CrossOver 22 released for running Windows apps and games on Linux

I bought a lifetime subscription several years ago, although I haven't installed/used Crossover [checks pacman.log] since 2019. Looks like it uses gtk3 these days, and that's a big nope in my book. Oh well, I can't think of anything from Windows-land that I'd need to run now, apart from the few Windows-only games I have (which are handled by proton these days), so I don't think I'm likely to download the latest release any way.

For games I think it would not be sensible, but I wonder if this could be the solution for people that need Microsoft Office on their machines and would want to migrate. It is "work" software where unreliability can be catastrophic, and people who are already willing to pay for an office suite might be willing to spend an extra money to... well, to not use Windows.

I've been a paying subscriber to Crossover for what, 15ish years now? So, long before Steam came around and made it easy to manage separate Wine (Proton) installs. Back then, Crossover was the only show in town allowing you to have 10 different Wine installations all with different tweaks and different emulated versions of Windows (3.51 was the popular one back then which seemed to work with most games, oddly enough). Being able to manage all that in one app was fantastic. Backing up "bottles" and restoring them, say, after a rebuild of your OS was/is a breeze too. Their .tie file system has been around for a long time too which basically lets you download Wine presets for a specific game which others in the community have already figured out.

Things changed a bit about seven or eight years ago. I think they realized there was more money to be made catering to the MacOS crowd rather than Linux users and their focus very clearly shifted in that direction. This is largely because they found they could sell their porting expertise as a service to the actual game devs and publishers who wanted their Windows-only app or game to also have a Mac version. They still would make improvements to game compatibility on the Linux side but it just wasn't as rapid or significant as earlier. Honestly, I've half-expected them to announce dropping Linux support altogether for years now.

That brings me to now and the 800lb gorilla which wasn't mentioned in this posting. The update coincides with a massive price increase for yearly subscriptions. How massive? Try an increase from $30 to $75. They haven't increased the price in many years and I get that they need to bump it up but..more than double? Really? This is at a time when the product has actually become steadily less relevant for Linux users too now with Steam and Bottles on the scene.

For myself, I won't be renewing and I won't really miss it either. There's just too many other fine solutions which provide an experience as good or better for..nothing.


Last edited by foobrew on 25 August 2022 at 11:34 pm UTC

For games I think it would not be sensible, but I wonder if this could be the solution for people that need Microsoft Office on their machines and would want to migrate.

This is actually how the company started. The product was originally called Crossover Office. MS Office has always been a major focus for them.

Things changed a bit about seven or eight years ago. I think they realized there was more money to be made catering to the MacOS crowd rather than Linux users and their focus very clearly shifted in that direction. This is largely because they found they could sell their porting expertise as a service to the actual game devs and publishers who wanted their Windows-only app or game to also have a Mac version. They still would make improvements to game compatibility on the Linux side but it just wasn't as rapid or significant as earlier. Honestly, I've half-expected them to announce dropping Linux support altogether for years now.

I don't think Codeweavers makes all that much more money from CrossOver on macOS than Linux (you can check the number of forum posts on the macOS vs Linux topics, and while it is larger, it is not significantly larger), but macOS users certainly *need* CrossOver more. Their other WINE choices are limited - PlayOnMac tends to be the most popular free software alternative.

But something important to remember is that Codeweavers is the principal organisation behind WINE. They are responsible for over one-third of the commits to the project, and they've hired dozens of core WINE developers over the years (including Alexandre Juliard, project lead of WINE since 1993). While there have been other companies that have pushed WINE development forward over the years, including TransGaming, CodeWeavers differs in that they have always been the most enthusiastic in contributing their changes back to WINE once they are ready to be accepted. CodeWeavers have been around the longest, and they're also responsible for hosting the winehq website and maintaining other WINE infrastructure.

WINE (the free software project) and Codeweavers are far more intricately tied together than you may initially realise, and I don't think that GNU/Linux support is going away any time soon. Even if it's not a lucrative market. I think there are too many people at CodeWeavers that care about GNU/Linux for that to happen (all the way up to James Ramsey).

Now, I assume they're making a lot of their money contracting with Valve on parts of Proton. They're working with Valve in a great effort to undermine their own product on the GNU/Linux platform, and have succeeded quite handily (but keep in mind they have been doing this for decades already with WINE). It's hard to say, but I don't think CodeWeavers are struggling. I like to believe they're still earning a lot of cashflow in their partnership with Valve and through other contracting work.

For myself, I won't be renewing and I won't really miss it either. There's just too many other fine solutions which provide an experience as good or better for..nothing.

I can agree with this. I originally became a CrossOver customer because I needed to use Microsoft Word...and I don't, anymore. It was the only WINE wrapper that worked on Office 365 for me, though. It also worked for Kindle For PC...which I also intend never to use again. CrossOver has very limited use cases on GNU/Linux. I was hoping they might get around to getting the Affinity Creative Suite working one of these days.

They have discount vouchers from time to time..
And I agree. This is more for work/office use than for gaming.

I would like to buy a license like I used to do, but with the 75% taxes we have in Argentina, is impossible.

For games I think it would not be sensible, but I wonder if this could be the solution for people that need Microsoft Office on their machines and would want to migrate. It is "work" software where unreliability can be catastrophic, and people who are already willing to pay for an office suite might be willing to spend an extra money to... well, to not use Windows.

Exactly this. I pretty much just use CrossOver to 1.) Install MS Office 365 (mostly used to recheck documents as WPS Office is otherwise mostly sufficient - as well as Outlook because I don't want to bother with the mess that is email stuff); 2.) Support Wine development.

I'm not thrilled by the gtk usage, but I'm not not fine with it either. Overall, so long as Office works, I'm happy. I'm looking forward if Bottles can eventually have an installer for office-365 because they do have winecx in their (hidden) runner list, and now someone 'simply' has to do the tedious process of translation the script to install o365 into a Bottles Installer script.

The update coincides with a massive price increase for yearly subscriptions. How massive? Try an increase from $30 to $75.

This, though. I've renewed for now, since they gave me a massive discount, but I'll see next year if they similarly has massive discount because I'm a poor dude who can barely afford frivolous shit if I want to eat decently for the month.


Last edited by fenglengshun on 26 August 2022 at 7:42 am UTC