Before we continue, we’d like to tell you about Contabo. We host LinuxAndUbuntu on Contabo VPS. Check them out if you need web hosting. Prices start at $6.99 per month for an 8GB RAM and 4 Core CPU VPS. Every software is programmed to work in a specific operating system, and only that specific operating system can understand the instructions of that software. For example, in our case of IDM, it’s only programmed to work on Windows. Linux OS does not recognize IDM at all. For Linux, IDM is just a piece of text contained in a package. But it does not mean that we can’t run IDM or any other Windows software on Linux. There is an amazing project that we’ll be discussing in this article to install IDM on Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution. So let’s get started!
What Is Wine?
The project is called Wine. It stands for Wine Is Not An Emulator. Yes, the first letter is itself Wine. Well, Wine is one of the most active projects in the open-source world. The new release comes every week or two. It makes the Windows applications run on Linux by converting the application instructions into what Linux understands.Wine is easy to install, configure, and use. Like any other application on Linux, you can run Windows applications too. Each of Windows’ applications is first transformed into Linux, and then the Linux system understands it and provides the output.
Wine Support Is Still Expanding
I have used many Windows applications on Linux, and most of them worked just fine. There may be different hardware that Wine does not support, so one may have problems running Windows applications on Linux if Wine does not support their hardware. So this was the easiest way that I can make somebody understand Wine and its usage. Now let’s see how we can install IDM on Linux. I’m using Ubuntu for demonstration because most of you would be using either Ubuntu or any derivative distro.
IDM For Ubuntu – How To Install IDM On Linux?
We’ll need first to install Wine before we go ahead and download IDM. Don’t worry. It’s easy to install. Just add the Wine repository, update the local cache, and install it. Now open Ubuntu Software or Synaptic and search for Wine and install it. Now you’re good to go! You should now be able to install IDM or other Windows software on your Ubuntu box.
Download IDM
Download IDM .exe file. You can download it from Filehippo. Now right click IDM .exe file and open it with Wine.
Click Next.
Check “Create an icon for IDM on Desktop”
Accept the license agreement and click Next.
You’re all set to install IDM. Click Next.
And It’s all. Click finish and the installation is done.
Conclusion
Wine is the most active project in the open-source world. With the help of Wine, it’s possible to install Windows applications in Linux. Though some applications are still not supported or buggy, so doesn’t curse Wine for that. Developers are working hard to fix the issues. But for now, enjoy your favorite download manager IDM in Ubuntu.