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Initial Impressions of WSL 2

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Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#181

Post by zlynx »

exacube wrote: post #169
alibert wrote: post #154

Just a reminder that enabling Hyper-V (needed for WSL2) will make your computer boot your current Windows install inside a VM too. This might makes a slight performance impact. And you might also encounter issues with Type 2 virtualization software such as VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation. (I will still stick to WSL 1 because of that).

that seems odd; what is the performance impact of turning on Hyper-V for the root/host windows instance?

Basically no impact. At least for me. Some people seem to get terrible performance, but I don't know why. Their drivers? Or is it trying to run without Virtualization enabled in BIOS? AMD-V, VT-x, VT-d?

I don't consider it odd. It is the way a Type 1 hypervisor works. Windows puts in some effort to hide most of that from the user.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#182

Post by scarface74 »

ken wrote: post #53
scarface74 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac is 10% of Apple’s revenue. How much of that 10% do you really think are developers that would switch just because Microsoft supports Linux? Especially considering that macOS is a real certified Unix not just tacked on.

How many developers care about "certified Unix", or can even say exactly what that means? Is anyone buying Macintosh computers in order to run their certified Unix software? Linux isn't certified , and none of developers using that seem to mind. If Microsoft got WSL "certified", would any Linux user consider it a better Linux than Linux?

None.

The point is how many people care about running Linux in a VM (which is all WSL2 is) on Windows instead of running a native Unix operating system? Out of those that do care about running Linux, what is the practical difference between running Linux in a VM on Windows and Linux on a VM on Macs?

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#184

Post by jessermeyer »

tyingq wrote: post #24
jessermeyer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They say GPU passthrough is on the backlog in their post build FAQ. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl-2-post-build-...

I've been tracking that. Almost certainly AMD exclusive since, AFAIK, NVIDIA prohibits GPU passthrough on their consumer cards so VPNs are forced into purchasing 'professional' grade GPUs.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#185

Post by [deleted] »

happypants23 wrote: post #179
alibert wrote: post #154

Just a reminder that enabling Hyper-V (needed for WSL2) will make your computer boot your current Windows install inside a VM too. This might makes a slight performance impact. And you might also encounter issues with Type 2 virtualization software such as VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation. (I will still stick to WSL 1 because of that).

Just a reminder that enabling Hyper-V (needed for WSL2) will make your computer boot your current Windows install inside a VM too. This might makes a slight performance impact. That doesn't sound right. Hyper-V is a Type-1 hypervisor, so by definition the Windows installation would not be running in its own VM (for some definition of VM). And its pretty much exactly the same for Qemu/KVM on Linux, where Intel VT-x or…

[deleted]

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#186

Post by e12e »

sandGorgon wrote: post #139
tyingq wrote: post #3

No free lunch, of course. Faster file access with WSL2 (vs WSL1), if you stay in the Linux world. But if you point it at Windows files (/mnt/c, etc), it's pretty slow. WSL2 just moved the slowness from one side to the other. Accessing the Linux FS from Windows (\\wsl$\) is also slow. That said, I am a fan, and get a lot of use out of WSL1. Since I don't use the Windows interop much, WSL2 should be a performance win f…

exactly this is the problem. As the article says > To get the full benefit of WSL 2, you’ll also want to move your project files from /mnt/c/Users/ / over to your new ~/ Linux home directory on your new VHD. You can see the contents of this drive on the Network by going to \\wsl$\ \ \home or typing the command explorer.exe . from your bash prompt. >This is your Linux filesystem and it acts and behaves as you’d expect…

> i have accidentally wiped my home directory on Ubuntu VM reinstall. I cant even backup it up easily.

Normally, it'd live on an nfs mount, or a cifs share.

If you're stuck with VMs for some reason, setting up a dedicated storage appliance would probably be the way to go.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#187

Post by zlynx »

jrockway wrote: post #101
shawnz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I never had a problem with filesystem performance on WSL 1. I certainly don't think it was so bad that the whole thing needed to be scrapped in favor of a virtual machine.

Windows does something weird with the filesystem that I have never figured out. In a msys2 shell, git is incredibly incredibly slow. I actually don't even bother running git in msys2 anymore; I just use the native git in that directory. (I use msys2 to cross-compile AVR stuff.) This seems to be a known issue, but nobody knows how to fix it. (It's some UAC thing, apparently.) I imagine this is what WSL 1 used, and it…

As far as I know it's a fundamental kernel architecture decision that Microsoft can't just "fix."

From the original NT microkernel design, filesystem access is all asynchronous messaging, and it can be intercepted and modified by drivers at many points. A lot of software takes advantage of that. But it's also why caching isn't as effective as it could be, since you can't rely on all those unknown layers returning the same result each time.

Plus a lot of Windows systems are running an AV which likes to check to see if you should be allowed to read any particular file in case it might be dangerous.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#188

Post by saagarjha »

electricEmu wrote: post #171
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.

Windows can be controlled entirely by the keyboard, out of the box (Start+ArrowKey). MacOS always required extra setup with Karabiner and other tools to mostly accomplish the same thing. The BSD derived base in MacOS made a great developer OS but the windowing system often felt lacking.

macOS has full keyboard access and you don’t need Karabiner to enable it.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#189

Post by saagarjha »

scarface74 wrote: post #182
ken wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many developers care about "certified Unix", or can even say exactly what that means? Is anyone buying Macintosh computers in order to run their certified Unix software? Linux isn't certified , and none of developers using that seem to mind. If Microsoft got WSL "certified", would any Linux user consider it a better Linux than Linux?

None. The point is how many people care about running Linux in a VM (which is all WSL2 is) on Windows instead of running a native Unix operating system? Out of those that do care about running Linux, what is the practical difference between running Linux in a VM on Windows and Linux on a VM on Macs?

Apple doesn’t put time and effort into making Linux on a VM feel at home on macOS.

Re: Initial Impressions of WSL 2

#190

Post by sandGorgon »

e12e wrote: post #186
sandGorgon wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly this is the problem. As the article says > To get the full benefit of WSL 2, you’ll also want to move your project files from /mnt/c/Users/ / over to your new ~/ Linux home directory on your new VHD. You can see the contents of this drive on the Network by going to \\wsl$\ \ \home or typing the command explorer.exe . from your bash prompt. >This is your Linux filesystem and it acts and behaves as you’d expect…

> i have accidentally wiped my home directory on Ubuntu VM reinstall. I cant even backup it up easily. Normally, it'd live on an nfs mount, or a cifs share. If you're stuck with VMs for some reason, setting up a dedicated storage appliance would probably be the way to go.

Or it will live inside my linux dual boot...where it should.

If WSL wants me to migrate to Windows...they should fix this.

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