Ubuntu: Up and Running

The Benefits of Wine

Wine offers many benefits compared to running Windows within a virtual machine emulator such as VirtualBox, the first being cost. With an emulator you must install a full version of a Windows operating system, which requires you to pay for a license. On the other hand, Wine is free to use. (However, if you use Microsoft Office or other commercial programs in Wine, you need licenses for those programs to run them legally.)

Another benefit of Wine is that it integrates with the Ubuntu desktop, which means that you can run Windows and Linux programs alongside one another, both as full-speed native applications, and with full copy and paste integration between the two.

If you look again at Figure 16-1, you’ll see that the top-left window contains the Ubuntu File Browser, which is currently displaying the folders in a new C: drive that Wine has created. Below this, the OFFICE11 folder on that drive is also being displayed, showing WINWORD.EXE, which has just been clicked, calling up the Microsoft Word program shown in the window to the right.

The small window on top of them all is for Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement program. It has been called up by clicking the icon that was added to the top status bar, which normally would have been added to a Windows computer’s system tray. So as you can see, Ubuntu and Windows programs integrate with each other seamlessly when Wine is installed.

Note

You may be interested to know that a version of Wine is also available ...