TwisterOS users: Wine, winetricks, and Box86 are already installed in TwisterOS. You do not have to install anything.
Raspberry Pi users: Wine requires a 3G/1G split memory kernel. Raspberry Pi OS for the Pi 4 already has a 3G/1G split kernel and works with Wine, but the Pi 3B+ and earlier models have a 2G/2G kernel and require a custom-compiled 3G/1G kernel to get Wine working.
Using Wine with Box86 allows (x86) Windows programs to run on ARM Linux computers (x64 is not yet implemented).
See installation steps below (in the Examples section).
Box86 needs wine-i386 to be installed manually on ARM devices. Even though wine-armhf is available in many repo's on ARM devices (ie using apt-get will attempt to install wine-armhf by default), wine-armhf will not work with Box86. Note that manual installation is required since using multiarch will result in your ARM device thinking it needs to install lots of i386 dependencies to make wine-i386 work. The "twist" in Box86 is that Box86 "wraps" many of Wine's core Linux i386 libraries (.so files) so that their calls are interpretable by your ARM devices other armhf Linux system libraries. Also note that wrapping libraries is an ongoing process throughout Box86 development and that some programs may not run properly until all of their i386 library dependencies are wrapped.
Installation files for Wine can be found in the WineHQ repository, the TwisterOS FAQ page, or the PlayOnLinux website repository. Box86 requires the "i386" (x86) version of Wine even though we are installing it on an ARM processor.
The general procedure for installing Wine for Box86 is to...
- Download all the install files (.deb, .zip, or even .pol files) for the version of Wine you wish to install
- Unzip or dpkg the install files into one folder
- Move that folder to the directory that you wish Wine to run from (in TwisterOS, this is
~/wine/by default) - Go to
/usr/local/binand make symlinks or scripts that will point to your main wine binaries (wine,winecfg, andwineserver). - Boot wine to create a new wineprefix (
wine wineboot). - Download winetricks (which is simply a very complicated bash script), make it executable, then copy it to
/usr/local/bin.
Links from the TwisterOS FAQ
This installs Wine v5.13 (which is the version of Wine that comes pre-installed in TwisterOS). When submitting bug reports, other Box86 users may assume you are using this version of Wine unless you specify otherwise.
# Backup any old wine installations
sudo mv ~/wine ~/wine-old
sudo mv ~/.wine ~/.wine-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wine-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/wineboot-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/winecfg-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/wineserver /usr/local/bin/wineserver-old
# Download, extract wine, and install wine (last I checked, the Twister OS FAQ page had Wine 5.13-devel)
wget https://twisteros.com/wine.tgz -O ~/wine.tgz
tar -xzvf ~/wine.tgz
rm ~/wine.tgz # clean up
# Install shortcuts (make launcher & symlinks. Credits: grayduck, Botspot)
echo -e '#!/bin/bash\nsetarch linux32 -L '"$HOME/wine/bin/wine "'"$@"' | sudo tee -a /usr/local/bin/wine >/dev/null # Create a script to launch wine programs as 32bit only
#sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wine # You could aslo just make a symlink, but box86 only works for 32bit apps at the moment
sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/wineboot
sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/winecfg
sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/wineserver /usr/local/bin/wineserver
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/wineserver
# Boot wine (make fresh wineprefix in ~/.wine )
wine wineboot
Links from the WineHQ repo
This install method allows you to install different versions of Wine. You may install any version and any branch of Wine that you wish (wine-devel, wine-stable, or wine-staging).
# Backup any old wine installations
sudo mv ~/wine ~/wine-old
sudo mv ~/.wine ~/.wine-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wine-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/wineboot-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/winecfg-old
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/wineserver /usr/local/bin/wineserver-old
# Download, extract wine, and install wine
# (Replace the links/versions below with links/versions from the WineHQ site for the version of wine you wish to install. Note that we need the i386 version for Box86 even though we're installing it on our ARM processor.)
# (Pick an i386 version of wine-devel, wine-staging, or wine-stable)
cd ~/Downloads
wget https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/dists/buster/main/binary-i386/wine-devel-i386_5.21~buster_i386.deb # NOTE: Replace this link with the version you want
wget https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/dists/buster/main/binary-i386/wine-devel_5.21~buster_i386.deb # NOTE: Also replace this link with the version you want
dpkg-deb -xv wine-devel-i386_5.21~buster_i386.deb wine-installer # NOTE: Make sure these dpkg command matches the filename of the deb package you just downloaded
dpkg-deb -xv wine-devel_5.21~buster_i386.deb wine-installer
mv ~/Downloads/wine-installer/opt/wine* ~/wine
rm wine*.deb # clean up
rm -rf wine-installer # clean up
# Install shortcuts (make 32bit launcher & symlinks. Credits: grayduck, Botspot)
echo -e '#!/bin/bash\nsetarch linux32 -L '"$HOME/wine/bin/wine "'"$@"' | sudo tee -a /usr/local/bin/wine >/dev/null # Create a script to launch wine programs as 32bit only
#sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wine # You could aslo just make a symlink, but box86 only works for 32bit apps at the moment
sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/wineboot
sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/winecfg
sudo ln -s ~/wine/bin/wineserver /usr/local/bin/wineserver
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/wine /usr/local/bin/wineboot /usr/local/bin/winecfg /usr/local/bin/wineserver
# These packages are needed for running wine-staging on RPi 4 (Credits: chills340)
sudo apt install libstb0 -y
cd ~/Downloads
wget -r -l1 -np -nd -A "libfaudio0_*~bpo10+1_i386.deb" http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/f/faudio/ # Download libfaudio i386 no matter its version number
dpkg-deb -xv libfaudio0_*~bpo10+1_i386.deb libfaudio
sudo cp -TRv libfaudio/usr/ /usr/
rm libfaudio0_*~bpo10+1_i386.deb # clean up
rm -rf libfaudio # clean up
# Boot wine (make fresh wineprefix in ~/.wine )
wine wineboot
Winetricks is a bash script which makes it easier to install & configure any desired Windows core system software packages which may be dependencies for certain Windows programs. You can either install it with apt, or manually using the steps below.
sudo apt-get install cabextract -y # winetricks needs this installed
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/winetricks /usr/local/bin/winetricks-old # Backup old winetricks
cd ~/Downloads && wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks # Download
sudo chmod +x winetricks && sudo mv winetricks /usr/local/bin/ # Install
Whenever we run winetricks, we must tell Box86 to supress its info banner, otherwise winetricks will crash. Box86's info banner can be suppressed using the BOX86_NOBANNER=1 environment variable before invoking winetricks (example: BOX86_NOBANNER=1 winetricks).
If apt installed a desktop menu shortcut for winetricks (or if you make your own desktop shortcut for winetricks) then you may need to edit that shortcut to include Box86's BOX86_NOBANNER=1 env var. With your favorite text editor, edit /usr/share/applications/winetricks.desktop and change Exec=winetricks --gui to Exec=env BOX86_NOBANNER=1 winetricks --gui.
Here is an example of how we should run a winetricks command with box86:
BOX86_NOBANNER=1 winetricks -q corefonts vcrun2010 dotnet20sp1
This command will silently install three packages in series: Windows core fonts, VC++ 2010 Runtimes, and .NET 2.0 SP1. -q is the "install silent/quiet" command.
Whenever we run winetricks, we must suppress Box86's banner by typing BOX86_NOBANNER=1 to prevent winetricks from crashing. Invoking Box86's logging features (with BOX86_LOG=1 or similar) will also cause winetricks to crash. (If Box86 logging is necessary though, we can patch winetricks to avoid these crashes - see the Troubleshooting section) # future work.
For a list of all the different Windows packages & libraries that winetricks can help you install, run winetricks list-all
When you first run or boot Wine (wine wineboot), Wine will create a new user environment within which to install Windows software. This user environment is called a "wineprefix" (or "wine bottle") and is located (by default) in ~/.wine (note that Linux folders with a . in front of them are "hidden" folders). Think of a wineprefix as Wine's virtual 'harddrive' where it installs software and saves settings. Wineprefixes are portable and deletable. For more Wine documentation, see WineHQ.
If you at any point corrupt something inside your default wineprefix, you can start "fresh" by deleting your ~/.wine directory (with the rm -rf ~/.wine command) and boot wine again to create a new default wineprefix.
If software isn't installing in Wine with Box86, but is installing for you in Wine on a regular x86 Linux computer, you can copy a wineprefix from your x86 Linux computer to the device you're running Box86 on. This is most easily done by tarring the ~/.wine folder on your x86 Linux computer (tar -cvf winebottle.tar ~/.wine), transferring the tar file to your device, then un-tarring the tar file (tar -xf winebottle.tar) on your device running Box86 & Wine. Tarring the wineprefix preserves any symlinks that are inside it.
Some versions of Wine work better with certain software. It is best to install a version of Wine that is known to work with the software you would like to run. There are three main development branches of Wine you can pick from, referred to as wine-stable, wine-devel, and wine-staging. Note that the wine-staging branch requires extra installation steps on Raspberry Pi.
Your entire Wine installation can reside within a single folder on your Linux computer. TwisterOS assumes that your Wine installation is located inside the ~/wine/ directory. The actual directory where you put your wine folder doesn't matter as long as you have symlinks within the /usr/local/bin/ directory which point to the wine folder so that Linux can find Wine when you type wine into the terminal).
You can change which version of Wine you are running simply by renaming your old wine and .wine folders to something else, then putting a new wine folder (containing your new version of Wine) in its place. Running wine wineboot again will migrate a wineprefix from an older version of Wine to be usable by the newer version of Wine you just installed. You can check which version of Wine you're running with the wine --version command.