There are times in which a Linux user, no matter how much he likes this operating system, would love to run a Windows application on his computer.  In fact, there aren’t so many applications made for Windows that won’t run on Linux, and the majority of them are games. In order to do that, a user could use a virtual machine, but he would need for that a quite powerful computer. The other option is to run Wine, which means that the program must provide the required DDLs altogether with a substitute to Windows kernel.

In order to know which Windows applications work on Wine and to what degree, you have to consult this website. There is a great difference between the way different Windows apps run on Wine: some of them run flawlessly, some with various issues and there are a list of programs that don’t work at all.

Wine

Wine’s user interface is quite simple to use. There is a configuration panel with six main tabs: Applications, Libraries, Graphics, Desktop Integration, Drives and Audio.

In Applications tab, you can determine the operating system the application is going to emulate, even if Wine isn’t in fact a emulator. You can choose everything from Windows 2.0 to Windows 2008 R2. This way you’ll know the system files Wine will use when it runs a Windows app. One interesting detail is that you can also match an application to a specific profile.

The Libraries tab is meant for more advanced users. If one wants to run a Windows app that requires a certain system file included in a different version of Wine, you can add a newer version of the file you’re interested in.

The third tab, Graphics, is extremely useful. Unfortunately, there is a list of apps that work much better in a window than in full screen. It ensure that users can access other parts of the operating system if that particular app has serious issues.  There is also a Direct3D option which ensures Vertex Shader support.

The Desktop integration does what the title implies: it offers some integration features.  Using the tab called Drives you can add a DVD drive inside the application without mounting a folder as a drive. Audio offers access to the audio drivers usually used in Windows systems.

If you’re using Wine for the first time and you don’t have a clue about how it works, you can use a feature named Winetricks, a basic tutorial that shows you how to install and run Windows apps.

PROS:

-it’s an incredible complex project that gives you the possibility to run Windows applications on Linux;

-it’s user-friendly and it provides a comprehensive guide about how to install and run Windows apps.

CONS:

- because of the great differences between the two operation systems, the app is not as stable as it should be and there are some Windows apps that don’t work at all and some work with serious issues.