Im a total linux noob so I don't know anything. I downloaded wine, installed it, and I see it in the home directory but i'm not sure how to get it to work after the parsing complete. Thanks

How did you install it? Which package did you use? Why is it in your home directory? You can get the official RPMs from the SourceForge project page. The Beta (0.9) came out today, so you should get it if you haven't already.

I don't know how to install programs. I went to the control center but can't figure it out. Not sure why its in my home directory. I have the latest wine your talikng about from that link.

you use suse, right? suse-users out there, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it use apt?

no. SuSE does not use apt (unless you set things up on your own).

How are you trying to install programs?

Typically what you want to do is mount your cd.

Then cd to wherever it is mounted and rune the setup for that program like this:

wine setup.exe

Does that help?

No, Suse has a tool called Yast that is the recommended package manager; although you could use any other RPM-based updater (yum, apt4rpm, smartpm, etc.). I think you can get the latest RPM from Wine's Suse packages section and then install it with Yast or something. I don't know the details.

I a newbie too, but I recently encountered this problem myself (having moved from Windows just the other day).

I think the main mistake is to think that Wine is a program like Word or Icq or some such "viewable" software like that (it doesn't have a GUI = graphical user interface). (At least I think this is true and it was my main problem.)

So maybe this doesn't make much sense to you?

"Typically what you want to do is mount your cd.

Then cd to wherever it is mounted and rune the setup for that program like this:

wine setup.exe"

If I'm not completely mistaken this means you have to open a shell/terminal. (It's like DOS, if you remember, from the old Windows days.) You'll probably find one in your menu at the bottom left.

When you open it you automatically start in your home directory. So if that's where the file that you want to run with wine is, you type in "wine thefilename.exe" and this, as I understand it, tells Wine that you want to run this whatever file. And this should give you an install wizard for the program you want to run. (I guess, that is at least what has happened when I've done this.)

I hope this makes more sense to you and I hope I am not completely wrong. :)

I know I have a super basic appproach to this, but in my experience that is just the type of help you need when you're totally new to Linux. I know I still do.

Ok Ive downloaded the latest wine program and Im in the yast control center. From there im in software management so whats next?

But you said you'd already installed it..?

What I did was I just rightclicked the file in my home dir and chose the menu right aboove "copy to" (I don't know what it's called in English, I've got the Swedish version) and in that menu choose "Install with YaST". My guess was that you already did this? Because this'll take you through the installation automatically. (But then YaST'll just close down, you will not get like a "do you want to open this now" message or something like that.)

And, as I was trying to say in the above answer, Wine is not, as I understand it, something you can run like we basic Windows people are used to run programs that we download. You use it kind of as a link between, in this case, Linux & Windows. You need to get the software that you want to use Wine for, in order to try and see if it runs ok.

I hope this doesn't contain too many clueless explanations in the ears of the people who really know what they're doing...

If you are a noob then I suggest buying a copy of codeweavers wine. It's cheap and easy to configure and tends to run a few more apps.