Installing & Configuring Wine with Winetools

Last Updated: 23-Aug-05

My Wine installation process using Winetools (for those of us who are GUI oriented :>)

Winetools has not been tested with the latest versions of Wine, and there are some known issues with Winetools re installing IE6 on Wine versions later than 20041019. You can visit the Winetools home page at http://www.von-thadden.de/Joachim/WineTools/ for comments on this. If you installed SimplyMepis 3.3 or greater and Wine is already installed then you will have a more recent version of Wine installed than 20041019.

Please note that Wine, unlike many Linux packages, is NOT installed as Root. During the following steps the only time you should be in Root mode is when you start the Synaptic package manager or the Kpackage manager. With these 2 package management programs you will be asked for your Root password and be dropped into Root mode automatically while the package is being installed. You will automatically be returned to your user mode when you close the Synaptic or Kpackage manager programs. For these instructions DO NOT start the Konqueror file manager in superuser mode; always use the 'Home/Personal Files" icons on the Mepis task bar or Kmenu or the 'Documents' icon on the desktop.

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Step 1 - If you are using Mepis 3.3.1 or newer the Debian repositories are not activated by default. Go to the Kmenu and select "System > Synaptic Package Manager" to start Synaptic, then go to the Synaptic menu "Settings > Repositories". In the window that pops up, check the box on each of the following 3 lines. This activates the Debian binary package repositories in Mepis.

deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main

You will also need to add the following respository for WineHQ to be able to get the .deb package for Winetools and its dependent packages. To do this, click on the New button. In the text box labeled 'URI' enter "http://wine.sourceforge.net/apt/" (without the quotes), and in the text box labeled "Distribution" enter "binary/" (without the quotes).

Press the OK button when you have finished entering these changes. Then click on the "Reload" icon on the Synaptic tool bar (You must be connected to the internet when doing this). Your local packages database will be updated (no packages are actually downloaded on a "Reload").

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Step 2 - If the Wine package installed on your system is NOT version 20041019:

Step 2(a) - Download the following deb packages for Wine 20041019 to a directory in your home directory (I made one called Software just for this purpose and I retain the packages I download). You can download these packages for the i386 architecture as of the date of this writing with a web browser at:

ftp://ftp.chg.ru/.5/sourceforge/a/ad/adambots-live/

Actually, I downloaded all of the Wine .deb packages here for the 20041019-1.3 version just so I'd have them in case I needed them in the future (e.g. a LiveCD update), but the following 4 packages will suffice to get Wine up and running.

libwine_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb
wine_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb
win-utils_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb
wine-doc_0.0.20041019-1.3_all.deb

Note: Downloading might take awhile and you may or may not get an indicator of download progress, depending on the settings of your browser - so wait and make sure you have the full files. Then close your browser.

Step 2(b) - Use Synaptic to COMPLETELY uninstall all currently installed Wine packages. To do this go to the Synaptic menu option Edit > Search and enter "Wine" (without the quotes) in the search window that pops up. Then click on the button labeled "Search". On the right hand side you will see a list of packages with "wine" in the title. Go through this list and right click on each package that has a green icon at the beginning of the line. A menu will pop up. Select "Mark for complete removal". When you have marked all the installed wine packages for complete removal, click on the "Apply" icon on the Synaptic tool bar. Follow any instructions you are presented with (most probably none to speak of).

Step 2(c) - Left click with the mouse on the house icon on the left hand side of the Mepis task bar or on the Kmenu icon and select "Home (Personal Files)" from the Kmenu, then navigate to your Software directory and install each of the 4 Wine .deb packages listed above, ONE BY ONE, IN THE ORDER LISTED, by clicking on each with the left mouse button.

Clicking on a .deb package will cause the Kpackage manager to start up. Highlight the Wine package in the list on the left and then press the install button at the bottom center of the screen. Another window will open and again click on the Install button in the bottom left corner of the window. Yet another window will come up asking you for the password for root. Type in the password and hit the Enter key. The installation should start.

Close the Kpackage manager after installing each .deb package. Once all 4 .deb packages have been installed you have finished installing the basic Wine 20041019 packages - but Wine it is not yet configured.

Note: The Kpackage manager is an official part of the Kdesktop environment (Synaptic is not), and Mepis defaults to opening .deb files on your hard drive in the Kpackage manager. You could also use Synaptic to install these files by adding your Software directory to the Synaptic repositories list. Read the Synatic help file if you want to figure out how to do this.

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Step 3 - Start Synaptic and install the 'msttcorefonts' (microsoft core true type fonts) and 'Winetools' packages. If any additional packages are indicated as necessary during this process, accept the option to mark them and continue.

Note that the Winetools package itself will NOT be found by Synaptic, even though it is listed as being in the repository. You will be asked if you want to continue anyway. Say ???Yes???, and three packages that Winetools depends on will be installed (xdialog, gtk2-engines-smooth, and gtk2-smooth-themes). This is the only way you will get all 3 of these dependent packages for Winetools installed, as gtk2-smooth-themes is NOT in the Debian repositories currently utilized by SimplyMepis.

Once these packages are installed you will need to manually ???unmark??? the Winetools package in Synaptic. After unmarking the winetools package you can close Synaptic.

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Step 4 ??? The Winetools package itself seems to be getting harder to find all the time. As of this writing you can download a copy of the latest version (winetools_2.1.1-1_all.deb) at the following site:

http://www.linuxsky.net/down/ftproot/incoming/f33k4/bin/

Once you have downloaded the Winetools package into your Software directory, install it just as you did with the Wine packages themselves, i.e. left click on the package and install it with Kpackage manager.

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Step 5 - Go back to the Konqueror file manager (Home/Personal Files) and select "Tools | Run Command" from the menu. In the popup box type "winetools" (without the quotes) and click with the mouse on the "Run" button.

Note: Regarding error messages during the Wine installation / configuration process. You might want to jot them down, but Wine/Winetools can produce quite a few informational and error messages in some cases. Ignore them. You also might end up having to close a lot of windows that pop up, but just keep moving forward. During the process you will get popups that give you instructions to follow. [DO NOT follow any instructions that tell you start wt2 from the command line. Just keep moving forward.] I ignored all the messages, and everything I've installed seems to be working okay. If you're new to Linux, as I am, I'd not get too hung up on the error messages here unless something you need is not working for you.

The first thing you want to do is go to the "Base" option. The first substep under this option will be to set up and configure Wine. Winetools will indicate if you already have a .wine directory - I'd pick the option to replace it. Mixing versions always seems to cause issues.

Substeps 2-4 of the Base option involve setting up IE6 (arial font install, dcom98 install, IE6 install - all necessary to install IE6). Winetools will tell you as you execute each step if the arial fonts, dcom98 or IE6 are already installed.

I would recommend installing IE6 because it MUST be installed in Wine first, before any other windows applications, if its ever going to work right (so I've read). There are still web sites that won't work right with anything but IE, so from a practical standpoint you'll probably never be able to uninstall any windows OS on your machine unless you have installed IE6 in Wine. [Of course, you don't have to install IE6 if you don't want to :>) ]

Once you've installed IE6 you can exit Winetools.

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Step 6 ??? Winetools creates scripts for starting the Wine programs it installs and places them in the /bin directory of your home directory. To create a desktop shortcut to the ie6 script go to your desktop, right click on the desktop, and select Create New > File > Link to Application. In the ???General??? tab of the dialog box that pops up, type ???Internet Explorer???. Then go to the ???Application??? tab and click on the ???Browse??? button that you see on the right hand side of the textbox labeled 'Command'. Browse to your /home/????/bin directory and select the file named ???ie6??? and click on the 'Open' button of the browse dialog box. Then click on the 'OK' button on the Properties dialog box. You will now have an icon on your desktop that you can use to start up the Internet Explorer. You can subsequently right click on the desktop icon and select 'properties' to get back to the Properties dialog box and make other changes like using a different icon graphic, etc.

Note: After first installing wine and running a program that is installed in wine you will get some dialog boxes popping up every time you start wine. These dialog boxes give you the option of NOT having them pop up all the time. I'd chose that option to make the startup process less instrusive.

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You can use Winetools to install a handful of the more common MS applications from its main menu by re-starting it at any time (just skip the Base option when you do).

I'd recommend installing the MSOffice application viewers so you can preview converted OpenOffice documents before sending them to someone. I've found conversions of more complicated documents are not always flawless.

I've also installed my Office 2000 Word and Excel applications, and both seem to work okay.

Hopefully thw Wine installation process will get somewhat easier once the .9 version of wine comes out. This .9 version is allegedly due later this year (2005) and should represent a relatively stable package. All versions of Wine to date are in fact development versions. Don't expect EVEYTHING to install in wine without issues. It won't. A lot of tweaking can be involved, in which case you will have the opportunity to become a true Wine connoisseor!!

Good luck to you. Your mileage WILL vary :>)