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Initial Impressions of WSL 2

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Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#11

Post by tym0 »

k__ wrote: post #4
unicornfinder wrote: post #2

I must say WSL2 has genuinely been huge for me, to the point where I've finally been able to ditch macOS for a desktop with a Ryzen CPU. Honestly it's mindblowing how far Windows has come - if I were Apple I'd genuinely be scared of losing a large proportion of power-users as Windows becomes an increasingly viable platform for development.

How does it compare to real Linux distributions? Does it have a package manager? Is it like Debian? What are the limitations?

It is an actual linux distribution. The default is Ubuntu but there are others (Suse, Alpine...)

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#12

Post by rvz »

That's great news, thinking about replacing my Ubuntu Linux install for Windows and having WSL2 if these changes and performance improvements are accurate. Windows Terminal looks pretty cool too, reminds me of Terminal.app on macOS with blurred backgrounds and theming too.

Very cool blog post!

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#13

Post by satvikpendem »

jessermeyer wrote: post #10
k__ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it compare to real Linux distributions? Does it have a package manager? Is it like Debian? What are the limitations?

WSL2 is a full blown emulator / virtualization solution, so it runs a real linux kernel / distribution. The largest downside to me is no gpu passthrough from the host.

You can even compile your own custom kernel for it. I've had to do so in order to run some modules that the WSL 2 kernel currently doesn't have.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#14

Post by tapland »

greggyb wrote: post #6

Have they gotten networking transparency working to the degree that it was on WSL1 yet? I tried an earlier preview of WSL2 and ran into a bunch of issues here.

It's still an issue afaik. But, might be because my install is old and it doesn't update that by itself.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#15

Post by greggyb »

k__ wrote: post #4
unicornfinder wrote: post #2

I must say WSL2 has genuinely been huge for me, to the point where I've finally been able to ditch macOS for a desktop with a Ryzen CPU. Honestly it's mindblowing how far Windows has come - if I were Apple I'd genuinely be scared of losing a large proportion of power-users as Windows becomes an increasingly viable platform for development.

How does it compare to real Linux distributions? Does it have a package manager? Is it like Debian? What are the limitations?

WSL gives you a full Linux distro. You can use Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, from the top of my head. These are default options. There are others available. Additionally, you can bootstrap to other distros. I know Arch was an early target.

WSL1 replaced the init process. For Ubuntu, at least, snaps were not enabled, at least out of the box. There were occasional issues early on where the syscall translation was not perfect. For me, at least, these were all ironed out after a few revisions. Unsure if there were still edges I didn't hit.

WSL2 takes advantage of virtualization technology, so should be an even better Linux experience.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#16

Post by tapland »

k__ wrote: post #4
unicornfinder wrote: post #2

I must say WSL2 has genuinely been huge for me, to the point where I've finally been able to ditch macOS for a desktop with a Ryzen CPU. Honestly it's mindblowing how far Windows has come - if I were Apple I'd genuinely be scared of losing a large proportion of power-users as Windows becomes an increasingly viable platform for development.

How does it compare to real Linux distributions? Does it have a package manager? Is it like Debian? What are the limitations?

You can run various Debian distros. It works like it should. You can run an x server and get a GUI as well.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#17

Post by mehrdadn »

k__ wrote: post #4
unicornfinder wrote: post #2

I must say WSL2 has genuinely been huge for me, to the point where I've finally been able to ditch macOS for a desktop with a Ryzen CPU. Honestly it's mindblowing how far Windows has come - if I were Apple I'd genuinely be scared of losing a large proportion of power-users as Windows becomes an increasingly viable platform for development.

How does it compare to real Linux distributions? Does it have a package manager? Is it like Debian? What are the limitations?

It sounds fancy but it's just a VM with a bit more polished Windows integration.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#18

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

> Those pain points were solved in WSL 2 by embedding a whole first-party Linux VM inside Windows

Wait so now it's just a regular Linux virtual machine? I thought it was a thin translation layer between the kernels? Kinda not as impressive now.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#19

Post by k__ »

mehrdadn wrote: post #17
k__ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it compare to real Linux distributions? Does it have a package manager? Is it like Debian? What are the limitations?

It sounds fancy but it's just a VM with a bit more polished Windows integration.

Hm, okay. That doesn't sound impressive anymore.
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