Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop.

The Wine project started in 1993 as a way to support running Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. Bob Amstadt was the original coordinator, but turned it over fairly early on to Alexandre Julliard, who has run it ever since. Over the years, ports for other Unixes have been added, along with support for Win32 as Win32 applications became popular.

Wine is still under development, and it is not yet suitable for general use. Nevertheless, many people find it useful in running a growing number of Windows programs. Please see the Application Database for success and failure reports for hundreds of Windows programs, as well as the Bug Tracking Database for a list of known issues, and the Status page for a global view on Wine's implementation progress.

A broad spectrum of Wine developers can be reached in the Wine forums. Comments about the winehq.org website can be emailed to web-admin_at_winehq.org. Alexandre Julliard leads the Wine project, and may be reached by email at julliard_at_winehq.org.

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)
Support for OpenGL based games and applications
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

The license of this software is Free, you can free download and free use this system utility software.