Running RegexBuddy on Linux Using Wine

While there is no native Linux version of RegexBuddy, it is possible to run the Windows version of RegexBuddy on Linux using Wine. Wine is an application designed to run Windows applications on Linux. Aside from a few minor glitches, this works just fine.

First, Wine needs to be installed on your Linux computer. Most Linux distributions include Wine as an optional package that can be installed via the system’s package manager or app store. If your Linux distribution does not include Wine, go to winehq.org to download it.

Once Wine is installed, use the web browser on your Linux computer to download RegexBuddy. If your browser asks you if you want to run the file with Wine or to save the file, choose to save it. Open a terminal screen, cd to your download directory, and type: Wine SetupRegexBuddy.exe (change .exe file name to what you actually downloaded). RegexBuddy’s installer will pop up. Click the no-questions-asked button for a quick install.

To start RegexBuddy, double-click the RegexBuddy icon that the installer placed on your desktop. If there’s no desktop shortcut, type Wine “c:\Program Files\Just Great Software\RegexBuddy 4\RegexBuddy4.exe” in a terminal screen (assuming you used the default installation folder).

Glitches Running RegexBuddy with Wine

We tested RegexBuddy 4 on an Ubuntu 16.4 x64 installation in VMware. Wine was installed via sudo apt-get install wine.

RegexBuddy runs just fine under Wine. The only obvious issue is that RegexBuddy may not pick a suitable default font. This depends on which fonts your Linux system has installed. If text appears incorrectly spaced, click the Preferences button in the top right corner and then click the Configure Text Layouts button. Make sure that all the text layouts you’re using have proper fonts. The “monospaced left-to-right” text layout that RegexBuddy uses by default only produces good-looking text when the font is monospaced.

Older versions of Wine, such as the one included with Ubuntu 13.10, caused the 64-bit version of RegexBuddy to crash due to bugs in Wine. These appear to be fixed in the version of Wine included with Ubuntu 16.4 as 64-bit RegexBuddy is perfectly stable on it. If you have an older version of Wine, you can run the installer with wine SetupRegexBuddyDemo.exe /32 to force it to install the 32-bit version.

RegexBuddy includes a help file in .chm format. Wine can display this help file, but doesn’t always. The same text is available as an online user’s guide.

      
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“RegexBuddy was the only reason I started using Wine. After switching to Linux from Windows several years ago I swore I’d only use software that can run natively on Linux but I couldn’t find another alternative that came even close to this one so I had to renege on that commitment.”
— Samuel Marshall
  28 April 2022, Ontario, Canada
“I have learned more about regular expressions from [RegexBuddy and its regex tutorial] than from anywhere else. Regex has moved from the realm of ‘arcane magic’ to a valued tool I truly enjoy and can wrap my head around. I also really appreciate that it works great in GNU/Linux under WINE.”
— Josiah Hudson
  14 October 2021, Michigan, USA

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