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Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#71

Post by MrFlynn »

sbarre wrote: post #67
dump121 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strategic View is simple I believe, they want developers back in there fold. MS sells Windows and most devs have no problem with its UI but want to use linux CLI, also some new tools/languages are developed only/first for Linux. Now OSX being compatible has captured this lucrative marketshare. Having good developers using Windows will be a great boost for ecosystem, a percentage may choose to experiment with UWP, a r…

This is exactly me. When I can start running Linux(-ish) command line tools in Windows, I'll ditch my Macbook for a Dell in a hot second.. Here's a question though that I seem to not see answered (but maybe I'm not reading enough): Can I run MariaDB or nginx or other "servers" in this environment? Or does that stuff not work?

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to. Then again, some tools don't seem to work for some inexplicable reason (ex screen).

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#72

Post by MrFlynn »

MichaelGG wrote: post #56
sdegutis wrote: post #4

ELI5: What does this mean to me, as a developer who's really familiar with (and prefers) Linux, but has to use Windows? What cool possibilities will this "Linux Subsystem For Windows" open up to me? What things will it specifically not open up to me?

If I can figure out if W10 can turn off its spyware, it'll allow me to ditch VMware for most use cases. Since you can run a Windows X server, I can use graphical emacs. If perf is good enough, I'll run a whole WM like XMonad and use Firefox and stuff inside it.

I found that this tool works pretty well for disabling telemetry: https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#73

Post by flomo »

sbarre wrote: post #68
flomo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And WSL could potentially be a much better experience than OS X's "real Unix" with Homebrew and etc. The paths and base configuration will match your production environment, no worries about version mismatches or missing extensions. Ubuntu packages generally come with a sane and ready-to-run configuration, with service scripts and the like. (I use pkgsrc which seems more polished than Homebrew, but the installing exp…

I think "Linux subsystem for Mac" is stuff like Vagrant, where you can still work on your dev projects locally/natively but they're shared into a Linux environment that can be set up to mimic your production environments.. This can be done today on Windows too of course, even without this new fancy thing.

Sure, the serious use case is a VM or Docker or etcetera-virtual based solution. However I must have a couple dozen maintenance-mode projects on my system and there's a certain appeal to alt-tabbing from MS Excel or Photoshop to a console window and typing `service start foo` (or the launchd equivalent).

There are still a gazillion people using WAMP (and so on) as a bad impersonation of their production environment, so this fills a role.

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#74

Post by supernovae »

sbarre wrote: post #67
dump121 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strategic View is simple I believe, they want developers back in there fold. MS sells Windows and most devs have no problem with its UI but want to use linux CLI, also some new tools/languages are developed only/first for Linux. Now OSX being compatible has captured this lucrative marketshare. Having good developers using Windows will be a great boost for ecosystem, a percentage may choose to experiment with UWP, a r…

This is exactly me. When I can start running Linux(-ish) command line tools in Windows, I'll ditch my Macbook for a Dell in a hot second.. Here's a question though that I seem to not see answered (but maybe I'm not reading enough): Can I run MariaDB or nginx or other "servers" in this environment? Or does that stuff not work?

You can certainly run MariaDB. All you need to do is "apt-get install mariadb-server". The Linux subsystem is the entire Ubuntu 14.04 system. I love my Surface Pro 4 with latest Windows 10 release, only 1 week or so to go before its outside preview program. Look forward to see what Devs come up with. Some of the cooler stuff I've seen is using the Linux shell with Visual Studio Code as the shell on a windows system.

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#75

Post by supernovae »

dingo_bat wrote: post #57
DocG wrote: post #53

How stable is it? I've been playing around with the idea installing it on my only (dev)machine. I dont expect the ubuntu subsystem to work perfectly but my old workflow to be stable. Edit: I am regularly suprised that nano filename does not open quick edit in my machine. And then I remeber I am working in my local machine.

It's pretty stable. But also pretty useless. Fun to play around and use a bit of byobu. I had a repo that wouldn't check out in windows because of some file names. But bash on Ubuntu on Windows worked like a champ. But as I said, the utility is limited. If you really need the Linux kernel, this is useless. If you don't, then everything is already available on Windows natively.

THis makes no sense.. Most people don't comprehend that it's not just bash, its the entire Ubuntu user space. You can run Ubuntu apps just by running apt-get. VI, Ruby, Golang, Rust. You can set Bash as your debug shell in VS Code, you can have all your familiar SSH keys/forwarding/scp tools.. Of course there is a ton of windows native stuff, but in essence this makes Linux native so now you have just that much more.

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#76

Post by supernovae »

dvlsg wrote: post #6
sdegutis wrote: post #4

ELI5: What does this mean to me, as a developer who's really familiar with (and prefers) Linux, but has to use Windows? What cool possibilities will this "Linux Subsystem For Windows" open up to me? What things will it specifically not open up to me?

I think the gist of it / watered down version is that you would be able to compile / run a good amount / most Linux (ubuntu) applications natively-ish in Windows. For example, I read a blog where someone pulled down the redis source, compiled it, and was running it in wsl. That would be great for me, because it means I can just run redis in my dev environment, instead of turning on a vm to run redis (I know windows p…

You don't even need to compile it, just install the apt repo (if not already bundled in Ubuntu 14.04 defaults) and run apt-get install yourapp.

This subsystem runs the exact binaries that you would run in your native boot system.

It's as simple as "apt-get install redis-server redis-tools"

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#77

Post by SwellJoe »

mannimow wrote: post #27
SwellJoe wrote: post #16

I just got a new laptop, and as it doesn't have an optical drive and I couldn't find a USB flash drive in order to install Linux, I've kinda been stuck on Windows for a few days. I installed WSL a few days ago. Installation is a ridiculous process, and takes about 24 hours for the service to finally appear after you follow the steps to make it happen, which is not well-documented and just feels idiotic to a Linux use…

You are talking about enabling insider preview which takes around a day to kick in and offer you the update. Since bash on windows is not included on the stable "branch" you have to go through the hoops to get it. This has nothing to do with the feature itself, which takes even less to install than pulling the Ubuntu image off docker hub.

I found it really clunky. I wanted a thing, and it made me wait nearly two days to get that thing; and it was confusing, to boot; I kept following the instructions and not seeing the service I expected to see. I now understand the process and what it was doing during all that time (er, actually, I still don't know what it was doing during all that time, but I understand it was working as designed in making me wait), I just think it is a clunky process that exhibits one of the bigger weaknesses of Windows. Windows simply handles updates and packages extremely poorly compared to Linux.

It's interesting that the answers I've gotten about it being a poor user experience are all basically of the form, "No, that's how it is supposed to work. It isn't a poor user experience." Have y'all not used Linux before? I mean, apt-get and yum are really something special, if you're coming from systems (like Windows or Mac OS) that don't have good package management. Having one universal method to install and update everything on your system, including OS updates, is just wonderful.

Nonetheless, Windows 10 is the best Windows I've used (ignoring the privacy concerns among other things), and I like WSL. It's cool technology and fun to play with. I'm probably installing Linux tonight or tomorrow, but it was a fun week of tinkering with something new to me.

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#78

Post by ctolkien »

SwellJoe wrote: post #77
mannimow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about enabling insider preview which takes around a day to kick in and offer you the update. Since bash on windows is not included on the stable "branch" you have to go through the hoops to get it. This has nothing to do with the feature itself, which takes even less to install than pulling the Ubuntu image off docker hub.

I found it really clunky. I wanted a thing, and it made me wait nearly two days to get that thing; and it was confusing, to boot; I kept following the instructions and not seeing the service I expected to see. I now understand the process and what it was doing during all that time (er, actually, I still don't know what it was doing during all that time, but I understand it was working as designed in making me wait),…

>I found it really clunky. I wanted a thing, and it made me wait nearly two days to get that thing

That "thing" isn't officially released yet, hence the hoops.

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#79

Post by dingo_bat »

supernovae wrote: post #75
dingo_bat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty stable. But also pretty useless. Fun to play around and use a bit of byobu. I had a repo that wouldn't check out in windows because of some file names. But bash on Ubuntu on Windows worked like a champ. But as I said, the utility is limited. If you really need the Linux kernel, this is useless. If you don't, then everything is already available on Windows natively.

THis makes no sense.. Most people don't comprehend that it's not just bash, its the entire Ubuntu user space. You can run Ubuntu apps just by running apt-get. VI, Ruby, Golang, Rust. You can set Bash as your debug shell in VS Code, you can have all your familiar SSH keys/forwarding/scp tools.. Of course there is a ton of windows native stuff, but in essence this makes Linux native so now you have just that much more.

>You can run Ubuntu apps just by running apt-get. VI, Ruby, Golang, Rust

But I already have vim, ruby, golang and rust natively on Windows. I agree it's cool. But still pointless.

>You can set Bash as your debug shell in VS Code, you can have all your familiar SSH keys/forwarding/scp tools.

I can install vscode on Linux directly. And again, ssh, scp, etc is already there on Windows.

Re: Fun with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#80

Post by nitrogen »

MrFlynn wrote: post #71
sbarre wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly me. When I can start running Linux(-ish) command line tools in Windows, I'll ditch my Macbook for a Dell in a hot second.. Here's a question though that I seem to not see answered (but maybe I'm not reading enough): Can I run MariaDB or nginx or other "servers" in this environment? Or does that stuff not work?

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to. Then again, some tools don't seem to work for some inexplicable reason (ex screen).

I haven't tried W10 at all, but it's likely they didn't implement all of the terminal features required by screen, or that they did, but $TERM is set to something not recognized by [the terminal library that presumably underpins] screen.

For any new programmers who want to learn more, search for "ANSI escape codes", VT100, "terminal emulation", termcap, and terminfo. Maybe add curses and pseudoterminal for extra credit.

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