3 ms·

I don't want to want this, but I do. Only semi-related but what I really want is for easy windows apps on linux that work without fail. I prefer my linux box a

by jjcon 5y ago

I don't want to want this, but I do. Only semi-related but what I really want is for easy windows apps on linux that work without fail. I prefer my linux box and generally hate the windows ui (don't get me started on windows settings or audio). I've tried switching to linux full-time but I don't know if I can hack it. Games are 90% there and I can do without the few that don't work with proton, but there are just too many apps that only work on my windows side that I just don't think I can dump windows. Wine gives me inconsistent results and breaks for just about anything that needs registry access, not to mention its pretty complicated. I'm hoping to stumble on some tool I've been missing out on that makes everything easier because I wan't to run linux as my daily... I just don't know if it is practical.

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jraph 5y ago
Would a Windows VM on your Linux system help? Maybe some apps have robust alternatives?
smichel17 5y ago
Which apps? Not that it makes a difference for this conversation, but I'm interested in keeping up to date with what the "killer apps" are that keep people from switching.
- Briq7 5y ago
  I just recently switch from windows to linux. Was planning to do some 3D printing tomorrow, but saw that Fusion360 had poor Wine support. So I probably need to learn a new software or setup a VM or something.
  - flexer2 5y ago
    Fusion360 is the only thing I run a VM for. There’s a repo out there that sets up wine and installs it but it just doesn’t work very well at all. I’m using VMWare Player and set up the virtual disk to boot from the Windows drive and run it that way. It works really well. Other 3D printing stuff like PrusaSlicer works great on Linux. I’d love to have a native version of Fusion though. Maybe someday.
- jjcon 5y ago
  For me there are a couple areas that just have a tough time in linux: VR Development, Digital audio workstations and niche utilities. It is getting better but still has a ways to go in these areas imo. Specifically: VR Development - Unity now has a linux version which is great but there is no oculus runtime which means no oculus testing (SteamVR works but has some hiccups) Digital audio workstations - Looking primarily at FL Studio, yes you can wine it but for me the audio delay makes it very difficult to use. I'd love to find solutions around this but haven't thus far. Niche utilities - For game dev I've got a ton of old utilities for visualizing or converting old 3d object files to newer formats, sdks for old games that I occasionally need to pop into and all of them struggle or require a lot of setup to work properly on linux. For these I find myself booting over to windows, grabbing what I need and popping back to linux.
- mcswell 5y ago
  If you're talking about Windows apps that keep me from switching to Linux, I have an oddball one: it's a keyboard re-mapper that I wrote back in Windows 3.1 and still use. It does the same re-mapping in every application (except for some reason in Microsoft Edge). It's not a simple 1-for-1 mapper, which I think is readily available in Linux. At the simplest level, it re-maps ^H to the left cursor arrow, ^N to PageDown, etc. But it gets more complicated: ^D maps to seven down cursor arrows (i.e. it moves the cursor down seven lines), ^U in the opposite direction. ^C usually (more details below) maps to ^Left (i.e. go to the beginning of the word), Shift-^Right (select to end of word), and ^C (copy selected text). (Notice the final ^C does not cause recursion!) ^A once goes to the beginning of the line, ^A twice goes to top of screen (I forget the exact keystrokes it emits, but this works with most apps), and ^A thrice goes to the beginning of the file. Analogously for ^E, but end. Finally, it has two modes. In the normal mode, all the cursor control keys do their normal cursor movement thing. But type ^Q, and the cursor keys are now in select mode: ^H outputs Shift-Left, i.e. selects the character to the left, etc. Drop out of select mode with ^C (copy selection--different from what I described above!), ^X (cut selection), or ^Q again (do nothing with the selection). I'd love to be able to reproduce this kind of behavior in Linux. I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know enough about keyboard re-mapping, or keyboard drivers, to do it.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    If you use Xorg you can use XInput2 and XIGrabKeycode[0] to grab specific key combinations and get notified (via event messages, they happen asynchronously) when they are pressed. Then you can use XTest and XTestFakeKeyEvent[1] to send the event you want. XInput2 and XIGrabKeycode should provide the highest priority grabbing under Xorg so that even applications that do server-wide grabs (e.g. games) will be bypassed. XTest was meant for automated UI testing but can be used for all sorts of automated behaviors. For the first part i wrote a simple program[2] years a go that uses xkill to kill the toplevel window with Ctrl+Alt+K (mainly for games that grab the input and hang) which can be used as a quick example. I haven't tried to use XTestFakeKeyEvent but there seems to be a lot of code out there which can be used as an example, e.g. this one[2] (see the send_key function near the top). [0] https://linux.die.net/man/3/xigrabkeycode https://linux.die.net/man/3/xigrabkeycode [1] https://linux.die.net/man/3/xtestfakekeyevent https://linux.die.net/man/3/xtestfakekeyevent [2] http://runtimeterror.com/tools/xkeyller/ http://runtimeterror.com/tools/xkeyller/ [3] http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/matchbox-history/plain/matchbox-tests/sendkey.c http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/matchbox-history/plain/...
caust1c 5y ago
Have you heard of VFIO for Graphics Cards in Linux host with Windows Guest? Haven't tried it yet, but it's my winter project and I'm excited: https://passthroughpo.st/ https://passthroughpo.st/
- jjcon 5y ago
  I haven't personally done much with VFIO but I have looked at it. From my initial look it seemed as if it would require two gpus, one for the host and one for the guest but it looks like some people have single gpu setups working https://github.com/joeknock90/Single-GPU-Passthrough https://github.com/joeknock90/Single-GPU-Passthrough
owalt 5y ago
> don't get me started on windows settings or audio I'll bite - what's wrong with the audio? Friends on mine in game dev often complain Linux audio is hopeless to work with.
- therein 5y ago
  Keeps switching between different outputs in games and no matter what I do with the default communication device etc. it keeps happening. I lose audio in games on random intervals and I don't get it back until I switch my output device to something else and back. Used to happen only in Warzone but now I'm noticing it affects games with other engines as well. Granted I have a very non-standard setup but it shouldn't be causing any of these issues.
  - ziml77 5y ago
    Does Windows think that audio devices are being connected or disconnected? That's the only time I've had the default device switch on me. Annoyingly it can end up happening if you have a display that presents itself as an audio endpoint and then that display is turned off or even just goes to sleep.
    - therein 5y ago
      Interesting perspective. I had always blamed it on something pertaining to my VFIO setup but I think you are pointing out something that might be at play here that I hadn't considered before. I'll disable the speakers on the monitor from the HW menu on the monitor and see if that helps.
- watermelon0 5y ago
  Maybe they just mean the audio UI? It's complex, and at least on Windows 10 it's a mix of the new UI and old UI. For example, figuring out how to configure and test surround sound channels means click through multiple dialogs, and it's not clear how exactly to get there. With Windows 10, it's even harder to access sound mixer than it was on previous versions, and this is what to use in 99% after clicking on audio icon in the taskbar.

by jjcon 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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deleted 5y ago

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jraph 5y ago

Would a Windows VM on your Linux system help? Maybe some apps have robust alternatives?

smichel17 5y ago

Which apps? Not that it makes a difference for this conversation, but I'm interested in keeping up to date with what the "killer apps" are that keep people from switching.

Briq7 5y ago
I just recently switch from windows to linux. Was planning to do some 3D printing tomorrow, but saw that Fusion360 had poor Wine support. So I probably need to learn a new software or setup a VM or something.
- flexer2 5y ago
  Fusion360 is the only thing I run a VM for. There’s a repo out there that sets up wine and installs it but it just doesn’t work very well at all. I’m using VMWare Player and set up the virtual disk to boot from the Windows drive and run it that way. It works really well. Other 3D printing stuff like PrusaSlicer works great on Linux. I’d love to have a native version of Fusion though. Maybe someday.
jjcon 5y ago
For me there are a couple areas that just have a tough time in linux: VR Development, Digital audio workstations and niche utilities. It is getting better but still has a ways to go in these areas imo. Specifically: VR Development - Unity now has a linux version which is great but there is no oculus runtime which means no oculus testing (SteamVR works but has some hiccups) Digital audio workstations - Looking primarily at FL Studio, yes you can wine it but for me the audio delay makes it very difficult to use. I'd love to find solutions around this but haven't thus far. Niche utilities - For game dev I've got a ton of old utilities for visualizing or converting old 3d object files to newer formats, sdks for old games that I occasionally need to pop into and all of them struggle or require a lot of setup to work properly on linux. For these I find myself booting over to windows, grabbing what I need and popping back to linux.
mcswell 5y ago
If you're talking about Windows apps that keep me from switching to Linux, I have an oddball one: it's a keyboard re-mapper that I wrote back in Windows 3.1 and still use. It does the same re-mapping in every application (except for some reason in Microsoft Edge). It's not a simple 1-for-1 mapper, which I think is readily available in Linux. At the simplest level, it re-maps ^H to the left cursor arrow, ^N to PageDown, etc. But it gets more complicated: ^D maps to seven down cursor arrows (i.e. it moves the cursor down seven lines), ^U in the opposite direction. ^C usually (more details below) maps to ^Left (i.e. go to the beginning of the word), Shift-^Right (select to end of word), and ^C (copy selected text). (Notice the final ^C does not cause recursion!) ^A once goes to the beginning of the line, ^A twice goes to top of screen (I forget the exact keystrokes it emits, but this works with most apps), and ^A thrice goes to the beginning of the file. Analogously for ^E, but end. Finally, it has two modes. In the normal mode, all the cursor control keys do their normal cursor movement thing. But type ^Q, and the cursor keys are now in select mode: ^H outputs Shift-Left, i.e. selects the character to the left, etc. Drop out of select mode with ^C (copy selection--different from what I described above!), ^X (cut selection), or ^Q again (do nothing with the selection). I'd love to be able to reproduce this kind of behavior in Linux. I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know enough about keyboard re-mapping, or keyboard drivers, to do it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  If you use Xorg you can use XInput2 and XIGrabKeycode[0] to grab specific key combinations and get notified (via event messages, they happen asynchronously) when they are pressed. Then you can use XTest and XTestFakeKeyEvent[1] to send the event you want. XInput2 and XIGrabKeycode should provide the highest priority grabbing under Xorg so that even applications that do server-wide grabs (e.g. games) will be bypassed. XTest was meant for automated UI testing but can be used for all sorts of automated behaviors. For the first part i wrote a simple program[2] years a go that uses xkill to kill the toplevel window with Ctrl+Alt+K (mainly for games that grab the input and hang) which can be used as a quick example. I haven't tried to use XTestFakeKeyEvent but there seems to be a lot of code out there which can be used as an example, e.g. this one[2] (see the send_key function near the top). [0] https://linux.die.net/man/3/xigrabkeycode https://linux.die.net/man/3/xigrabkeycode [1] https://linux.die.net/man/3/xtestfakekeyevent https://linux.die.net/man/3/xtestfakekeyevent [2] http://runtimeterror.com/tools/xkeyller/ http://runtimeterror.com/tools/xkeyller/ [3] http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/matchbox-history/plain/matchbox-tests/sendkey.c http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/matchbox-history/plain/...

caust1c 5y ago

Have you heard of VFIO for Graphics Cards in Linux host with Windows Guest? Haven't tried it yet, but it's my winter project and I'm excited: https://passthroughpo.st/ https://passthroughpo.st/

jjcon 5y ago
I haven't personally done much with VFIO but I have looked at it. From my initial look it seemed as if it would require two gpus, one for the host and one for the guest but it looks like some people have single gpu setups working https://github.com/joeknock90/Single-GPU-Passthrough https://github.com/joeknock90/Single-GPU-Passthrough

owalt 5y ago

> don't get me started on windows settings or audio I'll bite - what's wrong with the audio? Friends on mine in game dev often complain Linux audio is hopeless to work with.

therein 5y ago
Keeps switching between different outputs in games and no matter what I do with the default communication device etc. it keeps happening. I lose audio in games on random intervals and I don't get it back until I switch my output device to something else and back. Used to happen only in Warzone but now I'm noticing it affects games with other engines as well. Granted I have a very non-standard setup but it shouldn't be causing any of these issues.
- ziml77 5y ago
  Does Windows think that audio devices are being connected or disconnected? That's the only time I've had the default device switch on me. Annoyingly it can end up happening if you have a display that presents itself as an audio endpoint and then that display is turned off or even just goes to sleep.
  - therein 5y ago
    Interesting perspective. I had always blamed it on something pertaining to my VFIO setup but I think you are pointing out something that might be at play here that I hadn't considered before. I'll disable the speakers on the monitor from the HW menu on the monitor and see if that helps.
watermelon0 5y ago
Maybe they just mean the audio UI? It's complex, and at least on Windows 10 it's a mix of the new UI and old UI. For example, figuring out how to configure and test surround sound channels means click through multiple dialogs, and it's not clear how exactly to get there. With Windows 10, it's even harder to access sound mixer than it was on previous versions, and this is what to use in 99% after clicking on audio icon in the taskbar.