Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Linux won on technical merits, but we failed to educate people about the really important part about freedom.
Because we were too busy building Google, Facebook et al.
You make a good argument for UBI.
Microsoft's Linux Kernel
211–220 of 532 posts
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#212I wish Microsoft would release their own linux-based OS with a compatibility layer to let me run Windows apps. I'm not overly impressed with the direction Apple is going but I really enjoy a *nix-native environment too much to go back to vanilla Windows. It would change the math a lot for me if it was full-blown linux under the hood.
Absolutely. At this point, there isn't much value for Microsoft to hang on to the legacy of Windows - with most of their revenue coming from Azure/Cloud and developer products, it might be time to say goodbye to that legacy and make it subsystem on a modern Linux-based system. That might also be a way for them to become more relevant in mobile devices and platforms.
> At this point, there isn't much value for Microsoft to hang on to the legacy of Windows
I would say this move by Microsoft is the exact opposite, because it maintains Windows at the centre of the picture.
Microsoft is basically saying, look you can have all your Linux goodness and best of all you can access all that goodness using your current Windows desktop.
Using WSL2 the between Windows/Linux are very blurred.
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, each WSL1 process is a Windows process. If you’re running vim in bash, for example, you’ll see “vim” and “bash” as separate processes in Task Manager. WSL is all about ELF binaries natively, just as Win32 runs PE executables natively.
"windows process" is misleading, WSL uses a separate "linux subsystem" with its own syscalls, process/thread data structures, etc. It also uses its own file system (albeit with all the state stored in NTFS and affected by filter drivers, which is why its I/O is slow)
They are Windows processes, just as the Win32 subsystem also spawns Windows processes.
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#214Please could someone point me to a practical guide for a layman on how to run Linux apps on Windows 10? I want to give users compact installation instructions for shell and Node.js apps (1) mostly written for Linux/Mac OS, but I couldn't figure out what Windows version (Professional?) is required for WSL/WSL2, and how to install it.
(1) Node.js of course runs natively on Win; however my apps makes particular assumptions wrt file paths, shared-reading/locking semantics, and spawning external shell scripts
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#215Embrace... Extend...
What has Microsoft extinguished lately?
Microsoft isn't News anymore.
Would we notice?
But to extinguish, you need monopoly power, which MS is used to swinging, but isn't quite up to anymore, despite still owning a clear majority of desktops. Apparently owning desktops doesn't give you ownership of the people who use them, anymore.
So, lately, MS is fully occupied extinguishing its own previous products. XP, check. 7? Maybe. 8? Not entirely. By the evidence they might be thought to be trying to extinguish 10.
But old habits die hard.
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#216I admire what Microsoft have done with WSL and now WSL2, it's really pretty cool. Satya has done an excellent job revitalizing Microsoft from the Ballmer days. However, WTF. Why has the "Microsoft" directory got a leading capital. I mean every.other.directory.in.linux.is.lower.case!!!!!! Look around folks! Every other vendor in that tree has their name lowercase, please respect the local customs!
Because it’s an English proper noun?
You mean like 'linux'?
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is still with Linux running in a VM though, right? I'd like a lightweight VM for legacy Windows and Linux running on metal. Given Microsoft's zeal for legacy support I'd say there's a snowball's chance in hell for this, but a man can dream.
Iirc, even the Win32 APIs sit above the subsystem layer. There was the OS/2 subsystem back in the day, Win32, and one more I can’t remember from my training 11 years ago.
posix subsystem?
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a total aside, but I really don't understand voting on comments. I've no idea what it could mean - levels of agreement, interest, offensiveness (or scores of other possibilities)? It seems entirely meaningless, therefore pointless, to me.
Upvoting moves comments (threads) closer to top. Downvoting does the opposite, and dowvoting below 0 makes comments look fainter.
This is basically it. I upvote things I want to go up and downvote things I want to go down. Off-topic meta discussions about votes should always go down.
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#219Please could someone point me to a practical guide for a layman on how to run Linux apps on Windows 10? I want to give users compact installation instructions for shell and Node.js apps (1) mostly written for Linux/Mac OS, but I couldn't figure out what Windows version (Professional?) is required for WSL/WSL2, and how to install it. (1) Node.js of course runs natively on Win; however my apps makes particular assumpti…
WSL can be installed on any version of windows 10 from home up.
Users first need to enable the WSL optional feature in their windows install, then they can install their favorite distro's userland from the windows store.
More detailed instructions here: https://aka.ms/wslinstall
Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel
#220Question for those with more technological knowledge than I have: will this allow AF_PACKET support on windows so I can run monitor mode stuff? CUDA acceleration? If I could avoid spending time getting nvidia drivers working on my laptop, that would be a massive help. And yeah, I know, I'm supposed to buy AMD stuff so I can use open source etc. But all the best hardware is nvidia, and so top hardware ships with nvidi…
These are two of their highest requested features at the moment [1] [2], and if I recall correctly they specifically remarked on passing through hardware as one of their main priorities going forward with WSL2. Unfortunately it requires some vendor support so it's not an easy task to solve right away, but I would stay optimistic.
[1] https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-con...
[2] https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-con...