4 This document attempts to establish guidelines for people making binary
7 It expresses the basic principles that the Wine developers have agreed
8 should be used when building Wine. It also attempts to highlight the areas
9 where there are different approaches to packaging Wine, so that the packager
10 can understand the different alternatives that have been considered and their
16 There are several terms and paths used in this document as place holders
17 for configurable values. Those terms are described here.
18 * WINEPREFIX: is the user's Wine configuration directory.
19 This is almost always ~/.wine, but can be overridden by
20 the user by setting the WINEPREFIX environment variable.
22 * PREFIX: is the prefix used when selecting an installation target.
23 The current default is /usr/local. This results in binary
24 installation into /usr/local/bin, library installation into
25 /usr/local/wine/lib, and so forth.
26 This value can be overridden by the packager. In fact, FHS 2.2
27 (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/) specifications suggest that a better
28 prefix is /opt/wine. Ideally, a packager would also allow the
29 installer to override this value.
31 * ETCDIR: is the prefix that Wine uses to find the global
32 configuration directory. This can be changed by the configure
33 option sysconfdir. The current default is $PREFIX/etc.
35 * WINDOWSDIR: is an important concept to Wine. This directory specifies
36 what directory corresponds to the root Windows directory
37 (e.g. C:\WINDOWS). This directory is specified by the user, in
38 the user's configuration file. Generally speaking, this directory
39 is either set to point at an empty directory, or it is set to point
40 at a Windows partition that has been mounted through the vfat driver.
41 NOTE: It is extremely important that the packager understand the
42 importance of WINDOWSDIR and convey this information and
43 choice to the end user.
48 There are two types of dependencies: hard and soft dependencies.
50 A hard dependency must be available at runtime for Wine to function,
51 if compiled into the code. Soft dependencies on the other hand
52 will degrade gracefully at runtime if unavailable on the runtime system.
53 Ideally, we should eliminate all hard dependencies in favour of
56 To enable a soft dependency, it must be available at compile time.
57 As a packager, please do your best to make sure that as many soft
58 dependencies are available during compilation. Failing to have a
59 soft dependency available means that users cannot benefit
60 from a Wine capability.
62 Here is a list of the soft dependencies. We suggest packagers
63 install each and every last of those before building the package.
64 These libraries are not dependencies in the RPM sense. In DEB packages,
65 they should appear as "Suggests" or "Recommends", as the case may be.
66 * FreeType: http://www.freetype.org
67 This library is used for direct rendering of fonts. It provides
68 better support of fonts than using the X11 fonts engine. It is
69 only needed for the X11 back end engine. Used from GDI.
71 * Alsa: "http://sourceforge.net/projects/alsa (Linux only)
72 This library gives sound support to the Windows environment.
74 * JACK: http://jackit.sourceforge.net
75 Similar to Alsa, it allow Wine to use the JACK audio server.
77 * CUPS: http://www.cups.org
78 This library allows Windows to see CUPS defined printers.
81 This is used for both OpenGL and Direct3D (and some other
82 DirectX functions as well) support in Wine. There are many many
83 libraries for providing this functionality. It is enough for one
84 of them to be available when compiling Wine. Wine can work with
85 any other library during runtime.
86 If no library is available, packagers are encouraged to compile
87 Wine with Mesa3D (http://www.mesa3d.org), which requires no
88 hardware support to install.
93 An installation from a Wine package should:
94 * Install quickly and simply:
95 The initial installation should require no user input. An
96 'rpm -i wine.rpm' or 'apt-get install wine'
97 should suffice for initial installation.
99 * Work quickly and simply:
100 The user should be able to launch Solitaire
101 within minutes of downloading the Wine package.
103 * Comply with Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
104 A Wine installation should, as much as possible, comply
105 with the FHS standard (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/).
107 * Preserve flexibility
108 None of the flexibility built into Wine should
109 be hidden from the end user.
112 Come as preconfigured as possible, so the user does
113 not need to change any configuration files.
116 Use only as much diskspace as needed per user.
118 * Reduce support requirements.
119 A packaged version of Wine should be sufficiently easy to use and
120 have quick and easy access to FAQs and documentation such that
121 requests to the newsgroup and development group go down.
122 Further, it should be easy for users to capture good bug reports.
127 Successfully installing Wine requires:
128 * Much thought and work from the packager (1x)
130 * A configuration file
131 Wine will not run without a configuration file. Wine provides a
132 a sample config file and it can be found in documentation/samples.
133 Some packagers may attempt to provide (or dynamically generate) a
134 default configuration file. Some packagers may wish to rely on
135 winesetup to generate the configuration file.
137 * A writeable C drive
138 A writeable C:\ directory structure on a per-user basis.
139 Applications do dump .ini file into C:\WINDOWS, installer
140 dump .exe/.dll/etc. files into C:\WINDOWS or C:\Program Files.
142 * An initial set of registry entries.
143 For custom changes to the default registry, tools/wine.inf
144 can be modified as needed. The current preferred method of
145 configuring/installing Wine is to run /tools/wineinstall.
146 There are several other choices that could be made; registries
147 can be imported from a Windows partition. At this time, Wine
148 does not completely support a complex multi-user installation
149 ala Windows NT, but it could fairly readily.
152 Some special .dll and .exe files in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM
153 directory, since applications directly check for their presence.
159 - notepad : The windows Notepad replacement.
160 - progman : A Program Manager replacement.
161 - regedit : A graphical tool to edit your registry or for
162 important a windows registry to Wine.
163 - regsvr32 : A program to register/unregister .DLL's and .OCX files.
164 Only works on those dlls that can self-register.
165 - taskmgr : A clone of the windows taskmgr, used for debugging and
166 managing running Windows and Winlib processes.
167 - uninstaller: A program to uninstall installed Windows programs.
168 Like the Add/Remove Program in the windows control panel.
169 - wcmd : Wine's command line interpreter, a cmd.exe replacement.
170 - widl : Wine IDL compiler compiles (MS-RPC and DCOM) Interface
171 Definition Language files.
172 - wine : The main Wine executable. This program will load a Windows
173 binary and run it, relying upon the Wine shared object libraries.
174 - wineboot : This program is executed on startup of the first wine
175 process of a particular user.wineboot won't automatically run
176 when needed. Currently you have to manually run it after you
178 - winebuild : Winebuild is a tool used for building Winelib applications
179 (and by Wine itself) to allow a developer to compile a .spec file
181 - wineconsole : Render the output of CUI programs.
182 - winedbg : A application making use of the debugging API to allow
183 debugging of Wine or Winelib applications as well as Wine itself
184 (kernel and all DLLs).
185 - winedump : Dumps the imports and exports of NE and PE files.
186 - winefile : A clone of the win3x filemanager.
187 - winegcc/wineg++: Wrappers for gcc/g++ respectively, to make them behave
188 as MinGW's gcc. Used for porting apps over to Winelib.
189 - winemaker : Winemaker is a perl script which is designed to help you
190 bootstrap the conversion of your Windows projects to Winelib.
191 - winemine : A clone of "Windows Minesweeper" a demo WineLib app.
192 - winepath : A tool for converting between Windows paths and Unix paths
193 - wineserver : The Wine server is the process that manages resources,
194 coordinates threads, and provides synchronization and interprocess
195 communication primitives to Wine processes.
196 - wineshelllink : This shell script can be called by Wine in order to
197 propagate Desktop icon and menu creation requests out to a
198 GNOME or KDE (or other Window Managers).
199 - winewrap : Takes care of linking winelib applications. Linking with
200 Winelib is a complex process, winewrap makes it simple.
201 - winhelp : A Windows Help replacement.
202 - wmc : Wine Message Compiler it allows Windows message files to be
203 compiled into a format usable by Wine.
204 - wrc : the Wine Resource Compiler. A clone of Microsoft's rc.
206 * Shared Object Library Files
207 To obtain a current list of DLLs, run:
209 it the root of the Wine _build_ tree, after a successful build.
212 To obtain a current list of man files that need to be installed, run:
214 it the root of the Wine _build_ tree, after you have run ./configure.
217 An up to date list of includes can be found in the include/Makefile.in file.
219 * Documentation files
220 After building the documentation with:
221 cd documentation; make html
222 install all the files from: wine-user/, wine-devel/ and winelib-user/.
225 Wine also generates and depends on a number of dynamic
226 files, including user configuration files and registry files.
228 At the time of this writing, there was not a clear
229 consensus of where these files should be located, and how
230 they should be handled. This section attempts
231 to explain the alternatives clearly.
234 This file is the user local Wine configuration file.
235 At the time of this writing, if this file exists,
236 then no other configuration file is loaded.
239 This is the global Wine configuration file. It is only used
240 if the user running Wine has no local configuration file.
241 Global wine configuration is currently not possible;
242 this might get reenabled at some time.
243 Some packagers feel that this file should not be supplied,
244 and that only a wine.conf.default should be given here.
245 Other packagers feel that this file should be the predominant
246 file used, and that users should only shift to a local
247 configuration file if they need to. An argument has been
248 made that the local configuration file should inherit the
249 global configuration file. At this time, Wine does not do this;
250 please refer to the WineHQ discussion archives for the debate
252 This debate is addressed more completely below, in the
253 'Packaging Strategy' section.
256 In order to replicate the Windows registry system,
257 Wine stores registry entries in a series of files.
259 For an excellent overview of this issue, read this
260 http://www.winehq.org/News/2000-25.html#FTR
261 Wine Weekly News feature.
263 The bottom line is that, at Wine server startup,
264 Wine loads all registry entries into memory
265 to create an in memory image of the registry.
266 The order of files which Wine uses to load
267 registry entries is extremely important,
268 as it affects what registry entries are
269 actually present. The order is roughly that
270 .dat files from a Windows partion are loaded,
271 then global registry settings from ETCDIR,
272 and then finally local registry settings are
273 loaded from WINEPREFIX. As each set are loaded,
274 they can override the prior entries. Thus,
275 the local registry files take precedence.
277 Then, at exit (or at periodic intervals),
278 Wine will write either all registry entries
279 (or, with the default setting) changed
280 registry entries to files in the WINEPREFIX.
282 - WINEPREFIX/system.reg
283 This file contains the user's local copy of the
284 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry hive. In general use, it will
285 contain only changes made to the default registry values.
287 - WINEPREFIX/user.reg
288 This file contains the user's local copy of the
289 HKEY_CURRENT_MACHINE registry hive. In general use, it will
290 contain only changes made to the default registry values.
292 - WINEPREFIX/userdef.reg
293 This file contains the user's local copy of the
294 HKEY_USERS\.Default registry hive. In general use, it will
295 contain only changes made to the default registry values.
297 - WINEPREFIX/cachedmetrics.[display]
298 This file contains font metrics for the given X display.
299 Generally, this cache is generated once at Wine start time.
300 cachedmetrics can be generated if absent.
301 You should note this can take a long time.
303 - ETCDIR/wine.systemreg
304 This file contains the global values for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
305 The values in this file can be overridden by the user's
306 local settings. The location of this directory is hardcoded
307 within wine, generally to /etc.
309 - ETCDIR/wine.userreg
310 This file contains the global values for HKEY_USERS.
311 The values in this file can be overridden by the user's
312 local settings. This file is likely to be deprecated in
313 favor of a global wine.userdef.reg that will only contain
316 * Important Files from a Windows Partition
317 Wine has the ability to use files from an installation of the
318 actual Microsoft Windows operating system. Generally these
319 files are loaded on a VFAT partition that is mounted under Linux.
321 This is probably the most important configuration detail.
322 The use of Windows registry and DLL files dramatically alters the
323 behaviour of Wine. If nothing else, pacakager have to make this
324 distinction clear to the end user, so that they can intelligently
325 choose their configuration.
327 - WINDOWSDIR/system32/system.dat
328 - WINDOWSDIR/system32/user.dat
331 * Windows Dynamic Link Libraries (WINDOWSDIR/system32/*.dll)
332 Wine has the ability to use the actual Windows DLL files
333 when running an application. An end user can configure
334 Wine so that Wine uses some or all of these DLL files
335 when running a given application.
340 There has recently been a lot of discussion on the Wine
341 development mailing list about the best way to build Wine packages.
343 There was a lot of discussion, and several diverging points of view.
344 This section of the document attempts to present the areas of common
345 agreement, and also to present the different approaches advocated on
348 * Distribution of Wine into packages
349 The most basic question to ask is given the Wine CVS tree,
350 what physical files are you, the packager, going to produce?
351 Are you going to produce only a wine.rpm (as Marcus has done),
352 or are you going to produce 6 Debian files (libwine, libwine-dev,
353 wine, wine-doc, wine-utils and winesetuptk) as Ove has done?
354 At this point, common practice is to adopt to the conventions
355 of the targeted distribution.
357 * Where to install files
358 This question is not really contested. It will vary
359 by distribution, and is really up to the packager.
360 As a guideline, the current 'make install' process
361 seems to behave such that if we pick a single PREFIX then:
362 - binary files go into PREFIX/bin
363 - library files go into PREFIX/lib/wine
364 - include files go into PREFIX/include/wine
365 - man pages go into PREFIX/share/man
366 - documentation files go into PREFIX/share/doc/wine-VERSION
368 You might also want to use the wine wrapper script winelauncher
369 that can be found in tools/ directory, as it has several important
370 advantages over directly invoking the wine binary.
371 See the Executable Files section for details.
373 * The question of /opt/wine
374 The FHS 2.2 specification suggests that Wine as a package
375 should be installed to /opt/wine. None of the existing packages
376 follow this guideline (today; check again tomorrow).
378 * What files to create
379 After installing the static and shareable files, the next
380 question the packager needs to ask is how much dynamic
381 configuration will be done, and what configuration
382 files should be created.
383 There are several approaches to this:
384 - Rely completely on user file space - install nothing
385 This approach relies upon the new winesetup utility
386 and the new ability of Wine to launch winesetup if no
387 configuration file is found. The basic concept is
388 that no global configuration files are created at
389 install time. Instead, Wine configuration files are
390 created on the fly by the winesetup program when Wine
391 is invoked. Further, winesetup creates default
392 Windows directories and paths that are stored
393 completely in the user's WINEPREFIX. This approach
394 has the benefit of simplicity in that all Wine files
395 are either stored under /opt/wine or under ~/.wine.
396 Further, there is only ever one Wine configuration
397 file. This approach, however, adds another level of
398 complexity. It does not allow Wine to run Solitaire
399 'out of the box'; the user must run the configuration
400 program first. Further, winesetup requires Tcl/Tk, a
401 requirement not beloved by some. Additionally, this
402 approach closes the door on multi user configurations
403 and presumes a single user approach.
405 - Build a reasonable set of defaults for the global wine.conf,
406 facilitate creation of a user's local Wine configuration.
407 This approach, best shown by Marcus, causes the
408 installation process to auto scan the system,
409 and generate a global wine.conf file with best
410 guess defaults. The OpenLinux packages follow
412 The keys to this approach are always putting
413 an existing Windows partition into the
414 path, and being able to run Solitaire
415 right out of the box.
416 Another good thing that Marcus does is he
417 detects a first time installation and
418 does some clever things to improve the
419 user's Wine experience.
420 A flaw with this approach, however, is it doesn't
421 give the user an obvious way to choose not to
422 use a Windows partition.
424 - Build a reasonable set of defaults for the global wine.conf,
425 and ask the user if possible
426 This approach, demonstrated by Ove, causes the
427 installation process to auto scan the system,
428 and generate a global wine.conf file with best
429 guess defaults. Because Ove built a Debian
430 package, he was able to further query debconf and
431 get permission to ask the user some questions,
432 allowing the user to decide whether or not to
433 use a Windows partition.
438 This section discusses the implementation of a Red Hat 8.0 .spec file.
439 For a current .spec file, please refer to any one of the existing SRPMs.
441 1. Building the package
443 Wine is configured the usual way (depending on your build environment).
444 The PREFIX is chosen using your application placement policy
445 (/usr/, /usr/X11R6/, /opt/wine/, or similar). The configuration files
446 (wine.conf, wine.userreg, wine.systemreg) are targeted for /etc/wine/
447 (rationale: FHS 2.2, multiple readonly configuration files of a package).
449 Example (split this into %build and %install section for rpm:
452 CFLAGS=$RPM_OPT_FLAGS ./configure --prefix=/usr/X11R6 --sysconfdir=/etc/wine/ --enable-dll
455 make install prefix=$BR/usr/X11R6/ sysconfdir=$BR/etc/wine/
456 install -d $BR/etc/wine/
457 install -m 644 wine.ini $BR/etc/wine/wine.conf
459 # Put all our DLLs in a separate directory. (this works only if you have a buildroot)
460 install -d $BR/usr/X11R6/lib/wine
461 mv $BR/usr/X11R6/lib/lib* $BR/usr/X11R6/lib/wine/
463 # The Wine server is needed.
464 install -m 755 server/wineserver $BR/usr/X11R6/bin/
467 There are now a lot of libraries generated by the build process, so a
468 separate library directory should be used.
470 install -d 755 $BR/usr/X11R6/lib/
473 You will need to package the files:
475 $prefix/bin/wine, $prefix/lib/wine/*
476 $prefix/man/man1/wine.1, $prefix/include/wine/*,
477 $prefix/bin/wineserver
480 %doc ... choose from the toplevel directory and documentation/
482 The post-install script:
484 if ! grep /usr/X11R6/lib/wine /etc/ld.so.conf >/dev/null; then
485 echo "/usr/X11R6/lib/wine" >> /etc/ld.so.conf
489 The post-uninstall script:
491 if [ "$1" = 0 ]; then
492 perl -ni -e 'print unless m:/usr/X11R6/lib/wine:;' /etc/ld.so.conf
496 2. Creating a good default configuration file.
498 For the rationales of needing as less input from the user as possible arises
499 the need for a very good configuration file. The one supplied with Wine is
500 currently lacking. We need:
503 - A for the floppy. Specify your distribution's default floppy mountpoint.
505 - C for the C:\ directory. Here we use the user's home directory, for most
506 applications do see C:\ as root-writeable directory of every windows
507 installation and this basically is it in the UNIX-user context.
508 Don't forget to identify environment variables as DOS ones (ie, surrounded by '%').
510 - R for the CD-Rom drive. Specify your distribution's default CD-ROM mountpoint.
512 - T for temporary storage. We do use /tmp/ (rationale: between process
513 temporary data belongs to /tmp/ , FHS 2.0)
515 - W for the original Windows installation. This drive points to the
516 WINDOWSDIR subdirectory of the original windows installation.
517 This avoids problems with renamed WINDOWSDIR directories (as for
518 instance lose95, win or sys\win95). During compile/package/install
519 we leave this to be / , it has to be configured after the package install.
520 - Z for the UNIX Root directory. This avoids any roblems with
521 "could not find drive for current directory" users occasionally complain
522 about in the newsgroup and the irc channel. It also makes the whole
523 directory structure browseable. The type of Z should be network,
524 so applications expect it to be readonly.
528 Windows=c:\windows\ (the windows/ subdirectory in the user's
530 System=c:\windows\system\ (the windows/system subdirectory in the user's
532 Path=c:\windows;c:\windows\system;c:\windows\system32;w:\;w:\system;w:\system32;
533 ; Using this trick we have in fact two windows installations in one, we
534 ; get the stuff from the readonly installation and can write to our own.
535 Temp=t:\ (the TEMP directory)
537 * Possibly modify the [spooler], [serialports] and [parallelports] sections.
538 FIXME: possibly more, including printer stuff.
540 Add this prepared configuration file to the package.
542 3. Installing Wine for the system administrator
544 Install the package using the usual packager 'rpm -i wine.rpm'.
545 You may edit /etc/wine/wine.conf , [Drive W], to point to a
546 possible Windows installation right after the install. That's it.
548 Note that on Linux you should somehow try to add the unhide mount optioni
549 (see 'man mount') to the CD-ROM entry in /etc/fstab during package install,
550 as several stupid Windows programs mark some setup (!) files as hidden
551 (ISO9660) on CD-ROMs, which will greatly confuse users as they won't find
552 their setup files on the CD-ROMs as they were used on Windows systems when
553 unhide is not set ;-\ And of course the setup program will complain
554 that setup.ins or some other mess is missing... If you choose to do so,
555 then please make this change verbose to the admin.
557 Also make sure that the kernel you use includes the Joliet CD-ROM support,
558 for the very same reasons as given above (no long filenames due to missing
559 Joliet, files not found).
561 4. Installing Wine for the user
563 The user will need to run a setup script before the first invocation of Wine.
565 * Copy /etc/wine/wine.conf for user modification.
566 * Allow specification of the original windows installation to use
567 (which modifies the copied wine.conf file).
568 * Create the windows directory structure (c:\windows, c:\windows\system,
569 c:\windows\Start Menu\Programs, c:\Program Files, c:\Desktop, etc.)
570 * Symlink all .dll and .exe files from the original windows installation
571 to the windows directory. Why? Some programs reference
572 "%windowsdir%/file.dll" or "%systemdir%/file.dll" directly and fail
573 if they are not present. This will give a huge number of symlinks, yes.
574 However, if an installer later overwrites one of those files, it will
575 overwrite the symlink (so that the file now lies in the windows/
576 subdirectory). FIXME: Not sure this is needed for all files.
577 * On later invocation the script might want to compare regular files in
578 the user's windows directories and in the global windows directories
579 and replace same files by symlinks (to avoid diskspace problems).
584 Written in 1999 by Marcus Meissner <marcus@jet.franken.de>
585 Updated in 2000 by Jeremy White <jwhite@codeweavers.com>
586 Updated in 2002 by Andreas Mohr <andi@rhlx01.fht-esslingen.de>
587 Updated in 2003 by Tom Wickline <twickline2@triad.rr.com>
588 Updated in 2003 by Dimitrie O. Paun <dpaun@rogers.com>