Submitted 2 weeks ago by stat_rosa@lemy.nl to [deleted]
Is there a possibility and I’m not talking about breaking patents or anything like that, but I’m talking about a possibility technically, to have a Linux OS that can run Windows 11 apps natively?
No bottles or ports, just download an EXE file and run it.
No, such an OS would necessarily not be Linux.
You can have a different OS that can run windows natively–like React OS, but it’s very much not Linux.
Did not know this existed, thank you. This is a very interesting OS, but indeed it is not Linux.
So, both Linux and Windows comes with a component called the “Kernel” (technically, Linux is the kernel, and the OS is something like Ubuntu, Fedora, etc…). This Kernel sits between the actual hardware and the rest of the operating system. It is responsible for things taking your app and loading it into memory, then handing the starting point to the CPU, things like this.
Since both of these kernels are developed independently, and basically from scratch, they work quite differently. When a program (app) is launched, the operating system needs to know a lot of small details in order to actually run it. What it needs to know and how to find it is quite different between Linux and Windows. Windows “Portable Executable” files (.exe files), and linux uses Executable and Linkable Format files. Your idea would be to simply re-arrange and augment the data in this header so it executes on the other platform, right?
There is a major wrinkle with this though, and that is the system libraries. Both the OSes have functionality to make it easier to write applications, provided by the OS. Things like sound libraries to write sound to the speakers, or graphics APIs so the application can draw to the screen. For Linux running on Windows, you can just look at what Linux provides and emulate that, or grab the source code and port that to Windows. However, the reverse is not so easy, because Windows is closed-source. Rebuilding every windows API from scratch is quite difficult, and made harder because the architecture is different, and solutions that are easy to provide in Windows might be quite hard in Linux.
It’s this library gap where the value of Wine comes from, and how it works.
You might ask, then, if it’s possible to run both kernels, and provide both options. Yes. In fact, this is how WSL on Windows works. It runs a customised version of the Linux kernel as a Windows application. Likewise, docker allows you to run a Windows nanosever, which is somewhat similar. However, running a container has more overhead than running the system API translations.
Running them ‘natively’ doesn’t really make sense, in the same way I cannot connect K’nex pieces to my Lego model directly. The two operating systems simply have different shapes, and cannot be directly connected.
K’nex to LEGO was a great analogy
My god, you blew my mind. Thank you for this great explanation.
Yeah something like Wine, but running natively in the Linux OS.
I mean, if you have wine installed, exes execute. What exactly are you missing?
Yeah something like Wine, but running natively in the Linux OS.
I think here’s where you are a bit off in understanding…
Linux is not an OS. It’s a kernel. Long story short, technically “Linux” has no graphic interface, cannot even run commands without a shell attached etc…
Obviously when most people say “linux”, they mean a linux distribution, which is the linux kernel, with a bunch of software bundled and installed on top of it when you install. WINE is no different than “x” or “wayland”. which are by definition, software running on a linux kernel, that is necessary to run a program designed to be graphical.
Well Wine is native Linux software, so if you’re running something on Wine you’re (technically) running it natively on Linux, it’s a compatibility layer for Windows applications to run on Linux without breaking patents or having need to use Windows code. Of course clearly, as you know, there are shortcomings to Wine but that answers your question of where we are with this.
Preinstall wine
Enable wine as the default app to open exes,.
then, when you double click on an exe you downloaded in your file explorer, it will launch and open.
Many of the user friendly Linux distros do this.
Yes, this is interesting. Oh wow love your comment on programming.dev!
Everything everybody else said but also for a noob user, the window manager matters a lot. It’s the part of the OS that renders the graphical user interface (GUI - menus and title bars and everything). Some are super basic (and often very lightweight / snappy). But KDE (super SUPER configurable) has a button for EVERYTHING. And because it’s so configurable I almost guarantee someone’s made a configuration that mimics widows aesthetics and interface, and that might make things a little easier for you until you’re ready to dive in a little deeper. And KDE used to be way too intensive for most computers but most modern ones can run it easily.
If you would count running a python program as “running natively” if you run the python script through your python interpreter, then I would argue that running an exe file through wine also counts as “running natively”.
Very true.
It sounds like what you want is best served with WSL installed on top of win 11. Windows socket layer will allow you to install any mainstream Linux distribution on top of Windows, but you would have to access it through WSL
Just a heads up that WSL stands for “Windows Subsystem for Linux”, not Windows Socket Layer.
Whoops well horseshoes and hand grenades I guess
No bottles or ports, just download an EXE file and run it.
Manjaro does it. Imagine this: Distro mainainers came up with idea, that maybe .exe file should be launched via Wine by default. Crazy
Zorin has this feature, kind of.
Basically, it comes with wine preinstalled. So when you double click an exe, it will launch. Many softwares will work, except specialised ones like Photoshop or office 365.
However, I would like to mention, that downloading an exe and executing it to install softwares is an inherently flawed and an insecure system, and should be avoided. Even on Windows, people should be using MS Store, chocolatey or winget to install stuff.
I don’t agree with your “only download from official stores” stance. The last several malwares we got were from the official ms or android stores. These places offer a false sense of security, and like downloading an app from a seemingly trusted website, the app should be placed under high scrutiny. Scan everything before you execute it, and have a heuristic antimalware running. Use good cyberhygiene, and you can download from anywhere and, while it’ll never be 0, your risk of infection will be significantly lower than those who blindly trust the official app stores.
My recommendation is to just run windows if your needs requires .exe. Trying to shoehorn .exe into an OS not designed for your use case will make you hate the OS instead of loving it.
Don’t let some of these fanboys convince you that Wine/bottle is all you need. It’s not. Most apps are well documented. Some are not and you will get frustrated when it’s not.
I’m os agnostic. Run Linux and Windows depending on the situation.
No. The exe called specific windows apis that don’t exist natively on Linux.
Just like a windows system can’t run a .deb or .rpm application *nix can’t run .exe natively.
Thank you. I already thought this would be the case.
Neither does the Windows kernel have the specific apis that Windows applications call.
It’s not very visible nowadays but the Windows kernel has it’s own api and loads subsystems to support different apis for applications. All these subsystems died out long ago but the win32 subsystem which still lives on.
The win32 subsystem conceptually is not too far from Wine. The big difference is just how much effort MS puts into it and their long experience (and hacks and special cases for backwards compatibility).
Long time ago MS offered a posix subsystem, for example, so you could run Unix apps on Windows. (It was a bit half-assed however, they didn’t really want people to use it, they just wanted people not to buy Unix workstations)
there is a midge of possibility. but not today.
you need some vibe coder to do the clean lab linux versions of all windows libraries.
on a super high view of things, it’s just a language difference.
Thank you I love your reply!
I mean… “Linux”, the kernel, has a different API to “Windows”, so by definition, no, those are two different APIs a program would have to call. I suppose it’s probably hypothetically possible to fork the Linux kernel to add support for Windows APIs, but I don’t know why anyone would want to do that when Wine and, failing that, VMs exist.
Ok, then basically you have to have a lot of ram to make it feel as native possible? Lets take Microsoft office as an example, and I’m running either Debian or Fedora latest version, I need at least 16GB of ram to run it with the feeling that it’s native, just like as if I’m running LibreOffice.
RAM matters for a VM, to give the VM enough memory to run the OS. Wine is not a VM though, so you only need a “normal” amount of RAM to run a Windows program through Wine, ie whatever the recommended amount of memory is for Office. Not all programs work well through wine though; Office might not. I don’t know why you’d need to run MS Office specifically though when LibreOffice exists. Do you have a specific use case?
Maybe you are looking for qemu, or the more luxurious Proxmox VE.
It is…
a Linux OS
…and it can…
run Windows 11 apps natively?
…run Windows 11 first and then run Windows 11 apps natively
This is also very interesting, but then I’m running Windows 11 in a container.
No. In a virtual machine. Most parts of Windows and it’s apps won’t ever notice that.
Sure, someone could do the opposite of what Microsoft did: build a pretty invisible virtual machine that runs windows and windows apps. But performance would take a hit, you wouldn’t play games like this.
Not sure why windows 11 over 10. Playonlinux did it pretty decently but apparently could not keep up with wine developments and is effectively dead. Steam has this thing where you can install something as a stand alone and choose proton versions. Im honestly not sure how well it would work but it would be realtively easy but not double click any exe easy.
You are right, Windows 10 would als be a great option. I think you are on to something with what Steam is doing.
swordgeek@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Running Windows apps “natively” is impossible, by definition.
That said, I could imagine a kernel module that ran everything Windows in a microContainer like Kata. More likely would be to have Windows executables intercepted and run under Wine.
It’s an interesting question.
stat_rosa@lemy.nl 2 weeks ago
So at the moment Wine seems to be the best possibility to come near to the experience of Windows.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
If this is ever going to be possible, then it will be through Wine - Wine is the way of running Windows apps on Linux