaming has done some development on their own to get Cedega to work with games and be easier to use, however without access to Wine's main codebase they've been unable to use the vast amount of work done on Wine in the past few years. Now it looks like Cedega has finally reached the point where Transgaming's begun to fall behind even in the area they've been developing on their own - support for games.
I want to know if this application works under Wine
The very first thing you should do is check the Application's Database: http://appdb.winehq.org/ - be aware, however, that some of the less popular entries haven't been updated for a while, so the information may be out of date and your application may work even if the last person to post there said it didn't. We rely on users to keep the AppDB functioning, so if you figure out how to make an application work please post your results there (or, better yet, become a maintainer for the application). You can even post testing results.
If you run into problems, post a message in the AppDB first before turning to this forum - your problem may not be Ubuntu specific, and there may be a general solution out there. Alternative places to seek help are the #winehq IRC channel on freenode and the wine-users mailing list.
What are these xwine and winesetuptk packages?
These are extremely ancient packages that were accidentally left in the universe repository at release time. Contrary to what the package descriptions say, they do not help configure Wine - in fact, they confuse and break things. Don't install them, and don't run them.
What Wine packages should I use?
Because the Ubuntu repositories are frozen at release, the Wine package in universe is a bit old. We had a major update after Breezy was released, so a newer Wine version is your best bet. I will be working on putting up to date Wine packages into Dapper, which will then find their way into Breezy Backports, however until then you can use the WineHQ apt repository. Follow the instructions here: http://winehq.org/site/download-deb - all you need is the binary package wine, so the instructions at the top of the page should be enough.
Wine is a free, open source reimplementation of the Windows API. In short, it lets you run Windows programs under Linux. Wine isn't finished yet, so not every application works, however most of the important ones do. For more information, see the Wine User's Guide that I helped write: http://winehq.org/site/docs/wineusr-guide/index
What is Cedega/WineX
Several years ago, a company called Transgaming took the Wine code and turned it into a product called WineX, which was eventually renamed Cedega. This was a commercial fork of Wine aimed at users running games. After Transgaming did this, the Wine developers didn't like the fact that they didn't contribute any code back to the Wine project, so they changed the license to the LGPL. The two programs are now different pieces of software, albeit with similar goals - Cedega is not an "improvement" on Wine, as none of the Wine code that has been written in the past few years is in Cedega. Many applications, including quite a few games, work in Wine and don't work in Cedega.
Transgaming has done some development on their own to get Cedega to work with games and be easier to use, however without access to Wine's main codebase they've been unable to use the vast amount of work done on Wine in the past few years. Now it looks like Cedega has finally reached the point where Transgaming's begun to fall behind even in the area they've been developing on their own - support for games.
I want to know if this application works under Wine
The very first thing you should do is check the Application's Database: http://appdb.winehq.org/ - be aware, however, that some of the less popular entries haven't been updated for a while, so the information may be out of date and your application may work even if the last person to post there said it didn't. We rely on users to keep the AppDB functioning, so if you figure out how to make an application work please post your results there (or, better yet, become a maintainer for the application). You can even post testing results.
If you run into problems, post a message in the AppDB first before turning to this forum - your problem may not be Ubuntu specific, and there may be a general solution out there. Alternative places to seek help are the #winehq IRC channel on freenode and the wine-users mailing list.
What are these xwine and winesetuptk packages?
These are extremely ancient packages that were accidentally left in the universe repository at release time. Contrary to what the package descriptions say, they do not help configure Wine - in fact, they confuse and break things. Don't install them, and don't run them.
What Wine packages should I use?
Because the Ubuntu repositories are frozen at release, the Wine package in universe is a bit old. We had a major update after Breezy was released, so a newer Wine version is your best bet. I will be working on putting up to date Wine packages into Dapper, which will then find their way into Breezy Backports, however until then you can use the WineHQ apt repository. Follow the instructions here: http://winehq.org/site/download-deb - all you need is the binary package wine, so the instructions at the top of the page should be enough.