[HN Gopher] Bottles: GUI front end to run Windows software on Linux
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Bottles: GUI front end to run Windows software on Linux
        
       Author : 1_player
       Score  : 465 points
       Date   : 2021-12-19 10:58 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (usebottles.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (usebottles.com)
        
       | smoldesu wrote:
       | Kinda rediculous that they tell people to install Flatpak for
       | "the best experience" when their docs say things like:
       | 
       | "After multiple requests, it is now possible to generate the
       | desktop entry for a program directly from Bottles.
       | 
       | ...
       | 
       | this feature is not coming for Flatpak users, due to lack of
       | permissions. So if you're using Flatpak, please don't worry about
       | this feature, we still have other plans for you."
       | 
       | Sounds like Flatpak _isn 't_ the best experience then, is it?
        
       | morganvachon wrote:
       | I'm confused...Crossover (a commercial product using Wine as its
       | backend and contributes back to the Wine project[1]) uses the
       | term "bottles" for its container-like method to install Windows
       | apps on Linux and macOS. Is this an offshoot or extension of
       | Crossover, or is it a blatant ripoff of their already existing
       | service and name? Codeweavers (the makers of Crossover) have been
       | using the term "bottle" in this paradigm since at least the late
       | 2000s[2].
       | 
       | [1] https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux
       | 
       | [2] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/crossover-and-
       | bottles.5...
        
         | Closi wrote:
         | The WineHQ official documentation makes reference to WINEPREFIX
         | being termed a 'bottle', and there are quite a few previous
         | open source projects listed with titles stemming from bottles,
         | so I'm not sure that it's a crossover specific term (and if it
         | is, it seems to have been adopted by the open source project
         | too).
         | 
         | And let's be honest, although cute, it's a pretty obvious term
         | for a project called Wine.
        
         | mechanical_bear wrote:
         | "Blatant ripoff" is a bit harsh. "Bottles" isn't exactly that
         | original or clever when considering the software that
         | undergirds it.
        
           | jkepler wrote:
           | Especially considering that the wine project which Crossover
           | relies in and contributes to also uses the term 'bottles' to
           | encapsulate how they create different Windows environments.
        
         | a-saleh wrote:
         | Afaik, this project is reasonably old as well, I remember
         | looking at early versions when I was at the uni around 2010.
        
       | musicale wrote:
       | Apparently we've standardized on Windows apps as the standard
       | binary format for games and other software, irrespective of the
       | underlying OS kernel.
        
         | cortesoft wrote:
         | Is this surprising? It has been the default format for 25
         | years, and a lot of experience and tooling has been developed
         | to support it. It would be very hard for a competitor to
         | overtake that head start advantage.
        
         | iotku wrote:
         | Amusingly we're getting to a point where it's easier in many
         | cases to just target Windows than ship native binaries for
         | Linux.
         | 
         | So then the question arrives: since there's going to be a
         | native Windows binary regardless what's the point of putting in
         | the extra effort if it works well enough?
         | 
         | I think compatibility layers (Wine/Proton) are very useful
         | especially considering many developers don't want to put the
         | effort into making a well supported Linux binary (or make
         | something open source so it can be compiled/patched against
         | updated system libraries), but it very well may be a snake
         | eating its own tail situation that hampers further adoption if
         | things are "good enough".
        
           | Mandatum wrote:
           | .. Does this make Windows on Linux the "Java" of consistent,
           | universal binaries?
        
             | phist_mcgee wrote:
             | Java has fewer issues with the JVM than Windows games do
             | with Windows
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | Looks terrific. I have actually not needed to use Wine for so
       | long due to the proliferation of web software and cross platform
       | applications but perhaps if I were to play games!
        
         | Jnr wrote:
         | Yes, this would be great for gaming, but I personally play
         | almost all of the games from Steam. I even add shortcuts to
         | native Linux non-steam games to Steam library, so all of them
         | would stay in one place.
        
       | moharoune wrote:
       | How does this compare to Wine ?
        
         | boudin wrote:
         | I don't know why you're getting down-voted, it's a legitimate
         | question since the main page doesn't mention wine once. It is a
         | Wine frontend though, seems to also integrate wine-tricks for
         | dependencies, DXVK and other things from the wine eco-system.
        
         | dschuessler wrote:
         | Judging from the Github project page, it uses Wine itself, so
         | is probably just a GUI frontend to it.
        
         | Vinnl wrote:
         | I think this uses Wine (it mentions DXVK, which IIRC is for
         | Wine), but handles setting it up correctly for every program
         | you want to use.
        
         | mozarik wrote:
         | https://docs.usebottles.com/components/runners
        
         | rhdunn wrote:
         | Bottles are isolated Wine environments, similar to containers
         | or VMs. This allows you to install components (e.g. msxml3) to,
         | and modify the configuration of that environment to make the
         | program work without having it affect other applications.
        
           | mathfailure wrote:
           | Isolated wine environments are called wineprefixes in wine
           | terms and do not require any additional software.
        
             | hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
             | I think bottles allow you to run a different version of
             | wine inside each bottle (in addition to offering a noob-
             | friendly GUI interface).
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/tmp               mkdir $HOME/tmp
           | wine foo/bar/bla/install.exe
        
       | bserge wrote:
       | Wow, it looks great!
        
       | ghostly_s wrote:
       | I hate when a product landing page doesn't answer the biggest
       | question everyone is going to have. How is this different from
       | Wine?
        
       | SSLy wrote:
       | That's a strange name, Crossover (the company backing Wine
       | developement) uses Bottles as a name for their Wine prefixes.
        
         | nailer wrote:
         | Yeah I read the website and thought Bottles for winning Ng
         | windows apps on Linux is already a thing - looks like this is a
         | different company that's ripped off the name.
        
       | lordofgibbons wrote:
       | I want to make sure I understand what this is.
       | 
       | Does this set up and manage multiple isolated Wine & Proton
       | environments?
        
         | confiq wrote:
         | As far as I understand, yes[1]! I'll quote
         | 
         | > There are two types of runners in Bottles:
         | 
         | > 1. Wine
         | 
         | > 2. Proton
         | 
         | > The Wine runner is used for all Environments and is therefore
         | in all bottles created, but also for external prefixes imported
         | into Bottles. We support 3 different runners:
         | 
         | [1] https://docs.usebottles.com/components/runners
        
         | badsectoracula wrote:
         | I haven't used this software, but FWIW i almost never have to
         | create isolated Wine (well, Wine-staging) environments. I've
         | installed pretty much everything - applications, games, etc -
         | on the default wine prefix and things tend to work just fine.
         | Though i do have installed DXVK and VKD3D-Proton as well as the
         | windows media framework files for games to work properly, but i
         | do not see these as anything different to what i was doing on
         | Windows anyway - including using DXVK to run some D3D9 games
         | that were otherwise broken.
         | 
         | I think in general Wine and Wine-staging are good enough
         | nowadays to not need game-specific hacks that affect the entire
         | wine prefix anymore.
        
       | woile wrote:
       | This is literally amazing, very similar to playonlinux, but much
       | better looking and intuitive.
       | 
       | Thanks for this, it will make much easier to install linux on
       | friends computers hehe
        
       | IceWreck wrote:
       | +1 for Bottles. Have been using it for a while. Its excellent. It
       | also has an inbuilt task manager, command line access, and so on
       | for a container/bottle.
        
       | OJFord wrote:
       | I can't find a list of tested working (or to what degree)
       | software - does enough work well that I'm supposed to assume
       | everything does?
       | 
       | I would love to have Fusion 360 working on Linux.
        
         | bstar77 wrote:
         | This is just a frontend to Wine. Most stuff tends to work
         | unless it's doing strange things and has unusual dependencies.
         | Some resources:
         | 
         | https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...
         | 
         | https://www.protondb.com
        
           | profsnuggles wrote:
           | I was going to point to the WineHQ AppDB also but the person
           | most active in updating the Fusion360 entry seems to be
           | working on this. https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-
           | Fusion-360-for-Linux It looks like it's been fairly active
           | over the past year so it's probably what I would start with
           | to get Fusion running.
        
       | Danborg wrote:
       | Has anyone figured out how to run Visio? ;-)
        
       | jimnotgym wrote:
       | Can this run office 365 on Linux. I don't really care about
       | alternatives, I need Teams, One Drive, PowerBI and Excel or I
       | can't move. Otherwise I have to stick with WSL
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | No. Wine can't implement modern features fast enough for stuff
         | like office to work.
         | 
         | That's not the goal of this tool, though. It's a quality of
         | life improvement for programs that are already known to work in
         | WINE.
        
         | Shadonototra wrote:
         | Well stick to windows, nobody forcing you to move!
         | 
         | If linux doesn't have what you need, it's 100% fine!
         | 
         | Linux is here for people willing to stop depending on
         | proprietary mono-platform driven stacks
         | 
         | The world is moving, you'll be left behind, if not already
         | 
         | Developpers already moved with it, what's left are the old "ms"
         | office people! the modern ones use gmail suite
        
         | iudqnolq wrote:
         | It looks like the only officially supported program that isn't
         | a game is amazon music [1]. The main project for running
         | windows on Linux has a partially working distribution of Office
         | 365. My impression is that it sometimes works with significant
         | manual effort, wouldn't be reliable enough to depend on without
         | a backup system [2].
         | 
         | When I need Office apps to communicate with clients I use a
         | combination of Google Docs download as docx, Office Online, and
         | a VM.
         | 
         | [1]: https://github.com/bottlesdevs/programs [2]:
         | https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...
        
         | MayeulC wrote:
         | Android office apps seem to work for me via waydroid.
         | Otherwise, web office seems to be enough for 90% of people
         | (where libreoffice and onlyoffice already seem to cover the
         | needs for 70%). Of course, you might have a very specific need
         | for MS Office, no judgement :)
         | 
         | edit: though a VM can work too.
        
         | marcodiego wrote:
         | I was able to install following instructions available here:
         | https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/hhvx17/off...
         | and here:
         | https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/hhvx17/off...
         | .
         | 
         | I downloaded the installer from a windows machine. After trying
         | to install and run, it still complained about a missing
         | implementation. The tutorial explains how to install using wine
         | 5.11, to make it run correctly, simply run it using wine 5.12
         | after installed.
         | 
         | I used bottles to install wine versions my distro wasn't
         | shipped with. Also used winetricks to install fonts. At the end
         | it works, but be aware: it is slow and buggy.
        
           | senectus1 wrote:
           | is that not the same link twice?
        
             | marcodiego wrote:
             | Think you're right. Correct links: https://old.reddit.com/r
             | /linuxmasterrace/comments/hhvx17/off... and https://old.red
             | dit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/hhvx17/off...
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | WSL2 is probably hard to beat. They've added GPU passthrough,
         | and now have Wayland built-in with wslg. Some buggy stuff
         | remains, systemd support is a bit rough, etc. But they do keep
         | iterating. I do wish they had a full-screen mode where you
         | could use your own window manager, like many Windows X11
         | servers optionally allow.
         | 
         | But it's good enough now that I rarely find things that don't
         | work. At least for now, it's also a bit of an escape from
         | corporate over-management of desktops. Most companies haven't
         | yet figured out how to overmanage it in the way they do with
         | regular Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
        
           | Shadonototra wrote:
           | That's not the reason people use linux
           | 
           | They move to linux to be in control of their OS, to manage
           | their dependencies and to embrace an open platform that scale
           | from embedded to IoT to datacenters
           | 
           | If your goal is to use a proprietary OS that spy on you and
           | is bloated, only to run a linux VM, then you don't understand
           | why cloud native is 100% linux
           | 
           | That's the problem of the people who work at Microsoft have,
           | they became blind and don't understand the real intent of
           | people using linux!
           | 
           | Bloat driven development is certainly not one of them!
        
             | tyingq wrote:
             | I agree that set of people is one group of users. I use WSL
             | to write code for work, where I also need Windows for
             | Office and some drawing tools. I imagine I'm not the only
             | one.
        
         | jimnotgym wrote:
         | For everyone questioning the need for MS office. If you are an
         | advanced Excel user nothing else will do.
        
           | robertlagrant wrote:
           | Office online?
        
             | zamadatix wrote:
             | It's been getting much better over the years, I remember
             | Pivot Tables making it in being the hot shit in the online
             | version a couple years back, but it's still not to parity
             | for advanced use. The biggest pain point probably being
             | limited data sources though I think there is still a file
             | size limit too (30 MB last I remember, better than at
             | first!). New features still get cooked in the desktop
             | previews first as well e.g. even if your account is set to
             | insider preview lamdba won't work in Excel Online at the
             | moment.
        
         | petepete wrote:
         | I've just tried with Office 2013 and 2016, neither worked.
         | Didn't make it as far as the installer screen each time.
         | 
         | To make sure it was installed properly I tried Notepad++ and it
         | worked flawlessly.
         | 
         | Office is just a bit of a pain.
        
           | citizenpaul wrote:
           | I once read that office basically functions like a VM. I
           | don't know how true that was but I guess it makes it not
           | really software but a deployment.
        
       | Shadonototra wrote:
       | -- small rant
       | 
       | The UI looks very nice and polished
       | 
       | .. that would be true if it was a mobile app, not a desktop app..
       | 
       | i'm tired of constant scroll/touch/gesture based UX on desktop,
       | it's wrong
       | 
       | -- rant end
       | 
       | Running windows app?
       | 
       | What kind of windows only app does people need nowadays?
       | 
       | I see none personally
       | 
       | Office? meh, gmail/google doc etc replaced it
       | 
       | 3D? blender is here
       | 
       | Game Engines? they run on linux
       | 
       | Editors? they run on linux
       | 
       | What's left? i literally see none!
        
       | 2ion wrote:
       | Why is this better than playonlinux (contains "quirk" solution
       | for lots of productivity software and is also based on fully
       | managed invidiual wine prefices) or lutris or steam w/ proton for
       | games?
        
         | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
         | i could never under the new phoenicis playonlinux. it is
         | molasses slow, takes a toll on pc, is buggy. eh.
        
       | macco wrote:
       | Wow, the first impression is really great.
       | 
       | Finally, a Wine frontend that feels polished and easy to use for
       | beginners. Heck, the documentation alone is worth the project.
       | 
       | I love PlayOnLinux but their decision to go the Java route was a
       | mistake and the rewrite seems to take ages.
        
       | CursedUrn wrote:
       | This looks cool. Does it make use of the tech Valve has been
       | developing for gaming in Linux?
        
         | 1_player wrote:
         | Yes, you can choose which Wine environment to run on, by
         | default it's a vanilla Wine environment, or you can pick which
         | Proton version you prefer.
        
         | drekk wrote:
         | It (optionally) uses a fork of Proton, the Valve-developed
         | compatability layer. All containers use Wine, but Proton and
         | Lutris are more complex and support more modern titles
        
       | unbanned wrote:
       | I don't want to have to learn an entirely new vocabulary for
       | every new utility that comes out.
        
         | mathfailure wrote:
         | tl;dr: that seems to be a GUI to create&mange separate
         | wine/proton-based wineprefixes and install libs/apps into them
         | using winetricks.
         | 
         | Basically, just another Lutris/PlayOnLinux/whatever else.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Where's the run-MacOS-apps-on-Linux equivalent?
        
         | mastazi wrote:
         | It's called Darling, apparently it works well for most Terminal
         | apps while support for GUI apps is still limited at the moment
         | 
         | https://www.darlinghq.org/
         | 
         | https://github.com/darlinghq/darling
        
       | MayeulC wrote:
       | It's a shame winepak never really took off
       | https://www.winepak.org/
       | 
       | To make this clear, there hasn't been much activity since 2018:
       | https://github.com/winepak/winepak
        
         | 1_player wrote:
         | That's fantastic! I've been trying to package as many apps as I
         | can as flatpak (because flatpak rocks, fight me), I will
         | definitely look into winepak to package Windows-only software.
         | The fact that it uses a standard and common-place technology,
         | it just needs more exposure IMO. This is the first time I have
         | heard of it.
         | 
         | EDIT: nevermind...                 $ flatpak remote-add --if-
         | not-exists winepak
         | https://dl.winepak.org/repo/winepak.flatpakrepo       error:
         | Signature made Fri 20 Jul 2018 03:30:34 BST using RSA key ID
         | A959831C080B608F       BAD signature from " <julian@richen.io>"
         | Key expired Tue 09 Jun 2020 19:16:34 BST
        
           | alvarlagerlof wrote:
           | It's not active anymore.
        
             | MayeulC wrote:
             | Which is a real shame. I can definitely see some value in
             | winepak, and flatpaks could be built from Lutris install
             | scripts, etc.
             | 
             | I don't have much interest in windows apps, but I wouldn't
             | mind donating a bit of money (as opposed to free time) to
             | the project.
             | 
             | Edit: https://github.com/winepak/winepak/issues/23#issuecom
             | ment-64...
             | 
             | > _The biggest issue with winepak, which is why I haven 't
             | been working on it, is that it all revolves around me
             | building things instead of a remote server doing it and
             | having people contribute. I really just need to get the
             | buildbot & sdk in a place that it can auto build an push
             | out. Then it can do all the signing and building again and
             | this shouldn't happen. I just need to find the time._
             | 
             | Maybe a few PR around automation, and/or donated CI runtime
             | could help a whole lot?
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | I mean, I can see why. At this point, Flatpak has more open
         | issues than Wine itself...
        
           | 1_player wrote:
           | The flatpak hate gang strikes again. Seriously, more bugs
           | than Wine? For the first time we have a cross-distro
           | packaging system, and I still hear people complaining that
           | the olden days were better. Are you kidding me?
           | 
           | Honestly, I don't even care to entertain this discussion, as
           | for the FIRST TIME in Linux history there is people packaging
           | an application and it works exactly the same everywhere, and
           | some can only meet this achievement by unpaid volunteers with
           | _snark_ because it's not "perfect".
           | 
           | It's tiring to see any effort to make the Linux desktop a
           | reality met with unconstructive opposition from daily Linux
           | desktop users.
           | 
           | /rant
        
             | grozzle wrote:
             | no-one here said the olden days were better. it is possible
             | for something to be _generally_ in the right direction, but
             | still in great need of improvements. dismissing anything
             | not as positive as you 'd like as unconstructive is itself
             | unconstructive.
        
             | michaelmrose wrote:
             | Flatpak is only exciting Redhat who wants to easily provide
             | up to date software on a very old stable base and to be the
             | Google of linux software distribution and to prospective
             | developers who don't at present already have a method of
             | getting debs and rpms to end users easily. This is a small
             | group.
             | 
             | For end users its meant slower startup, apps that ignore
             | user themes, concern that a rogue developer will poison the
             | well with outright malware, concern that a legit developer
             | will get hacked and instantly disseminate malware to all
             | users with their flatpak installed, flatpak only bugs,
             | permissions issues, and additional complexity in managing
             | software.
             | 
             | For developers who already have their software widely
             | available via traditional packaging its something else they
             | have to do in addition to traditional packaging not an
             | alternative because its not universal. In fact last year
             | only a single digit percentage said they used it.
             | 
             | If your prospective users aren't excited about your product
             | perhaps one needs to reconsider if its the users fault for
             | not being excited.
        
               | MayeulC wrote:
               | I am excited about flatpak for multiple reasons, which
               | boils down to sandboxing:
               | 
               | 1. Proprietary software: most proprietary software
               | authors do not play well with packagers. Moreover, I want
               | any proprietary software properly sandboxed
               | 
               | 2. Software that you need sandboxed for various reasons:
               | I've been running flatpak nightlies of stuff I otherwise
               | have installed on my system
               | 
               | 3. Installing a program without installing a whole bunch
               | of dependencies, hard to clean up after
               | 
               | 4. Cleaning up my home directory
               | 
               | Sandboxing (I know most flathub packages have leaky
               | sandboxes, but that's a start) limits the effect of
               | compromising one flatpak. To be clear: I treat any piece
               | of proprietary software as a possible RCE by the author.
               | 
               | User themes issues are probably fixable.
               | 
               | Slower startup as well, to an extent.
               | 
               | Unfortunately, developers are pretty bad at packaging
               | generally, and don't have distro maintainers watching
               | over their CVEs and upgrading dependencies with the
               | flatpak model... Although users could still dig in and
               | fix these by themselves, and sandboxing still gives a few
               | protections.
        
       | authed wrote:
       | Can Wine nowadays run CAD software like Inventor, etc?
        
       | 41b696ef1113 wrote:
       | It was not immediately obvious to me - can I also restrict
       | network access?
        
       | Santosh83 wrote:
       | I mean, what the hell? This is from India:
       | 
       | "The website has been blocked as per order of Ministry of
       | Electronics and Information Technology under IT Act, 2000."
       | 
       | Why has the Indian govt blocked this website?
        
         | webmobdev wrote:
         | Same here on Airtel, India - blocked.
        
         | blahgeek wrote:
         | I'm curious, how does this work? It's a HTTPS site, so it's
         | basically a MITM attack, which is not technically possible, is
         | that right? Are you required to install some certification from
         | gov?
        
           | Delk wrote:
           | Maybe they block entire domains, not individual pages?
           | 
           | That wouldn't be affected by HTTPS at all.
        
           | tanduv wrote:
           | Depends on the ISP, but some have even done deep packet
           | inspection - https://iamkush.me/sni-airtel/
        
           | gombosg wrote:
           | The initial TLS handshake contains the hostname in plaintext,
           | also DNS queries can be sniffed. On the other hand, MITM
           | would be like changing a certificate in an attempt to alter
           | traffic, this case is simple traffic blocking by doing packet
           | inspection. (Which is also not nice obviously)
        
         | sundarurfriend wrote:
         | Is it still blocked for you? I'm on ACT broadband and the site
         | is available to me, but i think Jio is generally more
         | restrictive.
         | 
         | (For anyone reading from outside India, yes, the government
         | blocks a lot of websites, different internet providers seem to
         | implement different lists, and nobody afaik knows what the
         | actual official list is - or maybe there isn't one, just
         | general instructions from the government about what sort of
         | websites to block, hence the variance.)
        
           | Santosh83 wrote:
           | Surprisingly it is not blocked now. What changed within half
           | an hour? Very inexplicable. I'm on BSNL landline broadband,
           | fwiw.
        
             | zinekeller wrote:
             | (not Indian)
             | 
             | Maybe the way they implement it is if the domain is first
             | visited by their user, it is put in a queue to review if
             | it's compliant?
        
       | syntaxfree wrote:
       | I wonder if this will work for running Java GUI scientific apps
       | (Gephi, Concept Explorer) that are pretty much impossible to get
       | running correctly on Linux.
        
         | Koshkin wrote:
         | You mean, "impossible to get running correctly _anywhere_ "?
         | 
         | (The problem with running Java apps is that they are tied to a
         | range of versions of JRE, like, for instance, version 8 or
         | earlier.)
        
       | rtpg wrote:
       | Ooh this looks very nice. I love how wine "just works" but it
       | means I'm sometimes just really unaware of what's going on or how
       | my system is configured.
       | 
       | I admit I sometimes just open winetricks and more or less
       | randomly click on a bunch of things to see if it will fix issues
       | when I have them... this might help me out with that
        
       | throwawayboise wrote:
       | If you need Windows software, why not just run Windows? Why make
       | life more difficult?
        
         | nu11ptr wrote:
         | Many people (like myself) are very happy with Linux and have
         | been for years. We have no interest in "auto rebooting for
         | security patches", "treating file locking like it was security"
         | or having "relevant ads" shown to us. However, there might be 1
         | or 2 Windows apps we wish to run, so things like this are nice.
         | I assure you that my overall experience is not "more difficult"
         | than Windows (the exact opposite in fact).
        
         | jpeloquin wrote:
         | Because we need some Windows-only software and some Linux-only
         | software. And the occasional Mac-only (or whatever else)
         | software too. Life is _less_ difficult when it all works in the
         | same window manager and accesses the same filesystem, if that
         | is possible.
        
         | dijit wrote:
         | Windows is kinda crap.
         | 
         | The cost of it not withstanding, the OS itself is just janky.
         | So. I'd prefer not to.
        
           | dartharva wrote:
           | People keep saying that, but the only stable experience I
           | have had is with Windows. Every single Linux distro I have
           | tried (Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro, Fedora) has been inherenty
           | more sluggish and painful to use than Windows for me (even if
           | you were to ignore the initial setup problems with various
           | hardware).
           | 
           | Windows unactivated is actually free to use (just use a
           | generic key from its official documentation) and most of its
           | preloaded bloatware can be removed with single-use scripts.
        
             | dijit wrote:
             | I guess it depends where you are?
             | 
             | It's so much of a surface area that it's hard to be
             | objective on all fronts, nothing is perfect and I could
             | come up with 1000 ways that Linux is better or that macos
             | is better or that windows is better. But it largely doesn't
             | matter.
             | 
             | The parent postulated "why not use windows". Well, I don't
             | like using windows but often I need to run software
             | developed for windows.
             | 
             | The same way that windows now has an emulation/virt layer
             | for Linux, people want to use Linux programs from windows.
             | 
             | I dont begrudge those users for using Linux software on
             | windows or look down on them for that.
             | 
             | Enjoying the Experience of the operating system you use is
             | just so incredibly subjective...
             | 
             | I recently had the mispleasure of reinstalling a windows
             | machine and kept getting frustrated at the requirement to
             | have a Microsoft account, drivers that didn't seem to find
             | my drives (?) but could with an Intel computer from the
             | same brand (and similar model) of motherboard. I got
             | frustrated when trying to use the win32 api because it
             | expects WTF16, padded and null terminated strings but only
             | passed as mutable pointers.
             | 
             | And if you want to pass a strict to a function, you must
             | pass a raw pointer. Which is inherently unsafe in rust.
             | 
             | These things annoy me.
             | 
             | Then: I tried to activate windows and saw the jaw dropping
             | price. The price is more than a quarter of a reasonably
             | priced home PC. No wonder the OEMs install bloatware to get
             | the price down.
        
       | alpaca128 wrote:
       | I've tried this on PopOS and unfortunately it was really unstable
       | and couldn't start applications. But otherwise I think the
       | interface is already better and simpler than some other GUI
       | frontends for wine.
        
         | mackrevinack wrote:
         | this could be a completely different issue to yours, but i ran
         | into a problem with some software where i selected the .exe
         | installer to run but it wouldn't work as bottles didn't have
         | access to the other installer files in the same folder.
         | 
         | when i moved the installer files inside the bottle it worked no
         | problem. alternatively, flatseal will let you set up
         | permissions for bottles so that it can access your home folder
        
       | ThinkBeat wrote:
       | Will this enable me to run Office365 and CreativeCloud on Linux?
        
       | Snetry wrote:
       | As a developer within this space I am excited for the format for
       | application installers since the alternatives are all terrible
        
       | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
       | Looks like a replacement for ye-olde PlayOnLinux, which if I ever
       | move to Linux Desktop[0] was going to be something I would write
       | my own tooling to replace[1].
       | 
       | It is not clear from looking over the website, but since bottles
       | appear closely related to Flatpak I am wondering if they support
       | being installed to a different path than the default. Flatpak
       | doesn't allow you to do this in a piecemeal way[2], but it does
       | allow you to set up more than one entire Flatpak environment to
       | different paths[3]. I'm hoping bottles can at least manage that?
       | 
       | [0] There are dozens of tools on my list for this, mostly around
       | application and container management.
       | 
       | [1] I am a very vocal critic of the way Linux Desktop does
       | things, but Windows is becoming worse at an alarming rate so it
       | will probably be the least-worst option in a few years.
       | 
       | [2] A regression from features we had in desktop OSs since the
       | 80s.
       | 
       | [3] Not that any GUI frontend for it pays attention to that.
       | _sigh_
        
         | bogwog wrote:
         | Idk anything about bottles, but just curious why you would want
         | that feature? Like, what is a compelling use case for it?
         | 
         | You probably know this already, but the point of Flatpak is to
         | offer sandboxing and packaging of all dependencies in an
         | isolated way. Being able to install and run flatpaks from any
         | directory seems like it'd be difficult to implement for little
         | benefit. It's a bad fit for the tech IMO, and unnecessary since
         | AppImage already offers exactly that functionality, but without
         | the sandboxing (and other) features.
        
           | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
           | > Idk anything about bottles, but just curious why you would
           | want that feature? Like, what is a compelling use case for
           | it?
           | 
           | Being able to run some applications from super fast but small
           | NVMe disk and less important ones from slow but huge spinning
           | rust disk, being able to run applications from a network
           | share, CD, USB stick, etc. Desktop OSs have been able to do
           | these sorts of things since the 1980s without all the hoops
           | Linux Desktop software makes you jump through to do them.
           | 
           | > Being able to install and run flatpaks from any directory
           | seems like it'd be difficult to implement for little benefit.
           | 
           | If Flatpak had considered this ability from the beginning it
           | wouldn't be. Hell it might not be that difficult now, I
           | haven't looked at the source for Flatpak and how it does
           | things behind the scenes is otherwise not documented as far
           | as I can tell. As you mentioned, AppImage implements it
           | without much difficulty, and AppImages can be securely
           | isolated by firejail. Combining the two concepts in the same
           | package shouldn't be that hard. Keep runtimes in
           | "installations" and let applications exists as single-
           | directory self-contained units wherever the user wants them.
           | What is fundamentally difficult about this?
           | 
           | > unnecessary since AppImage already offers exactly that
           | functionality
           | 
           | If AppImage were fast becoming the new standard in Linux
           | Desktop application distribution we wouldn't be having this
           | conversation.
        
             | bogwog wrote:
             | > Desktop OSs have been able to do these sorts of things
             | since the 1980s without all the hoops Linux Desktop
             | software makes you jump through to do them.
             | 
             | Linux desktops _can_ do this. Flatpak maybe can 't (Idk, I
             | don't use them that often, but I'd be surprised if they
             | couldn't), but even before AppImage, Flatpak, Snap, etc you
             | could always just run an application from wherever you
             | want. You could do that 20 years ago, and you can do it
             | today.
             | 
             | Desktops in the 80s didn't have sandboxing, but modern
             | Linux desktops do. You can either implement sandboxing
             | yourself through syscalls, use something like Systemd, or
             | use the significantly more user friendly Flatpaks.
             | 
             | ...Or don't use sandboxing at all, and do whatever you
             | want. Download a (hopefully statically-linked) ELF from the
             | internet, chmod +x it, then execute.
             | 
             | > standard in Linux Desktop application distribution
             | 
             | There is no such thing. There never has been, and there
             | never will be :P
        
               | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
               | > Linux desktops can do this.
               | 
               | Yeah, in theory they can. In practice the community
               | abhors the concept of managing applications like they
               | were just regular files and prefers complicated tooling,
               | gigantic databases of dependencies, and armies of
               | maintainers. It isn't that it _can 't_ do it, it's that
               | it _doesn 't_ do it.
               | 
               | You clearly have never tried this in reality. It doesn't
               | work the vast majority of software without a lot of
               | effort.
               | 
               | > Desktops in the 80s didn't have sandboxing
               | 
               | Sandboxing is orthogonal to how the applications are
               | managed, whether or not they use hardcoded paths, and
               | even if they use giant unwieldy dependency chains. There
               | is no conceptual limitation to having both simple
               | application management and sandboxing.
               | 
               | > Download a (hopefully statically-linked) ELF from the
               | internet, chmod +x it, then execute.
               | 
               | Statements like this make it clear how never-fucking-ever
               | you actually tried to do this.
               | 
               | > There is no such thing. There never has been, and there
               | never will be :P
               | 
               | Did I mention the other thing I hate about Linux Desktop?
               | It's community. It's full of condescending know-it-all
               | dismissive and pedantic assholes. There is a standard,
               | and it is package management. Only the most obtuse
               | definition of standard could ever conclude otherwise.
               | Flatpak is gaining ground, which is better than
               | continuing with the current paradigm as far as I'm
               | concerned, but it is still worse than the simple way
               | things were done in saner desktop operating systems.
               | 
               | Of course, next you'll tell me that "Linux is just a
               | kernel" or some other useless pedantic defensive
               | nonsense. I've had to deal with crap like that for 20
               | years now, which is part of the reason I still use
               | Windows.
        
               | pxc wrote:
               | > [T]he Linux community abhors the concept of managing
               | applications like they were just regular files and
               | prefers complicated tooling, gigantic databases of
               | dependencies, and armies of maintainers.
               | 
               | > Flatpak is gaining ground, which is better than
               | continuing with the current paradigm as far as I'm
               | concerned, but it is still worse than the simple way
               | things were done in saner desktop operating systems.
               | 
               | (and from your other comment:)
               | 
               | > Application management on Linux is already complicated
               | enough without having to learn a new language to use it
               | effectively.
               | 
               | Linux is the only system (maybe now FreeBSD, if they've
               | completed the migration to a packaged base system yet)
               | where every single piece of software on a complete and
               | usable system can be managed uniformly with a single set
               | of automatic tools. You are absolutely correct that
               | people using such a system are loathe to return to the
               | fundamentally unmanageable anarchy of a system like
               | Windows, where                 * every installer does
               | basically whatever the hell it wants;       * you can
               | never really be sure that an uninstaller does its job;
               | * much software simply cannot be installed or uninstalled
               | non-interactively;       * managing non-interactive
               | installation for apps which DO support non-interactive
               | management is often achievable only through some bespoke
               | process;       * every single fucking program feels
               | entitled to litter your system with its own bespoke auto-
               | update mechanism (sometimes one that runs in the
               | background constantly!);       * a brand new system with
               | virtually no desired application software takes up 20-40
               | GiB, instead of 4-8 GiB;       * it is difficult to even
               | *discern* whether or not the whole system is up to date,
               | and bringing a system up to date requires several manual
               | processes;       * even in the year of our lord two-
               | thousand and twenty one, whole system installs
               | mysteriously become slow after a few years so that they
               | must either be reinstalled (the only sure-fire way) or
               | treated with a laborious, manual cleanup process just to
               | achieve sane, normal performance again.
               | 
               | Software management on Windows is absolutely riddled with
               | problems that are hugely minimized by traditional Linux
               | package managers and can be more or less totally
               | eliminated by more innovative ones. People who are
               | already using Linux are opposed to your proposition
               | because we've been there on other operating systems and
               | you are asking to _drag us back to hell_.
               | 
               | Flatpak isn't a 'step in the right direction' which will
               | eventually take us to the manual, repetitious, chaotic,
               | redundant mess of managing software on other operating
               | systems. It's a fundamental improvement over that model,
               | because it retains                 * very good
               | deduplication of shared runtimes via OSTree;       * easy
               | management by automatic tools;       * conventional and
               | technical constraints on what applications can do to set
               | themselves up;       * a single central interface for
               | software distribution;       * a more complete
               | specification of the dependency chain, unlike the
               | implicit and unspecified dependencies on various Windows
               | components from different eras that cause the base
               | Windows installation (even without any applications) to
               | grow and grow and grow.
               | 
               | Flatpak is not going to give those things up, and if it
               | did it would not be 'advancing'.
               | 
               | > > > standard in Linux Desktop application distribution
               | 
               | > > There is no such thing. There never has been, and
               | there never will be :P
               | 
               | > Did I mention the other thing I hate about Linux
               | Desktop? It's community.
               | 
               | This is how you react to playful commiseration about the
               | difficulty of coordinating unification between
               | independent, distributed, democratically managed
               | volunteer projects? Please, I urge you in the strongest
               | possible terms: continue using Windows exclusively,
               | forever and ever. :)
        
               | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
               | > Linux is the only system (maybe now FreeBSD, if they've
               | completed the migration to a packaged base system yet)
               | where every single piece of software on a complete and
               | usable system can be managed uniformly with a single set
               | of automatic tools.
               | 
               | Only the software that has been painstakingly packaged
               | for that particular version of that particular
               | distribution can be managed by said tools. This is one of
               | its biggest flaws and part of the reason Flatpak even
               | exists.
               | 
               | You rightly describe a lot of problems with the installer
               | mechanism of traditional Windows, which is not what I am
               | advocating for[0]. I'm advocating for something more like
               | original Mac applications, or RiscOS AppDirs, or
               | NeXT/current MacOS Application Bundles, or just folders
               | with files in them in DOS, or you know, AppImage. Single
               | object applications that can be copied, deleted, and
               | moved the same as any file _without_ a bunch of special
               | tooling. I contend that the need for special tooling is
               | to work around an overly complicated model, not inherent
               | to the problem space.
               | 
               | > This is how you react to playful commiseration about
               | the difficulty of coordinating unification between
               | independent, distributed, democratically managed
               | volunteer projects? Please, I urge you in the strongest
               | possible terms: continue using Windows exclusively,
               | forever and ever. :)
               | 
               | When someone asks me about my use case for features for
               | the sole purpose of being pedantic and telling me things
               | I already know that are entirely useless and that I have
               | heard variations of _for twenty goddamn years_ while
               | literally using an emoji that represents a human face
               | sticking it 's tongue out... well let's just say I'm not
               | inclined to have a high opinion of them. Frankly, there's
               | good reason Linux is in a distant third place as a
               | Desktop OS, despite how much Windows sucks, and it isn't
               | because it provides a seamless experience and its
               | community is so helpful and welcoming.
               | 
               | [0] It's weird that when you criticize something in Linux
               | Desktop, for some reason its proponents always go all
               | whataboutism on Windows.
        
               | opan wrote:
               | I would much rather see Guix or Nix become the standard
               | than Flatpak/AppImage/Snaps.
        
               | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
               | Yeah, a lot of people would, but I honestly can't see
               | why. Application management on Linux is already
               | complicated enough without having to learn a new language
               | to use it effectively. I get that many people find value
               | in its declarative nature, but the reason I think that is
               | so attractive is that the current paradigm is so utterly
               | terrible it makes what should be a relatively niche
               | requirement (declarative application management) look
               | like a good general solution.
        
               | bogwog wrote:
               | Oh sorry, I didn't realize that I was the asshole. Thanks
               | for clearing that up.
        
               | mechanical_bear wrote:
               | Right? After that rant...
        
             | michaelmrose wrote:
             | > Being able to run some applications from super fast but
             | small NVMe disk and less important ones from slow but huge
             | spinning rust disk
             | 
             | 1TB NVME drives aren't very expensive on the order of
             | $80-$100 US. This is already big enough for your entire OS
             | even with several very large games installed. The natural
             | split if you have multiple drives would be between OS and
             | backups/multimedia.
             | 
             | I see this immediately being used for pirated software and
             | games. It could also be used to implement a cross platform
             | app store like interface to install legitimate software. It
             | could even be integrated with the same store interface as
             | one uses to install traditional packages and flatpaks for a
             | true one stop shop.
        
               | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
               | > 1TB NVME drives aren't very expensive on the order of
               | $80-$100 US.
               | 
               | That isn't the point. I have in my possession several
               | small form factor computers that have _16GB_ disks in
               | them.  "just spend $80-100 each on them" is not a good
               | excuse for having such an inflexible system that it
               | demands everything be on one disk.
               | 
               | The original Mac did this on floppies in 1984. It is
               | 2021, our software should be able to do better.
        
       | wizzledonker wrote:
       | This looks great, I love the clean GTK for this user interface.
       | Say what you will about GTK and Gnome... for beginners on an
       | operating system such as Ubuntu, having a consistent application
       | concept is very important.
       | 
       | Curious how this compares to Lutris[1]. I can see it has support
       | for it as a runner, however as far as I can tell it achieves the
       | same thing by maintaining separate wineprefixes.
       | 
       | [1] https://lutris.net/
        
         | brnt wrote:
         | Re consistency: Am I the only that finds all those
         | burgerbuttons and cluttered window frames (I think they may
         | even call them decorations!) anything but?
         | 
         | Give me a title bar and good old many bars please.
        
         | Jnr wrote:
         | Lutris is great, but the UI is not as polished, and is probably
         | still geared towards more advanced users.
        
         | simion314 wrote:
         | >Say what you will about GTK and Gnome... for beginners on an
         | operating system such as Ubuntu, having a consistent
         | application concept is very important.
         | 
         | Consistency is important but is not like the majority of the
         | apps are GTK3 (or whatever is latest) with the GNOME styles
         | even if those GNOME designers pretend nothing else exists and
         | nobody should remove the GNOME branding from the GNOME apps.
         | 
         | Just want to mention that GNOME are the bad guys, KDE
         | distributions will provide GNOME integration with packages and
         | themes that attempt to keep Qt and GTK application consistent
         | in look and feel but I never seen GNOME distros attempt to
         | integrate with the non-GNOME apps.
        
           | ravenstine wrote:
           | As much as I think that GNOME is a joke at this point (and
           | has been for well over a decade), is that really such a bad
           | thing that they focus on supporting their graphical toolkit
           | of choice?
           | 
           | Besides, the real solution here is for developers to switch
           | to QT and stop using GTK. ;)
        
             | colejohnson66 wrote:
             | Qt, unfortunately, by nature of being C++, is much harder
             | to link into a different language. GTK is a plain C API.
             | So, if you're using plain C, Rust, C#, etc, it's a heck of
             | a lot easier to use GTK than Qt.
        
               | simion314 wrote:
               | The thing is that GNOME project and GNOME based distros
               | should put just a bit of effort to support Qt programs,
               | like have the same File Picker Dialog or even have GTK2
               | and GTK3 use the same fucking File Picker or at least
               | with the same fucking File Sorting.
               | 
               | About easy of use I am sure that you are more productive
               | with a professional toolkit like Qt and a mature language
               | like c++ then fucking around with some
               | broken/incomplete/buggy C# or Rust GTK bindings. Though I
               | think you can do simple Python apps with GTK GUIs but for
               | professional applications that are targeting
               | crossplatform trust me Qt is the solution (I never seen a
               | good GUI cross platform pro application , Linus Torvalds
               | himself used Qt for his app because his Red Hat friends
               | could not answer him on how to do some complex GUI in
               | GTK)
        
               | tadfisher wrote:
               | You get the DE's file chooser if you use xdg-desktop-
               | portal, which has a KDE backend.
        
               | simion314 wrote:
               | This is a recent development and that was designed to
               | support GNOME/RedHat's flatpack , we should not get
               | tricked to believe GNOME would have done this for helping
               | someone else then themselves(do they support this in GTK2
               | apps too?, I really hate having different file choser
               | with different sorting order of files and folders)
        
           | 1_player wrote:
           | > GNOME are the bad guys
           | 
           | Just because you disagree with them, it doesn't make them the
           | "bad guys".
        
             | smoldesu wrote:
             | I would agree if
             | 
             | a. Their development team was more professional (locking
             | threads when feedback starts coming in, making offhand
             | derogatory comments about people's reading comprehension
             | skills, trying to minimize serious problems to avoid
             | dealing with merge requests/more work, blaming downstream
             | actors like PopOS! for simply using their software and
             | disagreeing with their ethos, etc.)
             | 
             | b. They used their funding to actually fix issues (GTK4
             | still has text rendering issues. 8 months later. Insert
             | obligatory "thumbnail file picker" comment here)
             | 
             | c. They didn't regress features that previously worked (No
             | more extensions, no more desktop tweaks, overall fewer
             | settings in new releases, design upgrades that are
             | decidedly opinionated)
             | 
             | d. They didn't treat their opinions as gospel (eg.
             | encouraging Flatpak-or-die culture when Flatpak itself is
             | still in it's infancy and wildly unstable, going out of
             | their way to obfuscate theming interfaces, having "one guy"
             | come up with a new design for something and implementing it
             | before the community decides if it's something they want)
             | 
             | Yeah, I think I am comfortable calling them "the bad guys"
             | in the current landscape of Linux. GTK's team is still fine
             | (barely) but the overall effort to combine the two, add
             | middleware like libadwaita, move fast and break things, and
             | blame it on the user when things stop working is just
             | getting to be asinine.
             | 
             | They can have a vision if they want, but it shouldn't have
             | to come at the expanse of the rest of the community. That's
             | how you burn goodwill.
        
               | axiolite wrote:
               | > GTK's team is still fine (barely)
               | 
               | Really? Isn't GTK where the CSD (client side decoration)
               | is being forced onto every app, with no way to use
               | native/normal window manager borders? It seems rather
               | widely despised:
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16241923
               | 
               | https://old.reddit.com/r/xfce/comments/lcj7cq/why_is_csd_
               | bad...
        
               | smoldesu wrote:
               | That's more of a GNOME effort, if I'm being honest. It's
               | a feature that's provided via GTK's libraries, but the
               | whole "we're going to add CSD and you're not going to do
               | anything about it" has been more of a GNOME sentiment[0].
               | 
               | [0] https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/01/26/csd-
               | initiative/
        
               | phkahler wrote:
               | Yeah, that goes against everything Wayland.
        
             | simion314 wrote:
             | >Just because you disagree with them, it doesn't make them
             | the "bad guys".
             | 
             | I was replying on the consistency topic. some projects
             | offer the user a consistent experience by offering both
             | Qt/GTK support and others don't care and would rather force
             | their branding on you.
        
             | ayushnix wrote:
             | They're making their desktop environment and apps into a
             | walled garden on a platform like Linux. Most GTK4 apps
             | won't be usable outside the intended desktop environment
             | for which they're built.
             | 
             | They also engage in carefully crafted doublespeak when it
             | comes to things like extensions and user choice regarding
             | configuration.
             | 
             | Call it what you want but they certainly don't intend to
             | play nice with anyone and have adopted the approach of "my
             | way or the highway". Perhaps they're emboldened by all the
             | corporate backing they have from Red Hat and SUSE. They
             | also have the advantage of being the default DE on most
             | distros. Hell, even distros like NixOS encourage users to
             | use GNOME, which is absolutely insane when you think about
             | it.
        
               | pxc wrote:
               | > even distros like NixOS encourage users to use GNOME,
               | which is absolutely insane when you think about it.
               | 
               | ? NixOS doesn't have a default desktop environment. At
               | the same time, the graphical installation media images
               | have always come with Plasma as long as I can remember,
               | and the example desktop environment commented out in the
               | template given by nixos-generate-config has likewise
               | always been Plasma.
        
               | ayushnix wrote:
               | I'm taking about the "Recommended for most users" tag for
               | the GNOME ISO.
               | 
               | https://nixos.org/download.html#nixos-iso
        
               | pxc wrote:
               | Wow! I can't believe I've never noticed that. For many
               | years, the _only_ graphical installation disk was based
               | on Plasma, and I think it also had that tag. NixOS only
               | started shipping a GNOME iso for installation purposes a
               | little over a year ago (for 20.09), and I kinda never
               | noticed.
               | 
               | Looks like the main reason GNOME is recommended for
               | installation media at the moment is that it does a better
               | job of autodetecting HiDPI displays, and then scaling
               | appropriately: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-
               | homepage/pull/643
               | 
               | There are also some packaging issues for Qt with NixOS,
               | because Qt plugins fundamentally rely on 'impurity' at
               | runtime, and the Qt framework makes promises it doesn't
               | keep about binary compatibility.
               | 
               | Here are some of the relevant issues for historical
               | context and some of the tradeoffs Nixpkgs developers have
               | faced when it comes to handling Qt and KDE packaging:
               | 
               | https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/86369
               | 
               | https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/54525
               | 
               | https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/44047
               | 
               | I realize that may not be a fully satisfying answer as to
               | why the GNOME-based installation graphical ISO is
               | recommended over the Qt one because one can imagine that
               | the Qt packaging issue should be resolved some other way,
               | or see the difficulty of packaging Qt plugins and
               | applications in Nixpkgs as fundamentally a Nix defect.
               | But I hope it makes that decision make more sense.
               | 
               | FWIW, afaict Plasma is the more popular of the two major
               | DEs on NixOS, and it's what I've always used on NixOS
               | myself, including now. It is definitely usable.
        
               | mechanical_bear wrote:
               | I don't know the intricacies of the politics at play
               | here, so could you explain why this is "insane"?
        
               | ayushnix wrote:
               | I guess this is just my opinion but NixOS is probably the
               | most esoteric Linux distribution I've used. Anyone who
               | intends to use NixOS comfortably probably isn't
               | apprehensive about configuration and customization,
               | things which are the antithesis of everything GNOME
               | stands for.
               | 
               | I fail to see why GNOME, or any DE for that matter, is
               | something that should be recommended by a distribution
               | like NixOS.
        
               | SkyMarshal wrote:
               | Being the default and thereby "recommended" desktop in
               | NixOS a lot different than in other distro's.
               | 
               | In other distro's, to get a non-default desktop, you have
               | to download a whole different distro "spin", like
               | Kubuntu. Or add the new desktop packages and manually
               | configure them all.
               | 
               | With NixOS you use the same install image, and just
               | change two or three lines in the master configuration.nix
               | file, and re/build. You can change back and forth between
               | DE's that use different window managers with a reboot, or
               | between DE's that use the same window manager with a
               | relog [3].
               | 
               | Most the major desktops are supported in NixOS [1][2].
               | Gnome being the default means little, is easy to change
               | should NixOS community ever form a consensus about
               | changing the default (say in response to Gnome crossing
               | some line), and is easy for end users to change any time.
               | 
               | ----
               | 
               | # Gnome
               | 
               | services.xserver.enable = true;
               | 
               | services.xserver.displayManager.gdm.enable = true;
               | 
               | services.xserver.desktopManager.gnome.enable = true;
               | 
               | ----
               | 
               | # KDE
               | 
               | services.xserver.enable = true;
               | 
               | services.xserver.displayManager.sddm.enable = true;
               | 
               | services.xserver.desktopManager.plasma5.enable = true;
               | 
               | ----
               | 
               | [1]:More info:
               | https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#sec-x11
               | 
               | [2]:Supported desktops: https://search.nixos.org/options?
               | channel=21.11&from=0&size=5...
               | 
               | [3]:https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/otnfq6/i3_or_
               | sway_wh...
        
               | ayushnix wrote:
               | I wasn't questioning NixOS's customisability. I was
               | questioning the choice to promote GNOME as "recommended
               | for most users" on the download page.
               | 
               | https://nixos.org/download.html#nixos-iso
               | 
               | There's no need for a distro like NixOS to do this. It
               | only serves to lend weight to the arrogance displayed by
               | GNOME.
        
             | jrm4 wrote:
             | Right.
             | 
             | What actually makes them the bad guys is that they parlayed
             | the goodwill of the original GNOME (2 and prior) which was
             | very open to change and community contribution into the
             | restrictive community hostile thing that it is today.
             | 
             | I don't mind that it exists, but they should have changed
             | the name and been more clear about the direction.
             | 
             | And should just be less obnoxious all around.
        
             | bayindirh wrote:
             | > Just because you disagree with them, it doesn't make them
             | the "bad guys".
             | 
             | Since the KDE 3.5.x days, it's always KDE guys who try to
             | build corresponding GTK themes of the themes they default
             | on the corresponding release, or build corresponding Qt
             | themes of the GTK themes put forward as default by the
             | GNOME guys.
             | 
             | Moreover, there are always ways to make GNOME subsystems
             | work well on KDE systems, and KDE guys always make sure
             | that the standards they propose work with the GNOME without
             | much hassle. Also, KDE guys put forward cross-DE ways to
             | make user experience better (XDG base folder specification,
             | for example).
             | 
             | OTOH, GNOME people sit on their high thrones like they're
             | the only game in town. I respect them deeply, but I can't
             | appreciate them just because they auto-generated their JS
             | introspection layer from C code automatically, but _didn 't
             | bother to write any documentation, because you can try it
             | all in the built-in JS console_.
             | 
             | I have a couple of more, lower level stories with them,
             | which caused a lot of all-nighters and project
             | postponements, but that's for another comment.
             | 
             | Their attitude is not helpful.
        
         | greggh wrote:
         | If you look at the screenshots, the very first screenshot says
         | it is using Lutris as a "runner".
        
           | mrtnpwn wrote:
           | It has a runner manager so you can choose whatever WINE
           | runner you like. Default is just the vanilla runtime.
        
         | 29athrowaway wrote:
         | Lutris is focused mostly on games and options that benefit
         | games.
        
           | nicce wrote:
           | You can run manually any application you want. It just does
           | not offer one-click install for non-games. I believe lutris
           | offers better runner configuration.
        
         | xfiderek wrote:
         | https://docs.usebottles.com/faq/why-bottles#why-not-just-pol...
        
       | sharmin123 wrote:
       | Signs Of A Cheating Girlfriend: Gather Proof To Make A Decision:
       | https://www.hackerslist.co/signs-of-a-cheating-girlfriend-ga...
        
       | cosmotic wrote:
       | How does this compare to codeweavers crossover which is also a
       | GUI for wine that uses the term 'bottles'?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | carlhjerpe wrote:
       | First impression is that the gui is beautifully designed,
       | installation on NixOS was (as always with prepackaged Nix
       | packages) painless.
       | 
       | I'm not sure what I should use it for though since I don't really
       | run any windows applications other than games, and I use QEMU for
       | that, only game that hasn't worked in QEMU is "Halo Infinite".
        
         | brianjlogan wrote:
         | How's that work? You have a QEMU windows box setup to game on?
         | 
         | Why not use Proton?
        
           | carlhjerpe wrote:
           | Yeah I have a QEMU windows box that I game on.
           | 
           | The reason I don't use proton is because compability isn't
           | 100%, whereas actually running windows gets you to a 100%, if
           | we don't count games with predatory anticheats, but those
           | don't work on proton either (For now).
           | 
           | I'm REALLY superstoked about Intels new HPG GPU's, it's
           | rumored they'll have SR-IOV support, meaning I could
           | partition the GPU to run both Windows and Linux at the same
           | time. (There's support for it in my 11th gen Intel CPU on my
           | work laptop, but the software isn't there yet, so I'm not
           | certain it'll work)
        
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