How to Install and Configure Wine on Ubuntu

If you wonder to run some programs in Ubuntu, that you can easily access on Windows, then Wine is the solution to your imagination! Wine allows you to enjoy the experience of applications originally meant for Windows system only, in a Unix-like operating system. You can feel the comfort of using Windows applications in your Unix-like system, in my case it’s Ubuntu 14.04.

Here’s the brief description about how to Install and Configure a Wine on Ubuntu. Wine is already available in Ubuntu repository, but it’s your choice to install it or not. However, the version of Wine may differ from the latest release, as the Software archives comes along with the Ubuntu version that you have installed.

Sometimes, people need to have a newer version, so for that, you may add Wine PPA (Personal Package Archive). It’s a repository by Ubuntu community for the people who always want the latest. But, you should be aware of which “PPA” you are going to add.Wine cannot be called as an Emulator, in fact, it acts as a compatibility layer, as it translates system calls for primary system (Windows) to the native one, in this case (Ubuntu). Wine comes with Winetricks, Wine uninstaller and Winecfg.

If we talk about Winetricks, its a utility to install missing Libraries and packages to ensure better performance. And Wine uninstaller is used to install and uninstall the apps you wish to. The last one is Winecfg, which is available to you, to set the Configuration for Wine such as Windows version, sound, etc. Now let’s start with it’s Installation.

Steps to Install and Configure Wine on Ubuntu

Step 1: Open the Terminal by searching it on “Dash” or by pressing “Ctrl + Alt + T” keys. To have the latest version of Wine, you are required to add “PPA” , which is mentioned above.

For that type: “sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa” and press enter. If you are happy with the version already available in Ubuntu repository, then simply type “sudo apt-get install wine” and press enter. Go to the Step 5 directly.

Step 2: Provide the password of your Ubuntu Machine and press enter.

Step 3: As you have added a new PPA to the repository, it’s is necessary to Update the “apt” utility. For that type: “sudo apt-get update”.

APT is the abbreviation for Advanced Packaging Tool, provided in all the Linux distribution that is responsible for installing and managing the core libraries.

Step 4: Once it gets updated, search for the latest version of Wine through Ubuntu’s Google search and then type on the terminal “sudo apt-get install wine1.6” and press enter.

Here, 1.6 is the stable release version of Wine supported in Ubuntu. You can install, according to your choice and priorities.

Step 5: You will see a line notifying about the additional disk space to be used for installing the Wine. To continue type “y” for yes. The installation will take sometime, till then you have to wait for a while.

Step 6: When installation is completed, “End User License Agreement” appear on your screen. Scroll down using up-down arrows, to read all the statement listed. Then select “OK” using the right arrow key and then press enter.

Step 7: Now, You will be required to accept the license terms, so move to “Yes” button using arrow keys and then press enter to proceed.

Step 8: Some sort of processing will be performed by the shell, as you can see in the figure below.

Step 9: Go to the “Dashboard” and search for “Wine”. There will be three related searches, click on “Configure Wine” to tweak with the settings such as Audio, Video or adding external devices like CD-ROM.

Step 10: A pop-up will be visible to you, wait for a few seconds.

Step 11: Wine configuration window will be flashed in the dialog box. For an example: you want to select the version of your Windows system, select it using the Windows Version option.

I have selected “Windows 7”. Click on “Apply” to save the changes.

Step 12: Close it and then move to the Terminal window. Suppose you want to test, if you are able to use the Windows applications or not, then type “wine notepad.exe”, and press enter.

Step 13: Notepad screen is available, type whatever you like and then save it.

In a similar way, you can use any application as per your requirement.