Installing WINE, Winetricks And Playonlinux On Ubuntu

It may occur that the user needs to run a Windows application or game in Ubuntu and it finds that it cannot install windows programs.

Wine is a piece of software that tricks programs to believe they are running in a Windows environment.

In addition, this article will explain how to install Winetricks libraries needed to run windows, and PlayOnLinux applications to run games.

WINE

Wine comes in the Ubuntu repositories, ready to install. All the user has to do is open a terminal (applications -> accessories -> terminal) and enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install wine

The best option is to get the latest version of wine so the user should add its repositories.

Note: Ubuntu 12.04 has the latest version of Wine (version number 1.4) so it is not need to add its repositories.

For earlier versions of Ubuntu, open a terminal and run the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

Press Enter, write the root password (for security reasons, not visible while the user types), we hit Enter.

Update the repository with the following command:

sudo apt-get update

Press Enter and the user would be ready for installation.

Once the repositories were added, and depending on whether there is a version of Wine already installed, do one of the following:

If Wine is not installed, issue the following command:

sudo apt-get install wine

If the user has an earlier version of Wine (the official Ubuntu repositories) installed, it can be updated with the following command:

sudo apt-get upgrade


Running Wine:

The Wine Menu already shows under Applications. It can be used to access Windows programs and Configure Wine (you can also configure it from a terminal with the winecfg command).

To install a.exe program, click the right mouse button on it and select “open with wine windows program loader”.

We can also run a program on a terminal with the following command:

sudo wine program.exe

It is a good idea that before installing a piece of software, especially if it’s powerful and complex, check the official WineHQ site, to see if the program would work well. It sometimes happens that it is necessary to install a library or dll for the program to work properly.

WINETRICKS

Often, the application the user tries to run fails because there is a required missing dynamic link library (DLL).

Winetricks is a script that will help the user in that task. With this script, the user can download and install the libraries that are required by the windows programs.

To install:

For the latest version of wine:

Those who have added the Wine repositories in Ubuntu and/or have installed the latest version of Wine, they should have winetricks with a package repository included. This is because it is automatically installed as a dependency when wine is installed.

It may also be desired to install the cabextract package:

sudo apt-get install cabextract

To launch it, press the ALT + F2 key combination and run:

winetricks

A window showing all the libraries will open, select the needed ones, press accept and install as in windows: accept, accept… end.

For other versions of wine:

Open a terminal:

Download winetricks with the following command:

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

This will download the script in users’ personal folder and should never be deleted.

Winetricks does not need to be installed and libraries, it can be installed directly with the following command:

sh winetricks library

Eg. to install the “corefonts” and “directx9” libraries run:

sh winetricks directx9 corefonts


PLAYONLINUX

PlayOnLinux allows users to run games. It’s in the Ubuntu repositories and can be installed with this command:

sudo apt-get install playonlinux

To install the very last version, add the proper repositories for the Ubuntu version the user has:

Ubuntu 11.04:

wget -q "deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_natty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list

Ubuntu 10.10:

wget -q "deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_maverick.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list

Ubuntu 10.04:

wget -q "deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_lucid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list

Once the repositories are added, PlayOnLinux is updated and installed with:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install playonlinux

For Debian Squeeze, would be:

wget -q "deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | apt-key add -

wget deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_squeeze.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list

apt-get update

apt-get install playonlinux

Learn more about wine compatible software.

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