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I don't think a new distro is needed. Most commonly used windows apps can be made to work through wine, but the hacks used to make one app work can break others

I don't think a new distro is needed. Most commonly used windows apps can be made to work through wine, but the hacks used to make one app work can break others and vice versa. Similarly, everyone needs to play around with settings individually to get things to work. What works on one person's machine might not work on another's, because there's no consistency in, effectively, configuration. The simplest solution, to me, is to just distribute containers (or some other sandbox) with wine in it, and the necessary shenanigans to get the windows program (just the one) working in the container, and just distribute that. Everyone gets the same artifact, and it always works. No more dicking around with wine settings, because it's baked in for whatever the software is. Yes, this is tremendously space inefficient, so the next step would be a way of slimming wine down for container usage. The only real barrier to this system is licensing and software anti patterns. You might have to do some dark magic to install the software in the container in the first place.

trelane 2y ago
The concept of containers for Windows applications running in WINE is called "bottles." https://support.codeweavers.com/en_US/2-getting-started/2-installing-an-unlisted-application https://support.codeweavers.com/en_US/2-getting-started/2-in... I believe it started with Cedega, but I could be wrong. That's where I first recall encountering it.
- coderenegade 2y ago
  TIL. I'm gonna check this out. It's good to see that people are already working on this, because it's one of those things that, to me, just makes a lot of sense. You'd think that with the all of the layers of abstraction we have nowadays, it should be possible to run software on any underlying system in an ergonomic fashion, even if it's not necessarily efficient.
  - csdvrx 2y ago
    It's extremely efficient: cold starting Word from an old Office suite is much faster than starting Libreoffice. It also uses less RAM. A few years ago I purchased a few shrink-wrapped Office on ebay for each of the versions Wine claimed to support best, tested then with wine32 and wine64, and concluded the "sweet spot" was Office 2010 in wine32 (it may have changed, as wine keep evolving) Yes, it's 15 years old software, but it works flawlessly with Unicode xkb symbols! Since it doesn't have any network access, and each app is isolated in a different user id, I don't think it can cause any problem. And Ii I can still use vim to do everything I need and take advantage of how it will not surprise me with any unwanted changes, I don't see why I couldn't use say an old version of Excel in the same way!
    - doublepg23 2y ago
      It is interesting seeing Office suites from the 90s and wondering what really needed improved. Google Docs pioneering “auto saving” in the cloud is the only one I can think of.
      - csdvrx 2y ago
        > wondering what really needed improved Maybe not much? A few months ago, I ran out of power (my mistake, I use full screen apps to avoid the distraction, so I didn't realize I was unplugged) After plugging in and restarting Linux then the ancient version of Word I was using, I got a pleasant surprise: the "autosaved" version of the document I was editing, with nothing lost! As for llm, Excel 2010 may not have been made for AI, but wine copy/paste and a few scripts work surprisingly well!
        squiggleblaz 2y ago
        Autosave has been part of Excel for ages. I had it enabled back in the early 1990s with the version that was distributed alongside Word 6 as part of Office 4.3 (I don't remember the Excel version number).
        p_ing 2y ago
        Current Excel Autosave when used with ODSP is different -- changes are individually autosaved (change cell, autosave, format table, autosave). They're completely transparent to the end user. Word is similar.
        jack_pp 2y ago
        So you're saying you're using Word 2010 and have no problem with files created recently? I find it surprising that modern word .docx is compatible with 15 year old Word
        clusterfook 2y ago
        Not too suprising though. It is zipped xml. Future versions may add to the xml optional nodes that can be ignored by previous versions.
- Cyphase 2y ago
  https://usebottles.com/ https://usebottles.com/
- pbohun 2y ago
  I really like the idea of bottles. I wish there was a way to bundle that up into a distro and make it invisible to the user so I could setup my friends and family with it.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    Could call it "transparent bottles".
    - unfitted2545 2y ago
      GlassBottle, hopefully the illusion doesn’t get shattered!
nine_k 2y ago
Flatpak could work better because it already knows how to factor out common parts, so it could bring in only one (or just few) version of Wine.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
  Unfortunately Flathub (the biggest Flatpak repository) doesn't allow Windows apps, despite it working on a technical level
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/requirements https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/requirements says, > Windows application submissions that are using Wine or any submissions that aren't native to Linux desktop and is using some emulation or translation layer will only be accepted if they are submitted officially by upstream with the intention of maintaining it in official capacity. Although, I am curious why; they don't seem to have a general problem with unofficial packages, so I'm not sure why a translation layer makes any difference. It doesn't seem different than happening to use any other runtime (ex. nothing is said about Java or .net).
    - coderenegade 2y ago
      Probably because it's implicitly pirated. No one is sharing windows freeware this way, because there's no demand for it. It'll be MS Office, Photoshop, CAD, etc. -- stuff for which there's still no good OSS alternative, and for which the barrier to entry is high. It would take a large organization with enough connections to cut through this. You'd probably need to cut a deal so you could distribute their software, and you'd need to provide a mechanism for users to be able to make purchases. Even then, there are various licensing challenges, because you would be distributing the same install, so thousands (or millions) of "installs" would effectively have the same serial or license number. It's nontrivial, but the basic idea is straightforward and doable. The challenge is how windows software is distributed and licensed, not anything technical.
immibis 2y ago
If you change a lot of things about a Linux system, then you're making a new distro. Half of this incompatibility is because Linux is flexible, anyway. My system is different from your system, and did anyone test on both? If you want a more stable ABI then you need a more stable system.
- coderenegade 2y ago
  You wouldn't have to change anything about the underlying system, which is the point. Containers work the same regardless of the underlying system, so they get around the various differences in everyone's individual machine. I use identical containers routinely on Fedora and Ubuntu systems at home without any issue, and I produce containers for RHEL and various other systems at work. Half the point of containers is eliminating the variability between dev systems and deployment. Rather than everyone having to get the software working on their machine, you would get it working once in the container, and then just distribute that.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Containers work because your kernel is close to identical, and ship their own copy of everything else making them bloated, and incompatible at a user-mode level (no graphics drivers!). If my kernel was also very different from yours (which could just be a couple of kernel options or major versions) I'd need a virtual machine.
win32lover 2y ago
At this point nobody is going to learn a new system. People already know how to write and package exes which is the whole point. > but the hacks used to make one app work can break others and vice versa I think a lot of these problems could be avoided with a singular OS with the sole goal to support windows exes.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  That exists, it’s called SteamOS.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    And if memory serves one of the important features of Proton is to control how each app is configured individually, precisely to let you do needed tweaks at a local level.
    - bitmasher9 2y ago
      Yes, and you can do this application specific tweaking but it’s largely less required now than it was in the past.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
        Less required in general or by the user? I sort of had it in my head that part of what Proton did was to just bundle all of those tweaks so you didn't have to think about it, but I haven't actually looked under the hood.
        barotalomey 2y ago
        Correct. Parent is misinformed.
  - win32lover 2y ago
    SteamOS is very clearly Linux which is not what the blog is suggesting.
LeFantome 2y ago
You could distribute Wine as a Flatpak platform. Flatpaks are already containers that run the same on all distros. Making a Win32 base that works in this same way using the same tooling would not be difficult.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  There was Winepak (abandoned, sadly): https://winepak.github.io/ https://winepak.github.io/
DeathArrow 2y ago
>I don't think a new distro is needed. Most commonly used windows apps can be made to work through wine I think the idea is to provide a seamless Windows like experience so the user works exact how he expects to work under Windows. Without having to fiddle, modify configurations, wrestle with different settings. Just click and run.
- coderenegade 2y ago
  Yes, which is what I mentioned in the rest of the post. You could distribute a container that has wine in it, with just the configuration necessary to get the software working in the container. It would be straightforward to write a thin abstraction layer that pulls the container (installation) and gives you an executable that you can double click on and launch. An end user wouldn't need to modify configs or wrestle settings, because that's already done for you upstream. You just get an artifact that you can click and run. From the other posts, Proton and Steam Deck already do something similar, and this is also conceptually similar to the way AppImages, Flatpaks etc. work.
DrillShopper 2y ago
This is how Proton from Steam works

trelane 2y ago

The concept of containers for Windows applications running in WINE is called "bottles." https://support.codeweavers.com/en_US/2-getting-started/2-installing-an-unlisted-application https://support.codeweavers.com/en_US/2-getting-started/2-in... I believe it started with Cedega, but I could be wrong. That's where I first recall encountering it.

coderenegade 2y ago
TIL. I'm gonna check this out. It's good to see that people are already working on this, because it's one of those things that, to me, just makes a lot of sense. You'd think that with the all of the layers of abstraction we have nowadays, it should be possible to run software on any underlying system in an ergonomic fashion, even if it's not necessarily efficient.
- csdvrx 2y ago
  It's extremely efficient: cold starting Word from an old Office suite is much faster than starting Libreoffice. It also uses less RAM. A few years ago I purchased a few shrink-wrapped Office on ebay for each of the versions Wine claimed to support best, tested then with wine32 and wine64, and concluded the "sweet spot" was Office 2010 in wine32 (it may have changed, as wine keep evolving) Yes, it's 15 years old software, but it works flawlessly with Unicode xkb symbols! Since it doesn't have any network access, and each app is isolated in a different user id, I don't think it can cause any problem. And Ii I can still use vim to do everything I need and take advantage of how it will not surprise me with any unwanted changes, I don't see why I couldn't use say an old version of Excel in the same way!
  - doublepg23 2y ago
    It is interesting seeing Office suites from the 90s and wondering what really needed improved. Google Docs pioneering “auto saving” in the cloud is the only one I can think of.
    - csdvrx 2y ago
      > wondering what really needed improved Maybe not much? A few months ago, I ran out of power (my mistake, I use full screen apps to avoid the distraction, so I didn't realize I was unplugged) After plugging in and restarting Linux then the ancient version of Word I was using, I got a pleasant surprise: the "autosaved" version of the document I was editing, with nothing lost! As for llm, Excel 2010 may not have been made for AI, but wine copy/paste and a few scripts work surprisingly well!
      - squiggleblaz 2y ago
        Autosave has been part of Excel for ages. I had it enabled back in the early 1990s with the version that was distributed alongside Word 6 as part of Office 4.3 (I don't remember the Excel version number).
        p_ing 2y ago
        Current Excel Autosave when used with ODSP is different -- changes are individually autosaved (change cell, autosave, format table, autosave). They're completely transparent to the end user. Word is similar.
      - jack_pp 2y ago
        So you're saying you're using Word 2010 and have no problem with files created recently? I find it surprising that modern word .docx is compatible with 15 year old Word
        clusterfook 2y ago
        Not too suprising though. It is zipped xml. Future versions may add to the xml optional nodes that can be ignored by previous versions.
Cyphase 2y ago
https://usebottles.com/ https://usebottles.com/
pbohun 2y ago
I really like the idea of bottles. I wish there was a way to bundle that up into a distro and make it invisible to the user so I could setup my friends and family with it.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Could call it "transparent bottles".
  - unfitted2545 2y ago
    GlassBottle, hopefully the illusion doesn’t get shattered!

nine_k 2y ago

Flatpak could work better because it already knows how to factor out common parts, so it could bring in only one (or just few) version of Wine.

OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
Unfortunately Flathub (the biggest Flatpak repository) doesn't allow Windows apps, despite it working on a technical level
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/requirements https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/requirements says, > Windows application submissions that are using Wine or any submissions that aren't native to Linux desktop and is using some emulation or translation layer will only be accepted if they are submitted officially by upstream with the intention of maintaining it in official capacity. Although, I am curious why; they don't seem to have a general problem with unofficial packages, so I'm not sure why a translation layer makes any difference. It doesn't seem different than happening to use any other runtime (ex. nothing is said about Java or .net).
  - coderenegade 2y ago
    Probably because it's implicitly pirated. No one is sharing windows freeware this way, because there's no demand for it. It'll be MS Office, Photoshop, CAD, etc. -- stuff for which there's still no good OSS alternative, and for which the barrier to entry is high. It would take a large organization with enough connections to cut through this. You'd probably need to cut a deal so you could distribute their software, and you'd need to provide a mechanism for users to be able to make purchases. Even then, there are various licensing challenges, because you would be distributing the same install, so thousands (or millions) of "installs" would effectively have the same serial or license number. It's nontrivial, but the basic idea is straightforward and doable. The challenge is how windows software is distributed and licensed, not anything technical.

immibis 2y ago

If you change a lot of things about a Linux system, then you're making a new distro. Half of this incompatibility is because Linux is flexible, anyway. My system is different from your system, and did anyone test on both? If you want a more stable ABI then you need a more stable system.

coderenegade 2y ago
You wouldn't have to change anything about the underlying system, which is the point. Containers work the same regardless of the underlying system, so they get around the various differences in everyone's individual machine. I use identical containers routinely on Fedora and Ubuntu systems at home without any issue, and I produce containers for RHEL and various other systems at work. Half the point of containers is eliminating the variability between dev systems and deployment. Rather than everyone having to get the software working on their machine, you would get it working once in the container, and then just distribute that.
- immibis 2y ago
  Containers work because your kernel is close to identical, and ship their own copy of everything else making them bloated, and incompatible at a user-mode level (no graphics drivers!). If my kernel was also very different from yours (which could just be a couple of kernel options or major versions) I'd need a virtual machine.

win32lover 2y ago

At this point nobody is going to learn a new system. People already know how to write and package exes which is the whole point. > but the hacks used to make one app work can break others and vice versa I think a lot of these problems could be avoided with a singular OS with the sole goal to support windows exes.

School-Cotton 2y ago
That exists, it’s called SteamOS.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  And if memory serves one of the important features of Proton is to control how each app is configured individually, precisely to let you do needed tweaks at a local level.
  - bitmasher9 2y ago
    Yes, and you can do this application specific tweaking but it’s largely less required now than it was in the past.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      Less required in general or by the user? I sort of had it in my head that part of what Proton did was to just bundle all of those tweaks so you didn't have to think about it, but I haven't actually looked under the hood.
      - barotalomey 2y ago
        Correct. Parent is misinformed.
- win32lover 2y ago
  SteamOS is very clearly Linux which is not what the blog is suggesting.

LeFantome 2y ago

You could distribute Wine as a Flatpak platform. Flatpaks are already containers that run the same on all distros. Making a Win32 base that works in this same way using the same tooling would not be difficult.

notpushkin 2y ago
There was Winepak (abandoned, sadly): https://winepak.github.io/ https://winepak.github.io/

DeathArrow 2y ago

>I don't think a new distro is needed. Most commonly used windows apps can be made to work through wine I think the idea is to provide a seamless Windows like experience so the user works exact how he expects to work under Windows. Without having to fiddle, modify configurations, wrestle with different settings. Just click and run.

coderenegade 2y ago
Yes, which is what I mentioned in the rest of the post. You could distribute a container that has wine in it, with just the configuration necessary to get the software working in the container. It would be straightforward to write a thin abstraction layer that pulls the container (installation) and gives you an executable that you can double click on and launch. An end user wouldn't need to modify configs or wrestle settings, because that's already done for you upstream. You just get an artifact that you can click and run. From the other posts, Proton and Steam Deck already do something similar, and this is also conceptually similar to the way AppImages, Flatpaks etc. work.

DrillShopper 2y ago

This is how Proton from Steam works