How-To: Compile and Install Wine 1.1.28 in Debian Lenny

Wine 1.1.28 was released on August 21 and it comes with new features and improvements like support for IRDA protocol, faster wineprefix creation, more image formats in WindowsCodecs and various other bug fixes.

To get Wine 1.1.28 in Debian Lenny, follow the next steps:

1. Enable the sources repositories
Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file as root and make sure you have a line which starts with deb-src, like in the example below:

deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

If not, add it, replacing the TLD (top level domain) with your own country TLD (in the example above the TLD is ftp.fi.debian.org - Finland).

2. Update the package lists
As root, type:

apt-get update

3. Install the needed dependencies
As root, type the following commands in a terminal window:

apt-get install build-essential
apt-get build-dep wine

The first command will get build-essential (which is a meta package including tools needed for the compilation, like gcc) and the second will fetch the Wine development libraries.

3. Get the source tarball
Download the source tarball from here (direct link here) and uncompress it:

tar -xjf wine-1.1.28.tar.bz2

4. Compile and install Wine
Make sure the current working directory is wine-1.1.28 and type the following commands:

./configure
make depend && make
make install

The last command (make install) with root privileges. Alternately, you can install Wine as normal user by specifying a prefix:

./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr/
make depend && make
make install

In which case you don't need to run make install as root, but as normal user only.

After the installation is complete, run:

winecfg

And that's it. Wine should be now properly installed. Run any Windows application using:

wine executable_file.exe

Wine 1.1.27 Released

Today the Wine project announced the availability of Wine 1.1.27, which includes:

- a new version of the Gecko web browsing engine
- new GSM 06.10 codec support
- improved support for the disk volume APIs
- support for XShm pixmaps for better performance
- various bug fixes

The source code can be downloaded from here. You can follow this tutorial I wrote a while ago to install Wine in Ubuntu Hardy Heron or Jaunty Jackalope.

Wine 1.1.25 Released with Various Improvements and Bug Fixes

The Wine project released version 1.1.25 of their development application today, July 3rd, 2009. This release's highlights include:
- translation updates
- support for Unicode file encodings in Notepad
- improved memory management in OpenGL
- various bug fixes and more

For those who are not familiar with it, Wine (which is a recursive acronym for Wine is not an emulator) plays a major role in bringing Windows applications to Linux.

For the tutorial on installing the latest Wine release in Ubuntu 9.04, see this article.

3 Ways to Install Latest Wine in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

I decided to put up this guide which shows how to install the latest Wine release in Ubuntu 9.04 using 3 different methods. The default Jaunty repositories come with Wine 1.0.1, but the latest release is 1.1.24 and a new version is available every two weeks, so here is a tutorial which explains how to get the last Wine release in Ubuntu or Kubuntu Jaunty.

I. Using the Wine PPA
A PPA (Personal Package Archives) is a separate repository which ships newer packages for various applications. You can use a PPA repository for installing newer versions of Amarok, or Wine, or Banshee etc. These repositories are hosted on Launchpad.

In order to get the latest Wine available, you can follow these easy steps:

1. Add the Wine PPA repositories to the /etc/apt/sources.list file
Open the /etc/apt/sources.list file as root with your favourite text editor (e.g. gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list or sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list) and enter your user password. Then add the following two lines to this file and save it:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-wine/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-wine/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

You can also use Shift+Insert here. Then make sure to save the file and update the sources lists:

sudo apt-get update

After updating, this warning may appear:

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 5A9A06AEF9CB8DB0
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems

You can either ignore it, or (optionally), install the trusted key for these repositories. In order to get the key, follow the instructions from here. Notice that this is an optional step, so you can skip it or add the key later.

Then, install Wine:

sudo apt-get install wine

Press Y when it asks to install packages from untrusted sources. This should be all, the latest Wine should be now installed (at the time of writing, the version available in this PPA is 1.1.23).


II. Compile and Install Wine from Source
This method needs more time, but this way you get to compile your own version of Wine, without using any additional repositories. Here's what you have to do:

1. Install the needed dependencies and compiling tools
First, make sure you have the sources repositories enabled, that is, a line which starts with deb-src and looks like this:

deb-src http://ro.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty universe multiverse

Notice that in Jaunty these are enabled by default, so, unless you deleted this line from the /etc/apt/sources.list file, you don't have to add anything here.

Next, type the following:

sudo apt-get build-dep wine

This command will fetch all the needed development libraries for compiling Wine, including the package build-essential, which is a meta-package consisting of tools needed to compile C/C++ sources like g++.

2. Get the Wine tarball from the official website
Download the Wine source from the official website (direct link here) and uncompress it (e.g. tar -xjf wine-1.1.24.tar.bz2).

3. Compile and install Wine
Make sure the current working directory is wine-1.1.24 (or whatever version you have), and issue the following commands:

./configure
make depend && make
sudo make install

This should be all. Notice that you can also use a different path and install as normal user:

./configure --path=/home/USER/usr
make depend && make
make install

This will install Wine inside the /home/USER/usr directory (replace USER with your username). In this case, make sure /home/USER/usr/bin is added to your $PATH variable, preferable before the other paths.


III. Using the WineHQ Ubuntu repositories
This is yet another method of getting the latest Wine on Ubuntu. It is similar with the first method, but instead of adding a PPA repository we'll add the WineHQ repositories. Follow the steps below:

1. Add the repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the following repositories to your sources.list file:

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt jaunty main

2. Update the sources lists
To update the sources lists use:

sudo apt-get update

With your user password.

3. Install Wine
To install Wine, just type:

sudo apt-get install wine

And this should be all.

How-To: Change the Wine Theme to Something More Appealing

Notice: I tested this tutorial using Wine 1.1.17, but it should work successfully on previous versions too.

By default, Windows applications which run through Wine don't look very well, since that's the look and feel of Windows 98 at best, to mention nothing about XP:


So what follows are a few easy steps which will allow to change the way applications ran through Wine look like. If you need guidance for installing Wine, here are two tutorials I recently wrote, for Ubuntu 8.04 here and here, and for Debian Lenny here. These should also work in Ubuntu 8.10 (and the upcoming 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope) and the latest Wine release.

1. Download some MS styles from deviantART
First, you will need to get some themes from here. For my example I will be using VistaPerfection X4 (direct download link). After saving it, uncompress the ZIP file and copy the .msstyles file (in our example the file is called VistaPerfection.msstyles) in a location of your choice.

2. Run winecfg and install the theme
Next, run the Wine configuration utility, winecfg, and under the Desktop Integration tab, click the Install theme... button, then navigate to where your .msstyles file is located and select it.

Select the .msstyles file for installation

Now under the Theme drop-down menu, select the VistaPerfection X4 theme and then click OK. This should be all and the new theme should be now installed. Notice that you can still configure the colors if you don't like the default ones.

The look of Wine applications with VistaPerfection X4

Running Notepad

The VistaX theme

Notice: I bumped into this short tutorial in a post on UbuntuForums, here.

How-To: Install the Latest Wine Release in Debian Lenny

Debian Lenny comes with Wine 1.0.1 included in the repositories, which is the stable release of Wine, but it is also a little outdated. Here are a few easy steps for compiling and installing the latest Wine release from source in Debian Lenny. This tutorial should work for the latest Wine release (at the time of writing, the last release is 1.1.17).


1. Install the tools needed for the compilation
Type in a terminal as root:

apt-get install build-essential

2. Install the development libraries needed by Wine
To install the necessary dependencies, first make sure that you have the sources repositories enabled in your /etc/apt/sources.list file. To do this, you should have a line which starts with deb-src, e.g.:

deb-src ftp://ftp.ro.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

Next, update the packages list:

apt-get update

And then install the dependencies:

apt-get build-dep wine

This will take a while, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

3. Download the source tarball
Get the source tarball for the latest release from the official website, then uncompress it. For example, for Wine 1.1.17 you would issue the following command in the directory where you saved it:

tar -xjf wine-1.1.17.tar.bz2

Next, change the current working directory to wine-1.1.17 and proceed to the next step.

4. Compile and install Wine
You can either do:

./configure
make depend && make
make install

The last one as root. Or you can use their script located in the tools/ directory, wineinstall:

./tools/wineinstall
make install

If you want to install Wine as normal user change the prefix to, say, /home/USER/usr:

./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr
make depend && make
make install

And make sure to include /home/USER/usr/bin in your $PATH.

Next configure Wine by typing winecfg as normal user and run Windows applications like this:

wine application_name.exe

Make sure to keep the directory wine-1.1.17, so in case you need to uninstall Wine, you will only have to issue the following command from inside that directory:

make uninstall


Alternate way to install Wine: using the WineHQ repository
To set up Wine from the WineHQ repository you will need to follow this simple tutorial, provided on the Wine homepage. To sum it up:

Remove your existing Wine installation as root:

apt-get remove wine

Add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://www.lamaresh.net/apt lenny main

Add the GPG key:

wget -O - http://www.lamaresh.net/apt/key.gpg | apt-key add -

Issue the following two commands:

apt-get update && apt-get install wine

This should do it too.

Updated: March 31, 2009

Wine 1.1.7 Released

Wine 1.1.7 was released yesterday, October 25, 2008. According to the announcement on the official website, some major changes and improvements in this release are: improved device management for DOS drives, many RichEdit fixes, basic Direct3D 10 implementation and various bug fixes.

You can download packages for Ubuntu and Debian as well as for other distributions from here. The source code can be obtained from the SourceForge.net project page (direct link).


I created two tutorials which show how to compile and install the last release of Wine in Ubuntu and Debian:

Install Wine 1.1.5 in Ubuntu 8.04 from the WineHQ APT Repository
You will only need to add their APT repository address in /etc/apt/sources.list and install Wine after doing a sudo apt-get update.

Compile and Install Wine 1.1.4 in Ubuntu 8.04
Tutorial showing how to compile Wine from source in Ubuntu 8.04.

Both tutorials work for 1.1.7 too.

Running Google Chrome Under Wine 1.1.6 in Debian

Google Chrome is an open-source web browser from Google, currently available only for the Windows platform. It aims to have a minimal and easy to use interface. Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine, which was developed from KHTML, and it is used in various browsers like Konqueror on KDE4 or Safari (on Mac OS X).


First of all, install Wine 1.1.6. I created two guides for installing the last Wine release, here (from the WineHQ APT repository) and here (compiling from source). Don't worry if the tutorials are for 1.1.5 and 1.1.4 respectively, they will work for a later Wine version too.

I only tried it with Wine setup as Windows XP in winecfg.

Also, install the cabextract package as root:

apt-get install cabextract

Get the last version of winetricks using this command:

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

Make the winetricks script executable, then install the packages below by issuing the following commands:

chmod 755 winetricks
./winetricks msxml3 corefonts flash winxp riched20 riched30

Next, download Google Chrome from here. You can use this command in your terminal:

wget http://dl.google.com/chrome/install/149.30/chrome_installer.exe

To run it, use:

wine chrome_installer.exe

Chrome should start the first time, and you will be able to see it as in the screenshots below:


Close it, then run it using the following command:

wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/YOUR_USERNAME/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe

Make sure to pay attention to any case-sensitive characters if that's the case, and also replace YOUR_USERNAME.


Edit: I saw suggestions to run chrome.exe with the arguments --new-http and --in-process-plugins, although it seemed to work fine for me without the need of those.

For a complete list of Chrome command-line arguments, go here. They are listed from the Google Chrome source file src/chrome/common/chrome_switches.cc and are briefly explained.

How it behaves
It looks very, very good in my opinion, but the interface is extremely slow. I guess until the Linux port will be ready, Google Chrome through Wine is useful only to have a preview of it, or eventually test how it displays web pages.


My impression was the one which Firefox gave me when I first used it, back at version 1.0 (1.0.4 if I recall correctly): simple interface, clean, with only the basic options which one needs, but powerful in the same time.

Special thanks go to the authors of these articles, from which I borrowed all the material for this tutorial:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=13635
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5719331&postcount=45
http://www.googlechromeboard.com/post259.html
http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/09/05/how-to-install-google-chrome-in-ubuntu-with-wine/
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/install-google-chrome-with-wine-in-ubuntu.html

How-To: Install Wine 1.1.5 in Ubuntu 8.04 from the WineHQ APT Repository

A few days ago I wrote a tutorial showing how to compile Wine 1.1.4 from source in Ubuntu 8.04 and how to install it. In the meantime, version 1.1.5 was released on September 19, and since the compile from source and install procedure has not changed, I will explain here how to install the last Wine release using the official WineHQ APT repository. What follows are a few easy to do steps for getting the last Wine release up and running on your Ubuntu Hardy system.

Notice that this tutorial should work too with later Wine releases and Ubuntu 8.10.

1. Add the WineHQ key to your trusted APT keys
Open a terminal like GNOME-Terminal or Konsole and execute the following command:

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

The first command will get the key and its output will be passed to the second one, sudo apt-key add -, which will add it to your trusted APT keys.

2. Add the WineHQ APT repository to your sources.list file
Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file with root privileges using a text editor like nano or Gedit (e.g. sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list or gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list) and add the following two lines:

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main
deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main

Make sure to save the file (CTRL+O, Enter, followed by CTRL+X in Nano) and proceed to the next step.

An alternative way to do this is to execute this command:

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

Eventually, you can also edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list and uncomment the last line if you want sources repositories to be enabled too.

3. Update the packages list and install Wine
To update the packages list use:

sudo apt-get update

Then install Wine using:

sudo apt-get install wine

This should be all. To configure Wine, run as normal user:

winecfg

Related articles
How-To: Compile and Install Wine 1.1.4 in Ubuntu 8.04

Updated: Mar 31, 2008

How-To: Compile and Install Wine 1.1.4 in Ubuntu 8.04

Ubuntu 8.04 comes with Wine 0.9.59, which is already pretty old. In the meantime, the latest development version of Wine is 1.1.4, which was released on September 5, 2008.

In order to compile Wine from source and install it on Ubuntu, you will only need to follow several easy steps I list below:

1. Enable the sources repositories
Make sure you have a line in the /etc/apt/sources.list file which says something like:

deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy main restricted universe multiverse

Next, update the packages list:

sudo apt-get update

2. Install the Wine dependencies
This will also install the build-essential meta package if it's not already installed:

sudo apt-get build-dep wine

3. Download the Wine 1.1.4 source tarball, compile and install
Download the source from the official website (direct link here), uncompress it, change the current working directory to wine-1.1.4 and type the command:

./tools/wineinstall

If the configuration goes smooth, you'll be presented with a message similar to the one below:

configure: Finished. Do 'make depend && make' to compile Wine.


We need to install wine as root user, do you want us to build wine,
'su root' and install Wine? Enter 'no' to continue without installing
(yes/no)

Type no, wait for Wine to be compiled, then use:

sudo make install

To install Wine.

4. Run Wine
Run winecfg as normal user in order to configure it, then use it like wine WIN_APP.EXE in order to start Windows applications. You can see where the binary was installed by typing:

whereis wine

And to see the version:

wine --version

This should be all.

Resources
Wine homepage
Wine applications database
Wine Wiki

Updated: Sep 12, 2008