Wine is a project that started in 1993 to support the running of Windows applications on Linux machines. Bob Amstadt was the original initiator of the Wine project and since then has developed to a level that ports have been created to run Win32 applications. Applications such as Wine are going to be the catalyst in the fight to bring Linux to the desktop. In this page we are going to follow the development of the Wine project.

For Screen shots of the Wine application click here

 Below are the features of Wine.

Wine Features

Binary Compatibility

• Support for loading Win32 (9x/NT/XP), Windows 3.x and DOS binaries
• Support for Win32 and Win16 function calls
• 32 and 16 bit x86 code
• Large interrupt library for programs using real-mode INTxx calls
• Advanced thunking capabilities
• Optional use of external vendor DLLs
• Reverse-engineering design assures ``bug-for-bug'' compatibility

Graphics

• X11-based graphics or SDL or text/ttydrv display
• Remote display to any X terminal
• Supports full GDI and many new features of GDI32
• Partial DirectX support for games (Direct3D missing)
• Supports native Win16 printer drivers (outdated)
• Internal PostScript driver printing interface
• Metafile driver
• Desktop-in-a-box or mixable windows

Other Features

• Good support for sound, alternative input devices
• Modems, serial devices are supported
• Winsock TCP/IP networking
• ASPI Scanner support
• advanced Win32 common controls support

Wine API

• Designed for source compatibility with Win32 code
• Sample programs
• Automatically generated API documentation
• 32-bit resource compiler
• Partial Unicode and support
• Internationalization -- Wine supports 16 languages
• Built-in debugger and configurable trace messages