And so cometh the foretold LSW (Linux Subsystem for Windows)
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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And with it, the infinitely recursive wsllswwsllswwsllsw...
It’s subsystems all the way down
Always has been
So... What make it's different from PlayOnLinux or Bottles or Winetricks ?
They can't run Adobe. This runs a full VM constantly in the background that you can pop up when you want to use the Windows desktop to install things etc. It's a completely different set up. It can also run ArcGIS Pro, which the other methods can't.
So this can run latest MS OFFICE and Adobe Suite you say ??
It can even run pirated versions, don't ask me how I know! 🏴☠️
That's even better !!!
yar har har
Why would you want that though....
Well it's not my own choice, my office has standards.
And if it can run FL Studio, adios to dual boot. 😄
FL Studio and most VSTs already work in WINE.
me running adobe ps cc 2023 in wine for the last 2 years: * stares in doubt
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ESRI sucks horribly, getting away from that trash is a good idea.
There is no good use case for that crap.
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Unlike the Wine based stuff (Bottles, Winetricks), this runs actual Windows as a VM. So compatibility will be far better though performance will be worse.
And it comes with all the downsides that Windows does.
I don't ever mean to be a downer but I feel this will hurt users in the long run. Just simy extending an umbilicle to Microsoft's teat because they can't be assed to let go and stop suckling. M$O and Adobe CC are some of the worst offenders for SaaS bullshittery.
The thing is, sometimes you need Microsoft not of your own volition but because of bureaucracy. When I was signing a contract recently, the government required me to fill in a office word document and it would not work at all on libre, I had to scramble around the house, went through 3 different computers trying to get any of them to have office working after I just recently uninstalled it from all of them to use libre only, but in the end I had to use a university computer to fill in the doc.
As much as I want to move from them, Excel and Photoshop are too advance compared to any alternative, including both FOSS and commercial one.
Even Excel Online is not as advance as Excel desktop.
Casual users can get away from them, not advance user that needs unique feature only available in the software.
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Well will it run Winamp because I inadvertently read the title as Winamp and now I need it again
Audacious is your friend. It accepts old Winamp skins!
I've been rocking the Windows XP skin on Linux Mint
AFAIK I am pretty sure Winamp works fine on Wine.
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Anyone try this yet? Office and adobe on Linux easily working on Linux would be big.
It running in podman just windows VM and connection to real host done with rdp window capture from windows.I tried it not that bad can be used for office work i used it with tiny11
Yea it's great!
What about graphics acceleration? Does it need gpu pass through?
Running Windows in a Docker, Podman or libvirt virtual machine
Seems to me like GPU acceleration should be supported. Libvirt probably requires dedicated passthrough or sophisticated methods like SR-IOV.
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What's the difference of this and WINE?
tldr: VM->RDP seamless render
WinApps works by: Running Windows in a Docker, Podman or libvirt virtual machine. Querying Windows for all installed applications. Creating shortcuts to selected Windows applications on the host GNU/Linux OS. Using FreeRDP as a backend to seamlessly render Windows applications alongside GNU/Linux applications.
Wine Is Not an Emulator.
This is an Emulator.
Wait, Docker and Podman can create Windows VMs?
I had winapps setup using QEMU quite a while ago but this seems like a much tidier setup.
Docker and Podman can't run Windows VMs by themselves. These containers use QEMU, so it's essentially a pre-made setup for what you already had.
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I am running it on Docker. :)
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Will this work with music producing software like Ableton or will it introduce too much latency?
It should be ok, I think. I am running ArcGIS which is pretty resource heavy and it works just fine.
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Additional Features
- The GNU/Linux
/homedirectory is accessible within Windows via the\\tsclient\homemount
Well I for one won't be touching this with a ten foot pole.
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If that works with silly mobile games as well, maybe I can get my mom on Linux
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Yah, I dinked with this for far too long on several docker-based windows installs I have around the network including localhost on a non-standard port. Fails to set up and gives no messages to follow up when it does. I can connect to them fine with a normal xfreerdp command.
2/7
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This is (like) virtualbox running in seamless mode...
Does anyone know if it can run Visual Studio? Would be awesome so i could switch to Linux for my Job
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Paint.net' child window always got mess up and float across the screen towards the left side
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