Brief: A new major release of Wine is here. With Wine 5.0, running Windows applications and games on Linux is further improved.

With some efforts, you can run Windows applications on Linux using Wine. Wine is a tool that you may try when you must use a software that is available only on Windows. It supports a number of such software.

A new major release for Wine has landed i.e Wine 5.0, almost after a year of its 4.0 release.

Wine 5.0 release introduces a couple of major features and a lot of significant changes/improvements. In this article, I’ll highlight what’s new and also mention the installation instructions.

What’s New In Wine 5.0?

The key changes in 5.0 release as mentioned in their official announcement:

Builtin modules in PE format.

Multi-monitor support.

XAudio2 reimplementation.

Vulkan 1.1 support.

Microsoft Installer (MSI) Patch Files are supported.

Performance improvements.

So, with Vulkan 1.1 support and multi-monitor support – Wine 5.0 release is a big deal.

In addition to the key highlights, you can also expect better controller support in the new version considering thousands of changes/improvements involved in the new release.

It is also worth noting that this release is being dedicated to the memory of Józef Kucia (lead developer of the vkd3d project)

They’ve also mentioned this in their release notes:

This release is dedicated to the memory of Józef Kucia, who passed away in August 2019 at the young age of 30. Józef was a major contributor to Wine’s Direct3D implementation, and the lead developer of the vkd3d project. His skills and his kindness are sorely missed by all of us.

How to install Wine 5.0 on Linux

Note If you have Wine installed before, you should remove it completely to avoid any conflict (as you wish). Also, the WineHQ key repository key was changed recently, you should refer to its download page for additional instructions on that according to your Linux distribution.

The source for Wine 5.0 is available on its official website. You can read more about building wine in order to make it work. Arch-based users should be getting it soon.

Here’ I’ll show you the steps to install Wine 5.0 on Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Please be patient and follow the steps one by one to install and use Wine. There are several steps involved here.

Keep in mind that Wine installs too many packages. You’ll see a huge list of packages and a download size of around 1.3 GB.

Install Wine 5.0 on Ubuntu (not valid for Linux Mint)

First, remove existing Wine install with this command:

sudo apt remove winehq-stable wine-stable wine1.6 wine-mono wine-geco winetricks

Then make sure to add 32-bit architecture support:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Download the official Wine repository key and add it:

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

For Ubuntu 18.04 and 19.04, add the FAudio dependency with this PPA. Ubuntu 19.10 doesn’t need it.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cybermax-dexter/sdl2-backport

Now use this command to add repository:

sudo apt-add-repository "deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main"

Now that you have added the correct repository, you can install Wine 5.0 using this command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

Note that despite listing Wine 5 on stable in the package list, you might still see wine 4.0.3 with winehq-stable package. Perhaps it is not propagated to all geographical locations. As of this morning, I can see Wine 5.0.

Installing Wine 5.0 in Linux Mint 19.1, 19.2 and 19.3

As some readers notified me, the command apt-add repository doesn’t work for Linux Mint 19.x series.

Here’s another way to add a custom repository. You’ll have to do some steps same as Ubuntu. Like removing existing Wine packages:

sudo apt remove winehq-stable wine-stable wine1.6 wine-mono wine-geco winetricks

Adding 32-bit support:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

And then adding the GPG key:

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

Add the dependency with FAudio:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cybermax-dexter/sdl2-backport

Now create a new entry for the Wine repository:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ bionic main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list"

Update the package list and install Wine:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

Wrapping Up

Have you tried the latest Wine 5.0 release yet? If yes, what improvements do you see in action?

Let me know your thoughts on the new release in the comments below.