Tips and Tricks Page
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Getting Started in less than a minuteAfter you have installed Wine, which is done with root permissions, make sure to setup wine via winecfg as a user. Find the menu option in your software menu or by opening a terminal window as a user (without root permissions) and typing
From here a window with several tabs will appear. Go through these and check your settings for Wine. Auto detect your hard drive, and then click on the Audio tab to test the sound. If sound does not work try some of the options and test again. You will notice that wine now pretends to be Windows XP so if your software fails to install with an error message about needing an older version of Windows you now know how to go back to that tab and change that. Note too that while you can specify native or in other words, some dlls from Windows here, that is only a last resort. Wine should already include the dlls you need and you would consider using Windows dlls only if the Application Database recommends it.
Now you can install Windows software under linux! The default settings are the best and work quite well. Dust off those cd's and start installing. Some Wine installations make it possible for you to double click on the setup.exe files, otherwise you just need to type as a user on the command line this command and you should be off on a fast camel.
A brief FAQShould I run Wine as root or administrator? No. Nope. In case we forgot to mention it...No. Wine pretends to be a windows administrator account, but with all the protections of running under a Linux User account. Expect to lose data and Expect damage if you run badly written or badly behaved windows software (ie. some games) as root. But I hear you say.. 'I know someone who always runs wine as root!' and we might reply that if we both know someone who ignores red lights while driving.. does that mean you should do the same? Lets repeat that again... Wine is already pretending to be an administrator account. This means do not run wine using sudo either. That is just another way of running it as root. As one person warned [May 29 wine user]: Sudo grants the right to a virus in wine to take out your complete OS. However Vitamin explained:sudo apt-get wine [..] is installing Wine as a program into your system. But does not start it. Wine's "configuration" - registry and "fake c:" are created first time you run Wine. And they are created (by default) in your user's home directory. That's why running Wine as root (or for that matter any other user) will create the "fake c:" drive somewhere where you can't access it. Are there exceptions? There are a couple of rare situations where wine runs as root. You will probably never see them. If you are curious, check the application database. When you ask for help, developers and users will usually recognize if you have been running Wine with root permissions, and then you will be told to go back and try again without running as root. You will save a lot of time by not running Wine as root. Where were we? Ah yes. This time try and repeat after me: I will not run wine as root. Can I use wine to run software on my Windows partition?Nope. You need to be a wine guru to consider attempting that. The way wine works, unless you know how to prevent it, Wine will damage the registry and more on your Windows partition. Dont expect Windows to work for very long after trying this. 'But I know someone... We hear you say? Remember the illustration about red lights? One user reported that he thought it worked well, until one day his Windows no longer booted. (More Detailed information is on the General Wine Information page). Where were we? Oh yes. Lets review this important point again: Do not use wine to run software on your Windows Partition. Expect to lose data. Can I copy from Windows accross to wine? In general nope. Check the Application Database to see if you can do this, otherwise you need a wine guru to show you how and only a few programs are known to work this way. Download or get out your cd/dvd and install it under wine just like you would do in Windows. If you software works - congratulations! If you have some trouble, check the official wine documents, you might read more of this wiki, and then post to the wine user group and they will help you. Don't forget to tell them the name of the software, where they can get a copy and exactly what the problem is. What is the Wine Application Database? The knowledge base of getting Wine to run your favorite software. This is the place to look for your software, to see information on how to solve your problems and to store any handy tips. If your program is not listed, submit it. If the information is outdated, add a comment to update it or better yet become a maintainer so as to maintain the latest suggestions about your software and wine. This unofficial wiki has a page dedicated to the..Wine_Application_Database LinksInstalling Wine
Setting up Wine
Getting Software workingInstalling Software on Wine
Advanced Wine Tips and Configurations
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