The Cassowary project is developing a toolkit that allows you to work with Windows programs running in a virtual machine or on another computer as if they were native separate applications on the Linux desktop. Windows programs are launched through a shortcut in the Linux environment and open in separate windows, similar to standard Linux applications. The solution to the inverse problem is also supported - Linux programs can be called from the Windows environment.
The project offers applications for setting up a virtual machine with Windows and organizing access to application windows. To start the virtual machine, virt-manager and KVM are used, and FreeRDP is used to access the program window. A graphical interface is provided for setting up the environment and forwarding the windows of individual applications. The project code is written in Python (GUI based on PyQt5) and distributed under the GPLv2 license.
While running, Windows programs access files in the user's home directory on the host system, while native Linux programs can access files in the Windows virtual machine. Sharing files and drives between Windows on Linux is configured automatically, and is performed in accordance with certain access settings. In addition to Windows virtual machines, applications can run on external computers that only have Windows installed (the installation of the Cassowary agent application is required to run on such systems).
An interesting feature of Cassowary is the ability to automatically freeze a Windows virtual machine when there are no Windows programs running, so as not to waste resources and memory during inactivity. When you try to run a Windows application from Linux, the virtual machine is automatically restored.
Source: opennet.ru