Wine is a compatibility layer that allows applications designed for the Windows operating system to run on Unix-like systems such as Linux and macOS. Rather than emulating a complete system (as in a virtual machine), it translates Windows system calls and libraries into their equivalent on the running operating system, allowing native Windows software to run directly on other systems, often with good performance.

A Wine prefix is ​​an isolated environment where the settings and files needed to run a specific program are stored. In practice, it is a folder that acts as a "Windows installation" (by default, usually located at ~/.wine) and contains a directory structure that mimics the Windows file system (with folders like drive_c, Program Files, Windows, etc.).