Ubuntu on Windows • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#231

Post by rsync » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #26

To clarify, it sounds like what Microsoft has added to Windows 10 is a Linux ABI. This has been done before with other x86 OSes: FreeBSD has had 32-bit ABI compatibility for at least a decade ( https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/linuxemu.html ), and the "lx branded zone" for Solaris has it as well ( https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19455-01/817-1592/gchhy/index.ht... ).

"FreeBSD has had 32-bit ABI compatibility for at least a decade"

Longer. I was using linux binary compat, in FreeBSD, to run the linux version of vmware workstation back in 2001.

It has always been very well done, and as you can see, not just running 'cat' or 'echo' linux binaries ... but full blown commercial software packages.

I had Windows XP running, as a dev environment, within the Linux version of vmware workstation, on my freebsd laptop. Worked great.

There was an oft-repeated claim in those days (the days of FreeBSD 4.x) that linux binary compat in FreeBSD would run linux binaries faster than linux would.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#232

Post by mastax » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #149

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)?

I think making unicode work properly is a prerequisite to run native linux applications, so I'm hopeful.

Personally I think they should change the terminal to unicode by default and make the 1% of pos-ported-from-windows-95 apps `chcp` before they work.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#233

Post by takeda » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

Surprised I don't see anyone else mentioning this.

This looks to me like typical Microsoft strategy that they utilized a lot 25 years ago.

1. when not leader in given market, make your product fully compatible with competitor

2. start gaining momentum (e.g. why should I use Linux, when on Windows I can run both Linux and Windows applications)

3. once becoming leader break up compatibility

4. rinse and repeat

Happened with MS-DOS, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, and others.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#234

Post by crudbug » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #228

This is great to see, as it's very similar to the approach that we took with LX-branded zones on SmartOS[1][2]. I commented at some length on the other thread on this on HN[3], but I have a bunch of questions about apps that we know to be thorny: Go, strace, tcpdump, systemd, etc. As we learned, this approach is entirely possible -- but there are many, many details to be nailed before you get to the point that you ca…

I think M$ is targeting more developers with *NIX background on the desktop side rather than Linux apps on server. So a bash support with uniform CLI is the end-game.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#235

Post by bdcravens » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

Looking at Hanselman's blog on this, was excited to see Redis running. Presumably this makes the Rails on Windows story a bit better?

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#236

Post by mbrock » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

verytrivial wrote: post #125

I remember seeing an ad for an PowerBook (oh, this first one one: http://xaharts.org/funny/Apple_Mac_OS_X_Unix_ad.html ) back in 2002 (apparently) and thinking: "Wow, now I want one." Outstanding pitch. And for the last decade and a half so have a huge number busy engineers, scientists and most recently and profoundly, web developers. Microsoft is making a very smart move here, even if it is exceedingly late.

I remember similar thoughts when the first MacBook (x86) came out in early 2006, as I was just starting university, and also thinking "Hmm, this is all probably going to be huge, and I should find out how to buy Apple stock with this ~$1200 I have... oh, no, I'll buy a MacBook for myself."

Ten years later, I'm totally bored with Apple and OS X. Especially after trying to use Xcode and the iOS Development Cloud Platform or whatever. So yeah, I'd probably switch to Microsoft Linux.

And I could totally play Counter-Strike and Diablo II while pausing from coding bash scripts? Omg!

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#237

Post by chris_wot » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

TillE wrote: post #227

icefox wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some long term thoughts: 1) Linux has won the server (web) market. Developers would like to use a Unix box to work on their server code so they typically move to OS X. This could prevent that switch because they can still use Windows to developer their Linux server software. 2) Many projects start out as Linux and stay Linux and are only ported after much time and effort to Windows. Enterprises when faced with a tool…

On a practical level, this doesn't change anything for games. Anyone writing games for Linux is already using cross-platform tech like SDL or OpenGL or Allegro, or one of the many increasingly popular high-level engines. Well, I guess it'll be easier to port roguelikes which use ncurses.

I'm really hoping this allows me to compile LibreOffice on Windows. Perhaps if I worked out how to incorporate the WINE libraries it might make my life easier...

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#238

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #139

Imagine going back in time to the 90s and telling people that in 2016 Microsoft would bend over backwards to make sure Windows could run Linux ELF binaries natively in the kernel by converting syscalls. You'd probably be laughed at.

No, they'd point to Kerberos and ask what the difference is.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#239

Post by blinkingled » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #53

captainmuon wrote: post #47

A few random thoughts: - Wow, hell is really freezing over! - The hardest part of running bash and other posix things under windows is filesystem access. Windows uses drive letters and backslashes, unix has a root filesystem with forward slashes. It seems they are taking the same route as cygwin by "mounting" windows drives in /mnt/c (or /cygdrive/c). - If you just wanted bash and some posix tools, the harder but nic…

I expect they implemented a subsystem for Linux at the syscall level - i.e. they implemented the Linux kernel's interface at the ABI level. No headers would need to intermingle with open source; compile on Linux, run on Windows.

They actually do syscall translation on the fly from Linux to Windows. I suppose they had to add some calls to Windows for things in Linux that did not exist on Windows (various console ioctls for e.g.) but it is still a one to one translation.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#240

Post by meddlepal » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 7:45 PM UTC

sixothree wrote: post #187

tostitos1979 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Thinkpad T460s. I have the T450s and like it plenty. It's definitely up there with macbook build quality.

The T540p isn't though. I hate mine.