Hi everyone — I recently migrated to Linux Mint and overall my experience has been excellent, but I still rely on several Windows applications (notably SolidWorks, among others). Aside from dual-booting, which I really prefer to avoid, running these programs inside a Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC virtual machine in VMware Workstation appears to be the most viable option. However, I am uncertain how to implement this setup and whether it is the optimal solution. What would you recommend I do?
The 3D stuff around games is actually the smaller problem. It’s performance critical but it’s basically “just” one API (bundle) to implement that then covers a big chunk of the game’s implementation.
Productivity software usually consists of a shit ton of other stuff. They would probably render fine, but then they ship with a weird ass licensing management system that will deny to work. Or parts of or even a whole app use .NET and suddenly you have the complexity of all the WinAPI calls hidden behind .NET Framework. Maybe the app does a few lowlevel WinAPI calls themselves on top, that Wine didn’t need to implement so far. Or the app you want to run is only distributed via Windows Store as UWP; the necessary APIs also haven’t been implemented yet.
Wine is awesome, but it’s not fully covering all the shit Window’s APIs offer.