Ubuntu on Windows

"Linux geeks can think of it sort of the inverse of "wine" -- Ubuntu binaries running natively in Windows. Microsoft calls it their "Windows Subsystem for Linux"."

I find it amazing that you can have such a functional Ubuntu environment by translating system calls. Microsoft does have the advantage of Linux being open-source I suppose, while the Wine project had to reverse engineer DLLs. Or have you supply them on your own.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#5

Post by xaduha » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

> Windows 10 users

> Can open the Windows Start menu

> And type "bash" [enter]

> Which opens a cmd.exe console

Right... Bash is a shell, but your interaction with it is controlled by a terminal program. Unless there are some real changes to cmd.exe t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ . You can compile a native bash and other utils now yourself, it's not that hard.

EDIT: It's more like a Linuxulator from BSD, which is certainly cool.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#6

Post by tlrobinson » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

xaduha wrote: post #5

> Windows 10 users > Can open the Windows Start menu > And type "bash" [enter] > Which opens a cmd.exe console Right... Bash is a shell, but your interaction with it is controlled by a terminal program. Unless there are some real changes to cmd.exe t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ . You can compile a native bash and other utils now yourself, it's not that hard. EDIT: It's more like a Linuxul…

> "Hum, well it's like cygwin perhaps?" Nope! Cygwin includes open source utilities are recompiled from source to run natively in Windows. Here, we're talking about bit-for-bit, checksum-for-checksum Ubuntu ELF binaries running directly in Windows.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#7

Post by AlexeyBrin » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

xaduha wrote: post #5

> Windows 10 users > Can open the Windows Start menu > And type "bash" [enter] > Which opens a cmd.exe console Right... Bash is a shell, but your interaction with it is controlled by a terminal program. Unless there are some real changes to cmd.exe t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ . You can compile a native bash and other utils now yourself, it's not that hard. EDIT: It's more like a Linuxul…

You seem to completely miss the point of what they did. It is not a simple Bash recompilation for Windows. It is a way to run Linux (Ubuntu) binaries on Windows.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#8

Post by msoad » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

So what OS you're going to get when you run an application under this? So if I run this:

    node -e 'console.log(require("os").type())'

What it's going to print?

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#9

Post by gvb » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

dukoid wrote: post #2

1. embrace

1. Embrace is good.

2. Extend can be good if done openly and collaboratively, as opposed to closed and hidden.

3. Extinguish - Here be dragons.

I'm hopeful the New Kinder Gentler Microsoft stays on steps 1. and 2. (done collaboratively).

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#10

Post by grandalf » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

zymhan wrote: post #4

"Linux geeks can think of it sort of the inverse of "wine" -- Ubuntu binaries running natively in Windows. Microsoft calls it their "Windows Subsystem for Linux"." I find it amazing that you can have such a functional Ubuntu environment by translating system calls. Microsoft does have the advantage of Linux being open-source I suppose, while the Wine project had to reverse engineer DLLs. Or have you supply them on yo…

Indeed. Perhaps it will increasingly make sense to design software for Linux and then run it on windows via this method. Over time the Windows system calls that are not needed by the linux overlay can be phased out.