Anyone tried WinBoat?

[phkb]

Hey, all you Linux users out there, has anyone tried out WinBoat? https://www.winboat.app

If you have, what’s your experience with it been like? What apps have you tried with it?

I’m trying to assess whether I might be able to switch to Linux on my laptop if WinBoat can give me access to the couple of Windows apps I can’t live without.

[mcarans]

Hey, all you Linux users out there, has anyone tried out WinBoat? https://www.winboat.app

If you have, what’s your experience with it been like? What apps have you tried with it?

I’m trying to assess whether I might be able to switch to Linux on my laptop if WinBoat can give me access to the couple of Windows apps I can’t live without.

That sounds like an interesting project - I hadn't heard of it. AI tells me "WinBoat runs a real, lightweight version of Windows inside a Docker or Podman container" so it is not a compatibility layer but actual Windows. It is great for applications but not for games apparently. What apps do you need? For that "Steam + Proton: This is the gold standard. It translates Windows commands to Linux in real-time with near-native performance and full GPU support."

I haven't tried any of these things because I have dual boot set up so if I really need Windows for anything (which is very infrequent other than for Oolite as of late), then I just reboot.

[Lone_Wolf]

The approach of winboat is very similar to that of setting up a virtual machine.
Keep in mind that you need a valid windows license to legally be allowed to run a windows instance (possibly a separate one for every instance).

Depending on the applications you want to run (and whether you don't mind paying a bit) https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux may be a better alternative.

It shares a lot of code with wine and focuses on stabilty.

[Commander_X]

[...] the couple of Windows apps I can’t live without.

It looks that it might work if the apps don't rely on a "real" GPU to do their job, as they state quite clearly there is no GPU acceleration/passthrough available yet.
If your laptop were an Optimus type of screen enabler (i.e. one with both an iGPU and GPU), you could always go your own way with a qemu solution with GPU passthrough for Windows graphics stuff, if that's the case.