Wine Stable 7.0 Released! How to Install in Ubuntu 20.04 / Linux Mint 20

After a year of development, Wine, the software for running Windows apps on Linux finally released new stable 7.0 version with over 9,100 individual changes.

What’s New in Wine 7.0:

In Wine 7.0, most modules have been converted to PE format (Portable Executable, the Windows binary format) instead of ELF. This helps various copy protection schemes that check that the on-disk and in-memory contents of system modules are identical.

This release also implemented 64-bit Windows-on-Windows (WoW64) architecture, enables ability to run a 32-bit Windows application inside a 64-bit Unix host process. Once all modules converted to PE format, it will be possible to run 32-bit applications without installing 32-bit Unix libraries.

All the builtin applications and common controls now support theming, as well as High DPI rendering. A “Light” theme is included, with the color variants “Blue” and “Classic Blue”.

The 7.0 release also introduced the new kernel side Win32u graphics library. The graphics drivers (e.g., winex11.drv and winemac.drv) will be migrated to this library in next releases.

Other changes in Wine 7.0 include:

  • Some initial support for Direct2D effects.
  • Multiple displays support for Direct3D apps.
  • More graphics cards recognized via Direct3D database:
    • AMD Radeon RX 5500M
    • AMD Radeon RX 6800/6800 XT/6900 XT
    • AMD Van Gogh
    • Intel UHD Graphics 630
    • NVIDIA GT 1030
  • Vastly improved HID stack and joystick support.
  • Update Mono to v7.0.0 with many improvements.
  • The ‘faudio’ now bundled in the source, which means Ubuntu 18.04 no longer needs adding separate PPA for the dependency (NOT tested as I don’t have 18.04 at hand).
  • See announcement for more details.

How to Install Wine 7.0 in Ubuntu & Linux Mint:

The official Wine repository provides the packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10, Linux Mint 20, and their derivatives.

1. Enable 32 bit architecture

For modern 64-bit systems, you may first make sure the ability to install 32-bit app packages has been enabled.

To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

2. Install the key:

To make your system trust the package from Wine repository, you have to download & install the key.

It’s can be done simply by running the command below in terminal:

wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -

Though the apt-key command is deprecated, it’s still working and the most efficient so far.

NOTE: The command may stuck with blinking cursor after downloading the key, if you run this command in another window or a few minutes after the last. It’s waiting for you to type password for ‘sudo’ authentication. Just type your password (no visual feedback) in mind and hit Enter.

3. Add Wine Repository:

Now in terminal window, run command to add the Wine repository:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ focal main'

NOTE: the command above is for ‘Ubuntu 20.04’ and ‘Linux Mint 20’ only!!! For other Ubuntu edition (check via lsb_release -a command), do change focal in the code with:

  • bionic for Ubuntu 18.04.
  • hirsute for Ubuntu 21.04.
  • impish for Ubuntu 21.10.

Say you’re running on Ubuntu 21.10, the command will be:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ impish main'

4. Install Wine 7.0:

Finally, refresh system package cache by running command:

sudo apt update

And, install Wine 7.0 via:

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

Unmet dependency is a common issue while installing Wine in Ubuntu. In my Ubuntu 20.04, I never had the issue after manually installing the following packages:

sudo apt-get install libgnutls30:i386 libldap-2.4-2:i386 libgpg-error0:i386 libxml2:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386 libsdl2-2.0-0:i386 libfreetype6:i386 libdbus-1-3:i386 libsqlite3-0:i386

Also, you may use aptitude (install it via sudo apt install aptitude) instead to print workarounds:

sudo aptitude install winehq-stable

Uninstall Wine 7.0:

To remove the wine packages, use command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove winehq-stable

And remove the Wine repository using ‘Software & Updates‘ utility at Other Software tab.

That’s all. Enjoy!