WinRocket is currently in beta, so expect to occasionally run into hiccups and bugs. You should be comfortable with some level of troubleshooting if you decide to try it, however we encourage you to give it a shot anyway.
- 🎨 Elegant Interface: Sleek and intuitive interface that seamlessly integrates Windows into your Linux desktop environment, making it feel like a native experience
- 📦 Automated Installs: Simple installation process through our interface - pick your preferences & specs and let us handle the rest
- 🚀 Run Any App: If it runs on Windows, it can run on WinRocket. Enjoy the full range of Windows applications as native OS-level windows in your Linux environment
- 🖥️ Full Windows Desktop: Access the complete Windows desktop experience when you need it, or run individual apps seamlessly integrated into your Linux workflow
- 📁 Filesystem Integration: Your home directory is mounted in Windows, allowing easy file sharing between the two systems without any hassle
- ✨ And many more: Smartcard passthrough, resource monitoring, and more features being added regularly
WinRocket is an Electron app which allows you to run Windows apps on Linux using a containerized approach. Windows runs as a VM inside a Docker/Podman container, we communicate with it using the WinRocket Guest Server to retrieve data we need from Windows. For compositing applications as native OS-level windows, we use FreeRDP together with Windows's RemoteApp protocol.
Before running WinRocket, ensure your system meets the following requirements:
- RAM: At least 4 GB of RAM
- CPU: At least 2 CPU threads
- Storage: At least 32 GB free space on the drive your selected install folder corresponds to
- Virtualization: KVM enabled in BIOS/UEFI
- In case of Docker:
- Docker: Required for containerization
- Installation Guide
⚠️ NOTE: Docker Desktop is not supported, you will run into issues if you use it
- Docker Compose v2: Required for compatibility with docker-compose.yml files
- Docker User Group: Add your user to the
dockergroup
- Docker: Required for containerization
- In case of Podman:
- Podman: Required for containerization
- Podman Compose: Required for compatibility with podman-compose.yml files
- FreeRDP: Required for remote desktop connection (Please make sure you have Version 3.x.x with sound support included)
- [OPTIONAL] Kernel Modules: The
iptables/nftablesandiptable_natkernel modules can be loaded for network autodiscovery and better shared filesystem performance, but this is not obligatory in newer versions of WinRocket
You can download the latest Linux builds under the Releases tab. We currently offer four variants:
- AppImage: A popular & portable app format which should run fine on most distributions
- Unpacked: The raw unpacked files, simply run the executable (
linux-unpacked/winboat) - .deb: The intended format for Debian based distributions
- .rpm: The intended format for Fedora based distributions
- Docker Desktop is unsupported for now
- USB passthrough via Podman is currently unsupported
- For building you need to have NodeJS and Go installed on your system
- Clone the repo (
git clone https://github.com/mishastarrrr-ctrl/WinRocket) - Install the dependencies (
npm i) - Build the app and the guest server using
npm run build:linux-gs - You can now find the built app under
distwith an AppImage and an Unpacked variant
- Make sure you meet the prerequisites
- Additionally, for development you need to have NodeJS and Go installed on your system
- Clone the repo (
git clone https://github.com/mishastarrrr-ctrl/WinRocket) - Install the dependencies (
npm i) - Build the guest server (
npm run build:gs) - Run the app (
npm run dev)
Contributions are welcome! Whether it's bug fixes, feature improvements, or documentation updates, we appreciate your help making WinRocket better.
Please note: We maintain a focus on technical contributions only. Pull requests containing political/sexual content, or other sensitive/controversial topics will not be accepted. Let's keep things focused on making great software! 🚀
Feel free to:
- Report bugs and issues
- Submit feature requests
- Contribute code improvements
- Help with documentation
- Share feedback and suggestions
Check out our issues page to get started, or feel free to open a new issue if you've found something that needs attention.
WinRocket is licensed under the MIT license
These past few years some cool projects have surfaced with similar concepts, some of which we've also taken inspirations from.
They're awesome and you should check them out:
- WinApps
- Cassowary
- dockur/windows (🌟 Also used in WinRocket)
