Wine 8.0 Compatibility Layer Is Out Now for Running Windows Apps on Linux
The biggest change in the Wine 8.0 is the completion of the conversion to PE format, which took more than four years. This allows the developers to build all of Wine’s modules in the PE format, which offers many great features like copy protection, support for 32-bit apps on 64-bit systems, Windows debuggers, x86 apps on ARM systems, and more.
This major change in Wine 8.0 also comes with a special syscall dispatcher that’s used for PE to Unix transitions to minimize the performance impact of the new architecture, especially for the OpenGL and Vulkan libraries. So, as you can imagine, this is a huge milestone for Linux gaming.
Update (by Roy)
By Joey Sneddon:
-
Wine 8.0 Released – And Plenty of Improvements Are Included - OMG! Ubuntu!
Developers have just uncorked a brand new release of Wine, the open source compatibility layer that allows Windows apps to run on Linux.
A substantial update, Wine 8.0 is distilled from a year’s worth of active development (roughly 8,600 changes in total). From that, a wealth of improvements are provided across every part of the Wine experience, from app compatibility, though to performance, and a nicer looking UI.
If you sample the fortnightly dev releases of Wine nothing you will be familiar with, and already benefitting from the bulk of “what’s new” in this update. Most users, however, will be coming to the new release afresh.
Notable highlights in Wine 8.0 include the completion of PE conversion, meaning all modules can be built in PE format. Wine devs say this work is an important milestone towards supporting “copy protection, 32-bit applications on 64-bit hosts, Windows debuggers, x86 applications on ARM”, and more.
-
WineHQ - Wine Announcement - The Wine team is proud to announce that the stable release Wine 8.0
The Wine team is proud to announce that the stable release Wine 8.0 is now available.
This release represents a year of development effort and over 8,600 individual changes. It contains a large number of improvements that are listed in the release notes below. The main achievement is the completion of the conversion to PE format.
The source is available at:
https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/8.0/wine-8.0.tar.xz
Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:
https://www.winehq.org/download
You will find documentation on https://www.winehq.org/documentation
You can also get the current source directly from the git repository. Check https://www.winehq.org/git for details.
Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.
Original:
Half a dozen more (except Phoronix, we don't link to it anymore):
-
Wine 8.0 Boosts Linux Gaming, 32-Bit App Support
The developers of Wine have announced version 8.0 of the Linux Windows compatibility layer. The new version boosts support for 32-bit Windows apps on 64-bit machines as well as 3D graphics acceleration.
-
Wine 8.0 released with better support for running Windows apps on Linux (or other operating systems) - Liliputing
Wine is a free and open source compatibility layer that makes it possible to run some Windows applications on computers running Linux, FreeBSD, or some other operating systems. It’s also the foundation for the Proton software that Valve uses to allow Steam Deck users to play Windows games on the Linux-powered handheld.
-
Wine 8.0 lets you run Windows apps on Linux and Microsoft should be terrified
Back in the day, people often scoffed at the idea of switching to a Linux-based operating system due to a lack of software. While that is still true for some people -- especially business users -- it is less of a concern these days since so many things are done through the web browser. For many consumers, just having the Google Chrome browser on, say, Ubuntu, is more than enough to accomplish all of their wants and needs. Not to mention, there are many quality Linux apps like GIMP and DaVinci Resolve.
But OK, lets say you really want to use a Linux-based operating system, but there's some Windows-only software that you absolutely cannot live without. Thankfully, you may still be able to ditch Windows and upgrade to something like Freespire or MX Linux. How? Thanks to the excellent Wine! This compatibility layer can sometimes enable you to run certain Windows software on Linux. Today, version 8.0 is released, and Microsoft should be very worried.
-
Wine Reviews : Wine stable release 8.0 is now available for Linux FreeBSD and macOS
The Wine team is proud to announce that the stable release Wine 8.0 is now available.
This release represents a year of development effort and over 8,600 individual changes. It contains a large number of improvements that are listed in the release notes below. The main achievement is the completion of the conversion to PE format.
The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.
-
Windows Compatiblity Layer Wine 8.0 Stable Released - Linux Uprising Blog
Wine 8.0 has been released after being in development for a year. This release includes over 8600 changes, the main highlights being the completion of the conversion to PE format, and work on WoW64 support which will allow running 32bit Windows applications without installing 32bit libraries.
-
WINE 8.0 released [LWN.net]
Version 8.0 of the WINE Windows compatibility layer has been released. The headline feature appears to be the conversion to PE ("portable executable") modules...
Now in It's FOSS:
-
Wine 8.0 Stable Release is Here!
Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows applications that has been the primary choice of many Linux users who rely on running such programs.
Over the years, it has received numerous updates that allow it to run Windows apps with ease on a variety of hardware.
The last major release was Wine 7.0, that offered several important improvements. It was also receiving regular bi-weekly development releases ever since.
With the recent announcement, Wine 8.0 has officially landed that unified all the changes from the 7.x release and makes it better.
Liam Dawe:
-
Wine 8.0 is out now with major compatibility improvements
Wine 8.0 is out now, a big improvement over the last stable release with many upgrades for Windows to Linux compatibility across thousands of games and apps. This is part of what makes up Steam Play Proton, the compatibility used on Steam Deck to run Windows games.
XDA Developers:
-
Wine 8.0 released with better controller compatibility, experimental WoW64 support, and more
If you're looking to run Windows applications on Linux, then you've probably heard of Wine. Wine works as a layer translating Windows API calls to POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) calls while also recreating a Windows directory structure and providing alternative implementations of system services. It doesn't use any emulation or virtualization to execute Windows binaries, either. Now, Wine version 8.0 has just been released with a ton of improvements and changes.
One of the most notable changes is the completion of Portable Executable (PE) conversion, the Windows binary format. This is important, as it means that various copy protection schemes that check that the on-disk and in-memory contents of system modules are identical will now trust the system that they're running on. Wine developers say that this will allow for "32-bit applications on 64-bit hosts, Windows debuggers, x86 applications on ARM," and more.
Furthermore, WoW64 (Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit) support has been implemented for "essentially all" Unix libraries. This allows for 32-bit applications to be executed in a 64-bit environment, without the presence of the appropriate 32-bit libraries. Wind developers don't recommend it for general use just yet, but it can be enabled by building with the '--enable-archs' option.
HTG:
-
Wine 8.0 Helps You Run Even More Windows Apps on Linux & Mac
Wine is your best tool if you have a computer with Linux, macOS, or even Haiku and you want to check out the occasional Windows program. Version 8.0 of the popular tool is now available, and it looks great.
The most significant change in Wine 8.0 is that all Wine modules can be compiled in portable executable format, or PE for short. It’s a big step towards improving compatibility with Windows software, especially copy protection, Windows debuggers, and other types of apps and games that have frequent issues on Wine. It also opens the door for Wine to run on non-Unix operating systems more reliably, and one day could allow x86 applications to run on ARM devices without extra compatibility layers.