Author: Erwin J. van Eijk
Email: eijk@huygens.org
Web Page: http://www.huygens.org/~eijk
Date Submitted: Sat, Apr 18, 1998
Status: New Entry

Issue

I need to run MS-WINDOWS applications, but I do not like to reboot my 
machine every time.

Response

You could try to use the windows emulator wine to run
MS-WINDOWS applications. There are some caveats however:

    - Note that right now only 16-bit versions of windows programs
      work well enough to use. A list of applications that work
      under wine can be found at "www.winehq.com"

    - Get the precompiled Linux/ELF version from "www.winehq.com" by
      looking for it at "www.winehq.com/config.html".  The versions
      at "www.qbc.clic.net/~krynos/wine/" don't work (go up to
      "Parent Directory" and click on "WINE: The Windows emulator
      for Unix" and read under "What is the latest version?"),
      but do include the necessary configuration files "wine.conf"
      and "wine.sym", so you'll need to get the file
      "wine-linux-elf.tar.gz".  The version of wine available by
      clicking on ".gz Generic Linux. No Glibc" seems to work
      (points to "ftp://nexus.v-wave.com/pub/wine/wine.gz").

    - Mkdir /usr/local/etc and copy "wine.sym" and "wine.conf" to it.
      "wine.conf" must be writable for some reason.  Put the
      executable "wine" (from nexus) in /usr/local/bin.

    - edit "wine.conf" and change the "[Drive C]" entry to

        [Drive C]
        Path=/var/lib/wine
        Type=hd
        Label=MS-DOS
        Filesystem=unix

      and the "[wine]" entry to

        [wine]
        Windows=c:\windows
        System=c:\windows\system
        Temp=e:\
        Path=c:\windows;c:\windows\system;c:\
        SymbolTableFile=/usr/local/etc/wine.sym
    
    - Mkdir /var/lib/wine, /var/lib/wine/windows, and
      /var/lib/wine/windows/system.

    - Find a copy of "C:\windows\win.ini" around and copy it to
      /var/lib/wine/windows.

    - Startup wine under X using "wine /full/pathname/of/program"
      or if you have put the path to the program in the "Path"
      entry, it can be under /var/lib/wine/ someplace.

    - A list of applications that run under wine is available from
      www.winehq.com/apps.cgi.  I tried out the 16-bit version
      of "freeagent", and it seemed to startup ok (it gets a rating
      of "substantially correct", good enough for general use").

    - Get the 16-bit version of "freeagent" from "www.foreinc.com",
      unpack it on a windows box, and put "agent.exe" under
      "/var/lib/wine/windows" along with "agent.ini".
      apparently you need to type "Control-J" for RETURN.

References

This information was from some helpful people on the redhat
mailing list.