Wine-Doors: Easy installation of Windows applications on Linux

Wine-Doors is what we would call a Windows Package Manager for Linux, who uses Windows are not used with the install/remove scheme of Linux programs, what we call Package Management.

Wine-Doors is a graphical interface that allows you to install applications originally made for Windows in a Linux system (in your Ubuntu box, por exemple). It uses the well known Wine to install the programs that are fetch automatically from a repository from the Internet. It’s very alike with apt-get, just like the gnome-app-install and synaptic (both apt-get’s front-end) that gets a package and calls dpkg (wine, in this case) to install the application.

Unfortunately for some unknown reason some people still needing to use some applications that are only in its plenty of functionality on versions for MS Windows (fortunately this is not my case), but I’m not going to discuss it here. But with wine-doors the fetching, installation and configuration of these programs is made automatically almost without any user intervention.

The interface remembers the gnome-app-install, where all you need to do is select the application, mark for installation and apply the changes. After installed, a shortcut for the program will be installed on the GNOME’s applications menu according its category (accessories, games, sound & video, etc.). You also will be able to upgrade and remove the application trough wine-doors interface (and again, yes, just like apt-get/synaptic).

If you want to install it, I recommend this package for Ubuntu Feisty provided by GetDeb.net.
The comparison points with APT-GET, gnome-app-install, synaptic, etc. are numerous:

• The fetching based on repositories;
• Has the packages list (packlist.xml.gz like Packages.gz);
• Has a local database to catalogue the packages installed, available and with upgrade candidate
• Ahh, and many other things…

Currently in its ‘repositories’ are already many applications available for installation. When you run wine-doors for the first time you can install:

• Visual C++ Libraries;
• Firefox (???);
• Internet Explorer 6;
• Opera 9 (???);
• Quicktime 7;
• Winamp5;
• Windows Media Player;
• DVD Decrypter;
• Dreamweaver 8;
• Flash 8;
• Eudora;

And even some games:

• Soldat;
• Prey;
• Steam;
• Half Life 2;
• World of Warcraft
• Warcraft I;
• Call of Duty;
• DirectX 9;

And also some fonts and libraries.

In the wine-doors site you can get more information, downloads, screenshots and documentation.

[*PS1: Not all applications I’ve installed had their icons created in the gnome menu;
PS2: The option ‘more info…’ do not seems to do anything, at least for me]