# Beer: a wine clone written in zig

**URL:** <https://ziggit.dev/t/beer-a-wine-clone-written-in-zig/16954>\
**Category:** Showcase\
**Created:** [July 27, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://ziggit.dev/t/beer-a-wine-clone-written-in-zig/16954 "2026-07-27T16:45:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![filo](https://ziggit.dev/user_avatar/ziggit.dev/filo/32/7401_2.png) [@filo](https://ziggit.dev/u/filo)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://ziggit.dev/t/beer-a-wine-clone-written-in-zig/16954/1 "2026-07-27T16:45:34Z")

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# [Beer](https://codeberg.org/filo/beer)

I’ve always been fascinated by [Wine](https://www.winehq.org/), I’m using it since I was a kid.  
A couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to learn how it works and what it actually does under the hood, and to do that I started my own Wine clone named beer!

It doesn’t do very much a the moment, It can execute a simple program that starts and exits  
with a status code for now, but seeing a Windows program running on Linux thanks to my code is worth sharing for me 🙂  
I’m learning a lot about Windows internals with this project and I’m starting to appreciate its architecture, not everything is slop like the latest Windows version.

The development process is really cool, feels like creating an operating system, but in userland, if that makes any sense.

If you want to try it, you can compile `src/win_program.exe` for x86\_64-windows and see it in action.

Check the repo for a quck demo 😃

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**Author:** ![KilianHanich](https://ziggit.dev/user_avatar/ziggit.dev/kilianhanich/32/8254_2.png) [@KilianHanich](https://ziggit.dev/u/KilianHanich)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2026, 4:52pm UTC](https://ziggit.dev/t/beer-a-wine-clone-written-in-zig/16954/2 "2026-07-27T16:52:14Z")

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> [@filo](#):
>
> I’m learning a lot about Windows internals with this project and I’m starting to appreciate its architecture, not everything is slop like the latest Windows version.

Yeah, a lot of the internals, especially the Windows NT kernel, is actually well thought out.  
And very far away from Unix, spurred by the fact that the [creator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler) actively disliked Unix’s design.

It’s an interesting thought process to imagine how the IT world would look like if Microsoft hadn’t gone down the enshittification route.

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**Author:** ![filo](https://ziggit.dev/user_avatar/ziggit.dev/filo/32/7401_2.png) [@filo](https://ziggit.dev/u/filo)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2026, 6:25pm UTC](https://ziggit.dev/t/beer-a-wine-clone-written-in-zig/16954/3 "2026-07-27T18:25:23Z")

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> [@KilianHanich](#):
>
> It’s an interesting thought process to imagine how the IT world would look like if Microsoft hadn’t gone down the enshittification route.

Yep, [React OS](https://reactos.org/) is an example of what Windows could have been