Winapps (not WINE) on NixOS?

#1

I have just discovered Winapps. It is kind of similar to WINE but seems to allow a more natural integration of Microsoft Office with the Desktop Environment. It uses a VM in the background and RDP for communicating with the VM. It seems that RDP allows to use Microsoft Word seamlessly, “like a native application”. The developer has managed to connect the windows VM to a file manager (nautilus) and he shares a directory between the VM and the host OS.

Winapps works on Ubuntu/Fedora and GNOME/KDE.

I just wanted to know if someone here has thought of packaging Winapps or similar technologies. Maybe this technological stack (VM+RDP) would ease using windows applications that aren’t supported well on WINE.

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#2

Hmm, this is something I would be interested in for migrating my parent’s computer to NixOS. I will try to look at packaging it when I have some time but at the meanwhile, I would suggest opening an issue in nixpkgs to reduce the chance of multiple people working on it at the same time.

#3

Hmm, this is something I would be interested in for migrating my parent’s computer to NixOS. I will try to look at packaging it when I have some time but at the meanwhile, I would suggest opening an issue in nixpkgs to reduce the chance of multiple people working on it at the same time.

I guess scope needs some careful definition here? Like activation of Windows inside that VM is probably done by user; is automation of Windows installation in scope?

#4

Of course, I would want as much as possible to be declarative. Likely using M-Labs/wfvm: WinF*VM - wfvm - M-Labs Git to build the Windows VM and install applications. Then we would only need to change winnaps to start the VM when not running (can we do a systemd service with freerdp socket activation? check infinisil’s socket-activated minecraft server), fix paths and generate desktop files from declarative config.

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#5

Any progress on this topic?

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