Oolite Bulletins

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.

phkb wrote: ↑Fri Feb 06, 2026 6:23 am

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.

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.

phkb wrote: ↑Fri Feb 06, 2026 6:23 am

[...] 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.

There are some distros geared to gaming that look very interesting:

Arch-based
CachyOS (with dedicated installer for Steam and optimised kernel)
SteamOS (immutable)

Fedora based
Bazzite based on Fedora (immutable, configured with Steam out of the box)
Nobara Project (from the person behiind Proton GE) based on Fedora,

I'm trying to get my head around immutable distros. Seems like they may be the way of the future.