Pengwin – A Linux Distro Optimized for WSL Based on Debian • Hacker News Board

Re: Pengwin – A Linux Distro Optimized for WSL Based on Debian

#91

Post by GordonS » Sun, Apr 14, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

jamesgeck0 wrote: post #70

h1d wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get it that WSL is easy for anyone to use but why not just run a real Linux in VMware or VirtualBox and you'll have 100% compatible Linux environment. Prebuilt OS image is just a single download and deploy.

Because I don't need a 100% compatible environment. WSL has better host integration and better performance in my experience, and it runs my development stack fine.

Was going to say much the same thing, plus it starts instantaneously, vs a minimum of several seconds for a VM

Re: Pengwin – A Linux Distro Optimized for WSL Based on Debian

#92

Post by yellowapple » Sun, Apr 14, 2019, 8:10 PM UTC

xfer wrote: post #90

yellowapple wrote: post #89

Is this actually a Linux distro, though? I've long held that "WSL" is a misnomer; it happens to be compatible with binaries compiled for Linux, but given that no Linux code is actually present, this would really be Debian GNU/NT.

What? WSL emulates linux syscalls and vfs, how is this a misnomer?

It's a misnomer because it's not actually Linux (nor does it even wrap/include Linux in any way), just like how Wine isn't actually Windows (if it was Linux, then Microsoft is blatantly violating the GPL). Most charitably, it's less "Windows Subsystem for Linux" and more "Windows Subsystem for Programs Compiled for Linux".

Re: Pengwin – A Linux Distro Optimized for WSL Based on Debian

#93

Post by wsargent » Fri, Apr 19, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

Started using this yesterday, with the X410 X11 install.

The nicest thing has to be running IntelliJ from X11 and have it see the linux filesystem.

I can run a Yubikey with weasel-pageant and get GPG signing and SSH keychain access to github through it -- it pops up a Windows PIN entry dialog box and then works fine thereafter. You can use wslutilities (wslusc) to set up windows shortcuts to your Linux applications. I use ConEmu as my shell and it's fine.

There is a problem with HiDPI screens. I've worked around this by increasing the font size in IntelliJ, but VS Code shows up as teensy tiny.

The worst part has to be the documentation. The docs for "pengwin-setup" is basically a bunch of screenshots on their blog.