Difference between Wine Packages?

Questions about Wine on Linux
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Kraus
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Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2020 12:45 pm

Difference between Wine Packages?

Post by Kraus »

(I felt I needed to carry my questions over from my previous thread because the topic is shifting to something new.)
jkfloris wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:51 am Keep in mind the difference in names between the Wine packages:
wine - the Wine package from Ubuntu
winehq-stable and wine-stable - the Wine packages from WineHQ

apt show wine-stable should give you the output you want.
I guess I'm confused about some Wine fundamentals. Only been on Linux for a few months, so forgive me. Your comment brings up a slew of questions. Observe!

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$ wine --version
wine-5.0

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$ apt show wine
Package: wine
Version: 4.0.2-1
[etc, etc....]

$ apt show wine-stable
Package: wine-stable
Version: 5.0.0~eoan
[etc, etc...]
Mind blown.
  1. How does using the same four-letter word manage to invoke two different packages?
  2. If CLI command wine calls wine-stable package, what CLI command can one use to invoke the wine package?
    a. If never, why is the wine package needed? I'm not even sure when/how it was installed.
  3. What purpose would having two packages side-by-side serve? Shouldn't one package be able to handle all needs?
  4. More importantly, which Wine package is Lutris and Steam / Proton using?

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$ sudo apt remove wine
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'wine' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Mind blown even further.

How can the package be invoked through apt and yet cannot be removed by apt?

Please explain!

I found a similar topic on AskUbuntu but unfortunately the answer never dives into the how and why the wine package exists at all, nor does the referenced thread within that thread. Similarly, another topic asks about the other packages, but does not mention the "Ubuntu" wine package, specifically.
jkfloris
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Re: Difference between Wine Packages?

Post by jkfloris »

You mix up the Wine command and the Wine package.

Your Linux distribution is so kind to offer a Wine package with the name wine.
Unfortunately it is outdated. That is why the kind people here at WineHQ also make a Wine package with the name winehq-stable.
Both packages install Wine program, so you can use the wine command on your device.

That's why you can't install the wine and winehq-stable packages at the same time.
A command can only refer to one package.

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$ wine --version
You use wine as command:
You have installed the Wine package winehq-stable. The output is the name and version of this program: wine 5.0

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apt show wine
You use wine as a package name
This is the name of the Wine package from your Linux distribution. The older Wine version 4.0.2

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apt show wine-stable
You use wine-stable as a package name
This is the name of the Wine package from WineHQ. The uptodate Wine version 5.0

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sudo apt remove wine
You try to remove the package wine, but apt can't because you have installed winehq-stable package
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