Linux has thousands of native apps, but occasionally you may still need to run a Windows program. Perhaps it's a proprietary tool from work, a niche utility, or a legacy application that has no Linux equivalent.

Traditionally, Linux users have relied on Wine, a compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to run on Linux without a full virtual machine. Wine is powerful, but it can also be intimidating for beginners because it often requires manual configuration.

To make this easier, you can use Bottles [1], which wraps Wine in a modern graphical interface that simplifies installation, configuration, and troubleshooting. Instead of managing one global Wine setup, Bottles organizes Windows applications into standalone environments known as bottles.

A bottle is essentially an isolated, self-contained Windows environment. Each bottle contains its own filesystem, Windows registry, libraries and dependencies, and configuration settings. This isolation is one of Bottles's biggest strengths. If you install multiple Windows applications, each can run inside its own environment with settings tailored specifically for that program.

Think of bottles as lightweight sandboxes for Windows applications. If one program requires unusual tweaks or additional components, those changes remain confined to that bottle and do not affect the other Windows apps or the rest of your system.

Installing Bottles

The easiest way to install Bottles is through Flatpak, which provides a consistent installation experience across Linux distros. Many modern distros already ship with Flatpak enabled. If it is not installed, you can add it through your distro's package manager. For Ubuntu/Debian, use

sudo apt install flatpak

For Fedora, use

sudo dnf install flatpak

Next, ensure the Flathub repository is available, with

$ flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Finally, install Bottles using

$ flatpak install flathub com.usebottles.bottles

Once installation has completed, launch Bottles from your desktop's application menu.

The first launch may take a little longer than usual because Bottles downloads the runtime components required to support Windows compatibility. You might also be asked for permission to update some core components such as winebridge.

Creating Your First Bottle

When Bottles starts for the first time, you'll see a clean interface with an option to create your first bottle. Click Create New Bottle or the + button to begin.

Bottles offers three preset environments designed for different use cases (Figure 1). These presets automatically configure the underlying runtime. The Application option helps optimize the bottle for Windows software. The Gaming option tunes the bottle for graphics performance and game compatibility. The Custom option, for experienced users, allows you to manually configure your bottles.

Figure 1: The process of creating a bottle can take a couple of minutes because it involves fetching and assembling various components.

For your first experiment, select Application.

Give the bottle a name, preferably based on the application you'll run inside it (e.g., IrfanView or Notepad) and click Create. Bottles will now download and configure the required runtime components.

This process may take a few minutes depending on your Internet connection. Once it finishes, the bottle will appear on the main dashboard.

Installing a Windows Application

Bottles offers a couple of mechanisms for installing Windows software. The most common mechanism uses an executable Windows installer file.

To begin, open the newly created bottle. Inside the bottle, you'll see options for managing programs, dependencies, and settings (Figure 2). To install a Windows application, click Run Executable… and select your downloaded Windows installer file (usually with an .exe extension).

Figure 2: You'll find lots of housekeeping options in a bottle's Details view, including the ability to update all installed components with a single click.

Bottles launches the installer exactly as Windows would. Simply follow the setup wizard and complete the installation.

You can also install apps using a pre-built installer curated by the Bottles community. Click the Install Programs… button to bring up a list of apps. Each installer is marked with a compatibility grade based on the results of the testing. The grades are ranked from Bronze, which is the lowest compatibility grade, to Silver, then Gold, and finally Platinum, which is the highest compatibility grade (Figure 3). Click on any program to download and install it from within Bottles itself.

Figure 3: Use the kebab menu (the three vertical dots) to get details about an app, as well as file any bugs you discover.

Starting with version 61, Bottles has introduced a major new analysis tool called Eagle. You can use Eagle to inspect Windows executables before you install them in order to make them run more smoothly on Linux (see the box titled "Analyzing Windows Apps with Eagle").