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Windows for Linux Nerds

blog.jessfraz.com

201–210 of 393 posts

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#201

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.

"a polished app environment"

If you're meaning XCode then no.

XCode is never going to draw in developers... or at least no developer I've ever talked to liked XCode.

I changed from iOS to Android development because I couldn't stand XCode anymore. Constant crashing, walled garden bullshit where I couldn't even get plugins running every time they updated, inexplicable code changes to my apps which were un-diagnosable from within xcode because they obfuscate away all layout files... It was nightmarish. I spent more time swearing at my computer than I did coding.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#202
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for some users, half the fun of switching to linux is realizing there's open source versions of all the software they used to pay for.

Why bother, when in most countries they can just pirate it?

I find no need to pirate software using linux, everything I need is available for free. Pirated software that goes un-updated is a huge security issue anyway.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#203

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.

I've been putting it even stronger for a while now. WSL is an attempt to get the horde of MacBook-wielding web devs to slowly migrate away from OSX. Once people notice they can get a grab-and-go Linux laptop at any BestBuy, and it's much cheaper than an equivalent MacBook, and it runs all games and other Windows apps natively... They'll start doing a lot more development on Windows boxes. Then, they might notice that Visual Studio is actually really damn nice. At that point, making their code Linux-Windows cross-platform becomes much easier and more interesting.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#204
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…

> The same applies to Windows 10! It works fine, sometimes, for a few things. Then it goes nuts. Wipe and reinstall (remove the Dell bloatware) and it's better The sad thing is Windows 7 and 8.1 worked just fine; they screwed up with Windows 10. I've had both 7 and 8.1 running for years without a problem. But I had a pretty clean Windows 10 installation that tried to update itself and kept rebooting and rolling back.…

I had the same problem with Windows 7. online search lead me to an official support page that described how to boot Windows in some kind of minimal mode. Following those steps did the trick for me.

Still, this problem shouldn't occur at all.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#205
post #82

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 not sure what she is talking about because you definitely do not have to copy files across. I have a git checkout on my C: drive and interact with it via /mnt/c with no trouble. I'm editing in VS Code and running git and npm in Ubuntu shell with zero friction.

Can you, for example, do os.rename to replace an already existing file with another one? That works on Linux, but chokes up on Windows as far as I remember. I wonder how does WSL handle that.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you ... wow. You're right.

She really had me with the "imagine PowerPoint in Linux without a VM!".

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#207

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…

Funny because I used to be a "Linux developer", if there is such a thing, for a long time. But nowadays I consider myself a developer who has invested my time and energy into the Microsoft ecosystem.

Why? Because never before have I felt so productive on Windows and together with my dissatisfaction with desktop linux it was an easy choice.

With .NET Core, the console actually gets usable and today Powershell is simply a fantastic tool. Stuff that used to be a pain to setup is already there when you install Visual Studio. Things like git used to be hard to have to handle (I prefer the console) but now it is no longer true. I don't even run git bash.

If you want to run stuff that usually is hard/annoying to run on Windows, for example Ruby or PHP it is today a breeze with the linux subsystem.

I use .NET nowadays and together with Azure it's just unbeatable IMO. I get start a new project and have it deployed withing minutes complete with a database. It's super easy to setup git push deploy and you can deploy from the IDE as well. Node is setup with a click, it feels like it's almost better implemented on Windows than on linux. With both VS Code and the normal VS, setting up stuff like task runners or to compile typescript is now simpler than ever.

I don't really know what devops you're talking about because I think .NET Core is much easier to run in production and you can still run it on the .NET Framework if you want that.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#208
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a corp-maintained Linux laptop; Chrome does not get along with the graphics drivers and will freak out and start flashing white every hour or so. My (corp-maintained) Linux desktop locks up under heavy load for every few days, usually recovers though. The person who sits next to me has it worse though. And this is with standardized corp-bought hardware. Any year now though.

Not an issue with Linux though, you just have incompetent tech maintenance.

That is a major on-the-desktop constituency, though: company standard builds. If companies struggle to do it, that reflects badly on the system as a solution. There is a difference between something being technically feasible, vs a realised outcome.

I have had a shot at building a standard desktop on top of ubuntu. My situation was easier than most in that we only had two desktops to support (a thinkpad and a dell laptop). still, making driver setup work seamlessly is hard. Imagine a company with twenty variations and an audit directive to not give root to users.

WSL has huge potential to this market. You get a linux ui and kernel api, and it complements your existing standard build strategy.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#209

Microsoft never made any change to its core strategy. There is no alternative platform to run Windows applications with official Microsoft support (you can name a couple exceptions, they are exceptions, e.g. SQL Server), there is no way for average developers to read Windows/Office source code. That is the best proof. Windows for Linux Nerds? I run 5 Linux machines in my study room, Microsoft would be charging me tho…

Hear hear!!

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#210

> Imagine a Linux setup where you can launch PowerPoint without a VM Wine?

Why not use a browser based presentation app like Google Slides and not deal with stupid proprietary software that won't run on anything but a windows or mac machine?

Exactly. Using non-portable formats when there are portable alternatives is simply stupid.
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