Most distributions include Wine AFAICT yet I'd argue you shouldn't use Wine because typically it means using proprietary software.

If you are using Wine for games then it's also reconsider that there are plenty of open source game you can still pay for to support their author.

If you still want to play proprietary Windows games without native support then I would recommend to use a wrapper, e.g. Bottles (because of Proton, not because of the GUI) or even Steam (since you want to play proprietary Windows games anyway) as they'll remove a layer of tinkering to find the right version, path, etc.

... but yeah, even though Wine is amazing I would argue every time one uses it, if they are using Linux because they want more agency, they probably should reconsider and search for a free software alternative instead. It will be awkward at first, other UI, other UX, new community, but it's an investment in the future.

Install wine-staging through your package manager. Every tool you mentioned on relies on that or does something similar itself.

That said, this is an XY problem - what are you actually trying to do?

I don't get the purpose of this post. The title and what you listed are not the same thing.

You listed a mix of apps and wine versions, all those usually assume you already have wine to satisfy dependencies, that's not how to install wine.

You install wine (staging for gaming) from your distro repositories.

I don't really install it anymore. I use zorin which has wine and play on linux installed by default. I plan to try using bazzite which has steam and I assume enough installed for my casual uses of wine.

You forgot WineGUI (https://github.com/winegui/WineGUI)

Btw, is there a CLI utility to choose and keep a specific wine version? Some games have issues ranging from none over no ground texture to not launching at all from one update to the next. Some productive software too.

I usually install it orally. Usually.

Install wine-staging through your package manager.

Install these extra programs if you need the things that they do.

What is your end goal? There are a lot of different ways to install Wine for different purposes.

If it's just to run a arbitrary binary, I use Heroic and add it as a non-Epic/Amazon game. Different Wine/Proton versions can be downloaded in the settings.

You can also add them to Steam as non-steam game and enable compatibility mode in the settings.

I suppose it depends mostly on what you intend to do.

FWIW, Wine makes you potentially vulnerable to malware that targets M$ otherwise. As such, I prefer sandboxed solutions. This used to be Bottles for me. However, currently, I don't have any need for it; I play my games through the Heroic flatpak and don't need Wine outside of that.

Just use Bottles. Play on Linux is dead.