Debugging Wine, Windows Emulator for Linux

Question

I frequently want to run a windows app (usually a game) on my linux machines, the best way to do this is via wine, the windows emulator. The problem is that this is quite difficult to do. The apps frequently stall or crash with very little information to use in rectifying the problem. Does anyone have any useful ideas on how do pinpoint the problems/issues that windows apps run into on wine, particularly dll requirements? Many thanks, Gearoid.

Answer 1

did you take a look at man wine? I saw that there's a Debug option in it.

From man wine

    [...]

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

wine  makes  the  environment variables of the shell 
from which wine is started accessible to the windows/dos processes started.
So use the appropriate syntax for your shell to enter environment variables 
you need.

       [...]

   WINEDEBUG
Turns debugging messages on or off. The syntax of the variable
is of the form [class][+/-]channel[,[class2][+/-]channel2].

  class is optional and can be one of the following: 
  err, warn, fixme, or trace.  If class is not specified, 
  all debugging messages for the specified channel are turned  on.   
  Each  channel will  print messages about a particular component of wine.  
  The following character can be either + or - to switch 
  the specified channel on or off respectively.  
  If there is no class part before it, a leading + can be omitted. 
  Note that spaces are not allowed anywhere in the string.

          Examples:

          WINEDEBUG=warn+all
                 will turn on all warning messages 
                 (recommended for debugging).

          WINEDEBUG=warn+dll,+heap
                 will turn on DLL warning messages and all heap messages.

          WINEDEBUG=fixme-all,warn+cursor,+relay
                 will turn off all FIXME messages, turn on cursor warning
                 messages, and turn on all relay messages (API calls).

          WINEDEBUG=relay
                 will turn on all relay messages. 
                 For more control on including or excluding functions 
                 and dlls from the relay trace look into the [Debug] section 
                 of the wine configuration file.

              For more information on debugging messages, 
              see the Running Wine chapter of the Wine User Guide.
[...]

Answer 2

Wine's AppDB is the best place to check up on compatibility. Checking the comments section for the entry of the software in AppDB should give you the probable cause, reason and possible solutions for the crash.