I need a modern version of office working well.
Copilot for Copilot you mean? Now with extra Copilot.
Could be one without copilot ;-). By modern I mean something in the last 5 years. Maybe even I could go 10. I mean I need something that my IT department will let me into my email with at a minimum.
If you have the activation key/account, you could try installing it through Winboat or similar on your distro of choice, since Winboat’s essentially a per-program VM that should theoretically have perfect compatibility.
Thank you. I will check it out.
What you are referring to as “office” is actually copilot/Microsoft365 and i forgot the rest of the copypasta
2007?
Lulz, try running Affinity or DaVinci
We’ve been running DaVinci for years https://github.com/zelikos/davincibox
DaVinci works perfectly fine with the native version.
Affinity works fine with wine as long as you can follow basic instruction, or can use the one-click launcher people made and maintain. (and I do mean one click, it’s an AppImage, download and run it).
“Perfectly” is very optimistic about Davinci. It’s often a hit or miss of people trying to install it, and when it works codecs are missing and there are some graphical & usability issues
If you can’t get it to work with just the provided installer, you can look into this : https://github.com/zelikos/davincibox
It works perfectly fine. The “missing codec” issues usually boils down to some commonly used codecs not being supported in the free version.
If anyone has experience in running Fusion 360 on wine plz shout up, that’s the last thing I need to work out before switching to Zorin…
Is there some reason you haven’t tried it yourself?
I only have one machine, so I wanna be confident it’ll work before messing around with new OSes
Run it on a usb stick
There’s a couple of Lutris scripts, but the one that kinda worked for me was this https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux/
Depending on what you’re doing, check out Freecad. It’s still a bit buggy but ever since it hit 1.0 it’s been a lot better, and it runs natively on Linux
Yeah maybe this is the push to finally learn freecad!
It’s better with something like Winboat (virtualized windows container) within your OS than something like Wine. This is the same case for other “We don’t support Linux officially and actively block it because fuck you” productivity applications like Adobe’s suite.
Personally, I moved from Fusion360 to FreeCAD instead, but I haven’t heard anything negative about the Winboat method.
Do you have any good resources for learning FreeCAD coming from Fusion 360? I’ve taken a couple runs at it but it’s just not clicking for me. Feels like I’m trying to operate Fusion with my feet every time I try to use it.
The FreeCAD team have a series of video tutorials on their website alongside a wiki/documentation for individual functions if you’re searching for those.
Also, there is an interface style called “OpenInventor” in the settings that changes the layout of the toolbars into a near-mimic of AutoDesk Inventor, and if you enable the “Blender” 3d modeling style (warning, does take dedicated graphics hardware to run at good speeds), things like plane layouts and rotating the object should match Inventor as well.
Fusion works flawlessly for me in winapps (and I’m sure winboat), but it is s-l-o-w. I probably need to figure out GPU passthrough and it might be bearable… But I haven’t had much time to dedicate figuring it out.
Sometimes I forget macOS exists
I love it because its existence means I get a good chance of having a UNIX-based machine in new corporate dev positions. If a company is giving me a work laptop, I’ll take a MBP over a Windows laptop any day (assuming I can’t install Linux)
I still can’t stand the Apple design philosophy no matter how much exposure. Mostly has to do with their “saving the user from themselves” restrictions in their operating systems. I’d rather defang windows instead, even if it takes much longer per machine.
Have you used a Mac in the last 10 years, beyond just flicking the mouse around at a FutureShop?
I’m using a Mac for software development at my current job. I prefer it over windows but I still hate it. Can’t even alt tab through windows on that piece of garbage without extra software.
This is what I mean. You can absolutely cycle windows with your keyboard. “Out of the box.”
You can cmd+tab between applications, and cmd+~ between windows of a given application.
I just want a list of all my windows, like pretty much every other window manager does. This just makes finding the correct window take more keypresses.
There’s numerous ways to accomplish this. If you want the windows of your current app, “App Expose” (Ctrl+Down, and then Left/Right/Up/Down to select) is what you want. If it’s all the windows, “Mission Control” (Ctrl+Up, granted you do have to click the window with the mouse) is what you want.
I just put each different program on a different virtual desktop and swipe through them.
Wow, that sounds awful. If you needed to use a touchpad their UX developers already failed.
You can do the separate desktops without using a touchpad, there are keyboard shortcuts to do that.
Look, I’m not an apple fanboy by any means. I kinda hate their UX. So I’m not defending Apple by putting my suggestions here. I’d prefer a Linux desktop 100% obviously, but most jobs (in my experience) do not offer that unless you work for a company with a dedicated IT department.
First of all, I can cmd+tab to different apps/programs just fine. So I don’t know what feature your missing that you need additional software.
Second of all, you can use ctrl+arrowkeys to cycle between desktops without a touch pad.
Third, I use an Mx Master mouse with gestures mapped to the Gesture button on the mouse. I hold the button and move my mouse left and right, which switches desktops.
Honestly, I prefer virtual desktops to alt tabbing 100%. When I’m developing a web app, for instance, I have a browser desktop in between a front end code desktop and a backend code desktop. Viewing my changes is just holding down a mouse button and a quick flick of my wrist. Its consistent and quick.
I love the duality of saying “in the last 10 years” and “FutureShop” in the same sentence.
I forgot how long ago that died… BestBuy?
I miss FutureShop. Fuck Best Buy for killing them
Yes, last contract IT job (Macbook Pro, approx 10 months ago). I wanted to smash it in half over my knee and grab a random Thinkpad with my ventoy usb in hand.
Why? What was so bad about it?
MacOS repeatedly got in my way when trying to run specialist software needed for my work at [organization], because I had the audacity to use an executable not in line with Apple’s walled garden. Additionally, transferring files was a pain in the nuts - so many “mac moments” of files resulting in 0 bytes after drive ejection and repeated permission error messages despite having the appropriate credentials active.
Throw in some minor annoyances with frankly unintuitive UX for general settings and layout configuration, and I was sick of the damn thing by day 3.
Made me miss my old job where I got to smash a vacated lab’s worth of Macs with a sledgehammer. And where I was allowed to bring my own laptop.
For me it’s mostly the 3-4 key keyboard shortcuts that need about 1.5 hands to press comfortably. Yes, printscreen, I’m looking at you.
Also, why the fuck is F4 used to open the app drawer thingy? (no idea what it’s called) It’s so far away from where my hands normally rest!
You can disable the FN shortcuts so that they’re just regular F# keys. The print screen thing is fair though admittedly in so used to them that I’ve set them as shortcuts on my main Plasma desktop lol
Good stuff Wine.
I mean, isn’t that kinda the goal…?
I guess this isn’t really even “news” to Linux gamers now, but once in a while it’s nice to make an article about what constant progress has happened in a certain sphere. Certainly many people staying on Windows out of inertia blinked and missed it.
My fervent hope is that, someday in the future, people can build a gaming PC and just forego Windows to save $100.
My fervent hope is that, someday in the future, people can build a gaming PC and just forego Windows to save $100.
Good news! Your future hope is reality’s past!
Seriously though, who buys a copy of Windows for a custom built PC that they install Linux on? I’ve built a bunch of computers over the past decade or so and I haven’t purchased a copy of Windows since the early 2000s. And technically that was just an OEM licence that came with a laptop.
Who buys? Most of people :)
So you’re telling me that someone who builds a custom PC with the intention of installing Linux will go out and buy a Windows license?
I ment who build a custom PC. That’s reality bro.
My fervent hope is that, someday in the future, people can build a gaming PC and just forego Windows to save $100.
That’s what you said. And I’m not even sure what you mean by “I ment who build a custom PC. That’s reality bro.”
The reality is that a good portion of gamers either build their own systems or buy “custom built” systems from a company that builds them. It’s mainly only OEM manufacturers that include a Windows license, like HP, Lenovo, MSI, and generally laptops.
So ultimately there’s no scenario where your comment makes sense.
Ok maybe we have some misunderstanding here. My friend had internship in one computer store, where you could order custom built computers. The most of them were sold with windows license.
Maybe that changed, idk. But I see that many stores sell computers with Windows installed and they are custom builds.
I keep fingers crossed, because in past 5 years I tried to use Linux many times and it always ended with issue with graphic card drvers
My fervent hope is that, someday in the future, people can build a gaming PC and just forego Windows to save $100.
Who’s building a gaming PC and paying retail price (or any price) for the Windows license anyway? I think anyone who knows anything about technology knows how easy Windows has always been to pirate, and that keys are readily available for cheap
i would hope every new version of wine runs windows apps in linux and mac better than ever.
on average that’s the expected outcome, but sometimes there’s a regression here and there for specific apps
Patch notes: “Made the app a little worse just to keep things interesting.”
Wine 1.1, now with AI integration
The trick is that isn’t a capital i, it is a lowercase L. Now with AL integration. Every program you run just has a picture of Weird Al and a snippet of a random song from his greatest hits album as a splash screen.
I’d run it.
You son of a bitch. I’m in.
That’s the Microsoft strategy, but they forgot to make it better sometimes too
It’s been Android too at least since they stopped naming versions after sweets
Kit Kat was the last great android version for me
jellybean and gingerbread for me
I wish everyone would follow Apple’s lead (literally exclusively just this one time) and rename their software versions to their associated year.
That would make too much sense
The Microsoft strategy often seems to be “It worked well, but we completely redid it because we need to justify out existence. Now it barely works with new bugs”
That’s more Google’s strategy. Microsoft is more “we updated a bunch of stuff so that we could push our products and services even harder and closed workarounds people are using to avoid them, and if you don’t like it, fuck you, what’re you gonna do?”
Rule #76: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.
Yeah, I think that’s the entire point of having a new version lol
We’re close to the Microsoft ecosystem here; newer version being better is not a given.
It still probably doesn’t run two applications that I like to use, that is paint.net and the latest free version of SketchUp (unavailable for download officially).
“Fastest iphone ever!” Yea I’d sure hope so being that it’s new and all
At this point, and given the current state of Proton (👍) and the current state of Windows (👎), the question should be, “Does the new version of Wine run Windows apps better than Windows?”
Yes. Especially if said application was developed before 2010.
I’ve managed to run some old games on Linux with Bottles/Wine that didn’t work on Windows anymore.
I misread the title at first and I genuinely thought that’s what this article was about.
Proton works nicely in steam
Non steam games is an entirely different complicated issue (for some games)
Epic and GOG work on Heroic just fine and I’ve run two standalone games (Elite Dangerous and ESO) using Lutris with no problems.
Heroic works great for pirated hentai games and GOG games.
You can download Proton for use outside of Steam, I use it in Lutris and Bottles pretty regularly. Also, you should be able to get just about anything to run just as well in Bottles or Lutris as it will in steam, but I will admit it can take some tinkering with some games or software and there is a much easier option: Add “non-steam game” in Steam library and run whatever program you need through Steam anyway.
What kind of complicated issue? Simply adding them as non-steam games seems to work fine. I’ve managed to get jank ass pirated 90s visual novels running, fan-patched, on a steam deck lmao
There used to be a Wine on Windows project because Wine was so much better at backwards compatibility.
Yes. It can run classic gaming that windows outright refuses to run. Wild
With some apps/games it definitely feels like it does. Would love to see someone dedicated do proper Wine vs windows benchmarks!
There were some last year specifically for games on SteamOS vs Windows, like this: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games-run-faster-on-steamos-than-windows-11-ars-testing-finds/
There are plenty of old applications that just do not run on windows 10/11 anymore at all. Wine and emulation is the only choice left for those.
Bugs and forced regressions?
Not sure how serious your comment is, but I could certainly imagine Microsoft introducing new dependencies/hooks/all-executables-must-support-copilot, etc., that break compatibility faster than Wine can keep up. Glad to hear that’s not the case!
For old stuff though…yeah, I’d hope it’s not moving backwards :)
The next headline is going to be that they run better in wine than in windows.
The only thing I need to run on windows now is for H&R block tax software. I wonder if I can try it with wine but I’m afraid of losing the activation license
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=6532
Looks like not great/no one has tried for a few years. I say give it a shot (far from tax season) and report back!
This is great, but does it handle GPU acceleration yet? The main thing I still need Windoze for is SketchUp and I have never managed to get it to work because I get a GPU acceleration error. Any hints would be welcome.
Yes, for ages. What a weird question though. How are you set up?
Yes, for ages. What a weird question though.
Ok, but my question is does Wine run on Linux?
Yes, it does.
OK, my question is - is wine just a windows emulator
No, Wine Is Not an Emulator.
What does the WINE in WINE Is Not an Emulator stand for
It Not an Emulator all the way down.
It’s recursive for Wine Is Not An Emulator. The program is a translation layer - including translating Windows specific function calls into something Linux can understand (IE: DirectX to Vulcan).
This is distinct from emulation - primarily because it allows programs to utilize native functions of the machine and has much less performance overhead compared to true windows emulation (which is just a VM with extra steps).
The closest I’ve come to getting it to work was SketchUp Make 2017 (the last of the free versions). I could get it to install using WINE but as soon as I ran it it would crash out saying I was not supporting graphics acceleration. Right now I’m trying to install SketchUp Pro 2021 using Bottles and just keep getting Invalid Handle errors all through the installation, mostly when it seems to be looking for certain KBs for Windows 7 and 8 I think. I have to dig through the Logs to hopefully find I’m missing a dependency somewhere.
To answer your question I’m running Linux Mint and have an AMD Radeon 7970XTX that is more than capable.
It seems like SketchUp uses OpenGL, which should be supported just fine by a linux GPU driver. I haven’t tried it myself, but you could maybe try running it through Proton (idk if there’s a way outside of Steam?)
Thanks, I see Bottles lets you use Proton as a runner so I’ll give that a try.
In case you didn’t know, there’s a web app version of sketchup
I know, but web app versions of just about everything suck nuts.
Windows aged like milk while wine is wine.
I am just hoping the Steam Frame provides the foundation so that in the years to come I can get off Windows for VR development. Feel trapped right now.
All I want is to be able to run Adobe software on Linux properly. My work requires me to work with premiere and after effects all the time so the moment they run ok on linux I’ll be the happiest person!
All I want is to be able to run Adobe software on Linux properly.
Never going to happen. They are a horrible company that actively refuses to port anything to Linux.
There are other far superior options that do run natively on Linux. DaVinci Resolve is one, it works as both a NLE and a compositor and is objectively better than anything Adobe has to offer.
I totally agree with you. The problem is that the companies that I work with have all their pipeline built on Adobe ecosystem. Guess I need to find a new job.
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I’ve been gaming pretty much exclusively on Linux (and Steam Deck) for the last few years. No issues so far. What problems did you run into?
I love Linux, I used to use it for a few years during the windows 8 era. I eventually went back to windows and it’s just been a comfier place to be for me. Everything works. Every game works with zero additional thought. I need to run CAD software for work and unfortunately integrate with Microsoft services for work.
I could possibly switch to Linux on my home theatre PC that i use in my living room because I use Kodi and browsers for media consumption and mostly game on it by using steam remote play to access games from my windows gaming PC. That might be something that I consider trying in the future.
Autodesk is also locking me into windows 😕
Wholly depends on the types of games you play, personally I don’t play competetive type online multiplayer games that require kernel level anti-cheat access and as such, I’ve had zero issues with gaming. Running EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma.
Same. Steam stuff and old stuff. I don’t play multiplayer, that really seems to be where all the problems lie.
I exclusively use Geruda Linux. Things run better there than on windows.
I beg to differ. Haven’t had a Linux-specific issue in many years, it just works.
Is it because Wine has improved, or because Windows has not?
Yes
