why don't they just switch completely to Unix, lol
WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
61–70 of 178 posts
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#62I can’t find any benchmarks on this, anyone have a sense of the speedup that can be expected here? And for what it’s worth, that version isn’t available yet when I try to update WSL.
a test compile of hugo (moderate go app) on a AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS with SSD WSL filesystem = 50s virtiofs = 75s it seems a lot faster. I don't use drvfs (windows files) usually. 50% performance gap is good. And MS Defender kicked in beforehand losing about 10 seconds. with some config you could turn off defender and get this down to 60s
> WSL filesystem = 50s
> virtiofs = 75s
> 50% performance gap is good.
I am somewhat confused by this. How much time did the default DrvFs take? Or did you mean DrvFs when wrote virtiofs?
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#63Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux. If I were in charge there would be a team devoted to fixing this a decade ago. WSL singlehandedly stemmed much of tide of developers moving away from Windows, but WSL native filesystem performance gave devs that magical experience when they boot into Linux the first time and see that the filesystem doesn't have to be ass. There's always…
> Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux.
This isn't the only issue. I think another big issue is pushing more and more integration with Microsoft cloud services (e.g. Microsoft accounts), advertising, etc, which Microsoft has made increasingly difficult to opt-out of. They could fix every single technical limitation anyone has ever complained about, but if they don't change their corporate culture on forced cloud/advertising/etc, many won't care about those fixes.
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind elaborating (for those of us uninformed)
/mnt/c is a mounted C: drive in WSL2, that allows WSL2 guests to read/write files on the Windows host. The mount is fine and speedy enough, but the underlying reads/writes turn into native NTFS reads/writes through Windows. NTFS file API is incredibly slow - high fixed overhead for initial file access. So patterns like node_modules with many small individual files (or compiling code in general) are much much slower o…
It's the file system filters that are an issue on Windows. It trades performance for extensibility.
NTFS itself is a fast file system.
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#65Nice, FWIW this is currently pretty easy to solve by just keeping your stuff on a separate EXT4 volume and then mounting that under Windows. Windows accessing a mounted EXT4 volume through WSL is much faster than the other way around.
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linux drivers are now first class and are faster and easier to install than any Windows drivers. There's no bullshit extras with them. They just work. Plus steam launches games in containers so there's zero configuration. If you don't know what you're talking about it is in fact better to say nothing than to just make shit up.
It's great that gaming on Linux has gotten a lot better over the last several years but let's not pretend like Windows still isn't far ahead on this Also how can drivers be easier to install than on Windows when updating my GPU driver is one click?
What? You need to _download_ drivers? They come pre-installed in modern distros.
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#67Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux. If I were in charge there would be a team devoted to fixing this a decade ago. WSL singlehandedly stemmed much of tide of developers moving away from Windows, but WSL native filesystem performance gave devs that magical experience when they boot into Linux the first time and see that the filesystem doesn't have to be ass. There's always…
> Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux. This isn't the only issue. I think another big issue is pushing more and more integration with Microsoft cloud services (e.g. Microsoft accounts), advertising, etc, which Microsoft has made increasingly difficult to opt-out of. They could fix every single technical limitation anyone has ever complained about, but if they don't change…
Yeah, my switch to Linux and Mac for most things is more about just finding Microsoft's policies so obnoxious and hostile that I just won't deal with them anymore, even if I have to deal with more technological hassles. The only reason I haven't completely nuked my Windows partition is because I can at least use Rufus to turn off the worst stuff. But frankly, the amount of software that keeps me on Windows is dwindling fast, and every time Windows update resets my browser to fucking Edge or signs me into a Microsoft account system wide without my consent I just get that much closer. It feels like malware at this point.
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's great that gaming on Linux has gotten a lot better over the last several years but let's not pretend like Windows still isn't far ahead on this Also how can drivers be easier to install than on Windows when updating my GPU driver is one click?
What? You need to _download_ drivers? They come pre-installed in modern distros.
I'm obviously referring to upgrading drivers. Important especially when playing new games since they come with specific optimizations.
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#69Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux. If I were in charge there would be a team devoted to fixing this a decade ago. WSL singlehandedly stemmed much of tide of developers moving away from Windows, but WSL native filesystem performance gave devs that magical experience when they boot into Linux the first time and see that the filesystem doesn't have to be ass. There's always…
Just a comment on Proton... I've recently shifted to linux (garuda ) as a native OS for gaming (still dual booting, but linux is my main OS now, I used to run linux VMs in windows). My experience with Proton is that only ~30% of my games work out of the box. Some games like dota2, and factorio are native linux and work MUCH better (faster/higher fps) in linux. A bunch of windows games work fine, other's semi work, and I have to spend a bunch of time investigating why I'm getting the issues I'm getting. Others just aren't really supported (it seems anti cheat software is a big blocker) or I just can figure out what is going wrong quick enough that I just abandon it. Overall, everything seems better in linux world, everything is really snappy. I'm hoping more game companies treat linux as a first class citizen as more people switch. It is definitely a great platform for gaming but really just needs game creators to ensure their games work, ideally native, but even just using Proton would be good.
Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, you know, about 70+% of the global desktop/laptop market. Nearly every F500 company. But yeah sure, no one runs windows these days.
Because Windows is the operating system of Not Getting Fired. Fear is a stronger motivator than creativity or productivity.
Believe it or not, there's plenty of people that specifically choose windows, not just out of fear of getting fired or inertia. The idea that all devs use a mac and that windows is garbage for any kind of development is purely a silicon valley bubble thing.
And there's still a big niche that Windows is your only choice since the move to Apple silicon. If you need both a dGPU and access to commercial software, its literally your only choice. Game dev especially comes to mind if you're jumping between maya, after effects, etc. Windows is also huge in finance.