How To Run Windows Software And Games On Linux Systems.-Using Wine
Linux is a very popular open source OS available. However Linux isn't compatible with major softwares out there as it is mainly targeted for Windows based systems. Playing Windows based PC games is too much to ask for ---
Not anymore!!!
Wine is here to do exactly that. It is a Linux based software which can run windows softwares and would you believe that it can run PC games too. Hell yeah!
About Wine
You might think of Wine as an emulator. Well you are wrong. In fact the acronym means- Wine is not an Emulator.However, Wine is actually a compatibility layer since both Windows and
Wine run natively on x86 and no hardware emulation is required. Wine works by recreating a miniature Windows installation in your home
folder, (the .wine directory) complete with a virtual C:\ (drive_c) and
registry. Contained within drive_c is a Program Files folder and a
Windows folder complete with a system32 folder that has the most
important Windows system files in it.Wine can also use actual Windows drivers if need be, you have to supply these too.
The performance of Wine is not similar to all softwares and will surely depend on PC configuration. For running games a neat PC config is necessary.
You can Acquire Wine From original winehq website.
Test System we utilized was ;
AMD Phenom II x4 965
2GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5
Dual Boot WinXP and Ubuntu 12.04
Wine 1.4.1
Using Wine
Traditionally, Wine is invoked through a command-line interface. This is
done by opening a terminal, navigating to the directory the executable
file you wish to run is in, and then by invoking the executable by
running “wine program.exe” (where program.exe is the name of the program
you wish to run) As with everything else on Linux, Wine is
case-sensitive, so Program.exe is not the same thing as “program.exe”.
The terminal will then produce output that shows what Wine is doing
while the program is running. This output is often critical for working
around problems.
Lets Go Gaming In Linux
For checking the gaming quality of Wine we used Half-Life 2, Painkiller,and Need For Speed Most Wanted.
Half-Life 2 worked wonderfully on maximum settings with all options enabled without suffering from lags.Certain glitches were present in the game like a white haze seen behind the soldier on screen.At 1024x768 resolution the games works as if it were on a Windows OS.
Portal was exactly similar to half life 2 in performance . No lags and runs freely in Linux.
Most wanted had minor bugs in play. But game is playable and lags might go unnoticed.
