Wine
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| Developer(s) | Alexandre Julliard and the Wine team |
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| Latest version | 8.0.2 [+] (Dev: 8.16 [+] ) |
| Active | Yes |
| Platform(s) | Unix and POSIX-compliant |
| Emulates | Windows |
| Website | WineHQ.org |
| Support ($) | PayPal Patreon |
| License | GNU LGPL v2.1+ |
| Source code | WineHQ.org |
Wine (an acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator) is a free and open-source compatibility layer for POSIX-compliant systems such as Unix-like operating systems (Linux, BSDs, macOS, etc.) to run programs originally written for Windows. First developed by Alexandre Julliard, it's now sponsored by the corporate entity CodeWeavers, who uses it as a base to create a proprietary version known as CrossOver. Wine is especially useful for older Windows games, as compatibility with these is typically higher than if the same games were run on modern Windows versions.
Compatibility may not be perfect, however, and there can be various glitches introduced.
Download[edit]
   
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Official releases Stable and dev builds | |
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WineD3D for Windows | |
Issues[edit]
Some programs require official Windows DLLs. Most of these are available to download via the (usually) included script, winetricks. Compatibility lists for most programs can be found on AppDB.
Games that use DirectX/Direct3D APIs later than version 9 are mixed in terms of support, as many DirectX 10/11 programs run, but many still simply don't run at all.
Some software and games make use of kernel-mode drivers within Windows that are simply impossible to support due to restrictions on how Wine works, mostly having to do with security. These are especially abused by anti-cheat solutions such as GameGuard and certain others that will prevent you from playing games that use them (e.g., Nexon), so your only option there is to run it in a virtual machine or dual boot (and even then, there is no guarantee that will get by their detection).
