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Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

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Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#71
post #28
post #25

> Unlike in other Linux virtualization solutions such as User Mode, special driver software on the host operating system is used to execute the coLinux kernel in a privileged mode That's unfortunate, is there a version of this that runs unprivileged like user mode Linux?

You're not going to take over NT's control of the MMU et. al. without elevated privileges. To run as a non-admin, you either need a VM that leverages NT's built-in virtualization capabilities (requires admin to enable), a separate personality (requires admin to install), or a Win32 application a la cygwin, which isn't very good.

Don't besmirch the good name of Cygwin, I daily drove that for Python development for 2 years and it worked shockingly well. In retrospect I think I liked Cygwin more than I liked WSL because I really could interoperate my Linux/Windows together nearly seamlessly. But I think that was because I was operating and using tools right in the sweet spot of the Cygwin abstraction; e.g. no GUI programs, sockets/file work only.

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#72
This being historical pre-wsl aside:

A lot of the foss tasklist is just aimless combinatorials. And they become obsolete to boot:

-clone a program that just came out but make it open source -port everything to every platform -make x run on any dependency of category Y

And then it gets exponential as every new project becomes a new target to port from and to as a dependency: e.g, port linux co-op to rust, or port it to w11, or replace the backend with wsl or hyperV interchangeably...

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#73
post #72

This being historical pre-wsl aside: A lot of the foss tasklist is just aimless combinatorials. And they become obsolete to boot: -clone a program that just came out but make it open source -port everything to every platform -make x run on any dependency of category Y And then it gets exponential as every new project becomes a new target to port from and to as a dependency: e.g, port linux co-op to rust, or port it t…

What's the harm? Having multiple alternatives to any component of the software stack is a good thing, and it fosters understanding and improvement, doesn't it?

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#74
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdatum: I once had a Windows machine that was frequently giving me the famous BSOD. Sometimes it would run for a few minutes, other times it would happen immediately on boot. Booting the same system in Linux would only produce some kernel errors, but the system kept running. That's the kind of stability I need. P.S.: Turns out the RAM was bad and replacing it fixed everything.

So you were just lucky and Linux didn't happen to allocate system / driver critical memory to your specific RAM's broken side and this sheer luck gets it a praise. I had the opposite. I got a Thinkpad with a broken RAM IC. Windows was booting and working 99% normally with the desktop apps. However running a browser caused it to completely freeze. Linux didn't even boot. It didn't move past the early stage. So it is L…

I forgot to mention that the Linux kernel was printing warnings about the memory so it somehow knew something was wrong and was able to mitigate the damage.

So you were just "unlucky"? ;)

I won't claim to be an expert in either kernel but if you take both our cases (anecdatum) it seems that Linux is better at recognizing a problem and either mitigating it or failing hard. The latter sitatiion is much better than Windows just happily trying to use faulty hardware and rolling the dice. In my case, when running under Windows I was getting file corruption too.

My story is kind of old and so this was Windows 7, I think. Maybe Windows is better now.

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#75
post #18

I've been using this for years until early 2009, when I formatted my laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 and started running Windows in a VM. IE was still important back then and I needed to check web sites with it. I was running Rails and other web frameworks inside colinux. I switched after I made sure that everything I was running in Windows for my work did run well in Linux. I remember that those very same programs run faste…

> GIMP's starting time: many times faster I think what you discovered is that GIMP is written primarily for Linux, rather than that Windows is shit. I mean Windows is shit, but that's coincidental. GIMP for Windows probably loads slowly because it "has to" load GTK and all its components like Cairo, but on Ubuntu these things were loaded already when the desktop started up. I put "has to" in quotes, because it could…

In my experience a lot of the difference in performance of Windows vs Linux in programs which are designed for Linux is in the file system. Linux is really good at handling a bazillion tiny files. Windows is really not. I'm sure that in bulk both systems are roughly as fast, but when loads of small files get involved Linux absolutely smokes windows.

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#76
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you were just lucky and Linux didn't happen to allocate system / driver critical memory to your specific RAM's broken side and this sheer luck gets it a praise. I had the opposite. I got a Thinkpad with a broken RAM IC. Windows was booting and working 99% normally with the desktop apps. However running a browser caused it to completely freeze. Linux didn't even boot. It didn't move past the early stage. So it is L…

I forgot to mention that the Linux kernel was printing warnings about the memory so it somehow knew something was wrong and was able to mitigate the damage. So you were just "unlucky"? ;) I won't claim to be an expert in either kernel but if you take both our cases (anecdatum) it seems that Linux is better at recognizing a problem and either mitigating it or failing hard. The latter sitatiion is much better than Wind…

I get the opposite experience nowadays. Still having to debug random issues that are only on Linux.

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#77
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The user friendliness of Linux combined with the stability of windows. I think you meant: "The user friendliness of Windows combined with the stability of Linux .".

My use case for WSL is really what original comment says: I need stability of windows so my graphics drivers won't stop working randomly and user friendliness of linux command line as a developer

Why do you prefer that to using a graphics card know to be stable under Linux?

The simplest thing is to buy a machine with Linux preinstalled.

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#78
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The user friendliness of Windows combined with the stability of Linux." I think you meant: "The user friendliness of Linux combined with the stability of Linux ." You know, like when you're not forced to link your system to a Microsoft account. Or when you cannot reboot because a 30 minute update is pushed down your throat. Or when you cannot start working because an other 30 minute update is pushed down your thro…

If the time comes to discuss operating systems, I always suggest an exercise of downloading a Windows 11 Home ISO and installing it into a virtual machine, look at how much of it is installing an OS versus upselling into services using every dark pattern in the book. (With such hits as "the No button is hidden under a link-button called Learn More and only appears if you choose an advanced installation") Once you're…

Also "you literally can't install without a Microsoft account unless you know the magic incantation to open the command prompt in the installer (Shift+F10) and the command MS provided for some reason to allow you to bypass connecting to the Internet ('OOBE\BypassNRO')".

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#79
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My use case for WSL is really what original comment says: I need stability of windows so my graphics drivers won't stop working randomly and user friendliness of linux command line as a developer

Why do you prefer that to using a graphics card know to be stable under Linux? The simplest thing is to buy a machine with Linux preinstalled.

Because non-Nvidia GPUs almost universally suck for anything besides gaming? (and even then if you want stuff like RT).

Re: Linux as co-operative Windows process (2017)

#80
post #47

I remember using this decades ago. The user friendliness of Linux combined with the stability of windows. It did beat dual booting though. Worked like a charm.

>>The user friendliness of Linux combined with the stability of windows. I think you meant: "The user friendliness of Windows combined with the stability of Linux .".

Shades of the similarly sarcastic "Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm", attributed to JFK.

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_f_kennedy_143149>

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