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WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

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Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#131

Post by hypercube33 »

wtcactus wrote: post #95
torginus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And unfortunately it has become the norm in open-source to push out shiny-looking projects with pretty logos and UX but shoddy underlying technology and deceptive/overstated claims (looking at you Tauri). Thing thing uses RDP for communication which was designed for remotely administering servers over low speed networks. VirtualBox in contrast integrates at the driver level, and allows you to share the underlying GPU…

Windows implementation of RDP is actually very good. You get a degree of responsiveness that is unachievable with neither Linux RDP implementation or any other product (maybe barring Parsec, that also doesn’t allow for Linux hosts). I know that RDP doesn’t work for gaming, but for anything else (even for CAD), it’s the best thing barring direct access to the machine (or, Parsec).

Actually with RemoteFX GPU I think DirectX 9 games or something would work OK over it.

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#132

Post by d3Xt3r »

knollimar wrote: post #124
xrd wrote: post #90

Fortnite? Then my kids can stop complaining and I can stop worrying about supporting Windows. They are happy as clams with Roblox and Minecraft on Ubuntu, and that makes me happy. I don't see anything mentioned in the issues/discussions nor on the upstream project.

isn't there wack anticheat there? Doubt it runs virtualized

You can make it work if you spoof the VM's SMBIOS strings and rename some device objects so it's not obvious you're running in a VM. Plenty of guides on how to do this, eg: https://github.com/Scrut1ny/Hypervisor-Phantom

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#133

Post by swores »

darkwater wrote: post #81
swores wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aspects of contract law mean that if MS included "you owe us your first born child" or "if you have not uninstalled this operating system within 2 weeks of installation, you owe Microsoft an additional one million dollars" then that clause wouldn't be valid. They don't however mean that MS choosing to put adverts all over Windows is illegal, or a breach of the contract, just because users would prefer the OS be…

If you bought and paid something (not a subscription) that was ad-free and then all of a sudden in a mandatory update you start to get ads, well, maybe someone already tried and failed to sue MS but personally seems pretty predatory.

From an ethical point of view I completely agree that it's predatory, I just don't believe any EU laws exist that mean anyone would have a chance of success trying to sue over that, I don't believe it to be illegal. And while I'm not all-knowing, nor am I someone who knows every single relevant law like the back of my hand, my opinion is somewhat backed up by the fact that I'm not aware of anyone with actual legal knowledge having ever suggested this behaviour of Microsoft's could be considered illegal the way you want it to be, it's only ever people who are users who think it should be considered breach of contract. (And considering how much money it would be worth if you could sue MS for this and win, if it were even a 50/50 question you'd get lawyers trying.)

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#134

Post by d3Xt3r »

Amekedl wrote: post #115
torginus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And unfortunately it has become the norm in open-source to push out shiny-looking projects with pretty logos and UX but shoddy underlying technology and deceptive/overstated claims (looking at you Tauri). Thing thing uses RDP for communication which was designed for remotely administering servers over low speed networks. VirtualBox in contrast integrates at the driver level, and allows you to share the underlying GPU…

Care to elaborate regarding tauri? I figured it has matured into a fine electron alternative.

Not OP, but I recall Tauri greatly overstating their memory usage claims. It is ultimately a browser running your "app", but just because it's not bundled with your app, doesn't make it consume any lesser RAM. And they even admitted that their benchmarks were wrong[1].

A lot of claims were also made about how Tauri is magically more performant than Electron apps and feels like a native app, but not only is this not true, on some platforms like Linux, Tauri apps are actually slower than Electron because the system webview it uses (generally WebKitGTK) is often slower and less optimised than the Chromium build that Electron ships with[2].

There's a bunch more claims due to it being "Rust" and all the memes that comes with that territory, but all that is basically irrelevant since your "app" is basically shitty javascript in the end. It's like putting lipstick and dressing up a pig, doesn't change the fact that it's still a pig.

[1] https://github.com/orgs/tauri-apps/discussions/3162

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/tauri/comments/1kg5zb8/will_tauri_f...

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#135

Post by swores »

prmoustache wrote: post #102
swores wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aspects of contract law mean that if MS included "you owe us your first born child" or "if you have not uninstalled this operating system within 2 weeks of installation, you owe Microsoft an additional one million dollars" then that clause wouldn't be valid. They don't however mean that MS choosing to put adverts all over Windows is illegal, or a breach of the contract, just because users would prefer the OS be…

Many countries have laws against "hidden defects". One could argue that adding ads after some time from a system putchased without ads throuh updates is a defect that has been hidden at purchase time.

One could argue that, and like I just wrote in my reply to your sibing comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46087142) I would agree with you with regards to ethics, but it's not a valid argument from an actual legal perspective.

I'd love to be proven wrong about this, because I'm not blowing smoke up your ass I really do agree with you in that I wish MS could and would be sued over this, and lose, and have to stop making Windows shit like this. But I'm fairly confident that the only possibility would be for EU (or individual nations) to write new legislation addressing it.

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#136

Post by trimethylpurine »

codingrightnow wrote: post #123
prox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is looking to go Linux, do most windows apps work now through Wine or VirtualBox ? I know Valve did a lot of work for games. It’s been 4 years since I even took a good look at it.

What windows apps do you need? I switched full time to Ubuntu about a month ago and haven't missed a thing. I thought it would be harder, but after some usability configuration changes like how the mouse scrolls, some browser keyboard settings, system font sizes, and logging into a few accounts it has been snag free. Oh and I did install Microsoft fonts. I hate most Linux fonts. The biggest change really is just gett…

Windows 11 has tabs in the file explorer by default.

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#137

Post by prmoustache »

20k wrote: post #98
mcny wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I have not heard before. Can you please explain your use case a bit more? What commands do you run using right click? Do you strongly prefer this over a terminal window? You can have aliases if you'd like.

I do virtually everything through tortoisegit, and much prefer it over a CLI. When you right click, you get this: https://i.postimg.cc/hG4g8pjp/tgit.png Which gives you basically everything you could ever possibly want. My main use cases for it vs a terminal interface are: 1. When you commit, you get this: https://i.postimg.cc/90YJBtz1/boaty.png Clicking the files brings up a diff, which makes pre commit reviews extr…

Any modern IDE has those functionalities, and most of them run on Linux too. I don't think there is anything you have shown that warrants sticking to Tortoise Git instead of any other IDE.

Also if you don't want to use an IDE Gnome's file manager nautilus supports scripts available on right click. This would allows you to run git commands from the file manager , show the information you need using [YAD](https://yad-guide.ingk.se/#_introduction)

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#138

Post by Telaneo »

BlaDeKke wrote: post #27

I tried this method for my wife. So she could use ms office in Linux. This isn’t an elegant solution. She’s back to windows 11. We tried…

What were the problems she encountered? I'd assume lag or inelegance, but that can be fixed by using a native Linux solution (i.e. Libreoffice), but I assume you've already tried/rejected that for other reasons. What were those in that case?

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#139

Post by exceptione »

Note that it currently only works with xfreerdp¹, so that means you share the X11 socket with this program. Although freerdp is also available for Wayland, the single app mode (aka RemoteApp aka RAILS) reportedly has not been implemented yet on the SDL port.

1. https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779

Re: WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS

#140

Post by __jonas »

BrouteMinou wrote: post #113
__jonas wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's about internet vanity, more about not constantly having advertisements or weird services / AI features pushed into your desktop environment. I'd love to just run windows if there was a version that didn't have this.

Why not just disable them?

Because they constantly get re-enabled, or new ones get added, and I don't want to have to fight my OS this hard.
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