README - Winboat — ContextQMD

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    <h1 style="color: #7C86FF; margin: 0; font-size: 32px;">WinBoat</h1>
    <p style="color: oklch(90% 0 0); font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0;">Windows for Penguins.

    Run Windows apps on 🐧 Linux with ✨ seamless integration</p>
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Screenshots

⚠️ Work in Progress ⚠️

WinBoat is currently in beta, so expect to occasionally run into hiccups and bugs. You should be comfortable with some level of troubleshooting if you decide to try it, however we encourage you to give it a shot anyway.

Features

🎨 Elegant Interface: Sleek and intuitive interface that seamlessly integrates Windows into your Linux desktop environment, making it feel like a native experience
📦 Automated Installs: Simple installation process through our interface - pick your preferences & specs and let us handle the rest
🚀 Run Any App: If it runs on Windows, it can run on WinBoat. Enjoy the full range of Windows applications as native OS-level windows in your Linux environment
🖥️ Full Windows Desktop: Access the complete Windows desktop experience when you need it, or run individual apps seamlessly integrated into your Linux workflow
📁 Filesystem Integration: Your home directory is mounted in Windows, allowing easy file sharing between the two systems without any hassle
✨ And many more: Smartcard passthrough, resource monitoring, and more features being added regularly

How Does It Work?

WinBoat is an Electron app which allows you to run Windows apps on Linux using a containerized approach. Windows runs as a VM inside a Docker/Podman container, we communicate with it using the WinBoat Guest Server to retrieve data we need from Windows. For compositing applications as native OS-level windows, we use FreeRDP together with Windows's RemoteApp protocol.

Prerequisites

Before running WinBoat, ensure your system meets the following requirements:

RAM: At least 4 GB of RAM
CPU: At least 2 CPU threads
Storage: At least 32 GB free space on the drive your selected install folder corresponds to
Virtualization: KVM enabled in BIOS/UEFI
- How to enable virtualization
In case of Docker:
- Docker: Required for containerization
  - Installation Guide
  - ⚠️ NOTE: Docker Desktop is not supported, you will run into issues if you use it
- Docker Compose v2: Required for compatibility with docker-compose.yml files
  - Installation Guide
- Docker User Group: Add your user to the docker group
  - Setup Instructions
In case of Podman:
- Podman: Required for containerization
  - Installation Guide
- Podman Compose: Required for compatibility with podman-compose.yml files
  - Installation Guide
FreeRDP: Required for remote desktop connection (Please make sure you have Version 3.x.x with sound support included)
- Installation Guide
[OPTIONAL] Kernel Modules: The iptables / nftables and iptable_nat kernel modules can be loaded for network autodiscovery and better shared filesystem performance, but this is not obligatory in newer versions of WinBoat
- Module loading instructions

Downloading

You can download the latest Linux builds under the Releases tab. We currently offer four variants:

AppImage: A popular & portable app format which should run fine on most distributions
Unpacked: The raw unpacked files, simply run the executable (linux-unpacked/winboat)
.deb: The intended format for Debian based distributions
.rpm: The intended format for Fedora based distributions
Nix (Nixpkgs)
1. Add the winboat package to your config (ensure using nixpkgs-unstable) using environment.systemPackages = [pkgs.winboat]; or home.packages = [pkgs.winboat]; if using home manager.
2. Add the following lines to your nix configuration
nix
```
virtualisation.docker.enable = true;
users.users.{yourUser}.extraGroups = ["docker"];
```

Known Issues About Container Runtimes

Docker Desktop is unsupported for now
USB passthrough via Podman is currently unsupported

Building WinBoat

For building you need to have Bun and Go installed on your system
Clone the repo (git clone https://github.com/TibixDev/WinBoat)
Install the dependencies (bun i)
Build the app and the guest server using bun run build:linux-gs
You can now find the built app under dist with an AppImage and an Unpacked variant

Running WinBoat in development mode

Make sure you meet the prerequisites
Additionally, for development you need to have Bun and Go installed on your system
Clone the repo (git clone https://github.com/TibixDev/WinBoat)
Install the dependencies (bun i)
Build the guest server (bun run build:gs)
Run the app (bun run dev)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Whether it's bug fixes, feature improvements, or documentation updates, we appreciate your help making WinBoat better.

Please note: We maintain a focus on technical contributions only. Pull requests containing political/sexual content, or other sensitive/controversial topics will not be accepted. Let's keep things focused on making great software! 🚀

Feel free to:

Report bugs and issues
Submit feature requests
Contribute code improvements
Help with documentation
Share feedback and suggestions

Check out our issues page to get started, or feel free to open a new issue if you've found something that needs attention.

License

WinBoat is licensed under the MIT license

Inspiration / Alternatives

These past few years some cool projects have surfaced with similar concepts, some of which we've also taken inspirations from.
They're awesome and you should check them out:

WinApps
Cassowary
dockur/windows (🌟 Also used in WinBoat)

Socials & Contact

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