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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

#171

Post by Saris »

yonatan8070 wrote: post #75
mikaraento wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From my personal experience (by feel, not scientific), NVIDIA GameStream is way faster than RDP. I used it with Sunshine and Moonlight.

Things made for game streaming will be more responsive at the tradeoff of massive bandwidth usage in comparison. RDP can work over slow connections reasonably well.

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

#172

Post by Nextgrid »

kachapopopow wrote: post #19
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…

https://get.activated.win wouldn't be online if microsoft cared.

Microsoft doesn't care if a home or hobbyist user uses this, because enforcing the license against such a user is not worth it as the payout wouldn't even cover their own effort/lawyers.

Microsoft may absolutely care if you use this at work (even by accident, by bringing your personal machine to the office) since that's where they can collect a decent amount of money for a license breach.

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

#173

Post by Nextgrid »

Hasnep wrote: post #50
sschueller wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked I did not agree to be bombarded with ads and have all my data tracked after paying 100+ for a piece of software...

You kinda did... > By accepting this agreement and using the software you agree that Microsoft may collect, use, and disclose the information as described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement [...] Doesn't make it okay, just legal https://www.microsoft.com/content/dam/microsoft/usetm/docume...

Doesn't necessarily make it legal either, but proving that in court would require pitting your own wallet against Microsoft's.

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

#174

Post by Nextgrid »

Saris wrote: post #171
yonatan8070 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my personal experience (by feel, not scientific), NVIDIA GameStream is way faster than RDP. I used it with Sunshine and Moonlight.

Things made for game streaming will be more responsive at the tradeoff of massive bandwidth usage in comparison. RDP can work over slow connections reasonably well.

Massive bandwidth usage and video compression artifacts. It's fine for games and media consumption, but may be problematic for office work.

Remote desktop protocols prefer lossless compression to achieve pixel-perfect rendering, at the expense of framerate/latency.

RDP is unique in that it's not just streaming, but integrates with Windows' GUI stack to actually offload compositing to the client. This however works less and less well with web and Electron apps which do not use native OS widgets.

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

#175

Post by Nextgrid »

hypercube33 wrote: post #131
wtcactus wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember booting Crysis with that. I wouldn't say it was playable, but the fact it managed to actually launch was impressive. Maybe with modern hardware & bandwidths it would actually be.

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

#176

Post by Nextgrid »

hedora wrote: post #112
mathfailure wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To pass through a GPU - you'd need an extra GPU then..?

Also, the last time I checked, many GPUs explicitly detect + block this because they want you to pay for more expensive datacenter versions of the hardware. Did something change?

My understanding is that it's trivially defeatable by configuring the hypervisor to hide itself (passthrough the real CPUID strings from the processor, ACPI/SMBIOS data/etc), and graphics drivers didn't really put any more effort into detecting beyond that. It's been years since I've been on this scene though, so my info may be out of date.

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

#177

Post by kachapopopow »

Nextgrid wrote: post #172
kachapopopow wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://get.activated.win wouldn't be online if microsoft cared.

Microsoft doesn't care if a home or hobbyist user uses this, because enforcing the license against such a user is not worth it as the payout wouldn't even cover their own effort/lawyers. Microsoft may absolutely care if you use this at work (even by accident, by bringing your personal machine to the office) since that's where they can collect a decent amount of money for a license breach.

speaking from office / work perspective microsoft is actually not the company that cares either, you receive a bounty/payout for reporting license violations within your company.

IANA (iamnotamerican) so cannot really confirm except for 2nd hand knowledge, but in my european country every company I've been around in just uses pirated everything.

Also this is a tool that breaches several agreements and laws, including the particulary nasty one of DMCA (breaking digital locks) if anything this is the one thing microsoft should care about rather than individual users breaking said license.

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

#178

Post by burnt-resistor »

BlaDeKke wrote: post #126
burnt-resistor wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least use 11 Enterprise (24H2) to mostly avoid the nonstop cacophony of ads. I don't want to hear about 365 or OneDrive or OneNote or Copilot every 3 μs. Before AppVolumes got bought and became VMware App Volumes, there was Softricity (which became Microsoft App-V).. the app was actually a thin client to talk to a terminal server running the app in a container on a server. Office "installs" in 1 second because it'…

We have a 365 subscription. I guess that reduces the noise quite a lot.

Please stop paying to rent what was owned instead. You're encouraging bad company behavior like subscriptions for heated seats.

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

#179

Post by 20k »

prmoustache wrote: post #137
20k wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

Tortoisegit isn't an ide though, and the quality of git integration varies wildly between different ides - many of them have pretty toy integration. Its much nicer to have proper quality support of uniform quality, rather than having to rely on whatever you happen to be using at the time

Ideally I'd like to avoid having to reimplement the whole thing from scratch using ad-hoc scripts

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

#180

Post by trimethylpurine »

0134340 wrote: post #153
trimethylpurine wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right. It seems that maybe gp wasn't aware.
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