November 3, 2023

How to Install Wine on openSUSE Tumbleweed

This document explains how to install 64-bit Wine that supports executing 64-bit and 32-bit Windows apps. You can choose either Wine Development or Wine Staging.

If you need pure 32-bit Wine that supports 32-bit Windows apps but not 64-bit Windows apps, click Install 32-bit Wine on openSUSE Tumbleweed.

If refreshing repositories with zypper refresh generates an error due to not finding the installation disk/iso, opening Software Repositories (Activities > YAST > Software > Software Repositories) and disabling the CD repository will fix the problem.

Download and install the openSUSE Wine repository key

Open a Terminal window and download the repository key.

> wget https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/repodata/repomd.xml.key

Install the key.

> sudo rpm --import repomd.xml.key

Add the openSUSE Tumbleweed Wine repository

> sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/Emulators:Wine.repo

Update the package database

> sudo zypper refresh

Install wine

The next command will install Wine Development accompanied by Wine Mono, Wine Gecko, and Winetricks on 64-bit hardware.

If you prefer Wine Staging, replace wine by wine-staging.

> sudo zypper install wine

Verify the installation succeeded

> wine --version

Configure Wine

To bring up Wine's configuration panel, open a Terminal window and execute winecfg. If installing mono or gecko is offered, accept the offer.

When prompted, set your preferred version of Windows. Windows 10 may be preferred for most applications.

> wine winecfg

If you are creating custom Wine prefixes, this configuration must be repeated for each prefix.

Two simple tests

Just for fun, or to see Wine in action …

Display a simple clock

> wine clock

Run Wine's builtin web browser

If installing gecko is offered, accept the offer.

> wine iexplore

How to install a Windows app

Wine is a Terminal application. Even after installing Wine, you will not find it listed with the desktop apps that came with your Linux distribution. Wine is invoked using Terminal commands.

As an example of installing a Windows app with Wine, consider Abcdef, a fictitious Windows application which is installed by Abcdef_Setup.exe. To install your own Windows app, replace Abcdef_Setup.exe with the filename of your app's installer.

The first step is to download Abcdef_Setup.exe and store it in ~/Downloads.

After doing that, execute winecfg (if you haven't already).

$ wine winecfg

The command to execute Abcdef_Setup.exe must be issued from the directory where Abcdef_Setup.exe is located, so execute

$ cd ~/Downloads

The next command starts the installation. Respond to the installer's prompts just as you would in Windows.

$ wine Abcdef_Setup.exe

Here is a real example. It installs version 8.6 of the text editor Notepad++. The file name of the Notepad++ installation program is npp.8.6.Installer.x64.exe

$ wine npp.8.6.Installer.x64.exe

When installation is complete, look for an Abcdef launcher on your desktop. There may also be an entry named Wine in your distribution's Applications. Launchers may require you to confirm execution of your app is safe.

More about installing Windows apps

• The installer does not need to be in ~/Downloads. Any directory is fine, as long as you issue the wine command from that directory.
• If the installer is a Windows .msi file instead of an .exe, use the wine msiexec /i command instead of wine.
• Not all Windows apps can run under Wine. Consulting the Wine Application Database may be helpful.
• For more information, search for online tutorials on using Wine. One that includes basic information plus some advanced techniques is Installing Windows Apps on Linux

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