Essentially, yeah. It's a piece of software that allows you to run Windows programs on Linux. Usually. Mostly. With the occasional bug, crash, or similar problem. And then there are (if I recall correctly) a few Windows programs that just don't run at all under Wine, or do it so crashily that it's not worth the effort.
But in general, yes, the idea is that if you really want to have to give up, say, Microsoft Wallet and Adobe Photoshop in order to use Linux, you just install Wine on your Linux machine and then you can run the Windows software anyway.
Just to be totally pedantic: I note that your subject line is "Emulator???". However, as it mentions in the Wikipedia article, Wine is "not an emulator"; it's a "compatibility layer" instead. However, if you're not a geek, the difference is academic.
Well it does make one difference to non geeks. The speed is better than a full emulator. Even a fancy code caching JIT cross compiling emulator like Apple's Rosetta.
Still mostly would go over the non-geek's head because they really wouldn't know the difference (or care) between how an emulator works vs a compatibility layer. The top part, how it lets them do something in one OS which was written to run in another would be important to a non-geek, and then only important if they know that -this- isn't supposed to run on -that-.
"Faster than" only counts if you've used an actual emulator to see the speed difference. A Volkswagon bug can travel faster than a BMW... (and I have see it before, too).
however my Linux geekiness is very limited. I am the designer type geek with my coldfusion MX book open in front of me on my computer desk and me scratching my head going HUH?!
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But in general, yes, the idea is that if you really want to have to give up, say, Microsoft Wallet and Adobe Photoshop in order to use Linux, you just install Wine on your Linux machine and then you can run the Windows software anyway.
Just to be totally pedantic: I note that your subject line is "Emulator???". However, as it mentions in the Wikipedia article, Wine is "not an emulator"; it's a "compatibility layer" instead. However, if you're not a geek, the difference is academic.
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"Faster than" only counts if you've used an actual emulator to see the speed difference. A Volkswagon bug can travel faster than a BMW... (and I have see it before, too).
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