cheapwine 0.1.1

A lightweight, project-based Wine prefix and application manager (Wine's version of uv)

🍷 cheapwine

A project-local Wine prefix and application manager (Wine's version of uv).

cheapwine brings modern, declarative, and fast workflow management to Wine environments. Instead of managing a bloated directory of global prefixes (like Lutris or Bottles), cheapwine isolates prefixes directly inside your project folders and exposes a clean, git-friendly configuration file named distillery.json.

[!NOTE] This project was fully designed and built by Gemini and DeepSeek (Advanced Agentic Coding AIs) in pair programming with the user! 🤖✨

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Key Features

• Project-Local Prefixes: Automatically sandboxes your Wine environments in .cheapwine inside your project directory.
• Declarative Distillery Settings (distillery.json): Declare architectures, Windows versions, environment variables, and application commands in a single, portable JSON file.
• Runner Overrides: Use system Wine, Proton (via Steam), Wine-GE, Kron4ek, Soda, or custom-compiled Wine builds, both globally and overridden per application.
• Runner Auto-Downloads: Automatically download Wine-GE, Proton-GE, Kron4ek, and Soda runners from GitHub by name (e.g. wine-ge-8-26, kron4ek-9.0).
• Custom Runner Versions: Pin specific runner versions (e.g. wine-ge-8-26) globally or per application.
• Declarative Winetricks: Define winetricks components (DLLs, codecs, fonts) in distillery.json — applied automatically on prefix init and cached to avoid re-application.
• LatencyFleX Support: Built-in LatencyFleX environment variable configuration for competitive gaming (NVIDIA Reflex-like latency reduction).
• Legacy 32-bit Support: Create isolated 32-bit Wine prefixes (win32) on the fly, even for individual applications in a 64-bit project.
• Auto-Integration Spam Block: Prevents Wine from cluttering your Linux host's desktop search menu during app installation by disabling winemenubuilder by default.
• Manual Desktop Export: Clean CLI tools (cheapwine export / cheapwine unexport) to manually generate standard Linux desktop launchers (.desktop entries) for only the applications you want.
• Auto-Discovery Scanner: Scans Wine Start Menu shortcuts and drive_c/Program Files to automatically detect newly installed programs.
• Beautiful CLI & Interactive TUI: Features a clean, colorful, emoji-rich command-line output (inspired by uv) and a live interactive Terminal User Interface (TUI) menu for select-and-run workflows.
• EasyDistill TUI Editor: Full-screen interactive configuration editor (cheapwine easydistill) for editing distillery.json without touching JSON directly.

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Installation

To install cheapwine locally in editable mode (or from the repository root):

pip install -e .

This registers the cheapwine and cw entrypoints in your shell.

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Quick Start

1. Initialize a Project

Create a new directory and initialize the environment. This generates the distillery.json settings file and creates the local Wine prefix:

mkdir my-project && cd my-project
cheapwine init

2. Install a Program

Run your installer (e.g., setup.exe) inside the project prefix. cheapwine will block it from writing shortcuts to your Linux host applications menu, keeping your desktop clean:

cheapwine run setup.exe

3. Scan & List Installed Programs

Search the prefix for newly installed executables or shortcuts:

cheapwine list --all
# or only show auto-detected ones
cheapwine list --detected

4. Register the Application by Name

Register the auto-detected application in distillery.json by name only (it will automatically resolve the path to the executable):

cheapwine add "My Application"

5. Launch the TUI Menu

To see a menu of all registered and detected applications, use the arrow keys to navigate, and press Enter to launch:

cheapwine
# or
cheapwine run

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Configuration (distillery.json)

Here is an example of a fully configured distillery.json:

{
  "name": "my-legacy-workspace",
  "wine_arch": "win64",
  "wine_version": "system",
  "win_version": "win10",
  "runner": "wine",
  "runner_version": "wine-ge-8-26",
  "latencyflex": false,
  "winetricks": ["corefonts", "vcrun2022"],
  "env": {
    "WINEDEBUG": "-all"
  },
  "apps": {
    "notepad": {
      "exe": "notepad.exe",
      "args": ["/A"],
      "env": {}
    },
    "win95_game": {
      "exe": "C:\\Program Files\\MyGame\\game.exe",
      "win_version": "win95",
      "wine_arch": "win32",
      "runner": "/home/user/wine-ge/bin/wine"
    },
    "my_game": {
      "exe": "C:\\Games\\game.exe",
      "latencyflex": true,
      "winetricks": ["d3dx11_43", "dxvk"],
      "args": ["-dx11"]
    }
  }
}

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Advanced Configurations

Running a Legacy 32-bit Windows 95 App

If you have a game or program that requires a pure 32-bit prefix configured for Windows 95, you can add it with specific overrides:

cheapwine add "RetroGame" "C:\Program Files\game.exe" --arch win32 --win-version win95

When running cheapwine run RetroGame, a separate, isolated 32-bit Wine prefix is created inside .cheapwine_win32, and the registry is set to Windows 95 compatibility mode for this app.

Using Custom Runners (like Proton)

You can configure a custom Wine runner (such as Proton for Steam games, Bottles runners, or custom builds) either globally or per-application:

Globally:

cheapwine init --runner "/home/user/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton8-25/files/bin/wine"

Per-Application:

cheapwine add "SteamApp" "game.exe" --runner "proton run"

Auto-Downloading Runners by Name

Specify a downloadable runner by name and version — cheapwine fetches it from GitHub automatically:

cheapwine init --runner "wine-ge" --runner-version "8-26"
cheapwine init --runner "proton-ge" --runner-version "8-25"
cheapwine init --runner "kron4ek" --runner-version "9.0"
cheapwine init --runner "soda" --runner-version "9.0-1"

Declarative Winetricks

Define winetricks components in distillery.json and they are applied automatically on prefix init:

cheapwine init --runner "wine-ge-8-26"
# Then edit distillery.json to add:
# "winetricks": ["corefonts", "vcrun2022", "dxvk"]

Components are applied on cheapwine init and when running an app that has them configured. Applied components are cached per prefix in cheapwine_tricks.json so they are only applied once.

Per-application winetricks:

cheapwine add "MyGame" "game.exe" --tricks d3dx11_43 --tricks dxvk

LatencyFleX Support

Enable LatencyFleX globally or per-application for NVIDIA Reflex-like latency reduction in competitive games:

Globally:

cheapwine init --latencyflex

Per-Application:

cheapwine add "CS2" "cs2.exe" --latencyflex

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Command Reference

Command	Options	Description	Example
cheapwine init	--arch [win32|win64], --win-version, --runner, --runner-version, --latencyflex/--no-latencyflex	Creates distillery.json and initializes the Wine prefix.	cheapwine init --arch win32 --win-version win95 --latencyflex
cheapwine run	[app_or_exe], [extra_args...]	Runs a registered app or an executable path. Launches TUI if no app specified.	cheapwine run mygame -dx11
cheapwine tui	None	Launches the interactive arrow-key select menu.	cheapwine tui
cheapwine add	--env, --workdir, --win-version, --arch, --runner, --runner-version, --tricks, --latencyflex/--no-latencyflex	Registers an application. If EXE path omitted, resolves from auto-detected apps.	cheapwine add steam
cheapwine remove	<name>	Removes an application definition.	cheapwine remove steam
cheapwine list	--all / -a, --detected / -d	Lists registered and/or auto-detected applications.	cheapwine list --all
cheapwine export	<name>	Generates a desktop launcher in the host Linux applications menu.	cheapwine export "RetroGame"
cheapwine unexport	<name>	Removes an exported desktop launcher from the host.	cheapwine unexport "RetroGame"
cheapwine wine	[wine_args...]	Runs a Wine utility in the prefix context. Defaults to winecfg.	cheapwine wine regedit
cheapwine winetricks	[tricks_args...]	Runs winetricks inside the local prefix context.	cheapwine winetricks corefonts
cheapwine env	None	Prints shell export commands to manually hook your terminal into the prefix.	cheapwine env
cheapwine easydistill	None	Launches the interactive TUI configuration editor for distillery.json.	cheapwine easydistill

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Development & Testing

Running Tests

To run the full suite of unit and integration tests (uses click.testing.CliRunner and mocks Wine processes for speed):

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests

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License

MIT License. See LICENSE (if present) for details.