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Convert Linux to Windows

philipbohun.com

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Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#261

Post by James_K »

DeathArrow wrote: post #225
James_K wrote: post #88

Java already solved this problem, for the most part. This whole ABI nonsense really grinds my gears. It's essentially just a result of the silly decision to compile software into dubious blobs and ship those to users. You could get rid of an awful lot of malware and massively simplify software distribution if you were to distribute a platform agnostic intermediary representation of source code that preserves enough s…

Why Libre Office takes much more time to start than MS Office? Why does it feel sluggish? At least you didn't propose to write everything in Javascript.

While the Java implementation is suboptimal, there is really no need for it to be that way. I think the ideal way to go about it would be to run the compiler optimisations and whatnot then generate something semantically similar to C89 as output. Then you invoke a simple compiler with few optimisations on the target machine the first time the program is run, and cache the results somewhere. On all subsequent runs, you've got something which can actually run faster than pre-compiled C code because the compiler doesn't need to preserve the ABI so can do stuff like inlining dynamic library calls.

Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#262

Post by acka »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #243
notfed wrote: post #121

> Thesis: We should create a distro of Linux that runs Windows binaries by default via Wine. On Debian you're one package away: sudo apt install wine-binfmt Otherwise you're still pretty close: echo 'none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc defaults 0 0' >> /etc/fstab mount -a echo ':DOSWin:M::MZ::/usr/bin/wine:' > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register

Is it just me or wine needs a bit more polish? Dialogs and menus are rendered with some weird microscopic font. GDI text rendering seemingly doesn't use font fallbacks, so even something like Scintilla or ebook reader don't quite work under wine.

Many commonly used Windows fonts are licensed under proprietary terms, preventing their inclusion with Wine.

Winetricks[1] can be used to acquire and install a set of default fonts directly from Microsoft.

Furthermore, Windows font fallback differs substantially from that of Linux and similar systems, which generally utilize Fontconfig and FreeType with font relationships defined in configuration files. In contrast, Windows (and consequently Wine) employs a font linking mechanism[2]. Windows handles font linking natively, whereas Wine requires manual registry configuration[3].

[1] https://github.com/Winetricks/winetricks

[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/fonts-layout...

[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29028964/font-recognitio...

Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#263

Post by graemep »

There are multiple distros that make it very easy - as in download a .exe or .msi and click on it: https://help.zorin.com/docs/apps-games/windows-app-support/

Some of these have a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire

They have never been all that successful.

I suspect there is not enough overlap between people who want to use Linux and people who need to run Windows apps that badly for it to be viable.

The biggest problem is games, and even with Steam's best efforts not all Windows games will run on Linux, AFAIK.

Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#265

Post by maccard »

flohofwoe wrote: post #259
maccard wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the actual problem glibc since the Linux syscall interface is stable? Yes > I would expect that I can take a 20 years old Linux binary which only does syscalls and run that on a modern Linux, is that assumption wrong? You’re right. But those apps are simple enough that we could probably compile them quicker than they actually run. > I expect that Windows is full of application specific hacks under the hood to…

I'm not trying to defend Linux btw, and I appreciate Microsoft's approach to backward compatibility (some of the Windows games I play regularly hail from the late 90s). Just wanted to point out that ABI stability alone probably isn't the reason why Windows is so backward compatible, there's most likely a lot of 'boring' QA and maintenance work going on under the hood to make it work. Also FWIW some of the early D3D9…

Again, you’re technically correct but I don’t think it matters.

Windows gives (in practice) DE, user space, and kernel stability, and various Linux distributions don’t. If you care about changing the Linux ecosystem to provide that stability it matters, but if you want to run an old application it doesn’t.

Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#266

Post by p_l »

eitland wrote: post #180
csdvrx wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next step is to isolate the Windows applications: you could use different WINEPREFIX, but I think the better way is to do it like android: one "user" per application. It's not just to prevent applications to read other applications files, but also to firewall each application individually For example, if you don't want the application you've mapped to user id 1001 to have any networking, use iptables with '-m own…

This is really interesting. I thought it was impossible to run newer versions of Office on Linux. Myself I often prefer LibreOffice, but more options are more options!

Office 2013, last non Click2Run version, worked wonderfully on Wine few years ago

Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#267

Post by graemep »

dartharva wrote: post #129
pdonis wrote: post #68

To the extent binary distribution is "unstable" on Linux, it's because users aren't expected to just download random binaries from wherever, as is normal on Windows (and Mac, for that matter). Users are expected to either obtain binaries from their distro, or compile them from source. In either case, all of the issues about binary distribution being "unstable" are invisible to users. Which is the point. People who wa…

Speak for yourself. I have been using Linux for a decade and would want nothing more if standalone application setups like those in Windows became the norm of software distribution. Centralized package management is a curse. Apps should be responsible for their own updates, not the OS.

Given that every OS is heading towards centralised application updates. Windows Store does that AFAIK. I am guessing MacOS's store does too. The major mobile OSes and its the only way almost all users install anything.

Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#269

Post by int_19h »

foxes wrote: post #163

20 year old games don’t work on modern windows that well at all, so that’s one counter example, so not sure where the point comes from.

It really depends on the game, but generally speaking, 20 year old games (that would be from 2005) work on modern Windows just fine. Games developed back in Win9x era are usually more troublesome.

Re: Convert Linux to Windows

#270

Post by t43562 »

Dancing to a proprietary tune is risky - they can decide to change the API or go after you with lawsuits if it becomes too competitive.

You can provide backwards compatibility in Linux - you can keep old versions of libraries installed. The more commercial distros do this to a greater degree. It's roughly what windows is doing to achieve the same result.

It's just a cost to arrange and since most distros aren't making billions in licensing they choose not to pay it.

Obviously I have nothing against a wine-focused distro but I wouldn't myself waste a fraction of a second writing code against the windows API by choice.

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