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Is it possible to create an OS that simply automatically runs .exe files through WINE/Proton/Bottles?

I really enjoy Linux but I find myself having to keep Windows partitions around for software that specifically requires Windows.

Proton makes everything easier by automatically running game files through a translation layer, and it “just works” quite well most of the time.

Also VanillaOS can apparently auto-spin a container when you try to open a .deb or AUR package (this is my rudimentary understanding).

Setting up WINE/Bottles, etc. is above my pay grade.

Is it not possible to create an OS that just does the same thing as Steam but for the entire OS?

Turun ,

I have the opposite problem, llavafiles (a large language model, packages as a single files) can run on both Linux and Windows. They are written to be compatible with both.

But when I ./file to run it, eine is started automatically!

(The llava file GitHub has a workaround, but still by default it chooses wine for some reason)

DLSantini ,

Along with the other suggestions here, Garuda also already does this out-of-the-box.

BreakDecks ,

Setting up WINE, in my experience, is as easy as just installing it and running EXEs and MSIs with it. I just set wine as the default handler for those file types, and things mostly just work.

There is some tweaking that is sometimes necessary, but it’s easier to tackle that on a case-by-case basis. I hardly have to do anything for the handful of Windows-based tools I keep to work, and there’s usually someone online who has already figured out a workaround so I don’t have to.

wuphysics87 ,

First paragraph: Everything works great!

Second paragraph: Well…

null ,

They didn’t say everything works great…

They said setting up WINE is as simple as installing it, and then using it to open exe files, which is true. And that things mostly just work.

Not really a gotcha moment.

mnglw ,

[narrator voice: it wasn’t “just as easy as” nor did “everything work great”]

d3Xt3r ,

Is it possible to create an OS that simply automatically runs .exe files through WINE/Proton/Bottles?

Zorin already does that out-of-the-box. See: help.zorin.com/docs/…/windows-app-support/-ap…

And if you want to take it to the next level, there’s ReactOS, which is basically an opensource reverse-engineered Windows - but sadly it’s development is slow and it’s hardware support is extremely lacking. But it exists, and does qualify as an answer to your question. For all practical purposes though, Zorin is what you’re looking for.

Quazatron ,
@Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

Can you run non native binaries on Linux? Sure, Linux is the Swiss army chainsaw of the OS world. There are multiple ways to achieve that.

Is it complicated? A bit. You’re interfacing a binary created for a completely different and alien environment. You’d get the same answer if you asked “why can’t l just run Mac apps in Windows like any other .exe?”

The best way to run .exe files is Windows. You have wonderful tools to help you run Windows apps on Linux, but the experience will probably never be as seamless as you want.

yianiris ,
@yianiris@kafeneio.social avatar

You can run 3 vm instances, 1 win10, 1 android, 1 ios, and within them you can run native whatevers.

Why would you want to run crap in your nice clean **nix environment is beyond me. And nothing will ever improve with this kind of mentality.

Again, free software stands for freedom, not cheap or of 0 exchange value.

@Quazatron @helenslunch

Quazatron ,
@Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t have to sell Linux to me, I’ve been onboard since 95. :-)

All I’m saying is: if I needed to run Windows apps with zero hassle, I’d use Windows. I don’t, so I won’t.

mvirts ,

Give setting it up a try, it doesnt seem hard once you do it.

Also, linux binfmt is powerful magic. My x86-64 machine can run arm binaries like native with qemu, wine integration is also possible but in my setup i let the gui file manager launch exe files with wine.

Pantherina ,

I have to add, please use Bottles Flatpak (or something similar) to run .exe files in an isolated environment.

Bottles has very secure presets and a fully modern stack with Pipewire and Portals. Running .exes there is probably safe.

But starting to run random Windows apps unisolated on your system will open a huge can of worms. Especially with quacked games ;D

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I tried. No luck.

Pantherina ,

No you need some integration for sure. You could create a custom desktop entry, launching that .exe file with custom parameters. Or create or find a filemanager extension.

Simply that .exe files are often installers, bottles installs them, finds the launch links and converts them to desktop entries.

This is they way this is done. Stop using stuff the windows way, it simply doesnt work well.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I just downloaded a .exe then “open with bottles” and…nothing happened 🤷

Pantherina ,

As I said this is not very good behavior, some .exe files may install a program first and then it may create a desktop entry, by default this windows link will only be accessible from within the app library but you can export it. Linux uses .desktop entries, running .exe files is not how you do it.

Did you already create a bottle? If not do so, use “programs” or whatever you want to run.

pupgui is needed if you want games, install latest proton GE and use that instead with a “Games” bottle.

Then if you have any bottle created, close the app again and try to open that .exe again with bottles.

Things to consider that I have the feeling you might not know

  • bottles has a really well made flatpak, this is the only supported version
  • flatpak apps have an internal app storage (pupgui flatpak can write there to install the wine engines)
  • even if not in flatpak (which you should 100% use, wine is a security hole), WINE will create a fake Windows directory structure and place the .exe there
  • so running an .exe is completely different from an appimage (which you should not use unless you need to). This app will likely depend on Windows libraries so it needs to be installed i.e. placed in that WINE directory structure
helenslunch OP , (edited )
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I don’t know what any of that means 🤷

As I mentioned in the OP, I have games installed on a separate machine and they work fine with Steam/Proton. Just click “Play” and they go. This is the functionality I’m looking for.

Several other people claimed this is how it works.

Pantherina ,

How do you have them installed? I have no experience with proton.

If you didnt understand things ask good questions or use your favourite search engine ;D

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

How do you have them installed?

I click the “install” button on Steam.

If you didnt understand things ask good questions or use your favourite search engine

I’m really just not interested in obtaining a software engineering degree. But thanks.

Pantherina ,

I have no idea of coding, this is just about using software.

Yeah idk this may be a steam specific thing so use it with steam I guess?

possiblylinux127 ,

What are you trying to achieve?

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I feel like I was pretty explicit in what I was trying to achieve

possiblylinux127 ,

Maybe I’m not fully understanding then. Maybe your looking for an application like bottles?

bizdelnick ,

In Debian and, probably, Ubuntu you may install the wine-binfmt package to get all *.exes running with wine automatically. However I don’t recommend doing so because it is very easy to run some windows trojan with this.

mvirts ,

Wine is a bit too good these days

kugmo ,
@kugmo@sh.itjust.works avatar

Install dxvk, vkd3d-proton, and the vcredist files and you can run a good chunk of games in your default prefix by clicking them in your file manager

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I’m not worried about games.

utopiah ,

What you worried about then?

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Actual productivity software. Premiere, Fusion360, Rufus, just off the top of my head.

Para_lyzed , (edited )

Adobe software will not run in WINE (with few exceptions). Here is the AppDB page for Premiere:

appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?iId=128&sC…

You can search for any other programs you’re looking to run on that page to find compatibility. If you want to edit videos in Linux, you’ll have to use a different program, like Kdenlive, OpenShot, or DaVinci Resolve. DaVinci Resolve has a free version for Linux, but it isn’t open source. I don’t know how cut down the free version is, but the paid version is used by professional studios. Otherwise you have to use an alternative program or use Windows, either in a VM or by booting into Windows (there are easy ways to set up a VM, but that’s outside the scope of this comment). There are many productivity programs that will not run in WINE, as it is not a silver bullet.

I recommend you check the AppDB for any programs you’d want to run in WINE. It’ll save you the time of trying to run things that are known to not work. Here’s the link to search WINE’s AppDB:

appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applica…

Just use the “Name” filter to search for a specific program.

As for Rufus, I’d just recommend using BalenaEtcher on Linux, as it’s native. You can search for Rufus on WINE if you want to check (I checked out of curiosity and it has a “garbage” rating, so it’s unusable in WINE), but it would be easier to run a native package regardless. Or if you’re on Fedora, you’ll already have the Fedora Media Writer installed which will also work. Both have simple GUI interfaces to flash ISO files onto USB drives.

Here’s the link to BalenaEtcher’s website:

etcher.balena.io

Or if you want to install it to your OS instead of using an AppImage (installing makes it easier to find since it would add an entry to your applications menu), you can go to their GitHub and download the right package for your distro (they provide installation instructions):

github.com/balena-io/etcher

Finding alternative software is usually just a quick search in a search engine for " for Linux", or similar.

ZeroHora , (edited )
@ZeroHora@lemmy.ml avatar

In my understanding you can run .exe with double click if you install wine and choose it to open any .exe as default, if you have DXVK with wine like fedora do and if the program have all the dependencies in the .wine folder things probably will work.

I think that the magic that happens with Proton is just a hell lot of people debugging and pushing fixes to Proton/Proton-GE and so on for multiples games.

Hijaking the post to ask another thing related to Proton, do Proton uses the binaries of the bin folder most games have? Like the multiples .NET runtimes? Or the windows still need to have it so the game can detect it as installed?

Octopus1348 ,
@Octopus1348@lemy.lol avatar

Just install WineHQ

bluGill ,

Sure, when linux loads are process it follows a standard procedure to see how to run the file. If the file has ELF markers it runs the process via the ELF loader. If the file has #! as the first then it uses a different process to run that script. (I doubt a.out executable format is supported anymore, but that at least used to be an option). There is no reason you cannot hack this process to detect windows executable and then use wine to load/run the application. I'm not sure why nobody has done this, but the basic things have been supported in linux for decades.

callyral ,
@callyral@pawb.social avatar

I doubt a.out executable format is supported anymore, but that at least used to be an option

is that why when i compile c programs the default name is a.out?

Plasma ,
@Plasma@lemmy.ml avatar

Sorta, the file might not be in the a.out format anymore but the name has stuck around.

Crack0n7uesday ,

No shit, DOS box works well enough on Linux it was ported to Windows for older programs, just do the same with power shell.

underisk ,
@underisk@lemmy.ml avatar

Powershell is already available on linux. The shell isn’t what determines how to execute a program, though. At least, not the CLI shell, anyway.

gorysubparbagel ,

You can use the magic bytes to detect it. Pretty sure windows executables have MZ as their magic bytes

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_signatures

SilverCode ,

You don’t need to hack anything, you can use Binfmt_misc to tell the kernel how to load windows binaries

atzanteol ,

Are you un-ironically suggesting that this person should write a kernel plugin to support pe formated binaries? Especially considering that wine-binfmt is a thing?

bluGill ,

i last looked into this about 20 years ago. I concluded I could make it work but I don't use wine enough to bother.

qpsLCV5 ,

honestly, wine has seemed unreasonably complex to me in the past and i haven’t tried since. but Bottles offers a nice easy to use GUI, i do recommend giving it a shot. at least on arch linux it’s super easy to install via the AUR.

the only issue is some apps need additional dependencies which can take some searching to figure out what exactly is needed. the arch wiki lists a bunch of them though, and often the error messages bottles shows will point you the right way.

i’ve gotten almost every .exe to work with it, most immediately, some after a short bit of tinkering.

qpsLCV5 ,

that said, i did end up finding open source alternatives for all the software i use often, and don’t use bottles much.

Flaky ,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I’ve yet to find something open-source that scratches what MusicBee can do, and it’s got major performance, usability and visual problems when running through WINE that have been reported.

It’s why I keep a Windows VM around.

Sentau ,

The bottles flatpak is the official release so people not on an arch based system can/should use that

Ullebe1 ,

Even people on Arch should use it. It ensures better isolation of processes and is the only supported installation method if you ever have issues.

TCB13 ,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

Wine works great 😂

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

i do recommend giving it a shot.

I did.

dendarion ,

Wubuntu? wubuntu.org

bionicjoey ,

https://media.tenor.com/MQhNrVQXsOEAAAAM/wumbo-patrick.gif

Peffse ,

I feel like there is a scary amount of copyright infringement going on to make it look THAT much like Windows 11.

bionicjoey ,

IDK about copyright, but the amount of times they refer to themselves as “Windows Ubuntu” feels like it’s probably trademark infringement. A reasonable person could easily read this website and mistake it for an official MS product.

qprimed ,

damn! that is quite the impressive windows veneer going on there. did not know about this distro (and I find the win 10/11 UI to be a whole lotta “meh”, so not personally interested), but I am sure there are others who would be. interesting link to throw, hand grenade style, into a distro flame war.

helenslunch OP ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

A little too close for comfort 😬

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