The Cassowary project develops a toolkit that allows running Windows programs launched in a virtual machine or on another computer as if they were native standalone applications on the Linux desktop. Windows programs are started via a shortcut in the Linux environment and opened in separate windows, similarly to standard Linux applications. The project also supports the reverse scenario — Linux programs can be called from the Windows environment.
The project provides applications for configuring the virtual machine with Windows and organizing access to the application windows. The virtual machine is started using virt-manager and KVM, and access to the program window is provided through FreeRDP. A graphical interface is available for configuring the environment and forwarding individual application windows. The project's code is written in Python (GUI based on PyQt5) and is distributed under the GPLv2 license.
During operation, Windows programs gain access to files in the user's home directory on the host system, while native Linux programs can access files in the Windows virtual machine. File and storage sharing between Windows in Linux is automatically configured according to specific access settings. In addition, of virtual machines Windows applications can be launched on external computers that have only Windows installed (an agent application of Cassowary must be installed for operation on such systems).
An interesting feature of Cassowary is the ability to automatically freeze the Windows virtual machine when there are no running Windows programs, thus conserving resources and memory during inactivity. When attempting to launch a Windows application from Linux the virtual machine it is automatically restored.
Source: opennet.ru
