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Windows for Linux Nerds

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Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#61

Post by newman8r »

renaudg wrote: post #35
newman8r wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ I think the linux desktop user experience has improved exponentially over the last few years, you should give it another shot.

I was an early desktop Linux user 1996-2004, before switching to the Mac. I think I've heard "you should give it another shot" every single year since. Kiosks or super locked down experiences like ChromeOS have a decent chance at making an impact for some use cases (especially less technical/senior users) But as a general purpose desktop OS ? Still no, thanks. It's not just the lack of major commercial desktop apps (…

It's just a friendlier way of saying 'you probably weren't doing it right'

these are operating systems that reward expertise - it takes time and patience to get your workstation the way you want it. It's a time investment to learn it, to some it's worth the effort, to others it's not.

edit* and I will concede that the various linux desktop environments have learned a ton from apple's design and UX concepts, and some of them have branched off into very interesting directions.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#62

Post by nathas »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #44

Linux on Windows 10 seems like a good thing. I plan to use it for testing a Node.js application developed on Windows

You're probably going to have a bad time. Some of the lower-level network APIs are pretty buggy last time I checked.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#63

Post by sp332 »

notgood wrote: post #37
domenukk wrote: post #25

Install hyper terminal, it is a lot more bearable than the ugly default console emulation on Windows.

Conemu is where is at (for me at least), along with clink you have a lot of niceties bash has (reverse history search, etc)

I've been using the WSL bash inside Conemu. I pretty much only use it for SSH'ing to other boxes, but I spend a lot of time in it and it's the best Windows setup I've found.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#64

Post by gerdesj »

renaudg wrote: post #35
newman8r wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ I think the linux desktop user experience has improved exponentially over the last few years, you should give it another shot.

I was an early desktop Linux user 1996-2004, before switching to the Mac. I think I've heard "you should give it another shot" every single year since. Kiosks or super locked down experiences like ChromeOS have a decent chance at making an impact for some use cases (especially less technical/senior users) But as a general purpose desktop OS ? Still no, thanks. It's not just the lack of major commercial desktop apps (…

Are you happy?

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#65

Post by seiferteric »

notgood wrote: post #53
seiferteric wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cygwin is essentially a distribution, so like any distribution their packages are recompiled for that specific distribution and available in their repo. It's not too often you download a random binary for Linux and run it, but that case I concede.

Very often; every ruby/node/etc library that has at least one dependency that needs compilation ("native-extensions") can now run on Windows 10 without issues.

Huh? If it was compiling the native extension, then it would work in cygwin also?

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#66

Post by jwmullally »

santoshalper wrote: post #6
bactrian wrote: post #2

This post was interesting in a morbid way but you can count the Linux nerds that want leave the open world of Linux for Microsoft very easily. They all work at Microsoft. Microsoft is losing on mobile, desktop, servers, and IoT. Their entire ecosystem is a technological deadend. If you're a Linux Nerd, you should probably keep using Linux if you care about having a good career going forward.

Linux still sucks shit on the Desktop. I try it every year, and every year it sucks very slightly less. It goes beyond drivers and application compatibility, Linux distros are ugly and the people making them have no taste. The Desktop/Laptop market is not nearly as important as it used to be, but within that space, Microsoft's dominance is about as strong as ever. Apple might have been able to take a dent out of it i…

Yeah, I still find GUI applications crashing on modern distro's all the time :(

... but this works amazingly well :)

  $ flatpak install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#67

Post by flukus »

taylodl wrote: post #8
cwyers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Losing on desktop. Yeah, any decade now. There is of course a constituency of Linux Nerds primed to move to Windows: people who want to develop software for Linux servers but don't want to run Linux on the desktop. Many of those people are using OS X, which is POSIX enough to run some Linux software unmodified. WSL is a way to target those people, who may be being left behind by Apple's changing strategy in laptops (…

How healthy is the desktop market outside of the corporate environment? Consumers seem largely content with phones and tablets.

Still pretty healthy if you include laptops, which are functionally desktops, down a bit but still quite healthy (includes a forecast): https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-...

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#68

Post by newman8r »

jcastro wrote: post #26
newman8r wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ I think the linux desktop user experience has improved exponentially over the last few years, you should give it another shot.

Nice UIs won't fix people's broadcom wireless cards.

I have linux distros running on 3 of my apple laptops with broadcom cards - it just meant using a nonfree firmware

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#69

Post by userbinator »

If you need to access files in VolFS, you can use bash.exe to copy them somewhere under /mnt/c, use Windows to do whatever on it, then use bash.exe to copy them back when you are done.

IMHO this is the worst-designed(?) part of the whole WSL. Copying files back and forth is the antithesis of a "seamless Windows and Linux experience", to put it mildly. From that perspective it's no better than running an isolated VM. To add insult to injury, although I haven't personally tried it, apparently trying to access the files directly from Windows as if they were both on the same filesystem (which they are) results in all sorts of ridiculous breakage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12980380

I have mounted CIFS/SMB shares from Windows machines onto Linuxes and Macs, and gone in the opposite direction with Samba; in both of these cases, there is no need for wasteful copying and managing two files; Windows and Linux can essentially use the same files simultaneously.

Going in the other direction, WINE also allows Windows apps to work directly with the same files as Linux ones.

One then wonders, when a networked filesystem with all its complexity can be used nearly effortlessly across different OSes running on completely different machines, and WINE is like the inverse of WSL, why couldn't Microsoft do the same with two subsystems on the same machine using the same filesystem!?

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#70

Post by int_19h »

jancsika wrote: post #40
tootie wrote: post #22

A lot of snarky comments here, but I've been using Ubuntu shell on Win 10 for the past few weeks and it's really fantastic. Way faster than a VM and much more compatible than cygwin or msys.

> Way faster than a VM and much more compatible than cygwin or msys. More than, say, msys2? I haven't had any compatibility problems with it.

It's definitely much closer to real Linux than msys2. Don't forget that the entire userland in WSL is the real thing, not an emulation.
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