Wine is a fantastic tool for Mac users and there is a number of ways to get it working but possibly the best way is also the most complex. That being said once it’s setup you can use a big number of Windows applications on your Mac.
The easiest way to get Wine on your Mac is also the most expensive and least control of all. Crossover Mac (http://www.codeweavers.com) is a commercial variant of Wine that installs a really nice bottle creator (a bottle is a self contained VM). There is also WinOnX which has a Cocoa interface for Wine and is available on the Mac App Store but has a couple of issues with some applications. I suspect these are a result of them not using the latest versions of Wine which is the biggest problem with something like this as third parties need to do a lot of testing and by then the main software (Wine in this case) has been updated a number of times.
So the best option is to install Wine yourself but this does require a lot of getting your hands dirty and will require some tools for you to download. The first is Xcode which is available as a free download on the Mac App Store. It’s a big download though so here’s hoping your internet connection is good.
After this you’ll need to obtain a copy of XQuartz (http://xquartz.macosforge.org/). This is not the Apple version as Apple no longer rolls their own into OS X like they used to. However, this version is officially supported by Apple. Simply download and run the installer.
- Wine (originally an acronym for 'Wine Is Not an Emulator') is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, & BSD.
- But their intention seems to be to create a system similar to Codeweavers CrossTie, with app/game-specific hacks and scripts similar to winetricks. PlayOnMac uses exactly the same hacks on Mac than on Linux, sometimes they are a little adjusted for Mac OS.
Once this has been downloaded and installed we’ll use a system called Homebrew. This is a pretty “easy” to use application but it is all command line based so it requires getting things typed just right. This is why I suggest copying and pasting from this page as these links will get you up and running. Open up Terminal (found in Applications / Utilities or if using LaunchPad it’s found in the Other folder). Copy and paste this line into Terminal:
ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)”
If you are on Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion or on any graphical GNU/Linuxdistribution (e.g. Ubuntu), you're fine. Mac OS X Tiger users must install it. Make sure you have enough space left on your device. There is also WinOnX which has a Cocoa interface for Wine and is available on the Mac App Store but has a couple of issues with some applications. I suspect these are a result of them not using the latest versions of Wine which is the biggest problem with something like this as third parties need to do a lot of testing and by then the main.
This will install Homebrew with the latest version. The prompts are pretty easy to follow so just roll with them. You may need to enter your password so make sure the account you’re using has administrator rights.
It will take a wee while to perform this so don’t worry too much.
Still in Terminal we now can install Wine and its associated WineTricks which installs some packages that helps make Wine work better. Copy and paste this code:
brew install –devel –universal wine winetricks
To highlight what is going on here “brew” is the application you’re running, “install” tells brew to install the following applications. –devel installs the developer version of the following apps. –universal installs the universal version although this isn’t so much of a requirement anymore as most Macs will be running 64 bit apps so you can actually leave this switch out if you want to. “wine” and “winetricks” are the actual applications we are going to get Homebrew to install. Press enter and watch the fun happen. Now you’ll see a number of errors. Don’t worry about these they aren’t anything to be concerned with.
The last bit we need to add to the Terminal is configuring WineTricks. Simply copy and paste this line:
winetricks comctl32 corefonts dotnet40 eufonts gdiplus gdiplus_winxp ie8 msls31 physx pngfilt tahoma vcrun2010 wininet wsh56vb xmllite
This installs a number of various Windows system files and fonts that allows Wine to handle things like games better. Some may already be installed so don’t worry about error messages you’ll receive. Simply just go with the defaults if/when installer windows pop up.
Once this is done we’re going to perform a little trick. In fact I’m going to make it a bit easier for you and will give you a link to a little AppleScript application I created. Simply just download it, unzip it, and copy it to your Applications folder.
What does this do? Simply it is an AppleScript that tells the Terminal to run the Wine Installer application. This is the equivalent to the Add/Remove Programs application in Windows XP. I’m using this from now on simply to make it easier for you because it doesn’t require typing anything in anymore just the locations of the installer files you need.
To install a Windows application simply click on the Install button and find the installer you want to run just like you would on Windows.
Running applications is a little trickier. Once again I recommend using AppleScript here:
Copy and paste this line of text into the editor window:
do shell script “/usr/local/bin/wine
Because running the commands from AppleScript don’t set a default path we need to fully qualify the application path. That’s why the command for Wine is /usr/local/bin/wine. In Terminal we simply just type “wine …” where “…” is the path of the Windows application we want to run.
Say I want to run the Watchtower Library that I have installed so that I can do some personal Bible study. If I enter this line into AppleScript editor and ran it it would run WTLibrary for me:
do shell script “/usr/local/bin/wine ‘/Users/darrynlowe/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Watchtower/Watchtower Library 2013/E/wtlibrary.exe'”
Notice the ‘’ around ‘/Users/darrynlowe/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Watchtower/Watchtower Library 2013/E/wtlibrary.exe’. This is incredibly important because if you don’t put it in all the spaces in the path will cause everything to stop. UNIX doesn’t like spaces in path names.
Save this AppleScript to your Applications folder but make sure you save it as an application:
This way it won’t open any windows other than what it needs to.
Now you’ll notice something here as you would have with the Wine Installer screenshot:
The windows look like Windows applications but they don’t look quite like the Windows applications and they don’t look like Mac windows either. This is because the windowing system being used is X11 (XQuartz). X11 is a UNIX windowing system and will be used because Wine itself is a UNIX application not a Mac one. This raises one issue for Mac users. Because it’s UNIX based and because the original app is a Windows one key mappings are incorrect. For example if you are wanting to copy and paste between Mac and apps in Wine you’d have to use CTRL instead of Command so Copy would be CTRL + C instead of the Mac Command + C however when you go to paste into a Mac app you’d have to use Command + V were as in the app running in Wine you’d have to use CTRL + V. It will get confusing incredibly quickly. This is where CrossOver has the advantage because it maps everything to Mac keys so you don’t have to think in two different environments.
The big question is though is Wine better than a VM like Parallels or VMWare? Short answer is no as these run actual versions of Windows and are thus more capable than Wine. However, these have big performance hits and can slow down your machines to ludicrously slow speeds whereas Wine doesn’t seem to have the same performance issues. However Wine won’t run all applications and thus isn’t as brilliant as Parallels say. Ultimately this method is somewhat convoluted but the advantage over Parallels or VMWare is that it doesn’t require a Windows license to run Windows apps.
Head over to http://appdb.winehq.org to see if the app you want to run will work then have fun if it does.
Developers | |
---|---|
Release dates | |
Linux | July 4, 1993 |
macOS (OS X) | ? |
- Note that it is recommended that you have at least basic knowledge of the Terminal/shell before using Wine. If you do not then try one of the available front ends.
- Be aware that some games may not work or have issues in WINE as well, especially older ones, either due to the missing DLL library which requires manual installation or just compatibility issues.
- Due to the lack of OpenGL updates on MacOS, which is still using 4.1 version from 2010, there may be issues with running DirectX 11 games or worse, no support at all.
General information
- The Wine Website
- The Wine Wiki
- The Wine Application Database
Communities
- /r/winehq - General Wine Discussion
- /r/wine_gaming - Wine Gaming Discussion
Wrappers
- Adamhm's Wrappers (Linux)
- ./play.it (Linux)
- Lutris - Contains Wine wrappers (Linux)
https://daddytree490.weebly.com/vont-app-for-mac.html.
Wine is a free and open source compatibility layer that aims to allow computer programs written for Windows to run on Linux and OS X by translating Windows system calls into POSIX-compliant system calls, recreating the directory structure of Windows systems, and providing alternative implementations of Windows system libraries, system services through
Wine is a free and open source compatibility layer that aims to allow computer programs written for Windows to run on Linux and OS X by translating Windows system calls into POSIX-compliant system calls, recreating the directory structure of Windows systems, and providing alternative implementations of Windows system libraries, system services through
wineserver
and various other components (such as Internet Explorer, the Windows Registry Editor, and msiexec).The software is not by all means an emulator, hence its acronym is Wine Is Not an Emulator. The main advantage it gives is the ability to run any software regardless of the Windows system was made for, so if an older Windows 95 game does not work in a native OS such as Windows 10 or has compatibility issues which renders the game broken, it will most likely work on WINE. A full DirectX 10 and 11 support has been added since version 3.0 along with it's own CSMT.
- 1Versions and Editions
- 2Installation
- 2.1Linux
- 2.2OS X
- 6General
- 6.1Wine AppDB Rating System
- 7Tweaking Wine
- 8Front-Ends
- 9Improvements
- 10Issues Fixed
Versions and Editions[edit]
Versions[edit]
Upon entering the WineHQ page you may have noticed the Stable and Development versions. The Development version is more often updated as the improvements and bugfixes are released in small packages, while the Stable's update process is slow as it relies on releasing the update as one large package containing the features from previous Development versions. Do not be confused with the version numbers though as for example the Stable 2.0.2 version contains a wide range of features from Development 2.17 version and below.
Editions[edit]
The Staging one contains community-made patches to make sure the game works properly, but be aware that sometimes a software may not work in Staging, but it'll work in normal one. It always uses the Development version of Wine.
Gallium Nine is a special one, besides being based on Wine Staging it is very beneficial for AMD and Nouveau as it uses the Gallium 3D API, which is a part of the Mesa library and gives a greater performance for games using DirectX 9, as compared to the other versions, it doesn’t translate Direct3D signals into OpenGL. It won't bring any improvements for NVIDIA users that rely on proprietary drivers, as the manufacturer uses their own driver library. Be aware that depending on Linux distribution, you might need to compile Mesa with ```enable_nine``` variable to use Gallium3D Nine.
Other versions also exists, some contain additional features such as Wine Rt which runs programs in real-time, or the ones that are made specifically for one game, for example wine-starcraft allows you to run Starcraft Anniversary 1.16 without any issues, compared to the official build.
Before installing make sure to enable the multilib support, if you are on a 64-bit system and always install WINE Gecko and WINE Mono for applications that need support for Internet Explorer and .NET Frameworks. They may not be required, but it will prevent downloading them each time you create a new Wineprefix.
Installation[edit]
Linux[edit]
To install Wine on your Linux distribution, check your package manager. Some Linux distros DON'T come with Wine pre-installed, but it can be installed just with a single command or a few clicks depending on the distro.
Debian[edit]
On a 32-bit system run:
![Winetricks Winetricks](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134074028/166319666.png)
sudo apt install wine
or if you want the development version.
sudo apt install wine-development
If you are on a 64-bit system you need to use this command before installing Wine:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 && sudo apt update
SteamOS[edit]
SteamOS Tools is required in order to get Debian's repositories and sources. Follow the documentation to learn how to add and install a software from Debian.
Debian-based system such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint etc.[edit]
Type
sudo apt-get install wine
To get the latest Wine release, use these commands in this order:
Fedora[edit]
Run this command
or
For developer version.
sudo dnf install wine
or
sudo dnf install wine-devel
For developer version.
Please follow these instructions if you want the latest version.
ArchLinux and distributions based on it such as Antergos, Manjaro etc.[edit]
If running a 64-bit system, make sure you have enabled the multilib repository. Then run:
Type
sudo pacman -S <wine edition>
.Replace
<wine edition>
with:wine
- Standard versionwine-staging
- For Wine Stagingwine-staging-nine
- For Wine Staging with Gallium Nine patches.
Other versions of Wine are available in the AUR.
Solus[edit]
Winetricks Mac Os App Installer
Type
sudo eopkg install wine
OpenSUSE[edit]
Run
sudo zypper install wine
For other distros, please follow the documentation/wiki of the distribution or compile the software from the source code.
OS X[edit]
- It is recommended to have both Homebrew and MacPort installed
- Gatekeeper must be set to accept unsigned packages and XQuartz version 2.7.7 or higher must be installed.
- Due to Apple's decision to drop the support for 32-bit applications after Mojave, there is a chance that Wine may not work.
To install Wine on Mac OS, you can either download the PKG file (Recommended) or the TAR archive, they can be found here.
After installing it from the PKG file, the Wine shortcut will appear in the Launchpad. Upon running it, it will display terminal with a short introduction to important commands.
Uninstalling[edit]
If using Homebrew:
brew rm wine && brew rm $(join <(brew leaves) <(brew deps wine))
If using MacPorts:
sudo port uninstall --follow-dependencies wine
If compiled from the source code:
sudo make install
at the directory with Makefile and then delete the local Wine source code.Aftere one of these steps remove any WINEPREFIX and remove the
.local
from your Home folderCompile from source code[edit]
Winetricks Mac
If you wish to compile Wine from it's source code please follow these pages:Building WineBuilding Wine in MacOS
Graphics[edit]
If you are on a 64-bit Linux system and depending on the distro, make sure you have 32 bit drivers installed. WIthout it you will receive the “Direct rendering is disabled, most likely your OpenGL drivers have not been installed correctly” message.
If installed, make sure to reset the display server.
Audio[edit]
Currently, Wine best supports ALSA if you are on Linux, but on a 64-bit system you must install the 32-bit versions, this also counts for PulseAudio and OSS (In this case, all you need is the ALSA-OSS package, as the OSS kernel will not suffice).
Keep in mind that for some games, such as Skyrim, will use an advanced sound system. For this case you need the 32 bit version of OpenAL as well.
In MIDI’s case, Wine has an excellent support for it. You should either use Timidity or Fluidsynth and set one of them up.
As for audio in Mac OS, CoreAudio works out of the box with the software.
Command Stream Multi-Threading (CSMT)[edit]
Since 2013, Wine developers have been experimenting with the stream/worker thread optimization, which is exclusive to both Wine Staging and Wine Staging Gallium Nine. Depending on the game, enabling it from the
winecfg
will give a performance boost (for some even bigger than running it natively on Windows!) and fixes graphical issues, if present. Wine Team officially added their own CSMT since the release of 3.0 version.General[edit]
By default, Wine will be already set to handle Windows files such as
Canon camera connect mac.
.exe
,.bat
,.msi
etc. Running one of them will invoke the software and handle the rest in it's default WINEPREFIX
folder located at ~/.wine
. If you are required to run the program in Terminal however, this can be done by using the wine
command.Canon camera connect mac.
Wineprefix is the directory used for managing your Windows files, by default it will use the .wine folder in your Home directory, if using Linux, and depending on the architecture of your system, it will be made for 64-bit applications or 32-bit. If the game you currently wish to run works only on 16-bit system, you may wish to create a 32-bit Wineprefix folder. This can be done with this command line:
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/<new folder name>
WINEARCH
is responsible for changing the environment, there are only two options to choose from:- win32 - Create a 32-bit environment
- win64 - Create a 64-bit environment.
WINEPREFIX
command is used to create a new folder or use one which will store Windows program.Wine AppDB Rating System[edit]
While checking WineHQ's Application Database you may encounter these ratings and here are their meanings.
Platinum[edit]
The program installs and works flawlessly out of the box, without any changes in
winecfg
.Gold[edit]
The application works without any problem once you make some DLL override or change some settings in
winecfg
or installing a third-party software.Silver[edit]
The program works great for 'normal' use with some of the exceptions such as issues with handling the DRM, the game works in singleplayer but not in multiplayer etc.
Bronze[edit]
The software works, but has some issues for normal use such as graphical glitches/issues, run slower than it should, font issues etc.
Garbage[edit]
The application does not work, cannot be installed or it will run but will show many errors that will make it unusable regardless of used settings.
It's best to check the information, comments or the bug list for the current software to learn how to get it to work or even check if it's fixed when it comes to Gold, Silver or even Bronze rating.
Tweaking Wine[edit]
Winecfg[edit]
Winecfg is a GUI (graphical user interface) configuration tool for Wine. It allows you to change options for both the default setting and for specific applications. These options include the way Wine loads DLLs, graphical settings (including Window settings, screen resolution/DPI), desktop integration, drives and audio). It can be accessed with
winecfg
command, you can use it with WINEPREFIX
to specify which Wine folder you wish to configure.A run down on the different tabs of Winecfg is available on the Wine Wiki.
Winetricks[edit]
Winetricks is a script which allows you to install base requirements for running Windows applications. It is mainly used to install additional DLL libraries to make the program work, in case if it doesn’t. Besides that it also contains other stuff such as launching the Winecfg, installing the benchmark, install the game using pre-compiled script etc. from the default Wine folder. The program can be run with the
winetricks
command to launch the GUI version by default (Using -h
argument will show additional options), you can combine with other Wine commands to be more specific. For example:WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 winetricks
This will launch Winetricks, but all the changes or installations are done in the .wine32 folder.
Disc repair app mac. If you do not wish to constantly go through menus to install the required library or a program, you can specify it after the command.
Winetricks Osx
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 winetricks steam
This command will let Winetricks to install Steam on a .wine32 folder.
Of course you can specify multiple libraries you wish to install and combine it with some arguments available for this software.
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32 winetricks -q steam dotnet40
This will let Winetricks not only to install Steam, but .NET Framework 4.0 as well and the
-q
argument will make sure not to ask any questions for each application/library.Winetricks Macos
Front-Ends[edit]
If you do not wish to use the Terminal, there are some front-ends which will make your Wine experience much easier.
Steam Play/Proton[edit]
Linux Steam client has integrated fork of Wine for games, that lack native Linux version.[1]
PlayOnLinux/PlayOnMac[edit]
This Python-based program allows you to install any Windows program using the pre-made scripts which makes the process automatic or perform it manually in case if the script does not exist. The main advantage of it is the ability to download and use multiple Wine version and ease of managing and configuring the prefixes. The main drawback however, is in it’s slow development time and outdated libraries that are available in the Additional Libraries. This program was made for simplicity in mind.
Winetricks Mac Os
Crossover[edit]
A commercial version of Wine which includes scripts, patches, GUI and third-party softwares (Which are never accepted by Wine Project). It is available for both Mac and Linux. Despite being a paid product, the patches are later added to the Wine Staging and buying the software will support the Wine developers. Version 19 allows for running 32 bit Windows programs, including games, on macOS Catalina.[2]
Wineskin[edit]
A Mac exclusive tool used to make wrappers to run Windows software in Mac OS X. Which converts it into an .app file which allows you to run the converted program into a native system.
Q4Wine[edit]
Front-end made in Qt4 environment for Linux system. It’s main advantage is the ability to use libraries from the Winetricks, built in WineApp Database, additional options such as mounting the ISO and it’s simplicity. The drawback of it however are no pre-compiled scripts which will automatically install the game along with required libraries and in some cases, specific Wine version which the game works without any major issues and requiring you to compile/install the specific Wine version of your choice if you want to use multiple Wine versions.
Improvements[edit]
Run the game in OpenGL/Vulkan mode[edit]
Run the game in OpenGL/Vulkan mode |
---|
If the game supports OpenGL/Vulkan, it is recommended to run it to avoid any performance issue. Many games accept the -opengl parameter, however in case of recent games you may have to set it up to run in Vulkan through the game’s options or using the -vulkan command prompt.
|
Show FPS overlay in games[edit]
Show FPS overlay in games |
---|
Wine features an embedded FPS monitor which works for all graphical applications once you use WINEDEBUG=fps command. You can also use this script with the xosd package installed in order to display the FPS counter on top of the window. |
Enable CSMT[edit]
- Depending on the game it may improve the performance when enabled.
- Command Stream Multi-Threading has been officially added since Wine 2.6, in case of Staging since 1.7.33
Official Wine 2.6 or higher |
---|
|
Wine Staging/Wine Staging Gallium Nine |
---|
|
Issues Fixed[edit]
.NET/Mono[edit]
Some Windows applications require the .NET software framework to run (Wine will instruct you to install if an application you try to run requires it), which is not compatible with Wine. However, an open source piece of software called Mono was made to replace it. You can install it via installing winetricks and entering this line into the Terminal/shell:
winetricks mono210
If the
wine-mono
is already installed from the distribution's repository, then it is not required.D-Bus (OS X)[edit]
D-Bus Issue (Mac OS) |
---|
Some Windows applications require the D-bus process to run, in order to communicate with certain other applications. While it is installed alongside Macports, it will not run unless you tell it to. You only need to do this once, and then the process will run every time on startup: sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchAgents/org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist |
Fonts do not show properly[edit]
Fonts do not show properly |
---|
Install corefonts , if that does not work, use allfonts as a last resort from winetricks. |
'16-bit LDT support may be missing.' error[edit]
'16-bit LDT support may be missing.' error |
---|
Use sudo echo 1 > /proc/sys/abi/ldt16 command |
Dual Head Setup/ Different Resolution Issue on a 64 bit Linux system[edit]
Winetricks For Mac
Dual Head Setup/ Different Resolution Issue on a 64 bit Linux system |
---|
Install the 32 bit package of XRandR, if the dual-head issue still persists, install 32 bit LibXinerama as well. |
Nothing appears after running a game patch/patched game[edit]
Winetricks Mac Os App Store
Nothing appears after running a game patch/patched game |
---|
Use wineconsole cmd command and from there, navigate to the game/patch folder and run the EXE file. |
Winecfg fails to detect the audio driver despite being installed (Linux)[edit]
Winecfg fails to detect the audio driver despite being installed (Linux) |
---|
On a 32-bit architecture of the Wineprefix in a 64-bit system:
If the Wineprefix is in 64-bit architecture, you may have to recreate the prefix. |
- ↑Introducing a new version of Steam Play
- ↑Celebrating the difficult; the release of Crossover 19