Installing Wine on Mac OS 10.x ?

[badbadboy]

No I haven't dumped my glass of Pinot Noir on my keyboard. ound:

This question is for those programmers using Mac OS. I'm writing a response to a client who asked for a specific format found on one of those Windows only type programs. I've been able to 95% of my work using Mac OS and don't feel like partitioning a drive and buying Windows. A colleague suggested using "Wine" as a work around since it's a one off.

Anyone use this program and were there any pitfalls to look out for while it's on a Mac? I need to judge whether the work around is worth the time/effort or bite the bullet and buy the Windows program and OS?

https://www.davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/

 

[felixthecat]

You can try looking up your app's Wine compatibility at https://appdb.winehq.org/

For a Windows installation, who even repartition drives these days. I second the use of a virtual machine if your hardware allows: paid VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop or free Virtual Box.
For a one-off job, free evaluations of either Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 run for 90 days.

 

[Johnny Railz]

Wine works fine on Mac OS. It was initially developed so Linux and BSD hacks could use Windows programs (it's at least 20 years old). Mac OS X has FreeBSD under the hood. I've installed & used it on Mac OS. The only thing to keep in mind is that you may need to use a little command line (terminal window in Mac) for the installation. It runs both x32 and x64 Windows programs. The only downfall is that if you're using proprietary software they may not be able to support it if you're using Wine. And as Wine is open source there isn't the same level of support as for Windows.

As for partitioning a drive and installing Windows on Mac, you don't need to do that. You could virtualize the Windows machine in either Oracle Virtual Box or (the better choice) VMware Workstation (called VMware Fusion). I believe it's about 50 bucks for Mac. I would recommend you have a decent amount of RAM (12+ GB, preferably 16) to run Windows 10.

If you want to try the above, use a 30 day trial of VMware Fusion & download the ISO of Windows 10. You get a 90 day trial of that. It'll give you an idea of how it will work.

How does Parallels compare to VMWare Fusion? I've only ever had to configure Parallels on a MAC.

 

[Johnny Railz]

Both programs are "hypervisors". The major difference is VMware Fusion allows you to have multiple virtual machines so you could virtualize Windows Server, Linux, multiple versions of Windows, etc. The introduction of Bootcamp really kicked Parallels in the ass. A virtual machine is great in that you can run it in a second monitor & you don't have to reboot to get into Windows

There is a free version from Oracle called Virtual Box which is available for Mac. It's free. I've used it for Windows but I have not used it on Mac. There is also VMware Player which is free but I don't know if it's available for Mac OS.

I'm familiar with Workstation as I have it on my home laptop, so Fusion sounds like the MAC equivalent. I have an MBPro for work and a Ubuntu Workstation. I notice some of my colleagues use Virtualbox on their Mac Pros. I have Virtualbox running a Win 10 VM on the Ubuntu box since that machine has no shortage of RAM (64 GB)

When I told people who used Bootcamp about Parallels or Fusion they were surprised that you can run both OS's "side by side" rather than 1 or the other. People are still using Parallels, even though personal preference I would go the VMWare route.

 

[Johnny Railz]

Yes, Fusion is the Mac equivalent it's just much cheaper than VMware Workstation. The real impediment on Mac is it's RAM limitations. I was totally disappointed that the latest MBP were limited to 16 GB of RAM. Virtualbox is a pretty solid free product though I admit I'm no fan of anything Oracle.

Mac OS X is very efficient with memory so it's possible run Win 10 in a virtual window with just 8 GB of RAM. Not fast, but you can do it.

Yeah it sucks that 16 GB ram is the limitation on the Macbook Pro. Our client engineering dept. benchmarked the latest Macbook Pro, and the Mid 2015 model (which I am using) came out on top. The latest 2.9ghz model was 2nd place. They are still making the Mid-2015 model, so we will continue using those.

 

[Sphubby]

Δεν έχω ιδέα για τι μιλάς

For those that don't understand Greek, that translated says "I have no idea what you are talking about"
:kev::lalala:eace:

(but feel free to carry on, I will keep practicing my Greek)

 

[MissingOne]

... I will keep practicing my Greek)

What you need to practice is Geek.