Wine is a compatibility layer for windows programs. Wine aims to be general purpose for all windows based programs. Proton is a compatibility layer that focuses primarily on video games. Proton includes a patched version on Wine.
Wine is developed by CodeWeavers, while Proton is developed by Valve with cooperation from CodeWeavers.
Technically they have some differences, but the biggest from a user’s perspective is how they are delivered and by whom. Wine is manually installed by you from your distro’s package repo. Proton is provided by steam when you install a windows game on a Linux steam instance. If one breaks then you complain to the relevant party.
I’m taking the opportunity to ask something I wanted to know since a long time, but never asked. What is the difference between proton and wine?
Wine is a compatibility layer for windows programs. Wine aims to be general purpose for all windows based programs. Proton is a compatibility layer that focuses primarily on video games. Proton includes a patched version on Wine.
Wine is developed by CodeWeavers, while Proton is developed by Valve with cooperation from CodeWeavers.
It’s basically a games focused Wine.
Technically they have some differences, but the biggest from a user’s perspective is how they are delivered and by whom. Wine is manually installed by you from your distro’s package repo. Proton is provided by steam when you install a windows game on a Linux steam instance. If one breaks then you complain to the relevant party.