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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

#251

Post by phendrenad2 »

lxgr wrote: post #243
0x457 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "More powerful than Linux" is silly. It's a VM. I don't think it's silly. Sure, it's a VM, but it's so nice that I barely reboot into Linux. You get the best of both worlds with WSL.

For me, the best part of running Linux as the base OS is not having to deal with Windows. No ridiculous start menu spam; a sane, non-bloated operating system (imagine being able to update user space libraries without a reboot, due to being able to delete files that other processes still have opened!); being able to back up my data at the file level without relying on weird block-level imaging shenanigans and so much…

I have a theory that 99.9% of preferring Windows or Linux comes down to "do ads in the start menu trigger my OCD".

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#252

Post by russfink »

0xfeba wrote: post #192
ActorNightly wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah if you are working with Linux only, its better to go full linux. WSL2 is really handy when you want to run other software though. For example, I use Solidworks, so I need to run windows. Forscan for Ford vehicles also has to run under Windows. Having WSL2 means that I can just have one laptop and run any software that I want.

> 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.

They named it “Forscan?” They really named it that, not thinking it could sound close to something else entirely unrelated?

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#253

Post by dismalaf »

ryao wrote: post #222
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.

This is what tools like toolbx or distrobox solve. You can have easy to use containers with libs from any distro with a few commands, using podman or docker as the backend.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#254

Post by randunel »

bsnnkv wrote: post #201
randunel wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not a Linux distro with i3wm, instead? What could possibly hold you back from upgrading?

I've yet to find anything comparable feature-wise on Linux - and they all come with the huge downside of having to roll your own cohesive settings widget ecosystem for basic everyday things like WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. I run Cosmic Epoch on my old Macbook which is better, but again, feature-wise, it's just not comparable for serious work.

Thanks for your reply, but as a Linux user for over 20 years, all I take away from your post is that you haven't really tried, probably because the variety of distros vastly exceeds the two classic options of mac vs windows.

I understand the "roll your own" argument very well. In my time, I've experienced quite the variety of configs and dotfiles, but I'm not young anymore so I've settled with using Regolith which is an opinionated set of tools, including my favourite i3wm, on top of Ubuntu, and I simply use defaults for the most things.

Anyway, it's much easier to use Linux as a daily driver than it's ever been. The choice of distro is simply which package manager to use, and everything else just works, as long as it's in the package manager's inventory.

I haven't compiled my own computer's kernel in 6 years (but I still cross compile for rpi and other IoT), and I haven't used my dotfiles in 3 years, just defaults.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#256

Post by frollogaston »

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.

There's no way, especially if you include Bluetooth in that list.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#257

Post by ryao »

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

It was previously called the Windows Subsystem for Android before it pivoted. It had a spiritual predecessor called Windows Services for UNIX. I doubt the name had been chosen for the reasons you say, considering the history.

That said, to address the grandparent comment’s point, it probably should be read as “Windows Subsystem for Linux (Applications)”.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#258

Post by phendrenad2 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #12
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…

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

Where are you experiencing filesystem slowness? I've been using WSL in some advanced configurations (building Win32 apps by cross-compiling from Linux CLANG and dropping the .exe into a Windows folder, copying large files from Linux->Windows and vice versa, automating Linux with .BAT files, etc.) and I haven't seen this slowness at all.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#260

Post by rich_sasha »

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…

Forced to work on Windows for ++nth job, I was looking forward to WSL. Indeed, while it worked, it was magic. Sadly, I have had no end of bizarre bugs. The latest one almost crashed my whole desktop - as far as I can piece together, something crashed, leading to a core dump the size of my desktops entire memory - half the machine's RAM. This in turn put WSL in a weird state - it would neither run, not be uninstallable. Googling found bug reports with similar experiences, no responses from Microsoft and magic incantation that maybe worked for some people - but not for me.

It might be due to my corpo's particular setup etc. but for me 95% of the value of WSL would be the ability to run it on "corporate" Windows boxes. Alas.

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