Wine 9.0 Released

Version 9.0 of Wine, the free and open-source compatibility layer that lets you run Windows apps on Unix-like operating systems, has been released. "Highlights of Wine 9.0 include an experimental Wayland graphics driver with features like basic window management, support for multiple monitors, high-DPI scaling, relative motion events, as well as Vulkan support," reports 9to5Linux. From the report: The Vulkan driver has been updated to support Vulkan 1.3.272 and later, the PostScript driver has been reimplemented to work from Windows-format spool files and avoid any direct calls from the Unix side, and there's now a dark theme option on WinRT theming that can be enabled in WineCfg. Wine 9.0 also adds support for many more instructions to Direct3D 10 effects, implements the Windows Media Video (WMV) decoder DirectX Media Object (DMO), implements the DirectShow Audio Capture and DirectShow MPEG-1 Video Decoder filters, and adds support for video and system streams, as well as audio streams to the DirectShow MPEG-1 Stream Splitter filter.

Desktop integration has been improved in this release to allow users to close the desktop window in full-screen desktop mode by using the "Exit desktop" entry in the Start menu, as well as support for export URL/URI protocol associations as URL handlers to the Linux desktop. Audio support has been enhanced in Wine 9.0 with the implementation of several DirectMusic modules, DLS1 and DLS2 sound font loading, support for the SF2 format for compatibility with Linux standard MIDI sound fonts, Doppler shift support in DirectSound, Indeo IV50 Video for Windows decoder, and MIDI playback in dmsynth.

Among other noteworthy changes, Wine 9.0 brings loader support for ARM64X and ARM64EC modules, along with the ability to run existing Windows binaries on ARM64 systems and initial support for building Wine for the ARM64EC architecture. There's also a new 32-bit x86 emulation interface, a new WoW64 mode that supports running of 32-bit apps on recent macOS versions that don't support 32-bit Unix processes, support for DirectInput action maps to improve compatibility with many old video games that map controller inputs to in-game actions, as well as Windows 10 as the default Windows version for new prefixes. Last but not least, the kernel has been updated to support address space layout randomization (ASLR) for modern PE binaries, better memory allocation performance through the Low Fragmentation Heap (LFH) implementation, and support memory placeholders in the virtual memory allocator to allow apps to reserve virtual space. Wine 9.0 also adds support for smart cards, adds support for Diffie-Hellman keys in BCrypt, implements the Negotiate security package, adds support for network interface change notifications, and fixes many bugs. For a full list of changes, check out the release notes. You can download Wine 9.0 from WineHQ.

It's come so damn far. Proton for Steam is great.

[MIPSPro]

I loaded up an old Windows 7 hard disk with games that still worked in Steam before they cut off support. Then, I tried Proton for Steam on Linux. This immediately was able to run more games than I could in Win7 and most ran faster with less hassle. I just wiped the Win7 drive and re-used it for another glorious 'nix install. No need for that anymore!

Re:It's come so damn far. Proton for Steam is grea

[bill_mcgonigle]

My boy was delighted by this as well.

9.0 has an amazing feature list.

I am not much of a user these days, but, damn - good job guys.

Re:

[ledow]

I had a lot of silly casual games on my Steam account.

Some stopped working any more on modern Windows.

Put them on my Steam Deck (which runs Linux / Proton) and they "just worked" again.

Now if only the same could happen for the original GTA (which needs a lot of tweaking to make it go and I don't want to spend my downtime faffing about trying to get it going), I'd be happy.

Re:

[vbdasc]

Can WINE implement new Windows features faster than Microsoft can change and create them?

You mean, features like telemetry, ads on Start Menu, crap UI, buggy Console window and Notepad and un-uninstalable bloatware? No thanks, WINE is better off without them.

From humble origins...

[williamyf]

WINE drew inspiration from WABI and the Public Windows Initiative. Both where projects by then Mighty SUN Microsystems.

In the end both of those projects, backed by a super large corporation failed, and yet, WINE persisted. Kuddos to Bob Amstadtand, Eric Youngdale, and the rest of the team over theyears for persisting, oftentimes with little resources, and in the face of adversity.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

WINE drew inspiration from WABI and the Public Windows Initiative. Both where projects by then Mighty SUN Microsystems.

In the end both of those projects, backed by a super large corporation failed, and yet, WINE persisted. Kuddos to Bob Amstadtand, Eric Youngdale, and the rest of the team over theyears for persisting, oftentimes with little resources, and in the face of adversity.

There were an amazing number of Windows API implementations for UNIX systems - heck, would you believe Microsoft actually support

Great, now we can get a new ReactOS release

[jfdavis668]

So much of it depends on Wine.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

ACHTUNG!! WINE is NOT an emulator!

Re:Great, now we can get a new ReactOS release

[Bite The Pillow]

A surprising amount of Wine is written as if it were either the kernel or the user layer. So lots of wine code can be reused directly in reactos. Wine is truly not an emulator, it just waits till the last minute to translate Windows calls into nix calls.

Re:

[myrdos2]

Wine is truly not an emulator

Emulator: [wikipedia.org] In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the host) to behave like another computer system (called the guest). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peripheral devices designed for the guest system. Emulation refers to the ability of a computer program in an electronic device to emulate (or imitate) another program or device.

That's a pity. I could use something that lets my Linux box be

I Wonder

[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

Has this WINE aged well over the years?

What is the end goal - Windows10 compatibility?

[tom_asdf]

Great work by the developers to release Wine 9.0.

What is their ultimate end goal?
Are they aiming for 100% compatibility with Windows10?

As Windows10 will go out of support in 2025, it will become a fixed target with no new features.
Then it should be possible to eventually get 100% compatibility.

Re:What is the end goal - Windows10 compatibility?

[caseih]

Wine's development and feature set are primarily determined by those that actually use it and their use cases. Right now that's primarily games of you look at the change logs and bug fix list. Also crossover supports a small number of commercial packages like MS office. Those applications will not be staying still in Windows 10 land. So wine will always be aiming for a moving target. But I think that's okay. As wine matures it's natural that older apis stabilize a bit although less big fixing goes there unless users report them.

Can I run

[wakeboarder]

cywin on it?