WINESERVER(1)

📦 version 6.0, in ubuntu jammy

💖 WINESERVER(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the manual page for wineserver — the Windows on Unix girlie herself. yes, this is the page for section 1 of the manual. we're doing this. grab a snack. 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

wineserver — the Wine server. that's it. that's the whole name. iconic.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

wineserver [options]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so wineserver is a daemon process — a little background bestie that never sleeps — and it provides to Wine, like, roughly the same services that the Windows kernel provides on Windows. no cap. it's the kernel-energy middle manager of the whole operation. 👑

wineserver is normally launched automatically when you start wine(1), so bestie you genuinely should not have to worry about it. it just shows up. main character behavior. but in some cases it can be useful to start wineserver explicitly with different options — and that's exactly what we're about to get into, as explained below. 💅

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -d[n], --debug[=n] — sets the debug level to n. 0 means no debugging info at all, 1 is the normal level, and 2 is for extra verbose debugging (the "tell me EVERYTHING" setting 🌈). if n is not specified, the default is 1. the debug output gets sent to stderr. also, wine(1) will automatically enable normal level debugging when starting wineserver if the +server option is set in the WINEDEBUG variable. iykyk.
  • -f, --foreground — makes the server stay in the foreground, which is easier for debugging — for instance when you're running it under a debugger. so it just... stays there. watching. 🫶
  • -h, --help — displays a help message. the classic. the icon.
  • -k[n], --kill[=n] — kills the currently running wineserver, optionally by sending signal n. if no signal is specified, it sends a SIGINT first and then a SIGKILL. and listen — the instance of wineserver that gets killed is selected based on the WINEPREFIX environment variable. so make sure you know which one you're aiming at bestie 💀
  • -p[n], --persistent[=n] — specifies the wineserver persistence delay, i.e. the amount of time the server will keep running when all client processes have terminated. this avoids the cost of shutting down and starting again when programs are launched in quick succession — lowkey a time-saver. the timeout n is in seconds, and the default value is 0 seconds. if n is not specified, the server stays around forever. forever-ever. 🌈
  • -v, --version — displays version information and exits. short and sweet, we love a queen who knows when to leave. 💅
  • -w, --wait — waits until the currently running wineserver terminates. patience is a virtue bestie ✨

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • WINEPREFIX — if set, the content of this variable is taken as the name of the directory where wineserver stores its data (the default is $HOME/.wine). all wine processes using the same wineserver (i.e.: same user) share certain things like registry, shared memory and kernel objects. and here's the slay part: by setting WINEPREFIX to different values for different Wine processes, it is possible to run a number of truly independent Wine sessions. truly. independent. we're obsessed. 🎀
  • WINESERVER — specifies the path and name of the wineserver binary that will be launched automatically by wine. if not set, wine will try to load /usr/lib/wine-development/wineserver, and if this doesn't exist it will then look for a file named wineserver in the path and in a few other likely locations. she's searching. she's resourceful. 🦋

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • ~/.wine — directory containing user specific data managed by wine.
  • /tmp/.wine-uid — directory containing the server Unix socket and the lock file. these files are created in a subdirectory generated from the WINEPREFIX directory device and inode numbers. very technical, very demure. ✨

👑 AUTHORS 👑

the original author of wineserver is Alexandre Julliard. many other people have contributed new features and bug fixes. for a complete list, see the git commit logs. the whole squad ate, fr fr. 💖

💀 BUGS 💀

bugs can be reported on the Wine bug tracker. not me manifesting a bug-free experience... 🙈

⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

wineserver is part of the Wine distribution, which is available through WineHQ, the Wine development headquarters. the mothership. 🛸

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

  • wine(1)
  • Wine documentation and support.

okay that's the whole page bestie, you're officially a wineserver expert, no cap 🧚💜 — this was Wine 6.0, dated October 2005, and yes it's giving vintage but she still serves. bye pookie, go run some Windows apps on Unix ✨💅

📦 where this page comes from