Wine is installed on UNIX-based systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, and macOS to enable one to run Windows applications. Wine is a free and open-source compatibility layer used to translate Windows system call to the required POSIX calls by Unix-based Operating systems.

With Wine, not all applications will run smoothly, others might have crushes and bugs, The list of all tested and compatible applications is provided in the Wine AppDB. The amazing features of wine include:

• It is Open Source Software
• Allows one to access Windows applications remotely
• Makes it possible write powerful scripts
• Binary Compatibility
• it is economical as it allows one to use thin clients
• External memory checker support using Valgrind
• Designed for source and binary compatibility with Win32 code
• it makes existing Windows applications available on the Web using VNC

In this guide, we will walk through how to install and Use Wine 10.x on Debian 12 (Bookworm)

Step 1: Upgrade your System

You will need:

• Debian 12 system installed and updated.
• User with sudo privilleges

Update your Debian 12 system as below.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Then proceed and check the architecture of your system.

lscpu

Sample Output:

Architecture:             x86_64
  CPU op-mode(s):                  32-bit, 64-bit
  Address sizes:          39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
  Byte Order:             Little Endian
CPU(s):                   2
  On-line CPU(s) list:    0,1
Vendor ID:                GenuineIntel
  Model name:             Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz
    CPU family:           6
    Model:                94
    Thread(s) per core:   1
    Core(s) per socket:   1
    Socket(s):            2
    Stepping:             3
    BogoMIPS:             6815.96
.......

From the output, CPU op-mode(s) shows that am running a 64-bit OS.

Step 2: Enable i386 Architecture

In this step, we are adding the i386 architecture to our system to enable support for 32-bit applications in case you are using a 64-bit system:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Step 3: Install Wine 10.x on Debian 12 Bookworm

Normally, there are two methods to get Wine installed on your Debian 12 system:

• Install Wine from Debian Repository
• Install Wine from WineHQ repository

Installing wine From Debian repositories is simple, one doesn’t have to go through a series of steps to get Wine installed on your Debian 11 system, all you have to do is install wine with a simple APT command. But since installing Wine from the Default repositories installs a much older version than the one available in the WineHQ repositories. We will go for the WineHQ repositories option.

Install Wine 10.X from WineHQ repository

With this method, you will be guaranteed the latest available version of Wine. But you will have to go through a series of steps to have wine installed on your Debian 12 system as below.

First, we need to add the WineHQ repositories to our Debian 12 system. Begin by importing the GPG keys as shown

sudo apt -y install gnupg2 software-properties-common
wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
sudo apt-key add winehq.key

The output should be “OK” to show that the keys have been added successfully. Now add the WineHQ repositories to your Debian 12 system.

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/ bookworm main'

The above command adds the WineHQ repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. Now update your APT package index.

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update

Now download the latest stable version of Wine on Debian 12 using the command:

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

If you want the development branch of Wine use;

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-devel

The development branch is usually the most recent version from developers and is often unstable.

Verify the installed version of Wine.

$ wine --version
wine-10.0

Step 4: Post Installation & Configuring of Wine on Debian 12 Bookworm

With Wine installed successfully on your Debian 12 system, let’s now see the configurations to make on it.

Launch wine from your terminal as shown.

winecfg

Install the Wine Mono environment:

Once the installation is complete, you will see a Wine Configuration Window. Normally the default configurations are okay, but if you want to make changes, change the Windows version to the most recent version such as Windows 10/11.

Step 5: Install Windows Applications

I will take you through a brief example of how to install a Windows application using Wine on your Debian 12 system.

First, download the windows application .exe package of your choice. For the purposes of this guide, I will go for notepad. Download it using Wget as shown.

VER=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/latest | grep tag_name | cut -d '"' -f 4 | sed 's/v//g')
wget https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases/download/v${VER}/npp.${VER}.Installer.exe

this command will download the .exe file in your current directory. Install it using Wine as below.

wine ./npp.*.Installer.x64.exe

npp.*.Installer.x64.exe is the downloaded Windows package. The installation should commence as shown:

After selecting your preferred language press OK. On the recommendations page click Next:

Then Agree to the License Terms:

Then the installation path for the package will be displayed, normally ~/.wine/drive_c/ directory:

Choose the type of installation:

Create a shortcut icon if you want one and click Install:

Once the installation is complete, the finish button appears and you can check the box to launch Notepad:

That is it! You have successfully installed Notepad using Wine on Debian 12:

This method will apply to other supported Windows applications:

If at one point you want to uninstall Wine on your Debian 12 system issue the command:

##Remove WineHQ Stable
sudo apt auto remove --install-recommends winehq-stable --purge

##Remove WineHQ Devel
sudo apt auto remove --install-recommends winehq-devel --purge

Conclusion.

Congratulations! You have installed Wine 10.x on Debian 12 (Bookworm). Enjoy the amazing features of Wine on Debian 12 system such as running Windows applications on your system.

See more amazing guides:

• Install and Use Wine 9.x on Rocky 8 / AlmaLinux 8
• Run Windows Apps on Ubuntu or Debian using Winetricks