Installing Wine in LMDE5 - which source to choose?

[br1anstorm]

I have installed and used Wine successfully on previous systems running Mint 18 and Mint 19, simply downloading Wine from the main Mint repository using the Software Manager.

I have LMDE5 'Elsie' on my current computer and am looking at installing Wine. It is offered (v.5.0.3-3) in the Software Manager. This is however not the most recent stable release (which according to WineHQ is 7.0).

It seems as if I have a choice:

- to go with the default as offered by LMDE5, and just install the older version listed in the Software Manager. Easy and straightforward. But some forum posts suggest that this will deliver an "Ubuntu" version of Wine which may not play nicely with LMDE;

- or to download the more recent stable version of Wine from the Debian WineHQ repository using the commands set out on the WineHQ website at https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian . This seems more or less the same as the third procedure outlined on this site https://linuxhint.com/install_wine_debian_10/ , which is however aimed at Debian 10 users. That guide also describes another way of installing Wine just by using ''apt-get" in the terminal.

- there are also suggestions (in the Software Manager comments) that it is better to go to Synaptic and install various Wine packages using that package manager.

Which is the safest, simplest and most sensible route to follow?

[MiZoG]

Winehq is a better choice in my opinion but choices depend on intended use.
If you want to run a couple of Windows apps you know they run well on legacy wine, go for the standard installation of Bullseye packages.
If you have the ram / storage, install Windows on a VM for running demanding programs. This would be my choice for Photoshop, Illustrator, even a full-fledged Microsoft Office suite, especially a localized one.
If you're a gamer, forget about the repo packages, and -hands down- install Wine from Winehq repo.

[antikythera]

Which is the safest, simplest and most sensible route to follow?

I'd install wine-installer via apt or synaptic package manager (not the software manager) which is a linux mint maintained meta package that properly installs the full stable wine package set for 5.0.3 (debian, not ubuntu)

[br1anstorm]

Thanks to both @MiZoG and @antikythera for those helpful suggestions.

I'm not into gaming or even heavyweight usage of Windows programs. In fact I only need Wine to run one photo-viewing/organising/editing program (FastStone). I'm sure it will run happily under an older/legacy/standard version of Wine.

Forgive the dumb question... but if I do indeed opt to install wine-installer via Synaptic, which is a very simple process, does that single action of itself install the full Wine 5.0.3 package set? Or do I somehow have to "run" the installer once it is on my system and tell it what other packages/features/additional software I want included?

[antikythera]

it's a single action install, it will install everything you need

[br1anstorm]

Thanks @antikythera.

Well, I have completed step 1. Downloaded and installed Wine 5.0.3 via Synaptic. Wine is now listed in my Menu.

And step 2. Downloaded the [Windows] program I want - it is FastStone Viewer. It sits in my Downloads folder.

BUT.... unlike Mint 19, and every other online guide I have found .... when I right-click on the .exe file for FastStone Setup in order to install the program, the drop-down menu doesn't offer me the option of opening it with 'Wine Windows Program Loader' - which is what I had expected and what I assume to be necessary in order to have the FastStone program available in the virtual c: drive which Wine creates - and which does now exist on my system within the hidden .wine directory .

The drop-down menu only lists "open with Archive Manager" (and clicking instead on 'open with other applications' doesn't include any kind of Wine!).

So what's the problem? And more important, what's the solution?

[MiZoG]

Create the default wine prefix.
Type winecfg in a terminal. You'll be probably asked to install Mono. Do it.
This may prompt the installation of file associations and menu entries.
Hopefully "Wine Windows Program Loader" will show up on your right-click file options.

You can do the same of course by starting the installation of your windows executable in the command line.
wine /path/to my installer
This will create a prefix, install mono, file associations and your program in a row.

[br1anstorm]

Thanks @MiZoG, I thought I'd give the simpler option a try.

I typed winecfg in the terminal.

No prompts to install Mono or anything.

It opened the same window as I get when I click on "Configure Wine" in the main Mint menu. I had already tried that - and as I recall, the first time I did so a popup appeared suggesting it was updating and/or installing something.

So I get a windows-style set of tabbed options as illustrated in the attached screenshot. Clicking on Apply or OK in that window appears not to change anything.

Screenshot from 2022-10-02 14-24-06 - resized.png (52.28 KiB) Viewed 2753 times

And I still have no "Wine Windows Program Loader" listed in the drop-down menu when i right-click on an .exe file.

[MiZoG]

Tested Debian vanilla and it doesn't have this problem.
However apt show wine-installer on LMDE returns that this package is supplied by Mint Elsie repo.
Old threads on Mint and ubuntu forums
suggest that running this command with default installations of wine
sudo ln -s /usr/share/doc/wine/examples/wine.desktop /usr/share/applications/
will solve your problem.
If now the LMDE wine-installer for some reason does not create that file οn that specific path,
just locate wine.desktop and change the previous command accordingly.

[br1anstorm]

Have been offline for a few days, so hadn't got round to trying the latest suggestion from @MiZoG (for which many thanks...).

But before I do so, I feel that I'm already getting into deeper waters than I had expected.

I could of course simply try the command as suggested. But the truth is, I don't understand it and I have no idea what it means.

Being of a logical and systematic turn of mind, I rather like to know what the problem is before launching an attempt to solve it. I always prefer to get diagnosis and explanation first, then try the recommended treatment.... And it helps if that is in plain English, as I am not very familiar with translating/interpreting terminal-command codes. It follows that I have no idea how I would "change the previous command accordingly" if the first command doesn't work; and I wouldn't know how to "create a path" even if you gave me a shovel and a map....!

So what is it that Wine is not doing [but should be?] in LMDE? Or what is LMDE failing to do which then prevents the normal operation of Wine? Are one or more files being mis-labelled, or created/installed in the wrong locations? Is that recommended command a solution, or a workaround?

Obviously if the explanation is not straightforward and requires a deeper understanding of the intricacies of Linux than I possess, then I'll give up asking questions. But I still hope I might make a little progress along the learning curve by grasping the why as well as the how of the process.

[The Muffin Man]

Maybe it's "cheating", but I use PlayOnLinux to install and manage all my Wine versions and configurations.

[MiZoG]

I rather like to know what the problem is before launching an attempt to solve it

Cautious n wise. But the quest for knowledge is endless.

Like you I'm puzzled about why there is no "Open With Wine Windows Program Loader" when right-clicking a windows executable after the installation of the "default" version of wine in your system. The problem is seemingly that this one-liner sudo apt install wine-installer (that exists only on LMDE and not in vanilla Debian which LMDE is based on) somehow has not created the proper entry in the menu. "Open with" offers the irrelevant option of Archive Manager.

Linux apps create menu entries by installing text files (let's say "shortcuts") with the .desktop extension system-wide in /usr/share/applications and user-wide in ~/.local/share/applications. No "wine.desktop" -apparently- was placed inside either of em in your case. That's an assumption of course someone's making thousands of miles away from your computer.

I searched for queries on other Linux forums and found this problem has occurred in previous versions of Ubuntu / Mint. Wine included an "example", a prototype/template of this .desktop inside /usr/share/doc/wine but did not install it in the designated folders. One solution proposed was to create a symbolic link (let's say the equivalent of a windows shortcut) of this "example" to default location, hence the command:
sudo ln -s /usr/share/doc/wine/examples/wine.desktop /usr/share/applications/

To put it mildly it is not recommended to use graphical tools on Linux for such "system" operations with "root" privileges. So any responsible fellow Linux user wouldn't ever advice you to open Nemo with root privileges and do that thing in your file manager. Therefore there' s no easy way without using the terminal.

Now in my Linux installations there is not such an example of wine.desktop in /usr/share/doc etc. simply because I never install the default wine package.
I'm sitting in front of a Debian installation (not LMDE) and am trying to find where this "example' is in my computer. I know two ways: the commands find and locate. Latter yields results faster in my case.

mizog@ms7994:~$ locate wine.desktop

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/home/mizog/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 4.11/dist/share/applications/wine.desktop
/home/mizog/.local/share/lutris/runners/wine/lutris-7.2-2-x86_64/share/applications/wine.desktop
/home/mizog/.local/share/lutris/runners/wine/lutris-GE-Proton7-29-x86_64/share/applications/wine.desktop
/opt/wine-staging/share/applications/wine.desktop
/usr/share/applications/wine.desktop
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.15-21.08/2912e39b2c30c207025b9ad34882bf642904502da21811c3e9e4bf2e5bccbcd7/files/share/kservices5/searchproviders/wine.desktop

Oh my... with all my custom Wine builds I have this wine.desktop everywhere but.. in /usr/share/doc/wine.

I cannot be sure about what your wine-installer has installed or not. So I recommended that you go and find where this .desktop is in your system and create a symbolic link to this file instead if necessary.
Turn sudo ln -s /usr/share/doc/wine/examples/wine.desktop /usr/share/applications/ into
sudo ln -s /opt/wine-staging/share/applications/wine.desktop /usr/share/applications/ for example (<-- That was the meaning of the phrase "change the previous command accordingly")

[br1anstorm]

Thanks again, @MiZoG for your explanations and your patience. My learning curve feels pretty steep, but I hope that the effort will bring its reward....

I ought to say that while I like the ease with which graphical interfaces can normally be used, I do understand and respect the precision and clarity of using terminal-commands. The reality is that I just haven't had huge experience with command-line working, so am very conscious of the risk of screwing things up if I don't fully understand the commands I might use.

So we're into the "diagnostic" phase with Wine and LMDE.... and this is what I have managed to grasp so far:

1. There may be some sort of glitch with the way Wine is installed. This thread started with my query about which source and which option to choose - the [Mint/LMDE] Software Manager, or the rather elaborate sequence of commands to obtain and install from WineHQ. I ended up choosing a third route as suggested by @antikythera, which was to install using Synaptic. I remain unclear as to whether and how these relate to the "apt" or "apt-get" way of installing using terminal commands. Perhaps the installation fails to set up the correct menu-entries whichever route is chosen? But the first problem - as now explained by @MiZoG - seems to be that wine-installer has not put wine.desktop in the right place. We still don't know why: is this a Wine problem or an LMDE issue?

2. If that analysis is correct, then it seems I need to find out where my wine.desktop actually is (if anywhere...) and then either move it to where it needs to be, or do some kind of symlink setup (which is what seems to have been suggested earlier and which I described rightly or wrongly as a possible 'workaround'). If that is done, then - in theory - problem is solved and "Open with Wine Windows Program Loader" magically appears in the relevant right-click drop-down menu for any .exe file.

So I try the locate wine.desktop command.

This is what it reveals:

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brian@lenovo-t430:~$ locate wine.desktop
/usr/share/app-install/desktop/q4wine:q4wine.desktop
/usr/share/app-install/desktop/wine1.6:wine.desktop
/usr/share/doc/wine/examples/wine.desktop
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.15-21.08/53ed5e8f4132c170a0d2d46832ffb7bbf50b234c537d8b62db0e11f1d1fad9c1/files/share/kservices5/searchproviders/wine.desktop

I deduce from the third line that wine.desktop isn't in the right place. I have no idea what the first and second lines are telling me. And (though it's a separate issue) I am surprised to see any reference to flatpak as I wasn't aware that any element of flatpak was on my system and have no intention of using it.

However, if we are on track with the troubleshooting so far, then I need to try the "sudo ln - s" command provided earlier to set up a symlink which puts wine.desktop into, or makes it visible in, usr/share/applications.

If there's any flaw in this step-by-step thought process can someone please say so? Otherwise my next move will be to try to set up that symlink using the command as recommended....

[andy_van_isle]

Hi br1anstorm, I realize I'm late to the party but I had the same question for myself 18 hours ago --which source to use-- and decided to try the procedure as outlined at https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian (for Wine 7.0 on LMDE5)
which was:

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sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/dists/bullseye/winehq-bullseye.sources
sudo apt update
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

and it worked like a charm. Not sure if you want to start over though... I've successfully installed my MSO2003 (Excel & Word) without problems, no winecfg required, and for the hell of it I just now installed FastStone.exe which also was fine. Wine created a menu entry "Wine" for all the apps, and there is a right-click option on .exe's and .msi's for "Open With Wine Windows Program Loader".
This was on a sparkly clean LMDE5 install.
Again, not sure if you want to start over though... lol.
Good luck with those symlinks

Cheers, Andy.

[br1anstorm]

Maybe it's "cheating", but I use PlayOnLinux to install and manage all my Wine versions and configurations.

Not so much cheating but off at a tangent from the main topic of this thread.... but it's perhaps worth pointing out that PlayOnLinux is not an alternative to Wine, but simply a "front end" GUI for Wine. So in order to use PlayOnLinux you have to have Wine installed.

It follows that if Wine isn't properly installed, then resorting to PlayOnLinux isn't likely to help matters.

[br1anstorm]

Hi br1anstorm, I realize I'm late to the party but I... decided to try the procedure as outlined at https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian (for Wine 7.0 on LMDE5)
..... and it worked like a charm. Not sure if you want to start over though...
.... Good luck with those symlinks

Cheers, Andy.

Ah, Andy, that puts me on the spot. I have to say that "starting over" [and following the WineHQ installation route as in your post] has its attractions. From what you say it ought to deliver a cleaner and simpler installed setup than the alternative I was looking at on the basis of @MiZoG's advice. I just can't help feeling that setting up symlinks looks like a undesirable and possibly complicated workaround to deal with a basically unsatisfactory install.

The idea of uninstalling the existing [untidy] Wine packages and starting again with a clean sheet looks a better way to go - assuming of course that the uninstall does indeed clear everything and doesn't leave odd residual files behind to mess up an attempt at a new, clean install!

[The Muffin Man]

Maybe it's "cheating", but I use PlayOnLinux to install and manage all my Wine versions and configurations.

Not so much cheating but off at a tangent from the main topic of this thread.... but it's perhaps worth pointing out that PlayOnLinux is not an alternative to Wine, but simply a "front end" GUI for Wine. So in order to use PlayOnLinux you have to have Wine installed.

It follows that if Wine isn't properly installed, then resorting to PlayOnLinux isn't likely to help matters.

I mentioned that I used PlayOnLinux to manage Wine. You do not have to install a Wine package prior to PlayOnLinux. You can do all that with POL, even multiple versions of Wine.

[br1anstorm]

On reflection, @MuffinMan, I probably shouldn't have commented in the way I did, as I have never used PlayOnLinux and know very little about it.

I was just looking at the situation from first principles, and it seemed to me that having Wine, and then also a front end or manager for Wine in the form of POL, was just two layers of software complexity.... [or indeed three if one regards Wine as already one extra "layer" of software on top of the basic Linux system}.

I was already in a position where one additional layer (Wine on its own) was proving problematic. Hence my scepticism about POL. But if it works well for you, that's great!

My approach remains, wherever possible, the "Keep It Simple...." one. I still have to decide whether and how to start over with my attempt to install Wine....

[The Muffin Man]

Not only does it work for me, that is the way it is designed.

[MiZoG]

POL is not being so actively developed anymore. Lutris took over the Linux gaming scene the last few years and now we have Bottles too under feverish development.