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Cross-platform Compatibility, WINE or Emulation: WinBoat, Lepton, and Homebrew
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Ghacks ☛ Run any backdoored Windows app on GNU/Linux with WinBoat, it's free and open source
Linux is fine for gaming, Wine and Proton have come a long way. But what about backdoored Windows apps that don't play well with Wine? That's kind of what WinBoat aims to fix.
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Anyway, you can download the app from GitHub or from https://www.winboat.app/. It is free, and open source under the MIT license.
WinBoat is an Electron app. Yeah, yeah, I know! When you run the app, you'll see a prerequisites screen. This in my opinion could be a hurdle for many users.
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Valve compatibility layer for running Android games on Linux gets official name in Steam documentation
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Windows Central ☛ Valve is working on a "Lepton" Android compatibility layer for Linux and VR — Could we ever see Android games running on the Steam Deck and its Steam Machine PC?
PC gaming giant Valve appears to be expanding its gaming software portfolio, currently building an Android compatibility layer called Lepton (via Gaming on Linux). Proof of its official name is slim, but an official Steam store page reveals its froggy logo, and SteamDB hints at its potential origins as a fork of Waydroid.
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HowTo Geek ☛ Homebrew can now help you install Flatpaks, too
Homebrew, the package manager for macOS and Linux, just got a handy new feature in the latest v5.0.4 update. Brewfile install scripts are now more like a one-stop shop for installing software, as Flatpaks are now supported alongside Brew packages, Mac App Store Apps, and other packages.
For those times when you need to install many software packages at once, like when setting up a new PC or virtual machine, you can create a Brewfile with a list of packages and run it with the 'brew bundle' command. However, the Brewfile isn't limited to just Homebrew packages. You can also use it to install Mac App Store apps, graphical apps through Casks, Visual Studio Code extensions, and Go language packages.
Starting with this week's Homebrew v5.0.4 release, Flatpaks are now supported in Brewfiles as well. In a new example Brewfile from the Homebrew documentation, you can see how VS Code, Godot engine, and BoxBuddyRS are installed from various Flatpak repositories: [...]
Update
More on Lepton:
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Valve is developing an Android compatibility layer for Linux, it's called Lepton
In case, you aren't aware of it, Waydroid is a container-based compatibility layer that lets users run Android apps on Linux. You may be aware that Valve has a compatibility layer for Windows games called Proton. Now they are prepping one for Android games. Proton, Lepton, somebody likes particle Physics.
Here's a blank Steam page for Lepton, proof that it is real, but there's absolutely no information on what it does. It is likely that Lepton was primarily developed for something specific in mind. Shortly after Valve announced the Steam Machine, Steam Controller and Steam Frame, a Valve engineer, Jeremy Salan, told The Verge that the VR headset will support Android games. Developers can use the same APKs to bring their apps from phones to it, so they don't have any additional burden to port over their work to the platform.
A couple of weeks ago, Valve added support for Android and Linux Arm to the Steamworks SDK. The Steam Frame is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. Based on all this, it's fairly easy to tell what Lepton will be about, playing Android games on the Steam Frame, on SteamOS. The VR headset will launch in early 2026 along with the new Steam Controller and the Steam Machine.