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The ability to run docker containers as wsl instances looks nifty. A bit more overhead since they now run as a VM instead of a container, but you get the ability to start a shell with Windows terminal or access files with Explorer (and thus every program running in Windows)
Looks nice but still a bit sad that Flutter is used instead of something native given that they don't need the app to be cross-platform. Well, even Microsoft uses React Native for a lot of Windows-only apps.
I'm glad I'm not alone in missing native apps. I get that it's easier to code a note-taking Electron app, but every time I look at a Linux terminal app written in JavaScript it makes me want to cry. I know I'm beating a dead HN horse here, but how the hell is it possible that megabytes of embedded JavaScript in websites, to the point that LinkedIn uses about half the RAM I had for my first computer loading 32 MB of J…
citation needed. the customers clearly want it, for example most programmers chose VS Code over a native app
This is great and all... Except I’ve long given up on WSL. I really tried to make WSL work for many things, only to find the entire experience (reliability, performance, and beyond) was simply better in every way without Windows. No matter what you do, there will always be some weird platform detection or line termination that pops up somewhere. And if it isn’t that, it’s degraded performance or kernel-level incompat…
The ability to run docker containers as wsl instances looks nifty. A bit more overhead since they now run as a VM instead of a container, but you get the ability to start a shell with Windows terminal or access files with Explorer (and thus every program running in Windows)
Perhaps I misunderstand your comment but when you run docker / podman in Windows, you are using WSL / HyperV.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps I misunderstand your comment but when you run docker / podman in Windows, you are using WSL / HyperV.
running docker on windows runs docker in wsl (which is a HyperV guest). The project offers running docker images as wsl instance (which is a HyperV guest), no docker involved
To which osigurdson seemed to be noting that WSL2 itself is a VM (meaning if you launch 1 or 100 WSL2 instances, a single Linux VM will be spun up), and when you run docker, it runs using exactly that same VM (optionally, though it's the default now to just use WSL2's backend).
Can you clarify what you meant by "A bit more overhead"? Running a container via docker or directly via WSL2 will use the same underlying VM, and there will only be that one VM regardless of the number of WSL2 or docker instances.
This is great and all... Except I’ve long given up on WSL. I really tried to make WSL work for many things, only to find the entire experience (reliability, performance, and beyond) was simply better in every way without Windows. No matter what you do, there will always be some weird platform detection or line termination that pops up somewhere. And if it isn’t that, it’s degraded performance or kernel-level incompat…
I've transitioned from linux back to windows for workstation usage, and it's one of the main features that allowed me to do so, I haven't had major problems, so I would be interested to know what issues you faced. Of course direct linux is better than WSL, but I found the product to be of very high quality and well integrated with windows.
This is great and all... Except I’ve long given up on WSL. I really tried to make WSL work for many things, only to find the entire experience (reliability, performance, and beyond) was simply better in every way without Windows. No matter what you do, there will always be some weird platform detection or line termination that pops up somewhere. And if it isn’t that, it’s degraded performance or kernel-level incompat…
I don't do much OS level engineering these days though and would probably fire up some VMs for that.
I recently realized that 100% of what I use Windows for was as a WSL2 foundation: It had been reduced to being an extremely overbearing and heavyweight host machine for a Linux VM. Nothing in my life was Windows-only anymore, and it was basically just inertia that I even still had it installed.
I'd been a "Windows guy" for decades, had decades of Windows software dev under my belt, even got my MCSE, MCDBA, along with other Microsoft certs, and even wrote for MSDN Magazine. No longer did it have any leverage on my profession at all, which was shocking to me.
The next day I purged Windows from my two main working machines, so now I'm pure Linux and macOS. A few weeks later and I can say it has been a marvelous transition, and cuts out the no longer relevant middleman.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
running docker on windows runs docker in wsl (which is a HyperV guest). The project offers running docker images as wsl instance (which is a HyperV guest), no docker involved
You said - "A bit more overhead since they now run as a VM instead of a container" To which osigurdson seemed to be noting that WSL2 itself is a VM (meaning if you launch 1 or 100 WSL2 instances, a single Linux VM will be spun up), and when you run docker, it runs using exactly that same VM (optionally, though it's the default now to just use WSL2's backend). Can you clarify what you meant by "A bit more overhead"? R…
Once you start the second container the difference becomes more obvious: running $N containers in docker uses one VM with one linux kernel, no matter how many containers you add. Running $N containers as separate WSL instances runs $N VMs and $N linux kernels. That's the "bit more overhead" I was referring to
This is great and all... Except I’ve long given up on WSL. I really tried to make WSL work for many things, only to find the entire experience (reliability, performance, and beyond) was simply better in every way without Windows. No matter what you do, there will always be some weird platform detection or line termination that pops up somewhere. And if it isn’t that, it’s degraded performance or kernel-level incompat…
Considering it's just a headless linux vm with some integration with the host, I don't understand what reliability, performance or beyond it could possibly introduce beyond what any VM solution provides?
There are few gotchas with WSL. I hate how by default it includes your Windows path in your default linux path out of the box. It's easy to turn off and my init scripts for any VM always do that anyway, but it's the main thing I have seen people who are new to WSL get tripped by. It's useful to be able to run windows programs from within WSL. Like all the cli tools that pop up a browser to make you login, but that's about where its usefulness ends for me.
> No matter what you do, there will always be some weird platform detection
In my experience, unless you're running a very mainstream distro (read Ubuntu) there will always be a weird "platform detection" issue. I run openSUSE on most of my devices, and used to scripts not working because "uhhh, this is not Ubuntu or Debian or Fedora". The only time I run into "platform detection" issues are scripts that assume `uname -r` of a very narrow format.
> or line termination that pops up somewhere.
That goes back to my original comment about running Windows programs from linux, or moving files to/from linux. I never run into this issue because, just like on a linux desktop, I only interact with linux through the commandline. Even on a full linux desktop, I have this mental separation between GUI apps and terminal apps.
> it’s degraded performance or kernel-level incompatibility.
The only "kernel-level incompatibility" I run into is that WSL kernel doesn't have /dev/kvm. Granted I don't do a lot of kernel module specific development, so I don't know how something like a USB device or a PCIe interface can be passed to the WSL instance. But again, I'm thinking of it, and treating it like a user-mode development VM, not a full host.