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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

#151

Post by maxloh »

jonp888 wrote: post #6

This system works by launching an official Windows image in Docker and then making an RDP connection to it. There are a couple of others too now like WinBoat What all of them avoid mentioning is that the images were intended by Microsoft for test and development purposes on Windows and the license clearly states you need a valid Windows license to use them: https://hub.docker.com/r/microsoft/windows#license I wonder…

I am surprised that one of the fetched scripts even hosted on Azure.

https://dev.azure.com/massgrave/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts......

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

#152

Post by SeasonalEnnui »

venturecruelty wrote: post #148
d3Xt3r wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I can't believe people will still put in all of this work instead of just... using their system's native GUI. Mind-boggling.

I've done both, I prefer embedded web views:

- All the work is done in my high performance backend, where I joyfully optimise my hot loops to the assembly level. The web view is a thin layer on top.

- HTML and CSS is a joy to work with in comparison to many UI toolkits. LLMs are better at supporting a web stack.

- The UI zooms/scales, and is accessible with screen readers (looking at you, imgui).

- Cross platform with low effort.

IMO you have to be extremely careful not to pull in a whole frontend stack. Stay as vanilla as possible, maybe alpine.js or tailwind, and I've got hot reload set up so the developer productivity loop is tight when editing the view.

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

#153

Post by 0134340 »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #136
codingrightnow wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So does KDE's Dolphin and many others on Linux. Linux had tabs on file explorers well before Explorer did as well as virtual desktops, app stores, and a few other things that Windows didn't have but later implemented.

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

#154

Post by mentalgear »

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.

Mostly Tauri claimed their main advantage was smaller app sizes since it's using the native WebView. What they didn't say is how a bottomless pit it is to try standardizing rendering on X different webviews, multiplied by X different webview versions (outdated, not updated systems) ; so now they have pivoted to shipping their own build-in browser ; Competition in open-space is okay but it shouldn't be made by only pushing its perceived advantages while withholding the systemic disadvantages.

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

#155

Post by mentalgear »

SeasonalEnnui wrote: post #152
venturecruelty wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe people will still put in all of this work instead of just... using their system's native GUI. Mind-boggling.

I've done both, I prefer embedded web views: - All the work is done in my high performance backend, where I joyfully optimise my hot loops to the assembly level. The web view is a thin layer on top. - HTML and CSS is a joy to work with in comparison to many UI toolkits. LLMs are better at supporting a web stack. - The UI zooms/scales, and is accessible with screen readers (looking at you, imgui). - Cross platform wit…

I can recommend svelte(kit): great API and compiles down to just js.

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

#156

Post by 0134340 »

BlaDeKke wrote: post #146
Telaneo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Lag was certainly a factor, but there were also weird behaviors like visual glitches and UI rendering issues. There were a number of intermittent problems that are hard to list specifically, as it’s been a few months since we tried it. She is not a power user. Working inside a container running Windows just to display MS Word introduces complexity. separate file systems, etc. Sometimes the abstraction breaks, and you…

I'm not very proficient nor really need office apps in my day to day use but I've heard good things about OnlyOffice should LibreOffice not meet your needs.

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

#157

Post by cheema33 »

mikaraento wrote: post #66
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…

Nit: RDP’s roots are more in multi-user windows like Citrix Metaframe than in remote administration. I’ve found it to perform better than the alternatives (remote X11, VNC, Chrome Remote Desktop) for remote GUIs. Nomachine is the only alternative that was close to its performance. (And before somebody jumps in to correct me - in ancient times X11 performed quite well over the network but modern Linux GUI apps are no…

Agreed that RDP is very well designed. And we don't have an equivalent in Linux or Mac world. All competing protocols are a compromise. I am particularly impressed with good multi-monitor support in RDP. Competitions has had more than a decade to get it right. But I am unaware of any that does.

If I connect remotely from a 2 monitor setup, disconnect and re-connect from my laptop with just a single display, it all magically works. Everything readjusts automatically. I don't know of any other remote desktop protocol/tool that does this so well.

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

#158

Post by immibis »

tommica wrote: post #12
userbinator wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are virtualizing it! This is incidentally how Windows 386-9x ran DOS applications - in a VM, using V86 mode.

> This is incidentally how Windows 386-9x ran DOS applications - in a VM, using V86 mode. Oh that is cool! Somehow I imagined that virtualization is more of a "modern" concept, but clearly that is naive thinking.

If you think about it, every process is a VM.

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

#159

Post by circuit10 »

0134340 wrote: post #156
BlaDeKke wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lag was certainly a factor, but there were also weird behaviors like visual glitches and UI rendering issues. There were a number of intermittent problems that are hard to list specifically, as it’s been a few months since we tried it. She is not a power user. Working inside a container running Windows just to display MS Word introduces complexity. separate file systems, etc. Sometimes the abstraction breaks, and you…

I'm not very proficient nor really need office apps in my day to day use but I've heard good things about OnlyOffice should LibreOffice not meet your needs.

I've used OnlyOffice, the UI is much closer to modern Office and generally feels more polished, and the compatibility is meant to be better as well

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

#160

Post by encom »

prox wrote: post #32
GaryBluto wrote: post #28

I see it's time for the bimonthly reinvention of VirtualBox and VMWare's seamless modes from a few faceless techies on GitHub and designed for people who can't be bothered to use WINE or VirtualBox.

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.

Anything that needs a driver isn't going to work. At my last job I needed to talk to some motor controllers and BMS systems through impressively terrible Windows software using proprietary device drivers. I had to keep a Windows partition around on my machine for this. I did have limited success with QEMU, but I never got it working quite right.
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