With the release of Wine 8, the Windows replica for Linux has matured again and enables more Windows programs. In most cases, however, additional work is necessary to set up Windows programs.

Linux is not the same as Windows. The operating system is operated and configured differently than Windows and Windows programs cannot be started directly. With the help of virtualization or Wine ...

For those wanting to save money on desktops by using Linux, but feel trapped into Windows because of the need to run Windows apps, Wine can help.

Wine is open-source, allowing contributions from the Linux community and companies like Valve (more on that later), so support for many Windows programs has gotten better with time.

I ported a lot of my windows-only programs over to my Linux build a couple of years ago, and they've been running mostly fine. Some loss of very minor functionality in configuration settings was ...