Is there a correct way to install Wine on KDE Linux?
The version from Discover is quite old (7.0), so I didn’t bother trying it.
Next I tried to install Wine 10.0 via flatpak. It even starts up and runs simple apps, but creates broken desktop shortcuts, so the only way to run installed apps is to find their EXE files in Double Commander or in Dolphin. Even more, these EXE files are hard to find, hidden in level 8 subdirectories of my home folder.
How to install Wine correctly (with desktop integration)? I never had such problems in any modern distro (Kubuntu, Mint), even in FreeBSD.
The only way to start Windows programs from the desktop is rather strange. Wine creates .lnk files inside its working folder. Copy those files into the desktop folder using the builtin Wine file manager, they will appear on the KDE desktop.
Probably a flatpak permission issue, or a workaround to not have to have such permission as default.
The Bottles flatpak, as a wine helper application, can set desktop entry / KDE starter-menu shortcuts but only after you add manually a permission to access xdg-data/applications for it.
Not sure if that would work with the standalone wine flatpak as well or in KDE Linux, though.
The Wine available from my Discover is version 9 and it is working very well for me. (I am using KDE Neon.)
I have only installed one Windows app but I can launch it like any Linux app - from the Desktop, from the Application Launcher and the Taskbar.
I think you are definitely having an inferior Wine experience at present.
I am far closer Linux rookie than expert. However, my first suggestion would be to completely uninstall Wine - including all its folders. Then I would actually try the version available from Discover. If that does not work then I would suggest posting further details about your system (maybe starting with the About page from System Settings) so that maybe somebody could help you with getting a more recent Wine via Discover.
Alternatively, you could try installing via the Terminal. (Note that the commands are different for different distros.) This has never worked out well for me in the past but your mileage may vary.
Here are some quotes from the Install KDE Linux page:
‘Currently the Testing edition is available’
‘Expect frequent changes and regressions, and use it in a production environment at your own risk!’
I wish I had checked the KDE Linux page before my previous post.
Nothing that goes wrong with KDE Linux should be a surprise because it is a testing environment. Maybe Wine version 7 was provided with Discover because that was the latest known working version for KDE Linux. Unfortunately, without even trying version 7, you decided that it was not good enough and skipped straight to version 10 .
My distro only provides version 9 and that is working very well for me. It would never occur to me to look around for the latest version available online and install that before trying the Discover version.
Maybe if you cannot get Wine working you might be successful with one of its alternatives such as Bottles or PlayonLinux or Crossover, etc.
Thank you for contributing ngraham. As someone with far more expertise than me, would you agree or not agree that whatever version was supplied via Discover should have been tried first? Obviously, it may not have worked but if it did then much grief could have been avoided.
I am sorry ngraham that my question was not precise. I was going to rephrase the question but I do not want to spend any more time in a discussion regarding KDE Linux - an experimental distro I know next to nothing about.
I wish the OP well and hope he will soon have all his Windows apps running on KDE Linux.
There are actually multiple versions of Wine on Flathub.
When you run flatpak install flathub org.winehq.Wine from terminal, you should get a dialog where you can select the version as you desire (newest is 10.0).
Selecting the version on Discover seems currently not possible. Not sure if this is a feature not yet implemented, or a conscious development decision to always show only a single version of each Flatpak app in Discover.