First things first, let’s make sure we have the necessary tools installed. If you don’t already have them, go ahead and install wine or playonlinux (depending on which one you prefer). These are basically virtual machines that allow us to run Windows programs on Linux without any hassle.

Now that we have our virtual machine set up, let’s download the i386 binary of your favorite program from its website. Once it’s finished downloading, open up your terminal and navigate to the directory where you saved the file. Then, run this command:

# This script is used to run Windows programs on Linux using Wine.

# First, we need to navigate to the directory where the program is saved.
cd <directory>

# Then, we need to run the program using Wine.
wine <program_name>.exe

# The "wine" command is used to run Windows programs on Linux.
# The "<program_name>.exe" is the name of the program we want to run.
# The "cd" command is used to change directories.
# The "<directory>" is the location of the program we want to run.

Replace `` with the actual name of the program (without any spaces). Your old 32-bit program should now be running on your shiny new amd64 system.

If you have a lot of i386 binaries that you want to run frequently, you can create shortcuts for them in your virtual machine’s desktop environment (e.g. LXQt or Xfce). This will make it easier and faster to launch those programs without having to navigate through the terminal every time.

To do this, open up your favorite file manager (such as Thunar) and create a new folder for your shortcuts. Then, copy and paste all of your i386 binaries into that folder. Once they’re in there, right-click on each one and select “Create Shortcut”. This will generate a new .desktop file with the same name as the original binary (but with a `.desktop` extension).

Now, open up your favorite text editor (such as Leafpad) and create a new file called `my_shortcuts.sh`. In this file, add the following lines:

#!/bin/bash
# This line specifies the interpreter to be used for executing the script.

wine <program_name>.exe &


#!/bin/bash
# This line specifies the interpreter to be used for executing the script.

wine <program_name>.exe &

Replace `` with the actual name of your program (without any spaces). Then, save and close that file.

Next, open up a terminal window and navigate to the directory where you saved the `my_shortcuts.sh` file. Then, run this command:

#!/bin/bash # This line specifies the interpreter to be used for executing the script

# This script is used to make shortcuts for a specific program

program_name="my_program" # This variable stores the name of the program

chmod +x my_shortcuts.sh # This command changes the permissions of the script to make it executable

# The following lines create shortcuts for the program and add them to the PATH variable
echo "alias <program_name>='./<program_name>'" >> ~/.bashrc # This line creates an alias for the program and appends it to the .bashrc file
echo "export PATH=$PATH:~/<program_name>" >> ~/.bashrc # This line adds the program's directory to the PATH variable and appends it to the .bashrc file

source ~/.bashrc # This command reloads the .bashrc file to apply the changes made

echo "Shortcuts for <program_name> have been created!" # This line prints a message to confirm that the shortcuts have been created

This will make the script executable (so we can run it). Finally, open up your favorite desktop environment and create a new launcher for that `my_shortcuts.sh` file. This will allow us to easily launch all of our i386 binaries with just one click!

And there you have it ! Using proprietary i386 binaries on amd64 systems is now as easy as pie (or cake, or whatever your favorite dessert happens to be). So go ahead and enjoy those old 32-bit programs without any hassle.