6 ms·

Sogen – High-performance Windows and Linux userspace emulator

89 points by fratellobigio 3mo ago

koolala 3mo ago
The sandbox worked well on my phone. Seems really well made.
orangecoffee 3mo ago
very cool
wolfi1 3mo ago
I don't like these landing pages which explain nothing. does it emulate windows under linux and vice versa? then it definitely would be very interesting if it just sandboxes applications in the respective OS it could still be useful but has less advantages
- ramon156 3mo ago
  I love when LLMs add stats that do not convey anything > 2 OS targets Well yeah.. Edit: I would like to add that I checked out the GH and it seems like a really cool project, hence it's a shame that the website did not reflect that.
  - momo5502 3mo ago
    I gladly accept pull request. I'm bad at webdesign and I'm not that big of a fan of AI generated pages (although I gotta admit I AI generated the landing page; hence I'm not a big fan of it). So if you have inspiration on how to improve it, especially on how to better present the project, feel free to tell me, or create a PR.
- zx8080 3mo ago
  > I don't like these landing pages which explain nothing. But they are not for you! They apparently help to appear on the HN frontpage. And probably also winning some ~sponsor~ investor money.
- mike_hock 3mo ago
  If the landing page is slop, just assume that the code is, too.
- mentalgear 3mo ago
  As usual, the repo (https://github.com/momo5502/sogen https://github.com/momo5502/sogen) should be the HN link. On first look of the linked talk/demo, the German guy behind the project seems of legit DRM-background expertise.
  - homarp 3mo ago
    on their twitter, author shows it running Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 3: https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2065872369407742398#m https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2065872369407742398#m https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2066937863162192049#m https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2066937863162192049#m
    - mentalgear 3mo ago
      Being able to run any windows productivity app on any other OS would be a game changer ! Did you investigate this?
      - homarp 3mo ago
        it requires 'the actual ntdll, kernel32 and user32, not reimplemented stubs. So it's unclear how would that work from a licensing PoV
- drdexebtjl 3mo ago
  Respectfully, maybe you’re not the target audience? I think I understood it immediately. It’s a debugging/reverse engineering tool. It emulates user space, so it can control/introspect the target processes to the same level that a kernel-level debugger could, but in user space.
  - wolfi1 3mo ago
    that was not my question, my question was, if i could run windows programs under linux or vice versa, that was not clear to me and this wasn't answered by you as well, fortunately the original author clarified this
- firebot 3mo ago
  There's literally a demo video where he uses the tool and explains everything.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- momo5502 3mo ago
  Hey, author here, I agree with you. Landing page is shit. I will rework it, but at the moment, I'm rather focusing on improving the project itself. To answer your actual question, it does both. It emulates both windows and linux (although linux implementation was done by a contributor and it's probably not as evolved as the windows part). It also does so on every platform, so you can emulate windows on your android/ios phone, even on the web. It cross compiles to pretty much every platform. It supports various emulation backends, e.g. Unicorn (which uses QEMU under the hood), but also Hyper-V on windows. That's where the sandboxing part comes in to play: As Hyper-V is pretty fast, the emulator starts turning into a sandbox. Maybe some day I can add KVM support so you can run sandboxed Windows apps on Linux, but I haven't had the time yet. So at the moment, only the slow emulation backends work on Linux.
rounce 3mo ago
It'd be nice if it was possible to toggle the different log classes after the fact.
- momo5502 3mo ago
  That's actually possible, there is verbose, regular, concise and very concise logging. Check the help of the analyzer.
p0w3n3d 3mo ago
That's quite a thing. I wonder how can it be used, providing that most apps for windows are GUI. Maybe serving an old C# app?
gavinray 3mo ago
Twitter has videos of the author running Call of Duty MW2/3 that popped up on my feed organically recently Apparently even multi-player works which i find impressive https://x.com/i/status/2066937863162192049 https://x.com/i/status/2066937863162192049
Bnjoroge 3mo ago
Incredibly cool
dismanova 3mo ago
Is there anything similar to Sogen for Android? I’m looking for a userspace/syscall-level emulator for Android native binaries.
d3Xt3r 3mo ago
So, can this be used as an alternative to Wine? Can I run games with it? And when/why should I use this instead of Wine?
- gcr 3mo ago
  Yeah seconding this question, I’m very curious how this compares to wine
- momo5502 3mo ago
  Running games is currently WIP, but it's making a lot of progress. Compared to wine, this fully sandboxes the process. So no intended way for an attacker to escape and e.g. access files on your PC, if the game is vulnerable, compared to wine
joseph2024 3mo ago
It is incredible! It is amazing that they implemented the Windows kernel yourself. It is also similar to gvisor in that it is a userspace kernel. I am curious about the process of making this.

89 points by fratellobigio 3mo ago

koolala 3mo ago

The sandbox worked well on my phone. Seems really well made.

orangecoffee 3mo ago

very cool

wolfi1 3mo ago

I don't like these landing pages which explain nothing. does it emulate windows under linux and vice versa? then it definitely would be very interesting if it just sandboxes applications in the respective OS it could still be useful but has less advantages

ramon156 3mo ago
I love when LLMs add stats that do not convey anything > 2 OS targets Well yeah.. Edit: I would like to add that I checked out the GH and it seems like a really cool project, hence it's a shame that the website did not reflect that.
- momo5502 3mo ago
  I gladly accept pull request. I'm bad at webdesign and I'm not that big of a fan of AI generated pages (although I gotta admit I AI generated the landing page; hence I'm not a big fan of it). So if you have inspiration on how to improve it, especially on how to better present the project, feel free to tell me, or create a PR.
zx8080 3mo ago
> I don't like these landing pages which explain nothing. But they are not for you! They apparently help to appear on the HN frontpage. And probably also winning some ~sponsor~ investor money.
mike_hock 3mo ago
If the landing page is slop, just assume that the code is, too.
mentalgear 3mo ago
As usual, the repo (https://github.com/momo5502/sogen https://github.com/momo5502/sogen) should be the HN link. On first look of the linked talk/demo, the German guy behind the project seems of legit DRM-background expertise.
- homarp 3mo ago
  on their twitter, author shows it running Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 3: https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2065872369407742398#m https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2065872369407742398#m https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2066937863162192049#m https://xcancel.com/momo5502/status/2066937863162192049#m
  - mentalgear 3mo ago
    Being able to run any windows productivity app on any other OS would be a game changer ! Did you investigate this?
    - homarp 3mo ago
      it requires 'the actual ntdll, kernel32 and user32, not reimplemented stubs. So it's unclear how would that work from a licensing PoV
drdexebtjl 3mo ago
Respectfully, maybe you’re not the target audience? I think I understood it immediately. It’s a debugging/reverse engineering tool. It emulates user space, so it can control/introspect the target processes to the same level that a kernel-level debugger could, but in user space.
- wolfi1 3mo ago
  that was not my question, my question was, if i could run windows programs under linux or vice versa, that was not clear to me and this wasn't answered by you as well, fortunately the original author clarified this
firebot 3mo ago
There's literally a demo video where he uses the tool and explains everything.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
momo5502 3mo ago
Hey, author here, I agree with you. Landing page is shit. I will rework it, but at the moment, I'm rather focusing on improving the project itself. To answer your actual question, it does both. It emulates both windows and linux (although linux implementation was done by a contributor and it's probably not as evolved as the windows part). It also does so on every platform, so you can emulate windows on your android/ios phone, even on the web. It cross compiles to pretty much every platform. It supports various emulation backends, e.g. Unicorn (which uses QEMU under the hood), but also Hyper-V on windows. That's where the sandboxing part comes in to play: As Hyper-V is pretty fast, the emulator starts turning into a sandbox. Maybe some day I can add KVM support so you can run sandboxed Windows apps on Linux, but I haven't had the time yet. So at the moment, only the slow emulation backends work on Linux.

rounce 3mo ago

It'd be nice if it was possible to toggle the different log classes after the fact.

momo5502 3mo ago
That's actually possible, there is verbose, regular, concise and very concise logging. Check the help of the analyzer.

p0w3n3d 3mo ago

That's quite a thing. I wonder how can it be used, providing that most apps for windows are GUI. Maybe serving an old C# app?

gavinray 3mo ago

Twitter has videos of the author running Call of Duty MW2/3 that popped up on my feed organically recently Apparently even multi-player works which i find impressive https://x.com/i/status/2066937863162192049 https://x.com/i/status/2066937863162192049

Bnjoroge 3mo ago

Incredibly cool

dismanova 3mo ago

Is there anything similar to Sogen for Android? I’m looking for a userspace/syscall-level emulator for Android native binaries.

d3Xt3r 3mo ago

So, can this be used as an alternative to Wine? Can I run games with it? And when/why should I use this instead of Wine?

gcr 3mo ago
Yeah seconding this question, I’m very curious how this compares to wine
momo5502 3mo ago
Running games is currently WIP, but it's making a lot of progress. Compared to wine, this fully sandboxes the process. So no intended way for an attacker to escape and e.g. access files on your PC, if the game is vulnerable, compared to wine

joseph2024 3mo ago

It is incredible! It is amazing that they implemented the Windows kernel yourself. It is also similar to gvisor in that it is a userspace kernel. I am curious about the process of making this.