Re:_Proposal_—_Seamless_Windows_Application_Virtua lization_via_bhyve

Just to clarify: I'm actually planning to sell my own laptops with a
FreeBSD-based OS pre-installed. It'll be open source, but realistically,
people will expect app compatibility. If it's not there, they'll just
return the laptops.
I mentioned Adobe as one example, but there are plenty of other apps that
don't run well too. Getting those working isn't about abandoning open
source, it's about growing FreeBSD's market share. Telling users to switch
to open source alternatives is fine in theory, but it's not really a
practical answer for someone deciding whether to buy the laptop in the
first place.

8 Ağu 2026 Cmt 18:15 tarihinde Bakul Shah <bakul@iitbombay.org> şunu yazdı:

> Why not use (& improve) open source apps instead of Adobe's products? It's
> probably a far better ROI.
>
> On Aug 8, 2026, at 10:06 AM, Asiye Sarıyıldız <asiyee994@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hmm. Yes actually... Fair point on Wine's gaming performance, thats
> genuinely impressive progress. But Adobe's issue isnt really about
> performance its that the Creative Cloud installer depends on deep Windows
> subsystems (MSHTML the embedded IE-based components, MSXML3) that Wine
> being a translation layer rather than a real Windows kernel, has
> historically failed to replicate correctly. That's why installation itself
> has been broken since Adobe added that dependency back in 2018.
> Interestingly, there's very recent work (a patch from a dev going by
> PhialsBasement, still unofficial) that fixes exactly those MSHTML/MSXML3
> gaps and gets the Creative Cloud installer working, with Photoshop 2021 and
> 2025 confirmed running. But it's early, not upstream yet, and heavier apps
> like Premiere (GPU/rendering-dependent) are still an open question.
> That's part of why I was drawn to the bhyve/VM angle: it sidesteps the
> "Wine has to perfectly reimplement every obscure Windows subsystem" problem
> entirely, at the cost of the display/rendering issues you pointed out.
>
> 8 Ağu 2026 Cmt 17:57 tarihinde Tomek CEDRO <tomek@cedro.info> şunu yazdı:
>
>> On Sat, Aug 8, 2026 at 10:43 AM Asiye Sarıyıldız <asiyee994@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Sorry for the direct reply, loops back to the list. As you know, Wine
>> can't actually run things like Adobe software, but what I have in mind
>> similar to WSL2 is being able to run Windows applications seamlessly using
>> bhyve.
>> >
>> > 8 Ağu 2026 Cmt 11:37 tarihinde Asiye Sarıyıldız <asiyee994@gmail.com>
>> şunu yazdı:
>> >>
>> >> I know about Wine, but Wine tries to replicate Windows APIs which
>> often causes compatibility bugs or performance overhead. (..)
>>
>> Not anymore, I run modern windows games (i.e. Cyberpunk 2077) on
>> FreeBSD over Wine 11, it works with native performance.. which is not
>> possible under Bhyve or VBox.
>>
>> > My idea with bhyve was closer to a lightweight virtualized Windows
>> kernel operating in the background, where the GUI windows are seamlessly
>> integrated into the FreeBSD desktop environment (like seamless mode in
>> VirtualBox or WSLg in Linux). I thought bhyve could achieve better raw
>> hardware compatibility for specific professional Windows apps. Example
>> Adobe?.
>>
>> You probably noticed that Bhyve still uses VNC for a remote desktop
>> and that makes it even worse for graphics / cad applications than
>> VirtualBox that at least offers direct rendering.
>>
>> I would suggest looking at Bhyve and improve display (i.e. no latency
>> + vulkan / opengl rendering) in the first place :-)
>>
>> --
>> CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info
>>
>
>