Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#11

Post by semaphoreP » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:51 PM UTC

tyrw wrote: post #2

In my experience, emulators are never quite the same as the real deal. Has anyone used this, and if so how was it?

It works great for me. Like others have mentioned, it's not an emulator, so I don't feel sandboxed using it. The main downside is one of the caveats they mention: "Linux files are NOT accessible from Windows." Hopefully they can fix this in the future.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#12

Post by adrianlmm » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:51 PM UTC

frozenport wrote: post #4

Does anybody use this?

I do, for Ruby/Sinatra development, it works very good.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#13

Post by shpongled » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:52 PM UTC

frozenport wrote: post #4

Does anybody use this?

I've been using it every single day since it was announced. It's pretty nice. There are compatibility issues with some programs (mainly networking and a couple weird syscalls), but for 90+% of things, I've had no issues.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#14

Post by wvenable » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:52 PM UTC

tyrw wrote: post #2

In my experience, emulators are never quite the same as the real deal. Has anyone used this, and if so how was it?

It works frighteningly well; it's practically magic how well it works. I've even used it run GUI apps (mostly emulators for embedded software) via a Win32 X client.

In early builds I did have some file system weirdness but I believe that's all be resolved now. I expect the creators update will be a very solid version.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#15

Post by tyrw » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:52 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #10

tyrw wrote: post #2

In my experience, emulators are never quite the same as the real deal. Has anyone used this, and if so how was it?

It's not really an emulator. It's more like a virtual machine that runs Linux in the background and lets you use the commands. You can install Ubuntu with it and it's officially supported. If it didn't work, I'm sure Ubuntu wouldn't run.

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I'm having a hard time classifying it, since you can use an actual VM but this seems like something less than that.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#16

Post by nickthemagicman » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:52 PM UTC

tyrw wrote: post #2

In my experience, emulators are never quite the same as the real deal. Has anyone used this, and if so how was it?

Alot of stuff works great. I had a pretty high functioning dev environment. Hit snags when I tried to interact with the hardware. Like for setting up VPNs or networking tools. I think because it doesn't manage the hardware.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#17

Post by zbuttram » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:53 PM UTC

tyrw wrote: post #9

therein wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not an emulator and the experience is pretty great for anything involving Linux as a workstation. Even though they say "NO current plans to support X/GUI apps, desktops, servers, etc. at this time", this is achievable by installing VcXsrv.

Perhaps emulator was a poor descriptor in this case -- I haven't used it. But it is running a subset of functionality non-natively, correct?

From what I understand it's mainly translating system calls. It's been described as being like a reverse WINE, hence everyone replying 'Not an Emulator' at you. :)

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#18

Post by shpongled » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:54 PM UTC

semaphoreP wrote: post #11

tyrw wrote: post #2

In my experience, emulators are never quite the same as the real deal. Has anyone used this, and if so how was it?

It works great for me. Like others have mentioned, it's not an emulator, so I don't feel sandboxed using it. The main downside is one of the caveats they mention: "Linux files are NOT accessible from Windows." Hopefully they can fix this in the future.

%AppData%\local\lxss\rootfs

Have fun

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#19

Post by nikanj » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:54 PM UTC

Can someone point to a decent X server for windows?

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux is out of beta

#20

Post by bitwize » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:55 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #10

tyrw wrote: post #2

In my experience, emulators are never quite the same as the real deal. Has anyone used this, and if so how was it?

It's not really an emulator. It's more like a virtual machine that runs Linux in the background and lets you use the commands. You can install Ubuntu with it and it's officially supported. If it didn't work, I'm sure Ubuntu wouldn't run.

What it is is what BSDers call a "kernel personality". It's not a virtual machine; the Windows kernel just knows how to load Linux binaries and translate Linux system calls to the corresponding Windows calls.