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The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

blogs.windows.com

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Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#221

Post by encom »

alex_smart wrote: post #172
pton_xd wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a Linux VM on Windows is nicer than just booting into Linux? That's quite a take. Windows is so user-hostile these days that I feel bad for those who have to deal with it. Calling it delightful must be symptomatic of some sort of Stockholm syndrome.

> symptomatic of some sort of Stockholm syndrome I have since moved to macbooks for the hardware, but until not too long ago WSL was my linux "distro" of choice because I didn't want to spend time configuring my computer to make basic things work like suspend/wake on lid down/up, battery life, hardware acceleration for video playback on the browser, display scaling on external monitor and so on.

You need new reasons to hate Linux, because all those issues were solved a while ago.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#222

Post by ryao »

elif wrote: post #7

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. It's as powerful as Linux with some janky custom local docker wrappers for device support, local storage mapping, and network mapping. Except it's not janky at all. It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop…

> Edit: for clarity, by "multiple OS" I mean multiple Linux versions. Like if one project has a dependency on Ubuntu22 and another is easier with Ubuntu24. You don't have to stress "do I update my OS?"

You can run multiple Linux distributions in chroots or containers, such as docker containers. I have showed people how to build packages for Ubuntu 22.04 on Ubuntu 20.04 for example.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#223

Post by stephenr »

nxobject wrote: post #184
liendolucas wrote: post #107

I would do it the other way round: use Windows in a virtual machine from Linux. If you are in Windows and have the urge to use Linux, do the proper switch once and for all. You will never look back. I haven't in almost 15 years. Given what Windows has become and already discussed here on HN I would even hesitate to run it in a virtual machine. Edit: more than 15 years.

I always have Windows on Parallels on a Mac, too – unfortunately VirtualBox for arm64 Mac isn't quite there yet.

It is slowly improving (albeit with some egregious bugs, like losing EFI data on export) but TBH even their x86 product pales in comparison to Parallels or VMWare Fusion, in terms of machine performance.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#224

Post by burnte »

elif wrote: post #7

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. It's as powerful as Linux with some janky custom local docker wrappers for device support, local storage mapping, and network mapping. Except it's not janky at all. It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop…

I'll second you, WSL makes Windows a first class experience because now I can seamlessly have Linux and Windows apps in one laptop. Yes, I could run VMWare Workstation or HyperV, etc, but this is just better integrated.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#225

Post by garblegarble »

JackSlateur wrote: post #95
wkat4242 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, WSL is Linux. It's really just a VM of it (since WSL2, WSL1 was actually running on the windows kernel which was pretty cool). The big drawback to WSL to me is the slow filesystem access because NTFS sucks. And having to deal with Windows in the first place. Ps I wouldn't worry about your karma. It's just a number :P

Is it really a NTFS issue ? The culprit would be the plan9 bits (think of smb or nfs but .. wilder ? why are they using 9P again ?)

I'm guessing they use plan9 because distros already ship support for it, and it's super simple compared to NFS? It doesn't seem like CIFS/NFS would be any faster, and they introduce a lot more complexity.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#226

Post by [deleted] »

encom wrote: post #221
alex_smart wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> symptomatic of some sort of Stockholm syndrome I have since moved to macbooks for the hardware, but until not too long ago WSL was my linux "distro" of choice because I didn't want to spend time configuring my computer to make basic things work like suspend/wake on lid down/up, battery life, hardware acceleration for video playback on the browser, display scaling on external monitor and so on.

You need new reasons to hate Linux, because all those issues were solved a while ago.

[deleted]

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#227

Post by sneak »

elif wrote: post #7

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. It's as powerful as Linux with some janky custom local docker wrappers for device support, local storage mapping, and network mapping. Except it's not janky at all. It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop…

It’s a delight to use if you don’t mind your computer conducting 24/7 surveillance on you for a multinational corporation.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#228

Post by xnickb »

PaulHoule wrote: post #108
sweeter wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they think that this version of Linux "isn't janky" but regular Linux is, than idk what to say.

With WSL you can use “Linux the good parts” (command line tools, efficient-enough paradigms for fork() servers) and completely avoid X Windows, the Wayland death spiral, 100 revisions of Gnome and KDE that not so much reinvent the wheel but instead show us why the wheel is not square or triangular…

After having used i3 and Sway, Windows is surprisingly bad at handling windows for an OS called Windows.

It requires a bit of work to setup to your liking of course, but hey, at least you have an option to set it up to your liking

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#229

Post by koakuma-chan »

avestura wrote: post #114
Matl wrote: post #58

OT but the name irks me; Windows subsystem for Linux makes it sound like some sort of official Wine layer. It's a Linux subsystem for Windows if anything. It makes it sound like Microsoft is giving some capability to Linux whereas it's the other way around.

Microsoft can't name a project leading with a trademark (Linux ), hence why it's called WSL. Source: https://x.com/richturn_ms/status/1245481405947076610?s=19

GNU/Linux Subsystem for Windows

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#230

Post by the__alchemist »

bunderbunder wrote: post #217
0xfeba wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forscan for Ford vehicles also has to run under Windows. I've successfully run it with WINE. Thought, my Forscan executable was 3 years old or so and that may have changed, but I doubt it.

The thing about WINE is that it's not necessarily solid enough to rely on at work. You never know when the next software upgrade will break something that used to work. That's always true, of course. But, compared to other options, relying on WINE increases the chances of it happening by an amount that someone could be forgiven for thinking isn't acceptable.

When I hear cases of using Wine etc as a substitute, I can't help but think of the "We have McDonald's at home" meme!
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