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

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31–40 of 188 posts

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

#31
post #26

How good is it in practice? I've found windows VMs under a Linux host to be frustrating to use, and get poor performances no matter how much resources I throw at it. The clock keeps getting messed up all the time. UI is sluggish. I now use a dedicated windows laptop in RDP and it is such a better experience better than a VM.

> UI is sluggish

You absolutely need to pass through a GPU so that DWM.exe is properly accelerated; otherwise, it falls back to the software-accelerated WARP and the performance tanks to ~15 FPS.

It doesn't need to be anything powerful; if you have an idle integrated card that you aren't using on the Linux host because you only interact with it through a Web server or SSH (for instance, Proxmox), then pass that through. It's what I do on my home lab which runs a 9950X.

Before people raise pitchforks against Linux, this applies there, too, for the record: at work I have a Linux instance just to myself that by any other metric is ridiculously powerful: 64-core Epyc, 96 GB memory, but no iGPU, so remote desktop works very poorly.

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

#32

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.

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

#34
post #32

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.

A lot of them do, but for almost everything there are native alternatives.

I haven't used Wine directly in years, only indirectly through Steam.

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

#35
post #30

I would be looking for a solution to run Minecraft official launcher in Linux. It is heavily integrated with Windows extras such as the Microsoft Store. This is the last holdout to get my children on Linux.

What's missing from the launcher available on Linux? I've been using it for many years, but I have never used in on Windows.

There are two editions: Java and Bedrock. Bedrock is the one that's got Realms, which is the easy way to get servers running.

Have this problem with my brother and nephew, would love to get the lad on Linux, but this is a real obstacle.

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

#36
post #29

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…

I'm using MS Office for Work in the browser. But I just live with the shortcomings specifically in PowerPoint where I can't do connectors for example.

She only uses that laptop for MS Office. She did actually use the browser version for a few months, but even that is a significant downgrade compared to native apps.

MS Office and most popular multiplayer games are the 2 biggest hurdles for Linux adoption at the moment.

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

#37
post #32

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.

Most things work great. There are some niche things that do not work so well. Example: SteamVR,Vive VR Hub, some AntiCheat for games.

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

#38

Windows have wsl and linux have wine,winapps etc at some point in the future, Your OS wouldnt matters because all OS is reaching feature parity

The OS matters, because if it belongs to a mega-corporation, it serves its goals, not yours. Examples: Windows spying on users, iOS not allowing 3rd-party apps without you providing all your private data to Apple.

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

#39
post #26

How good is it in practice? I've found windows VMs under a Linux host to be frustrating to use, and get poor performances no matter how much resources I throw at it. The clock keeps getting messed up all the time. UI is sluggish. I now use a dedicated windows laptop in RDP and it is such a better experience better than a VM.

It's pretty good. They use XfreeRDP to remote into the container and display individual windows. This somehow performs a lot better than the GPU emulations of VirtualBox or VMware. I guess Microsoft put some effort into optimizing RDP for Terminal Server applications.

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

#40

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.

Except these seamless modes have been broken for many years. Also using a containerized Windows means one doesn't have to fiddle with the insane Windows 11 setup process and TPM issues.
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