17 ms·

WinBoat: Windows apps on Linux with seamless integration

316 points by nateb2022 1y ago

westurner 1y ago
> [Flatpak, Podman?]: This is on our to-do list, but it'll take some effort because Flatpak is pretty isolated from the rest of the system and apps, so we'd have to find a way to expose installed apps, the Docker binary, and the Docker socket, and many other utilities Vinegar wraps WINE in a Flatpak. The vscode flatpak works with podman-remote packaged at a flatpak too; or you can call `host-spawn` or `flatpak-spawn` like there's no container/flatpak boundary there. Nested rootless containers do work somehow; presumably with nested /etc/subuids for each container? Distrobox passes a number of flags necessary to run GUI apps in rootless containers with Podman. Unfortunately the $XAUTHORITY path varies with each login on modern systemd distros.
oneplane 1y ago
This is just a Windows VM with extra tooling. Makes it look slick, doesn't make it "Windows apps on Linux". Similar projects exist for gaming for example Looking Glass, which also uses a Windows VM on KVM (the "Windows in Docker" thing is a bit of a lie, Windows doesn't run in the container, Windows runs on KVM on the host kernel). UX wise, this is similar to RAIL. That's not to say that this isn't neat, but it's also not something new (we still have two flavours: API simulation/re-implementation and running the OS [windows]). If this was a new, third flavour, that would be quite the news (in-place ABI translation?).
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  It's literally just dockur/windows:latest + FreeRDP rootless mode + a small daemon that runs in the VM that tells you what apps are installed via an API. If you don't want the latter part, you'd be better served with the dockur/windows image + FreeRDP
  - dijit 1y ago
    can you do "pass a single window" with freeRDP? I haven't actually seen that before so forgive me for asking. This project looks like it does that, but I could be wrong.
    - JoshTriplett 1y ago
      > can you do "pass a single window" with freeRDP? That's what "rootless" mode does.
    - heavyset_go 1y ago
      Yes, it's rootless mode. FreeRDP only works with X11, so it runs in Xwayland and the integration isn't as smooth as it could be. It's reminiscent of rootless mode in Parallels, just as janky, too.
      - d3Xt3r 1y ago
        This is incorrect. FreeRDP has supported Wayland since a long time via their `wlfreerdp` client - which is now deprecated, Wayland support is now available via their `sdl3-freerdp` client. The SDL client was alpha quality a couple of years ago, but as of the last couple of recent releases, it's been pretty decent. I'm unsure though if its reached full feature parity yet with the X11 client.
        heavyset_go 1y ago
        Thanks for pointing this out, you have just made my life easier
        heavyset_go 1y ago
        Spoke a little too soon, can't seem to get rootless mode working with sdl-freerdp3 in the latest kwin_wayland, but desktop mode works
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    I believe Cassowary (https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary) is an older tool that does pretty much this. My experience with it is that FreeRDP in rootless mode isn't very good for Windows applications that do anything special with window borders. Using Office and many other programs became a pain. When it worked, it worked really well, though. Reminds me of the same feature that VMWare used to offer many years ago for running XP/Vista programs on Windows 7 through a VM.
- userbinator 1y ago
  Missed opportunity to call it "Linux Subsystem for Windows", or LSW in short.
  - riedel 1y ago
    If wine was LSW1 than this is LSW2
    - cheema33 1y ago
      I think this is accurate. WSL v1 did not use a VM, just like Wine. However both WSL v1 and Wine struggled with compatibility issues. WSL 2 gave up and used a VM instead. You pay a performance penalty but compatibility issues mostly go away.
      - Zardoz84 1y ago
        Well, I discrepe a lot with the "compatibility issues" of Wine... Essentially when sometimes can run better and with less issues legacy software that modern Windows.
        cheema33 1y ago
        Example: My company uses MS Teams for meetings. Wine cannot run it reliably.
        monocasa 1y ago
        Counter example: my windows 10 machine can't play my copy of crysis, but my Ubuntu machine can under wine.
        ClikeX 1y ago
        To be fair. Neither can my MacBook, and that is an official release.
  - archargelod 1y ago
    I think this name would be confusing. For one - it is for linux, not windows.And it is a subsystem running Windows. So, it should be called Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL.
- senectus1 1y ago
  and with MS making sure you have to sign in with a MS account... i dont really see the point of this.
  - chii 1y ago
    > MS making sure you have to sign in with a MS account if you are capable of running linux, you're capable of working out the various ways to bypass that sign-in "requirement".
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      As a non-coder/engineer Linux user…I’ll admit that’s actually not obvious to me. Linux is trivially easy to run these days. I could probably drop my dad in Mint and he’d assume windows just looks different. Maybe that’s a tad facetious but also ehhhh I could maybe get away with it
    - fragmede 1y ago
      But if using hello@example.com as the email, and using F10 and oobe or whateve command you pulled off Google stop working, and then you have to move to more exotic options, like downloading programs to modify disk images to prepare a USB drive to install an LTSP or IoT copy of windows 10 it's all just such a waste of time to do something that should be easy all because someone at Microsoft got on this kick that what they want is more important than what the customer wants. It's so frustrating!
      - GoblinSlayer 1y ago
        You basically need to do that anyway, because defaults are janky.
  - Asmod4n 1y ago
    Only the home version has that issue.
- LennyHenrysNuts 1y ago
  And I had to come here to find out what it actually was. Why don't project pages ever actually tell you what it is, what it does and how it does it? Half the time it's something like "Plorglewurzle leverages your big data block chain to provide sublinear microservices to Azure Cloud infrastructures" At least this one kind of shows you having to install Windows.
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    Agree. Have even seen too many companies whose main product completely avoids such questions. I don’t get it. Must be why I’m not wealthy. I always figured one would have to show people a reason why they should give boat loads of money…
    - rbanffy 1y ago
      > Must be why I’m not wealthy. I always figured one would have to show people a reason why they should give boat loads of money… This one hit hard. It turns out Phineas Barnum was right this whole time.
  - hypfer 1y ago
    > Why don't project pages ever actually tell you what it is If it's a good thing with substance, they do. If they don't, don't use it. This usually hints at a broken culture/missing substance. It _can_ also be ineptitude, but that too is not your problem but theirs. You woke up this morning not having the problem this sets out to solve. You can go to sleep and rest easily this night, knowing that you still don't have whatever problem this sets out to solve. If you should one day wake up and notice that you have a problem this could solve, you will find yourself googling for a solution, again side-stepping this whole marketing nonsense.
  - pipes 1y ago
    I was complaining about this sort of thing in another thread.
  - Hobadee 1y ago
    I call this the "marketing website problem". Unfortunately many companies have realized that engineers don't make purchasing decisions. (Mearly suggestions) Rather, C-Suite, who knows nothing about the technical side of things, and everything about the buzzword side, makes the decisions. As a result, companies know that if they just throw a bunch of inflated marketing mumbo-jumbo at the user, while it will turn off every engineer asking "WTF does this actually do and how does it work", some C-Suite will run out and purchase it without asking, then force their entire team to use it because it "produces synergy of the AI block chain and big data cloud APIs while enhancing productivity". Then us Engineers are stuck using it, whether we wanted it or not.
- gcr 1y ago
  In-place ABI translation is how wine works, what do you mean?
- Zardoz84 1y ago
  Exactly the same thing of WSL2
bee_rider 1y ago
It would be worthwhile to mention Proton IMO. Actually, without GPU pass through (yet, at least) I guess they are not even going after the same use-case anyway. It is just the other obvious comparison after Wine.
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  A few folks have managed to get GPU passthrough working https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22 https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22
  - cap11235 1y ago
    Which always worked with KVM + Qemu w/ VFIO a decade ago? I'm not sure how anything in this page or comments is new, or even more convenient.
z3ratul163071 1y ago
my windows paranoia got so high, i misread that as WinBloat trying it out just now, seems like a great idea !
tamimio 1y ago
The rule of thumb is if you can use Linux and you don't have a very weird niche application that only runs on Windows, then you should migrate to Linux. There are plenty of good entry-level distributions and all sorts of applications too. Sooner or later, Windows will be abandonware with all the BS they will integrate, from always online to AI scanning all your files, so be proactive. I think even macOS is better than Windows in the current day, and you don't need a fortune too. The other day I found a mid-2012 MacBook Pro for $15 at the thrift store, installed 16GiB RAM and an SSD that I both had around, and installed the latest Sequoia with OpenCore Legacy Patcher, and voila, works just like new!
- worik 1y ago
  > Sooner or later, Windows will be abandonware with all the BS they will integrate, from always online to AI scanning all your files I really hope this is correct. If there were any justice in the world.... But, oh my aching head, the IT industry seems to be fill of people barely holding on, hoping and preying nobody calls their bluff. To these people, who hold a death grip on middle management, "nobody gets fired for buying microsoft" is a real thing Quality be dammed, job security rules the roost
  - cap11235 1y ago
    Active Directory alone means that its going to be another COBOL where it takes a few generations to die off, as its originators die.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  The problem is that some of these niche Windows-only applications rely on drivers that are only available for Windows. In which case, migrating to Linux is challenging at best and impossible at worst.
- mcswell 1y ago
  Until that day, there unfortunately ARE niche applications. Fieldworks Language Explorer (aka FLEx) is software developed by SIL Inc for doing linguistic fieldwork (dictionaries, text, grammars, parsing...) in minority languages. There's nothing like it. There was a Linux version, but they ran out of funding; I've used it, but reportedly there are major bugs. FLEx won't run under Wine, but I'll be trying this WinBoat to see if it works. (You may have heard of SIL's fonts, which they also make freely available. The fonts work for a huge variety of scripts, including the Nasta'liq Arabic style that other fonts don't touch, and Burmese, which from a writing standpoint is truly crazy.)
specproc 1y ago
> So, am I able to run Office 365 on it? > Yes. :) I mean, great. I've never actually tried since going all in on Linux. Figured I'd just abandon the Windows world. This would be useful though. Does anyone here actually do this, with Winboat or any other tool? Every time I've tried it's been too flaky to be worthwhile, but it's been a good few years. I'd chuffing love to have Affinity back.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  It's just a VM + an RDP connection in rootless mode. You can do it, but RDP is flaky in rootless mode. I'm currently using a similar setup for Office. You lose drag and drop, and you will be restarting the RDP client over and over again. It's a "solution" if you're willing to put up with jank.
  - specproc 1y ago
    Thanks, I see stuff like this and think, "well if it worked well everyone would use it all the time". Affinity is something I use occasionally enough to be able to put up with a bit of jank. Appreciate the response, good to know what I'm getting into before diving into something.
    - d3Xt3r 1y ago
      Affinity actually works fine in Wine (last I checked), takes a bit of effort to set it up though: https://github.com/seapear/AffinityOnLinux https://github.com/seapear/AffinityOnLinux
      - specproc 1y ago
        Thank you kindly
  - mijoharas 1y ago
    Out of interest why do you need to? I've always been fine with libre office/Google docs since moving to Linux, but I'm not a heavy office user.
everyone 1y ago
Ive been on DOS and Windows since the 80's... Recently I was mainly using Windows 10 LTSC, but now I'm finally transitioning to Linux Mint as my daily driver.. It's just so *good* .. The functionality, ease of use, and "just works" aspects of it are better than any other OS imo. It shows what can happen when a small team works with the goal of just making the OS good and giving it as much functionality as possible vs when a giant corp works on it with all sorts of random goals and agendas. I am a game dev and avid gamer, so that was the only thing keeping me on Windows, but with stuff like Wine, Bottles, Proton, Lutris, + stuff like this coming out that reason is fading away.
- BuckRogers 1y ago
  I’m also an 80s DOS user. Commodore actually before that. And yes Linux Mint is the standout. There are people in the Linux community though that resist it for various reasons. It’s like trying to round up cats. I read all of the comments here and I see an awful lot of people that stand on their heads to avoid using Windows, yet it seems they want what Windows offers. I’ve used many distro’s over the decades. But for a user, Mint is the best. Unfortunately for someone who is anti-Windows, it’s also the closest thing to a Windows clone! I refuse to dual boot and run all of the emulation software. But what killed it for me was the most popular competitive games. The most advanced anti-cheat software that keeps gaming fun from cheaters is only on Windows. So that’s what I use exclusively. Those more effective anti-cheat mechanisms are never going to be on Linux. Windows is increasingly going to be where it’s at for desktop gaming unless a guy wants to move over to consoles. There’s just no real answer for this.
throwaway106382 1y ago
Looks useful for things that don't work in Wine.
marrone12 1y ago
Is there a way to use this with a remote windows VM that I connect with over RDP?
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  You can use WinApps for that instead - supports both local and remote VMs. https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
nxobject 1y ago
Heads up for arm64 users: there’s currently no precompiled arm64 support.
righthand 1y ago
Mounting live Discord on your front page. Bold choice.
- GaryBluto 1y ago
  It helps you identify which projects to avoid - quite useful.
cadamsdotcom 1y ago
Absolutely love seeing these projects that put a friendly face on amazing open source software so people can more easily run Linux and use the software they still need to.. Any similar work underway to get macOS apps running on Linux?
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  Not quite similar, but there's darling, which only supports CLI apps for now: https://github.com/darlinghq/darling https://github.com/darlinghq/darling If you want a full macOS VM there's dockur's project: https://github.com/dockur/macos https://github.com/dockur/macos but no seamless mode support yet.
- softfalcon 1y ago
  I wish it was possible to see macOS running well on Linux, but there are a lot of loopholes to jump through to make that happen. 1. Apple makes running their software on non-Mac hardware illegal 2. For all the hate Windows gets, virtualizing it to run all over the place is normal and expected by industry at large… the same is only becoming recently true for macOS 3. There is a strong financial interest at Apple to get in the way of this as much as possible 4. Apple is trying to reinvent Docker so people stop using Docker on their Mac’s with their native “Apple Containers” implementation Due to this… I foresee it taking a while for this to become common for mac apps + Linux
  - moondev 1y ago
    quickemu makes it pretty easy to launch macOS on kvm. I was able to launch it on my framework chromebook from the Linux terminal
    - freedomben 1y ago
      a bit off-topic, but how do you like the framework chromebook? Very seriously considering one. I have several frameworks running Fedora, but my daughter really wants a chromebook...
opengrass 1y ago
The remote Windows equivalent is kimmknight/remoteapptool which generates an RDP config or MSI, basically open source Vmware Horizon.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
Is this a wrapper on Wine? Or a full VM?
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  It's a full VM running via Docker. The Windows apps are presented via RDP's RemoteApps protocol via FreeRDP. There's also WinApps, which is the same thing but without the docker container, and it supports a remote VM as well: https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
  - aargh_aargh 1y ago
    What's Docker for, then?
    - d3Xt3r 1y ago
      WinBoat uses Docker (specifically the dockur/windows container) to simplify the backend setup. The Docker container hosts QEMU and all the configs to automate the whole "create a VM, configure it, install Windows, configure it etc" process.
    - heavyset_go 1y ago
      VM management. The dockur/windows VMs will correctly shutdown, start, pause, etc when the container is started or destroyed.
fsh 1y ago
I always used a Virtual Box VM for Office. After giving this a quick try, I'm impressed. The dockered VM is much less bloated then a normal Windows install, and somehow running the apps via a local RDP connection is significantly smoother than the Virtual Box graphics stack.
- esseph 1y ago
  I have had much better experience running virt-manager instead of virtualbox if you want a GUI to run / manage vms in terms of performance. YMMV
lousken 1y ago
color accurate work? HDR? variable refresh? also it's still windows garbage underneath
ale42 1y ago
If I understand it correctly, unlike WINE this requries an actual Windows licence (at least if you wish to stay legal)?
- fsh 1y ago
  Yes, the dockered Windows 11 will start nagging you for a license keys after a while. I used some old Win10 key, and it worked fine.
tracker1 1y ago
It's definitely neat and the UX is kinda slick... I tried it last weekend. Unfortunately, even basic usage seemed to fail. Launching Edge browser would create a window that was frozen, and no apparent way to recover.. closing left the outline in place, and there were issues with the integration itself. Trying to connect the "Desktop" option seemed to freeze. I was able to connect to the session via the integrated web view, it looked to be asking to allow the rdp connection. I really didn't dig in any deeper than that... didn't match the use case my SO needed, so wound up having to revert back to Windows on her laptop. I do hope it gets better... maybe with some more app/system integration on the Windows side of things.
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  What's her use case, if you don't mind me asking? Because a lot of Windows apps do work fine in Wine (some may require additional tweaks), so perhaps that could be an option.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    She is trying to use the TikTok streaming studio, or whatever it is called... I tried to get the Android version running via Waydroid and tried the WinBoat setup. Neither worked and after a couple hours of trying and the nagging, I just installed Windows 11 again as requested and handed the laptop back. I'm no longer tech support for that device. Later found out, could have done some rigging to get OBS working with it, but I think that would have been too far beyond her comfort zone anyway. Having to run a shell script to plug into OBS on top of using OBS itself. (Going to avoid further ranting and stop now) Edit: to be clear, I didn't get the app installed in WinBoat as I didn't get passed the limitation that Edge wouldn't load properly. Just with that hiccup I determined it was unfit for her usage... that isn't even getting into the potential issue(s) with mic/camera access.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
ho_schi 1y ago
Let me guess. When it gets tricky it fails. USB? Own IP? 3D? Bluetooth? My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native apps. Don’t use WINE. Don’t try to be compatible to inherent hostile things. Don’t use VMs. And especially don’t use Dual-Boot. It sucks. Basically migrate and go full Linux. Don’t look back :) Proton (which is WINE derivative) works somehow, because Valve invests every single day tremendous efforts into it. But that’s the problem, tremendous efforts. The good news. Every bit invested in high quality API/ABI on Linux pays off. Valve contributions to MESA and amdgpu are invaluable. Valve should honor native AAA-Titles and Indie-Titles for Linux - with exclusive Steam Awards. There is awesome stuff like Unrailed. Make the game developers think: “I better should do a proper port. And it should not be done by the Win32 developer. Task the Linux developer.” PS: I missed Counter-Strike so much on Linux for years. And the Valve came, ported everything natively, and it is wonderful :) PPS: I use a Mac for two incompatible applications (Garmin Express and Zwift). Less maintenance than Windows. Less possibilities than Linux. Horrible file-browser. Window management is a pain. But it covers the gap without ruining my day. I have to admit, the Mac cannot run Counter-Strike 2. That’s a task for Linux :)
- xupybd 1y ago
  Some of us have work that requires windows only applications.
  - typpilol 1y ago
    Exactly Sorry boss I can't do work today, I decided to go full Linux and our CRM doesn't support it!
  - jamesnorden 1y ago
    You don't have a work machine?
    - fuzzfactor 1y ago
      Most office workers are not in software so most work machines are office machines. Having baseline Windows further encumbered by often-misguided IT approaches. Every one of these needs more intense tweaking before it will run as well as the same offices 20 years ago. Too bad most users are locked out and IT may not know how to do it or may not be motivated anyway. It may even be at the point where less tweaking may now be needed for Linux to become a higher-performance office machine than Windows/Office was 20 years ago. With less undocumented effort than it would take to get the same performance from the latest Windows. But who's going to do it? All other things are not being equal though, 20 years ago PC's were lower-performing hardware in a number of ways, so that probably should be brought under consideration. But it just seems so unfair then.
wantlotsofcurry 1y ago
Are apps run through WinBoat limited to 60hz like regular Windows VMs? I’ve gotten to used to higher refresh rates and 1 window being a lower rate drives me nuts!
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  Yes, you can't get more than 60FPS, it's a limitation of the RDP protocol.
ardanur 1y ago
Their FAQ mentions the Looking Glass Indirect Display Driver (IDD). That is something to look forward to. Looking Glass will work with an iGPU setup once IDD is released (but no 3D acceleration). What Looking Glass managed to do was get video memory sharing to work between the guest Windows compositor and a client running on the host (with qemu). Unfortunately, it apparently requires an out-of-tree Linux kernel driver that they call kvmfr. You can apparently still share non-video memory without kvmfr, which may hopefully yield adequate performance. Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI
fathermarz 1y ago
Does it have Windows APIs for sub systems like certificates/auth stores?
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  It's just a VM running full Windows. It doesn't provide any win32 APIs or ways to interact with them, besides creating shortcuts to apps inside Windows using RDP/FreeRDP's RemoteApp functionality.
zamalek 1y ago
We need something better than RDP for running windows VMs locally. Can't a buffer be memory-mapped or something?
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  This is exactly what the Looking Glass project is working on, their next release is expected to include their Indirect Display Driver that pretty much solves all the graphics limitations of RDP, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI
reactordev 1y ago
Is this Parallels Desktop but for Linux? If so, this could be interesting however, what about graphics intensive applications? What does this offer that Proton or Wine doesn’t solve?
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  Sort of, but nowhere as polished. For graphics intensive apps, you can get GPU passthrough working with some effort[1] but it's not really end-user friendly. Also, I wouldn't say it's an alternative to Proton, in fact it's probably worse than Proton because of the limited refresh rate, colors, and added latency of the RDP protocol that it uses to display the desktop. But it can be an alternative to Wine, since you're able to run certain apps that can't run in Wine, like Office 365, Adobe etc. This is where it shines, for people who are dependent on productivity apps like Office. [1] https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22 https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22
  - reactordev 1y ago
    Ewww, RDP… thanks, that explains all I need to know. It’s a virtualbox.
itpcc 1y ago
Is it WinApps[0] with some fancy GUI or something? [0] https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  Basically yes, although WinApps uses a VM directly (and requires you to set it up first), whereas this project uses the dockur/windows container which automates the whole setup, making it easier for newbies. Technical users are probably better off spinning up their own VM though.
0xbadcafebee 1y ago
Why doesn't the FAQ actually explain what it is? Is it a VM running windows? WINE? That free NT kernel? Something else?
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  It is a VM running Windows, specifically it's a QEMU VM in a Docker container and KVM backend. See: https://github.com/dockur/windows https://github.com/dockur/windows
shmerl 1y ago
Looks like a Windows VM with extras. I'd prefer Wine approach.
- mcswell 1y ago
  Sure, Wine when it works. It doesn't always, and it looks like this WinBoat will work when Wine doesn't. I'm currently using it for SIL's Fieldworks Language Explorer, which did not run under Wine.
zx8080 1y ago
> AppImage No, thanks.
teo_zero 1y ago
> Run Any App > If it runs on Windows, it can run on WinBoat. Did I miss an asterisk here? One that adds "except apps that require a GPU, that access non-USB devices, those with anti-cheat..."
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  By default, yes, but they can all be supported, with some manual work, depending on your exact scenario. Check r/vfio if you're interested. Anti-cheat can be a hit-or-miss depending on the game, but for many games you can edit the VM XML to simulate real hardware. But of course you may not want to do that if you don't want to risk getting banned. Personally I don't play such user-hostile games that employ malware-like anticheat (and neither should you, if you care about privacy and security), but that's a whole other debate.
dns_snek 1y ago
Am I reading this right? It can run Excel more or less seamlessly like it's a native Linux program? Is there a catch? That would be game changing in convincing some people to switch to Linux.
- retSava 1y ago
  Furthest at the absolute bottom: "Yes :)"
- rob74 1y ago
  Well yes, it runs Excel in a VM running Windows. Which means you need an extra Windows license to be able to do it legally, but other than that, it works...
  - SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
    Not only a license, but I’m kind of still seeing that you would need to run your Windows VM with the entire range of Microsoft updates, defender, antivirus, and monitoring if your corporate, etc. No?
sim7c00 1y ago
will it allow me to run WSL on linux too? (genuinely curious)
dangus 1y ago
They are really going to need to change that branding to avoid trouble.
noname120 1y ago
Does it have display manager integration akin to Parallels Desktop’s Coherence mode? This is what the catch-phrase of WinBoat makes it sound like. https://kb.parallels.com/4670 https://kb.parallels.com/4670 ———— Edit: yes it does! See the README.md of the project on GitHub: > Elegant Interface: Sleek and intuitive interface that seamlessly integrates Windows into your Linux desktop environment, making it feel like a native experience Source: https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat
bapak 1y ago
It's always great to see software websites without a damn screenshot of the software doing its job. It says it can run office, maybe show me how it looks? How can you sell "seamless" and then don't demonstrate. I don't get it.
- Pesthuf 1y ago
  This! Does it render Windows‘ windows individually on the Linux desktop, with integration into alt-tab, the Ubuntu dock etc. or does it just render one big VM window? How is that not shown on the site.
- GaryBluto 1y ago
  But don't worry, it's got emoticons and a "slick" design, you don't need information!
Prunkton 1y ago
I'm just here to let the internet know, if you struggle to setup Citrix on (Arch) Linux, this seems to work out of the box
masfoobar 1y ago
WinBoat seems interesting. I will be keeping my eye on this one. Since I started using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in the last couple of years.. especially at work.. my work has been more productive, running certain GUI apps that "appear" to be running on Windows. There are some odd quirks to it, but its decent. On top of this, I can run podman or use shell tools (and bash) However, I was wondering what the opposite equiverlant would be in linux land. I mean, I rarely use Windows Applications when on a Linux machine. In the past, I remember playing GTA:Vice City through Wine and was 98% awesome. Just a few missing images and thats it. Other than this, I've had little reason to use Windows applications on Linux. Recently, I always wondered if there would be a "Linux Subsystem for Windows" equiverlant, abling to run pretty much any app. It would give my daughter the upperhand, which I recently installed Debian on her laptop... but I know there will be some Schoolwork with Microsoft products... WinBoat might be the answer.
Vipsy 1y ago
This looks nice, WinBoat gives teams a simple way to use linux for everyone, without losing access to Windows apps when needed. There’s no need for fancy cloud setups or switching between lots of devices—just one system and quick access to what works. Onboarding is easier for everyone, and IT does less work with only one setup to care for. This means companies can pick what’s best without making things messy or complicated.
- smt88 1y ago
  This reads like AI and almost none of it makes sense. Why would a Windows desktop fleet be more heterogeneous than a Linux one? Why would Linux be an easier on-boarding experience? Orgs use Windows because non-technical users expect it and execs don't get fired for choosing Microsoft.
  - whywhywhywhy 1y ago
    Onboarding non-technical people to a computer that’s running half the apps in a different is virtualized and all the things that can go wrong with that sounds a nightmare.
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  For what you're describing, there are already Enterprise-grade solutions that's even simpler and more robust, such as Azure Virtual Desktop with RemoteApps, and the even more mature and battle-tested Citrix XenApps / Cloud. Like for my work, I use a Linux laptop, and access our Windows-only apps and environments via Citrix and it works really well. And a good chunk of our apps are cloud-based anyways so we just need a web browser to access them. I also own a MacBook and have an Android phone, and I can access my work environment from all my devices. So at least for our workplace, the end-user OS has been largely irrelevant.
- whywhywhywhy 1y ago
  How you gonna justify buying a windows license for each user and then not just using that and forcing them to use some interface they’re unfamiliar with. I get the vision but ultimately if they need to run windows apps for work, just have them run windows. There’s places where people should consider Linux but that isn’t one of them.
Forgeties79 1y ago
Some of y’all are acting like this dude personally insulted you. They put out an open source project for folks to use that may solve a problem for someone out there. That’s neat. If it has faults maybe we can be a bit more constructive and less all “wtf is this crap?”
- GaryBluto 1y ago
  > y'all > folks There goes the neighbourhood.
fdsffsvafvv 1y ago
If anyone from the project reads this:please don't load Discord on the front page of your website. Discord is often used as C2 server, and in many secure environments will trigger alerts when someone tries to load it. So loading your webpage triggers an alert (luckily the alert in our business come to me, but the point stands). At least hide it behind a link.
- GaryBluto 1y ago
  I'd argue that software projects having a Discord chat room at all is incredibly unprofessional; it's like if a DIY boating club required you to go to an Chuck-E-Cheese to communicate.
carlesfe 1y ago
An actual explanation of what the software does, from their Github repo > WinBoat is an Electron app which allows you to run Windows apps on Linux using a containerized approach. Windows runs as a VM inside a Docker container, we communicate with it using the WinBoat Guest Server to retrieve data we need from Windows. For compositing applications as native OS-level windows, we use FreeRDP together with Windows's RemoteApp protocol.
- monocasa 1y ago
  Why do they need a docker container and a vm?
  - onehair 1y ago
    because windows isn't bloat enough /runs-away-as-this-joke-might-not-be-funny-toall-xD
  - GoblinSlayer 1y ago
    VM runs the actual thing, and docker is package manager.
    - throitallaway 1y ago
      Maybe I would call Docker an installation and running method rather than a package manager in this case.
    - monocasa 1y ago
      But my read is that the electron application is out of the docker container. It's distributed as an appimage. So then what is the docker container doing?
      - d3Xt3r 1y ago
        The docker container hosts QEMU and the docker files to run Windows. The author probably chose this method because the dockur/windows project basically automates and simplifies the whole process of installing and configuring QEMU, and installing and configuring Windows etc. See: https://github.com/dockur/windows https://github.com/dockur/windows
chem83 1y ago
WinApps is the project to watch (https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps), although they're still working on Wayland support (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779#issuecomment-3374276712 https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779#issuecomme...). It can get by through xwayland for the time being, it seems.
- d3Xt3r 1y ago
  They don't need to "work" on Wayland support at all, all that work is being done by the FreeRDP project. Also, sdl3-freerdp is the new Wayland client for FreeRDP is already available, and it works fine. You can just edit the shortcuts/bash scripts and replace xfreerdp with sdl3-freerdp and bam, you've got Wayland support.
Fidelix 1y ago
Freerdp (which this project and every other similar one depends on) is 100% broken on wayland for this use case. I'm not going back to X11.
rldjbpin 1y ago
previously featured: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45099124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45099124
wolandark 1y ago
Purple gradients and emojis somehow scream vibe coded trash

316 points by nateb2022 1y ago

> [Flatpak, Podman?]: This is on our to-do list, but it'll take some effort because Flatpak is pretty isolated from the rest of the system and apps, so we'd have to find a way to expose installed apps, the Docker binary, and the Docker socket, and many other utilities Vinegar wraps WINE in a Flatpak. The vscode flatpak works with podman-remote packaged at a flatpak too; or you can call `host-spawn` or `flatpak-spawn` like there's no container/flatpak boundary there. Nested rootless containers do work somehow; presumably with nested /etc/subuids for each container? Distrobox passes a number of flags necessary to run GUI apps in rootless containers with Podman. Unfortunately the $XAUTHORITY path varies with each login on modern systemd distros.

oneplane 1y ago

This is just a Windows VM with extra tooling. Makes it look slick, doesn't make it "Windows apps on Linux". Similar projects exist for gaming for example Looking Glass, which also uses a Windows VM on KVM (the "Windows in Docker" thing is a bit of a lie, Windows doesn't run in the container, Windows runs on KVM on the host kernel). UX wise, this is similar to RAIL. That's not to say that this isn't neat, but it's also not something new (we still have two flavours: API simulation/re-implementation and running the OS [windows]). If this was a new, third flavour, that would be quite the news (in-place ABI translation?).

heavyset_go 1y ago
It's literally just dockur/windows:latest + FreeRDP rootless mode + a small daemon that runs in the VM that tells you what apps are installed via an API. If you don't want the latter part, you'd be better served with the dockur/windows image + FreeRDP
- dijit 1y ago
  can you do "pass a single window" with freeRDP? I haven't actually seen that before so forgive me for asking. This project looks like it does that, but I could be wrong.
  - JoshTriplett 1y ago
    > can you do "pass a single window" with freeRDP? That's what "rootless" mode does.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    Yes, it's rootless mode. FreeRDP only works with X11, so it runs in Xwayland and the integration isn't as smooth as it could be. It's reminiscent of rootless mode in Parallels, just as janky, too.
    - d3Xt3r 1y ago
      This is incorrect. FreeRDP has supported Wayland since a long time via their `wlfreerdp` client - which is now deprecated, Wayland support is now available via their `sdl3-freerdp` client. The SDL client was alpha quality a couple of years ago, but as of the last couple of recent releases, it's been pretty decent. I'm unsure though if its reached full feature parity yet with the X11 client.
      - heavyset_go 1y ago
        Thanks for pointing this out, you have just made my life easier
        heavyset_go 1y ago
        Spoke a little too soon, can't seem to get rootless mode working with sdl-freerdp3 in the latest kwin_wayland, but desktop mode works
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  I believe Cassowary (https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary) is an older tool that does pretty much this. My experience with it is that FreeRDP in rootless mode isn't very good for Windows applications that do anything special with window borders. Using Office and many other programs became a pain. When it worked, it worked really well, though. Reminds me of the same feature that VMWare used to offer many years ago for running XP/Vista programs on Windows 7 through a VM.
userbinator 1y ago
Missed opportunity to call it "Linux Subsystem for Windows", or LSW in short.
- riedel 1y ago
  If wine was LSW1 than this is LSW2
  - cheema33 1y ago
    I think this is accurate. WSL v1 did not use a VM, just like Wine. However both WSL v1 and Wine struggled with compatibility issues. WSL 2 gave up and used a VM instead. You pay a performance penalty but compatibility issues mostly go away.
    - Zardoz84 1y ago
      Well, I discrepe a lot with the "compatibility issues" of Wine... Essentially when sometimes can run better and with less issues legacy software that modern Windows.
      - cheema33 1y ago
        Example: My company uses MS Teams for meetings. Wine cannot run it reliably.
        monocasa 1y ago
        Counter example: my windows 10 machine can't play my copy of crysis, but my Ubuntu machine can under wine.
        ClikeX 1y ago
        To be fair. Neither can my MacBook, and that is an official release.
- archargelod 1y ago
  I think this name would be confusing. For one - it is for linux, not windows.And it is a subsystem running Windows. So, it should be called Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL.
senectus1 1y ago
and with MS making sure you have to sign in with a MS account... i dont really see the point of this.
- chii 1y ago
  > MS making sure you have to sign in with a MS account if you are capable of running linux, you're capable of working out the various ways to bypass that sign-in "requirement".
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    As a non-coder/engineer Linux user…I’ll admit that’s actually not obvious to me. Linux is trivially easy to run these days. I could probably drop my dad in Mint and he’d assume windows just looks different. Maybe that’s a tad facetious but also ehhhh I could maybe get away with it
  - fragmede 1y ago
    But if using hello@example.com as the email, and using F10 and oobe or whateve command you pulled off Google stop working, and then you have to move to more exotic options, like downloading programs to modify disk images to prepare a USB drive to install an LTSP or IoT copy of windows 10 it's all just such a waste of time to do something that should be easy all because someone at Microsoft got on this kick that what they want is more important than what the customer wants. It's so frustrating!
    - GoblinSlayer 1y ago
      You basically need to do that anyway, because defaults are janky.
- Asmod4n 1y ago
  Only the home version has that issue.
LennyHenrysNuts 1y ago
And I had to come here to find out what it actually was. Why don't project pages ever actually tell you what it is, what it does and how it does it? Half the time it's something like "Plorglewurzle leverages your big data block chain to provide sublinear microservices to Azure Cloud infrastructures" At least this one kind of shows you having to install Windows.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  Agree. Have even seen too many companies whose main product completely avoids such questions. I don’t get it. Must be why I’m not wealthy. I always figured one would have to show people a reason why they should give boat loads of money…
  - rbanffy 1y ago
    > Must be why I’m not wealthy. I always figured one would have to show people a reason why they should give boat loads of money… This one hit hard. It turns out Phineas Barnum was right this whole time.
- hypfer 1y ago
  > Why don't project pages ever actually tell you what it is If it's a good thing with substance, they do. If they don't, don't use it. This usually hints at a broken culture/missing substance. It _can_ also be ineptitude, but that too is not your problem but theirs. You woke up this morning not having the problem this sets out to solve. You can go to sleep and rest easily this night, knowing that you still don't have whatever problem this sets out to solve. If you should one day wake up and notice that you have a problem this could solve, you will find yourself googling for a solution, again side-stepping this whole marketing nonsense.
- pipes 1y ago
  I was complaining about this sort of thing in another thread.
- Hobadee 1y ago
  I call this the "marketing website problem". Unfortunately many companies have realized that engineers don't make purchasing decisions. (Mearly suggestions) Rather, C-Suite, who knows nothing about the technical side of things, and everything about the buzzword side, makes the decisions. As a result, companies know that if they just throw a bunch of inflated marketing mumbo-jumbo at the user, while it will turn off every engineer asking "WTF does this actually do and how does it work", some C-Suite will run out and purchase it without asking, then force their entire team to use it because it "produces synergy of the AI block chain and big data cloud APIs while enhancing productivity". Then us Engineers are stuck using it, whether we wanted it or not.
gcr 1y ago
In-place ABI translation is how wine works, what do you mean?
Zardoz84 1y ago
Exactly the same thing of WSL2

bee_rider 1y ago

It would be worthwhile to mention Proton IMO. Actually, without GPU pass through (yet, at least) I guess they are not even going after the same use-case anyway. It is just the other obvious comparison after Wine.

d3Xt3r 1y ago
A few folks have managed to get GPU passthrough working https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22 https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22
- cap11235 1y ago
  Which always worked with KVM + Qemu w/ VFIO a decade ago? I'm not sure how anything in this page or comments is new, or even more convenient.

z3ratul163071 1y ago

my windows paranoia got so high, i misread that as WinBloat trying it out just now, seems like a great idea !

tamimio 1y ago

The rule of thumb is if you can use Linux and you don't have a very weird niche application that only runs on Windows, then you should migrate to Linux. There are plenty of good entry-level distributions and all sorts of applications too. Sooner or later, Windows will be abandonware with all the BS they will integrate, from always online to AI scanning all your files, so be proactive. I think even macOS is better than Windows in the current day, and you don't need a fortune too. The other day I found a mid-2012 MacBook Pro for $15 at the thrift store, installed 16GiB RAM and an SSD that I both had around, and installed the latest Sequoia with OpenCore Legacy Patcher, and voila, works just like new!

worik 1y ago
> Sooner or later, Windows will be abandonware with all the BS they will integrate, from always online to AI scanning all your files I really hope this is correct. If there were any justice in the world.... But, oh my aching head, the IT industry seems to be fill of people barely holding on, hoping and preying nobody calls their bluff. To these people, who hold a death grip on middle management, "nobody gets fired for buying microsoft" is a real thing Quality be dammed, job security rules the roost
- cap11235 1y ago
  Active Directory alone means that its going to be another COBOL where it takes a few generations to die off, as its originators die.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
The problem is that some of these niche Windows-only applications rely on drivers that are only available for Windows. In which case, migrating to Linux is challenging at best and impossible at worst.
mcswell 1y ago
Until that day, there unfortunately ARE niche applications. Fieldworks Language Explorer (aka FLEx) is software developed by SIL Inc for doing linguistic fieldwork (dictionaries, text, grammars, parsing...) in minority languages. There's nothing like it. There was a Linux version, but they ran out of funding; I've used it, but reportedly there are major bugs. FLEx won't run under Wine, but I'll be trying this WinBoat to see if it works. (You may have heard of SIL's fonts, which they also make freely available. The fonts work for a huge variety of scripts, including the Nasta'liq Arabic style that other fonts don't touch, and Burmese, which from a writing standpoint is truly crazy.)

specproc 1y ago

> So, am I able to run Office 365 on it? > Yes. :) I mean, great. I've never actually tried since going all in on Linux. Figured I'd just abandon the Windows world. This would be useful though. Does anyone here actually do this, with Winboat or any other tool? Every time I've tried it's been too flaky to be worthwhile, but it's been a good few years. I'd chuffing love to have Affinity back.

heavyset_go 1y ago
It's just a VM + an RDP connection in rootless mode. You can do it, but RDP is flaky in rootless mode. I'm currently using a similar setup for Office. You lose drag and drop, and you will be restarting the RDP client over and over again. It's a "solution" if you're willing to put up with jank.
- specproc 1y ago
  Thanks, I see stuff like this and think, "well if it worked well everyone would use it all the time". Affinity is something I use occasionally enough to be able to put up with a bit of jank. Appreciate the response, good to know what I'm getting into before diving into something.
  - d3Xt3r 1y ago
    Affinity actually works fine in Wine (last I checked), takes a bit of effort to set it up though: https://github.com/seapear/AffinityOnLinux https://github.com/seapear/AffinityOnLinux
    - specproc 1y ago
      Thank you kindly
- mijoharas 1y ago
  Out of interest why do you need to? I've always been fine with libre office/Google docs since moving to Linux, but I'm not a heavy office user.

everyone 1y ago

Ive been on DOS and Windows since the 80's... Recently I was mainly using Windows 10 LTSC, but now I'm finally transitioning to Linux Mint as my daily driver.. It's just so *good* .. The functionality, ease of use, and "just works" aspects of it are better than any other OS imo. It shows what can happen when a small team works with the goal of just making the OS good and giving it as much functionality as possible vs when a giant corp works on it with all sorts of random goals and agendas. I am a game dev and avid gamer, so that was the only thing keeping me on Windows, but with stuff like Wine, Bottles, Proton, Lutris, + stuff like this coming out that reason is fading away.

BuckRogers 1y ago
I’m also an 80s DOS user. Commodore actually before that. And yes Linux Mint is the standout. There are people in the Linux community though that resist it for various reasons. It’s like trying to round up cats. I read all of the comments here and I see an awful lot of people that stand on their heads to avoid using Windows, yet it seems they want what Windows offers. I’ve used many distro’s over the decades. But for a user, Mint is the best. Unfortunately for someone who is anti-Windows, it’s also the closest thing to a Windows clone! I refuse to dual boot and run all of the emulation software. But what killed it for me was the most popular competitive games. The most advanced anti-cheat software that keeps gaming fun from cheaters is only on Windows. So that’s what I use exclusively. Those more effective anti-cheat mechanisms are never going to be on Linux. Windows is increasingly going to be where it’s at for desktop gaming unless a guy wants to move over to consoles. There’s just no real answer for this.

throwaway106382 1y ago

Looks useful for things that don't work in Wine.

marrone12 1y ago

Is there a way to use this with a remote windows VM that I connect with over RDP?

d3Xt3r 1y ago
You can use WinApps for that instead - supports both local and remote VMs. https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps

nxobject 1y ago

Heads up for arm64 users: there’s currently no precompiled arm64 support.

righthand 1y ago

Mounting live Discord on your front page. Bold choice.

GaryBluto 1y ago
It helps you identify which projects to avoid - quite useful.

cadamsdotcom 1y ago

Absolutely love seeing these projects that put a friendly face on amazing open source software so people can more easily run Linux and use the software they still need to.. Any similar work underway to get macOS apps running on Linux?

d3Xt3r 1y ago
Not quite similar, but there's darling, which only supports CLI apps for now: https://github.com/darlinghq/darling https://github.com/darlinghq/darling If you want a full macOS VM there's dockur's project: https://github.com/dockur/macos https://github.com/dockur/macos but no seamless mode support yet.
softfalcon 1y ago
I wish it was possible to see macOS running well on Linux, but there are a lot of loopholes to jump through to make that happen. 1. Apple makes running their software on non-Mac hardware illegal 2. For all the hate Windows gets, virtualizing it to run all over the place is normal and expected by industry at large… the same is only becoming recently true for macOS 3. There is a strong financial interest at Apple to get in the way of this as much as possible 4. Apple is trying to reinvent Docker so people stop using Docker on their Mac’s with their native “Apple Containers” implementation Due to this… I foresee it taking a while for this to become common for mac apps + Linux
- moondev 1y ago
  quickemu makes it pretty easy to launch macOS on kvm. I was able to launch it on my framework chromebook from the Linux terminal
  - freedomben 1y ago
    a bit off-topic, but how do you like the framework chromebook? Very seriously considering one. I have several frameworks running Fedora, but my daughter really wants a chromebook...

opengrass 1y ago

The remote Windows equivalent is kimmknight/remoteapptool which generates an RDP config or MSI, basically open source Vmware Horizon.

insane_dreamer 1y ago

Is this a wrapper on Wine? Or a full VM?

d3Xt3r 1y ago
It's a full VM running via Docker. The Windows apps are presented via RDP's RemoteApps protocol via FreeRDP. There's also WinApps, which is the same thing but without the docker container, and it supports a remote VM as well: https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
- aargh_aargh 1y ago
  What's Docker for, then?
  - d3Xt3r 1y ago
    WinBoat uses Docker (specifically the dockur/windows container) to simplify the backend setup. The Docker container hosts QEMU and all the configs to automate the whole "create a VM, configure it, install Windows, configure it etc" process.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    VM management. The dockur/windows VMs will correctly shutdown, start, pause, etc when the container is started or destroyed.

fsh 1y ago

I always used a Virtual Box VM for Office. After giving this a quick try, I'm impressed. The dockered VM is much less bloated then a normal Windows install, and somehow running the apps via a local RDP connection is significantly smoother than the Virtual Box graphics stack.

esseph 1y ago
I have had much better experience running virt-manager instead of virtualbox if you want a GUI to run / manage vms in terms of performance. YMMV

lousken 1y ago

color accurate work? HDR? variable refresh? also it's still windows garbage underneath

ale42 1y ago

If I understand it correctly, unlike WINE this requries an actual Windows licence (at least if you wish to stay legal)?

fsh 1y ago
Yes, the dockered Windows 11 will start nagging you for a license keys after a while. I used some old Win10 key, and it worked fine.

tracker1 1y ago

It's definitely neat and the UX is kinda slick... I tried it last weekend. Unfortunately, even basic usage seemed to fail. Launching Edge browser would create a window that was frozen, and no apparent way to recover.. closing left the outline in place, and there were issues with the integration itself. Trying to connect the "Desktop" option seemed to freeze. I was able to connect to the session via the integrated web view, it looked to be asking to allow the rdp connection. I really didn't dig in any deeper than that... didn't match the use case my SO needed, so wound up having to revert back to Windows on her laptop. I do hope it gets better... maybe with some more app/system integration on the Windows side of things.

d3Xt3r 1y ago
What's her use case, if you don't mind me asking? Because a lot of Windows apps do work fine in Wine (some may require additional tweaks), so perhaps that could be an option.
- tracker1 1y ago
  She is trying to use the TikTok streaming studio, or whatever it is called... I tried to get the Android version running via Waydroid and tried the WinBoat setup. Neither worked and after a couple hours of trying and the nagging, I just installed Windows 11 again as requested and handed the laptop back. I'm no longer tech support for that device. Later found out, could have done some rigging to get OBS working with it, but I think that would have been too far beyond her comfort zone anyway. Having to run a shell script to plug into OBS on top of using OBS itself. (Going to avoid further ranting and stop now) Edit: to be clear, I didn't get the app installed in WinBoat as I didn't get passed the limitation that Edge wouldn't load properly. Just with that hiccup I determined it was unfit for her usage... that isn't even getting into the potential issue(s) with mic/camera access.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

ho_schi 1y ago

Let me guess. When it gets tricky it fails. USB? Own IP? 3D? Bluetooth? My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native apps. Don’t use WINE. Don’t try to be compatible to inherent hostile things. Don’t use VMs. And especially don’t use Dual-Boot. It sucks. Basically migrate and go full Linux. Don’t look back :) Proton (which is WINE derivative) works somehow, because Valve invests every single day tremendous efforts into it. But that’s the problem, tremendous efforts. The good news. Every bit invested in high quality API/ABI on Linux pays off. Valve contributions to MESA and amdgpu are invaluable. Valve should honor native AAA-Titles and Indie-Titles for Linux - with exclusive Steam Awards. There is awesome stuff like Unrailed. Make the game developers think: “I better should do a proper port. And it should not be done by the Win32 developer. Task the Linux developer.” PS: I missed Counter-Strike so much on Linux for years. And the Valve came, ported everything natively, and it is wonderful :) PPS: I use a Mac for two incompatible applications (Garmin Express and Zwift). Less maintenance than Windows. Less possibilities than Linux. Horrible file-browser. Window management is a pain. But it covers the gap without ruining my day. I have to admit, the Mac cannot run Counter-Strike 2. That’s a task for Linux :)

xupybd 1y ago
Some of us have work that requires windows only applications.
- typpilol 1y ago
  Exactly Sorry boss I can't do work today, I decided to go full Linux and our CRM doesn't support it!
- jamesnorden 1y ago
  You don't have a work machine?
  - fuzzfactor 1y ago
    Most office workers are not in software so most work machines are office machines. Having baseline Windows further encumbered by often-misguided IT approaches. Every one of these needs more intense tweaking before it will run as well as the same offices 20 years ago. Too bad most users are locked out and IT may not know how to do it or may not be motivated anyway. It may even be at the point where less tweaking may now be needed for Linux to become a higher-performance office machine than Windows/Office was 20 years ago. With less undocumented effort than it would take to get the same performance from the latest Windows. But who's going to do it? All other things are not being equal though, 20 years ago PC's were lower-performing hardware in a number of ways, so that probably should be brought under consideration. But it just seems so unfair then.

wantlotsofcurry 1y ago

Are apps run through WinBoat limited to 60hz like regular Windows VMs? I’ve gotten to used to higher refresh rates and 1 window being a lower rate drives me nuts!

d3Xt3r 1y ago
Yes, you can't get more than 60FPS, it's a limitation of the RDP protocol.

ardanur 1y ago

Their FAQ mentions the Looking Glass Indirect Display Driver (IDD). That is something to look forward to. Looking Glass will work with an iGPU setup once IDD is released (but no 3D acceleration). What Looking Glass managed to do was get video memory sharing to work between the guest Windows compositor and a client running on the host (with qemu). Unfortunately, it apparently requires an out-of-tree Linux kernel driver that they call kvmfr. You can apparently still share non-video memory without kvmfr, which may hopefully yield adequate performance. Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI

fathermarz 1y ago

Does it have Windows APIs for sub systems like certificates/auth stores?

d3Xt3r 1y ago
It's just a VM running full Windows. It doesn't provide any win32 APIs or ways to interact with them, besides creating shortcuts to apps inside Windows using RDP/FreeRDP's RemoteApp functionality.

zamalek 1y ago

We need something better than RDP for running windows VMs locally. Can't a buffer be memory-mapped or something?

d3Xt3r 1y ago
This is exactly what the Looking Glass project is working on, their next release is expected to include their Indirect Display Driver that pretty much solves all the graphics limitations of RDP, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg50X9w5llI

reactordev 1y ago

Is this Parallels Desktop but for Linux? If so, this could be interesting however, what about graphics intensive applications? What does this offer that Proton or Wine doesn’t solve?

d3Xt3r 1y ago
Sort of, but nowhere as polished. For graphics intensive apps, you can get GPU passthrough working with some effort[1] but it's not really end-user friendly. Also, I wouldn't say it's an alternative to Proton, in fact it's probably worse than Proton because of the limited refresh rate, colors, and added latency of the RDP protocol that it uses to display the desktop. But it can be an alternative to Wine, since you're able to run certain apps that can't run in Wine, like Office 365, Adobe etc. This is where it shines, for people who are dependent on productivity apps like Office. [1] https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22 https://github.com/dockur/windows/issues/22
- reactordev 1y ago
  Ewww, RDP… thanks, that explains all I need to know. It’s a virtualbox.

itpcc 1y ago

Is it WinApps[0] with some fancy GUI or something? [0] https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps

d3Xt3r 1y ago
Basically yes, although WinApps uses a VM directly (and requires you to set it up first), whereas this project uses the dockur/windows container which automates the whole setup, making it easier for newbies. Technical users are probably better off spinning up their own VM though.

0xbadcafebee 1y ago

Why doesn't the FAQ actually explain what it is? Is it a VM running windows? WINE? That free NT kernel? Something else?

d3Xt3r 1y ago
It is a VM running Windows, specifically it's a QEMU VM in a Docker container and KVM backend. See: https://github.com/dockur/windows https://github.com/dockur/windows

shmerl 1y ago

Looks like a Windows VM with extras. I'd prefer Wine approach.

mcswell 1y ago
Sure, Wine when it works. It doesn't always, and it looks like this WinBoat will work when Wine doesn't. I'm currently using it for SIL's Fieldworks Language Explorer, which did not run under Wine.

zx8080 1y ago

> AppImage No, thanks.

teo_zero 1y ago

> Run Any App > If it runs on Windows, it can run on WinBoat. Did I miss an asterisk here? One that adds "except apps that require a GPU, that access non-USB devices, those with anti-cheat..."

d3Xt3r 1y ago
By default, yes, but they can all be supported, with some manual work, depending on your exact scenario. Check r/vfio if you're interested. Anti-cheat can be a hit-or-miss depending on the game, but for many games you can edit the VM XML to simulate real hardware. But of course you may not want to do that if you don't want to risk getting banned. Personally I don't play such user-hostile games that employ malware-like anticheat (and neither should you, if you care about privacy and security), but that's a whole other debate.

dns_snek 1y ago

Am I reading this right? It can run Excel more or less seamlessly like it's a native Linux program? Is there a catch? That would be game changing in convincing some people to switch to Linux.

retSava 1y ago
Furthest at the absolute bottom: "Yes :)"
rob74 1y ago
Well yes, it runs Excel in a VM running Windows. Which means you need an extra Windows license to be able to do it legally, but other than that, it works...
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  Not only a license, but I’m kind of still seeing that you would need to run your Windows VM with the entire range of Microsoft updates, defender, antivirus, and monitoring if your corporate, etc. No?

sim7c00 1y ago

will it allow me to run WSL on linux too? (genuinely curious)

dangus 1y ago

They are really going to need to change that branding to avoid trouble.

noname120 1y ago

Does it have display manager integration akin to Parallels Desktop’s Coherence mode? This is what the catch-phrase of WinBoat makes it sound like. https://kb.parallels.com/4670 https://kb.parallels.com/4670 ———— Edit: yes it does! See the README.md of the project on GitHub: > Elegant Interface: Sleek and intuitive interface that seamlessly integrates Windows into your Linux desktop environment, making it feel like a native experience Source: https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat

bapak 1y ago

It's always great to see software websites without a damn screenshot of the software doing its job. It says it can run office, maybe show me how it looks? How can you sell "seamless" and then don't demonstrate. I don't get it.

Pesthuf 1y ago
This! Does it render Windows‘ windows individually on the Linux desktop, with integration into alt-tab, the Ubuntu dock etc. or does it just render one big VM window? How is that not shown on the site.
GaryBluto 1y ago
But don't worry, it's got emoticons and a "slick" design, you don't need information!

Prunkton 1y ago

I'm just here to let the internet know, if you struggle to setup Citrix on (Arch) Linux, this seems to work out of the box

masfoobar 1y ago

WinBoat seems interesting. I will be keeping my eye on this one. Since I started using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in the last couple of years.. especially at work.. my work has been more productive, running certain GUI apps that "appear" to be running on Windows. There are some odd quirks to it, but its decent. On top of this, I can run podman or use shell tools (and bash) However, I was wondering what the opposite equiverlant would be in linux land. I mean, I rarely use Windows Applications when on a Linux machine. In the past, I remember playing GTA:Vice City through Wine and was 98% awesome. Just a few missing images and thats it. Other than this, I've had little reason to use Windows applications on Linux. Recently, I always wondered if there would be a "Linux Subsystem for Windows" equiverlant, abling to run pretty much any app. It would give my daughter the upperhand, which I recently installed Debian on her laptop... but I know there will be some Schoolwork with Microsoft products... WinBoat might be the answer.

Vipsy 1y ago

This looks nice, WinBoat gives teams a simple way to use linux for everyone, without losing access to Windows apps when needed. There’s no need for fancy cloud setups or switching between lots of devices—just one system and quick access to what works. Onboarding is easier for everyone, and IT does less work with only one setup to care for. This means companies can pick what’s best without making things messy or complicated.

smt88 1y ago
This reads like AI and almost none of it makes sense. Why would a Windows desktop fleet be more heterogeneous than a Linux one? Why would Linux be an easier on-boarding experience? Orgs use Windows because non-technical users expect it and execs don't get fired for choosing Microsoft.
- whywhywhywhy 1y ago
  Onboarding non-technical people to a computer that’s running half the apps in a different is virtualized and all the things that can go wrong with that sounds a nightmare.
d3Xt3r 1y ago
For what you're describing, there are already Enterprise-grade solutions that's even simpler and more robust, such as Azure Virtual Desktop with RemoteApps, and the even more mature and battle-tested Citrix XenApps / Cloud. Like for my work, I use a Linux laptop, and access our Windows-only apps and environments via Citrix and it works really well. And a good chunk of our apps are cloud-based anyways so we just need a web browser to access them. I also own a MacBook and have an Android phone, and I can access my work environment from all my devices. So at least for our workplace, the end-user OS has been largely irrelevant.
whywhywhywhy 1y ago
How you gonna justify buying a windows license for each user and then not just using that and forcing them to use some interface they’re unfamiliar with. I get the vision but ultimately if they need to run windows apps for work, just have them run windows. There’s places where people should consider Linux but that isn’t one of them.

Forgeties79 1y ago

Some of y’all are acting like this dude personally insulted you. They put out an open source project for folks to use that may solve a problem for someone out there. That’s neat. If it has faults maybe we can be a bit more constructive and less all “wtf is this crap?”

GaryBluto 1y ago
> y'all > folks There goes the neighbourhood.

fdsffsvafvv 1y ago

If anyone from the project reads this:please don't load Discord on the front page of your website. Discord is often used as C2 server, and in many secure environments will trigger alerts when someone tries to load it. So loading your webpage triggers an alert (luckily the alert in our business come to me, but the point stands). At least hide it behind a link.

GaryBluto 1y ago
I'd argue that software projects having a Discord chat room at all is incredibly unprofessional; it's like if a DIY boating club required you to go to an Chuck-E-Cheese to communicate.

carlesfe 1y ago

An actual explanation of what the software does, from their Github repo > WinBoat is an Electron app which allows you to run Windows apps on Linux using a containerized approach. Windows runs as a VM inside a Docker container, we communicate with it using the WinBoat Guest Server to retrieve data we need from Windows. For compositing applications as native OS-level windows, we use FreeRDP together with Windows's RemoteApp protocol.

monocasa 1y ago
Why do they need a docker container and a vm?
- onehair 1y ago
  because windows isn't bloat enough /runs-away-as-this-joke-might-not-be-funny-toall-xD
- GoblinSlayer 1y ago
  VM runs the actual thing, and docker is package manager.
  - throitallaway 1y ago
    Maybe I would call Docker an installation and running method rather than a package manager in this case.
  - monocasa 1y ago
    But my read is that the electron application is out of the docker container. It's distributed as an appimage. So then what is the docker container doing?
    - d3Xt3r 1y ago
      The docker container hosts QEMU and the docker files to run Windows. The author probably chose this method because the dockur/windows project basically automates and simplifies the whole process of installing and configuring QEMU, and installing and configuring Windows etc. See: https://github.com/dockur/windows https://github.com/dockur/windows

chem83 1y ago

WinApps is the project to watch (https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps), although they're still working on Wayland support (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779#issuecomment-3374276712 https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps/issues/779#issuecomme...). It can get by through xwayland for the time being, it seems.

d3Xt3r 1y ago
They don't need to "work" on Wayland support at all, all that work is being done by the FreeRDP project. Also, sdl3-freerdp is the new Wayland client for FreeRDP is already available, and it works fine. You can just edit the shortcuts/bash scripts and replace xfreerdp with sdl3-freerdp and bam, you've got Wayland support.

Fidelix 1y ago

Freerdp (which this project and every other similar one depends on) is 100% broken on wayland for this use case. I'm not going back to X11.

rldjbpin 1y ago

previously featured: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45099124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45099124

wolandark 1y ago

Purple gradients and emojis somehow scream vibe coded trash