_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI WinBoat: Windows apps on Linux with seamless integration
chem83 wrote 2 hours 20 min ago:
WinApps is the project to watch ( [1] ), although they're still working
on Wayland support ( [2] ). It can get by through xwayland for the time
being, it seems.
URI [1]: https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps
URI [2]: https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779#issuecomment...
carlesfe wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
An actual explanation of what the software does, from their Github repo
> WinBoat is an Electron app which allows you to run Windows apps on
Linux using a containerized approach. Windows runs as a VM inside a
Docker container, we communicate with it using the WinBoat Guest Server
to retrieve data we need from Windows. For compositing applications as
native OS-level windows, we use FreeRDP together with Windows's
RemoteApp protocol.
monocasa wrote 2 hours 29 min ago:
Why do they need a docker container and a vm?
GoblinSlayer wrote 2 hours 14 min ago:
VM runs the actual thing, and docker is package manager.
throitallaway wrote 53 min ago:
Maybe I would call Docker an installation and running method
rather than a package manager in this case.
onehair wrote 2 hours 14 min ago:
because windows isn't bloat enough
/runs-away-as-this-joke-might-not-be-funny-toall-xD
fdsffsvafvv wrote 3 hours 15 min ago:
If anyone from the project reads this:please don't load Discord on the
front page of your website.
Discord is often used as C2 server, and in many secure environments
will trigger alerts when someone tries to load it. So loading your
webpage triggers an alert (luckily the alert in our business come to
me, but the point stands).
At least hide it behind a link.
BolexNOLA wrote 3 hours 53 min ago:
Some of yâall are acting like this dude personally insulted you.
They put out an open source project for folks to use that may solve a
problem for someone out there. Thatâs neat. If it has faults maybe we
can be a bit more constructive and less all âwtf is this crap?â
Vipsy wrote 4 hours 15 min ago:
This looks nice, WinBoat gives teams a simple way to use linux for
everyone, without losing access to Windows apps when needed. Thereâs
no need for fancy cloud setups or switching between lots of
devicesâjust one system and quick access to what works.
Onboarding is easier for everyone, and IT does less work with only one
setup to care for. This means companies can pick whatâs best without
making things messy or complicated.
whywhywhywhy wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
How you gonna justify buying a windows license for each user and then
not just using that and forcing them to use some interface theyâre
unfamiliar with.
I get the vision but ultimately if they need to run windows apps for
work, just have them run windows.
Thereâs places where people should consider Linux but that isnât
one of them.
d3Xt3r wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
For what you're describing, there are already Enterprise-grade
solutions that's even simpler and more robust, such as Azure Virtual
Desktop with RemoteApps, and the even more mature and battle-tested
Citrix XenApps / Cloud.
Like for my work, I use a Linux laptop, and access our Windows-only
apps and environments via Citrix and it works really well. And a good
chunk of our apps are cloud-based anyways so we just need a web
browser to access them.
I also own a MacBook and have an Android phone, and I can access my
work environment from all my devices. So at least for our workplace,
the end-user OS has been largely irrelevant.
smt88 wrote 4 hours 6 min ago:
This reads like AI and almost none of it makes sense. Why would a
Windows desktop fleet be more heterogeneous than a Linux one? Why
would Linux be an easier on-boarding experience?
Orgs use Windows because non-technical users expect it and execs
don't get fired for choosing Microsoft.
whywhywhywhy wrote 3 hours 43 min ago:
Onboarding non-technical people to a computer thatâs running half
the apps in a different is virtualized and all the things that can
go wrong with that sounds a nightmare.
masfoobar wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
WinBoat seems interesting. I will be keeping my eye on this one.
Since I started using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in the last
couple of years.. especially at work.. my work has been more
productive, running certain GUI apps that "appear" to be running on
Windows. There are some odd quirks to it, but its decent. On top of
this, I can run podman or use shell tools (and bash)
However, I was wondering what the opposite equiverlant would be in
linux land. I mean, I rarely use Windows Applications when on a Linux
machine. In the past, I remember playing GTA:Vice City through Wine and
was 98% awesome. Just a few missing images and thats it. Other than
this, I've had little reason to use Windows applications on Linux.
Recently, I always wondered if there would be a "Linux Subsystem for
Windows" equiverlant, abling to run pretty much any app. It would give
my daughter the upperhand, which I recently installed Debian on her
laptop... but I know there will be some Schoolwork with Microsoft
products... WinBoat might be the answer.
Prunkton wrote 4 hours 40 min ago:
I'm just here to let the internet know, if you struggle to setup Citrix
on (Arch) Linux, this seems to work out of the box
bapak wrote 6 hours 47 min ago:
It's always great to see software websites without a damn screenshot of
the software doing its job.
It says it can run office, maybe show me how it looks? How can you sell
"seamless" and then don't demonstrate. I don't get it.
Pesthuf wrote 4 hours 42 min ago:
This! Does it render Windowsâ windows individually on the Linux
desktop, with integration into alt-tab, the Ubuntu dock etc. or does
it just render one big VM window?
How is that not shown on the site.
noname120 wrote 7 hours 47 min ago:
Does it have display manager integration akin to Parallels Desktopâs
Coherence mode? This is what the catch-phrase of WinBoat makes it sound
like. [1] ââââ
Edit: yes it does! See the README.md of the project on GitHub:
> Elegant Interface: Sleek and intuitive interface that seamlessly
integrates Windows into your Linux desktop environment, making it feel
like a native experience
Source:
URI [1]: https://kb.parallels.com/4670
URI [2]: https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat
dangus wrote 8 hours 11 min ago:
They are really going to need to change that branding to avoid trouble.
sim7c00 wrote 8 hours 22 min ago:
will it allow me to run WSL on linux too? (genuinely curious)
dns_snek wrote 10 hours 14 min ago:
Am I reading this right? It can run Excel more or less seamlessly like
it's a native Linux program? Is there a catch?
That would be game changing in convincing some people to switch to
Linux.
rob74 wrote 6 hours 32 min ago:
Well yes, it runs Excel in a VM running Windows. Which means you need
an extra Windows license to be able to do it legally, but other than
that, it works...
SV_BubbleTime wrote 47 min ago:
Not only a license, but Iâm kind of still seeing that you would
need to run your Windows VM with the entire range of Microsoft
updates, defender, antivirus, and monitoring if your corporate,
etc.
No?
retSava wrote 6 hours 52 min ago:
Furthest at the absolute bottom: "Yes :)"
teo_zero wrote 10 hours 23 min ago:
> Run Any App
> If it runs on Windows, it can run on WinBoat.
Did I miss an asterisk here? One that adds "except apps that require a
GPU, that access non-USB devices, those with anti-cheat..."
d3Xt3r wrote 5 hours 3 min ago:
By default, yes, but they can all be supported, with some manual
work, depending on your exact scenario. Check r/vfio if you're
interested.
Anti-cheat can be a hit-or-miss depending on the game, but for many
games you can edit the VM XML to simulate real hardware. But of
course you may not want to do that if you don't want to risk getting
banned. Personally I don't play such user-hostile games that employ
malware-like anticheat (and neither should you, if you care about
privacy and security), but that's a whole other debate.
zx8080 wrote 10 hours 28 min ago:
> AppImage
No, thanks.
shmerl wrote 10 hours 58 min ago:
Looks like a Windows VM with extras. I'd prefer Wine approach.
0xbadcafebee wrote 11 hours 33 min ago:
Why doesn't the FAQ actually explain what it is? Is it a VM running
windows? WINE? That free NT kernel? Something else?
d3Xt3r wrote 5 hours 1 min ago:
It is a VM running Windows, specifically it's a QEMU VM in a Docker
container and KVM backend.
See:
URI [1]: https://github.com/dockur/windows
itpcc wrote 11 hours 36 min ago:
Is it WinApps[0] with some fancy GUI or something?
[0]
URI [1]: https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
d3Xt3r wrote 4 hours 58 min ago:
Basically yes, although WinApps uses a VM directly (and requires you
to set it up first), whereas this project uses the dockur/windows
container which automates the whole setup, making it easier for
newbies.
Technical users are probably better off spinning up their own VM
though.
reactordev wrote 11 hours 39 min ago:
Is this Parallels Desktop but for Linux? If so, this could be
interesting however, what about graphics intensive applications? What
does this offer that Proton or Wine doesnât solve?
d3Xt3r wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
Sort of, but nowhere as polished.
For graphics intensive apps, you can get GPU passthrough working with
some effort[1] but it's not really end-user friendly.
Also, I wouldn't say it's an alternative to Proton, in fact it's
probably worse than Proton because of the limited refresh rate,
colors, and added latency of the RDP protocol that it uses to display
the desktop.
But it can be an alternative to Wine, since you're able to run
certain apps that can't run in Wine, like Office 365, Adobe etc. This
is where it shines, for people who are dependent on productivity apps
like Office.
URI [1]: https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22
reactordev wrote 12 min ago:
Ewww, RDP⦠thanks, that explains all I need to know. Itâs a
virtualbox.
zamalek wrote 11 hours 45 min ago:
We need something better than RDP for running windows VMs locally.
Can't a buffer be memory-mapped or something?
d3Xt3r wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
This is exactly what the Looking Glass project is working on, their
next release is expected to include their Indirect Display Driver
that pretty much solves all the graphics limitations of RDP, see:
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI
fathermarz wrote 13 hours 59 min ago:
Does it have Windows APIs for sub systems like certificates/auth
stores?
d3Xt3r wrote 12 hours 35 min ago:
It's just a VM running full Windows. It doesn't provide any win32
APIs or ways to interact with them, besides creating shortcuts to
apps inside Windows using RDP/FreeRDP's RemoteApp functionality.
ardanur wrote 16 hours 27 min ago:
Their FAQ mentions the Looking Glass Indirect Display Driver (IDD).
That is something to look forward to. Looking Glass will work with an
iGPU setup once IDD is released (but no 3D acceleration).
What Looking Glass managed to do was get video memory sharing to work
between the guest Windows compositor and a client running on the host
(with qemu). Unfortunately, it apparently requires an out-of-tree Linux
kernel driver that they call kvmfr. You can apparently still share
non-video memory without kvmfr, which may hopefully yield adequate
performance.
Demo:
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI
wantlotsofcurry wrote 18 hours 15 min ago:
Are apps run through WinBoat limited to 60hz like regular Windows VMs?
Iâve gotten to used to higher refresh rates and 1 window being a
lower rate drives me nuts!
d3Xt3r wrote 17 hours 2 min ago:
Yes, you can't get more than 60FPS, it's a limitation of the RDP
protocol.
ho_schi wrote 18 hours 47 min ago:
Let me guess. When it gets tricky it fails. USB? Own IP? 3D? Bluetooth?
My recommendation for happiness with Linux is:
Always use native apps. Donât use WINE. Donât try to be compatible
to inherent hostile things. Donât use VMs. And especially donât use
Dual-Boot. It sucks.
Basically migrate and go full Linux. Donât look back :)
Proton (which is WINE derivative) works somehow, because Valve invests
every single day tremendous efforts into it. But thatâs the problem,
tremendous efforts.
The good news. Every bit invested in high quality API/ABI on Linux pays
off. Valve contributions to MESA and amdgpu are invaluable. Valve
should honor native AAA-Titles and Indie-Titles for Linux - with
exclusive Steam Awards. There is awesome stuff like Unrailed. Make the
game developers think:
âI better should do a proper port. And it should not be done by
the Win32 developer. Task the Linux developer.â
PS: I missed Counter-Strike so much on Linux for years. And the Valve
came, ported everything natively, and it is wonderful :)
PPS: I use a Mac for two incompatible applications (Garmin Express and
Zwift). Less maintenance than Windows. Less possibilities than Linux.
Horrible file-browser. Window management is a pain. But it covers the
gap without ruining my day. I have to admit, the Mac cannot run
Counter-Strike 2. Thatâs a task for Linux :)
GoblinSlayer wrote 4 hours 52 min ago:
Can you recommend a reasonably lightweight text editor for linux with
syntax highlighting?
FergusArgyll wrote 3 hours 35 min ago:
vim?
aleph_minus_one wrote 6 hours 22 min ago:
>
My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native
apps. Donât use WINE. Donât try to be compatible to inherent
hostile things.
Rather: don't try to be compatible with inherently unstable APIs: [1]
[2] Just to be clear: I consider it to be a good idea to write native
apps for GNU/Linux, but first stabilize the APIs so that they stay
basically stable for at least 20 years.
URI [1]: https://sporks.space/2022/02/27/win32-is-the-stable-linux-us...
URI [2]: https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/
asmor wrote 55 min ago:
This is mostly a UX problem. Many ways to shoot yourself in the
foot. Maybe someone could write a linter for checking symbol tables
for depending on shared libraries not in the Steam runtime and
private symbol use.
But also, compiling everything with dynamic libraries is kind of an
interesting side effect of having all the source code in a single
context of a distribution; maybe you should always statically
compile if you're not part of this system.
aleph_minus_one wrote 34 min ago:
>
But also, compiling everything with dynamic libraries is kind of
an interesting side effect of having all the source code in a
single context of a distribution
Under Windows, this is also done. But there is a difference:
changes in a system-wide DLL better are really
backwards-compatible.
If there are breaking changes, a new "package" gets introduced
with new names for the DLLs. This is why on many Windows systems,
lots of versions of, for example, the "Microsoft Visual C++
Redistributable" are installed. Nevertheless, the old versions
are still available and get maintained for a very long time at
least with respect to security fixes.
Also, the API design under Windows tends to be much more
"future-proof". For example, a lot of data structures contain
some size information as a first field so that the API can detect
which "version" of a data structure has been passed so that
future changes can be implemented in a backwards-compatible
manner, e.g. WNDCLASSEXA:
> [1] The first field is cbSize.
To me, it seems in the GNU/Linux ecosystem, the API developers
care a lot less about such topics.
URI [1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winu...
bigstrat2003 wrote 11 hours 49 min ago:
> My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native
apps. Donât use WINE. Donât try to be compatible to inherent
hostile things. Donât use VMs. And especially donât use
Dual-Boot. It sucks.
This is terrible advice. Many people want to use Windows apps while
using Linux, and Wine works just fine for that. And for those few
that don't work in Wine, dual boot works great.
999900000999 wrote 11 hours 52 min ago:
The vast majority of games are fine via Steam/Proton.
They will never ever receive native Linux ports.
Understand what each OS is good at. Back in my younger days,
experimenting with Linux was my defacto CS education.
I use desktop Linux when I don't want distractions I need my computer
to do what I want it it.
Window's is much much better for music production. I'm not switching
DAWs.
Primarily I'm a .net developer, I NEED Visual Studio to really be
productive.
OSX is when I have an important interview or something. Although I
did interview using Fedora recently. Fantastically stable distro!
You don't take a Lambo off road, you generally don't take a Jeep to
the race track.
cap11235 wrote 12 hours 0 min ago:
I don't know about this project, but using KVM+Qemu w/ VFIO lets you
partition USB devices (and most other physical assets) to your
virtualized OS. I used to pass my mouse back and forth between
Windows and Linux this way, and similarly for one monitor (mainly to
demonstrate I could indeed run Crysis).
marcus_holmes wrote 14 hours 58 min ago:
I switched my gaming desktop over to Linux last year.
My experience has mostly been that Linux native versions just aren't
as good as the Windows-on-Proton version. (Shout out to Larian for
their recent BG3 release, a much better native version.)
Totally agree that Proton only works so well because of the constant
effort that Valve put into it.
Shouting at game devs to make better native Linux versions isn't
going to work. What will work is that the market demographics are
slowly moving over to Linux, mostly thanks to Valve, Proton and the
Steam Deck.
flanked-evergl wrote 7 hours 9 min ago:
In practice, the most stable API on Linux is WINE. There are of
course things game devs can do to counteract this, but they won't,
and WINE works amazingly well for games, so they don't need to
either.
cozzyd wrote 15 hours 46 min ago:
USB passthrough works remarkably well. (No experience with winboat).
petabyt wrote 16 hours 40 min ago:
Bad advice. Counterpoint: Wine works really well (especially for old
applications) and there's nothing wrong with using it. If people
restrict themselves to arbitrary rules then many won't be able to use
Linux.
pjmlp wrote 8 hours 45 min ago:
Ask IBM how "OS/2 For Windows" turned out.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2
zzo38computer wrote 12 hours 38 min ago:
I found I was unable to install Wine due to package manager
conflicts. I had only one Windows program (Everett Kaser's Hero
Hearts game) that I wanted to run on Linux, so I wrote my own
implementation of the game engine, which is (in my opinion) much
better than the original implementation.
IshKebab wrote 8 hours 58 min ago:
Ok now write your own implementation of SOLIDWORKS please.
anthk wrote 9 hours 54 min ago:
Flatpak and Lutris solves that.
edoceo wrote 15 hours 28 min ago:
There is value in those who push by absolutes like this; they are
moving the world in their direction; it's important to the market
to have some edge-zealots on the demand side. Helps prevent
monopoly and is an at-large benefit.
Disclosure: I'm 100% Linux since 2005 (except embed devices (game
console, Roku)). All the Line-of-Business stuff "just works".
jraph wrote 12 hours 22 min ago:
There's a place for pushing strong philosophical points. But
that's not what this comment is. This comment is practical
advice, and I think it misses the point.
"Try to avoid relying on proprietary software" is strong. "Avoid
any option that exists to run software you think you need" feels
out of touch, especially when it says "I use Mac for X and Y" -
which is barely practical: having a whole extra, expensive
computer that's not maintained forever is quite the costly
workaround for an arbitrary stance like "don't use Wine" that
they don't motivate so much in the end (there's no practical
explanation in that comment for avoiding VMs or Wine - they say
maintenance, but I don't see what's hard to maintain in running
Wine).
The comment argues "The good news. Every bit invested in high
quality API/ABI on Linux pays off.". I do agree. I don't know
about high quality, and it hurts a bit to say it, but it so
happens that Windows might be the only stable API/ABI on Linux,
with Wine being a completely libre reimplementation of it. If you
need to write a program that you are reasonably sure will run on
any Linux in 20 years without intervention, Wine might be your
best bet (with AppImage probably your second best bet). What
would be the fundamental (philosophical, practical, technical)
reason to avoid targeting Wine? What makes winelib so different
from other libraries such that you should avoid it? Genuinely
curious. What real alternative is there? Qt and Gtk break the API
each major version and even the GNU libc doesn't guarantee ABI
stability. The only reasonable alternative is "maintained free
software" (and that's what I happen to rely on).
FWIW, I have no stake in this: I use only free software, I mostly
don't use Wine nor contribute to it, and I wish I were wrong.
twosdai wrote 14 hours 16 min ago:
I mean in terms of market here, for games (largest current use
case for Wine / proton). Its not really a market. I think the
investment for linux over windows is for steam to try and push
people away from windows so as to reduce the competition for Xbox
Game Pass. In the most recent report for steam, linux users are
like 2-3% of the total share. I'm not sure that "edge lords"
pushing the market, really factors into valve's decision. If Xbox
Game Pass goes under, then I think steam will likely reduce its
investment in proton.
Just my take though, I get your point that people spreading this
idea and encouraging it have a place and at least its not
negative. I just don't think that they really are market movers.
wltr wrote 9 hours 8 min ago:
Hey, but put it differently, 3% is every 30th person, so
technically, they can brag about how cool and easy Linux is to
their friends, whoâd install it too. So while 3% sounds like
a rounding error, they may shift the pretty quickly, and
suddenly thatâs 30% one day.
babypuncher wrote 17 hours 36 min ago:
I've found games running in Proton to provide better long-term
compatibility than many native games. Despite Steam providing a
stable runtime for native games, I have a few titles from their first
major Linux push back in the '10s that are now crash-happy or exhibit
substantial performance problems, but work perfectly fine when I use
the Windows version with Proton.
Telling people not to even think about using their favorite piece of
software is a good way to make sure they don't consider switching. A
lot of popular Windows apps run perfectly fine in WINE. I've been
using foobar2000 in it for a decade at this point, and have yet to
find a native alternative that gives me the same feature set. So why
shouldn't I keep running it?
Rohansi wrote 10 hours 30 min ago:
> provide better long-term compatibility than many native games
This is one of the big, but less obvious, benefits to Wine/Proton.
Games with native Linux builds run into all kinds of
distro-specific issues that you don't really get on Windows. It's
an issue for new games and an even worse issue for older games that
aren't being updated anymore. Just look at Steam on macOS to see
how big of an issue this is - so many games are not compatible on
the latest Macs because they were built for x86 (32-bit).
r0uv3n wrote 7 hours 48 min ago:
"Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux" -
URI [1]: https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/
jeroenhd wrote 18 hours 4 min ago:
> My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native
apps. Donât use WINE. Donât try to be compatible to inherent
hostile things. Donât use VMs. And especially donât use
Dual-Boot. It sucks.
Had I listened to your recommendation, I would've never tried Linux.
Sorry, but Linux doesn't run Photoshop. Or Valorant. Or certain VPNs,
certain educational software, and doesn't work with a bunch of
hardware.
Dual booting is still a hell of a lot better than trying to configure
Wine in most cases, but if doing everything natively on Linux was an
option, it would've have taken SteamOS so many years to become even
remotely usable. And even then people install Windows on their Steam
Decks to run certain specific programs or games.
For the same reason native Linux isn't an option, native macOS
wouldn't have been an option back when I first tried Linux. And even
today, programs like Paint.NET are dearly missed on Linux and macOS
(yes, I know about Pinta), and stock macOS is infuriating to use
without all manner of tools and background programs reminding me of
my XP. I use Windows for my Windows tools, Linux most of the time,
and macOS for my macOS work stuff. I'm not getting rid of either
non-Linux OS because that would make doing certain things simply
impossible.
dangus wrote 8 hours 10 min ago:
+1 for this, and Iâll add Autodesk to this list.
I tried everything. I tried some dudeâs GitHub project to get it
to work with Wine. Itâs just not working for me.
Something like this seems perfect for that use case.
cyanydeez wrote 16 hours 39 min ago:
Wouldn't even dual boot. But a cheap mini PC and keyboard mouse
monitor switch.
Done
fuzzfactor wrote 4 hours 25 min ago:
You are all correct if it works for you :)
I like using two identical miniPC's, one for each monitor.
Well, actually each monitor has two inputs and each PC two
display outputs, and I had a couple extra cables so they are
cross-connected too but that's besides the point.
Seems like RDP is almost intended to work like this from the
beginning. Deficiencies are a lot easier to tweak side-by-side
too.
Decades ago I just had to accept that a key purpose of
introducing multi-partitioning to HDD's was so that multibooting
from a single HDD would be extremely straightforward. And once
set up, very closely mimics the hardware behavior of having a
dedicated HDD or SSD for each of Windows and Linux, on the same
PC.
Previously, with two different HDD's connected, each completely
unaware of the other one upon power-up, when you reboot you can
always use the motherboard's built-in BIOS boot menu to choose
when you want to boot to a drive other than the one designated as
the default choice.
That way there is nothing related to Windows on the Linux HDD at
all, and nothing having to do with Linux on the Windows HDD. You
can physically remove either drive before powering up and
everything works completely dedicated to a single OS as expected,
because each HDD is complete including its own boot files,
exactly the same as it is in a non-multibooting arrangement.
As long as each HDD is capable of booting on its own, you choose
the one you want, and that's the one that boots.
Well it actually took a while in the '90's before most
motherboards had a built-in BIOS bootmenu to choose between
different HDD's, but this feature became universal so users
wouldn't have to physically reconnect their intended boot drive
to the Primary Master cable. Which was the only bootable
connection before the BIOS bootmenu made Secondary-connected
HDD's as bootable as Primaries, your choice. You don't really
have to get the most out of the electronics, but some things like
this are really nice to have.
Now this was the time when it got real fancy, and both Windows
and Linux bootloaders were crafted to accommodate "chainloading"
from a Primary HDD to a non-Primary, so physical reconnection
would not be necessary to accomplish the same behavior. This was
ideal for all the remaining motherboards at the time which were
not issued with a BIOS bootmenu. This is where you start to get
a mixture of Windows and Linux on the same HDD, at least in the
boot files. It doesn't have to be confusing, but it can be.
Once one set of boot files can boot either OS from any HDD, then
each HDD no longer needs its own boot files, however that also
means that those HDDs not having boot files would not boot if
they are the only HDD connected.
I say the BIOS bootmenu is the fundamental that is best not
abstracted too far.
Fortunately, multibooting to various SSD's using one single
(Linux) bootloader [0] can be configured to have the same
hardware workflow as choosing separate HDD's through the
motherboard bootmenu.
And to be the most consistent I like to use the same workflow to
choose from multiple partitions whether they are on the same HDD
or not.
Now you can figure it's all moot, with separate miniPC's for
Windows and Linux. Which really could be considered more of a
luxury than multibooting a single-drive PC at will, and even more
versatile than having two SSD's in the same PC.
But wait a minute, each one of these drives on each PC is a
massive multibooter . . .
[0] The Windows bootloader works as always on MBR-layout SSD's on
PC's supporting traditional BIOS mode, but still too defective
under UEFI, where Microsoft drops the ball completely since
Windows 8 in the key area of multibooting Linux. Which for
decades was as easy as intended by the hardware design. But
negative progress is accepted as progress by those who are
supposed to be experts, as we have been convinced.
aperrien wrote 17 hours 3 min ago:
I didn't know about Pinta, and now I do. Thank you!
eek2121 wrote 17 hours 18 min ago:
WINE has basically become a gaming wrapper at this point. There are
not many (modern) apps outside of games that run on WINE. However,
games run great!
Last I checked, Office 365 didn't work, Basically anything modern
Adobe didn't work, even the latest version of Visual Studio (not
VSCode) didn't work. Things may have changed, I just learned to
live without that stuff.
BolexNOLA wrote 1 hour 49 min ago:
> Basically anything modern Adobe didn't work
Well thatâs just Adobe badumtsssss
array_key_first wrote 14 hours 36 min ago:
That's because all those apps are purposefully hostile and
actively do everything in their power to make sure they don't
work without their authorization.
Solution: don't use those apps and maybe people will learn.
Eventually, apps and technologies like this die in our digital
landscape. Rest in piece Flash, you will be missed. 3D max and
Photoshop, you're next.
Real solution (for now): just don't give these assholes money. If
you need to run the software, fine, but at least have the decency
to steal it.
dangus wrote 8 hours 7 min ago:
Letâs be real, this âreal solutionâ is a teenager in the
basement solution. Iâm not going to steal commercial software
that I use to produce my own commercial work.
I happily pay Autodesk their stupid $600 a year because I get
that much value out of the application and then some.
This idea that they are purposefully hostile because they
donât want you to steal their commercial product, or they
donât support an operating system with 2% marketshare is
ridiculous. I totally understand why they donât support
Linux. Itâs my choice to use an incompatible system.
heavyset_go wrote 16 hours 33 min ago:
A niche Wine does suit well is running audio plugins for music
production.
Wouldn't have believed it if I didn't first see and then use it
myself.
Think it's because JUCE is relatively well-supported on Wine and
natively on Linux, there are hardly any dependencies outside of
system libraries and a DSP library.
camtarn wrote 13 hours 34 min ago:
Yeah, it's pretty mind-blowing how well this works, even though
the setup was a bit janky.
Sadly, after moving my music production setup from Windows to
Linux, I'm locked out of some of my expensive sample libraries
because while the plugins run fine, the licensing programs do
not. Very frustrating.
mouse_ wrote 18 hours 6 min ago:
native Linux apps also fail when it gets "tricky", so this isn't
really that great of a benchmark, is it?
nine_k wrote 18 hours 15 min ago:
Very often what holds you back is not a huge and complex thing like
an AAA game, but something far less demanding and obscure. Something
like an app to design knitting patterns, elaborate, purpose-built,
and without a huge team behind it. Not open-source though. In this
case, seamless compatibility is great.
(For games, there is Proton.)
paranoidrobot wrote 16 hours 55 min ago:
For me (Well, my grandmother) it was Family Tree Maker.
To cut a very long story short - after Windows 10 restarted on her,
and changed default browser and application settings too many times
she was going to completely give up using the computer.
I built a new machine (a Dell AIO workstation) for her with Ubuntu,
FTM and a few other things.
Worked brilliantly.
icemelt8 wrote 18 hours 29 min ago:
Or just use windows :)
xupybd wrote 18 hours 40 min ago:
Some of us have work that requires windows only applications.
jamesnorden wrote 4 hours 57 min ago:
You don't have a work machine?
fuzzfactor wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
Most office workers are not in software so most work machines are
office machines. Having baseline Windows further encumbered by
often-misguided IT approaches.
Every one of these needs more intense tweaking before it will run
as well as the same offices 20 years ago.
Too bad most users are locked out and IT may not know how to do
it or may not be motivated anyway.
It may even be at the point where less tweaking may now be needed
for Linux to become a higher-performance office machine than
Windows/Office was 20 years ago. With less undocumented effort
than it would take to get the same performance from the latest
Windows. But who's going to do it?
All other things are not being equal though, 20 years ago PC's
were lower-performing hardware in a number of ways, so that
probably should be brought under consideration.
But it just seems so unfair then.
typpilol wrote 14 hours 8 min ago:
Exactly
Sorry boss I can't do work today, I decided to go full Linux and
our CRM doesn't support it!
tracker1 wrote 19 hours 6 min ago:
It's definitely neat and the UX is kinda slick... I tried it last
weekend. Unfortunately, even basic usage seemed to fail. Launching
Edge browser would create a window that was frozen, and no apparent way
to recover.. closing left the outline in place, and there were issues
with the integration itself. Trying to connect the "Desktop" option
seemed to freeze. I was able to connect to the session via the
integrated web view, it looked to be asking to allow the rdp
connection.
I really didn't dig in any deeper than that... didn't match the use
case my SO needed, so wound up having to revert back to Windows on her
laptop.
I do hope it gets better... maybe with some more app/system integration
on the Windows side of things.
d3Xt3r wrote 18 hours 44 min ago:
What's her use case, if you don't mind me asking? Because a lot of
Windows apps do work fine in Wine (some may require additional
tweaks), so perhaps that could be an option.
tracker1 wrote 15 hours 41 min ago:
She is trying to use the TikTok streaming studio, or whatever it is
called... I tried to get the Android version running via Waydroid
and tried the WinBoat setup. Neither worked and after a couple
hours of trying and the nagging, I just installed Windows 11 again
as requested and handed the laptop back. I'm no longer tech
support for that device.
Later found out, could have done some rigging to get OBS working
with it, but I think that would have been too far beyond her
comfort zone anyway. Having to run a shell script to plug into OBS
on top of using OBS itself. (Going to avoid further ranting and
stop now)
Edit: to be clear, I didn't get the app installed in WinBoat as I
didn't get passed the limitation that Edge wouldn't load properly.
Just with that hiccup I determined it was unfit for her usage...
that isn't even getting into the potential issue(s) with mic/camera
access.
ale42 wrote 19 hours 16 min ago:
If I understand it correctly, unlike WINE this requries an actual
Windows licence (at least if you wish to stay legal)?
fsh wrote 9 hours 55 min ago:
Yes, the dockered Windows 11 will start nagging you for a license
keys after a while. I used some old Win10 key, and it worked fine.
throwaway106382 wrote 19 hours 20 min ago:
Looks useful for things that don't work in Wine.
lousken wrote 19 hours 21 min ago:
color accurate work? HDR? variable refresh?
also it's still windows garbage underneath
fsh wrote 19 hours 50 min ago:
I always used a Virtual Box VM for Office. After giving this a quick
try, I'm impressed. The dockered VM is much less bloated then a normal
Windows install, and somehow running the apps via a local RDP
connection is significantly smoother than the Virtual Box graphics
stack.
esseph wrote 9 hours 51 min ago:
I have had much better experience running virt-manager instead of
virtualbox if you want a GUI to run / manage vms in terms of
performance. YMMV
insane_dreamer wrote 19 hours 53 min ago:
Is this a wrapper on Wine? Or a full VM?
d3Xt3r wrote 19 hours 37 min ago:
It's a full VM running via Docker. The Windows apps are presented via
RDP's RemoteApps protocol via FreeRDP.
There's also WinApps, which is the same thing but without the docker
container, and it supports a remote VM as well:
URI [1]: https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
aargh_aargh wrote 18 hours 55 min ago:
What's Docker for, then?
heavyset_go wrote 14 hours 7 min ago:
VM management. The dockur/windows VMs will correctly shutdown,
start, pause, etc when the container is started or destroyed.
d3Xt3r wrote 18 hours 39 min ago:
WinBoat uses Docker (specifically the dockur/windows container)
to simplify the backend setup. The Docker container hosts QEMU
and all the configs to automate the whole "create a VM, configure
it, install Windows, configure it etc" process.
opengrass wrote 19 hours 56 min ago:
The remote Windows equivalent is kimmknight/remoteapptool which
generates an RDP config or MSI, basically open source Vmware Horizon.
cadamsdotcom wrote 20 hours 4 min ago:
Absolutely love seeing these projects that put a friendly face on
amazing open source software so people can more easily run Linux and
use the software they still need to..
Any similar work underway to get macOS apps running on Linux?
heavyset_go wrote 14 hours 14 min ago:
macOS doesn't support doing rootless RDP with macOS apps. If you're
going to be using a full desktop anyway, skip RDP entirely and use an
accelerated graphics view.
d3Xt3r wrote 19 hours 49 min ago:
Not quite similar, but there's darling, which only supports CLI apps
for now: [1] If you want a full macOS VM there's dockur's project:
[2] but no seamless mode support yet.
URI [1]: https://github.com/darlinghq/darling
URI [2]: https://github.com/dockur/macos
softfalcon wrote 19 hours 58 min ago:
I wish it was possible to see macOS running well on Linux, but there
are a lot of loopholes to jump through to make that happen.
1. Apple makes running their software on non-Mac hardware illegal
2. For all the hate Windows gets, virtualizing it to run all over the
place is normal and expected by industry at large⦠the same is only
becoming recently true for macOS
3. There is a strong financial interest at Apple to get in the way of
this as much as possible
4. Apple is trying to reinvent Docker so people stop using Docker on
their Macâs with their native âApple Containersâ implementation
Due to this⦠I foresee it taking a while for this to become common
for mac apps + Linux
d3Xt3r wrote 19 hours 36 min ago:
macOS does in fact runs well* on Linux, see: [1] Edit: Well-ish, as
there's no GPU acceleration as noted in the comments below.
URI [1]: https://github.com/dockur/macos
GranPC wrote 18 hours 52 min ago:
For some values of "well". No GPU acceleration means it's
incredibly sluggish and plagued with rendering issues. There's
also some sort of incompatibility around clock sources, which can
result in the VM crashing during startup if you assign more than
one core to it. There are ways around it but if you're unlucky
enough they result in a massive perf hit.
moondev wrote 19 hours 39 min ago:
quickemu makes it pretty easy to launch macOS on kvm. I was able
to launch it on my framework chromebook from the Linux terminal
freedomben wrote 18 hours 53 min ago:
a bit off-topic, but how do you like the framework chromebook?
Very seriously considering one. I have several frameworks
running Fedora, but my daughter really wants a chromebook...
moondev wrote 17 hours 9 min ago:
I really like it actually. It's a powerhouse with 64G RAM and
NVME.
Crostini and Android apps make it really versatile. I run the
dev channel and there are all kinds of interesting features and
experiments to play with. Arch instead of Debian for crostini.
Was really disappointed when framework discontinued it, but it
seems like chromeos is converging into Android.
The flip side is that we now have crostini for Android.
Chromeos android subsystem has not been updated to be able run
it if you are wondering, heh.
righthand wrote 20 hours 10 min ago:
Mounting live Discord on your front page. Bold choice.
nxobject wrote 20 hours 12 min ago:
Heads up for arm64 users: thereâs currently no precompiled arm64
support.
marrone12 wrote 20 hours 24 min ago:
Is there a way to use this with a remote windows VM that I connect with
over RDP?
d3Xt3r wrote 19 hours 48 min ago:
You can use WinApps for that instead - supports both local and remote
VMs.
URI [1]: https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
everyone wrote 20 hours 45 min ago:
Ive been on DOS and Windows since the 80's... Recently I was mainly
using Windows 10 LTSC, but now I'm finally transitioning to Linux Mint
as my daily driver.. It's just so *good* .. The functionality, ease of
use, and "just works" aspects of it are better than any other OS imo.
It shows what can happen when a small team works with the goal of just
making the OS good and giving it as much functionality as possible vs
when a giant corp works on it with all sorts of random goals and
agendas.
I am a game dev and avid gamer, so that was the only thing keeping me
on Windows, but with stuff like Wine, Bottles, Proton, Lutris, + stuff
like this coming out that reason is fading away.
BuckRogers wrote 53 min ago:
Iâm also an 80s DOS user. Commodore actually before that. And yes
Linux Mint is the standout. There are people in the Linux community
though that resist it for various reasons. Itâs like trying to
round up cats.
I read all of the comments here and I see an awful lot of people that
stand on their heads to avoid using Windows, yet it seems they want
what Windows offers.
Iâve used many distroâs over the decades. But for a user, Mint is
the best. Unfortunately for someone who is anti-Windows, itâs also
the closest thing to a Windows clone!
I refuse to dual boot and run all of the emulation software. But what
killed it for me was the most popular competitive games. The most
advanced anti-cheat software that keeps gaming fun from cheaters is
only on Windows. So thatâs what I use exclusively. Those more
effective anti-cheat mechanisms are never going to be on Linux.
Windows is increasingly going to be where itâs at for desktop
gaming unless a guy wants to move over to consoles. Thereâs just no
real answer for this.
specproc wrote 20 hours 45 min ago:
> So, am I able to run Office 365 on it?
> Yes. :)
I mean, great. I've never actually tried since going all in on Linux.
Figured I'd just abandon the Windows world. This would be useful
though.
Does anyone here actually do this, with Winboat or any other tool?
Every time I've tried it's been too flaky to be worthwhile, but it's
been a good few years.
I'd chuffing love to have Affinity back.
heavyset_go wrote 20 hours 38 min ago:
It's just a VM + an RDP connection in rootless mode. You can do it,
but RDP is flaky in rootless mode.
I'm currently using a similar setup for Office. You lose drag and
drop, and you will be restarting the RDP client over and over again.
It's a "solution" if you're willing to put up with jank.
mijoharas wrote 19 hours 38 min ago:
Out of interest why do you need to?
I've always been fine with libre office/Google docs since moving to
Linux, but I'm not a heavy office user.
specproc wrote 15 hours 52 min ago:
Not an awful lot these days, but I used to write long,
bureaucratic docs for a living, worked a lot with complex budgets
and financial reports too.
Nothing beats native Word or Excel for this sort of work.
Browser-based tools and open alternatives don't come close.
Fortunately, it's not my main line of work now and I can get away
without. I'd still love to be able to use Word and Excel natively
though.
heavyset_go wrote 16 hours 26 min ago:
I get documents from a variety of clients that use Office, and
often get spreadsheets that have to work without any bugs or
surprises. It also helps when I'm screensharing to use tools
people are familiar with.
The final reason is that I hate having to redo my resume, which I
made originally as a .docx that doesn't render well outside of
Word. Even between Word versions it fucks up. I'm soft-locked in.
specproc wrote 20 hours 16 min ago:
Thanks, I see stuff like this and think, "well if it worked well
everyone would use it all the time".
Affinity is something I use occasionally enough to be able to put
up with a bit of jank.
Appreciate the response, good to know what I'm getting into before
diving into something.
d3Xt3r wrote 19 hours 39 min ago:
Affinity actually works fine in Wine (last I checked), takes a
bit of effort to set it up though:
URI [1]: https://github.com/seapear/AffinityOnLinux
specproc wrote 15 hours 51 min ago:
Thank you kindly
tamimio wrote 20 hours 49 min ago:
The rule of thumb is if you can use Linux and you don't have a very
weird niche application that only runs on Windows, then you should
migrate to Linux. There are plenty of good entry-level distributions
and all sorts of applications too. Sooner or later, Windows will be
abandonware with all the BS they will integrate, from always online to
AI scanning all your files, so be proactive. I think even macOS is
better than Windows in the current day, and you don't need a fortune
too. The other day I found a mid-2012 MacBook Pro for $15 at the thrift
store, installed 16GiB RAM and an SSD that I both had around, and
installed the latest Sequoia with OpenCore Legacy Patcher, and voila,
works just like new!
mcswell wrote 12 hours 46 min ago:
Until that day, there unfortunately ARE niche applications.
Fieldworks Language Explorer (aka FLEx) is software developed by SIL
Inc for doing linguistic fieldwork (dictionaries, text, grammars,
parsing...) in minority languages. There's nothing like it. There
was a Linux version, but they ran out of funding; I've used it, but
reportedly there are major bugs.
FLEx won't run under Wine, but I'll be trying this WinBoat to see if
it works.
(You may have heard of SIL's fonts, which they also make freely
available. The fonts work for a huge variety of scripts, including
the Nasta'liq Arabic style that other fonts don't touch, and Burmese,
which from a writing standpoint is truly crazy.)
insane_dreamer wrote 19 hours 51 min ago:
The problem is that some of these niche Windows-only applications
rely on drivers that are only available for Windows. In which case,
migrating to Linux is challenging at best and impossible at worst.
worik wrote 20 hours 44 min ago:
> Sooner or later, Windows will be abandonware with all the BS they
will integrate, from always online to AI scanning all your files
I really hope this is correct. If there were any justice in the
world....
But, oh my aching head, the IT industry seems to be fill of people
barely holding on, hoping and preying nobody calls their bluff.
To these people, who hold a death grip on middle management,
"nobody gets fired for buying microsoft" is a real thing
Quality be dammed, job security rules the roost
cap11235 wrote 12 hours 4 min ago:
Active Directory alone means that its going to be another COBOL
where it takes a few generations to die off, as its originators
die.
z3ratul163071 wrote 21 hours 10 min ago:
my windows paranoia got so high, i misread that as WinBloat
trying it out just now, seems like a great idea !
bee_rider wrote 21 hours 14 min ago:
It would be worthwhile to mention Proton IMO. Actually, without GPU
pass through (yet, at least) I guess they are not even going after the
same use-case anyway. It is just the other obvious comparison after
Wine.
d3Xt3r wrote 19 hours 45 min ago:
A few folks have managed to get GPU passthrough working
URI [1]: https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22
cap11235 wrote 12 hours 9 min ago:
Which always worked with KVM + Qemu w/ VFIO a decade ago? I'm not
sure how anything in this page or comments is new, or even more
convenient.
oneplane wrote 21 hours 15 min ago:
This is just a Windows VM with extra tooling. Makes it look slick,
doesn't make it "Windows apps on Linux".
Similar projects exist for gaming for example Looking Glass, which also
uses a Windows VM on KVM (the "Windows in Docker" thing is a bit of a
lie, Windows doesn't run in the container, Windows runs on KVM on the
host kernel).
UX wise, this is similar to RAIL.
That's not to say that this isn't neat, but it's also not something new
(we still have two flavours: API simulation/re-implementation and
running the OS [windows]). If this was a new, third flavour, that would
be quite the news (in-place ABI translation?).
Zardoz84 wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
Exactly the same thing of WSL2
gcr wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
In-place ABI translation is how wine works, what do you mean?
LennyHenrysNuts wrote 14 hours 53 min ago:
And I had to come here to find out what it actually was. Why don't
project pages ever actually tell you what it is, what it does and how
it does it?
Half the time it's something like "Plorglewurzle leverages your big
data block chain to provide sublinear microservices to Azure Cloud
infrastructures"
At least this one kind of shows you having to install Windows.
Hobadee wrote 3 hours 54 min ago:
I call this the "marketing website problem".
Unfortunately many companies have realized that engineers don't
make purchasing decisions. (Mearly suggestions) Rather, C-Suite,
who knows nothing about the technical side of things, and
everything about the buzzword side, makes the decisions. As a
result, companies know that if they just throw a bunch of inflated
marketing mumbo-jumbo at the user, while it will turn off every
engineer asking "WTF does this actually do and how does it work",
some C-Suite will run out and purchase it without asking, then
force their entire team to use it because it "produces synergy of
the AI block chain and big data cloud APIs while enhancing
productivity". Then us Engineers are stuck using it, whether we
wanted it or not.
pipes wrote 5 hours 12 min ago:
I was complaining about this sort of thing in another thread.
hypfer wrote 9 hours 38 min ago:
> Why don't project pages ever actually tell you what it is
If it's a good thing with substance, they do.
If they don't, don't use it. This usually hints at a broken
culture/missing substance. It _can_ also be ineptitude, but that
too is not your problem but theirs.
You woke up this morning not having the problem this sets out to
solve. You can go to sleep and rest easily this night, knowing that
you still don't have whatever problem this sets out to solve.
If you should one day wake up and notice that you have a problem
this could solve, you will find yourself googling for a solution,
again side-stepping this whole marketing nonsense.
BobbyTables2 wrote 14 hours 12 min ago:
Agree. Have even seen too many companies whose main product
completely avoids such questions. I donât get it.
Must be why Iâm not wealthy. I always figured one would have to
show people a reason why they should give boat loads of moneyâ¦
rbanffy wrote 8 hours 59 min ago:
> Must be why Iâm not wealthy. I always figured one would have
to show people a reason why they should give boat loads of
moneyâ¦
This one hit hard. It turns out Phineas Barnum was right this
whole time.
senectus1 wrote 16 hours 6 min ago:
and with MS making sure you have to sign in with a MS account... i
dont really see the point of this.
Asmod4n wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
Only the home version has that issue.
chii wrote 13 hours 1 min ago:
> MS making sure you have to sign in with a MS account
if you are capable of running linux, you're capable of working out
the various ways to bypass that sign-in "requirement".
fragmede wrote 9 hours 40 min ago:
But if using hello@example.com as the email, and using F10 and
oobe or whateve command you pulled off Google stop working, and
then you have to move to more exotic options, like downloading
programs to modify disk images to prepare a USB drive to install
an LTSP or IoT copy of windows 10 it's all just such a waste of
time to do something that should be easy all because someone at
Microsoft got on this kick that what they want is more important
than what the customer wants. It's so frustrating!
GoblinSlayer wrote 4 hours 58 min ago:
You basically need to do that anyway, because defaults are
janky.
BolexNOLA wrote 12 hours 58 min ago:
As a non-coder/engineer Linux userâ¦Iâll admit thatâs
actually not obvious to me. Linux is trivially easy to run these
days.
I could probably drop my dad in Mint and heâd assume windows
just looks different. Maybe thatâs a tad facetious but also
ehhhh I could maybe get away with it
userbinator wrote 20 hours 28 min ago:
Missed opportunity to call it "Linux Subsystem for Windows", or LSW
in short.
archargelod wrote 14 hours 22 min ago:
I think this name would be confusing.
For one - it is for linux, not windows.And it is a subsystem
running Windows. So, it should be called Windows Subsystem for
Linux, or WSL.
exe34 wrote 5 hours 48 min ago:
that's the joke!
charrondev wrote 13 hours 47 min ago:
You might be missing context here.
There is a feature of Windows called âWindows Subsystem for
Linux (WSL)â already that basically does the inverse of this
(windows host, Linux VM). [1] The feature is a windows subsystem
(for running Linux).
URI [1]: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL
Neywiny wrote 13 hours 33 min ago:
I think this may be a woosh moment where they're saying the
Microsoft version should be called LSW because it's for
Windows. Probably sounds more obvious with a more sarcastic
tone
mycall wrote 13 hours 10 min ago:
The concept of a "subsystem" in Windows has evolved since the
operating system's inception when Windows NT was designed to
support multiple operating system environments through
distinct subsystems. Win32 subsystem, which features
case-insensitive filenames and device files in every
directory, and the POSIX subsystem, which supports
case-sensitive filenames and centralized device files:
Windows subsystem, the Subsystem for Unix-based Applications
(SUA), and the Native subsystem for kernel-mode code were the
main subsystems at first.
/SUBSYSTEM linker switch was used to specify the target
subsystem at compile time, enabling applications to be
compiled for different environments such as console
applications, EFI boot environments, or native system
processes.
In this nomenclature, WSL follows the original naming
conventions (although SUA should have been called WSUA).
monocasa wrote 2 hours 34 min ago:
Except WSL doesn't actually use any of the nt subsystem
machinery in either of its incarnations.
And also, it doesn't really follow that nomenclature.
Those all follow "user code target" Subsystem. Windows
Subsystem, OS/2 Subsystem, Posix Subsystem, etc.
jraph wrote 12 hours 48 min ago:
Watch out. You are explaining serious stuff under a comment
that was essentially "watch out, your parent comment was
sarcasm".
mycall wrote 12 hours 22 min ago:
Sure, but a little education is useful as background is
often lost.
exe34 wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
I do love this sort of nerd talk!
riedel wrote 19 hours 30 min ago:
If wine was LSW1 than this is LSW2
cheema33 wrote 8 hours 18 min ago:
I think this is accurate. WSL v1 did not use a VM, just like
Wine. However both WSL v1 and Wine struggled with compatibility
issues. WSL 2 gave up and used a VM instead. You pay a
performance penalty but compatibility issues mostly go away.
Zardoz84 wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
Well, I discrepe a lot with the "compatibility issues" of
Wine... Essentially when sometimes can run better and with less
issues legacy software that modern Windows.
cheema33 wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
Example: My company uses MS Teams for meetings. Wine cannot
run it reliably.
monocasa wrote 2 hours 29 min ago:
Counter example: my windows 10 machine can't play my copy
of crysis, but my Ubuntu machine can under wine.
heavyset_go wrote 20 hours 53 min ago:
It's literally just dockur/windows:latest + FreeRDP rootless mode + a
small daemon that runs in the VM that tells you what apps are
installed via an API.
If you don't want the latter part, you'd be better served with the
dockur/windows image + FreeRDP
jeroenhd wrote 18 hours 2 min ago:
I believe Cassowary ( [1] ) is an older tool that does pretty much
this.
My experience with it is that FreeRDP in rootless mode isn't very
good for Windows applications that do anything special with window
borders. Using Office and many other programs became a pain.
When it worked, it worked really well, though. Reminds me of the
same feature that VMWare used to offer many years ago for running
XP/Vista programs on Windows 7 through a VM.
URI [1]: https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary
dijit wrote 20 hours 39 min ago:
can you do "pass a single window" with freeRDP? I haven't actually
seen that before so forgive me for asking.
This project looks like it does that, but I could be wrong.
heavyset_go wrote 20 hours 36 min ago:
Yes, it's rootless mode. FreeRDP only works with X11, so it runs
in Xwayland and the integration isn't as smooth as it could be.
It's reminiscent of rootless mode in Parallels, just as janky,
too.
d3Xt3r wrote 19 hours 51 min ago:
This is incorrect. FreeRDP has supported Wayland since a long
time via their `wlfreerdp` client - which is now deprecated,
Wayland support is now available via their `sdl3-freerdp`
client. The SDL client was alpha quality a couple of years ago,
but as of the last couple of recent releases, it's been pretty
decent. I'm unsure though if its reached full feature parity
yet with the X11 client.
heavyset_go wrote 16 hours 22 min ago:
Thanks for pointing this out, you have just made my life
easier
heavyset_go wrote 3 hours 23 min ago:
Spoke a little too soon, can't seem to get rootless mode
working with sdl-freerdp3 in the latest kwin_wayland, but
desktop mode works
JoshTriplett wrote 20 hours 38 min ago:
> can you do "pass a single window" with freeRDP?
That's what "rootless" mode does.
westurner wrote 21 hours 45 min ago:
> [Flatpak, Podman?]: This is on our to-do list, but it'll take some
effort because Flatpak is pretty isolated from the rest of the system
and apps, so we'd have to find a way to expose installed apps, the
Docker binary, and the Docker socket, and many other utilities
Vinegar wraps WINE in a Flatpak.
The vscode flatpak works with podman-remote packaged at a flatpak too;
or you can call `host-spawn` or `flatpak-spawn` like there's no
container/flatpak boundary there.
Nested rootless containers do work somehow; presumably with nested
/etc/subuids for each container?
Distrobox passes a number of flags necessary to run GUI apps in
rootless containers with Podman. Unfortunately the $XAUTHORITY path
varies with each login on modern systemd distros.
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