@sooderso
Unter Linux ist der compatibility layer #wine (https://www.winehq.org/) oft genutzt und er reicht für viele Applikationen aus. Für harte Fälle bietet #WinBoat (https://www.winboat.app/) die Möglichkeit, ein vollwertiges, aber gekapseltes Windows zu integrieren.

@rwaschbaer Alle Komerziellen CADs sind Zicken auf Linux, Weder Solidworks noch AutoCAD habe ich mit Wine oder Proton zum Laufen gebracht.
Neuerdings gibt es ja #Winboat. Du könntest das mal auprobieren.

Hier hat nicht zufällig schonmal jemand ArchiCAD produktiv(!) unter Linux zum Laufen gebracht? Wenn ich das richtig in Erinnerung hab, muss auch CodeMeter für die Lizensserver-Verbindung laufen.

Der Rechner auf dem das laufen muss bräuchte ansonsten eine neue CPU, damit Windows 11 zukünftig darauf läuft.

(Die neue CPU wäre vermutlich einmalig weniger Stress. Aber irgendwie sträubt sich alles in mir, perfekt funktionierende, vollkommen ausreichende Hardware zu ersetzen, damit da ein OS läuft, das ich eigentlich gar nicht in meinem Leben haben will.)

#ArchiCAD #CodeMeter #Linux #WinBoat #Wine #Windows11

Gibt es eigentlich bei Linux sowas wie "Komplettsets", die einem den Umstieg möglichst leicht machen? Also Mint mit vorinstalliertem Winboat, oder sowas? Wahrscheinlich läuft das der Haltung "Linux" zuwider, aber ich denke das wäre schon praktisch, oder?

#Linux #linuxMint #winboat #DIDit

#winboat ist wirklich verdammt praktisch 🫶

@FlashMobOfOne have you tried using VM with #winboat ?

WinBoat ist die Lösung für Linux-Nutzer, die auf Windows-exklusive Software angewiesen sind
#winboat #linux #windows #vm #docker
https://torbenkopp.com/winboat-ist-die-loesung-fuer-linux-nutzer-die-auf-windows-exklusive-software-angewiesen-sind/

Tried #winboat today and I am positively surprised. Because now I don't even need a Windows VM anymore 🎉

Saw a coworker use Winboat on linux instead of a windows virtual machine and it looks like quite a smooth integration! Running apps in the same window as other linux apps. If my internet wasn't so slow I'd like to give it a try right now (but you need to download win 11 ISO, which takes some time with my internet...).

Maybe this would fix certain issues virtual machines have, such as keyboard shortcuts in the VM. For some reason Virtualbox can't deal with SPACE+DRAG.

#winboat #linux #windows

Is anyone using #winboat reliably? Now that it has podman support, I decided to give it an earnest try, and i have to say... Im not having much success. I got a guest up and running, and this morning I started working on getting one of those apps I really need windows for installed.... and the guest just disappeared, and wont start up now.

It’s been a time-honoured adage that the best advert for Linux is Windows.

Despite that, I limped along with a Windows 10 install on my laptop for many years. It did the job reasonably well, and I could run the apps I needed to for both myself and my studies. Then the “upgrade” to Windows 11 was forced out, and I soon became sick of its vibe-coded, resource-hogging slop. Copilot contempt forcing LLM prompts into the simplest tasks, upselling OneDrive when my files are literally right there, the deafening whirr of fans when idle, and generally getting in the way instead of invisibly enabling productivity. Windows 11 insists upon itself.

It is not the economy to upgrade hardware, so last Summer I gave Linux another try. An occasional fancy I’ve experimented with since the turn of the century, lurking around on a spare partition until I try to get some real work done. As a creative needing to run creative apps, I’d often find myself crawling back to Bill with my tail between my legs.

This time was different. Installing Linux Mint from a USB stick onto my laptop’s hard drive, I was immediately impressed with how smoothly it all went. Almost everything worked straight out of the box, even down to the mouse, audio, and ethernet plugged into my dock, and anything else was a swift search away.

Being a Debian offshoot by way of Ubuntu, I was able to use a centralised package management system to install and update the apps I needed. I was pleased to see this expandable when the official repository didn’t have what I needed. Far better than juggling random install packages from less-than-reputable vendors.

Although I’m technically minded and able to delve into the gubbins if need be, excessive tinkering just gets in the way of doing things. If I am to tweak my settings to get things working as I’d like them to, I’d rather do it here and once, than in an environment where they can be ignored and undone by yet another ham-fisted marketing-led update.

After a few months of never booting into Windows, I concluded it didn’t need to clog up my SSD anymore. So in the New Year I took some time to scrub it from my system to reinstall Linux from scratch. Fearing something bad happening as a result, I was overcautious with backups, but ultimately the process was even smoother than the first time. (Despite a few bootloader tweaks to expunge the now-repurposed Windows partition.)

Now everything works faster and better! The solid state install boots up within an acceptable time, and I am able to get started within seconds of switching on.

There were still a few extra things I needed to do to get it working as desired. Cunningly copied over from my Summer experiments, my field-notes are listed here for future reference:

DisplayLink Drivers

My laptop dock (an old Dell D6000) has a secondary monitor plugged into it with the option for more. Rather than leave them unused or faff around with specific driver installs, I added the DisplayLink repository to my package manager and let things just update as needed.

https://www.synaptics.com/products/displaylink-graphics/downloads/ubuntu

Brave Browser

Although Mint ships with Mozilla Firefox, I prefer to use Brave Browser. This browser, although controversial in part for its (ignorable) crypto focus, offers better default privacy and effective erasure of egregious adverts. With any AI excess simply disabled on my part, I especially like how it keeps a running total of the bumph it’s blocked.

Once again, I chose to install from the official release channel, which just involved registering the key to their repository and letting the package manager do the work:

https://brave.com/linux

DaVinci Resolve

The big one. Balancing video projects between laptop and iPad/iPhone, I’ve found DaVinci Resolve an absolute professional-tier boon. Using it for all my editing needs, not least of all affordability, I was pleased to learn Blackmagic Design already publish a Linux edition – although configured for a different flavour of the Operating System.

Happily, an enterprising fellow has released a script to repackage it in a Mint-friendly format that I can maintain alongside everything else:

https://www.danieltufvesson.com/makeresolvedeb

iCloud

Sharing files between Laptop and iPad is necessary to my current workflow, and this was the big problem when appraising Linux in the past. Despite Apple’s BSD base, they’ve been very reluctant to open up their ecosystem to others. Although there’s a way to connect via Windows, Linux users are locked out.

Luckily, there exists a little package called ‘rclone’ that specialises in mounting and synchronising with remote filesystems, and of late this includes iCloud. Although connection can be done on an ad-hoc basis, I prefer the stability of running rclone as a generic System service, with account credentials and environment tweaks configured by the user.

https://github.com/rclone/rclone/wiki/Systemd-rclone-mount

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as it should be. There are currently problems with authentication, of which many workarounds have been published. This isn’t ideal for the non-techie, but for now at least it’s manageable – even if it seems a new method must be contrived every 30 days:

https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/8587

Campus Software

Another bugbear – the need to run existing Windows software for my studies.

One advantage to Microsoft’s obsessive cloud-maximalism is that I no longer need to run local copies of their productivity software. The web-based alternatives to Office have sufficed to get me through the last term – although this revealed many .pdf formatting challenges on the eve of submission.

However, other software, such as the console emulators and CAD packages required of the course, remain inaccessible.

There are many options here, both through emulation and reimplementation; and at the moment I’m currently investigating WinBoat. This is a sandboxed Windows environment sitting in a docker container, and is only switched on when required, allowing the user to log into a full desktop or just run individual apps. Initial tests are positive, and I’ve been able to spin up Green Hippo directly without too many concerns. (As well as the full Office 365 suite.)

WinBoat is still a work in progress. I can access USB peripherals from within the container after enabling an experimental option, but so far it only seems to allow mapping my entire $HOME drive back into Windows – instead of an arbitrary file share that would be far nicer for security.

Evaluation remains ongoing…

https://www.winboat.app

Overall

Things have definitely changed for the better. I feel more in control of my computer again, and it behaves as I’d expect it to.

Despite the Open Source credo that rightfully empowers Linux, I find this less important than running software that just works. Microsoft’s hubris has eroded trust in their platform, and anything which distances me further from Windows can only be a good thing.

(Update: Rollout to the latest version of Mint, 22.3 Zara, was literally a frictionless five minute click from the Update Manager. All I needed was to fix my keyboard settings.)

@kkarhan @schenklklopfer @herrLorenz
Aus der Steinzeit des PC (kurz nach Apple ][ und C64 erinnere ich mich an eine Diskussion an meinem Arbeitsplatz, ob denn nun Word Perfect oder Microsoft Word besser sei. Es gab nur wenige, echt Argumente. Im wesentlichen wurde immer das unterstützt, was man schon kannte. Jede Umstellung ist mit Aufwand (u.A. Installation, Training) verbunden.
Diesen Aufwand muss man gegen die Vorteile, die man bei Umstellung sieht, abwägen.
Für den Umstieg würde ich #Linux Mint Cinnamon empfehlen. Dieses Ubuntu-Derivat ist einfach zu installieren und in Look and Feel Windows-ähnlich.
Wenn man für bestimmte Software von Windows abhängig ist, ist #WinBoat (unter Linux Mint) meine Wahl.
Rezensionen und Anleitungen dazu findet man zuhauf im Internet.

@trancefish @finnsend falls du das Gefühl hast Rückfällig zu werden, probier mal #winboat

https://github.com/TibixDev/winboat

@faduda

My second impression is a lot more favourable.

I assigned it more RAM and CPU cores and it is running more smoothly. Also in Desktop mode I could use it just as if it were any other Windows PC. I downloaded and installed a couple of programs and all seemed good.

And shut it down afterwards and got all my resources back for other stuff.

So it is quicker than dual booting and better than Wine, even with Bottles.

What are the issues running it in Mint?

#winboat #Debian

@faduda

So it installed fine on Debian 13.2 - it took a while to download Windows 11 but you can also use a local ISO.

To run it I had to first install FreeRDP3.

I tested a couple of the standard windows programs and they are very slow to start, but run ok (with maybe a little screen flicker).

Basically it is running Windows as a VM, personally I see no benefit unless you want to run a lot of Windows stuff that doesn't work in Wine. In that case I would dual boot.

#winboat #debian

This looks promising.

Most of my Linux machine have Windows OEM licenses still in their firmware anyway.

That should probably be better than Wine for trying to get WPF, WinUI, or Maui apps running.

And might maske Windows Rider development easier on a Linux box.

#winboat #kvm #windows #wine #linux #wpf #winui

https://www.winboat.app/

Hilfe ich installiere mir gerade Windows 11.

#Windows11 #Windows #linux #winboat

Is anyone on Mastodon regularly using Winboat to run Windows software and USB devices? How is it working for you?

I know it's still experimental, but it has real potential to free many people from Windows and its creeping AI bloat — at least for home use, in my case. #Winboat

Ich habe einen neuen #Blogbeitrag geschrieben, in dem ich kurz erkläre, wie man Windows-Anwendungen unter Linux nutzen kann.

🔗 https://testorakel.de/posts/2512-windows-anwendungen-in-den-linux-desktop-integrieren/

#39c3 #WinBoat #Windows #Linux #Blog

Damn, #WinBoat to run #PhotoShop on #fedora #linux is amazeballs.