5 Tools to Help You Run Windows Programs in Linux

WINE stands for "Wine Is Not An Emulator." WINE provides a Windows compatibility layer for Linux that makes installing, running, and configuring many popular Windows applications possible.

To install WINE, run whichever of the following fits your flavor of Linux.

Ubuntu / Debian / Mint

sudo apt-get install wine

Fedora / CentOS

sudo yum install wine

openSUSE

sudo zypper install wine

Arch / Manjaro

sudo pacman -S wine

With most desktop environments, you can run a Windows program with WINE by right-clicking on the file and choosing Open with WINE program loader. 

Of course, you can run the program from the command line using the following command:

wine path/to/application

The file can be either an executable or an installer file. 

WINE offers a configuration tool you can launch using the menu of your desktop environment or from the command line using the following command:

winecfg

The configuration tool lets you choose the version of Windows to run programs against, manage graphics and audio drivers, manage desktop integration, and handle mapped drives.

You might find this guide to WINE and the project website and documentation helpful.

The next step from the mainstream WINE release WINE Staging. The staging release includes various patches and improvements that aren't quite considered stable enough to make it into the mainstream release just yet, but they are usually stable enough to use on a daily basis. So, what does this mean for you? Using WINE Staging usually gets more applications working and improves the performances of the ones that already work. Unless you're using WINE for some critical business application (Microsoft Office doesn't count), which you shouldn't really be, anyway, you should probably pick WINE Staging.

WINE Staging does require that you set up an additional software repository on most distributions, but after that, it's just as simple to install as vanilla WINE.

Ubuntu / Debian / Linux Mint

Enable the 32-bit architecture.

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 

Import the WINE developer key.

wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
sudo apt-key add winehq.key

Add the repository. Replace "eoan" with your Ubuntu release.

sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ eoan main' 

Debian users should follow the following example, replacing "buster" with their Debian release.

 deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/ buster main 

Update your repositories, and install WINE Staging.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-staging

Fedora

Add the repository from the WINE developers. Replace "30" in the address with your Fedora release.

dnf config-manager --add-repo https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/fedora/30/winehq.repo

Then, install the latest WINE Staging release using DNF.

dnf install winehq-staging

OpenSUSE

OpenSUSE has WINE Staging in its repositories. Just install it.

zypper install wine-staging

Arch Linux / Manjaro

WINE Staging is in the official Arch repository. Install it normally.

pacman -S wine-staging

When it comes to playing Windows games on Linux, there's no better option right now than Lutris. Lutris is relatively new, compared to the other entries on this list, but it's more than earned its spot by making it just as easy to install Windows games on Linux as it is on Windows itself. That's no exaggeration, either. With Lutris, you can play games, like Overwatch, on Linux in only a couple of clicks. There's no need to know the technical details. Someone already did the hard work for you.

Lutris also integrates with your other Linux gaming platforms, like Steam, to keep your game library organized. With Lutris, you can access all of your games in one place. Lutris keeps separate configurations for each game, so it can manage multiple versions of WINE at once, using the ideal one for each game.

Installing Lutris is fairly simple too.

Ubuntu / Linux Mint

Install the Lutris PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lutris-team/lutris

Update Apt, and install Lutris.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install lutris

Debian

Add the Lutris repository configuration.

echo "deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/strycore/Debian_9.0/ ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/lutris.list

Then, import the Lutris signing key.

wget -q https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/strycore/Debian_9.0/Release.key -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Finally, update Apt, and install Lutris.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install lutris

Fedora

Lutris is available in the default Fedora repositories. Install it with DNF.

sudo dnf install lutris

OpenSUSE

OpenSUSE has Lutris in its repositories too. Install it normally.

sudo zypper install lutris

Arch Linux / Manjaro

Arch also has Lutris in the main repository.

sudo pacman -S lutris

Similarly to Lutris, Play On Linux provides a graphical interface for WINE. Play On Linux came before Lutris, and it offers many of the same features. Play On Linux is more bare-bones and doesn't really include support for Linux native games. It does take a more general approach, so you may find better office application support here, even though it's probably not as good as something like Crossover.

To install Play On Linux, run one of the following commands:

Ubuntu / Debian / Mint

sudo apt install playonlinux

Fedora / CentOS

sudo dnf install playonlinux

openSUSE

sudo zypper install playonlinux

Arch / Manjaro

sudo pacman -S playonlinux

When you first run Play On Linux, a toolbar appears at the top with options to run, close, install, remove, or configure applications. You'll also see an installation option in the left panel.

When you choose the install option, a list of categories appears as follows:

• Accessories
• Development
• Education
• Games
• Graphics
• Internet
• Multimedia
• Office
• Other
• Patches

You can choose from a huge number of applications including development tools such as Dreamweaver, an assortment of retro classics such as Sensible World of Soccer, modern games such as Grand Theft Auto versions 3 and 4, the Half Life series, and more.

The graphics section includes Adobe Photoshop and Fireworks, and you'll find browsers in the internet section.

The office section is a bit hit and miss. Those apps may not work.

Play On Linux requires you to have the setup files for the programs you are installing, although you can download some of the games from GOG.com.

Software installed via Play On Linux is generally more likely to work than software installed with plain WINE.

You also can install non-listed programs; however, the programs listed have been specifically configured to be installed and run using Play On Linux.