How to Compile and Install Wine 1.5 from Source on Debian Squeeze

Debian 6 (Squeeze) repositories originally froze Wine at version 1.0.1, an outdated release lacking DirectX enhancements and modern Windows API compatibility. Because official WineHQ .deb binaries were not available for Squeeze, compiling Wine 1.5 directly from source is the cleanest path to modernization.

Platform: Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) • Wine 1.5.25 Source Build

1. Install Build Dependencies

Use apt-get build-dep to fetch all required development headers:

apt-get update
apt-get build-dep wine -y

2. Download and Compile Wine

Fetch the source tarball and compile cleanly:

cd /usr/src
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/wine/Source/wine-1.5.25.tar.bz2
tar -jxf wine-1.5.25.tar.bz2
cd wine-1.5.25

./configure
make
make install

Verify installation:

wine --version

How to Install Wine with MS Visual C++ and Visual Basic Runtimes on Linux

Running specialized Windows desktop utilities (such as download managers like Orbit Downloader, HiDownload, or Net Transport) on Linux often requires essential Microsoft Visual C++ and Visual Basic runtime libraries that are not packaged by default in vanilla Wine.

Prerequisites: Wine installed via EPEL (CentOS / RHEL) or standard distribution repositories (Ubuntu / Debian).

Step-by-Step Installation

1. Install Cabextract

The cabextract utility is required by Winetricks to unpack Microsoft cabinet files:

# On Debian / Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install cabextract -y

# On CentOS / RHEL (requires EPEL):
sudo yum install cabextract -y

2. Download and Run Winetricks

Fetch the official winetricks script and install the required core fonts, Visual C++ 6.0, and Visual Basic 6.0 runtimes:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
chmod +x winetricks

sh winetricks corefonts vcrun6 vb6run

Once the runtime components are installed into your ~/.wine prefix, your Windows applications will initialize without missing DLL or runtime errors.