Wine is an emulation a compatibility layer that makes it possible to run some Windows programs on Linux or Mac computers. And eventually Wine may also let you run Windows software on some Android or Chrome OS devices.

That’s because Wine’s developers are working to bring code developed for CrossOver for Android to the free and open source Wine software.

Initially the goal had been to merge the code in time for the release of Wine 2.0, which launches in the next month or two. But Android support has been pushed back.

CrossOver for Android running on a Chromebook
CrossOver for Android running on a Chromebook

There are some limitations to the way CrossOver for Android works, and they’ll carry through to Wine for Android.

Only devices with Intel processors will be supported, for example… and since there aren’t very many Android phones or tablets with Intel chips, that means Wine for Android will probably be most useful for Chromebooks that support Android apps. It also helps that those devices are more likely to have keyboards and touchpads, since most Windows software is designed for those forms of input.

Improvements that are expected to make it into Wine 2.0 include better support for DirectX and for the Windows “human interface device” or HID layer for recognizing keyboards, gamepads, and other input devices.

via Phoronix

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7 replies on “Wine to bring support for Windows apps to Android”

  1. I have an older Asus Memo Pad 10HD that has an Atom processor, I wonder if it would work for that. There is another revision of the hardware that has an ARM based processor, but I got the Atom one.

  2. I’m interested in trying Wine in Linux. Is there a good guide or manual for the program?

  3. Interesting but Chromebooks tend to use low performance CPUs – whats the overhead for running an emulator like WINE?

    1. Wine is a compatibility layer software, not really an emulator.
      The system overhead really depends on the program and the layer (or “Wineskin”) developed for it. If the program is resource intensive, you can optimize the Wineskin all you want, but it may still be too demanding. A program could be relatively light, but a poorly developed Wineskin may demand more system resources.

      Tl;dr – it depends.

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