Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

phoronix.com

41–50 of 76 posts

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with the OOTB experience? It's a million times better than it was back when I lived in the Windows OOTB experience. It seems much better than the OOTB of Ubuntu, although probably less good than MacOS.

Without even getting into Recall, every time I install Windows 11 (not even a consumer edition) it takes a solid 10 minutes of clicking multiple times on hard to find options to disable the pre-AI spyware that merely monitored what you did for advertising purposes. And I know exactly where to click because I have to do it a lot. I run a lab with public computers for students to use in their projects. It is unhelpful…

> I set up dozens of computers in this lab each year from scratch ...

Have you looked at automated solutions for that?

If it's a cost issue, then I think even Clonezilla will let you take an image of a "golden master" (aka pc set up how you want) then deploy it over the network to image a bunch of computers at the same time.

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#42

What is the easiest option for running Linux commands on windows? Is WSL overkill for that? I really hate the power shells CLI. The commands are so long and unintuitive.

Git Bash provides bash alongside a minimal set of coreutils. But of course, if you want more to the full suite of coreutils you need Cygwin or a WSL system.

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#43

They should focus more on this kind of features, instead of paddling Copilot and AI every 5 minutes, or doing crazy stuff like removing the right Ctrl key to replace it with the new Copilot key. The only advantage of the latter is that is pushes more people to Linux faster. If they just focus instead on developers ( "developers! developers! developers!" ) and gamers, instead of AI gimmicks, things would be more peach…

removing right Ctrl key to replace it with the new Copilot key - What the hell are t hey thinking! OMG.

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#44

What is the easiest option for running Linux commands on windows? Is WSL overkill for that? I really hate the power shells CLI. The commands are so long and unintuitive.

Nowadays, installing WSL is really painless procedure [1]

Also make sure to install the Windows Terminal [2] to take full advantage of wsl2.

[1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

[2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/install

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#45
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSL provides the means to run a distribution, it doesn’t provide its own. Ubuntu is the default, but others are officially supported.

The joke is that Windows provides a refined frontend to the otherwise fervid chaos that is Linux, and thus makes Windows de facto the largest (and best?) Linux distro.

> best

Lmao

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people prefer Windows + WSL over Mac. I can’t fathom why anyone would choose Windows over Mac or Linux.

I’m mostly on Mac but I do prefer WSL to the Mac terminal experience. Most things end up happening in Docker regardless, but things are just smoother in WSL. Not to mention that Windows has proper Window management and multiple display support.

I’m with the other poster, I don’t understand what you mean by multiple display support. I use my Mac Studio with a two monitor setup and it works beautifully. Even better, when I set my MacBook next to it, some kind of Apple magic happens in the background and I can move my mouse over to it like it’s a third display, letting me drag files between the two machines, control windows, use my keyboard, copy/paste, etc.

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m mostly on Mac but I do prefer WSL to the Mac terminal experience. Most things end up happening in Docker regardless, but things are just smoother in WSL. Not to mention that Windows has proper Window management and multiple display support.

I use Rectangle for window management and have 3 monitors. I’m really not sure what you mean by the multiple display support. The window management is easy to rectify with Rectangle or Spectacle.

Not OP but Mac doesn't support daisy chaining via display port alt mode over usb-c. It's a little ridiculous cause a hackintosh does so we know that they can support it. I assume they don't because it drives sales of their absurdly priced monitors.

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without even getting into Recall, every time I install Windows 11 (not even a consumer edition) it takes a solid 10 minutes of clicking multiple times on hard to find options to disable the pre-AI spyware that merely monitored what you did for advertising purposes. And I know exactly where to click because I have to do it a lot. I run a lab with public computers for students to use in their projects. It is unhelpful…

> I set up dozens of computers in this lab each year from scratch ... Have you looked at automated solutions for that? If it's a cost issue, then I think even Clonezilla will let you take an image of a "golden master" (aka pc set up how you want) then deploy it over the network to image a bunch of computers at the same time.

> Have you looked at automated solutions for that?

Sure, I look forward to IS&T releasing one but it's more likely to happen if I have one to suggest they review for security.

> If it's a cost issue, then I think even Clonezilla will let you take an image of a "golden master" (aka pc set up how you want) then deploy it over the network to image a bunch of computers at the same time.

We used to do it that way with Acronis disk cloning. It is better to do PXE boot installs to avoid weird config problems according to IS&T, I didn't second-guess them on that. I don't hate the idea, just was told to avoid it.

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#49
Very Very happy to see this. My 64 GB 8 Core (Dell Precision 5560) Laptop get hits with the VMMEM CPU thrash/crash issue fairly frequently, (every week or two) even with the well known workaround:

  [wsl2]
  memory=8GB
I love wsl/tmux on Windows. I don't like how unreliable it is if you use it 12+ hours/day with memory stress.

Re: Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem for Linux "WSL" Features for 2024

#50
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately there are lots of devs stuck on windows, wsl is very popular.

Lots of people prefer Windows + WSL over Mac. I can’t fathom why anyone would choose Windows over Mac or Linux.

At work I spent 13 years on the Mac. Then 5 solid years on nothing but Linux. And the last two years on WSL+Windows. My home system is an M1 Macbook Air. I'm an SRE so I mostly write lots of code and bash scripts and run 50+ tmux panes/day in parallel. I run 3 monitors - 35", Laptop, 27" to my left. All three monitors are in constant use.

All three have something to offer - the "Why" of Windows+WSL.

- WSL offers a pretty pure modern Linux experience - which takes an awful lot of brew effort to replicate on a Mac.

- The windows GUI is far superior to anything Linux has to offer - PowerToys/Fancy Zones offers snapping and window control I could never replicate on Linux - despite multiple years of trying to.

- I spend 80% of my time in tmux/terminal.

- Bare Bones Windows Terminal is absolutely rock solid and high performance.

- Linux native is more stable than Windows+WSL - I would go months without rebooting my Linux system. My windows system rarely makes it more than a couple weeks.

- I use my laptop as a workstation (Precision 5560 - it only get ~80 minutes battery, even with all the discrete NVIDIA stuff turned off) - so the (significant) superiority of Mac Laptop Portability doesn't do anything for me.

If Microsoft can dial in the stability of WSL -speaking as one who has spent at least 1/2 decade on all three platforms at work - My preference for work is Windows + WSL for GUI + Linux experience reasons. If I didn't think Microsoft was going to fix WSL, I'd probably switch to Arch.

For personal use - I have a NUC11 with a Decent RTX2060 video card for Steam Gaming, and would never consider anything for a personal laptop than a macbook in one form or another.

Post reply on HN