Set up a Wine environment in a Docker container with Python 3.8 installed

Dockerfile

################
# Attempt to run Windows scripts in a Docker container (for K8s deployment)
# Inspiration/material from:
# https://betterprogramming.pub/how-to-run-any-windows-cli-app-in-a-linux-docker-container-318cd49bdd25
################
FROM ubuntu:22.04

# Core system packages
RUN  apt -y update
RUN  apt -y install wget

# Install Wine stack (https://wiki.winehq.org/Main_Page)
# NOTE these repos are platform-version specific
ENV  WINEDEBUG=fixme-all
RUN  dpkg --add-architecture i386 && \
     mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings && \
     wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key && \
     wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/jammy/winehq-jammy.sources && \
     apt update && \
     apt -y install --install-recommends winehq-stable winbind cabextract

# Install "dummy" X Server
RUN  apt install -y xvfb
ENV  DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
ENV  DISPLAY :1

# Install Mono framework
RUN  wget -P /mono https://dl.winehq.org/wine/wine-mono/7.4.0/wine-mono-7.4.0-x86.msi && \
     wineboot -u && msiexec /i /mono/wine-mono-7.4.0-x86.msi && \
     rm -rf /mono/wine-mono-7.4.0-x86.msi

# Install Python
RUN  wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.8.10/python-3.8.10-amd64.exe && \
     xvfb-run wine64 python-3.8.10-amd64.exe /quiet InstallAllUsers=1 PrependPath=1 Include_test=0 SimpleInstall=1 /nogui && \
     rm -f python-3.8.10-amd64.exe

Also ran across this interesting project leveraging embedded Python builds:

https://github.com/pleiszenburg/wenv

ymmv, but another option.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your time and effort on this. Without this guidance, I would still probably have nothing.

This wenv project I did not find during the search, but tried it today and works really well, probably the easiest and cleanest way to have a Windows python interpreter running in Linux.
Unfortunately, as you said, as I'm a masochist, the project I'm currently working on failed as the package requires a path to run the Windows python interpreter. Might get it working changing the config, but the documentation states that

*"wenv will create a special kind of environment __underneath__ the Unix Python virtual environment"*

Maybe tweaking the paths in config I can access the actual path for the interpreter an get it working. Homework, I guess.

The docker-pyinstaller repo I did find during my search, but then it kept hanging at one of the .msi downloads, and as it looked far more complicated and cumbersome than yours, I was really trying to make your script work. After not getting anywhere with the errors I was getting, I chose to confirm with you if this would work, especially as I had doubts on the setup I have as well.

After your example getting this docker-pyinstaller a spin, I gave it a go, changing the wget to retry a couple of times before failing and trying again, and it worked!!

I guess I'll finish setting my project on top of this python install in the container, and eventually get back to the wenv package, just because it looks very good for these use cases.

Again, at least a week of deep frustration avoided, thank you!

Glad you got some traction and I was able to help in some way! My use case was a Python-based script that used pywin32 to load and analyze Windows-only executables, and I was experimenting to see if I could get that to run in an existing k8s cluster on RHEL hosts. I had limited success before the spike was abandoned.

Good luck!