Windows applications

Windows software I've tried

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Compatibility layers

Wine

  • Wine

  • WineTricks

Proton & Steam

Proton is (I think) a derivative of Wine that has been developed by Valve, to make all Windows games work on Linux, with high performance and native-like function.

The Proton layer can be used to run non-game applications too, although this isn't widely tested and things will likely not work exactly right.

  • Proton (Valve, Steam)

  • ProtonTricks

  • ProtonGE

WinApps

I haven't used this yet but it looks like a reasonable way to run virtualised Windows software inside Linux.

  1. Runs Windows in a Docker, Podman or libvirt virtual machine

  2. Creates shortcuts to selected Windows applications on the host GNU/Linux OS

  3. Uses FreeRDP as a backend to seamlessly render Windows applications alongside GNU/Linux applications.

Link: github.com/winapps-org/winapps

Virtualisation

Virtual machines are nothing new, but getting good performance out of them is less simple.

Recent years have brought "passthrough" virtualisation, in which the software enables direct hardware access for the virtual operating system. In the last couple of years, a new piece of software has been developed which essentially replicates the framebuffer from the VM's GPU into the host's GPU, thereby providing 1-frame-behind-realtime visual access into the VM's graphical output.

Passthrough Virtualisation

Virtual machine applications:

  • VirtualBox

  • QEMU

  • Gnome Boxes

  • idk actually, it's been years since I used virtual machines. I'll add things to this list later when I'm undertaking this adventure.

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