Lighter VM (or launchers) substitutes on Linux to Windows 10

[Pillow]

So I read an old forum post about running .exe files on Linux is way faster (and cut rendering speeds by half) , and I also read another forum post about how using VMs are really heavy for your system, so I wanted to try out Cinema 4D for Ubuntu 20. Any Tech Savvies in here who knows any exe launchers or light VMs for my old busted laptop?

[SansVarnic]

-= Moved topic to Programs, Apps and Websites =-

[Eigenvektor]

To run Windows programs on Linux you can use Wine. It basically replicates the Windows API to make (some!) Windows programs run, but your mileage may vary. I have my doubts about doubling the speed though. It's not magic.

 

Their DB says the newest versions are "garbage" in terms of compatibility: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=1418

 

Running on a VM is always going to be slower than running it natively, so in that case running it directly on Windows would certainly be faster.

[LAwLz]

15 minutes ago, Pillow said:

So I read an old forum post about running .exe files on Linux is way faster (and cut rendering speeds by half)

This is most likely wrong, unless it's a very specific scenario or workload. Don't expect to double performance by running programs on GNU/Linux instead of Windows.

This is especially true if you just run Ubuntu in a VM inside Windows.

 

17 minutes ago, Pillow said:

and I also read another forum post about how using VMs are really heavy for your system, so I wanted to try out Cinema 4D for Ubuntu 20. Any Tech Savvies in here who knows any exe launchers or light VMs for my old busted laptop?

In general you do not want to run heavy programs in a normal VM.

What you should do is either run them as a VM on a "bare metal hypervisor" (aka type 1 hypervisor) or even more preferably, use a compatibility layer such as "WINE".

 

 

But I think you have misunderstood this whole thing.

The reason why some programs sometimes run faster on Ubuntu than in Windows is because it is a more lightweight OS. Think of it like this:

You got a computer with 4GB of RAM. If you run Windows and it consumes 1GB of RAM, you got 3GB left for programs to use. Therefore, your maximum performance is as if you had 3GB of RAM in the computer.

If you run Ubuntu and it consumes 0,5GB of RAM, your programs got 3,5GB of RAM to use! Therefore, your maximum performance is as if you had 3,5GB of RAM in the computer.

 

What you're trying to do here with the VM, is run Windows (consumes 1GB) then Ubuntu on top of that (consumes 0.5GB), which means you end up with 2,5GB of free RAM for your program (4GB minus 1GB for Windows minus 0,5 GB for Ubuntu).

 

(This above example uses numbers pulled out of my ass and doesn't reflect real world usage).

[Pillow]

Quote

In general you do not want to run heavy programs in a normal VM.

What you should do is either run them as a VM on a "bare metal hypervisor" (aka type 1 hypervisor) or even more preferably, use a compatibility layer such as "WINE".

 

 

But I think you have misunderstood this whole thing.

The reason why some programs sometimes run faster on Ubuntu than in Windows is because it is a more lightweight OS. Think of it like this:

You got a computer with 4GB of RAM. If you run Windows and it consumes 1GB of RAM, you got 3GB left for programs to use. Therefore, your maximum performance is as if you had 3GB of RAM in the computer.

If you run Ubuntu and it consumes 0,5GB of RAM, your programs got 3,5GB of RAM to use! Therefore, your maximum performance is as if you had 3,5GB of RAM in the computer.

 

What you're trying to do here with the VM, is run Windows (consumes 1GB) then Ubuntu on top of that (consumes 0.5GB), which means you end up with 2,5GB of free RAM for your program (4GB minus 1GB for Windows minus 0,5 GB for Ubuntu).

 

(This above example uses numbers pulled out of my ass and doesn't reflect real world usage).

 

 

So is there any other way other than wine? I found this thing called container and it works like a VM it's mostly used for clouds though, is there a way i could somehow use that to emulate some applications, or maybe just some type of launcher that is not wine or heavy VMs

[GoodBytes]

22 minutes ago, Pillow said:

So is there any other way other than wine? I found this thing called container and it works like a VM it's mostly used for clouds though, is there a way i could somehow use that to emulate some applications, or maybe just some type of launcher that is not wine or heavy VMs

The purpose of containers, is to be light weight. It has everything for 1 program you want to run run, and not the entire OS. If you install the entire OS, then you end up with a VM, and you are back to square one. As in, running your application on Linux based OS natively.

 

Docker has a nice article better explaining containers and the difference between containers and VM in a nice simple read:

https://www.docker.com/resources/what-container

 

No there is no Windows container. You have Linux based OS containers that runs under Linux based OS. (while you can runs Linux based OS containers under Windows, you are really running it through Ubuntu or WSL2, which is Microsoft Linux kernel running under Windows)

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, Pillow said:

So is there any other way other than wine? I found this thing called container and it works like a VM it's mostly used for clouds though, is there a way i could somehow use that to emulate some applications, or maybe just some type of launcher that is not wine or heavy VMs

If it's Windows holding back performance (which it may or may not be, but if it is then it's holding you back by much) then you have to ditch it.

Running stuff on top of Windows will only slow you down even further.

 

If you do care about performance then you either go with Windows, and run the Windows program. Or you go with a GNU/Linux distro such as Ubuntu and then run the Windows program through WINE (if there aren't any native Ubuntu version).

Those are your only options. Anything else will perform worse than those two options. No amount of VMs or containers will perform better than what I suggested above. VMs and containers are NOT used for performance reasons. Performance is lower when you use VMs and containers compared to running things natively.

[Pillow]

I mean I only been digging for some time, and I found this thing called play on linux and it's supposed to run exe files on linux, is that much faster?

btw my laptop specs are

RAM: 4gb
CPU: intel core i3-3217u 1.8ghz
SSD: 120

oh and I have to mention most of the time it does the blue screen, with some driver error I've been tryna fix for awhile and never really fixed, I tried to reinstall windows and found out if was the battery, and leter found out that linux is more than half lighter than windows so I'm gon try to dual boot, still does the BSOD until now though.

Quote

20 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If it's Windows holding back performance (which it may or may not be, but if it is then it's holding you back by much) then you have to ditch it.

Running stuff on top of Windows will only slow you down even further.

 

If you do care about performance then you either go with Windows, and run the Windows program. Or you go with a GNU/Linux distro such as Ubuntu and then run the Windows program through WINE (if there aren't any native Ubuntu version).

Those are your only options. Anything else will perform worse than those two options. No amount of VMs or containers will perform better than what I suggested above. VMs and containers are NOT used for performance reasons. Performance is lower when you use VMs and containers compared to running things natively.

 

 

[WereCatf]

On 5/28/2020 at 2:00 PM, Pillow said:

so I wanted to try out Cinema 4D for Ubuntu 20

Latest versions of Cinema 4D don't work with Wine at all. Apparently, the last version that was still useable is from 2015. You'd be far better off just learning an app that runs natively on Linux, like e.g. Blender, instead.

 

1 hour ago, Pillow said:

I found this thing called play on linux

That's just basically a preconfigured Wine, so don't expect Cinema 4D to work any better.

[Pillow]

On 5/30/2020 at 3:00 PM, WereCatf said:

That's just basically a preconfigured Wine, so don't expect Cinema 4D to work any better.

All right thanks for the information, guess  i'll be dual booting for awhile