Ubuntu on Windows • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#141

Post by alkonaut » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:26 PM UTC

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #32

AlexeyBrin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well I, for one, think he has a point. Part of what makes the shell so useful on Linux is, say, highlight-to-select. When the CMD.EXE doesn't understand line breaks in copied text, it's substantially crippled. You need a proper terminal to take advantage of a proper shell. They go hand-in-hand.

Selection, copying, wrapping etc. has been fixed in the Win10 version of the console host.

In pervious versions you could always use another console like Console2, but now it's built in (although the third party options still have more features than the new built in one).

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#142

Post by tostitos1979 » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

simonlc wrote: post #90

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #46

microsoft is leveraging FOSS Linux to get Mac users. I think it's a real smart move. The author points to using grep and Xargs and some other tools to quickly update a package. That's the key here. These bash/Linux utilities are productivy boosters for all the Linux and Mac/bsd people out there. I can't imagine living without them and they're necessary for any system I develop on (which is currently a Mac).

I completely agree. I only really switched to OSX because getting node tools to work on windows and cygwin is a pita.

I've been "stuck" with a 2010 Macbook since Apple isn't refreshing it's laptop hardware soon enough. Plus I'm sick of soldered in RAM and other BS.

For devs that do heavy Linux work (but have stuck with a Mac OS for GUI/app reasons), is it time to move (back) to Windows? If so, what would be a good laptop to get at the moment?

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#143

Post by ibrahima » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

rocky1138 wrote: post #130

Is this better, the same, or worse than git bash?

Better, it seems like this is literally running the same Linux binaries as would run on Ubuntu on Windows. Git bash uses msys so those binaries are recompiled for Windows. And he casually mentioned apt, which is pretty crazy if they can actually have the standard apt repositories working on Windows without modification.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#144

Post by soapdog » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

vram22 wrote: post #108

digi_owl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats why you do it clean room style. One team to document, one team to implement based on that document.

What does "clean room" style mean, exactly? I've heard the term, but only in connection with semiconductor factories, I think. You're talking about software here.

means a group check the source and documents. Another group never sees the code, only the documentation, and proceed to implement whatever they need being able to say that they have not used the original code.

This is common in reverse engineering stuff.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#145

Post by rcurry » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

I'm just blown away by how much Microsoft is changing their direction these days. These are heady times, for sure.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#146

Post by tdicola » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

rocky1138 wrote: post #130

Is this better, the same, or worse than git bash?

Completely different. Git bash is based on msys which is a suite of Linux/Unix tools ported to compile and run natively on Windows. This is taking actual Linux programs and running them as-is on Windows. Wherever the Linux programs make system calls to the Linux kernel, etc. there is a shim layer from MS that translates those calls into Windows system calls. It's not going to be 100% perfect compatibility with every app, but will probably support a lot more stuff than msys.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#147

Post by kelvin0 » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:32 PM UTC

It's not a VM ... it's natively running on Win10

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#148

Post by mastax » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:34 PM UTC

hodwik wrote: post #48

How in God's green earth did Canonical think helping Microsoft with this was a good idea for the Linux community?

I think Canonical thought helping Microsoft was good for Canonical, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#149

Post by lazzlazzlazz » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:35 PM UTC

Will rendering Unicode characters still be a complete disaster? Will I need to care about which "code page" or whatever is being used (not that that ever seemed to help)?

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#150

Post by snuxoll » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 6:36 PM UTC

tostitos1979 wrote: post #142

simonlc wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. I only really switched to OSX because getting node tools to work on windows and cygwin is a pita.

I've been "stuck" with a 2010 Macbook since Apple isn't refreshing it's laptop hardware soon enough. Plus I'm sick of soldered in RAM and other BS. For devs that do heavy Linux work (but have stuck with a Mac OS for GUI/app reasons), is it time to move (back) to Windows? If so, what would be a good laptop to get at the moment?

Dell's Inspiron line is my go-to for portable workstations. Run Linux straight on them, or if GNOME/KDE aren't your cup of tea just run Windows and put your distro of choice in a VM (I just run Fedora on everything but my gaming PC, personally).

I'm personally using a Dell XPS 13 (2014), soldered in RAM, but I did buy an ultraportable and 8GB is more than sufficient to do my all my personal work on. Work supplied me with a Lenovo W540 that is substantially more flexible, but it weighs as much as a couple bricks and I usually just leave it at home on the dock.