Confuse how to install WINE on Debian 64-bit Wheezy

[keithostertag]

I've been going around in circles on this. I'm running Debian Wheezy 64-bit.

This is what I have tried:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install wine winetricks wine-doc

OK, seems to download and install with no problems. But I don't know what to do next- the FAQ says to run "winecfg", but I have no such file, and no ~/.wine file. If I try to run wine at the terminal prompt I get the " wine64-bin helper package" saying to do this:

Code: Select all

 # dpkg --add-architecture i386
  # apt-get update
  # apt-get install wine-bin:i386

OK, I do that but when I get to the third statement I get a screen full of dependencies and a warning saying:

Code: Select all

WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
  libc-bin
23 upgraded, 82 newly installed, 3 to remove and 373 not upgraded.
Need to get 136 MB of archives.
After this operation, 269 MB of additional disk space will be used.
You are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'

I don't want to do that, and I expect I am doing something wrong.

Can someone explain to me what's going on? Should I really allow it to remove libc-bin?

Thanks,
Keith Ostertag

[dimesio]

Report the problem to whoever built the packages you are using.

FYI, ~/.wine will not be created until you actually run something in Wine.

[keithostertag]

Thanks, but that's not very helpful to me. I've never known package managers to be responsive to installation problems, and that assumes you can determine/identify exactly the proper person to message (seldom obvious) and of course who they are, what their schedule is like, what they had for breakfast, etc. Also, I don't have enough evidence yet to suggest it is a package problem.

The main concern for me is- what exactly is libc-bin? And what are the consequences of removing it on my system?

I thought perhaps someone here would know why a Wine install wants to do that, and what the consequences might be.

[dimesio]

The main concern for me is- what exactly is libc-bin?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=libc-bin

I thought perhaps someone here would know why a Wine install wants to do that, and what the consequences might be.

Packages are created and maintained by the distros, and package dependencies are set by the maintainer when creating the package. The person who would know best why the package you are using is triggering this proposed change from apt-get is the person who created it. If you don't want to contact him/her, ask on your distro's support forum.

[keithostertag]

After a few days I was able to reach someone on the Debian team. He told me that I needed to perform a full system upgrade before he could attempt to duplicate my problem. After performing a dist-upgrade, apt no longer asked to remove libc-bin, and I was able to load wine without problems.

Thanks for responding to my query, and I hope this entry in the archives might help someone else in the future having a similar problem.

Keith Ostertag