I’m just checking in because it seems like this part of the forum hasn’t been updated. I am running cachy os based on Arch Linux. Even though I own a Mac, I’m going to be moving fully to Linux within the next 6 to 12 months due to there behaviors I’ve noticed lately.
The question I have is how well does the windows version run on wine, crossover, etc. i am a writer, so I’m trying to find an app that’s better then word, but also to disconnect myself from Microsoft as a whole. I’m actually certified in Microsoft Office. So it’s a bit of a hit, but I need to step away.
I’ve run Scrivener under Wine, both under the vanilla install and using Lutris and Crossover as helpers. They all work well enough to be used without qualms, though they all have some quirks of configuration.
For example, I found that on Debian and its children there was a problem with accented characters: I’d type à and then every attempt at typing any other accented character resulted in à. For some reason, this only happened with vanilla Wine and Crossover: there was no problem when I installed under Lutris. Eventually I found the solution (you need to install and configure ibus and Lutris had done it but the others hadn’t, AFAICT), but it was confusing for a while.
Once you’ve got it installed (and despite my previous paragraph, it’s really not that difficult), the biggest problem you’ll find when you move from the Mac version is that the Windows version isn’t quite as smooth (even on Windows), so there will be a couple of features you’ll miss (e.g. the ability to select the text of the whole Scrivening). None of these is a dealbreaker – the Windows version is still very good, but it’s worth being prepared for the small differences. And if you’ve never used the Mac version, then there’s not problem at all .
Personally, I’d go for the paid version of Crossover, because they have already done all the necessary configuration to make Scrivener look as good as possible: Lutris and Wine vanilla require more tweaking of the Wine settings, though you’ll get the same result in the end.
Thanks for mentioning Crossover – I hadn’t heard of it and shall see how the free trial goes. To the OP, Scrivener (installed via Lutris) running on Debian (and Mint) has been rock solid for ages till a Lutris update [Feb 2026]. It may settle.
In the meantime I’ve found that running Scrivener on a dedicated W10 laptop is tolerable if you tweak Windows not to be annoying. It’s a clunky solution though.
Although I’m a Mac user, for years I have had Windows Scrivener installed using Crossover as my collaborator uses Windows and periodically I need to check what she sees.
Scrivener runs absolutely fine under Crossover Mac, installs easily from the installer in their repository—no need to download from Lit&Lat. The only thing you have to do is navigate to where the texttospeech.dll is installed and disable it—if you don’t Scrivener will close immediately after loading fonts.
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