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Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

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Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#161

Post by BearOso »

andai wrote: post #93

Is this person a wizard? To me, this seems an impossible feat. But I wonder how it seems to people who understand how it works? I'm reminded of this joke: Two mathematicians are talking. One says a theorem is trivial. After two hours of explanation, the other agrees that it is indeed trivial.

It's mostly explained if you go to the project page. For me, the I would say the hardest thing about something like this is gleaning the Microsoft driver APIs. In the 9x days, Microsoft documentation was not quite thorough and difficult to access. It's still not pleasant.

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#162

Post by krylon »

I remember running CoLinux back in my training days ~2005-2006. It seemed a bit like black magic to me at the time, but it worked quite well for my needs.

But CoLinux - IIRC - required the NT branch of Windows. I can only imagine the level of hackery it takes to make this happen on Windows 9x.

Part of me wants to weep at the sheer perversity, part of me wants to burst into manic laughter. It is indeed a world of endless wonders.

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#163

Post by AgentMatt »

ChrisRR wrote: post #43

By microsoft's naming scheme this should be Linux Subsystem for Windows

I agree. Don't have a citation now, but I remember reading that this was a copyright problem. They wanted to name it "Linux Subsystem for Windows", but apparently the Linux foundation does not allow unaffiliated projects to have a name beginning with "Linux", or something like that.

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#164

Post by IcyWindows »

NeutralWanted wrote: post #57
firesteelrain wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought WSL2 is functionally a virtual machine with deep host integration. That’s why you need HyperV.

Sort of. Technically speaking, just enabling hyper-v turns your base windows install into a VM. Wsl2 then just runs along side

Enabling hyper-v turns your base windows install into a VM host, not a virtual machine itself.

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#166

Post by [deleted] »

saadn92 wrote: post #139

This being on the front page the same day as "Show HN submissions tripled and now mostly have the same vibe-coded look" is nice to see. One person spends 6 years understanding Win9x internals to run a modern Linux kernel inside it. The other thread is full of apps that took 20 minutes to prompt into existence. Posts like this make me happy.

[deleted]

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#167

Post by [deleted] »

andai wrote: post #93

Is this person a wizard? To me, this seems an impossible feat. But I wonder how it seems to people who understand how it works? I'm reminded of this joke: Two mathematicians are talking. One says a theorem is trivial. After two hours of explanation, the other agrees that it is indeed trivial.

[deleted]

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#168

Post by dlcarrier »

andai wrote: post #93

Is this person a wizard? To me, this seems an impossible feat. But I wonder how it seems to people who understand how it works? I'm reminded of this joke: Two mathematicians are talking. One says a theorem is trivial. After two hours of explanation, the other agrees that it is indeed trivial.

The primary function of modern operating systems is to allow multiple programs to run, without interfering with each other, even if they try too. This means that each program can only read its own limited amount of memory and only gets to use the processor for a limited time, before another program gets a turn. Windows did not start using those features until Windows NT, which XP is based off of. Through Windows 98, any program could do whatever it wanted, and that hardware sat idle. Windows versions up to 98 were more like a library of features that a program could use, to display a user interface and talk to hardware peripherals.

There's special hardware in a processor, for the operating system to limit each programs access to memory and processing time, which Windows 9x leaves unused. This means that the Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux can say "look at me i'm the operating system now" and take over that hardware to run a modern operating system.

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#169

Post by tredre3 »

rahen wrote: post #10

Before WSL, the best ways to run unmodified Linux binaries inside Windows were CoLinux and flinux. http://www.colinux.org/ https://github.com/wishstudio/flinux flinux essentially had the architecture of WSL1, while CoLinux was more like WSL2 with a Linux kernel side-loaded. Cygwin was technically the correct approach: native POSIX binaries on Windows rather than hacking in some foreign Linux plumbing. Since it was me…

> However, it lacked the convenience of a CLI package manager back then

Cygwin still lacks that to this day, you have to fire up to GUI installer to update packages.

MSYS2 is cygwin with pacman cli.

Re: Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

#170

Post by pwdisswordfishs »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #142
andai wrote: post #93

Is this person a wizard? To me, this seems an impossible feat. But I wonder how it seems to people who understand how it works? I'm reminded of this joke: Two mathematicians are talking. One says a theorem is trivial. After two hours of explanation, the other agrees that it is indeed trivial.

I remember myself on my first year of CS, set theory classes, at the whiteboard, trying to make a proof, but there something I was not able to prove at all, so I said 'it's trivial' and the doctor said 'yeah, it's trivial' and we went further.

"Trivial" doesn't exclusively mean "easy", though it is often used as a euphemism like that.

In a literal sense, it very well may have been trivial, even if neither you nor the professor would have been able to easily show it.

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