All about Wine: Run Windows apps under Linux

Plain-vanilla wine

First, make sure you have Wine installed. Open a Terminal window (on my Ubuntu Edgy Eft desktop, I select Applications, Accessories, Terminal), type wine, and press Enter. If the response includes 'command not found', step one for you is to use your distribution's package manager to install Wine.

Alternatively, if you're an Ubuntu user, install Automatix and use it to install Wine--you'll get a newer version than the ones available in the official Ubuntu repositories. Or head directly to the download page at WineHQ to see if any up-to-date packages are available for your distribution.

Once Wine is installed, enter winecfg in your Terminal window to bring up the Wine configuration dialog box. The first time you run winecfg, the dialog box may take a while to appear; don't fret, as Wine is just creating some folders and getting its bearings.

Take a quick look through the tabs of the configuration dialog box if you like, but the default settings should serve you well enough. You can click OK to exit it. You're now ready to try running something with Wine.

If your machine dual boots, you might have a Windows partition mounted under Linux. If so, you can try pointing Wine directly at a Windows program on that partition. This tactic is likely to work only with very simple, mostly self-contained applications. For instance, on my system I can type wine /media/c/winnt/notepad.exe, and Windows Notepad pops up. I'm not saying this is useful, mind you, I'm just illustrating one possibility here.

To try a more complex application, you'll need its installation file--the setup.exe (or equivalent) that puts everything in place. Feed that to Wine on the command line. For instance, I decided to try running 2nd Story Software's TaxAct Deluxe on Wine this year. (I've used TaxAct for years, figuring that since its interface is simpler--that is to say, comes with fewer multimedia bells and whistles--than TurboTax and TaxCut, it would play nice with Wine sooner than those alternatives. I've been let down every year ... until now.)

I downloaded the setup program--a file called ta06dxdw.exe--from 2nd Story and saved it on my desktop. Then, back in my Terminal, I typed wine Desktop/ta06dxdw.exe. The TaxAct setup proceeded without a hitch, and a TaxAct launcher appeared both on my desktop and in Gnome's Applications menu. I have yet to experience any problems running TaxAct under Wine. I'm as happy as a clam not having to reboot to do my yearly business with the IRS.

When you install a Windows application under Wine, everything gets put in a hidden .wine folder inside your home folder. To uninstall the applications that live there, you need an equivalent to 'Add or Remove Programs' in the Windows Control Panel. So, enter wine uninstaller in a Terminal. You'll see a very simple dialog box listing all the applications installed under Wine. The Uninstall button is your friend there.