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Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

zdnet.com

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Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#11

Post by geofft »

simonblack wrote: post #3

I suggested on Mini-Microsoft about 10 years ago that Microsoft do an 'Apple'. Apple took a free OS from BSD and put their own GUI over the top of it. I suggested that MSFT do the same sort of thing, that being to put their Windows GUI on top of the Linux OS instead of using the Linux X11 GUIs. This had the advantage that the underlying OS base would no longer need maintaining by Microsoft, and all their coding effor…

Apple only needed to support their own hardware. Microsoft would need to make Linux work wherever NT works, and would need to figure out a solution for third-party closed-source NT drivers.

Besides, in a sense, Microsoft did this when they moved the desktop product line to NT. It wsa a similar compatibility break and a similar improvement in stability and switch to a robust, multiuser, preemptively-multitasking kernel as classic Mac OS to XNU; it's just that the kernel Microsoft already had in house was NT, and the one Apple/NeXT had was XNU.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#13

Post by Ari_Ugwu »

simonblack wrote: post #3

I suggested on Mini-Microsoft about 10 years ago that Microsoft do an 'Apple'. Apple took a free OS from BSD and put their own GUI over the top of it. I suggested that MSFT do the same sort of thing, that being to put their Windows GUI on top of the Linux OS instead of using the Linux X11 GUIs. This had the advantage that the underlying OS base would no longer need maintaining by Microsoft, and all their coding effor…

For the longest time I assumed MS would buy Ubuntu.

I'm not a .NET dev currently running PopOs on my XPS 13. VS Code is my primary editor for all things. If MS released a desktop that looked this good and came batteries included for their tool chains and services I'd hop in a heart beat.

My only guess is that doing so would lower consumer confidence in the corporate space? I know Chrome books are making a push there and the psychological factor of "it's not Windows" does seem to be a competitive advantage for MS (for now).

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#14

Post by daeken »

j1vms wrote: post #5
simonblack wrote: post #3

I suggested on Mini-Microsoft about 10 years ago that Microsoft do an 'Apple'. Apple took a free OS from BSD and put their own GUI over the top of it. I suggested that MSFT do the same sort of thing, that being to put their Windows GUI on top of the Linux OS instead of using the Linux X11 GUIs. This had the advantage that the underlying OS base would no longer need maintaining by Microsoft, and all their coding effor…

Never too late for them to make a go for it, even today. But, to avoid alienating their huge existing developer community, they would first do well to get behind Mono [0] and maybe even, make it official (edit: Mono is "Sponsored by Microsoft", so already quite official indeed). In fact, as of 2014, there have been very promising signs in that direction. [1] [0] https://www.mono-project.com/ [1] https://opensource.co…

Mono isn't sponsored by Microsoft; they bought it. They also publish an insane number of things completely open source, developing them in the open. .NET Core being a huge one, but ASP.NET, VSCode, ChakraCore, TypeScript, and so many others. There are 2181 repositories in the MS Github account.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#15

Post by geofft »

> In addition, for several years now, Microsoft's WSL developers have been working on mapping Linux API calls to Windows and vice-versa. A lot of the work needed for Windows apps to run without modification on Linux has already been done.

This argument makes little sense: that "vice versa" is wholly unsubstantiated and without it the rest collapses. Making Linux binaries work on NT (which already has a subsystem concept; Interix proved that this could be done) in a way where they interact little with the Windows desktop, and making not just NT binaries but Win32 binaries work smoothly on Linux, are almost entirely unrelated problems.

It is true that MS owns the code necessary to make this happen, that WINE is an existence proof that it can be done shockingly well even without that code, and that there is both code and expertise at MS for stuffing Linux concepts and NT concepts in the same kernel. But that's about it.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#16

Post by geofft »

j1vms wrote: post #5
simonblack wrote: post #3

I suggested on Mini-Microsoft about 10 years ago that Microsoft do an 'Apple'. Apple took a free OS from BSD and put their own GUI over the top of it. I suggested that MSFT do the same sort of thing, that being to put their Windows GUI on top of the Linux OS instead of using the Linux X11 GUIs. This had the advantage that the underlying OS base would no longer need maintaining by Microsoft, and all their coding effor…

Never too late for them to make a go for it, even today. But, to avoid alienating their huge existing developer community, they would first do well to get behind Mono [0] and maybe even, make it official (edit: Mono is "Sponsored by Microsoft", so already quite official indeed). In fact, as of 2014, there have been very promising signs in that direction. [1] [0] https://www.mono-project.com/ [1] https://opensource.co…

Microsoft acquired Xamarin, the corporate sponsors of Mono, in 2016.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#17

Post by Ari_Ugwu »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #4

They could and they should. Linux is an amazing OS and to have a great UI on top of it that millions of people are comfortable with would be tremendous. Think about it. The year of Linux on the desktop brought to you by Microsoft.

They should buy elementary OS.

System_76 borrowed heavily from elementary OS to create Pop_Os which is a dream. Now that I'm saying it I hope they just swallow a little pride and become a major contributor to Pop_Os.

Every devops and net admin I know would wiggle with joy to be issued a Dell XPS 15 + Pop_Os tuned with PowerShell and other MS tool chains fully supported.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#20

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

innagadadavida wrote: post #7
simonblack wrote: post #3

I suggested on Mini-Microsoft about 10 years ago that Microsoft do an 'Apple'. Apple took a free OS from BSD and put their own GUI over the top of it. I suggested that MSFT do the same sort of thing, that being to put their Windows GUI on top of the Linux OS instead of using the Linux X11 GUIs. This had the advantage that the underlying OS base would no longer need maintaining by Microsoft, and all their coding effor…

While Linux is faster and more scalable, Using BSD like Apple has many advantrges - especially when there are thousands of closed-source windows drivers which will never be released as open source. The other big hurdle is the sad state of Linux graphical facilities in the kernel. For Apple, this was never a problem due to limited hardware choices.

Well if I were them I'd implement my own stable driver ABI so companies wouldn't be forced to open source them (like it really makes a difference anyway with all the firmware blobs) and you wouldn't have to recompile every single driver for every single kernel revision. I'd also move more stuff into user space like they did in Windows, which is why a video or sound driver crash usually just wigs out the screen for a second instead of crashing the whole system.

Given that, maybe it would also be possible to implement a compatibility layer so some amount of current Windows drivers could be used anyway. I don't know if that's feasible, but if it is they're in a position to pull it off.

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