How to run Windows apps on Linux
There are many different options available, whereas the most prominent one might be Wine – "a compatibility layer capable of running Microsoft Windows applications on Unix-like operating systems".
This post should provide a first overview of those options:
- Wine-based approaches:
- Use Wine via the terminal. (Starting point: Wine User's Guide)
- Bottles, which is kind of a GUI client for Wine. (Checkout this video for a first impression.)
- CrossOver, which is another GUI client for Wine, but a paid one. It comes with an additional customer support service, which could be an advantage for business clients. (Here's a good video which further explains and demonstrates the CrossOver app.)
- For a more complete overview, see also here.
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- Create a virtual machine and run a complete Windows on top of your Linux distro. Desktop hypervisors that I would recommend for this approach are:
- VirtualBox
- VMware Workstation, which is nowadays free for personal use.
- QEMU/KVM via virt-manager
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Insight: On Fedora, I used to rely on VMware Workstation, but frequently ran into issues after kernel updates. As a result, I switched to virt-manager to avoid these issues entirely. – There’s an excellent guide for running a "Windows 11" guest with virt-manager, including practical tips and performance tweaks (available as both an article and a YouTube video).
- Additionally, you could always check if your Windows app is available as a web version – or alternatively if there is a Linux-native app, which fits your needs as good or even better as the Windows one.
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Update: There's a new player on the block: WinBoat. It's an Electron app that runs Windows apps on Linux using a containerized approach, whereas communication happens via the WinBoat Guest Server (more info here). – I'll give it a shot once it supports Podman and leaves beta.
References: