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GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

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Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#81

Post by microtonal »

uponcoffee wrote: post #65
temac wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how WSL was put in the "command line" team and they are now doing graphics, GPU, and audio (plus probably Android again) :)

There was a story a few weeks back about Microsoft working on a new android subsystem. So truly coming full circle; android OS stability (via project treble), the vm approach instead of compatibility layer approach, and improvements to hardware sharing/passthrough to wsl 2 mean that they can finally realize what they tried to do with Projecy Astoria. They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'…

They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'll have gapps//shims out of the box, but that works in their favor if they wanted to do another mobile play.

When the new EU fair market regulation is accepted, they will be able to compete with an app store op Android (or iOS):

allow the installation and effective use of third party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, operating systems of that gatekeeper and allow these software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the core platform services of that gatekeeper.

Since they already allow alternative app stores (e.g. Steam) on regular Windows, not much changes for them in this respect. But they will also be able to compete with the Play Store and iOS App Store with their own store.

Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#82

Post by uses »

When will Windows Linux happen?

I genuinely don't understand the point of Windows as it exists anymore.

  * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive.
  * Business apps work in the browser or Electron, or are otherwise cross-platform. Things that aren't, could work with emulation
  * Developers are using unix-like operating systems, and MS has leaned hard into that. Windows is incongruent with the rest of their developer strategy.
  * The server ecosystem is almost entirely Linux based, apparently even on Azure
  * By all appearances, Windows is now a service that upsells other services, and there won't be a Windows 11 as we would traditionally think of it
  * The people who know what an OS is, prefer unix-like OSes by a vast margin. The people who don't, wouldn't notice the difference.
  * x86 looks even less like the future than it did a month ago
So I don't understand what the holdup is?

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#83

Post by DannyB2 »

uses wrote: post #82

When will Windows Linux happen? I genuinely don't understand the point of Windows as it exists anymore. * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive. * Business apps work in the browser or Electron, or are otherwise cross-platform. Things that aren't, could work with emulation * Developers are using unix-like operating systems, and MS has leaned h…

The value of Windows is to run three decades of legacy Windows applications. (four decades of MS-DOS) Being able to run those still represents an actual (but declining) value.

Also the value of Intel is all that legacy software. Without the legacy software, Intel could be just another ARM or RISC V competitor.

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#84

Post by zamadatix »

uses wrote: post #82

When will Windows Linux happen? I genuinely don't understand the point of Windows as it exists anymore. * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive. * Business apps work in the browser or Electron, or are otherwise cross-platform. Things that aren't, could work with emulation * Developers are using unix-like operating systems, and MS has leaned h…

If the question is "is there something technical preventing Microsoft from pivoting to a *nix kernel instead of NT" the answer is "no, and there hasn't been for at least 20 years - if ever".

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#85

Post by folkrav »

uponcoffee wrote: post #70
folkrav wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until they allow USB passthrough (which is more or less blocked by the fact that Hyper-V itself doesn't seem to have the feature), a whole bunch of my use cases are basically barred from WSL2. Shame, cause otherwise I really, really enjoyed using it - coming from a guy who's been on Linux for 99% of his time for ~15 years at this point.

Wsl 2 is really cool, right up until you want/need to do anything with the underlying hardware. No usb passthrough, no hardware acceleration, gpu passthrough is there but it's still early stages as performance is about half of native and vendor tooling is absent, etc It's getting better all the time though - they tease usb passthrough might be doable as it's already supported with remote desktop

Yeah it's actually pretty damn good. Performance was better than it was with WSL1 for me, at least (especially IO). IIRC they are exploring USB passthrough using Hyper-V sockets, but it's still very early to actually talk about having that included[1]

Once they figure that out I might just as well be able to switch over and stop dual booting. I hate dual booting more than I hate Windows, so it would be an improvement.

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/2195#issuecomment-74...

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#86

Post by folkrav »

dhimes wrote: post #75
folkrav wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until they allow USB passthrough (which is more or less blocked by the fact that Hyper-V itself doesn't seem to have the feature), a whole bunch of my use cases are basically barred from WSL2. Shame, cause otherwise I really, really enjoyed using it - coming from a guy who's been on Linux for 99% of his time for ~15 years at this point.

uh oh. I intend to use only external HDs on my new box (the SSD HD is small) and if I can't mount a USB it ain't gonna work. I can do it fine in WSL1.

WSL2 is backed by an actual virtual machine, so it comes with the limitations of its hypervisor (Hyper-V). Hyper-V doesn't support full USB passthrough. AFAIK it does support passing down USB volumes though.

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#87

Post by jen20 »

uses wrote: post #82

When will Windows Linux happen? I genuinely don't understand the point of Windows as it exists anymore. * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive. * Business apps work in the browser or Electron, or are otherwise cross-platform. Things that aren't, could work with emulation * Developers are using unix-like operating systems, and MS has leaned h…

I think may be very much underestimating the number of line of business apps built as Windows GUIs over the last 30 years - not to mention server software running on IIS and similar.

I also think you're underestimating the number of developers who know Visual Studio and Windows and nothing else (many of whom are the so-called "dark matter" devs).

On top of this, the NT kernel is actually pretty decent - despite the horror of the Win32 API. Personally, I don't want to touch it though.

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#88

Post by claudiawerner »

uses wrote: post #82

When will Windows Linux happen? I genuinely don't understand the point of Windows as it exists anymore. * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive. * Business apps work in the browser or Electron, or are otherwise cross-platform. Things that aren't, could work with emulation * Developers are using unix-like operating systems, and MS has leaned h…

> * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive.

To some, that's not a relevant fact. Consider someone like me who plays only one game that's only for Windows and consoles. It's never been released on Linux and I had a terrible experience playing under Wine.

I got a KVM switch to play it on my secondary PC. I think there are a lot of people out there for whom one game or one app doesn't work or only works poorly on Linux, and they keep a Windows PC or dual boot just for that.

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#89

Post by temac »

microtonal wrote: post #81
uponcoffee wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a story a few weeks back about Microsoft working on a new android subsystem. So truly coming full circle; android OS stability (via project treble), the vm approach instead of compatibility layer approach, and improvements to hardware sharing/passthrough to wsl 2 mean that they can finally realize what they tried to do with Projecy Astoria. They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'…

They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'll have gapps//shims out of the box, but that works in their favor if they wanted to do another mobile play. When the new EU fair market regulation is accepted, they will be able to compete with an app store op Android (or iOS): allow the installation and effective use of third party software applications or software application stores using, or inter…

It's already possible to have other app stores than Play Store on Android, even simultanously. I think some features are reserved to Play Store in practice (to stores pre installed on the phone) so there could be some improvement on this point.

Re: GWSL: Run graphical Linux apps in WSL

#90

Post by jayd16 »

uses wrote: post #82

When will Windows Linux happen? I genuinely don't understand the point of Windows as it exists anymore. * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive. * Business apps work in the browser or Electron, or are otherwise cross-platform. Things that aren't, could work with emulation * Developers are using unix-like operating systems, and MS has leaned h…

> * Games are developed on cross platform engines. I can't remember the last game I played that was Windows-exclusive.

The Unity editor doesn't have full Linux support (its coming "soon"), for example. Neither do a lot of other tools.

Hopefully we'll get there.

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