When I tried to install Wine 5.0 on Mint 19.3, I get unmet dependency errors. When I try installing the files the error asks for, I end up with Wine 3.6 installed. I’ve tried deleting everything Wine using Synaptic, but can’t figure out why the instructions on It’s FOSS isn’t working for me.
I just tried the new instructions on FOSS and it worked for me; whereas before it didn’t.
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Hello Dave,
I suggest retrying all the steps, specially the one that has to add PPA for dependencies.
I got this when I did the instructions on the site:
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:The following packages have unmet dependencies:
winehq-stable : Depends: wine-stable (= 5.0.0~bionic)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Hi and Welcome Dave!
Linux and Windows desktop systems share a common problem: they are one-size-fits-all. This means that with every passing year the task of making your code run on everything becomes a harder and harder. The blunt fact is that some software simply won’t run on some machines. For example, I have two old laptops which are the same make and model but that were built at different points in time. Google Earth runs on one but not the other. This turns out to be the result swapping out components during manufacture due to supply chain issues.
So It’s quite possible Wine 5.x simply can’t run on your machine. You could have an unusual hardware config, for example. Also, Mint is an extremely conservative about the software will support because it values stability above all else. That it tries to install 3.6 instead indicates that it is one or the other.
Two OS’s that might easily run wine 5.x are Arch (because of its “hackability”) and Zorin (because ships with highly developed Wine builds).
When I ran Zorin for several years I could easily get a lot of old Windows software to run. When I switched to Mint it all became a pain. So distros do matter. And when for a while several years ago I absolutely had to run ms office, I ended up saving a old Zorin partition just to run Wine.
Finally, a mechanic friend of mine often says: “Never the first year of anything unless you’re looking for a new hobby”.
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Interesting. Well I don’t have great need to run Wine. I do find it interesting though, that a couple hundred years ago I managed to get World of Warcraft to run in Wine, and it was actually faster than running it in Windows.
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I used to run Age of Empires with “play on linux”. It worked great until I upgraded my OS and my Wine version along with it. It hasn’t worked since. Which doesn’t really bug me since 0ad is basically the same thing and runs way better.
That said, for years I used to run a wine build of Fire Fox for Windows in order to watch Neflix in Linux.
Also, every once in a while I can’t get the Linux version of an app to run. Half a dozen times I got Wine to run the Windows version simply by clicking on the .exe file.
So I’ve always stuck with the most conservative versions. I don’t know if you’ve tried them, but “winetricks” and “Play on Linux” can also ran lots of stuff. The great thing about them is that they won’t mess with any pre-existing builds. 
I’m not surprised WoW ran better in Linux. More and more CGI houses are going open source, because the blunt truth is that Linux runs circles around Windows, is easy to modify and rarely crashes. And when you stop and think about CPU usage needed to render 4K animation, 50-200% savings add up to real money.
Basically Wine is a tool that works astonishingly well–a lot of the time. When it doesn’t it can drive you nuts.
Cheers
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One of my favourite proofs for this is how
- Powershell is so hyped and so many love it (I actually find it not bad, either).
- Powershell is basically a Linux styled shell with Linux conventions and Linux feel, etc.
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And I couldn’t believe it when I heard the latest Win 10 build was shipping with an actual Linux Kernel!
Why?! 
It turns out file operations just plain run better in Linux. Also one article claimed that certain slow loading programs could be set up to launch from Linux and run faster.
In a certain way it’s like Microsoft saying: “we’ll make make you a sandwich, but if you want to avoid food-poisoning best eat elsewhere.”
Anyway, I suppose if your kernel needs another kernel just to properly do cutting edge processes such as copying a file, it makes sense to sack your testing teams and beef up your marketing department!
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Windows Subsystem for Linux is interesting, but I’m still trying to figure out its actual purpose, other than proof of concept. To be honest, it’s slightly more useful to have like, a separate Linux machine and remote to it. That’s how I use my Raspberry Pi, I don’t have a monitor, keyboard or mouse on it. I just remote to it for maintenance. So why run WSL on Windows, when it doesn’t run XWindows? I’m not sure.
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Approx. 12 years ago I purchased a used licence for Photoshop CS2, because I really needed it. The licence transfer went smooth, thanks to Adobe. That was in my Windows-xp days 
Later I upgraded to Win7, and still was happy. Than few years ago I already needed to maintain a growing list of updates, which I could not install, because they ruined my Photoshop. I lost this possibility with Win10.
In march 2019, after several month of fight and fiddling with Windows 10 (not because of Photoshop, but I had other driver related problems too) I said good bye for ever, because I found the Linux alternative to the last software which tied me to Windows.
At the moment still having WINE 4, and my old Photoshop CS2 just works, no matter if it’s on Mint or Debian. Just like it was 12 years before…
On a recent real windows system this old, but pretty useful software, doesn’t work at all.
Literally 5 minutes ago after failing yet again to get an earlier version Google Earth Pro for Linux to run on my old laptop (running mint 18.3 cinn), I got the Windows version running in Wine with one click.
Go figure.
Getting MS paint to run in Wine for an a-technological cartoonist friend of mine? Not so much…
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what about KolourPaint?
Hey Cord!
I think he’s using Krita now–which I thought a little advanced. But once I walked him through most the non-MS software, he actually picked it up fairly quickly. But thanks for the info.
I was just kind of hoping it could have gone “click” and “boom”. So I could have said: “See, Linux runs Windows better than Windows does!” Instead of:“Well there’s Gnome paint…”
Wine is one of life’s mysteries 
.
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krita and gimp have so many options and i have a hard time remembering how to find most of them so KP was a happy find for me, but whatever someone gets used to that works is the best tool for the job in my book any day 
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This is going to be offtopic here, but what about Synfig for a cartoonist?
Wow. Looks awesome! Thanks!
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