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blind3rdeye @lemm.ee

Winapps for work stuff

tl;dr : Does Office 365 work well on Linux via winapps?

longer version:

At my work, I'm currently using my own (Windows) laptop. But its getting a bit long in the tooth, and my tolerance of Windows continues to drop... So I'm considering my options.

One option is to buy myself a new laptop and use Linux. The main barrier to this is that I use Office 365 stuff a lot for work. (Specifically: Word, Excel, and OneNote).

In my brief look around, my impression is that the only reliable way to get those products running on Linux is using winapps; which, as I understand it, basically runs the apps in a virtual machine but tries to make them look like they are running on the host OS.

(The alternative option is that my work will lend a Windows laptop to me indefinitely. But I generally like my stuff to be my own, and I don't like to create waste by accepting cheap and crap laptops with short life-spans.)

I'm writing here to ask if anyone has any experience using winapps. Does it work reliably? Is it easy to open and save files without any weirdness? Will I be able to use a stylus to write notes in OneNote?

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32 comments

  • In my experience winapps doesn't work well enough to use for work. I had almost constant issues with it.

    I struggled like you for a long time until I found a happy medium. I have a folder on my C: drive called utilities. It's been added to the %PATH%. In it, I have eget with a config for all my utilities for making Windows easier to use. I also have BusyBox for Windows.

    It emulates a good 90% of *nix utilities without having to deal with WSL (older environments) or doing anything extensive to your environment (corporate laptop friendly). I recommend you at least give it a try and see if it works for you.

    Here's my ~/.config/eget.toml

     toml
        
❯ cat eget.toml
[global]
    github_token = ""
    quiet = false
    show_hash = false
    upgrade_only = true
    system = "windows/amd64"
["sharkdp/fd"]
    asset_filters = ["gnu"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\fd.exe"
["nojima/httpie-go"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\ht.exe"
["schollz/croc"]
    asset_filters = ["64bit", "Windows7" ]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\croc.exe"
["BurntSushi/ripgrep"]
    asset_filters = ["pc-windows-gnu", "^sha256"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\rg.exe"
["go-task/task"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\task.exe"
["vamolessa/verco"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\verco.exe"
["ajeetdsouza/zoxide"]
    asset_filters = ["msvc"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\zoxide.exe"
["ducaale/xh"]
    asset_filters = ["msvc"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\xhs.exe"
["casey/just"]
    asset_filters = ["msvc"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\just.exe"
["sxyazi/yazi"]
    asset_filters = ["msvc"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\yazi.exe"
["Dundee/gdu"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\gdu.exe"
["charmbracelet/skate"]
    asset_filters = ["x86_64", "^json"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\skate.exe"
["charmbracelet/gum"]
    asset_filters = ["x86_64", ".zip", "^json"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\gum.exe"
["Wilfred/difftastic"]
    asset_filters = ["msvc"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\diff.exe"
["zyedidia/eget"]
    asset_filters = ["zip", "amd64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\eget.exe"
["sharkdp/diskus"]
    asset_filters = ["gnu"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\diskus.exe"
["fastfetch-cli/fastfetch"]
    asset_filters = ["zip"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\fetch.exe"
["junegunn/fzf"]
    asset_filters = ["zip"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\fzf.exe"
["orf/gping"]
    asset_filters = ["zip"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\gping.exe"
["jqlang/jq"]
    asset_filters = ["amd64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\jq.exe"
["caarlos0/jsonfmt"]
    asset_filters = [".tar.gz"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\jsonfmt.exe"
["lsd-rs/lsd"]
    asset_filters = ["pc-windows-msvc.zip"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\lsd.exe"
["ouch-org/ouch"]
    asset_filters = ["gnu"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\pack.exe"
["SpatiumPortae/portal"]
    asset_filters = ["x86_64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\pack.exe"
["rclone/rclone"]
    asset_filters = ["amd64", "zip"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\rclone.exe"
["upx/upx"]
    asset_filters = ["win64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\upx.exe"
["mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd"]
    asset_filters = ["x64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\7z.exe"
["facebook/zstd"]
    asset_filters = ["win64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\zstd.exe"
["yt-dlp/yt-dlp"]
    asset_filters = ["yt-dlp.exe"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\yt-dlp.exe"
["aria2/aria2"]
    asset_filters = ["win", "64bit"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\aria2c.exe"
["restic/restic"]
    asset_filters = ["windows", "amd64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\restic.exe"
["Beastwick18/nyaa"]
    asset_filters = ["windows", "exe"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\nyaa.exe"
["walles/moar"]
    asset_filters = ["windows"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\moar.exe"
["alecthomas/chroma"]
    asset_filters = ["amd64", "windows"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\chroma.exe"
["charmbracelet/glow"]
    asset_filters = ["x86_64", "^json"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\glow.exe"
["arsham/blush"]
    asset_filters = ["windows", "zip"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\blush.exe"
["nushell/nushell"]
    asset_filters = ["pc-windows-msvc.zip"]
    file = "nu.exe"
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\nu.exe"
["owenthereal/ccat"]
    asset_filters = ["windows-amd64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\ccat.exe"
["FiloSottile/age"]
    asset_filters = ["windows-amd64.zip", "^proof"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\age.exe"
["Owloops/updo"]
    asset_filters = ["Windows_x86_64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\updo.exe"
["mr-karan/doggo"]
    asset_filters = ["Windows_x86_64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\dog.exe"
["aandrew-me/tgpt"]
    asset_filters = ["amd64", "exe"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\llm.exe"
["8LWXpg/ptr"]
    asset_filters = ["x86_64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\ptr.exe"
["astral-sh/ruff"]
    asset_filters = ["pc-windows", "msvc", "x86_64"]
    target = "C:\\Utilities\\exe\\ruff.exe"

    It's nice because you can update everything by running eget --download-all.

32 comments