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There are a ton of comments here that seem to be misunderstanding what this software is. This creates a WSL-like environment on a DOS host system. It does not create a DOS environment on a Linux host. I'm not sure where this misunderstanding even comes from; the name is perfectly analogous to WSL.
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They're both phrased unnaturally, IMO. The suffix "for Linux" strongly implies it's software for use on Linux. It's like the "4j" and "4win" suffixes, implying software built for the Java and Windows environments, respectively. What's more, Windows or DOS as an adjective of subsystem bind more tightly than "for Linux". So if you were to start dropping parts of the name, you'd drop "for Linux" first. Except you can't,…
They're both phrased unnaturally, IMO. This is why we teach sentence diagramming in elementary school. Maybe the person who came up with "WSL" wasn't a native English-speaker?
My belief (!!), back then, was that it was intentionally named confusing. Back when it came around, Microsoft was under scrutiny for monopoly behavior. They didn't want Windows to be compatible with Unix in any way; they wanted the world to run Windows (9x, NT) only. That was my belief/theory, as it is now I don't have anything to back it up as it is though. Your theory might equally be viable.
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I would imagine it's because WSL is a terribly confusing name itself for a lot of people. There are two ways to read "Windows Subsystem for Linux": 1. This is a subsystem that runs on Windows that enables Linux binaries. 2. This is a subsystem that runs on Linux that enables Windows binaries. The confusion comes in the fact that when I write those two sentences, I naturally want to write "This is a subsystem FOR Wind…
Why not use "in"/"on"? Linux Subsystem on Windows Linux Subsystem in Windows
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They're both phrased unnaturally, IMO. The suffix "for Linux" strongly implies it's software for use on Linux. It's like the "4j" and "4win" suffixes, implying software built for the Java and Windows environments, respectively. What's more, Windows or DOS as an adjective of subsystem bind more tightly than "for Linux". So if you were to start dropping parts of the name, you'd drop "for Linux" first. Except you can't,…
They're both phrased unnaturally, IMO. This is why we teach sentence diagramming in elementary school. Maybe the person who came up with "WSL" wasn't a native English-speaker?
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The WSL terminology really only makes sense if you are aware that Windows has the concept of subsystems - and which is why swapping other labels makes even less sense. I.e. the run-Windows-on-Linux thing would probably not be called Linux Subsystem for Windows, because what is a "Linux Subsystem"? And of course WSL2 isn't a subsystem anymore, but is stuck with the product name. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was under the impression that the name arose out of trademark requirements. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14093517
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_mode
[1] https://github.com/charliesome/doslinux/blob/master/doslinux...
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We have to go deeper.
There was a video where someone was running a firefox browser inside another browser using wasm. It was presented as a wacky "future history" talk... I can't find it in my watch history
https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
at about 13:10.
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Is this explained somewhere? I'd love to read how it works (without trying to understand the source code).
Author here. I am planning to do an in depth write up of how this works, but it seems Hacker News found it sooner :) When DSL is first invoked at the command line it boots up the Linux kernel which takes over control of the computer from DOS. Now here’s the trick: DSL makes use of a processor feature called VM8086 which allows for a 32 bit operating system to run legacy 16 bit code mostly natively. This feature is ho…