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With Wine 10 update, run your Windows app on Linux better than ever
Some days, you really need to run a Windows-only program, even if you’re a die-hard Linux user — like yours truly.
For those times, I often turn to Wine (formerly an acronym for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”). Wine provides a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on POSIX-compliant operating systems such as Linux, MacOS, and FreeBSD. Wine translates Windows application programming interface (API) calls into POSIX calls on the fly, which enables you to integrate and run Windows applications on your desktop.
Also: How to run a Windows app on Linux with Wine
On January 21, Wine 10.0 was officially released by its open-source community. This major update introduces many new features and improvements over its predecessor, including an experimental Bluetooth driver, a new pointer device driver, and enhancements to the Wayland graphics driver.
The enhanced Wayland driver, perhaps the most significant improvement in Wine 10.0, now includes initial OpenGL support, Pbuffer support, and better window positioning. This signals a shift towards more modern display server protocols on Linux systems. Here’s what that means for users: Wine does a better job than ever at rendering Windows graphics on modern Linux desktop distributions.
The release also delivers important multimedia enhancements, including a new Media Foundation backend using FFmpeg. This popular open-source library renders almost any video streaming format. The backend should improve compatibility with Windows applications that rely on Microsoft’s multimedia framework. In short, Windows program videos on Linux should also be improved.
That said, this is still a beta feature and more work needs to be done, especially for Direct3D-aware playback. You can enable it by setting the value DisableGstByteStreamHandler=1 in the HKCUSoftwareWineMediaFoundation registry key.
For gamers and graphics-intensive application users, Wine 10.0 offers improved support for Direct3D, including initial support for compiling legacy Direct3D bytecode to SPIR-V and initial HLSL compiler support for compiling effect profiles. The Vulkan driver interface has also been reworked, potentially leading to better games and 3D application performance.
Gaming enthusiasts will be pleased that Wine 10.0 includes numerous game-specific fixes, addressing issues in popular titles such as Forza Horizon 4, Assassin’s Creed, and Final Fantasy XI.
Also: The best Linux laptops of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed
Wine 10.0 also brings significant ARM support advancements, including better ARM64EC and ARM64X compatibility. This expansion of ARM support is particularly noteworthy as it allows for better integration of Windows applications on ARM-based Linux systems. This new ARM support opens up new possibilities for users of devices like the Raspberry Pi or ARM-based laptops.
Alexandre Julliard, the lead developer of Wine, commented on the release: “Wine 10.0 represents a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to bridge the gap between Windows and Linux ecosystems. We’re particularly excited about the improvements in ARM support and the enhanced graphics capabilities.”
The Wine project has made binary packages available for various Linux distributions, including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Slackware, FreeBSD, and MacOS. Users can download these packages from the official Wine website or through their distribution’s package management system.
Also: I’ve tried a zillion desktop distros – it doesn’t get any better than Linux Mint 22
As always, Wine can’t run all Windows applications on Linux. To see how a particular program will run, check the Wine Application Database.
As Wine matures, it remains a crucial tool for Linux users who need to run Windows applications without resorting to virtual machines or dual-booting. The release of Wine 10.0 further cements its position as a cornerstone of cross-platform compatibility in the open-source world.