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Intel ChromeBooks Can Now Run Wine and Steam (codeweavers.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the leprechaun-on-a-unicorn dept.

"With Google Play and Android app support hitting Chromebooks, it's now possible to run Windows applications/games on Chromebooks via CrossOver For Android," reports Phoronix. Slashdot reader grungy writes: The first Intel ChromeBooks have access to the Play Store now, and the Android version of Wine apparently runs on them... Pictures show the Steam client running, and a clip of a D3D game. Of course, the Play Store is only available on the ChromeOS developer channel so far, but that should change later this year.
CrossOver for Android also hasn't been officially released, but Thursday CodeWeavers' president blogged excitedly that "we are staring at a Leprechaun riding on the back of a Unicorn while taking a picture of a UFO. We are running CrossOver through Android on a ChromeBook running a Windows based game launched from the Steam client. THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE...EVER!!!"

45 comments

  1. Optimistic view of Wine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It can barely run any games or applications, except those used in screenshots..

    1. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Crossover for Android doesn't even exist yet, so the entire story is bullshit.

    2. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      WINE lets you run foobar2000 on Linux and OS X without a problem.

    3. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Funny

      Crossover for Android doesn't even exist yet, so the entire story is bullshit.

      You'd almost swear that the the author of TFA had access to a pre-release copy of it; as if the guy worked for codeweavers or something....

    4. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't change the fact that it doesn't exist. Let me know when it sees a release.

    5. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank goodness for that. After more than a decade using foobar2000, I could never go to using a lesser music player.

      Since foobar2000 is now out for Android, I hope that it will also receive a desktop Linux version that is drop-in compatible with the Windows version.

    6. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      Not having a public release and not existing are two different things...

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    7. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      I used to run GTA IV over it. It's surprising how compatible it is, most games, when I tested them, worked. Occasionally they needed a hack or two, but the hack was generally well documented.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    8. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      That's not totally fair. It's not great for newer applications, but it does a good job of the older stuff. Heck, even modern Windows has trouble with some of the ancient Office versions, whereas Wine works pretty well. I agree that it is unreasonable to expect Wine to run current games and software. But if you have an old XP laptop and you are considering buying a Chromebook to replace it, this could help tremendously with your upgrade as you would still be able to access all of your old documents.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    9. Re:Optimistic view of Wine by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

      I don't see how games are the issue on Android devices. There are plenty of games available - and as Android becomes more and more dominant, there will only be more. Hell, even MS Office is available native on Android devices.

      But where WINE shines is in allowing you to run that odd Windows app that isn't available on MacOS or Linux. I use the 'wineskins' WINE wrapper to provide a version of a WIN32 app I wrote at work for mac users. This app is no longer in heavy development, and my company would never pay to rewrite it, but it's in regular use. Of course it's the Intel part of the equation that makes this announcement none too useful. But if WINELIB will soon support porting WIN32 C code to ARM Android, that'd be pretty useful - to me, at least...

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    10. Re: Optimistic view of Wine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, thats why i have the policy if an app doesnt have linux client then i wont buy that app. game and biz apps too. I work with ubuntu and osx.

  2. They never learn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!

    1. Re:They never learn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get that's probably a joke. But I always thought the value of ChromeOS was that it could only run a web browser. I thought the idea was you could give it to grandma or other computer illiterates and not worry about them installing spyware/viruses on it. Doesn't allowing android apps on it kinda destroy the whole value of that system.

  3. Funny, I too gets runs after drinking wine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It steams if it's cold out, but MadDog will stink up a forest now won't it.

  4. Rube by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

    It's a gaming system only Rube Goldberg could love.

  5. Exciting, but dumb... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can understand the cool factor of doing something Rube Goldberg-esque, but what's the point?

    1. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by BronsCon · · Score: 2

      but but but... Chromebooks are now cheap GAMING RIGS that can do EVERYTHING! Right?

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    2. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by Sax+Russell+5449D29A · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most people have been using Chromebooks wrong. When you go out and buy a $500 laptop or tablet, you don't really expect it to run games or applications that require intensive graphics processing or physics computing. But for some reason, when it comes to $200 Chromebooks, people expect them to do everything a $3k gaming rig can do. I mean, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and it's been like this since their launch.

      I'm happy with my slightly customized $200 Chromebook that has a good keyboard and touchpad, 6.5h battery life and it's very light and durable. I'm using it right.

      --
      -SR
    3. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people have been using Chromebooks wrong. When you go out and buy a $500 laptop or tablet, you don't really expect it to run games or applications that require intensive graphics processing or physics computing. But for some reason, when it comes to $200 Chromebooks, people expect them to do everything a $3k gaming rig can do. I mean, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and it's been like this since their launch.

      I'm happy with my slightly customized $200 Chromebook that has a good keyboard and touchpad, 6.5h battery life and it's very light and durable. I'm using it right.

      If "you're using it wrong" doesn't fly for Apple, why anyone else?

    4. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by BronsCon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People don't expect that from a tablet because the tablet form-factor has never been primarily comprised of machines that could do those things. Laptops not being able to do those things is a relatively new phenomenon and isn't widely accepted by a populace used to technology becoming more capable over time. To most people, it's just another laptop and everybody knows laptops can do everything desktops can do, just sometimes not as fast.

      In other words, people don't always understand the finer points of fields in which they're not educated. Most people aren't educated enough in the field of computing to know the difference between x86 and ARM, or Windows, OSX, Linux, and Chrome OS. Hell, I've met people who think iOS and Android are the same OS and don't understand why apps bought on their iPhone don't appear in their Play store purchases; after all, they used the same email address for both.

      When that's who you're selling to, you can expect any and all limitations of your platform to be viewed as flaws, mistakes you made, that you must fix in order for your platform to not be complete crap in the eyes of the consumer.

      I'm not saying it is right, just that it is.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    5. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by samwichse · · Score: 1

      Because Apple products cost more.
      Cost more + do less = fail.

      Chromebooks usually cost less.
      Cost less + do less = de rigueur

    6. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm happy with my slightly customized $200 Chromebook that has a good keyboard and touchpad, 6.5h battery life and it's very light and durable. I'm using it right.

      I'm curious, why not just buy a cheap dell 14" laptop? The price is barely above $200, and I'd assume you can install linux very easily, or just leave windows on there, once you remove the crap and back up a clean image somewhere. I understand that chrome books and such can often be made to run linux, but why should I spend the time to work around anything?

      Is the chromebook os actually better than just using linux directly?

    7. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by Sax+Russell+5449D29A · · Score: 1

      I wanted a Chromebook especially because most of them have an ARM processor, which usually translates to a longer battery life and they also tend to be a lot cheaper than low-end x86 laptops. I've tried running Linux on my Chromebook, too, but I found out that for the things I use it for, I don't really even need a full-fledged Linux distro to do them!

      My Chromebook is from circa 2013 and it still runs like new and even the heavier websites render smoothly nowadays. If I went to buy a cheap x86 laptop, it'd still cost me 50-150% more than this one and it wouldn't offer me personally any added value.

      --
      -SR
    8. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      To be fair, Google doesn't exactly emphasize the difference between Intel and ARM chromebooks. CPUs aren't even listed in the specs!

      That said, I do expect that my Chromebook (ASUS C200MA-DS02, Intel Celeron N830, 4GB RAM) can do everything my wife's Windows laptop (ASUS X200CA-DH21T, Intel Pentium 2117U, 4GB RAM) can do (except run Windows apps natively, obviously).

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    9. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      If I went to buy a cheap x86 laptop, it'd still cost me 50-150% more than this one

      I got an x86 Chromebook (with 4GB RAM, no less!) for $120 on Prime Day ($180 - $40 sale price - $30 discount for using my Amazon Visa + ~$10 tax). If I could have gotten an ARM Chromebook instead for $60 or less I wish I'd known it!

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    10. Re:Exciting, but dumb... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Is the chromebook os actually better than just using linux directly?

      Anything is better than just using Linux directly.

      <duck>

  6. Fun for those that enjoy that sort of thing by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    I knew someone that made a game of seeing how many mods they could load on Dragon Age before the game died.

  7. Steam on a Chromebook? Old News. by jeek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had Steam (both wine version and Linux version) working on my Asus C710 Chromebook a couple of years ago. The system itself lacked enough power to do any big gaming, but FTL worked well enough.

    Last year I played quite a bit of Skyrim, streaming it from a Windows desktop elsewhere in the house.

    Crouton is good stuff. https://github.com/dnschneid/c...

    --
    If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be respected, sit down and shut up.
    1. Re:Steam on a Chromebook? Old News. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is why this is not "NEWs" You already can use both Steam. the wine one and the Linux one in a Chromebook.

      That are good enough for 2 (3 4 or 5 if I am wrong, do not make this the point) year old AAA games
      As there are now some models with more expensive and powerful Intel CPUS it is as good as any other OS to play games. And it seems that better than OSX.

      The "NEWs" with Android is that you will be able to have ALSO the Android Steam App.

      And perhaps wine for ARM (Linux and future Android) https://wiki.winehq.org/ARM that even works since 2010 still has a lot to improve.

    2. Re:Steam on a Chromebook? Old News. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just got Minecraft working quite well on my Chromebook 11 via Crouton. It's really nice to have access to a Linux shell.

  8. OH GOOGLE AND MICROSOFT US SPYWARE OK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Put both spywares on it, then you can spy on your spies while being spied on by spies and spy on it.

    Both are US goverment spy shops. Chrome OS is Google. Get out your wireshark and jot down everywhere it connects to.

  9. Yawn. by Mal-2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The first thing I did when I got a Chromebook (that I had never asked for) was to install Linux (specifically, GalliumOS). Not surprisingly, Wine runs just fine on top of that, along with the older Windows games that I still play. Minecraft also ran surprisingly well on it, between 20 and 35 fps fullscreen (1366x768), though of course Wine is not required for this. I even used it as my Minecraft server for a while (and might again) because it is silent. I did not attempt to run the server and the client simultaneously. That would be asking a bit much.

    Unfortunately, Bay Trail has some serious shortcomings that have made me realize this machine will never be what I actually need out of a daily driver laptop, and the eMMC (and lack of M.2 or SATA) doesn't help. That's why I've posted it for sale, the intent being to buy a C720P with 4GB of RAM and an M.2 slot instead. I already know that can easily be converted into a triple-booting Ubuntu/OS X/Windows machine that performs reasonably well, because I know the guy in charge of the C720P Hackintosh project. :)

    If running Wine on a Chromebook is Invisible Pink Unicorn territory, I've got a whole herd of them grazing on carpet in my living room. (What, you didn't know Invisible Pink Unicorns are all rug munchers?)

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  10. it's a small step, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... real progress in computing would be a machine that could run every program ever written, System 360, CDC 6600, Apple II, anything. The fact that we keep rewriting old applications for new platforms with almost no backward compatibility is a clear sign that this industry is still in its infancy.

    1. Re:it's a small step, but... by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      I've got one. Its called a Windows laptop with emulators.

    2. Re:it's a small step, but... by ledow · · Score: 1

      Real progress would, in fact, be not having to compile for dozens of different architectures.

      Such as describing a way, in a standardised language, of being able to do anything, no matter the underlying hardware. Remember those days? When languages did that for you?

      Real progress would be an architecture where the source code is the program, and "first run" is actually a compile-and-cache-bytecode kind of operation. And if you move that same compiled binary to another system: a) it has the source code in it and b) it notices that the architecture isn't the same, wipes out the bytecode, recompiles on first run and off you go again.

      No more reinventing the fucking wheel for every platform, no more having to compile multiple versions and formats (have a look at any program download and now imagine you don't know what Windows, Linux, Mac are, or what 64/32-bit means, or whether you want it compiled static or dynamic, just the executable, in a ZIP or a setup EXE), the best performance you can get for that particular architecture, a definitive way to force programmers to standardise on a language without #ifdef's compensating for the bits we should really be abstracting out entirely, and truly portable binaries.

      I'm sure we've had it before. But commercial code almost certainly would hate the idea. I've yet to figure out why we don't quite have that on the OS platforms, though. As it is we still have multiple package repositories for each architecture (x86, x86-64, etc.), multiple packages for the one program (-dev for library and headers, another for the binary, another for the source, etc.), and even distros that still only work on one type of machine.

    3. Re:it's a small step, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So write everything in python ( and no system specific extensions ). Problem solved.

    4. Re:it's a small step, but... by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      And for the GUI? :)

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    5. Re:it's a small step, but... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Real progress would, in fact, be not having to compile for dozens of different architectures. Such as describing a way, in a standardised language, of being able to do anything, no matter the underlying hardware. Remember those days? When languages did that for you?

      Not really, no.

      No more reinventing the fucking wheel for every platform, no more having to compile multiple versions and formats (...), the best performance you can get for that particular architecture

      Hardware has different capabilities. Platforms have different capabilities. Abstractions and layers of indirection trade performance and simplicity for interoperability and reuse, you will never write code that is "perfect" on all metrics. So you want your application to output sound, great. So tell me how would you write code that runs on everything from a Sound Blaster from the 90s to bitstreaming over HDMI and any and all future formats yet to come? Does the OS have some kind of configuration if you want this to play on headphones or not?

      That's when you start stubbing out APIs, my game wants to output sound and I'll make my own function do to the right thing for this sound card. Then maybe the OS will abstract that away and your app just hands it off so it can do the right thing. And then maybe the hardware will abstract that away so the OS can talk one standard like USB audio. But all of this is a work in progress that's constantly expanded because we want hardware or software to do new things. Maybe we want hardware mixing or don't want to play sound on this machine but pipe it somewhere else over the network.

      What you are asking for is essentially like every other attempt at cross hardware/platform development ever. Write C, no more hardware-specific assembler. Don't write for 3dfx, matrox, nVidia, write for DirectX or OpenGL. Write Java, write once run everywhere. There's many reasons we move in that direction. There's also many reasons we sometimes move in the other direction, like now with Vulkan we're basically scaling back OpenGL and saying game engines use this low level interface instead of the abstractions because they're holding you back.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  11. FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    we are staring at a Leprechaun riding on the back of a Unicorn while taking a picture of a UFO. We are running CrossOver through Android on a ChromeBook running a Windows based game launched from the Steam client. THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE...EVER!!!

    Calm down, take your meds, and go outside.

  12. Hardware's too weak to matter by allquixotic · · Score: 1

    Why worry about gaming on a Chromebook? The hardware, especially the GPU, is too weak to care. Unless you want to play a clicker game or something...

    1. Re:Hardware's too weak to matter by SeaFox · · Score: 2

      It should be fast enough for indie platformer games with 8-bit style sprite graphics, not to mention all the Japanese visual novels that are being translated and brought to Steam via Sekai Project.

    2. Re:Hardware's too weak to matter by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2

      It's more than enough for Tetris, Zork, tuxracer, Soitaire,, many modest chess programs, and many other graphically lightweight games. It's even enough CPU for the original Doom and Quake games, which are still good fun. And it's more than enough power and graphics for a "point-of-sale" system on lightweight, obsolete, and therefore inexpensive low end hardware. The machines even have decent enough screen size and battery life for a field console for use in a data center visit, or for handing one off to some kids to play with while traveling.

  13. Crossover sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Given my experience with Crossover on Mac's I know even with better hardware on Mac's vs Chromebooks. Crossover basically sucks with even older games and don't expect flawless play by any stretch of the imagination. The hardware on Chromebook's will not play very nice with multi layer virtual machine like playback.
    Wine can't be any better as it was just as bad even with a Macbook Pro. Sure, you can run some older Office stuff, a older browser, maybe a few kiddie games.
    But Call of Duty of Crysis yea on a Chromebook even in native if that was available wouldn't work.

  14. Not for anything infected with Denuvo. by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    Since those expect traditional Windows PC's, don't expect to run much.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    1. Re:Not for anything infected with Denuvo. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Steam streaming.