New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store • Hacker News Board

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#141

Post by apardoe-MSFT » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:41 PM UTC

corysama wrote: post #126

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #114

The primary reason I even looked at a Mac, way back in the MacOS 10.2 days, was because there is a Unix underneath the pretty interface. I bought my first Mac and never looked back. Stuff like this is making me look at Windows machines again.

I'm betting this is the real end-goal of WSL. MacBooks were once expensive, but high-quality, grab-and-go unixy development machines. Now, they're mostly just expensive. When WSL matures, any commodity laptop will be a cheap, decent quality, grab-and-go unixy dev machine. It'll probably be easier and more reliable than installing Ubuntu directly! At that point, web and server devs will migrate en mass from Mac to Win…

You can already target Linux directly from Visual Studio using either WSL or a Linux machine as the target. It uses the compiler on the Linux machine. Details here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2017/04/11/linux-dev...

And, of course, VS offers Android and iOS targeting in both C++ and .NET. The C++ info is here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2017/04/18/android-a...

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#142

Post by htsh » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:42 PM UTC

electrotype wrote: post #51

komali2 wrote: post #35

Anybody manage to make their Bash/WSL actually look good? I've got it just running in, what, cmd I guess? I don't know. Anyway it's fuckugly. I had to just set all the fonts to white on a black background because otherwise the returns from npm installs and git status and stuff would be unreadable deep blue. Don't get me wrong, I love using it, but it doesn't beat the aesthetics of a terminal on a mac or a nicely conf…

I use it with ConEmu and I like my colors... Everything is configurable. http://i.imgur.com/BHDxdOJ.png

Can you run things like nano & stop and navigate around with arrow keys?

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#143

Post by nailer » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

bauerd wrote: post #136

corysama wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm betting this is the real end-goal of WSL. MacBooks were once expensive, but high-quality, grab-and-go unixy development machines. Now, they're mostly just expensive. When WSL matures, any commodity laptop will be a cheap, decent quality, grab-and-go unixy dev machine. It'll probably be easier and more reliable than installing Ubuntu directly! At that point, web and server devs will migrate en mass from Mac to Win…

I just set up a cheap Windows 10 laptop I bought for my mom. It was the first time I got in touch with Windows again since the XP days. Can't say I'm too intrigued, imho the UI is lacking in so many points. I couldn't figure out how to get rid of that Cortana-thing in the taskbar, every window is littered with ribbons, list goes on and on and on … I don't see why I would go for Windows + WSL when I can just slap a di…

They're getting rid on the ribbon in Explorer, you can launch it with an in-beta modern UI since last month's Windows update. They'll probably complete it and make it official in the next big one.

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#144

Post by fallenhitokiri » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

Scarbutt wrote: post #87

a bit off-topic, are there cheaper ways to buy a windows 10 license than directly from microsoft for $200? (I'm not a student).

You can get an Professional OEM license from Kinguin[1] for ~$30.

One limitation I am aware of is that you can only license / activate one system at a time and I had to call MS to get the key unlocked after upgrading my gaming system.

[1] https://www.kinguin.net/category/19429/windows-10-profession...

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#145

Post by nailer » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

zadjii wrote: post #58

excalibur wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're going to need to change that window icon. When WSL meant Ubuntu it made sense. Now that it's becoming distro agnostic, it needs a more universal representation. Bring on the penguins.

That's a prerelease bug. It's being fixed :)

Since its 'bash on Windows' something modern and bash-ish would be lovely.

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#146

Post by elliottcarlson » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:49 PM UTC

petetnt wrote: post #81

komali2 wrote: post #35

Anybody manage to make their Bash/WSL actually look good? I've got it just running in, what, cmd I guess? I don't know. Anyway it's fuckugly. I had to just set all the fonts to white on a black background because otherwise the returns from npm installs and git status and stuff would be unreadable deep blue. Don't get me wrong, I love using it, but it doesn't beat the aesthetics of a terminal on a mac or a nicely conf…

I use zsh with Hyper ( https://hyper.is/ ) using "atom-dark" ( https://www.npmjs.com/package/hyperterm-atom-dark ) theme and it's quite decent sans the hideous text background colors: http://i.imgur.com/l4Oi2up.png

Same here - it works great in Hyper and is really usable.

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#147

Post by arca_vorago » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

If anyone trusts microsoft right now after the past year or two worth of things we've learned I highly doubt their dedication to a free and open source vision of the future.

I actually have a hard time beleiving some of these comments are even organic... (web and server devs are going to migrate to windows!). What world do these people live in? It's like people live in fantasy land and have forgotten the 90's truth of MS.

Embrace. Extend.

Extinguish.

RMS was and is right. Either the user controls the program or the program controls the user. Microsoft has shown they are only interested in controlling the user, and not in giving the user control.

I say this as a senior sysadmin who has dealt with every aspect of their OS's in production for a long time, and I'm fed up with it. Honestly I think Win8/10 was the final straw for me, for what it's worth.

I've since moved completely off windows to gnu+linux, despite the rough points such as gaming. It's been a freeing experience I wish more people had the guts to be a part of. I'm also heavily considering refusing to support windows systems in general, something I think we should all consider.

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#148

Post by posguy » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

corysama wrote: post #126

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #114

The primary reason I even looked at a Mac, way back in the MacOS 10.2 days, was because there is a Unix underneath the pretty interface. I bought my first Mac and never looked back. Stuff like this is making me look at Windows machines again.

I'm betting this is the real end-goal of WSL. MacBooks were once expensive, but high-quality, grab-and-go unixy development machines. Now, they're mostly just expensive. When WSL matures, any commodity laptop will be a cheap, decent quality, grab-and-go unixy dev machine. It'll probably be easier and more reliable than installing Ubuntu directly! At that point, web and server devs will migrate en mass from Mac to Win…

Huh? MacBooks are unlikely to disappear, companies love how slowly they depreciate (and are easily sellable), while it is by far the most optimized unix system out there. Pound for pound, a MacBook will last longer while doing more than a Windows or Linux laptop, despite Microsoft's and Linus's efforts to rectify this.

Why would anyone pick Windows over Debian for development if their target is a Linux boxen in a server farm somewhere? The tooling is third rate, the WSL (which is a horrible name btw) has thousands of bugs by Microsoft's own admission, and this is after years of MS laboring to get WSL into its current state.

I just don't see why you'd choose a platform that does pants on head retarded shit like making wget open IE 11 rather than downloading the file at a given URL. This isn't rocket science here, I know all the MS people across the water in Redmond & Bellevue can fix this without much work, but apparently worse than non-existent is the best MS can do.

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#149

Post by apardoe-MSFT » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

zadjii wrote: post #75

godmodus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Npm is broken for example, it's apath exception when it looks into the os api. It expects linux defaults. The npm guys are trying to f8x it last i saw. Shame the module causes that. Itll trinkle down to many other Tools.

Is this windows npm, or linux npm running on WSL? Because I believe that linux npm works just fine...

I've used Linux npm on Ubuntu/WSL without any issues.

Re: New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

#150

Post by apardoe-MSFT » Thu, May 11, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

smichel17 wrote: post #86

shepardrtc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like there's different groups inside MS that [...] Nadella either isn't willing or isn't able to wrangle them into all pulling in the same direction That's exactly how it is.

Know someone who works at Microsoft, can confirm.

I know someone who works at Microsoft (and has for 15 years.) These cartoons are brilliant--especially the org charts for different companies--but things actually are changing at Microsoft.

Some divisions change faster than others. And some old reputations are very hard to shake. But Microsoft isn't the company it used to be. There are other companies filling that role now. Example: Even though all you ever hear about is "Windows is spying on me!" I can name three big tech companies that probably know more about you than Microsoft does.