How to Run Windows Applications on Linux

If you are a Linux user, you may want to run Windows applications on Linux on occasion. Programs like MS Office and many Windows-only computer games can be run using an open source program called Wine.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Internet access
• Computer

1. Download Wine. Visit the Wine Download sources (see Resources below). Look for an .RPM file and download it to your hard drive.

2. Install Wine. Open the terminal once you’ve download the .RPM file and install it using the RPM command. For example, type “RPM -UVH wine-0.9.30-mdk.i586.rpm.”

3. Configure Wine. To configure Wine, run the command “winecfg.” This will open the Wine Configuration program where you can change the settings for Wine.

4. Test it out. Once Wine is installed, it will create a basic imitation of a Windows system. Type “wine /usr/share/wine-c/windows/system/notepad.exe” to open the Notepad program.

5. Run other programs. Once you've installed other Windows programs, open them the same way you did Notepad.exe, but substitute in the file path for the program you want to run.

Tips & Warnings

• To see which version of Wine you have installed, type "RPM -q wine" into the terminal.
• Wine is a very complex program. For in-depth guides and documentation, see Resources below.
• Remove older versions of Wine before installing new ones. To do this, navigate to the source folder you used to install Wine and run “# make uninstall.”