Bottles: GUI front end to run Windows software on Linux

https://usebottles.com/

by sph • 5 years ago

604 227 5 years ago

usebottles.com

moharoune• 5 years ago

How does this compare to Wine ?

dschuessler• 5 years ago

Judging from the Github project page, it uses Wine itself, so is probably just a GUI frontend to it.

Vinnl• 5 years ago

I think this uses Wine (it mentions DXVK, which IIRC is for Wine), but handles setting it up correctly for every program you want to use.

mozarik• 5 years ago

https://docs.usebottles.com/components/runners

rhdunn• 5 years ago

Bottles are isolated Wine environments, similar to containers or VMs. This allows you to install components (e.g. msxml3) to, and modify the configuration of that environment to make the program work without having it affect other applications.

mathfailure2• 5 years ago

Isolated wine environments are called wineprefixes in wine terms and do not require any additional software.

anthk• 5 years ago

     export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/tmp

     mkdir $HOME/tmp

     wine foo/bar/bla/install.exe

boudin• 5 years ago

I don't know why you're getting down-voted, it's a legitimate question since the main page doesn't mention wine once. It is a Wine frontend though, seems to also integrate wine-tricks for dependencies, DXVK and other things from the wine eco-system.

lordofgibbons• 5 years ago

I want to make sure I understand what this is.

Does this set up and manage multiple isolated Wine & Proton environments?

confiq• 5 years ago

As far as I understand, yes[1]! I'll quote

There are two types of runners in Bottles:
1. Wine
2. Proton
The Wine runner is used for all Environments and is therefore in all bottles created, but also for external prefixes imported into Bottles. We support 3 different runners:

[1] https://docs.usebottles.com/components/runners

badsectoracula• 5 years ago

I haven't used this software, but FWIW i almost never have to create isolated Wine (well, Wine-staging) environments. I've installed pretty much everything - applications, games, etc - on the default wine prefix and things tend to work just fine. Though i do have installed DXVK and VKD3D-Proton as well as the windows media framework files for games to work properly, but i do not see these as anything different to what i was doing on Windows anyway - including using DXVK to run some D3D9 games that were otherwise broken.

I think in general Wine and Wine-staging are good enough nowadays to not need game-specific hacks that affect the entire wine prefix anymore.

woile• 5 years ago

This is literally amazing, very similar to playonlinux, but much better looking and intuitive.

Thanks for this, it will make much easier to install linux on friends computers hehe

CursedUrn• 5 years ago

This looks cool. Does it make use of the tech Valve has been developing for gaming in Linux?

1_player5• 5 years ago

Yes, you can choose which Wine environment to run on, by default it's a vanilla Wine environment, or you can pick which Proton version you prefer.

drekk• 5 years ago

It (optionally) uses a fork of Proton, the Valve-developed compatability layer. All containers use Wine, but Proton and Lutris are more complex and support more modern titles

unbanned• 5 years ago

I don't want to have to learn an entirely new vocabulary for every new utility that comes out.

mathfailure2• 5 years ago

tl;dr: that seems to be a GUI to create&mange separate wine/proton-based wineprefixes and install libs/apps into them using winetricks.

Basically, just another Lutris/PlayOnLinux/whatever else.

wizzledonker• 5 years ago

This looks great, I love the clean GTK for this user interface. Say what you will about GTK and Gnome... for beginners on an operating system such as Ubuntu, having a consistent application concept is very important.

Curious how this compares to Lutris[1]. I can see it has support for it as a runner, however as far as I can tell it achieves the same thing by maintaining separate wineprefixes.

[1] https://lutris.net/

29athrowaway• 5 years ago

Lutris is focused mostly on games and options that benefit games.

nicce• 5 years ago

You can run manually any application you want. It just does not offer one-click install for non-games. I believe lutris offers better runner configuration.

greggh• 5 years ago

If you look at the screenshots, the very first screenshot says it is using Lutris as a "runner".

mrtnpwn• 5 years ago

It has a runner manager so you can choose whatever WINE runner you like. Default is just the vanilla runtime.

Jnr2• 5 years ago

Lutris is great, but the UI is not as polished, and is probably still geared towards more advanced users.

simion31411• 5 years ago

Say what you will about GTK and Gnome... for beginners on an operating system such as Ubuntu, having a consistent application concept is very important.

Consistency is important but is not like the majority of the apps are GTK3 (or whatever is latest) with the GNOME styles even if those GNOME designers pretend nothing else exists and nobody should remove the GNOME branding from the GNOME apps.

Just want to mention that GNOME are the bad guys, KDE distributions will provide GNOME integration with packages and themes that attempt to keep Qt and GTK application consistent in look and feel but I never seen GNOME distros attempt to integrate with the non-GNOME apps.

sph• 5 years ago

GNOME are the bad guys

Just because you disagree with them, it doesn't make them the "bad guys".

ravenstine• 5 years ago

As much as I think that GNOME is a joke at this point (and has been for well over a decade), is that really such a bad thing that they focus on supporting their graphical toolkit of choice?

Besides, the real solution here is for developers to switch to QT and stop using GTK. ;)

xfiderek• 5 years ago

https://docs.usebottles.com/faq/why-bottles#why-not-just-pol...

brnt• 5 years ago

Re consistency: Am I the only that finds all those burgerbuttons and cluttered window frames (I think they may even call them decorations!) anything but?

Give me a title bar and good old many bars please.

IceWreck• 5 years ago

+1 for Bottles. Have been using it for a while. Its excellent. It also has an inbuilt task manager, command line access, and so on for a container/bottle.

pxc9• 5 years ago

It also has an inbuilt task manager

This is part of WINE. You can access it via

  wine taskmgr

or if you have some specific WINEPREFIX in mind (including, for example, one associated with some Steam game that runs via Proton), you can use

  WINEPREFIX=/path/to/prefix wine taskmgr

> command line access

This is part of WINE, too. You can access it with

  wine cmd

or launch it in your favorite terminal emulator with

  konsole -e 'wine cmd'

  xterm -e 'wine cmd'

or whatever. And you can launch it for a specific WINEPREFIX the same way as described in the taskmgr case, above.

Bottles definitely seems better than dealing with this manually, to be clear. But those two features are part of WINE itself! :)

syntaxfree• 5 years ago

I wonder if this will work for running Java GUI scientific apps (Gephi, Concept Explorer) that are pretty much impossible to get running correctly on Linux.

Koshkin• 5 years ago

You mean, “impossible to get running correctly anywhere”?

(The problem with running Java apps is that they are tied to a range of versions of JRE, like, for instance, version 8 or earlier.)

alpaca128• 5 years ago

I've tried this on PopOS and unfortunately it was really unstable and couldn't start applications. But otherwise I think the interface is already better and simpler than some other GUI frontends for wine.

mackrevinack3• 5 years ago

this could be a completely different issue to yours, but i ran into a problem with some software where i selected the .exe installer to run but it wouldn't work as bottles didn't have access to the other installer files in the same folder.

when i moved the installer files inside the bottle it worked no problem. alternatively, flatseal will let you set up permissions for bottles so that it can access your home folder

AnIdiotOnTheNet5• 5 years ago

Looks like a replacement for ye-olde PlayOnLinux, which if I ever move to Linux Desktop[0] was going to be something I would write my own tooling to replace[1].

It is not clear from looking over the website, but since bottles appear closely related to Flatpak I am wondering if they support being installed to a different path than the default. Flatpak doesn't allow you to do this in a piecemeal way[2], but it does allow you to set up more than one entire Flatpak environment to different paths[3]. I'm hoping bottles can at least manage that?

[0] There are dozens of tools on my list for this, mostly around application and container management.

[1] I am a very vocal critic of the way Linux Desktop does things, but Windows is becoming worse at an alarming rate so it will probably be the least-worst option in a few years.

[2] A regression from features we had in desktop OSs since the 80s.

[3] Not that any GUI frontend for it pays attention to that. sigh

bogwog2• 5 years ago

Idk anything about bottles, but just curious why you would want that feature? Like, what is a compelling use case for it?

You probably know this already, but the point of Flatpak is to offer sandboxing and packaging of all dependencies in an isolated way. Being able to install and run flatpaks from any directory seems like it’d be difficult to implement for little benefit. It’s a bad fit for the tech IMO, and unnecessary since AppImage already offers exactly that functionality, but without the sandboxing (and other) features.

AnIdiotOnTheNet5• 5 years ago

Idk anything about bottles, but just curious why you would want that feature? Like, what is a compelling use case for it?

Being able to run some applications from super fast but small NVMe disk and less important ones from slow but huge spinning rust disk, being able to run applications from a network share, CD, USB stick, etc. Desktop OSs have been able to do these sorts of things since the 1980s without all the hoops Linux Desktop software makes you jump through to do them.

Being able to install and run flatpaks from any directory seems like it’d be difficult to implement for little benefit.

If Flatpak had considered this ability from the beginning it wouldn't be. Hell it might not be that difficult now, I haven't looked at the source for Flatpak and how it does things behind the scenes is otherwise not documented as far as I can tell. As you mentioned, AppImage implements it without much difficulty, and AppImages can be securely isolated by firejail. Combining the two concepts in the same package shouldn't be that hard. Keep runtimes in "installations" and let applications exists as single-directory self-contained units wherever the user wants them. What is fundamentally difficult about this?

unnecessary since AppImage already offers exactly that functionality

If AppImage were fast becoming the new standard in Linux Desktop application distribution we wouldn't be having this conversation.

FengLengshun• 5 years ago

if they support being installed to a different path than the default.

There is an AppImage version if you want that. Also have snap, .deb, AUR, and dnf install options, from what I saw on their Installation page.

It used to be AppImage that they push until after some discussion makes them push Flatpak version more.

pxeger12• 5 years ago

[0] There are dozens of tools on my list for this, mostly around application and container management.

Could you share that list? I've had precisely the opposite problem with container management - whenever I have to use Windows, I find container management so unwieldy. And what do you mean by "application management"?

jimnotgym2• 5 years ago

Can this run office 365 on Linux. I don't really care about alternatives, I need Teams, One Drive, PowerBI and Excel or I can't move. Otherwise I have to stick with WSL

jeroenhd• 5 years ago

No. Wine can't implement modern features fast enough for stuff like office to work.

That's not the goal of this tool, though. It's a quality of life improvement for programs that are already known to work in WINE.

iudqnolq• 5 years ago

It looks like the only officially supported program that isn't a game is amazon music [1]. The main project for running windows on Linux has a partially working distribution of Office 365. My impression is that it sometimes works with significant manual effort, wouldn't be reliable enough to depend on without a backup system [2].

When I need Office apps to communicate with clients I use a combination of Google Docs download as docx, Office Online, and a VM.

[1] https://github.com/bottlesdevs/programs [2]: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...

marcodiego2• 5 years ago

I was able to install following instructions available here: https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/hhvx17/off... and here: https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/hhvx17/off... .

I downloaded the installer from a windows machine. After trying to install and run, it still complained about a missing implementation. The tutorial explains how to install using wine 5.11, to make it run correctly, simply run it using wine 5.12 after installed.

I used bottles to install wine versions my distro wasn't shipped with. Also used winetricks to install fonts. At the end it works, but be aware: it is slow and buggy.

senectus1• 5 years ago

is that not the same link twice?

MayeulC5• 5 years ago

Android office apps seem to work for me via waydroid. Otherwise, web office seems to be enough for 90% of people (where libreoffice and onlyoffice already seem to cover the needs for 70%). Of course, you might have a very specific need for MS Office, no judgement :)

edit: though a VM can work too.

tyingq2• 5 years ago

WSL2 is probably hard to beat. They've added GPU passthrough, and now have Wayland built-in with wslg. Some buggy stuff remains, systemd support is a bit rough, etc. But they do keep iterating. I do wish they had a full-screen mode where you could use your own window manager, like many Windows X11 servers optionally allow.

But it's good enough now that I rarely find things that don't work. At least for now, it's also a bit of an escape from corporate over-management of desktops. Most companies haven't yet figured out how to overmanage it in the way they do with regular Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

Shadonototra3• 5 years ago

That's not the reason people use linux

They move to linux to be in control of their OS, to manage their dependencies and to embrace an open platform that scale from embedded to IoT to datacenters

If your goal is to use a proprietary OS that spy on you and is bloated, only to run a linux VM, then you don't understand why cloud native is 100% linux

That's the problem of the people who work at Microsoft have, they became blind and don't understand the real intent of people using linux!

Bloat driven development is certainly not one of them!

jimnotgym2• 5 years ago

For everyone questioning the need for MS office. If you are an advanced Excel user nothing else will do.

robertlagrant• 5 years ago

Office online?

petepete• 5 years ago

I've just tried with Office 2013 and 2016, neither worked. Didn't make it as far as the installer screen each time.

To make sure it was installed properly I tried Notepad++ and it worked flawlessly.

Office is just a bit of a pain.

citizenpaul• 5 years ago

I once read that office basically functions like a VM. I don't know how true that was but I guess it makes it not really software but a deployment.

Shadonototra3• 5 years ago

Well stick to windows, nobody forcing you to move!

If linux doesn't have what you need, it's 100% fine!

Linux is here for people willing to stop depending on proprietary mono-platform driven stacks

The world is moving, you'll be left behind, if not already

Developpers already moved with it, what's left are the old "ms" office people! the modern ones use gmail suite

Santosh832• 5 years ago

I mean, what the hell? This is from India:

"The website has been blocked as per order of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under IT Act, 2000."

Why has the Indian govt blocked this website?

sundarurfriend• 5 years ago

Is it still blocked for you? I'm on ACT broadband and the site is available to me, but i think Jio is generally more restrictive.

(For anyone reading from outside India, yes, the government blocks a lot of websites, different internet providers seem to implement different lists, and nobody afaik knows what the actual official list is - or maybe there isn't one, just general instructions from the government about what sort of websites to block, hence the variance.)

Santosh832• 5 years ago

Surprisingly it is not blocked now. What changed within half an hour? Very inexplicable. I'm on BSNL landline broadband, fwiw.

webmobdev• 5 years ago

Same here on Airtel, India - blocked.

blahgeek• 5 years ago

I'm curious, how does this work? It's a HTTPS site, so it's basically a MITM attack, which is not technically possible, is that right? Are you required to install some certification from gov?

Delk• 5 years ago

Maybe they block entire domains, not individual pages?

That wouldn't be affected by HTTPS at all.

gombosg• 5 years ago

The initial TLS handshake contains the hostname in plaintext, also DNS queries can be sniffed. On the other hand, MITM would be like changing a certificate in an attempt to alter traffic, this case is simple traffic blocking by doing packet inspection. (Which is also not nice obviously)

tanduv• 5 years ago

Depends on the ISP, but some have even done deep packet inspection - https://iamkush.me/sni-airtel/

InnerGargoyle• 5 years ago

working fine on YouBroadband..

rtpg• 5 years ago

Ooh this looks very nice. I love how wine “just works” but it means I’m sometimes just really unaware of what’s going on or how my system is configured.

I admit I sometimes just open winetricks and more or less randomly click on a bunch of things to see if it will fix issues when I have them… this might help me out with that

SSLy2• 5 years ago

That's a strange name, Crossover (the company backing Wine developement) uses Bottles as a name for their Wine prefixes.

nailer• 5 years ago

Yeah I read the website and thought Bottles for winning Ng windows apps on Linux is already a thing - looks like this is a different company that’s ripped off the name.

blihp• 5 years ago

Not a strange name at all: wine comes in bottles in the real world. Seems apropos for what these virtual bottles are doing.

SSLy2• 5 years ago

I know wine is bottled AFK. It's just that name in the software ecosystem is a naming conflict.

2ion• 5 years ago

Why is this better than playonlinux (contains "quirk" solution for lots of productivity software and is also based on fully managed invidiual wine prefices) or lutris or steam w/ proton for games?

2Gkashmiri• 5 years ago

i could never under the new phoenicis playonlinux. it is molasses slow, takes a toll on pc, is buggy. eh.

MayeulC5• 5 years ago

It's a shame winepak never really took off https://www.winepak.org/

To make this clear, there hasn't been much activity since 2018: https://github.com/winepak/winepak

1_player5• 5 years ago

That's fantastic! I've been trying to package as many apps as I can as flatpak (because flatpak rocks, fight me), I will definitely look into winepak to package Windows-only software. The fact that it uses a standard and common-place technology, it just needs more exposure IMO. This is the first time I have heard of it.

EDIT: nevermind...

  $ flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists winepak https://dl.winepak.org/repo/winepak.flatpakrepo
  error: Signature made Fri 20 Jul 2018 03:30:34 BST using RSA key ID A959831C080B608F
  BAD signature from " <julian@richen.io>"
  Key expired Tue 09 Jun 2020 19:16:34 BST

alvarlagerlof2• 5 years ago

It's not active anymore.

smoldesu7• 5 years ago

I mean, I can see why. At this point, Flatpak has more open issues than Wine itself...

1_player5• 5 years ago

The flatpak hate gang strikes again. Seriously, more bugs than Wine? For the first time we have a cross-distro packaging system, and I still hear people complaining that the olden days were better. Are you kidding me?

Honestly, I don't even care to entertain this discussion, as for the FIRST TIME in Linux history there is people packaging an application and it works exactly the same everywhere, and some can only meet this achievement by unpaid volunteers with _snark_ because it's not "perfect".

It's tiring to see any effort to make the Linux desktop a reality met with unconstructive opposition from daily Linux desktop users.

/rant

lillecarl2• 5 years ago

First impression is that the gui is beautifully designed, installation on NixOS was (as always with prepackaged Nix packages) painless.

I'm not sure what I should use it for though since I don't really run any windows applications other than games, and I use QEMU for that, only game that hasn't worked in QEMU is "Halo Infinite".

brianjlogan• 5 years ago

How's that work? You have a QEMU windows box setup to game on?

Why not use Proton?

lillecarl2• 5 years ago

Yeah I have a QEMU windows box that I game on.

The reason I don't use proton is because compability isn't 100%, whereas actually running windows gets you to a 100%, if we don't count games with predatory anticheats, but those don't work on proton either (For now).

I'm REALLY superstoked about Intels new HPG GPU's, it's rumored they'll have SR-IOV support, meaning I could partition the GPU to run both Windows and Linux at the same time. (There's support for it in my 11th gen Intel CPU on my work laptop, but the software isn't there yet, so I'm not certain it'll work)

renewiltord• 5 years ago

Looks terrific. I have actually not needed to use Wine for so long due to the proliferation of web software and cross platform applications but perhaps if I were to play games!

Jnr2• 5 years ago

Yes, this would be great for gaming, but I personally play almost all of the games from Steam. I even add shortcuts to native Linux non-steam games to Steam library, so all of them would stay in one place.

OJFord• 5 years ago

I can't find a list of tested working (or to what degree) software - does enough work well that I'm supposed to assume everything does?

I would love to have Fusion 360 working on Linux.

bstar77• 5 years ago

This is just a frontend to Wine. Most stuff tends to work unless it's doing strange things and has unusual dependencies. Some resources:

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...

https://www.protondb.com

profsnuggles• 5 years ago

I was going to point to the WineHQ AppDB also but the person most active in updating the Fusion360 entry seems to be working on this. https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux It looks like it's been fairly active over the past year so it's probably what I would start with to get Fusion running.

cosmotic• 5 years ago

How does this compare to codeweavers crossover which is also a GUI for wine that uses the term 'bottles'?

Danborg• 5 years ago

Has anyone figured out how to run Visio? ;-)

macco• 5 years ago

Wow, the first impression is really great.

Finally, a Wine frontend that feels polished and easy to use for beginners. Heck, the documentation alone is worth the project.

I love PlayOnLinux but their decision to go the Java route was a mistake and the rewrite seems to take ages.

morganvachon• 5 years ago

I'm confused...Crossover (a commercial product using Wine as its backend and contributes back to the Wine project[1]) uses the term "bottles" for its container-like method to install Windows apps on Linux and macOS. Is this an offshoot or extension of Crossover, or is it a blatant ripoff of their already existing service and name? Codeweavers (the makers of Crossover) have been using the term "bottle" in this paradigm since at least the late 2000s[2].

[1] https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux

[2] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/crossover-and-bottles.5...

Closi• 5 years ago

The WineHQ official documentation makes reference to WINEPREFIX being termed a 'bottle', and there are quite a few previous open source projects listed with titles stemming from bottles, so I'm not sure that it's a crossover specific term (and if it is, it seems to have been adopted by the open source project too).

And let's be honest, although cute, it's a pretty obvious term for a project called Wine.

mechanical_bear2• 5 years ago

“Blatant ripoff” is a bit harsh. “Bottles” isn’t exactly that original or clever when considering the software that undergirds it.

jkepler• 5 years ago

Especially considering that the wine project which Crossover relies in and contributes to also uses the term 'bottles' to encapsulate how they create different Windows environments.

a-saleh• 5 years ago

Afaik, this project is reasonably old as well, I remember looking at early versions when I was at the uni around 2010.

ThinkBeat• 5 years ago

Will this enable me to run Office365 and CreativeCloud on Linux?

41b696ef1113• 5 years ago

It was not immediately obvious to me - can I also restrict network access?

pxeger12• 5 years ago

If you're diehard enough, you can restrict network access yourself with Linux's various native tools for that

smoldesu7• 5 years ago

Kinda rediculous that they tell people to install Flatpak for "the best experience" when their docs say things like:

"After multiple requests, it is now possible to generate the desktop entry for a program directly from Bottles.

...

this feature is not coming for Flatpak users, due to lack of permissions. So if you’re using Flatpak, please don’t worry about this feature, we still have other plans for you."

Sounds like Flatpak isn't the best experience then, is it?

throwawayboise• 5 years ago

If you need Windows software, why not just run Windows? Why make life more difficult?

dijit2• 5 years ago

Windows is kinda crap.

The cost of it not withstanding, the OS itself is just janky. So. I’d prefer not to.

dartharva• 5 years ago

People keep saying that, but the only stable experience I have had is with Windows. Every single Linux distro I have tried (Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro, Fedora) has been inherenty more sluggish and painful to use than Windows for me (even if you were to ignore the initial setup problems with various hardware).

Windows unactivated is actually free to use (just use a generic key from its official documentation) and most of its preloaded bloatware can be removed with single-use scripts.

nu11ptr• 5 years ago

Many people (like myself) are very happy with Linux and have been for years. We have no interest in "auto rebooting for security patches", "treating file locking like it was security" or having "relevant ads" shown to us. However, there might be 1 or 2 Windows apps we wish to run, so things like this are nice. I assure you that my overall experience is not "more difficult" than Windows (the exact opposite in fact).

jpeloquin• 5 years ago

Because we need some Windows-only software and some Linux-only software. And the occasional Mac-only (or whatever else) software too. Life is less difficult when it all works in the same window manager and accesses the same filesystem, if that is possible.

mackrevinack3• 5 years ago

not sure if you are trolling or not but i have around 60 programs that i use on linux and 1 program that only supports windows, so having to dual boot just so i could run 1 program would make things a lot more difficult

GhettoComputers2• 5 years ago

Windows can run Linux in the subsystem and has a better Android emulator than Linux. Windows doesn’t run old windows programs as well as wine though, and if it hasn’t happened yet I can’t wait for the day you run legacy windows programs in the Linux subsystem through wine.

You’re not wrong, using virtualization like a Windows VM in Linux is still using windows and is the best way for compatibility. Wine either works ok (mostly), needs lots of weird configuration to get it to intergrate into Linux or look ok, or it doesn’t work at all most of the time.

Shadonototra3• 5 years ago

-- small rant

The UI looks very nice and polished

.. that would be true if it was a mobile app, not a desktop app..

i'm tired of constant scroll/touch/gesture based UX on desktop, it's wrong

-- rant end

Running windows app?

What kind of windows only app does people need nowadays?

I see none personally

Office? meh, gmail/google doc etc replaced it

3D? blender is here

Game Engines? they run on linux

Editors? they run on linux

What's left? i literally see none!

mackrevinack3• 5 years ago

mainly reason 11 (DAW, music making software), then also mp3 tag editor, a gpx editor, jpegview, and a few others a can't remember. they all have pretty messed up ui but some of them are still better than any of the linux alternatives ive checked out so far and some i just haven't bothered looking around yet

amelius• 5 years ago

Where's the run-MacOS-apps-on-Linux equivalent?

mastazi2• 5 years ago

It's called Darling, apparently it works well for most Terminal apps while support for GUI apps is still limited at the moment

https://www.darlinghq.org/

https://github.com/darlinghq/darling

pxc9• 5 years ago

What interesting macOS-only terminal apps should I try with Darling?

Snetry• 5 years ago

As a developer within this space I am excited for the format for application installers since the alternatives are all terrible

ghostly_s• 5 years ago

I hate when a product landing page doesn't answer the biggest question everyone is going to have. How is this different from Wine?

alvarlagerlof2• 5 years ago

It's a wrapper around Wine

musicale• 5 years ago

Apparently we've standardized on Windows apps as the standard binary format for games and other software, irrespective of the underlying OS kernel.

cortesoft• 5 years ago

Is this surprising? It has been the default format for 25 years, and a lot of experience and tooling has been developed to support it. It would be very hard for a competitor to overtake that head start advantage.

iotku• 5 years ago

Amusingly we're getting to a point where it's easier in many cases to just target Windows than ship native binaries for Linux.

So then the question arrives: since there's going to be a native Windows binary regardless what's the point of putting in the extra effort if it works well enough?

I think compatibility layers (Wine/Proton) are very useful especially considering many developers don't want to put the effort into making a well supported Linux binary (or make something open source so it can be compiled/patched against updated system libraries), but it very well may be a snake eating its own tail situation that hampers further adoption if things are "good enough".

Mandatum• 5 years ago

.. Does this make Windows on Linux the "Java" of consistent, universal binaries?

andy_ppp• 5 years ago

So is this a Libc issue? Or other standard libraries?

Can we not just try to have a fixed set of interfaces for these libraries or am I insane to think that they don't need to change really any more? (In 99% of cases?)

It feels like everyone doing their own thing in these areas is just making everything totally painful for application authors and so people are coming up with insane bundler systems that just hide the real problem.

GhettoComputers2• 5 years ago

Yet Windows has Linux subsystem and Android emulation. Games sure, but all these OSes are just good at running VMs now.

AnIdiotOnTheNet5• 5 years ago

I feel like if you could take an application compiled for Ubuntu 4.10 and run it on Ubuntu 21.10 without recompiling it or putting it in a VM then maybe this probably wouldn't be the case. Sadly we don't live in that world.

authed• 5 years ago

Can Wine nowadays run CAD software like Inventor, etc?

batsoupremacy• 5 years ago

I just wanna ask if i download ubisoft connect (gaming service) or epic game launcher, using this app, would it be easily to run? btw, I'm using linux mint.

graynk• 5 years ago

I thought this looked nice, so I tried it.

It created a runner, so far so good.

Then I tried to install an app, launched .exe installer

My PC froze, I couldn't even move my mouse, so I had to hard reset.

I tried a second time: this time I was able to move my mouse for about 10 seconds while seemingly nothing happened (other parts of the system froze). Then it, too, froze. So, hard reset again and hard pass on the bottles.

After reboot I had to run fsck on my disk, not a great experience

Bottles: GUI front end to run Windows software on Linux

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