How To Install Wine Staging On Linux
Does your Linux distribution have a painfully outdated version of Wine? If so, consider upgrading it to Wine Staging.
Wine Staging is a patched development version of Wine with the latest technologies. Installing it is a good idea if the version of Wine your Linux PC comes with is missing features (due to its age). Besides, using newer versions is a great way to ensure that programs work, as the developers are always releasing bug fixes, as well as improving performance.
SPOILER ALERT: Scroll down and watch the video tutorial at the end of this article.
If you’re using Wine to run a Windows program here or there, Wine Staging may not be for you. However, if you need many Windows programs to run on your Linux PC, this is a great way to go.
Ubuntu
wget -nc https://repos.wine-staging.com/wine/Release.key sudo apt-key add Release.key
Now that the Wine release key is known to Ubuntu, we can add the software repository with the apt-add-repository command.
sudo apt-add-repository 'https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/'
Using apt update, refresh Ubuntu so that the new Wine Staging repository shows up.
sudo apt update
Lastly, install Wine Staging.
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-staging
Uninstall Wine Staging with:
sudo apt remove winehq-staging
Debian
Installing Wine Staging on Debian is similar to Ubuntu, but not the same. It starts off somewhat similarly, by adding the release key. Debian, like Ubuntu, requires a key and refuses to install software (unless you manually override it) from untrusted sources. To get the key, enter the commands below.
wget -nc https://repos.wine-staging.com/wine/Release.key sudo apt-key add Release.key
Next, using the Nano text editor, open up your sources.list file and add the Wine Staging software repository. In this example, we’ll be focusing on Debian Stable (aka Stretch). If you use Wheezy, Jesse, Buster, or Sid, replace “stretch” and enter your release code-name.
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Paste the following code in the Nano text editor (Ctrl + Shift + V):
# Wine Staging for Debian Stretch
deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/ stretch main
Save the edit in Nano with Ctrl + O.
Using the update tool, update Debian’s software sources.
sudo apt-get update
Lastly, install Wine Staging.
sudo apt-get install winehq-staging
Uninstall Staging with:
sudo apt-get remove winehq-staging
Arch Linux
Arch users can install Wine Staging directly from the official software repositories. To install it, first remove any other Wine packages, as they’ll conflict with Staging.
sudo pacman -R wine
Then, use the Pacman package tool to install the latest version of Wine Staging.
sudo pacman -S wine-staging
Uninstall Staging from Arch with the following command:
sudo pacman -R wine-staging
Fedora
Fedora does not need for third-party software repositories to install Wine Staging. Instead, it offers users Wine-staging by default and applies all of the fixes to it. To install Wine Staging, open up a terminal and install the Wine software like you usually would, with DNF.
Note: WineHQ has third-party Wine Staging software repositories ready to install on Fedora if the included version doesn’t work. Check out the website for details.
sudo dnf install wine
Uninstall wine with:
sudo dnf uninstall wine-staging
Is staging not enough? Consider installing Fedora Rawhide. It offers up the latest software for Fedora users, in ways that traditional releases can’t.
OpenSUSE
The WineHQ website doesn’t list special instructions or outline support for Wine-Staging for Suse users. Despite this, there are Staging versions of the Wine software available for download directly from the OpenSUSE Build Service. To install Wine Staging on Suse, head over to this page here, find your version of OpenSUSE and click the “1-click” install button to start the installation.
Follow the YaST GUI prompts, and add the software to your system.
Need to uninstall Staging from your OpenSUSE PC? Open up Gnome Software, type in “Wine-Staging,” or “Wine,” and click the uninstall button. Enter your password, and the software will be removed. Alternatively, open up a terminal and use the Zypper package management tool to remove it from your system.
sudo zypper remove wine-staging
Other Linuxes
Not every Linux distribution enjoys official support from the Wine project. That said, it’s a very well-known tool that pretty much everyone on Linux uses. It is because of this; it should be straightforward to find and install Wine-Staging on nearly any Linux distribution.
The best way to find staging on your distribution is to open up it’s official Wiki and read the page they have on Wine. Also, consider joining the forums (or IRC chat channels) and asking other users how to install it, and if it is available. If all else fails, consider building Wine from source.
