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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

#71

Post by pjmlp »

nickjj wrote: post #69

It's funny because I remember in 2014 before WSL, certain hypervisors like VMWare Player had the ability to run Linux apps in Windows using "unity" mode allowing Linux apps to be seamlessly blended in as regular Windows windows, complete with window decorations, alt tab, shortcuts, etc.. It worked well for what it did, I ran Sublime Text 2 back then in that way and other tools. This looks like an evolution of that, b…

The idea of blending applications is as old as X Windows servers on Windows like Hummingbird, although it wasn't virtualization, the remote X Windows applications would blend on the desktop.

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

#73

Post by InMice »

phito wrote: 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 definitely the way to go. Been using this setup for years now. Windows rdp server almost never goes down. The occasional "please wait" error when starting a session can be fixed remotely by logging into a 2nd backup user account to unstuck the main account. Gives you windows on mac and linux, lets you choose whatever type hardware for your remote host. Connection outside LAN always wrapped in a tunnel or tailscale

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

#74

Post by jodoherty »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #9
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 don't get it. Is it a VM in a container? Skimming https://hub.docker.com/r/microsoft/windows I would have interpreted that as a native Windows container, which I vaguely recall being a thing, but that would require an NT host, not Linux.

The container is a Linux container running a virtual machine inside.

WinApps needs a Windows RDP server to work. Most of the functionality doesn't care where that Windows RDP server is actually running as long as its FreeRDP client can connect to it. The container or libvirt VM options are just ways to accomplish that via virtualization.

I imagine the container part makes it easier to automate QEMU virtualization using bash scripting without worrying about distribution specific differences in the environment. These kinds of scripts become fairly ossified to their environment. Making them run consistently on different Linux distributions is its own adventure unrelated to installing and running Windows, so the containerization eliminates the need for a lot more bash scripting to account for those differences.

The container's bash scripts download the Windows installer ISOs and run them in an unattended mode inside a QEMU VM. The unattended installation is configured to skip activation:

- https://github.com/dockur/windows/blob/c7aac1edcf37a69ff730d...

- https://github.com/dockur/windows/blob/c7aac1edcf37a69ff730d...

- https://github.com/dockur/windows/blob/c7aac1edcf37a69ff730d...

Once the container is running, WinApps configures RDP via some scripts and registry settings exposed into the container via a volume so the container's scripts can copy and run them in the Windows VM:

- https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/blob/b4766336903d0cbe...

- https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/blob/main/oem/RDPApps...

You can do it all yourself too with your own libvirt VM, but it's just more involved:

- https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/blob/main/docs/libvir...

I haven't seen any of this before, but I think it's a pretty clever use of scripting and containers on top of some fairly mature but hard to use pieces of software.

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

#75

Post by yonatan8070 »

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…

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

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

#76

Post by tiahura »

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.

Office doesn’t.

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

#77

Post by slurrpurr »

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...

Your fault for not letting your drink at the bar get chemically analyzed before drinking it

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

#78

Post by yonatan8070 »

20k wrote: post #61

Does anyone know if its possible to get shell integration working? The sole app keeping me on windows is tortoisegit: you right click, and get a bunch of git commands on your context menu. If there was any way to get this running in linux, I'd swap

I don't know how similar it is, but KDE's Dolphin file manager has git integration, I don't know how similar it is to TortoiseGit, it might be worth checking out

https://apps.kde.org/dolphin_plugins/

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

#79

Post by ErroneousBosh »

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.

What do you use in Windows? It's probably easier starting there and then working out what you can do about it.

Games work great in Proton. Valve has gone all-in on Linux and I suspect before terribly long we'll see more stuff that's SteamOS native, with a compatibility layer for the people who are still using Windows.

I would suspect now that most people either play games which will mostly work okay from Steam, or use stuff that just works in a browser (and I'm kind of lumping Electron apps in with that). Then there are things that are never going to work all that well in Wine or have a native Linux port but which might be worth looking into something else for, like switching from Premiere to Resolve for video editing.

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

#80

Post by yonatan8070 »

jeena wrote: post #29
BlaDeKke wrote: post #27

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.

I tried using Office on the web for a bit, for some reason there's absolutely no way to disable auto-capitalization on the web, luckily I almost never need to use it anyway, and have LibreOffice and Google Workspace instead.
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