Architecture
Wine implements the Windows API entirely in user space, rather than as a kernel module. Services normally provided by the kernel in Windows are provided by a daemon known as the wineserver, whose task is to implement basic Windows functionality, as well as integration with the X Window System, and translation of signals into native Windows exceptions.
Although Wine implements some aspects of the Windows kernel, it is not possible to use native Windows drivers with it, due to Wine's underlying architecture. This prevents certain applications from working, such as some copy-protected titles.
Wine is primarily developed for Linux, but the Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and Solaris ports are currently (as of January 2009) well maintained. Wine is also available for OpenBSD and NetBSD, through OpenBSD Ports and NetBSD pkgsrc, respectively. Since October 2010, Wine also works on the ARM platform when used as Winelib (which lets developers compile Windows code on Linux using Wine as a library). Some versions of Wine's DLLs are available for Microsoft Windows, but Wine does not fully compile or run on Windows yet.
Read more about this topic: Wine (software)
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