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A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

blog.jreypo.io

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Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#31

Post by michrassena »

l0b0 wrote: post #4

It seems almost inevitable that Windows will eventually become a Linux distro. Microsoft could replace incredibly resilient cruft like NTFS with EXT4 or ZFS and the registry with human readable configuration files. On the other hand, they could replace Bash with PowerShell and hopefully pressure various orgs to adopt some sensible subset of configuration formats.

I think it more likely that Microsoft continues the ABI-hosting of Linux like it is currently with WSL. It doesn't make sense for them to use third-party kernel when the one they have works well enough and supports a long legacy of hardware and software, and it's something they can maintain control over.

If Microsoft feels competition from Linux, it makes more sense for them to allow hosting of Linux as a user-space application on their platform, rather than have a user migrate away.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#32

Post by trevorishere »

dboreham wrote: post #16
josephg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand a lot of the benefits of ZFS and Powershell. But whats wrong with NTFS? Can you talk a little about the relative strengths of NTFS vs EXT4?

NTFS is a more sophisticated files filesystem but it has a worse performance under certain workloads, specifically the workload underneath `yarn install`

That'll be due to the file system filter driver[s] (i.e. antivirus). This should impact most/all file systems where the file system filter driver supports said file system.

Disable/remove the file system filter drivers and the performance issues largely disappear.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#33

Post by lights0123 »

jdsully wrote: post #11
notRobot wrote: post #8

How is this licensed under MIT and not GPL if it's a distro built on existing Linux code that's GPL-ed?

They can license their changes and userland as MIT. They would have to dual license any kernel changes with GPL though

They're not distributing any GPL code, so their changes can be under any license, including proprietary. And if they were, they'd only need to license your changes under something GPL compatible (like MIT, as they've done)—no need to dual-license. Upstream Linux already includes many parts that weren't licensed as GPL, only something compatible.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#34

Post by marmaduke »

trevorishere wrote: post #32
dboreham wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NTFS is a more sophisticated files filesystem but it has a worse performance under certain workloads, specifically the workload underneath `yarn install`

That'll be due to the file system filter driver[s] (i.e. antivirus). This should impact most/all file systems where the file system filter driver supports said file system. Disable/remove the file system filter drivers and the performance issues largely disappear.

On current pro versions, you can’t really disable the live protection constantly, but you can add a permanent exclusion for your home folder or the whole drive. This should greatly speed up operations like that. Still a lot faster to do them inside a Docker container/volume on the same Windows host.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#36

Post by 0x0EB0DA10 »

an_opabinia wrote: post #9
l0b0 wrote: post #4

It seems almost inevitable that Windows will eventually become a Linux distro. Microsoft could replace incredibly resilient cruft like NTFS with EXT4 or ZFS and the registry with human readable configuration files. On the other hand, they could replace Bash with PowerShell and hopefully pressure various orgs to adopt some sensible subset of configuration formats.

> replace Bash with PowerShell On the contrary I wish Windows shipped with busybox, so that it would be easier to run scripts with some bashisms portably.

Microsoft might chose Toybox for its zero clause BSD license over GPL.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#37

Post by pram »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #5
l0b0 wrote: post #4

It seems almost inevitable that Windows will eventually become a Linux distro. Microsoft could replace incredibly resilient cruft like NTFS with EXT4 or ZFS and the registry with human readable configuration files. On the other hand, they could replace Bash with PowerShell and hopefully pressure various orgs to adopt some sensible subset of configuration formats.

I love the idea of windows registry though, I hope it stays. With linux, i have to to poke around the file system or google "package X config location" and many programs have their own idiosyncratic rules around which config paths take precedence over others. Windows registry as implemented is not the best, but the idea of something like a central sqlite db for config is great.

AIX has a registry like thing called the ODM. I think it’s an interesting take on centralizing config on UNIX.

Fairly horrific to use, but I always appreciate unorthodox designs in operating systems. They’re exceedingly rare these days.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#38

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

marcodiego wrote: post #28
Osiris wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. Windows driver model is vastly different than Linux. Linux drivers have to be compiled for every kernel release. Windows drivers that are more than a decade old can still be installed and work correctly.

Linux drivers can work for much longer than a decade once they reach mainline. Out of tree drivers are another story.

Right, but Windows drivers are (all?) out of tree and have been for decades; they'll never get every vendor to change that.

Re: A Look into CBL-Mariner, Microsoft’s Internal Linux Distribution

#39

Post by ThrowawayB7 »

vermilingua wrote: post #35

A MS dev writing a blog on building MS’ own distro of Linux on his _Macbook_ must have Ballmer sweating bullets.

Ballmer was forced out of MS 8 years ago, doubt he cares. And anyway, IIRC, it would've been Sinofsky and co. trying to squash anything that threatened the Windows division's power.
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