While there is no native Linux version of RegexBuddy, it is possible to run the Windows version of RegexBuddy on Linux using Wine. Wine is an application designed to run Windows applications on Linux. Aside from a few minor glitches, this works just fine.
First, Wine needs to be installed on your Linux computer. Most Linux distributions include Wine as an optional package that can be installed via the system’s package manager or app store. If your Linux distribution does not include Wine, go to winehq.org to download it.
Once Wine is installed, use the web browser on your Linux computer to download RegexBuddy. If your browser asks you if you want to run the file with Wine or to save the file, choose to save it. Open a terminal screen, cd to your download directory, and type: wine SetupRegexBuddy.exe (change .exe file name to what you actually downloaded). RegexBuddy’s installer will pop up. Click the no-questions-asked button for a quick install.
To start RegexBuddy, double-click the RegexBuddy icon that the installer placed on your desktop. If there’s no desktop shortcut, type wine "c:\Program Files\Just Great Software\RegexBuddy 5\RegexBuddy5.exe" in a terminal screen (assuming you used the default installation folder).
We tested RegexBuddy 5 on an Ubuntu 24.4 x64 installation in VMware. Wine was installed with sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 ; sudo apt install wine wine32 to install both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The installer needs 32-bit Wine because it uses a 32-bit stub that checks whether it is run on 32-bit or 64-bit Windows. The actual installer and RegexBuddy itself will use 64-bit Wine on 64-bit Linux. Selecting Help|Technical Support in RegexBuddy tells us we’re running Wine 9.0.
RegexBuddy runs just fine under Wine. The only obvious issue is that RegexBuddy may not pick a suitable default font. This depends on which fonts your Linux system has installed. Ubuntu doesn’t include any of the fonts that are included with Windows. RegexBuddy requires Segoe UI or Tahoma to run. Wine includes a version of Tahoma that RegexBuddy can use. If you intend to install Microsoft fonts on your Linux system, do so before running RegexBuddy the first time to make the default settings use the Microsoft fonts. If text appears incorrectly spaced, or you just want another font, click the Preferences button in the top right corner and then click the Configure Text Layouts button. Make sure that all the text layouts you’re using have proper fonts. The “monospaced left-to-right” text layout that RegexBuddy uses by default only produces good-looking text when the font is monospaced.
On Windows, RegexBuddy uses Uniscribe to intelligently handle editing of text using right-to-left scripts like Hebrew and Arabic as well as complex scripts like the Indic scripts. Wine emulates Uniscribe but does not actually implement the intelligent handling of right-to-left and complex scripts that Uniscribe is used for. So you won’t get any errors when using a complex script text layout in RegexBuddy running on Wine. But you won’t get the text editing experience you’d expect either. The predefined text layout configurations do not include any for complex scripts when RegexBuddy detects it is running under Wine because it knows they won’t serve any purpose.
If you have enabled Fractional Scaling in the Display Settings in Ubuntu then Wine should be configured to run at 96 DPI. Then RegexBuddy paints itself at 96 DPI and Ubuntu scales up the window to the scaling percentage set in the Display Settings in Ubuntu. RegexBuddy will look a bit blurry, even if your scaling percentage is not actually fractional. For RegexBuddy to look crisp, turn off Fractional Scaling in Ubuntu. Run winecfg in a terminal window. The Wine configuration dialog will pop up. Set the screen resolution to match your scaling percentage in Ubuntu. Set it to 192 dpi for 200% scaling or 288 dpi for 300% scaling. Then RegexBuddy will paint itself at that resolution without any further scaling by Ubuntu, resulting in a perfectly sharp high resolution appearance.
Resizing RegexBuddy can be a bit slow, with a visible delay in RegexBuddy’s panels adjusting to the new window size. RegexBuddy remembers its window size and panel arrangement. So once you have arranged RegexBuddy’s user interface the way you like it, this performance issue won’t affect you.
RegexBuddy cannot detect whether Ubuntu is using its dark style. RegexBuddy will use its light theme the first time you run it. You can change the theme via the View menu (3rd button from the right on the topmost toolbar). Switching themes is also a bit slow. Toolbars and panels may look a bit off until you actually use them which forces them to repaint themselves. RegexBuddy remembers its theme so this too won’t affect you once you’ve selected the theme you prefer.
For the help file to display its contents, Wine Gecko needs to be installed. This can be done by downloading the Wine Gecko MSI files and then running wine start wine-gecko-2.47.4-x86_64.msi in a Linux terminal screen.