Wine is a package that lets you run Windows applications in Linux. So you can use it to run various Windows-only programs in Linux! You can follow the below method to install wine (Arch/Debian) and skip the third step if you dont need LTspice.
So the other day, our teacher asked us to install LTspice in our systems. LTspice is an open source software used to build circuits and study their outputs. First of all, LTspice was only available for Windows and Mac and there were no official links for even the debian distro. :\ I am on Arch and I was lucky enough to find the AUR for LTspice but simply installing it didn't work. It really gave messy outputs regarding from where do you want to install wine and a thousand more stuffs.
And after coming to Linux, there was no way I would go to Windows just for LTspice. So after an intensive search, I got to know that it was actually WINE which did all the work. Wine is a package that enables your computer to run Windows applications. So the idea was to use Wine to run LTspice's windows version in Linux. And installing wine was what was the root of the entire problem (A simple sudo pacman -S wine wont give you the result). Basically for wine, you need to enable to use 32 bit libraries in your 64 bit processor. So we go in this way:
Enable 32 bit libraries -> Install wine -> Install LTspice
For Ubuntu users, I have attached a link for this entire process from a blog. Link to follow-Ubuntu
Arch users may continue below.
Enable 32 bit libraries
So the multilib repository is generally used to run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit system. To enable it, go to terminal and type
sudo vim /etc/pacman.conf (if you use nano, do nano /etc/pacman.conf )
Go to the multilib section and uncomment the lines 92 and 93 (multilib and Include = ...) and then save the file and exit. In vim, type Esc -> :wq! -> Enter to save and exit. In nano, do Ctrl + O then Ctrl + X to save and exit.
Now, this enables our multilib package. Let's download the database files for multilib by
sudo pacman -Sy
And, we are done with this section!
Installing WINE
The rest of things is pretty simple.
For Arch guys, We just do
sudo pacman -S wine
to install wine.
And done!
Installing LTspice
Use your AUR installer to download the ltspice package. I am using yay, so it is
yay -S ltspice
This is going to take some time. So sit back and enter your sudo password if asked during the installation.
Then you can open LTspice, and if it asks to install wine-mono, you can do it there itself on the window! (Windows vibes:-)) else no worries.
And finally done!! Phew, :)