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Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

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Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#361

Post by anaisbetts »

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…

> It would be nice if they did something actually useful, like add native ext4 support.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#362

Post by Fnoord »

nanna wrote: post #337
raman162 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's missing from the Linux Desktop experience for you? I currently use all three operating systems on a weekly basis, Ubuntu with i3 (a window tiling manager) is my daily driver. Everytime I switch to windows or Mac os, it always feels like a downgrade for me because I can't replicate the tiling experience. The one thing I love about mac, is the trackpad experience, I wish windows and Linux could get to that level…

Microsoft Word. That's literally the only thing which stops me from installing Windows on all of my friend's and family's aging laptops. LibreOffice just isn't capable of 100% replicating the formatting of a docx generated by Word, which for most people is a deal-breaker. (For me it's not, but for non-techie associates it is.) I just don't understand why there's not more pressure on MS to port Office to Linux in exch…

CrossOver has been working for nearly 20 years on Linux, and Microsoft Word has always been one of their priorities.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#363

Post by jgilias »

I love it how in the screenshot in the description you can see that the shortcuts on the desktop are mostly games. Now you know why the hypothetical user is sticking around using Windows as their daily driver in the first place :)

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#364

Post by anaisbetts »

justinc8687 wrote: post #105

How is this better than just running vcxsrv and inside WSL setting DISPLAY=WINDOWS_HOST_IP:0? I've been doing this to run graphical linux apps for a couple years now, both on WSL1 and on a regular Hyper-V Linux VM.

DPI scaling (especially per-monitor DPI) is much much better, it it actually handled better than native Linux

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#365

Post by Fnoord »

NavinF wrote: post #331
RamRodification wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if we will ever see some kind of GPU sharing for virtualisation Hasn't this been solved for some time now? Or am I misunderstanding what you want? I remember seeing a few articles about using this for gaming on Windows VMs on Linux hosts. I haven't jumped in though so maybe it's not what I think it is. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GPU_passthrough_with_libvirt_qe... I think it's also definitely in use for c…

Nope, Nvidia will never let you pass PCIe virtual functions to VMs. They'd rather charge 7x the price for data center GPUs with that capability.

Again: don't buy Nvidia. This is one of the many reasons why you should consider avoiding this brand (for GPUs). I even gave them the benefit of the doubt with their Nvidia Shield (bought two Pro 2020's) only to have them shove me up ads through my throat via a software update.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#366

Post by ncmncm »

apatheticonion wrote: post #324
dgan wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand claims "desktop experience is not there yet". What do you even need so specific? Care to explain? I tend to think it's more of people's problem at that point than linux desktop experience problem

It's not _functionally_ problematic, just aesthetically. Mostly it's just that I never go a full day without performing some kind of maintenance on my Linux desktop environment to try to get it looking right, and it never looks right. I also run multiple monitors, so that aspect tends to throw in some extra jank. At this point, running Gnome completely unmodified has been the most success I have had - but even Gnome…

I go years without "performing some kind of maintenance on my Linux desktop environment". I can't even imagine what you would even be trying to fool with, and it not working.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#367

Post by Fnoord »

morrbo wrote: post #330
raman162 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's missing from the Linux Desktop experience for you? I currently use all three operating systems on a weekly basis, Ubuntu with i3 (a window tiling manager) is my daily driver. Everytime I switch to windows or Mac os, it always feels like a downgrade for me because I can't replicate the tiling experience. The one thing I love about mac, is the trackpad experience, I wish windows and Linux could get to that level…

It's funny you mention tiling because honestly one of the biggest things preventing me from moving to linux full time is the lack of any decent window manager like https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzone... where I can arbitrarily draw/resize zones and drag and drop/snap windows on to them. Every window manager I've used in Linux, and gnome extension, all try and force you to have non resizable a…

Powertoys is amazing, it allows you to run your Windows machine more like Linux/Mac.

Awake is like Amphetamine on macOS.

FancyZones is like a tiling window manager.

Keyboard Manager allows you to easily rebind a key such as Caps Lock.

Power Rename allows you to rename based on regexp.

Powertoys Run is basically a light version of Alfred.

File Explorer addons allows you to for example preview Markdown (.md) files.

Color Picker saves me the hassle of making a screenshot and then uploading it to a website to figure out the hex value (or having to open up a bloated image editor). Useful for (even simple) image editing, web design, etc.

I'm sure I missed some utilities but these are the features I use.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#368

Post by alias_neo »

Jnr wrote: post #289
Too wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu by default pairs Bluetooth headsets as A2DP, which has higher quality for music but no mic-support. You have to go in to Ubuntu bluetooth sound settings and change the output device to headset mode every god damn time you turn on the headset. And then toggle it back to A2DP if you want to listen to music again. I don't know how Windows or iOS deals with this but there both modes seem to work seamlessly.

Pipewire can switch to headset mode automatically whenever a microphone input is needed. And it switches it back to headphone mode afterwards. It works on Linux exactly like on a phone or macOS. Pipewire is backwards compatible with Pulseaudio so there is no reason to not migrate.

I've not heard of pipewire. Need to check this out because I'd love for my truly wireless earphones to be able to seamlessly switch modes on Ubuntu. I use a wired headset for work calls I need to be on quickly because it's pretty flawless, but the tether is more than a little annoying.

EDIT: It took me 5 minutes after reading the comment above to replace pulseaudio with pipewire on Ubuntu 20.04, now I have access to my earphones' high quality codecs too right from the Ubuntu sound control panel!

I used this[0] then this[1]

[0] https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2021/05/install-latest-...

[1] https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2021/05/enable-pipewire... - I only followed steps 1 and 4 and audio was switched instantly, earphones already paired. Now I have AAC, SBC, SBC-XQ...

EDIT2: Switching to/from my earphones and from 1 bud to 2 buds appears flawless so far, even for the Spotify desktop for Linux app which usually requires a `pulseaudio -k` to send the audio out of the right device usually, even if it's correctly selected in sound settings.

EDIT3: Don't forget to mask pulseaudio (yellow box, second link) or pulseaudio will load on reboot and break things, no amount of systemctl disable will stop it without masking.

EDIT4: Linked site has different theme on mobile so yellow box in EDIT3 isn't yellow.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#369

Post by mikaeluman »

For me WSL has completely replaced dual booting setups.

There are still some quirks with integration such as certificates and more.

I really can’t wait for the GPU experience to be fully supported and also be able to use pytorch from within containers.

Microsoft is so far doing everything right with WSL IMO.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#370

Post by bytearray64 »

NavinF wrote: post #334
raman162 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's missing from the Linux Desktop experience for you? I currently use all three operating systems on a weekly basis, Ubuntu with i3 (a window tiling manager) is my daily driver. Everytime I switch to windows or Mac os, it always feels like a downgrade for me because I can't replicate the tiling experience. The one thing I love about mac, is the trackpad experience, I wish windows and Linux could get to that level…

1. Update glibc and everything breaks 2. Update Nvidia drivers and everything breaks 3. 99% of laptops have at least one device with missing or broken drivers. 802.11ac is very old in 2021, but the most popular ac chips still need an out-of-tree driver which will break when you update your kernel. Have fun copying kernel patches from random forums 4. Even the smallest of changes (ex: set display scaling to something…

At least for your glibc / nvidia concern, I feel like if you stick to the binary packages, at least on Ubuntu, it's hard to break. Recently I've been trying to do all the gaming I can on Linux with Proton, and at least for single-player games, it tends to work pretty well. (MP is still a big issue due to the current state of anti-cheat)

Audio latency is one struggle I agree is still pretty bad. I had a pretty good time getting SteamVR running on Linux with Beat Saber running via proton, but tuning the audio latency was a big pain.

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