Wine 2.0 adds support for Office 2013 and Windows games
Linux fans rejoice: the second iteration of Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is finally, officially here. This new version of the service brings with it the ability to use the Microsoft Office 2013 suite on Linux, macOS and BSD devices as well as the possibility of running 64-bit applications on computers powered by MacOS. There are also about 6.000 individual improvements such as enhanced graphics, support for Direct3D or the ability to recognize more graphics cards.
Windows games with Wine
For those of you who aren't familiar with the topic, as its name indicates, Wine Is Not an Emulator is not an emulator, but a compatibility layer designed to make some Windows application compatible with devices powered by POSIX systems such as Linux or macOS. Unlike an emulator, which basically creates a virtual machine to run your apps, Wine actually translates the API into POSIX calls in real-time, thus drastically reducing the performance loss and making the applications run smoother. The compatibility layer has been around since 2008 and has been constantly improved upon by its community.
What's even better is that the 2.0 release of Wine is part of a new annual release cycle, which means that you won't have to wait another nine years for the next major build to start rolling out. And since we're talking about emulators and compatibility, you may also want to read some of our older articles such as: "How to Create a Virtual Machine" or "How to: Install Wine on Mac OS X".
