About Wine
Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop.
The Wine project started in 1993 as a way to support running Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. Bob Amstadt was the original coordinator, but turned it over fairly early on to Alexandre Julliard, who has run it ever since. Over the years, ports for other Unixes have been added, along with support for Win32 as Win32 applications became popular.
Wine 1.0.1 was released recently, and our developers are currently working towards a Wine 1.2 release. There are bugs and missing features, but many people find Wine useful in running a growing number of Windows programs.
Wine Benefits
Last but not least, Wine can provide benefits over Windows right now:
- Wine makes it possible to take advantage of all the Unix strong points (stability, flexibility, remote administration) while still using the Windows applications you depend on.
- Unix has always made it possible to write powerful scripts. Wine makes it possible to call Windows applications from scripts that can also leverage the Unix environment to its full extent.
- Wine makes it possible to access Windows applications remotely, even if they are a few thousand miles away.
- Wine makes it economical to use thin clients: simply install Wine on a Linux server, and voila, you can access these Windows applications from any X terminal.
- Wine can also be used to make existing Windows applications available on the Web by using VNC and its Java client.
- Wine is Open Source Software, so you can extend it to suit your needs or have one of many companies do it for you.