Wine 0.9.27 review

Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix. Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running

License: LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License) File size: 0K Developer: Wine Team

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Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix.

Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available. Wine provides both a development toolkit for porting Windows source code to Unix as well as a program loader, allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.

Here are some key features of "Wine":
Binary Compatibility

Loads Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, Windows 3.x and DOS programs and libraries
Win32 compatible memory layout, exception handling, threads and processes
Designed for POSIX compatible operatings systems (eg. Linux and FreeBSD)
``bug-for-bug'' compatibility with Windows

Graphics

X11-based graphics allows remote display to any X terminal
X11, TrueType (.ttf/.ttc) and Windows Bitmap (.fon) Fonts
DirectX support for games (limited Direct3D support)
Printing via PostScript driver or legacy native Win16 printer drivers
Enhanced Metafile (EMF) and Windows Metafile (WMF) driver
Desktop-in-a-box or mixable windows
Windows MultiMedia (WinMM) layer support with builtin codecs

Allows Windows program to interface with:

Sound devices via ALSA, OSS, ARTS, JACK, and libaudio etc
Multi-lingual keyboards and CJK input method support via XIM
Modems, serial devices
Networks (TCP/IP and IPX)
ASPI Scanners
Windows Tablets via XInput (eg. Wacom)

Wine API

Designed for source and binary compatibility with Win32 code
Win32 API test suite to ensure compatibility
Compilable on a wide range of C compilers
Permits mixing of Win32 and POSIX code
Permits mixing of ELF (.so) and PE (.dll/.exe) binaries in one address space
Win32 compatible header files
Automatically generated API documentation
Resource compiler
Message compiler
IDL compiler
extensive Unicode support
Internationalization -- Wine supports 16 languages
Built-in debugger and configurable trace messages
External memory checker support using Valgrind
Sample programs