Install Wine On Mac Terminal

Install Wine On Mac

How to: Install Wine on Mac OS X. Mac OS X could be the best operating system ever but there's still one thing that it lacks: you can neither run any essential Windows apps, nor even install Wine to make it possible. Installing Wine on Mac. This tutorial is for intermediate users who want to install and use Wine on their computer running macOS. You should already know the basics of how to use the command line.

Wine has been a long-standing open source software. It is highly popular because it aims to allow the computer programs that have been developed for Microsoft Windows to run on Mac and other Unix-based systems. Mac users have especially been using it to run Windows applications on Mac, so if you are one such user, you have come to the right place. In this article, we will be talking all about Wine and how you can download & install it on your Mac, as well as run it and use it.

Contents

1 Wine for Mac: Everything You Need to Know
- 1.1 Installing Wine on your Mac

Wine for Mac: Everything You Need to Know

Wine is a pretty old application, first launched in 1993. It is completely free as well as legal. Even though Boot Camp is available, which allows you to install Windows on a Mac, you are required to boot up every time you want to run Windows. Wine helps you cut to the chase and run a Windows program directly.

When a program runs, it asks for resources like disk and memory space from the OS, which Wine makes sure get answered.

Wine is way better than Boot Camp or virtualization like Parallel Space, which makes it so ideal. However, there might be a slight chance that your program may not work with Wine. You will have to try to run it for that.

Let’s get Started!

Installing Wine on your Mac

To get Wine on Mac, we will first look into the system requirements, and then we will outline the steps in detail.

System Requirements

The following are the requirements of your system to install Wine for Mac:

macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) or above
Access to an Admin account, with password
An Internet Connection

Now that we have gone through these, let us take a look at the various steps you will be going through to install Wine for Mac.

Step 1: Installing Homebrew

Homebrew is a package manager. It facilitates the installation of open source programs, including Wine, a pretty easy task. Wine is big in size, which is why it’s better to install it.

To install Homebrew:

Run the Terminal
In the command line, type:

ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)”

The Terminal will ask your permission, as well as ask for the password. Enter them and continue.
No character will be displayed while you type your password, but don’t worry the Terminal is taking the password as input.
Homebrew should take no more than a few minutes to install.
Once that is done, all you have to do type the following into the terminal and press enter:

brew doctor

If everything goes correctly, you should see the message ‘Your system is ready to brew’. We will proceed to the next step.

If you do get asked by the terminal to agree with the Xcode License, you can do that easily by typing the following into the terminal:

sudo xcodebuild License

Then, just read the agreement, agree to it and proceed.

Step 2: Install XQuartz with the help of Homebrew

XQuartz is another open source program that you need to install, as in order for Wine to install properly Xquartz is needed. Homebrew allows you to very easily install this, all you have to do is enter the following command into the terminal:

brew cask install xquartz

In the above command:

brew refers to Homebrew
cask is a reference to Homebrew Cask, which installs GUI (Graphical User Interface) Application on your Mac
install xquartz is self-explanatory, meaning that you are installing the xquartz program on your Mac

Once the installation is complete, Terminal will pause and then wait for your next command, i.e. the next step.

Step 3: Wine Installation

Now that we have everything ready, all we have to do is install Wine on Mac. Homebrew will install it for us, just type the following in the terminal:

brew install wine

Now, Wine will be installed on your MacOS by Homebrew. That’s it!

Installing and Running Windows Programs on Mac using Wine

Now that Wine has been installed correctly, we will see how we can run Windows Programs on our Mac using Wine.

Get the installer file .exe
Keep in mind its location
Using cd, navigate to the directory where the installer file is being stored
Now, run the following command in the terminal:

wine $INSTALLNAME.exe

where ‘$INSTALLNAME’ will be replaced by the installer file name. For example, if the installer file name is ‘fastsetup.exe’, type

wine fastsetup.exe

You will now see the installer window, where the instructions will be self-explanatory for you to install the Windows Program.

Now, let us see how to run our Windows Program on MacOS using Wine.

Enter the following command in the terminal- we will be navigating to the Program Files directory:

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/ProgramFiles/
Now, navigate to your installed program’s directory among the list (which you can see using the ls command). You can navigate using the cd command. Check out any command list website to learn how to use these commands.
You will find the .exe file of your installed program. To run it, type the following into command prompt;

wine $program.exe

where ‘$program’ will be replaced by the name of your program, just like before.

Now, you will see a window pop up and your Windows Program will start running perfectly! That is how you can install and run Windows Programs using Wine.

Final Take

We hope that by reading this article you were able to install Wine on your Macbook. If you have any further queries regarding the steps mentioned in this article, you can drop us a comment below and we’ll do our best to get back to you with a relevant answer.

Before my shift to using macOS as my daily work operating system, I was using a myriad of GNU/Linux platforms. Linux (as well as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, upon which macOS is built) provided me with easy access to the various open source software via a package manager.

What is a package manager

A package manager is a command line tool that gives me access to a myriad of pre-built (or sometimes to source code if desired) software packages to install and download on my computer. I could open a terminal and simply type in a command to tell the package manager to download and install any freely available open source software my heart (and requirements) desired.

Homebrew will 'install the stuff you need that Apple didn't.'

Although macOS has the App Store, it's not a repository of my favorite open source software (at least not in their raw unadulterated forms). /djay-whoop-that-trick-soundcloud.html. Things like mplayer, wget, and gcc aren't in the App Store and searching for or building the source code for a package can become onerous.

This is where Homebrew for macOS saves the day!

What is Homebrew

Homebrew touts itself as 'the missing package manager for macOS' and that it will 'install the stuff you need that Apple didn't.' Once installed on your Mac, you'll have access to hundreds of open source packages ready for you at your fingertips. Need to download a youtube video? Open a command prompt and type 'brew install youtube-dl'. Need to cross-compile for another platform? Type in 'brew install gcc'. Want to play Windows PC based games on macOS? Type in 'brew install wine'. It's that easy.

Installing Homebrew

Installing Homebrew also couldn't be easier.

Start terminal.
At the command line type in:
- /usr/bin/ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)'
Hit Return.
Hit Return again to allow the install to start.
Enter your Password.
Hit Return.

Wait for the download to start and for the installer to finish. That's it!

Installing software packages

Once you've got Homebrew installed, you can now download any open source software you like, called formulae, that is maintained by the package manager developers. There are hundreds of apps to choose from. For example, let's say I wanted to install a lightweight torrent client like Transmission. Here's how to do it.

Open terminal.
At the command line type in:
- brew install transmission
Tap Return.
Done!

That's it! Super fast and easy.

Final comments

With the amazing graphical interface Apple made on top of its BSD underpinnings, it's easy to forget the power that the UNIX command line can provide. It's flexible and fast with an incredible amount of free software that can turn any user into a power user. Do you think the App Store should rollout open source software packages into its scope? Is having third-party package managers such as Homebrew the better option? Lets us know your thoughts in the comments!

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