PlayOnLinux is a

graphical frontend In software engineering, the terms frontend and backend (or sometimes referred to as back end or back-end) refer to the separation of concerns between the presentation layer (''frontend''), and the data access layer (''backend'') of a piece of soft ...

for the

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

software

compatibility layer In software engineering, a compatibility layer is an interface that allows binaries for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system. This translates system calls for the foreign system into native system calls for the host system. With som ...

which allows

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

users to install

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

-based

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...

(2000 to 2010), Microsoft

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

, as well as many other applications such as Apple

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

and

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

. While initially developed for

-based systems, it is also used on

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

and

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

under the names PlayOnMac and PlayOnBSD, respectively. It can also be used on other operating systems supported by

Internals

PlayOnLinux is developed using a combination of

Bash Bash or BASH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Bash!'' (Rockapella album), 1992 * ''Bash!'' (Dave Bailey album), 1961 * '' Bash: Latter-Day Plays'', a dramatic triptych * ''BASH!'' (role-playing game), a 2005 superhero game * "Bash" ('' ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

and

wxPython wxPython is a wrapper for the cross-platform GUI API (often referred to as a "toolkit") wxWidgets (which is written in C++) for the Python programming language. It is one of the alternatives to Tkinter. It is implemented as a Python extension mod ...

. The system provides wrapper

shell script A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be scripting languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manip ...

s that specify the configuration of Wine needed in order to install and run a particular application. It uses an online database of scripts to apply to different applications that need special configuration; if the game is not in the database, a manual installation can be performed. Programs can be installed and each one is put in a different container (WINEPREFIX) to prevent interference of one with another. This provides isolation in much the same way that

CrossOver Crossover may refer to: Entertainment Albums and songs * ''Cross Over'' (Dan Peek album) * ''Crossover'' (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles album), 1987 * ''Crossover'' (Intrigue album) * ''Crossover'' (Hitomi Shimatani album) * ''Crossover'' (Yoshino ...

's bottles work. Thus, applications may use different versions and configurations of Wine as appropriate. The installation of these is managed by the PlayOnLinux software itself without the requirement to install Wine separately. The program also allows the user to create virtual

partitions Partition may refer to: Computing Hardware * Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive * Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job Software * Partition (database), the division of a ...

, in which specific programs can be installed with different Wine versions and programs, similar to a multi-boot computer.

Scripting language

PlayOnLinux includes advanced functions in Bash allowing the community to make scripts easily by controlling the installation process. Each supported program has its own script written in this language. For example, the simple following script will popup a setup window with the message ''Hello World'': #!/bin/bash "$PLAYONLINUX" = "" && exit 0 source "$PLAYONLINUX/lib/sources" POL_SetupWindow_Init POL_SetupWindow_message "Hello World!" "My first message" POL_SetupWindow_Close exit

References

External links

*
Supported software
at PlayOnLinux * Wine (software) Software derived from or incorporating Wine Software that uses wxPython Products introduced in 2007 {{graphics-software-stub

Internals

Scripting language

See also

References

External links