{"slug": "wine", "name": "Wine", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "Compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux, macOS, and BSD.", "recommenders": 9, "commenters": 17, "warners": 3, "score": 6.619, "rising": 1.04, "first": "2025-11-02", "latest": "2026-10-19", "why": "Recommended for running Windows games and older Windows software on Linux, often alongside Proton, and for bringing Windows apps to macOS and other operating systems.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 9, "neutral": 5, "compare": 1, "warn": 3}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Linux gaming", "Old software"], "caveat": "Tricky setup", "short_quote": "Wine will just use the GPU capabilities of the Mac by mapping DirectX/3D calls to Metal. No need to keep any Windows installation, ever.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.winehq.org/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Wine", "WINE"], "verdict": [{"text": "Recommended for running Windows games and older Windows software on Linux, often alongside Proton,", "cites": [{"id": 770352417, "item_id": 48147026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48147026", "by": "rpigab", "date": "2026-05-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "thanks to Steam's Proton + WINE + everything else.", "excerpt": "I have been a gamer for all my life, I have many PCs, until early 2024 one of them had to run Windows for gaming. I quit Windows, and didn't have to quit gaming, thanks to Steam's Proton + WINE + everything else. Now, because I have Steam compat activated by default, when I download and launch a new game, most of the time I do not know if I'm running a native version or if I'm running it through Proton. I also can ru", "context": "lifelong gamer on Ubuntu", "use_case": "running Windows games on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features"}, {"id": 732687954, "item_id": 45792997, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45792997", "by": "p1necone", "date": "2025-11-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "now I just use lutris/wine", "excerpt": "I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always", "context": "switched to Linux over a year ago", "use_case": "running old Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark"}, {"id": 784386608, "item_id": 49024163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024163", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Wine is already better at running older Windows software than Windows.", "excerpt": "The last time I used Windows seriously, which was Windows 10, this was not the case. If that's changed then great. But we need to acknowledge that Windows software install is changing to become more Linux-ified. With package managers and repos out of the box. Clearly the Linux model is more secure, and Microsoft knows it. It's a good idea for Microsoft to take inspiration here. It's only a matter of time before they ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows software", "switched_from": "", "story": "LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps"}, {"id": 745081281, "item_id": 46567580, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567580", "by": "lifetimerubyist", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The Wine team and Valve have made some incredible contributions to the preservation of games on PC", "excerpt": "I replaced Windows with Linux about 6 months ago. Then I ran into a game I really wanted to play but it didn\u2019t run well with Proton (not kernel anti-cheat, just bad performance) after all the tweaks so I just reserved to dual booting with Windows 10. After not using Windows for so long, I came to realize that Windows is just as much a mess as Linux just in different ways. You get used to the quirks so you don\u2019t notic", "context": "", "use_case": "running old games", "switched_from": "", "story": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great"}]}, {"text": " and for bringing Windows apps to macOS and other operating systems.", "cites": [{"id": 784310496, "item_id": 49019406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019406", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Wine will just use the GPU capabilities of the Mac by mapping DirectX/3D calls to Metal. No need to keep any Windows installation, ever.", "excerpt": "Wine will just use the GPU capabilities of the Mac by mapping DirectX/3D calls to Metal. No need to keep any Windows installation, ever. Also here we are running Amd64 (64 bit Intel, but I use Amd64 for the original architecture) games into ARM with the translation layer. It might have a performance penalty but most WIndows games are Amd64/i386 CPUs anyway. The video link I gave to you it's a guide to setup Windows' ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows games on Mac", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nvidia released its first official GeForce driver for Windows on Arm"}, {"id": 778638832, "item_id": 48664927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664927", "by": "Wowfunhappy", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the idea of Wine acting as the universal interface that lets you run windows apps wherever the heck you want.", "excerpt": "See, I think this is what makes it cool as heck. Write your own OS from scratch, implement the right interfaces, and bam, all this existing software just works. I love the idea of Wine acting as the universal interface that lets you run windows apps wherever the heck you want. And\u2014this is just an escape hatch. You can support Wine and also support \"native\" apps which are optimized for your custom OS.", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running Windows Games on a Hobby OS with Wine"}, {"id": 802457344, "item_id": 50153584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50153584", "by": "coldpie", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Good work to the author.  I'd encourage them to try upstreaming it", "excerpt": "You can download the attachment and take a look at the patches. Wine already supports FreeBSD and macOS, so it's not tooooo crazy hard to add another BSD/Unix to the pile. Looks like there's a few Unix APIs that have drifted, so the patches add some #if OpenBSD style stuff to avoid using some symbols that don't exist on OpenBSD. The gs register stuff is by far the most complex bit. IIRC that register is used for thre", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps on OpenBSD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wine ported to OpenBSD"}]}, {"text": " The main caveat is that some apps are tricky or unsatisfying to run,", "cites": [{"id": 802521249, "item_id": 50157578, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157578", "by": "blablabla123", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it's tricky to get running on WINE", "excerpt": "I'm having a blast with AoE I on Linux, in this case the Definitive Edition. I don't think it looks like Office though ;) But what is true, it's tricky to get running on WINE. With Proton which I use the configuration works by default though IIRC.", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "running Age of Empires", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wine ported to OpenBSD"}, {"id": 787758276, "item_id": 49234892, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234892", "by": "mercutio93", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "but I dislike how wine works with ableton on linux", "excerpt": "Hey dude... honestly speaking im not really doing this for traction. I use the0 trading platform day to day implement algorithmic trading strategies that run 24/7 365 some of them are conventional trading strategies and others are portfolio rebalancers. the0s a project that come a long way Ive been working on it for a few years now. The core architecture of it is complete. It more just implementing things I feel need", "context": "", "use_case": "running Ableton on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Vibez \u2013 Open-Source Rust Based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)"}]}, {"text": " including newer software versions and workflows like wireless device syncing.", "cites": [{"id": 796839616, "item_id": 49802476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802476", "by": "mft_", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wine/equivalent only works for older versions (up to 2016?)", "excerpt": "AFAIK, Wine/equivalent only works for older versions (up to 2016?) - newer versions +/- AD require a VM of some variety. (This was originally where I noped out and switched to MacOS instead.)", "context": "", "use_case": "running Microsoft Office on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "I said no and Apple said yes"}, {"id": 789554369, "item_id": 49347148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347148", "by": "Telaneo", "date": "2026-08-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "so I have to use Wine, which for stupid reasons prevents me from syncing wirelessly", "excerpt": "The app I use to sync, Musicbee, doesn't work on Linux, so I have to use Wine, which for stupid reasons prevents me from syncing wirelessly. Just syncing the files isn't the problem. Syncing the metadata (number of times a song has been played, favourites) is the problem, and just dragging-and-dropping the the files onto my phone doesn't solve for this. If I could do it wirelessly, I would, but I've never found it to", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "running MusicBee on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fairphone is now officially available in the United States"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Linux gaming", "summary": "Together with Proton, it lets commenters game on Linux without keeping Windows.", "quotes": [{"id": 770352417, "item_id": 48147026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48147026", "by": "rpigab", "date": "2026-05-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "thanks to Steam's Proton + WINE + everything else.", "excerpt": "I have been a gamer for all my life, I have many PCs, until early 2024 one of them had to run Windows for gaming. I quit Windows, and didn't have to quit gaming, thanks to Steam's Proton + WINE + everything else. Now, because I have Steam compat activated by default, when I download and launch a new game, most of the time I do not know if I'm running a native version or if I'm running it through Proton. I also can ru", "context": "lifelong gamer on Ubuntu", "use_case": "running Windows games on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features"}, {"id": 732687954, "item_id": 45792997, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45792997", "by": "p1necone", "date": "2025-11-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "now I just use lutris/wine", "excerpt": "I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always", "context": "switched to Linux over a year ago", "use_case": "running old Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark"}, {"id": 799474263, "item_id": 49967141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967141", "by": "nickserv", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "gaming (wine)", "excerpt": "I use it for a bit of everything: dev work (InteliJ), basic 3D modeling/printing (freeCAD, Blender, Orca), light video editing (OBS, Kdenlive), gaming (wine) ... Could probably go with an Arch based distro, but the Ubuntu/Debian base is useful for the good compatibility.", "context": "", "use_case": "gaming", "switched_from": "", "story": "The work by Valve's Timur Krist\u00f3f on improving old AMD GPUs on Linux"}]}, {"label": "Old software", "summary": "Commenters say it runs older Windows games and software, sometimes better than Windows itself.", "quotes": [{"id": 784386608, "item_id": 49024163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024163", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Wine is already better at running older Windows software than Windows.", "excerpt": "The last time I used Windows seriously, which was Windows 10, this was not the case. If that's changed then great. But we need to acknowledge that Windows software install is changing to become more Linux-ified. With package managers and repos out of the box. Clearly the Linux model is more secure, and Microsoft knows it. It's a good idea for Microsoft to take inspiration here. It's only a matter of time before they ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows software", "switched_from": "", "story": "LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps"}, {"id": 732687954, "item_id": 45792997, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45792997", "by": "p1necone", "date": "2025-11-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "now I just use lutris/wine", "excerpt": "I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always", "context": "switched to Linux over a year ago", "use_case": "running old Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark"}, {"id": 745081281, "item_id": 46567580, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567580", "by": "lifetimerubyist", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The Wine team and Valve have made some incredible contributions to the preservation of games on PC", "excerpt": "I replaced Windows with Linux about 6 months ago. Then I ran into a game I really wanted to play but it didn\u2019t run well with Proton (not kernel anti-cheat, just bad performance) after all the tweaks so I just reserved to dual booting with Windows 10. After not using Windows for so long, I came to realize that Windows is just as much a mess as Linux just in different ways. You get used to the quirks so you don\u2019t notic", "context": "", "use_case": "running old games", "switched_from": "", "story": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great"}]}, {"label": "Cross-platform reach", "summary": "It runs Windows apps on macOS, BSDs, and even custom operating systems.", "quotes": [{"id": 784310496, "item_id": 49019406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019406", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Wine will just use the GPU capabilities of the Mac by mapping DirectX/3D calls to Metal. No need to keep any Windows installation, ever.", "excerpt": "Wine will just use the GPU capabilities of the Mac by mapping DirectX/3D calls to Metal. No need to keep any Windows installation, ever. Also here we are running Amd64 (64 bit Intel, but I use Amd64 for the original architecture) games into ARM with the translation layer. It might have a performance penalty but most WIndows games are Amd64/i386 CPUs anyway. The video link I gave to you it's a guide to setup Windows' ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows games on Mac", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nvidia released its first official GeForce driver for Windows on Arm"}, {"id": 778638832, "item_id": 48664927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664927", "by": "Wowfunhappy", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the idea of Wine acting as the universal interface that lets you run windows apps wherever the heck you want.", "excerpt": "See, I think this is what makes it cool as heck. Write your own OS from scratch, implement the right interfaces, and bam, all this existing software just works. I love the idea of Wine acting as the universal interface that lets you run windows apps wherever the heck you want. And\u2014this is just an escape hatch. You can support Wine and also support \"native\" apps which are optimized for your custom OS.", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running Windows Games on a Hobby OS with Wine"}, {"id": 802457344, "item_id": 50153584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50153584", "by": "coldpie", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Good work to the author.  I'd encourage them to try upstreaming it", "excerpt": "You can download the attachment and take a look at the patches. Wine already supports FreeBSD and macOS, so it's not tooooo crazy hard to add another BSD/Unix to the pile. Looks like there's a few Unix APIs that have drifted, so the patches add some #if OpenBSD style stuff to avoid using some symbols that don't exist on OpenBSD. The gs register stuff is by far the most complex bit. IIRC that register is used for thre", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps on OpenBSD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wine ported to OpenBSD"}]}, {"label": "Performance improvements", "summary": "Native Wayland support and ntsync made things run noticeably better for some users.", "quotes": [{"id": 796114225, "item_id": 49757139, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49757139", "by": "tombert", "date": "2026-09-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The latest versions of Wine/Proton actually have native Wayland support though so once I forced that it ran significantly better.", "excerpt": "I use it as my desktop environment. I was using XWayland at first to get this working since that was historically the norm with Wine stuff, but that ended up being really glitchy. The latest versions of Wine/Proton actually have native Wayland support though so once I forced that it ran significantly better. I don't know if this is an XWayland problem, or a problem with X in general, since I don't have any computers ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Microsoft Office running with Wine on Linux with no virtualization"}, {"id": 744923361, "item_id": 46557710, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557710", "by": "shmerl", "date": "2026-01-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using ntsync with Wine for a while", "excerpt": "Nice. I've been using ntsync with Wine for a while since Wine merged the support. It works better than esync, especially for Cyberpunk 2077.", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Latest SteamOS Beta Now Includes Ntsync Kernel Driver"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Tricky setup", "summary": "Some games are tricky to get running on plain Wine without Proton's defaults.", "quotes": [{"id": 802521249, "item_id": 50157578, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157578", "by": "blablabla123", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it's tricky to get running on WINE", "excerpt": "I'm having a blast with AoE I on Linux, in this case the Definitive Edition. I don't think it looks like Office though ;) But what is true, it's tricky to get running on WINE. With Proton which I use the configuration works by default though IIRC.", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "running Age of Empires", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wine ported to OpenBSD"}]}, {"label": "Newer versions", "summary": "One commenter says it only works for older versions of certain software, with newer ones needing a VM.", "quotes": [{"id": 796839616, "item_id": 49802476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802476", "by": "mft_", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wine/equivalent only works for older versions (up to 2016?)", "excerpt": "AFAIK, Wine/equivalent only works for older versions (up to 2016?) - newer versions +/- AD require a VM of some variety. (This was originally where I noped out and switched to MacOS instead.)", "context": "", "use_case": "running Microsoft Office on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "I said no and Apple said yes"}]}, {"label": "Audio software", "summary": "A commenter dislikes how Ableton works under Wine on Linux.", "quotes": [{"id": 787758276, "item_id": 49234892, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234892", "by": "mercutio93", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "but I dislike how wine works with ableton on linux", "excerpt": "Hey dude... honestly speaking im not really doing this for traction. I use the0 trading platform day to day implement algorithmic trading strategies that run 24/7 365 some of them are conventional trading strategies and others are portfolio rebalancers. the0s a project that come a long way Ive been working on it for a few years now. The core architecture of it is complete. It more just implementing things I feel need", "context": "", "use_case": "running Ableton on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Vibez \u2013 Open-Source Rust Based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)"}]}, {"label": "Device syncing", "summary": "Running a music app through Wine prevented one user from syncing wirelessly.", "quotes": [{"id": 789554369, "item_id": 49347148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347148", "by": "Telaneo", "date": "2026-08-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "so I have to use Wine, which for stupid reasons prevents me from syncing wirelessly", "excerpt": "The app I use to sync, Musicbee, doesn't work on Linux, so I have to use Wine, which for stupid reasons prevents me from syncing wirelessly. Just syncing the files isn't the problem. Syncing the metadata (number of times a song has been played, favourites) is the problem, and just dragging-and-dropping the the files onto my phone doesn't solve for this. If I could do it wirelessly, I would, but I've never found it to", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "running MusicBee on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fairphone is now officially available in the United States"}]}, {"label": "Anti-cheat games", "summary": "Multiplayer games with unsupported anti-cheat don't work in a Linux setup using Proton and Wine.", "quotes": [{"id": 732687954, "item_id": 45792997, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45792997", "by": "p1necone", "date": "2025-11-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "now I just use lutris/wine", "excerpt": "I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always", "context": "switched to Linux over a year ago", "use_case": "running old Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark"}]}], "who": [{"by": "Telaneo", "context": "Linux user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347148", "date": "2026-08-18"}, {"by": "rpigab", "context": "lifelong gamer on Ubuntu", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48147026", "date": "2026-05-15"}, {"by": "nickserv", "context": "parent of two kids", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865047", "date": "2025-11-09"}, {"by": "p1necone", "context": "switched to Linux over a year ago", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45792997", "date": "2025-11-02"}], "tags": ["for Linux gamers", "for retro games", "for macOS users", "for Linux users"], "use_cases": ["running windows apps on linux", "running windows games", "running age of empires", "running windows apps on openbsd", "gaming", "running microsoft office on linux"], "compared": [{"slug": "proton", "name": "Proton", "co": 9, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "steam", "name": "Steam", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "yabridge", "name": "yabridge", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "ableton-live", "name": "Ableton Live", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "bitwig", "name": "Bitwig", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50152307", "title": "Wine ported to OpenBSD", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49946895", "title": "The work by Valve's Timur Krist\u00f3f on improving old AMD GPUs on Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49797982", "title": "I said no and Apple said yes", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49746401", "title": "Show HN: Microsoft Office running with Wine on Linux with no virtualization", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562895", "title": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49344811", "title": "Fairphone is now officially available in the United States", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1, "warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 802521249, "item_id": 50157578, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157578", "by": "blablabla123", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it's tricky to get running on WINE", "excerpt": "I'm having a blast with AoE I on Linux, in this case the Definitive Edition. I don't think it looks like Office though ;) But what is true, it's tricky to get running on WINE. With Proton which I use the configuration works by default though IIRC.", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "running Age of Empires", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wine ported to OpenBSD"}, {"id": 802457344, "item_id": 50153584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50153584", "by": "coldpie", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Good work to the author.  I'd encourage them to try upstreaming it", "excerpt": "You can download the attachment and take a look at the patches. Wine already supports FreeBSD and macOS, so it's not tooooo crazy hard to add another BSD/Unix to the pile. Looks like there's a few Unix APIs that have drifted, so the patches add some #if OpenBSD style stuff to avoid using some symbols that don't exist on OpenBSD. The gs register stuff is by far the most complex bit. IIRC that register is used for thre", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps on OpenBSD", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wine ported to OpenBSD"}, {"id": 799474263, "item_id": 49967141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967141", "by": "nickserv", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "gaming (wine)", "excerpt": "I use it for a bit of everything: dev work (InteliJ), basic 3D modeling/printing (freeCAD, Blender, Orca), light video editing (OBS, Kdenlive), gaming (wine) ... Could probably go with an Arch based distro, but the Ubuntu/Debian base is useful for the good compatibility.", "context": "", "use_case": "gaming", "switched_from": "", "story": "The work by Valve's Timur Krist\u00f3f on improving old AMD GPUs on Linux"}, {"id": 796839616, "item_id": 49802476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802476", "by": "mft_", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wine/equivalent only works for older versions (up to 2016?)", "excerpt": "AFAIK, Wine/equivalent only works for older versions (up to 2016?) - newer versions +/- AD require a VM of some variety. (This was originally where I noped out and switched to MacOS instead.)", "context": "", "use_case": "running Microsoft Office on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "I said no and Apple said yes"}, {"id": 796114225, "item_id": 49757139, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49757139", "by": "tombert", "date": "2026-09-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The latest versions of Wine/Proton actually have native Wayland support though so once I forced that it ran significantly better.", "excerpt": "I use it as my desktop environment. I was using XWayland at first to get this working since that was historically the norm with Wine stuff, but that ended up being really glitchy. The latest versions of Wine/Proton actually have native Wayland support though so once I forced that it ran significantly better. I don't know if this is an XWayland problem, or a problem with X in general, since I don't have any computers ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Microsoft Office running with Wine on Linux with no virtualization"}, {"id": 793043843, "item_id": 49565240, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49565240", "by": "belthesar", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "WINE's come a long say since I last tried this out a few years ago", "excerpt": "I know this doesn't address all your concerns, but I switched from Ableton Live to Bitwig Studio for unrelated reasons to my leaving Windows behind, and I was thoroughly pleased with how easy the transition was between the two DAWs (I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise given how many ex-Ableton devs work on Bitwig), and how well the Linux build of Bitwig worked. Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio e", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows plugins", "switched_from": "", "story": "O&O ShutUp10 \u2013 The antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11"}, {"id": 789554369, "item_id": 49347148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347148", "by": "Telaneo", "date": "2026-08-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "so I have to use Wine, which for stupid reasons prevents me from syncing wirelessly", "excerpt": "The app I use to sync, Musicbee, doesn't work on Linux, so I have to use Wine, which for stupid reasons prevents me from syncing wirelessly. Just syncing the files isn't the problem. Syncing the metadata (number of times a song has been played, favourites) is the problem, and just dragging-and-dropping the the files onto my phone doesn't solve for this. If I could do it wirelessly, I would, but I've never found it to", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "running MusicBee on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fairphone is now officially available in the United States"}, {"id": 787758276, "item_id": 49234892, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234892", "by": "mercutio93", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "but I dislike how wine works with ableton on linux", "excerpt": "Hey dude... honestly speaking im not really doing this for traction. I use the0 trading platform day to day implement algorithmic trading strategies that run 24/7 365 some of them are conventional trading strategies and others are portfolio rebalancers. the0s a project that come a long way Ive been working on it for a few years now. The core architecture of it is complete. It more just implementing things I feel need", "context": "", "use_case": "running Ableton on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Vibez \u2013 Open-Source Rust Based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)"}, {"id": 786340305, "item_id": 49146269, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49146269", "by": "13rac1", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "given the success of WINE/Proton with Windows applications", "excerpt": "Interesting project! A long term vision for MacOS applications is feasible given the success of WINE/Proton with Windows applications. Are you familiar with the Darling project? https://github.com/darlinghq/darling There's an open PR for ARM64 support https://github.com/darlinghq/darling/pull/1753 Could you combine efforts or do your goals differ too much?", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Kakehashi \u2013 Experimental userspace to run macOS binaries on Linux ARM"}, {"id": 784386608, "item_id": 49024163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024163", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Wine is already better at running older Windows software than Windows.", "excerpt": "The last time I used Windows seriously, which was Windows 10, this was not the case. If that's changed then great. But we need to acknowledge that Windows software install is changing to become more Linux-ified. With package managers and repos out of the box. Clearly the Linux model is more secure, and Microsoft knows it. It's a good idea for Microsoft to take inspiration here. It's only a matter of time before they ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows software", "switched_from": "", "story": "LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps"}, {"id": 784310496, "item_id": 49019406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019406", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Wine will just use the GPU capabilities of the Mac by mapping DirectX/3D calls to Metal. No need to keep any Windows installation, ever.", "excerpt": "Wine will just use the GPU capabilities of the Mac by mapping DirectX/3D calls to Metal. No need to keep any Windows installation, ever. Also here we are running Amd64 (64 bit Intel, but I use Amd64 for the original architecture) games into ARM with the translation layer. It might have a performance penalty but most WIndows games are Amd64/i386 CPUs anyway. The video link I gave to you it's a guide to setup Windows' ", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows games on Mac", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nvidia released its first official GeForce driver for Windows on Arm"}, {"id": 778638832, "item_id": 48664927, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664927", "by": "Wowfunhappy", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the idea of Wine acting as the universal interface that lets you run windows apps wherever the heck you want.", "excerpt": "See, I think this is what makes it cool as heck. Write your own OS from scratch, implement the right interfaces, and bam, all this existing software just works. I love the idea of Wine acting as the universal interface that lets you run windows apps wherever the heck you want. And\u2014this is just an escape hatch. You can support Wine and also support \"native\" apps which are optimized for your custom OS.", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Running Windows Games on a Hobby OS with Wine"}, {"id": 777461969, "item_id": 48591373, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591373", "by": "d3Xt3r", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "compare", "quote": "when/why should I use this instead of Wine?", "excerpt": "So, can this be used as an alternative to Wine? Can I run games with it? And when/why should I use this instead of Wine?", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows apps/games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sogen \u2013 High-performance Windows and Linux userspace emulator"}, {"id": 770352417, "item_id": 48147026, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48147026", "by": "rpigab", "date": "2026-05-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "thanks to Steam's Proton + WINE + everything else.", "excerpt": "I have been a gamer for all my life, I have many PCs, until early 2024 one of them had to run Windows for gaming. I quit Windows, and didn't have to quit gaming, thanks to Steam's Proton + WINE + everything else. Now, because I have Steam compat activated by default, when I download and launch a new game, most of the time I do not know if I'm running a native version or if I'm running it through Proton. I also can ru", "context": "lifelong gamer on Ubuntu", "use_case": "running Windows games on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features"}, {"id": 745081281, "item_id": 46567580, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567580", "by": "lifetimerubyist", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The Wine team and Valve have made some incredible contributions to the preservation of games on PC", "excerpt": "I replaced Windows with Linux about 6 months ago. Then I ran into a game I really wanted to play but it didn\u2019t run well with Proton (not kernel anti-cheat, just bad performance) after all the tweaks so I just reserved to dual booting with Windows 10. After not using Windows for so long, I came to realize that Windows is just as much a mess as Linux just in different ways. You get used to the quirks so you don\u2019t notic", "context": "", "use_case": "running old games", "switched_from": "", "story": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great"}, {"id": 744923361, "item_id": 46557710, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46557710", "by": "shmerl", "date": "2026-01-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using ntsync with Wine for a while", "excerpt": "Nice. I've been using ntsync with Wine for a while since Wine merged the support. It works better than esync, especially for Cyberpunk 2077.", "context": "", "use_case": "running Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Latest SteamOS Beta Now Includes Ntsync Kernel Driver"}, {"id": 733840754, "item_id": 45865047, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865047", "by": "nickserv", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I set up wine for them on my machine with separate accounts", "excerpt": "I went with LDE Neon for both my kids. It's also what I use, I really like the KDE ecosystem, very polished experience overall. Also it's similar enough to Windows that they don't feel completely out of touch on the school computers. Killer app is Krita for the older one, even got him a cheap Wacom later on. Otherwise school work, native Linux games, and YouTube. That last one with the younger one I have to keep an e", "context": "parent of two kids", "use_case": "running Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How would you set up a child\u2019s first Linux computer?"}, {"id": 732687954, "item_id": 45792997, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45792997", "by": "p1necone", "date": "2025-11-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "now I just use lutris/wine", "excerpt": "I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always", "context": "switched to Linux over a year ago", "use_case": "running old Windows games", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark"}]}