Have it all installed and up and running, to a point that is. I have downloaded Wine package, it told me it was successful and that is not showing in the menu and I have not the foggiest idea where it is on the file system, come to think of it I have no idea where the programs are either. So that's one issue. The second issue is that I cannot see my CD/DVD drives. So are they all derivative of the same problem? If I can get Wine going then I can load the other program I need to finish off this computer for the village photographic club.
Did you install Wine with Gslapt or slapt-get? In other words, did you use VectorLinux tools for the installation?
If you did, you can check in /var/log/packages to see if wine is listed and where its components were installed. You can also do a which command. At the terminal prompt, type
which wine
and it should tell you where the executable is. And you can also do what newtor suggested: at a prompt type
wine
and hit the tab key. You should get a list of programs that begin with "wine."
That's just to make sure Wine is on your system. Assuming it is and that you installed with Gslapt or slapt-get, you now need to get Wine going. You should always do Wine things as user, never as root.
If you want to install a Windows program from a CD, you can either copy all the contents to your hard drive and install from there or install directly from the CD. To mount a CD, insert the CD in the CD-ROM drive and at a terminal prompt type
mount /mnt/cdrom
If you don't get an error message, you should be able to do
ls /mnt/cdrom
and get a list of files on the CD. (That's an "ell," not an "i".)
If you get the file list, you should see a file like INSTALL.EXE or SETUP.EXE. Switch to the CD-ROM directory like this:
cd /mnt/cdrom
and then start Wine so you can attempt to install the program. Type this at the terminal prompt:
wine INSTALL.EXE
or wine SETUP.EXE
or wine install.exe
or wine followed by whatever the installation file is called. Remember, Linux is case-sensitive, so if the file is listed in uppercase or lowercase, you need to use the same case after wine. The wine command is always lowercase, however.
At this time you may get to the same installation screen you would have in Windows and you go through it just as you do in Windows.
When you first run Wine, a /.wine directory will be created in your home directory. Note it is a hidden directory, so you have to enable hidden directory display in your file manager. If you look in this hidden directory, you will see what looks like Drive C on a Windows computer. It is located at /.wine/drive_c and your installed program should be in /Program Files or somewhere else on the fake Drive C. To start the program, change to the directory where the executable lives and type something like this at a terminal prompt:
wine "c:\\Program Files\\IrfanView\\i_view32.exe"
or
wine /home/yourusername/.wine/drive_c/AHEDW/AHD4.EXE
These are just examples. You have to substitute the paths to your installed applications. With luck, your program will start and run decently. You can then create a shortcut so you don't have to go through all those steps again. It's always a good idea to start a newly installed application from a terminal prompt the first time. If something is amiss, you'll get error messages that will help you troubleshoot any problems.
If you want your CD-ROM drive to be available under Wine (it'll appear under the /.wine/dosdevices directory), you do that through winecfg. Just type
winecfg
at a terminal prompt and the Wine configuration program will start up. Click on the Drives tab, then Browse, and select the /mnt/cdrom folder in the folder list.
You *need* some basic information about how to do things in Wine and what to do when something doesn't work. I suggest going to
http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ and reading through the questions. This is the easy way to find an answer for a specific topic. The best starting point for Wine information is here:
http://wiki.winehq.org/FrontPage Notice there is a link to a database of applications that have been run successfully or unsuccessfully under Wine. You may find how whatever you want to install works under Wine.
Which brings me to the last thing. Do NOT assume that every, or any, Windows application will run under Wine. Some work flawlessly, some mostly work, some have problems but are usable, some are hopeless, some won't install at all. You won't know until you try. Sometimes troubleshooting reveals what the problem is and there are also things you can fiddle with through winecfg. You may be lucky and have your applications working well. Or you may have total failure. Let us know if what you want to install actually works as it may help someone else who wants to install the same thing.
--GrannyGeek
