A Semi-Technical

White Paper:

An Introduction to Wine
 Wine: An Introduction

Wine: An Introduction

Overview: Wine is a Windows compatibility

technology that allows a wide variety of Windows
Using Wine offers the software to run as-if-natively on Unix-based
best of both worlds— operating systems like Linux and Mac OS X.
Using Wine offers the best of both worlds—being
being able to run the
able to run the applications you want on the
applications you want on
operating system you want. This paper discusses
the operating system you Wine as a technology.
want.
What is Wine?
Wine is a technology developed under the auspices of The Wine
Project, an open-source community of developers in much the
same mold as the developer community that created the Linux
operating system in the first place. The Wine Project’s goal is
simple—to recreate the functionality of the Windows operating
system and make it available on the other Unix-based operating
systems. By doing so, operating systems like Linux and Mac OS
X will become fully Windows-compatible platforms, allowing
their users the freedom to run not only their respective native
software offerings, but Windows applications as well. In the
fifteen years since the project’s inception, Wine has made
remarkable strides towards achieving this overall goal.

What’s Under the Hood?

Technically speaking, Wine is not an emulator technology.
Emulators run an actual copy of the Windows operating system
within a virtual machine that is hosted by the target operating
system. Wine is not a virtual machine. Rather, Wine is intended
to be a complete re-implementation of the Win32 Application
Programming Interface (API) under Unix. It runs directly in the
target operating system, and uses the native file system.

In layman’s terms, re-implementing the Windows API means that

a Windows software program interacts with Wine—and thereby
the target operating system—directly. Wine sits between the
application and the operating system. As the application makes
system requests—calls for screen redraws, printing services,
and so on—Wine interprets those requests and makes them

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 Wine: An Introduction

understandable to Unix. The host operating system responds,

fulfilling the requests, and satisfying the needs of the application.
So far as the application is concerned, it thinks it’s running on
Windows—it’s needs are being met, so it detects no difference.
has no way of telling anything’s different. At a very basic level,
then, Wine is simply fooling the application into thinking it’s
running on Windows, when it actually isn’t.
One of Wine’s key
benefits is that it allows Why is this Cool?
Windows programs to Wine’s technical approach leads to some distinct benefits
be directly integrated compared to traditional emulation solutions. First, unlike
into the Unix operating emulator technologies—which in effect cordon off the
application being run from the underlying native operating
system. system—one of Wine’s key benefits is that it allows Windows
programs to be directly integrated into the Unix operating
system. The Windows applications are considered normal
applications of the host operating system, meaning that a Linux
user sees Windows program icons on their Start Menu items,
just as they would expect on a Windows machine. A Mac user,
likewise, finds those same applications on their Finder.

The same benefits apply to the file system. The Windows

programs directly access the host file system, allowing files to be
named, saved, and retrieved just as if they were on a Windows
hard drive. There’s no need to move files back and forth between
the host operating system and a virtual Windows partition. As a
result, to the user the program operates transparently, just as their
Windows application operates. No additional training is required.

Another key benefit regards system resources. First off, you

don’t have to boot or initiate Wine, as you would an emulator.
Programs running under Wine are launched immediately upon
Wine typically being invoked. More important, of course, emulators require
offers better system actually running a copy of Windows, meaning that the host
performance than an system has to simultaneously “feed” two different operating
systems—the host system (Mac OS X or Linux) and Windows.
emulator running the Both operating systems consume disk space, RAM, and
same application. processor cycles, negatively impacting their performance. Wine,
on the other hand, consumes very little in the way of overhead—
typically only 1-2MB of RAM per application—leaving the host
operating system to perform normally. The result is that Wine
typically offers better system performance than an emulator
running the same application.

The final major benefit, of course, is the fact that Windows

is not required in order to run Wine. Wine is a complete
reimplementation of the Windows API, and therefore a complete
replacement of Windows itself. Not having Windows present on
the host system, in turn, protects that system from the sorts of

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 Wine: An Introduction

malware and viruses that prey upon Windows machines. Unlike

emulation solutions, wherein a user is well advised to install
commercial anti-virus software (Macafee, Symantec, etc.) to
protect them from malware when running Outlook or Internet
Not having Windows Explorer, these same threats are not present when running Wine.
present on the host Why? Because the tailored attacks that viruses use to exploit
vulnerabilities within Windows are not applicable to Unix-based
system protects that operating systems. In a nutshell, for all practical purposes, viruses
system from the sorts simply don’t run under Wine.
of malware and viruses The final benefit of Wine’s not requiring a copy of Windows is that
that prey upon Windows you don’t need a Microsoft Operating Systems license, either. This
machines. potentially frees Wine users from having to deal with Microsoft’s
onerous per seat licensing policies, as well as their monopolistic
pricing structure.

Because of this host of benefits, Wine is a key enabling

technology. It reduces the barriers to adopting Linux and
Apple desktops by enabling those different platforms to run the
Windows office productivity software that much of the business
community has come to rely upon. As Wine matures, the barriers
to adopting these alternative technologies will become lower.
The end result will be more freedom for the individual consumer,
as well as the re-introduction of much-needed competition into
the desktop operating system space, which has been essentially
strangled by Microsoft for the better part of two decades.

What are its Limitations?

Like many promising open-source technologies, Wine is still
evolving at a tremendous rate. As such, it is not a finished,
polished technology yet, and there remain gaps in its coverage
of the Win32 API. Likewise, not all of the portions of the API
that have been implemented are fully refined. Put simply, there
are still lots of bugs—things don’t operate quite as expected,
or perhaps operate not at all. This is the necessary outcome of
a technology that is attempting to recreate the product of the
world’s most powerful software company (Microsoft) on a
budget that does not remotely replicate that of Windows’ creator.
So, Wine is not (yet) a silver bullet that magically allows any
Windows program to run under flawlessly under Linux or Mac
OS X. Typically, getting a Windows application to run cleanly
under Wine still requires a degree of effort and expense.

That said, however, it is clear that Wine is moving in the

direction of becoming a silver bullet sort of technology. Evidence
of this lies in the steadily decreasing amount of effort required to
get Windows applications to install cleanly and come up to their
main screen under Wine. As late as 2000, the odds of a given
application running acceptably “out of the box” under Wine were

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 Wine: An Introduction

fairly small. In 2008, those odds are probably approaching 50/50,

and getting better all the time.
The substantial effort Interestingly, too, since Wine is a general-purpose
CodeWeavers has put reimplementation of the Win32 API, it experiences synergistic
benefits from new developments across the breadth of its
into making the MSOffice codebase. That is to say, a patch to Wine to fix a bug in
suite run under Wine, Application A often has the side benefit of fixing similar bugs
for instance, has had the in Applications B, C, and D as well. Thus, the substantial effort
CodeWeavers has put into making the MSOffice suite run
effect of making other under Wine, for instance, has had the effect of making other
applications run as well. applications run as well. Thus, it is not necessary for every
Windows application out there to be directly “looked at” in
order to begin running. In many cases, once Wine has reached a
certain critical mass, applications that heretofore never ran will
“magically” begin running as well.

CodeWeavers’ Relationship
to the Wine Project
CodeWeavers remains the most important corporate sponsor of
the Wine Project, having contributed more than 40% of all the
patches in Wine (including a lot of the really hard stuff). 100% of
CodeWeavers’ Wine-related development work is given back to
the Wine Project. And while CodeWeavers maintains a separate
Wine development code tree for its CrossOver products, this tree
CodeWeavers has fully and the free Wine tree are constantly being merged and updated
abided not only by the based on the most promising contributions in both. In other
words, unlike some other Wine-based businesses, who do not
letter, but also by the spirit actively return their code to free Wine, CodeWeavers has fully
of the open-source license abided not only by the letter, but also by the spirit of the open-
that governs Wine’s source license that governs Wine’s development and usage. In
a sense, CrossOver can be thought of as a polished, tested, and
development and usage. supported version of free Wine.

Conclusion
Wine remains one of the most exciting open-source technologies
in the computing marketplace today. Via Wine, businesses
around the globe are beginning to realize the benefits that Linux
and/or Mac OS X offer, while at the same time preserving the
substantial investments they may have already made in Windows
software applications. Wine is thus a critical bridging technology
that helps Linux and Mac users achieve the best of both worlds.

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