There are some apps for win that run on wine just with an ordinary install procedure. There are others that will never work at all. But there are also some that wine users claim to have made run by changing some specific configuration of wine, using some trick or even creating scripts on playonlinux.
So if I try to run an app on wine and it doesn’t and I don’t find any user documentation about some specific trick or config for that app what adjustments can I do to try to make it run? I mean, it’s tiring and perhaps foolish to spend hours playing with every possible config in wine frontend without knowing what I’m doing. So what can I do to find out what libraries, configs, tricks or scripts are needeed to make an app run under wine if it didn’t at the first try?
Do what I would do and visit:
WineHQ - Wine Application Database
Where those that know far more than you or I have posted useful info
Ok. My first attempt when something fails is to look at winehq site. But there are several applications not listed there and some listed are controversial. For example, I tried to run synthfont on wine and it never worked. In winehq some claim to have ran it and others not. It’s listed there as gold, silver and also garbage. Other example. I have some games, that are not widely known like xpand rally xtreme and french street racing that were not listed there until the last time I searched. This kind of games are also heavily dependent on video accelaration, although I didn’t try them on wine, I believe they might need some generic video acceleration on linux or even directx itself.
These are some reasons why I would like to know how users acquire knowledge to find out the tricks necessary to run some apps and how could I have such knowledge too so that I could do it myself.
I’m afraid I’ll not be much help because I have little interest in Games and even less in stuff that is M$ only.
I believe winetricks can help supply some of the missing requirements
Really though, I tend to recommend game Junkies multi boot and use windows for games.
Besides looking at the AppDB, also check the Wine User’s Forum for any posts about the app you are trying to run. A lot of the information there never gets put in the AppDB. The Wine forum is also a good place to learn how to interpret Wine’s console output, which is what you need to learn to be able to troubleshoot problems yourself.
I think it’s a nice tip!
the thing with wine is that like you akready know, you need libraries, it depends on what you want to install, unfortunatelly there is not a one pack with libraries you install and enjoy whatever you want. when u choose what application u want to install with wine just google it, there are lots of posts on different applications, mostly uploadaed by ubuntu family, but it works with opensuse as well… so question is what specifly would you like to install?
for games u need direct x for sure.
How to install DirectX in Linux using Wine
same for steam, you need directx any way to play online…
good luck!
Very interesting tip about installing directx on wine and googling about apps before installing.
Sorry for one thing: informations about apps in wine are very contradictory. The same app one says to be able to run other says didn’t work. I simply don’t know why this happens and if there’s any solution.
Recently I tried to install my favorite game xpand rally xtreme under wine using the instructions on the link above to use directx and it simply didn’t work. On the other hand on winehq site someone claimed to have run the same game with all functions. 
Wine developers claim that it’s a myth to think that we’ll always need windows and say their aim is to make wine run any windowns app. I would like that to be true. But, sorry, it seems to be very far from reality.
… and what you can do AFTER you succeed with a ‘tricky’ app under wine, is write a guide on HOW you succeeded.
For example I wrote this guide on running VirtualDub (with deshaker plugin) under wine. Its not straight forward as one also has to add different codecs.
I suspect it is possible to add more Windoze packaged codecs (than what I have to VirtualDub in wine) but sadly I have not received much feedback on my guide. I do know one can not just willy nilly add codecs to wine and expect them to work.
If everyone did so using wine might become very easier and more effective.