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Microsoft's Linux Kernel

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Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#251

Post by oil25 »

hollerith wrote: post #239
oil25 wrote: post #117

We've come a long way from Bill Gates' original characterization of open source (long before it was called that) as thievery - https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes-ope... I'm still sure as ever Microsoft is no friend of free (as in Freedom, not price) software and can't help but shake my head at this latest publicity stunt. I wouldn't trust their software any further than I throw it.

"Open source" has a precise definition [1], and your comment does not use the term correctly. [1] https://opensource.org/osd In particular, if the software or "work" was never made freely available by its lawful owner, it is not open source.

Bill wrote his letter 21 years before this definition materialized and it actually served to inspire the free software/open source concept altogether.

> There is a viable alternative to the problems raised by Bill Gates in his irate letter to computer hobbyists concerning "ripping off" software. When software is free, or so inexpensive that it's easier to pay for it than to duplicate it, then it won't be "stolen".

—Jim Warren, July 1976

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#252

Post by nickflood »

hermitdev wrote: post #86
filmgirlcw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I work at Microsoft but not on Windows (and my work machine is a MacBook Pro FWIW) WSL 2 is a lot like that -- it's a VM in the sense that it uses Hyper-V, but it's super lightweight. And in fact, when WSL 2 is enabled, both Windows AND Linux are running in the same type of VM (separate, obviously), so it's near-native performance in a lot of ways. There are still some I/O issues that the team is actively…

I'm nervous about WSL 2. I use WSL at home quite a bit and I'm on the Fast Insider ring. My PC hasnt been able to boot Win10 for over a year with virtualization support enabled in my BIOS. No errors or anything, just hangs at boot. Ive left feedback in the hub, but crickets. Don't know what the problem is. It used to work, but at some point an update broke it. Not bleeding edge hardware, either. About a 4 to 5 year o…

Microsoft said that the classic WSL will be available alongside WSL2, so you'll be able to continue using WSL1 no problem if WSL2 will have issues

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#253

Post by hrktb »

meruru wrote: post #248
dehrmann wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While people nitpick over what "linux desktop" means, don't lose sight of the fact that general purpose computing is slowly dying and being replaced by iOS and Android. Roughly as many iPhones are sold per year as desktops and laptops combined.

One contributing factor to that statistic it that the phone lifecycle is a lot shorter than the desktop/laptop lifecycle. Also desktops and laptops are more likely to be shared between family members. The point is people still have access to and use traditional computers.

While this must be true for a sizeable part of the population, more and more people also don’t ever touch a desktop/laptop or only use the one at work.

Unsurprisingly, the latter case gets truer for low computer litteracy adults for who investing in a decent smartphone has a better ROI than buying a meh phone with a cheap laptop.

Anecdotally we bought our aging parents each an ipad two years ago.

They were decent but not that proficient at Windows, but got comfortable very fast at viewing/saving photos, printing, email/messaging and browsing on the ipad.

From there they gave up on their budget “my carrier gave it for free” phone to move to the iphone Xr and started doing all of the above on their phones most of the time. The laptop is now a third rank device they use to check their savings once a month.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#254

Post by rcarmo »

scardine wrote: post #114
ChuckMcM wrote: post #51

Well that is pretty nice. WSL gets that much more exactly like Linux. What I really appreciate about WSL is that you get the accessibility of a bunch of OSS projects and a machine which has legit drivers for all of its component bits. What this means to me is that searching for a "linux laptop" won't be a chore, if it runs the latest Windows it will run Linux. And I can do development on the Linux side while communic…

There are a few annoyances with WSL2. For me the most important are: 1. You can't connect to a port listening on WSL localhost like in WSL1, you have to figure out the WSL IP address and use that. 2. From WSL you can't connect to a Windows TCP port on localhost, you must figure out the Windows IP (cat /etc/resolv.conf) and use that. 3. The WSL remote interpreter on PyCharm is not working anymore. The suggested workar…

You don’t need any of that if you use VS Code’s “remote development” extensions. It has a few issues with agent forwarding and suchlike, but is getting there.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#255

Post by nickflood »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #110
marsrover wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it uses Hyper-V does this mean there will be issues using VirtualBox if WSL 2 is enabled?

The team has said its working with VMware and VirtualBox on solutions but I have no idea what those will be.

Hyper-V supports nested virtualization (only Hyper-V nested inside th Hyper-V, though), and seeing as VirtualBox supports a Hyper-V virtualization backend, the solution may be to just find and fix all the bugs in that backend code when under Hyper-V

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#256

Post by mkesper »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #199
ndarwincorn wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> classic example are laptops that dynamically switch between discrete and integrated graphics YMMV, but as far as I know that's more or less a solved problem by default (for X anyway) with DRI3. This particular complaint echoes folks (I was one) who booted Ubuntu desktop a decade ago and couldn't get wifi to work, and proceeded to complain about shoddy driver support (to present day, clearly), using only that single…

> What this ignores is that Linux driver support is generally fantastic, works out of the box in a way that desktop architects at MS dream about and is infinitely more current in practice since you go to one place to update all your software, including driver software, something MS hasn't been able to get right in a decade of trying. Generally, yes, it's pretty decent on first go and there's a nice default happy path…

Linux driver support is fantastic because it's not made by manufacturers.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#257

Post by deaddodo »

dehrmann wrote: post #240
scardine wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few annoyances with WSL2. For me the most important are: 1. You can't connect to a port listening on WSL localhost like in WSL1, you have to figure out the WSL IP address and use that. 2. From WSL you can't connect to a Windows TCP port on localhost, you must figure out the Windows IP (cat /etc/resolv.conf) and use that. 3. The WSL remote interpreter on PyCharm is not working anymore. The suggested workar…

> you must figure out the Windows IP The existence of c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts cracks me up. Supposedly [citation needed] Windows uses/used part of the BSD network stack.

It (like most every OS) used the BSD TCP/IP stack because it worked and didn’t have license encumberances. They switched to their own stack in Vista though.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#258

Post by lawik »

vbezhenar wrote: post #230
jdoliner wrote: post #6

My brain threw an exception when I read this title. Awesome that this is a reality though. Now that we have a Linux kernels running and accessible on both Windows and Chromebooks I feel like we can finally say: 2019 actually is the year of Linux on the desktop. It's not a meme anymore, it's finally just a true statement. Edit: To those questioning if this really counts as Linux on the Desktop. Yes, I understand what…

Installing Linux in VirtualBox is not hard. If anything, it's extremely easy. Microsoft does not bring anything substantial, you could use Linux in VirtualBox since forever and they just bundle it in their OS. Windows just getting worse and worse. I was amazed when they decided to develop Linux syscall layer, but now it's just extremely lazy approach. Hey, guys, we don't have enough money to build proper Linux layer,…

From what I've heard the change from the layer approach to the virtual linux was mostly related to file system performance. Does it have to be innovative if it offers better integration than VirtualBox? Or is it reasonable that they use well-known and working tech?

Also, while I think it is useful. I imagine much of the hype here is also from the weirdness of it all. Would you agree that it is noteworthy that Microsoft is publishing a Linux-kernel for Windows? It think it is.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#259

Post by gpvos »

crispinb wrote: post #223
meruru wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, I know what it does, I'm just not sure why anyone would use it. I never do normally want a comment to go up or down (other than the odd egregiously abusive or aggressive item). I may disagree with a comment, but that doesn't remotely generate in me an opinion re where it should sit in the tree. I don't think other people should or are likely to find a comment agreeable/interesting/relevant/insightful just becau…

A comment more near the top will be seen more and therefore get more discussion, so if you want that, vote it up. If you want it to get less discussion, vote it down.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#260

Post by rcarmo »

antirez wrote: post #52

Microsoft: put a good POSIX layer into Windows. The times are mature now, and this allows your platform to benefit from a lot of open source system software easily, without portings and compatibility layers. At the same time, now that developers start to be annoyed big time by Apple nonsensical Mac handling, this gives a lot of devs, not developing primarily for the Win arch, the ability to evaluate Windows as a deve…

Spot on on quite a few counts. It is a way to regain developer mindshare, drive migration to Windows 10 (a major business target since many companies are still running Windows 7, which prevents adoption of modern enterprise features — even bits of Office services) and onboard more developers to Azure, since a substantial portion of online companies run Linux.

As a long-time Mac user working at Microsoft (with Azure), this is the perfect storm. I can do everything I need on WSL 1 (except some networking stuff, obviously) and WSL 2 is going to let me get rid of Docker Desktop’s virtualization for Linux containers.

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