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Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

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Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#241

Post by midwestemo »

mmgutz wrote: post #239

Can you run whole desktop environments like XFCE, Gnome; or run a Window Manager like i3? I'm a long time VMware user and never really used Unity (name?) view which allows running Linux apps seamlessly on Windows or Mac. WSLg seems to be the same feature.

I don't know about WSLg specifically but last time I heard if you runs a x server with an application like VcXsrv, install XFCE and configure it to use the x server. You can pretty much run XFCE or any other desktop environment in WSL. I don't know about the performance however.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#244

Post by Stratoscope »

reilly3000 wrote: post #31

I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘you never have to leave Windows’ is a nice thing for their business, but I don’t see this being a reason I would stop dual-booting. The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games. Otherwise I really enjoy the bloat-free, ad-fre…

Even though our dev environment at work is Ubuntu, I greatly prefer running Windows on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, because of the superior hardware support for the devices I use. Specifically:

• I spend a fair amount of time on Zoom calls (who doesn't?), and I like to use my Apple AirPods so I can move around while we talk. I was never was able to get these or any other Bluetooth headset to work on Ubuntu. They pair only as headphones with no microphone. On Windows they work "out of the box".

• I use a triple-monitor configuration with three 4K displays: the ThinkPad's internal 15" display and two 24" externals. In Ubuntu I can only get two displays to work. (BTW one external display is in landscape mode above the ThinkPad, and the other is to the left in portrait mode. I highly recommend this configuration - the portrait mode display is great for reading docs and especially PDF files.)

• I run the external displays at 200% scaling and the internal at 300% to match the differing pixel density. I didn't see any way to support this configuration in Ubuntu, much less be able to move an app window between displays and have it automatically update its scaling factor to match the display. This works "out of the box" in Windows.

So I run Windows on the hardware and Ubuntu with my dev tools like PyCharm and SmartGit in a VMware VM. (VMware works a lot better for this than VirtualBox - the display response is much snappier.)

Of course these are my own needs, and I have no quarrel with anyone who has different preferences. But I welcome anything Microsoft can do to make this an even smoother experience than it already is.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#245

Post by p2t2p »

Stratoscope wrote: post #244
reilly3000 wrote: post #31

I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘you never have to leave Windows’ is a nice thing for their business, but I don’t see this being a reason I would stop dual-booting. The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games. Otherwise I really enjoy the bloat-free, ad-fre…

Even though our dev environment at work is Ubuntu, I greatly prefer running Windows on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, because of the superior hardware support for the devices I use. Specifically: • I spend a fair amount of time on Zoom calls (who doesn't?), and I like to use my Apple AirPods so I can move around while we talk. I was never was able to get these or any other Bluetooth headset to work on Ubuntu. They pair only…

This. It is basically a way out for people that don't want to run Mac.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#246

Post by smackeyacky »

speed_spread wrote: post #146
CraftingLinks wrote: post #21

I just might switch to linux instead.

Most corporate PC users do not have that option. WSL solves that.

This is the most plausible explanation. Since most of the newer dev frameworks use very unix like CLI, windows as a dev operating system was feeling very left out.

VSCode made this painfully obvious.

Most corporates would just offer you a mac instead. WSLg is pretty cool, but if you have a choice, running ubuntu or debian is better, with emulation for whatever windows legacy stuff you need to support.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#247

Post by sidlls »

gitgud wrote: post #186
908B64B197 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be nice if they did something actually useful, like add native ext4 support. Other way around. The Kernel getting real support for NTFS (was merged into Linus' tree a month ago [0]) there's hope to get native performance on WSL2. Microsoft is building the dev environment for the next decade. [0] https://www.linuxtoday.com/news/linux-kernel-5-15-will-have-...

> Microsoft is building the dev environment for the next decade. Big claim, most devs I've met either use Mac or Ubuntu. Can't remember anyone using Windows...

Mac is a small slice of the software engineer market, and mostly in the web-app/mobile space.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#248

Post by mook »

gigel82 wrote: post #195
reilly3000 wrote: post #31

I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘you never have to leave Windows’ is a nice thing for their business, but I don’t see this being a reason I would stop dual-booting. The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games. Otherwise I really enjoy the bloat-free, ad-fre…

IIRC, they were primarily interested in getting GPU acceleration (for ML tasks) to work in WSL2. I presume getting GUI working on top of those GPU APIs was a trivial task (and maybe done by one of their interns or during a hackathon).

It sounds like they did significant work getting the whole stack to work well, from Wayland to the RDP back-end to improvements to the RDP client on the Win32 side.

Your interns must be rock stars on meth.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#249

Post by whatever1 »

LaGrange wrote: post #216
sverhagen wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that so? Isn't it more like a bridge between Linux and Windows kernels, so that stuff is ultimately delegated to Windows?

It is, just with some fancy integrations that makes it more comfortable - for example memory reclamation. But it's all a fancy VM in the end.

A super fast one. After one click, within 2-3 seconds I can have an Ubuntu terminal open with wsl. To spin up a vm from let’s say VMware, I need at least 10times that.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#250

Post by Stratoscope »

p2t2p wrote: post #245
Stratoscope wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though our dev environment at work is Ubuntu, I greatly prefer running Windows on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, because of the superior hardware support for the devices I use. Specifically: • I spend a fair amount of time on Zoom calls (who doesn't?), and I like to use my Apple AirPods so I can move around while we talk. I was never was able to get these or any other Bluetooth headset to work on Ubuntu. They pair only…

This. It is basically a way out for people that don't want to run Mac.

Indeed. We take for granted this kind of robust hardware support on macOS and Windows.

macOS by itself wouldn't work for me, though. I would still need to run a Linux VM because of our very fussy build system. And besides, where would my beloved TrackPoint be? :-)

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