How to install Wine on Debian 10 (Buster)

When Linux was initially released, it lacked many useful applications that its main competitor, Windows, successfully supported. So Linux created a compatibility layer that was used to run a Windows application in Linux itself, called Wine. Initially, Wine could only run a few Windows applications, but now it can support thousands of them, making it a very powerful Linux application. However, its installation is very easy!

This article describes how to install Wine on a Debian 10 Buster system from both the user interface and the command line.

Installing Wine via the Debian UI

For someone who does not want to heavily open the command line, installing the software present in the official Debian repository via the user interface is very easy.

In the Debian Desktop Activities toolbar / dock, click the Debian Software icon.

Click the search icon in the software manager and type Wine in the search bar. The search results will list matching entries as follows:

The Wine entry listed here is maintained by the main Debian Stable repository. Click this search entry to open the following view:

Click the Install button to start the installation process. The following authentication dialog will appear where you can enter your authentication credentials since only an authorized user can install software on Debian.

Enter your password and click the “Authentication” button. The installation process will then begin with the following progress bar displayed:

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After that Wine will be installed on your system and after successful installation you will receive the following message:

Installing Wine from the command line

Step 1. Make sure you have a 32-bit or 64-bit Linux system.

There are different versions of Wine available for the 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Debian. To check which version you are using to install the corresponding version of Wine, follow these steps:

Open Terminal by searching in Application Launcher as follows:

Use the following command to get cpu information from sysfs and / proc / cpuinfo files:

$ lscpu

This command will display the following output:

The CPU Modes notation tells you about the Debian features you are using on your system; 32-bit means you are using a 32-bit Linux OS, 32-bit, 64-bit means you are using a 64-bit OS.

Step 2. Installing Wine from the Official Debian Repository (Recommended)

We recommend that you install Wine on your system via the standard Debian repository, as this way you can get a more stable version on your system.

Run the following commands in Terminal as root to install Wine on 64-bit Debian:

$ sudo apt-get update

And then

$ sudo apt-get install wine64

Please enter y when prompted to select the y / n option to install. After that, the Wine application will be installed and ready to use.

For a 32-bit Debian system, you can use the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install wine32

You can check your Wine version with the following command:

$ wine --version

Alternative: Install Wine from WineHQ repository

The WineHQ repository contains a set of standard Wine packages that you can download and install on your system. To do this, follow these steps:

Run the following command in Terminal to add i386 architecture before installing 64-bit Wine:

$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Do the following to add WineHQ signing key:

$ wget -qO- https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/Release.key | sudo apt-key add -

Tip: You can copy this command from this tutorial instead of typing it in Terminal. Select and copy this command from here, right-click in the terminal prompt and choose Paste from the menu.

Now run the following command to add the appropriate repository from WineHQ:

$ sudo apt-add-repository 'deb http://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/ buster main'

Then run the following command:

$ sudo apt-get update

Here you have two options for which version of Wine you want to install; stable version or development versions.

• Stable WineHQ: This is the most recent and stable release of Wine. Use the following command to install this version:

$ sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-stable

Please enter Y when prompted to select y / n to install. After that, a stable version of Wine will be installed on your system.

• WineHQ development: This is the most recent version of Wine, but it may not be very stable. As a developer, you may find it more interesting to install this version.

$ sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-devel

Please enter Y when prompted to select y / n to install. After that, the development version of Wine will be installed on your system.

To test the installation and check which version is installed on your system, run the following command:

$ wine --version

Removing Wine from your system

Please enter the following command in your Debian terminal to remove Wine from your system:

$ sudo apt-get purge winehq-stable

You will also need to run the following commands to completely remove the installation and associated folders:

1. rm ~/.config/wine/ -rf
2. rm -rf $HOME/.wine
3. rm -f $HOME/.config/menus/applications-merged/wine*
4. rm -rf $HOME/.local/share/applications/wine
5. rm -f $HOME/.local/share/desktop-directories/wine*
6. rm -f $HOME/.local/share/icons/????_*.xpm

The installation will now be completely removed from your system.

By following the steps in this guide, you should be able to successfully install a useful Wine application on your system. It can be the latest release from the official Debian repository or the stable / development version from the WineHQ repositories. We’ve also described the uninstallation process so that you can easily uninstall Wine from your system, whether it’s a fresh install or a complete uninstall.

How to install Wine on Debian 10 (Buster)