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Windows for Linux Nerds

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Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#171

Post by shams93 »

blunte wrote: post #116

Want to _really_ impress us, Microsoft? Give us a Windows Subsystem for Linux. I chose a maxxed out Dell XPS15 laptop with Windows 10 to replace my 3 year old rMBP with the (foolish) expectation that it could replace my Mac. Apple had lost sight of what mattered to developers, and I was angry. But now, 2 months later, here I continue developing and existing on my old rMBP. Bash in Windows is incredibly slow on some a…

Yeah you can run actual server daemons on MacBook pro wsl seems to be geared towards nodejs and rails development on windows, docker is far more useful for real work you can even run docker from wsl so while I make heavy use of docker as my employer forces the use if windows 10, wsl is useless for developing daemons and micoservices compared to docker for Windows 10 pro

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#172

Post by Zardoz84 »

microcolonel wrote: post #100
theossuary wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OP was being needlessly rude, it really isn't that painful. And to claim that network filesystems work seemlessly is laughable in my opinion. Though they are right, it does break the continuity a Linux subsystem in Windows could provide. It blows my mind that Windows engineers are building (and keeping up-to-date) an entire Linux compatible subsystem. That's a huge investment​, and a pile of hairy legacy code…

BlackBerry worked on running Linux binaries on QNX for quite a while before coming out with Android application support in BB10. Microsoft could be looking to do something similar.

WSL was the result of Microsoft looking to run Android apps in Windows Mobile. Eventually they dropped the effort, and rescue it to execute docker containers on Windows.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#173

Post by ulyssesgrant »

blunte wrote: post #116

Want to _really_ impress us, Microsoft? Give us a Windows Subsystem for Linux. I chose a maxxed out Dell XPS15 laptop with Windows 10 to replace my 3 year old rMBP with the (foolish) expectation that it could replace my Mac. Apple had lost sight of what mattered to developers, and I was angry. But now, 2 months later, here I continue developing and existing on my old rMBP. Bash in Windows is incredibly slow on some a…

Yes! I primarily develop on Linux, but lately have been working on Windows porting. In many ways the WSL has been a massive savior. It makes developing on Windows at least possible for Linux users. But it's sooo slooow.

The performance bottlenecks I hit seem to be disk i/o related. Things from path tab completion on the command line, to Vim's YouCompleteMe compiling code in the background, to a plain "git status", are just painfully slow right now.

If Microsoft can fix these performance issues, and someone ships a better terminal replacement (currently using ConEmu, also has issues), developing on Windows would be almost painless for Linux users (after learning how to integrate projects with Visual Studio...though I've read VS 2017 has better cmake integration).

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#174

Post by Zardoz84 »

blunte wrote: post #116

Want to _really_ impress us, Microsoft? Give us a Windows Subsystem for Linux. I chose a maxxed out Dell XPS15 laptop with Windows 10 to replace my 3 year old rMBP with the (foolish) expectation that it could replace my Mac. Apple had lost sight of what mattered to developers, and I was angry. But now, 2 months later, here I continue developing and existing on my old rMBP. Bash in Windows is incredibly slow on some a…

It's open source, it have a long history and is called WINE.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#175

Post by alternize »

jstarks wrote: post #93
userbinator wrote: post #69

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.…

I'm sorry that we don't provide a way to access the Linux portion of the file system directly from Windows yet. It's annoying, and we are working to improve it. For many use cases it suffices to symlink a Windows directory (e.g. /mnt/c/Users/myuser) into your WSL $HOME directory somewhere and do your source work, builds, etc. in that path. This breaks down if you need certain features that aren't supported on these f…

> For many use cases it suffices to symlink a Windows directory (e.g. /mnt/c/Users/myuser) into your WSL $HOME directory somewhere and do your source work

that's what I'm doing for quite a while now and works well for my workload: fast IDE on Windows 10 for coding, reasonably fast building on WSL side.

sure, file access in WSL is slower that native, but still way faster than any other combination I've tried in the last few years (VM + Shared Folders, VM + SMB, VM + file sync, ...) when lots of files are changed at once, for example when switching between project branches.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#176

Post by sz4kerto »

api_or_ipa wrote: post #138

Not sure how WSL is more compelling than using docker containers. I can very easily download, compile and run basically anything I want with minimal friction and way less domain knowledge than managing a VM. Also, this might just be me being snarky, but MS is absolutely losing the battle for developer tooling and that's what's prompted them to try to sway developers back to their ecosystem. If the circumstances were…

> Not sure how WSL is more compelling than using docker containers.

It takes much less resources and file sharing is easier. You don't need to run a VM.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#177

Post by monkmartinez »

shams93 wrote: post #171
blunte wrote: post #116

Want to _really_ impress us, Microsoft? Give us a Windows Subsystem for Linux. I chose a maxxed out Dell XPS15 laptop with Windows 10 to replace my 3 year old rMBP with the (foolish) expectation that it could replace my Mac. Apple had lost sight of what mattered to developers, and I was angry. But now, 2 months later, here I continue developing and existing on my old rMBP. Bash in Windows is incredibly slow on some a…

Yeah you can run actual server daemons on MacBook pro wsl seems to be geared towards nodejs and rails development on windows, docker is far more useful for real work you can even run docker from wsl so while I make heavy use of docker as my employer forces the use if windows 10, wsl is useless for developing daemons and micoservices compared to docker for Windows 10 pro

> Yeah you can run actual server daemons on MacBook pro

Really? Can I run those Apple specific daemons on AWS, Azure, or GCloud? How about Digital Ocean or Linode. I would love to run my Apple Automator scripts on the web too, can I?

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#178

Post by m_st »

blunte wrote: post #116

Want to _really_ impress us, Microsoft? Give us a Windows Subsystem for Linux. I chose a maxxed out Dell XPS15 laptop with Windows 10 to replace my 3 year old rMBP with the (foolish) expectation that it could replace my Mac. Apple had lost sight of what mattered to developers, and I was angry. But now, 2 months later, here I continue developing and existing on my old rMBP. Bash in Windows is incredibly slow on some a…

I share your pain! I have a Dell XPS15 (i7 4K 9550) at work and Macs (rMBP and iMac) at home. Me too I was hoping to finally get a PC that was of similar quality, given that it is just as expensive as the rMBP. But boy was I wrong!

Of course I did a clean install with just the drivers. But even like that, when it was new, I got 1 BSOD for every piece of software I installed. No joke. Even now, after almost 2 years and countless firmware and driver updates it has occasional hangs and issues. And no, you can't use the webcam as it just films your chest. And no, you can't use the microphone as it is in front of the track pad so your partner can barely hear you.

I'm using it mostly for Visual Studio. And though I still consider it the best IDE, it gets slower and crashes more with every new version since maybe VS 2010.

I'll stick to Macs at home. Thanks.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#179

Post by Moto7451 »

monkmartinez wrote: post #177
shams93 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you can run actual server daemons on MacBook pro wsl seems to be geared towards nodejs and rails development on windows, docker is far more useful for real work you can even run docker from wsl so while I make heavy use of docker as my employer forces the use if windows 10, wsl is useless for developing daemons and micoservices compared to docker for Windows 10 pro

> Yeah you can run actual server daemons on MacBook pro Really? Can I run those Apple specific daemons on AWS, Azure, or GCloud? How about Digital Ocean or Linode. I would love to run my Apple Automator scripts on the web too, can I?

NGINX, Postgres, MySQL, Postfix, etc all work just fine as OS X services and Linux Services.

The format of the init script is different but that is true between Linux and BSD or even various Linux distributions. None the less, the concept of running your services on OS X holds fast.

WSL's init however, is not a full implementation. To run a Linux service/daemon you have to resort to bootstrapping something from the Windows scheduler. That's not really the same thing.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#180

Post by sirmike_ »

eksemplar wrote: post #114

I've been a Microsoft developer for a long time, but in recent years it's become increasingly hard to justify and the Linux subsystem hasn't helped. Not because it's not an interesting feature, but because my desktop has become even more useless as anything but development than it already was with Visual Studio infecting everything. I'm sure it's a step in the right direction for a lot of people, but I bought an old…

You know, I kindly disagree. Tech is suppose to run flawlessly/with minimal effort required out of the box for the average consumer.

Power users, Devs, IT Pros and SysAdmins follow a much different path. Each one of these groups taylor's their systems to match their professional work flows. I do not know about you but I am constantly messing with things to get them just right. It doesn't take all that long but I love that I could come home to Windows and be greeted with add ons and programs which make my digital daily grind enjoyable.

Case in point WinXCorners ( http://apps.codigobit.info/2015/10/winxcorners-hot-corners-f... ) -- think Hot Corners. Love it. Throughout the years this and the Desktop spaces are Ah-Mah-Zing. They make a huge difference to me.

From the Start Menu to forced Cortana-Bing-Edge is a mess. Yuck. But there are ways around it. But that's for me. That's my personal take. However looked at from my 8 year old's perspective -- those things do not matter. When he uses it -- it works for him. He was born into the iPad touch is first world. He had zero issues adapting to Windows touch/kb/mouse paradigm. It just works for him. The parental controls through MSFT accounts are outstanding, simple and get the job done.

MacOS and Linux have yet to really nail multi-user accounts in the Desktop GUI realm mind you this is well outside of terminal land where multi-user accounts are never an issue. Granted MacOS has a leg up on Linux Desktop distros for multi-users. However this defect is compounded and made worse by the continuous client model. Iphones, Ipads, Apple Watches and Macs of all stripe were meant to be single user only. Sharing need not apply.

Use cases matter a great deal.

I am just happy I have a PAID alternative in Windows 10. Two years and they have gotten to the point where the growing pains are gone from Windows 10. WSL has matured quite a bit.

WSL SSH (the lowest hanging fruit if there ever was) works orders of magnitude better than any wonky Powershell/CmdPrompt/Putty/Cygwin ever did. VI/VIM the same applies.

Granted my perspective is from the SysAdmin/ITPro space.

There are tradeoffs to everything. There are good tools and bad tools. Use the right tool for the right job. I personally have zero tolerance for non-cross platform Apps. I put the ability to be able to use the tool or service I pay for across different platforms first. I am not a fan of lock in. I should be able to spin up a new system and get it running to working status in 15 minutes or less. I do not get too attached to one OS or another. I prize flexibility over flashy niche and sometimes uber-sexy lock in. This model forces me to constantly stay sharp and educating myself.

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