install and configure wine in mint linux

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Wine is a compatibility layer that lets you, in theory, run applications written for Windows on a Unix-like system (though depending on the application, it can take some tweaking, and some applications just won’t work properly). Wine installs quite easily and runs just fine on Linux Mint 10. First, you’ll need to install Wine with this command at the Terminal prompt:
sudo apt-get install wine
Enter your password to authenticate, and apt-get will download and install Wine. The combined packages come to a little over a hundred megabytes, so it might take a while to install depending upon your connection speed.
After the installation is finished, you’ll have a new Wine category added to your Applications menu.
To install Windows software in Wine, you need to right-click on the installer file and select “Open With Wine Windows Program Loader”.
You can also install Windows software with Wine through the command line, which is often the easier way to do it. For instance, to install the example above, you would use this command:
wine ~/Downloads/INSTALL.EXE
If the application did not install, you’ll probably have to change the Wine settings. The best course is to probably browse the Wine application database, and see if you can find the correct settings there.
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howtoforge.com/installing-windows-software-with-wine-linux-mint-11
shameless copied! Danke vielmals,  Christian!
Copyright © 2011 Christian Schmalfeld
c [dot] schmalfeld [at]  projektfarm[dot] de
All Rights Reserved.
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Install Windows Software

After having installed Wine you can browse the internet for software you would like to use with it. As I said before, I will use Windows' version of VLC media player. Software you download from the internet is usually stored in your home directory's Downloads folder. I have put my VLC installer on my desktop:

To start working with it you first have to change permissions, otherwise following error will appear:

If you are not certain that you can trust the source you downloaded the software from, better let it be or download it from another source. If you are certain however, open a terminal, become root with

su

and grant permissions by entering the following (replace my document path with your file's path):

chmod 777 /home/ctest/Desktop/vlc-1.1.11-win32.exe

Afterwards you should be able to doubleclick it to open it. If not, rightclick and choose Open With Wine Windows Program Loader. This should open the installation setup:

Follow the steps of the setup. When you are asked for the installation directory do not be confused about the fact that you proposed a C:\ drive for installation, this is a virtual drive provided by Wine. You can leave it at that or install your software somewhere else.

After the installation is done, you can run your software by navigating to the installation path and opening the .exe file. If you were given the option to create a start menu link, your software will also be available on Menu > Wine.

Playonlinux for segmentation

Submitted by Spanky (not registered) on Fri, 2011-11-04 16:12.

I use Playonlinux, and put everything (not just games) in it's own container. This way, experiments don't mess-up good installs, and they can be summarily deleted. Plus, each can use it's own version of wine, and this is separate, from the base system install.

Separate from all that, and the base WINE install, is Picasa; with it's very own container automatically. You don't even have to think about it. However, I have moved it(very custom), and upgraded it to the beta 3.8, with face recognition.

Winetricks often needed

Submitted by JohnP (not registered) on Tue, 2011-11-01 00:14.

For some Windows software, using Winetricks is necessary too. While I haven't attempted any WINE efforts under Mint, I have gotten Quicken 2011 Premium and Quicken 2008 Home and Business working under LUbuntu 10.04. For the specific steps, Greg has been posting updates over at WineHQ.org. http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=107
Today I received a new Quicken H&B 2012, so instructions on getting that loaded will be posted soon. There's nothing in the "system requirements" to make me think it will not work.
I can confirm that MS-Office 2003 works under Wine too. Sadly, not all Windows software can run under WINE. More and more, there are Linux native options, which is very nice.