Live data from Hacker News

Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

channel9.msdn.com

81–90 of 316 posts

Re: Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

#83
post #72

Dumb question: Why did they name this "Subsystem for Linux"? (Old name was Interix, subsystem for UNIX-based applications , or "SUA".) Does marketing/users believe there is a distinction between Linux as a kernel and GNU as a source for a userland? Irrelevant? Curious what others think.

The big difference is that it isn't just POSIX compatible, it is a full out "bug-for-bug" emulation of the Linux kernel specifically with an eye towards binary compatibility. Out of the box, the userland here isn't just GNU, it is entirely the same binaries as shipped by Canonical in Ubuntu.

Old Interix required retargeting and recompiling binaries, similar to how you would need to recompile to target the differences between Linux and BSD. WSL runs Linux binaries without the need to retarget or recompile specifically for Windows.

This also means that the long tail ecosystem of Ubuntu PPAs and custom binary download sites all mostly work, too.

Re: Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

#84
Just a note to anyone looking to go down this road: IO performance is still pretty awful last I checked. If your workflow is IO intensive (non trivial Rails app, let's say), proceed w/ caution.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/5ece... - My last check.

Re: Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

#85
post #2

This is coming to Windows stable in April: - vt sequences fixed (so stuff like colored output, midnight commander, etc work and the terminal doesn't screw up) - Elixir and Go work - Also Postgres and MySQL - You can launch Windows apps from bash. - inotify works - Visual Studio can compile with GNU/Linux C/C++ tools, gdb, linker etc There's some recent fast ring info on: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2…

On the fast ring Go 1.8 and Haskell are running okay as well as inotify working.

Re: Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

#87

Just a note to anyone looking to go down this road: IO performance is still pretty awful last I checked. If your workflow is IO intensive (non trivial Rails app, let's say), proceed w/ caution. https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/5ece... - My last check.

(Addendum) I did a Fast Ring update on a separate machine and did not see substantial performance improvements, but the comparison is not valid between the machine linked and the machine I tested on, so I'd be hesitant to say that the performance hasn't improved at all, just that IO performance is definitely a weak point to WSL.

Re: Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

#88

I've been running windows (using WSL for most of my development) for a few months and overall I'm very happy with it. Every non-GUI linux program I want to run works just fine on WSL, with the sole exception of (beta software) Urbit. I do miss Xmonad-like window management, but windows does have shortcut keys that do a good enough job. Emacs works perfectly well. And Anaconda ( https://www.continuum.io/downloads ) is…

Emacs has one flaw for me under WSL: the janky Windows console doesn't pass C-SPC. Meaning I have to bind set-mark-command to something else (like M-SPC), or download and use wsltty (fork of mintty).

But other than that Emacs is fine, and a lot of Linux stuff (Node, mongo, etc.) works great.

Who cares if Urbit doesn't work? :)

Re: Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

#89

Running git-bash since 4 years ago. I hate cmd. Microsoft sucks. Windows13 will be based 100% based on Great Linux

>Windows13 will be based 100% based on Great Linux

I want to believe. I'd go fucking apeshit if Windows dropped the NT kernel for Linux or BSD.

Re: Bash and Windows Subsystem for Linux Demo [video]

#90
post #72

Dumb question: Why did they name this "Subsystem for Linux"? (Old name was Interix, subsystem for UNIX-based applications , or "SUA".) Does marketing/users believe there is a distinction between Linux as a kernel and GNU as a source for a userland? Irrelevant? Curious what others think.

Yeah, the name is pretty misleading. I first thought it's about MS making something to run on Linux. It's not.
Post reply on HN