Some organisations are experimenting with Linux desktops, but many still need to run some Windows apps. One option is to run these apps on Wine. Here's a look at how Wine works and its usefulness in a business setting
Five words sum it up: "Wine is not an emulator." This is also a clever acronym for the program Wine, which can help you run your Windows programs under Linux. Wine is an implementation of the Windows API that allows programs using the API to run on an operating system that doesn't natively support the application. It's important to note that Wine doesn't emulate a full x86 system but rather provides the software APIs that make it possible to run Windows programs. This allows a program to run at full speed, since no emulation is taking place. Emulation generally slows down software.
Let's install Wine on a Linux system, attempt to install an ordinary Windows application, and take a look at how well it works.
Downloading and installing
I'm using Red Hat Linux 9 for this article, so I'll download and install the latest RPM distribution of Wine from the Wine Web site. I need a version of Wine that supports glibc 2.3, and at the time of this writing, the version available on the Wine site supports only glibc 2.2. However, the Wine site offers a link to Source Forge, which hosts the version I need.
To install the RPM version of Wine that I downloaded for my Athlon-based system running Red Hat 9, I use the following command:
rpm -i wine-20030911-1rh9winehq.athlon.rpm
If you have a different version of Red Hat or a different processor, be sure to download the appropriate file and modify this command accordingly. On my system, which is pretty standard, the installation went smoothly.
What did it do?
Upon initial installation via RPM, Wine is configured and ready to start running Windows programs. In fact, Wine installs a couple of common Windows apps, such as Notepad and the (all-important) game Minesweeper.
Wine requires a "C: �drive" onto which Windows applications are installed. This is handled by the creation of a folder in /usr/share named wine-c. If you decided to compile Wine rather than use the RPMs, this location may be different. Figure A shows the familiar contents of this location on my testing lab's Red Hat 9 system. As you can see, the common Windows directories have been created; Wine uses these directories for program installation.
| Figure A |
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I mentioned that Notepad is installed. To run it, just type notepad at the prompt. Since Notepad is provided with Wine, you can run it directly. However, this isn't true for other applications. Figure B shows Notepad on Linux with the File | Open dialog box open. There is a definite, noticeable lag during which the mouse won't even move when you first open this dialog box.
| Figure B |
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