Windows 10: Run any Windows app on Linux with WinBoat, it's free and open source

Linux is fine for gaming, Wine and Proton have come a long way. But what about Windows apps that don't play well with Wine?

That's kind of what WinBoat aims to fix. It's not merely an emulator, it's a virtual machine that uses a containerized approach in Docker or Podman.

These are WinBoat's system requirements

• RAM: At least 4 GB of RAM
• CPU: At least 2 CPU threads
• Storage: At least 32 GB free space on your hard drive.

That's on par for a virtual machine. I guess it's kind of the opposite of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). So it's LSW?

Anyway, you can download the app from GitHub or from https://www.winboat.app/. It is free, and open source under the MIT license.

WinBoat is an Electron app. Yeah, yeah, I know! When you run the app, you'll see a prerequisites screen. This in my opinion could be a hurdle for many users.



The first thing you'll need to do is enable KVM from your BIOS/UEFI for virtualization. I already have QEMU/KVM/Virt Manager which I use sparingly for a Windows 11 VM. Next, you'll need to install Docker, and the Docker Compose v2. After that you have to add your user to the docker group, and also setup FreeRDP for Remote Desktop. That's a lot of stuff to set up, and some of these are complicated. I think these might scare users away from trying the app. Fortunately, you can just click on one of the "How" links, and it'll help you find instructions for everything. They are mostly help documentation hosted on Docker's portal. WinBoat does not support Docker Desktop.

Since I'm using Linux Mint, I followed the instructions to set up Docker on Ubuntu. It takes a bit of time, but once you got it set up, it should look like this.



Proceed with the installation of the VM in WinBoat. You'll be asked to select the version of Windows that you want to use, and optionally select a custom ISO.



Set up a user account for Windows, customize the virtual hardware, allow home directory sharing (if required). Once you have finalized the options, WinBoat will start installing Windows in the container. You can check on the progress using your web browser too.

Note: The installation failed for me once, but worked when I retried it.



WinBoat will boot into Windows, except you won't see a visual representation of Windows. The Home tab is where you can pause the emulation, stop it (shut it down), and also check on the CPU, RAM and Disk usage. Nothing fancy here, let's move on to the Apps tab. This is where the interesting stuff is. Click on an app here to launch it, e.g. File Explorer, Task Manager, Notepad, etc. They open like a native app on Linux, because there is no Windows GUI. It's kind of cool. You can of course access the Windows Desktop too.



As for installing apps, just download a setup file (e.g. an EXE) for the program you want and install it as you would normally. You can install whatever you want. The program will appear in WinBoat's Apps tab and you can launch it.



I chose to test some free Windows-exclusive apps that I had used in the past, namely Notepad++, ShareX. But I've seen many users reporting that they were able to get Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office running on their Linux machines with WinBoat.



Switch to the configuration tab in WinBoat to customize the virtual hardware, or to manage the app's settings such as Display Scaling, App Scaling, Multi-Monitor Support, Smartcard Passthrough, RDP Monitoring, etc.



In terms of performance, WinBoat's Desktop experience was slower than my Virt Manager setup. But the apps worked. That's the important thing, it's a functional virtual machine. I don't think it is a good idea to leave the container running all the time, using up system resources. Turn it off when you don't need it.



Wine is far mature (pun intended), and has way better support. But it's nice to have an alternative, even if it is not particularly user-friendly to set up. WinBoat might be useful for Windows 10 users who are on the fence about jumping ship to Linux, but need to run some Windows apps for work or personal use.

Over a billion users are still using Windows 10, half of these PCs do not meet the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11.

Have you tried WinBoat?

Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Run any Windows app on Linux with WinBoat, it's free and open source appeared first on gHacks Technology News.

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Mail app will not open on 10041.

Hello Adam,

This is the suggested solution below if you haven't already tried it.

In this Windows 10 build 10041, the Mail, Calendar, and People apps may be broken due to a licensing issue with the Store Beta. To get these apps working again, you need to follow these steps:

• Open powershell as administrator
• Run the command Get-appxprovisionedpackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –like “*windowscommunicationsapps*”} | remove-appxprovisionedpackage –online
• Re-install Mail, People and Calendar from the Store (green tile)

 

Run Linux Apps on Windows using Windows Subsystem for Linux

WSL or Windows Subsystem for Linux allows you to run GNU/Linux environment in Windows 10/11 directly without using a dual-boot configuration or a virtual machine.





GIMP running on Windows 11 installation, courtesy of WSLg


Prerequisites for WSL

WSL1/WSL2 requires Windows 10 Build 2004 or higher. For GUI Apps, aka WSLg, it requires Windows 11 Build 22000. You can install WSL on Windows 11 Home editions as well.

Installation

At the time of this writing, WSL supports multiple distributions of Linux, given below:

Name Friendly name

1. Ubuntu Ubuntu
   
2. Debian Debian GNU/Linux
   
3. kali-linux Kali Linux Rolling
   
4. openSUSE-42 openSUSE Leap 42
   
5. SLES-12 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v12
   
6. Ubuntu-16.04 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
   
7. Ubuntu-18.04 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
   
8. Ubuntu-20.04 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
   

The installation of WSL is pretty simple:

1. In the Run Dialog box, type powershell.exe and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter, to run it as elevated.
   
2. Execute the command: wsl --install
   
3. This command would automatically enable required optional features and Install the default distribution Ubuntu for you.
   
4. If you want to change the default distribution, use the -d switch. For Example, to install Kali Linux, use wsl --install -d kali-linux
   

WSL installing Kali Linux

❗Bonus Tip❗: Additionally, You can install WSL from the Microsoft Store if the machine is on Windows 11. Link here. Make sure the Virtual Machine Platform named feature is enabled, in Windows features for installing from the Store, which can be enabled using this command:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all

Difference between WSL1, WSL2, and WSLg

WSL2 is the next version of WSL, which can run ELF64 binaries on Windows, alongside supporting faster system performance. WSL1 and WSL2 can exist simultaneously, and you can configure a specific distribution to run on WSL1 or 2. From the documentation:

WSL 2 provides the benefits of WSL 1, including seamless integration between Windows and Linux, fast boot times, a small resource footprint, and requires no VM configuration or management. While WSL 2 does use a VM, it is managed and run behind the scenes, leaving you with the same user experience as WSL 1.

WSLg is based on WSL2, which also allows you to run Linux-based GUI Apps on Windows 11.

Setting up WSL for first use

1. After the WSL distribution download is complete, you would need to configure it. Afterward, when the download is done, open the distribution from the start menu.
   
2. Now, the next step is to set up a username and password for opening the Distro. Enter your desired username and password, and press Enter. The username should be in small letters.
   
3. You would see username@PCName in the command line, waiting for a command.
   
4. Enter sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade command to update the Distro with the latest packages.
   

Navigating with files

When the Distro is installed, Windows would add an option in the File Explorer so that you can directly access the files.





Run GUI Apps in WSL

If you are running Windows 11, you can run Linux GUI apps natively on Windows 11. See the steps below

1. Make sure the latest GPU drivers are installed from the GPU manufacturer.
   
2. If you had set up a Linux distribution before, you would need to update WSL to support GUI. For the same, execute wsl --update in an elevated Powershell. You can also check for Windows updates.
   
3. The next step is to download the specific app. Some of the widely used GUI apps on Linux can be installed using the commands below:
   
   1. GEDIT: sudo apt install gedit -y
      
   2. GIMP: sudo apt install gimp -y
      
   3. VLC: sudo apt install vlc -y
      

Additionally, other apps, which the package manager does not support, can be installed by downloading a Debian package and the Command line. For Example, for Edge, see the steps below:

Download Microsoft Edge Insider Channels

For Microsoft Teams:

1. Swap directories into the temp folder: cd /tmp
   
2. Use the curl command to download the package: sudo curl -L -o "./teams.deb" "https://teams.microsoft.com/downloa...x&arch=x64&download=true&linuxArchiveType=deb"
   
3. Use the apt command to install it: sudo apt install ./teams.deb -y
   

When the installation is complete, you will see the app listed in the Start menu. You can also cycle between apps using Alt+Tab as well.





GIMP installed using Ubuntu

Support

You can always search for or open an issue at Github as the WSL repository is maintained there.

Issues · Microsoft/WSL (github.com)

References:

FAQ's about Windows Subsystem for Linux | Microsoft Docs

microsoft/WSL: Issues found on WSL (github.com)

A preview of WSL in the Microsoft Store is now available! - Windows Command Line

 

Open-Source Goes Open-Range With Linux Powered Rifle



The Linux operating system is one of the most well-respect open-source OS’ on the planet and now it’s going to war – literally.

The team at Tracking Point have implemented Linux in an attempt to create firearms with more precision. The goal was simple, create firearms that could be more accurate from long distances.

First shown off at CES 2013, the company implements a combination of ARM CPUs, lasers, and on-board Wi-Fi to determine shooting accuracy. That combined information allows hunters and other armed individuals to increase their distance for accuracy.

The company claims that hunters with a normal range of 200 to 300 yards are often comfortable shooting with accuracy from double and even triple those distances.

Founded in 2009 by John McHale, the company has actually created three “precision guided firearms.” According to McHale the goal was to create more “ethical kills” whereby animal suffering is minimized through effective kill shots.

The software works by determining all the factors that make for an accurate kill. For example the gun examines wind speed, elevation, temperature, humidity, the curvature and rotation of the Earth, along with other factors. The gun then provides a heads up display within its scope which guides the shooter towards an effective and humane kill.

According to the company the gun eliminates shooters error in the following areas:

• Aim

• Trigger pull

• Environmental inputs

• Range miscalculation

The gun works with a complete solution of rifle + scope + ammo which are sold as packages from Tracking Point. The system asks users to input their rifle and round type so it can determine shooting solutions.

The company is really pushing the hunting aspect of its weapons but we have to wonder how quickly they will become part of a military snipers portfolio given their ability to eliminate human error from the equation.

The only downside we have seen so far? The gun costs $17,000.

http://techbeat.com/2013/04/open-source-goes-open-range-with-linux-powered-rifle/