Windows Convoluted Madness – how to use Wine in debian and X11 and mac and...

I’m currently trying to run Windows applications on Debian and it’s so hard already. Why is Windows so convoluted?

Anyways, what I’m doing:

1. Install XQuartz on your Mac and reboot!!!

2. I’m using Lima to provision my VMs, make sure to add this block to the instance yaml:

vmType: "vz"
rosetta:
  # Enable Rosetta for Linux.
  # Hint: try `softwareupdate --install-rosetta` if Lima gets stuck at `Installing rosetta...`
  enabled: true
  # Register rosetta to /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
  binfmt: true
ssh:
  forwardX11: true
  forwardX11Trusted: true

1. Then comes the debian x11 stuff:

sudo apt install xauth
# Trust your current display
xauth generate $DISPLAY . trusted 

# Test - exit session then try again if you see an error
sudo apt install x11-apps
xeyes

1. And wine stuff:

# https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Debian-Ubuntu
sudo apt install gpg
sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key -
# Bookworm debian src
sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/dists/bookworm/winehq-bookworm.sources

# rather annoying, but needed
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo dpkg --add-architecture amd64

sudo apt update

# Staging gives us amd64
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-staging

1. If you’re on your shiny Apple Silicon, do this:

# Install docker as per https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/debian/

# then: 
# https://github.com/tonistiigi/binfmt
sudo docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install x86_64,i386
# Uninstall other emulators so we can just use rosetta
sudo docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --uninstall qemu-x86_64
sudo docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --uninstall qemu-i386

This last step uses binfmt_misc that allows us to bind an executable with a file type, in a way that we can tell it to emulate whatever we need with qemu/wine behind.

Quite interesting, that’s pretty much how Docker for desktop amd64 emulation works as well on Apple Silicon.

I found out that I can install wine amd64 actually:

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-staging:amd64

If you want to use rosetta for i386:

# A handy list of magics here 
# https://gitlab.com/pantacor/pv-platforms/wifi-connect/-/blob/master/files/opt/binfmt-misc/qemu-binfmt-conf.sh
sudo /usr/sbin/update-binfmts --install rosetta-i386 /mnt/lima-rosetta/rosetta \
 --magic "\x7fELF\x01\x01\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x02\x00\x03\x00" \
 --mask "\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfe\xfe\x00\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfe\xff\xff\xff" \
 --credentials yes --preserve no

Too bad… rosetta hates i386 :(

See ya next time.