What is Wine?
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. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.
In this tutorial you will learn:
1. How to install Wine from a standard Ubuntu repository.
2. How to install Wine from the original Wine repositories.
3. How to install Wine stable, staging and development versions.
Install Wine on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) step by step instructions.
Method 1
How to install Wine from a standard Ubuntu repository
The recommended approach to install Wine on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) is to perform the installation from an Ubuntu repository as it will provide you with a stable wine version. The WineHQ requires multiarch to be enabled. Therefore the first step is to enable i386 architecture:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 && sudo apt update
Next, to install Wine we need to install both wine64 and wine32 Windows API implementation packages. To do so execute the following command:
sudo apt install wine64 wine32
Once the installation is completed confirm the wine installation by checking for the wine version:
wine --version wine-5.0 (Ubuntu 5.0-3ubuntu1)
Method 2
How to install Wine staging from the official Wine repositories
The following procedure can be used to install Wine directly using WinHQ packages. To start add i386 architecture to your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) system:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 && sudo apt update
Next add WineHQ signing key and repository:
wget -qO- https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-add-repository 'deb http://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ focal main'
At this point we have the following WineHQ installations available: stable, staging and development version. Select the installation command to suit your environment:
WineHQ Stable
To install stable WineHQ packages enter:
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-stable
Check version after Wine installation:
wine --version wine-5.0.2
WineHQ Staging
To install staging WineHQ packages enter:
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-staging
Check version after Wine installation:
$ wine --version wine-5.15 (Staging)
WineHQ Development
To install development WineHQ packages enter:
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-devel
Check version after Wine installation:
wine --version wine-5.16
Conclusion
Now you have learned how to install Wine on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa).
Thanks for your time. If you face any problem or any feedback, please leave a comment below.