Windows Monday: Wine vs. Windows

Many people out there might not have heard of the wine software project before now.

So let's start with what wine actually stands for:

W~wine
I~is
N~not
an
E~emulator

Wine is free software that allows you to run Windows software on a Linux Operating system.
Wine is free software in every sense of the word.  The Wine project wrote it's code from the ground up. And that means that Microsoft has no claims to the code. Which  also means that it is perfectly legal to run your windows software on a Linux Operating system. Provided you will still need a valid license if you want to run something like Photoshop or MS  Office.

Wine is not technically an emulator for the windows operating system, but it is a series of API (application programming interface) calls so that wine can access your base hardware in the same way that windows does. There is no CPU emulation with Wine, like traditional emulators.

Wine myths:

1~wine is slow, because it is an emulator.
2~Wine is bad for Linux
3~You need windows anyways.
4~Wine won't work with my game/software because of copy protection.
5~Wine hurts native Linux apps.

* for the complete list of debunked Wine myths please check out: Debunking Wine Myths from the official Wine web-site.

There is a big stigma surrounding Linux, that Linux is not a good platform for PC gaming. I pose the opposite stance. That if you are not installing Linux on your machine, first of all you are missing out on a ton of really great Free/Independent games. But the chances of your Windows game working on Wine is very probable. Also popular closed source software like adobe or Microsoft software usually run very well on wine.

Here is a list of compatible Wine software:

Wine application dataBase growing every day.

I want to make sure and mention that Wine funds it's development mainly through community donation, and the code-weavers project.

Donate financially to the Wine software project. 

code weavers When you purchase code-weavers What you are purchasing is support for Wine, from the developers of Wine. Available for Linux/Mac. Proceeds directly affecting Wine Dev.

If you are a programmer  who believes in open-software, and would like to get involved please visit:

WineHQ development FAQ

I hope that I have  made you want to take wine for a spin. If you are running Linux I would suggest to install Linux from your distro's repositories && software manager. Although that method makes it very easy, it is usually slightly behind the curve. Mainly because distro's test their software for bugs before letting people download/install it. You could download it directly from WineHQ. Athough that install is slightly more difficult.