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Windows for Linux Nerds

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Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#191

Post by disiplus »

monkmartinez wrote: post #119
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…

Why not dual boot linux and windows 10 or use a Linux VM? It takes like 10-15 seconds to reboot a machine these days. I am about to take the plunge toward a ThinkPad after many years with OSX (I haven't upgraded my 2011 17" to macOS). My plan is to try dual booting linux and/or using a Linux VM. I think the biggest hurdle will be changing my mindset. That is, looking for the OSX version of whatever it is I am looking…

i was in the same boot as OP, ordered maxed out XPS15 whiped windows from them and installed latest version of ubuntu. but i had problems with 4K display, hdpi support in ubuntu is shit if you want different dislplays with different dpis, and wayland is still not really production ready. And then is the support for GPU, drivers for nvidia, it would get so hot that i could almost burn my hands.

so i returned the XPS and ordered a new MacBook Pro. Sure touchbar is a gimick, and i dont like new keyboard even after so much time but its better then the alternative.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#192

Post by qquark »

Zardoz84 wrote: post #174
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.

... Which, despite what I imagine is an incredible amount of effort on their part, struggles to run acceptably not even half the software you throw at it ...

Wine is unfortunately not a reliable solution for a huge number of tasks mostly populated by windows-only software (e.g. professional CAD & PCB software - and no, open source "alternatives" in those domains are NOT able to compete, which is perfectly understandable IMO). Even when you get something running, you get locked out of updates because the next version of your software might not work anymore.

When you insist on running those on a Linux system, it becomes better just running a dedicated VM, but you can then kiss goodbye to performance on 3D rendering for example...

It seems obvious to me that running windows apps flawlessly on linux is something Microsoft absolutely does not want: The migration path to a Linux-only environment and native apps would become incredibly more simple, and they would probably lose market share overall... I definitely know I would eliminate it in a heartbeat if I could.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#193

Post by monkmartinez »

arvinsim wrote: post #32
taylodl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As long as PC gamers exists, the desktop market will never die.

This is a great comment. I have never been a gamer... but now that I am moving back to windows... it just might become a thing.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#194

Post by tabletiptop »

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…

That's literally what this article was about - a Windows subsystem for Linux.

Did you read it before you retorted with like 5 paragraphs? I'm guessing not.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#195

Post by rbanffy »

thinkxl wrote: post #34
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.

More snarky than usual, i don't know why. "why not just" or "just use" kind of comments that you see more in reddit. Even someone recommended an Electron alternative, on HN! the #1 Electron hater community. Interesting.

It's not snark, or feeling threatened. It's just that lots of people (me included) fail to see the point of running Windows at all (unless you are developing for Windows, in which case it's foolish not to). If you want a Linux experience, use Linux. If you want polished applications and a Unix experience, get a Mac. Windows has somewhat polished apps (with very lax UI consistency rules), a convoluted overall experience (ever tried to debug a wireless connection?) and a Unix-like environment (and it had one from the start) both with Cygwin and WSL.

IMHO, WSL is Microsoft's attempt to compete with Mac, not Linux, by adding a Unix-like environment to Windows. I already did that with Cygwin, more than a decade ago.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#196

Post by badminton1 »

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…

Not exactly sure what desktop environment/theme or applicaition combination you were trying but I disagree.

Aesthetics is very subjective topic. But we can all agree that since Windows' Vista the focus hasn't been on eyecandy but rather functionality. Expensive visual effects are now removed and the UX is very plain, with not a lot of room for customization.

I personally use this theme:

https://snwh.org/paper

https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1013706/

Contains a GTK 3 theme, icons and cursors. Looks way better than Windows.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#197

Post by rbanffy »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but WSL looks more like an attempt at stopping developers from moving to Macs in order to get a polished app environment with a Unix-like OS underneath and to keep them in the Windows ecosystem.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#198

Post by sannee »

freedomben wrote: post #134
monkmartinez wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not dual boot linux and windows 10 or use a Linux VM? It takes like 10-15 seconds to reboot a machine these days. I am about to take the plunge toward a ThinkPad after many years with OSX (I haven't upgraded my 2011 17" to macOS). My plan is to try dual booting linux and/or using a Linux VM. I think the biggest hurdle will be changing my mindset. That is, looking for the OSX version of whatever it is I am looking…

I did almost this exact thing a few years ago and I've been super happy. Two points of advice: 1. Check hardware compatibility _before_ you order your laptop. Intel video drivers and wifi drivers are open source and reliable. Stay away from Broadcom, and unless you plan to do gaming, stay away from Nvidia (tho modern Ubuntu makes nvidia pretty darn easy). 2. Pick a DE (I recommend Gnome 3, but KDE is great too) and l…

> unless you plan to do gaming, stay away from Nvidia

Or any sort of GPU compute / machine learning. That is actually my primary reason for buying laptop with a dedicated Nvidia GPU - it sucks performance wise, that's to be expected, but at least I can play with both OpenCL and CUDA.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#199

Post by traitormonkey »

>Imagine a Linux setup where you can launch PowerPoint without a VM ...she gushes. Er Wine? or I think she may have heard of it DOCKER? Gaah. vomit.

What problem does this solve? None! You still have Windows.

fdisk that backdoored Windows garbage.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#200

Post by alkonaut »

tabletiptop wrote: post #194
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…

That's literally what this article was about - a Windows subsystem for Linux. Did you read it before you retorted with like 5 paragraphs? I'm guessing not.

What's known as the "windows subsystem for linux" is actually what I'd call a "linux subsystem for windows". I'm not the only one confused by this (So were you).

What we get from microsoft now is a small linux environment inside a windows install. What he wanted was a small windows environment on a linux machine.

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