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New Distros Coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store

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

#221
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…

WSL running fish in mintty (https://mintty.github.io/)

Shell - http://imgur.com/CeotBpF Neovim - http://imgur.com/HI3u2mA

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

#222
As much as I wish this could be compared to what Apple did with MacOS, it's not an apt comparison. Microsoft is essentially bolting on a Linux distro whereas Apple rebuilt MacOS from the ground-up using NeXTSTEP. What Microsoft is doing is more akin to something like Cygwin, except Microsoft is developing it and you can choose your distro. You might have better integration between Windows and Linux, but it's hardly a rethink. I would really like to see a commercial grade UNIX alternative to Mac brought to us by Microsoft, but it doesn't appear they are headed in that direction.

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

#223
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…

You can use Conemu, ConsoleZ or a number of other console applications for Windows with it. As a network engineer it's almost useless to me, ping, traceroute, mtr etc don't work. Neither does ssh tunneling. No ssh server. Still using Cygwin for those reasons.

Most of these problems have been fixed as of the January Creators Update for Windows 10.

SSH server is still iffy, because Windows 10 comes with an SSH server (not OpenSSH), which you'll have to disable. It was very weird to try to SSH into WSL and get a cmd.exe prompt.

Also, once you install opensshd with apt, the server is only active while its terminal window is open (since closing the terminal window kills the WSL init process).

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

#224
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When WSL matures, any commodity laptop will be a cheap, decent quality, grab-and-go unixy dev machine Well, you know, they _already_ are. We don't have to wait for anything. And even cheaper, if you can avoid paying the windows tax ;)

Yeah, do we really want to run an open garbage fire of an OS that is known as Windows 10 for a daily driver? I know I'd get murdery if I lost all my hot corners, multi-desktop, etc cause that is what makes me productive. Other people who don't like Gnome 3 take pleasure in using i3 or AwesomeWM, which both are major steps up over Win10's UI. At this point, the Windows platform is a rotting cesspool, the devs focused…

Multiple desktops are built in. If you spent any time on the platform you'd understand that Windows under Satya Nadella is good stuff. He is the anti-Ballmer.

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

#225
post #45
post #42

I missed the Windows 10 free upgrade and now regretting it.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/accessibility/windows10upgra... Still free to upgrade

Does it provide a trimmed down version of the upgrade? Will I be able to use Ubuntu subsystem?

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

#226

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 saying this now; POSIX will never be a first class citizen on windows - we might get shims in /proc and /dev, but windows will never run from POSIX. as long as Win32 exists (and lets face it, that's not going away for a long time), we're basically stuck with running a docker container with linux on it in windows. and that might be all you need. but for many *nix people, this is no where near enough.

This is not a container implementation. Microsoft transcoded Linux system calls to Windows kernel calls. It runs efficiently and natively.

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

#227
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

POSIX is a standard. Windows has yet to provide a consistent way how to obtain the OS version across releases. Then we can maybe talk about standardizing apps communications.

Uh, that may not be the best example. Are you aware of a reliable way to retrieve the OS version across all POSIX OSs? Because if you are, I would love to hear it.

Probably, but MS is a single vendor, with one (sort of) brand of an OS. They have full control over it.

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

#228
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The repairable/upgradable thinkpads are probably better in this regard

Why would you want to repair/upgrade (and so pay the salaries of hardware IT staff) when you could get business-leased commodity computers with scheduled "upgrades" by return-for-replacement, for the same cost?

Because Apple isn't immune to screwing up the 'commodity' and plenty of shops are holding off on the new mbp because of the unless touch bar, degraded keyboard, and poor choice of ports. This is a great time for MS to push for this audience and things like WSL are great foundations.

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being able to run a full linux userland on top of the NT kernel is fucking cool. I could do that before with virtualbox. What kind of benefits besides slight speed increases would we see using the posix WSL? >It's not about controlling the user. It's the complete opposite. It's all about choice. If I create a prison for you, but then let you choose your cell, do you consider that a valid choice? That's what this is…

come on, there's no need to be disingenuous here - having the linux userspace run atop the windows kernel is much closer to docker than virtualization.

Fair point here, but in reality it changes none of my other arguments. If anything, replacing the linux kernel with the windows kernel and then giving the user half the userspace programs is still bad in my book.

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

#230
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! Was that hard to set up?

I had to test a couple of variations before being happy because the same colors are used in all types of terminal (I use regular cmd and Bash). Sometimes one color is great in one type of terminal but is clashing with another color, for a particular use case, in the other terminal! http://i.imgur.com/9Dx79vq.png (By the way, there is a color picker when you click a color)

>Sometimes one color is great in one type of terminal but is clashing with another color, for a particular use case, in the other terminal!

Fortunately there is an "app distinct" option in the settings. You can pick different color profiles for different programs.

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