14 DAY TRIAL // PlayOnLinux, a software that uses Wine (Wine is not an emulator) and that allows users to easily install and use numerous games and apps designed to run with Microsoft Windows, has reached version 4.2.4.
One the main problems that potential Linux users face is the lack of support for the open source platform from some of the developers. Not every application runs on Linux and Windows at the same time and there are a lot of Windows-only apps that are desirable.
It's possible to make some of them work with Wine, but sometimes people are not willing to work with the terminal and to perform various changes just to make a game or a software work. This is where PlayOnLinux comes into play. This is basically a much better GUI for Wine, but it also comes with its own improvements.
“PlayOnLinux is a piece of software which allows you to easily install and use numerous games and apps designed to run with Microsoft Windows. Few games are compatible with GNU/Linux at the moment and it certainly is a factor preventing the migration to this system. PlayOnLinux brings a cost-free, accessible and efficient solution to this problem.”
The developers also explain that users don't need to have a Windows license in order to use PlayOnLinux, as the application uses Wine and takes advantage of all its features without having to deal with the complexity of the software base, and it also uses Bash and Python.
The PlayOnLinux updates are a little too far in between, but given the fact that the software is based on Wine, which is updated regularly, they are not all that important. Nonetheless, you should upgrade to the latest version.
According to the changelog, a new support and feedback system has been implemented, links to social networks have been added, a 4.2.3 regression has been fixed in run_exe module, a fix for Python version 2.7 has been added, the IE3 icon extraction has been corrected, a download gauge overflow has been fixed, the POL_SetupWindow_textbox can now accept an extra max length parameter, FreeBSD support has been added, PlayOnLinux_Online has been removed, the installation process of missing gecko and mono at startup has been removed, and numerous other fixes have been implemented.
A complete list of new features and changes can be found in the official changelog, which is inside the source archive or on GitHub. You can download PlayOnLinux 4.2.4 right now from Softpedia.