Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

blogs.msdn.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 142 posts

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#101

Post by cryptarch »

skrebbel wrote: post #100
cryptarch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is more significant from a user's perspective that they get the GNU tools to run on their NT machine with MS support. What's the use of Linux syscall -> NT syscall translation if not compatibility with developer tools, most of which are GNU software?

> developer tools, most of which are GNU software? such as python, nodejs, elixir and PHP?

You can say that about Linux as well; the bread-and-butter of the CLI experience is still the GNU stuff.

EDIT: Yes, there are non-GNU Linux distributions, but WSL is based off Ubuntu specifically and ships with a GNU userland by default.

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#102

Post by cryptarch »

skrause wrote: post #97
cryptarch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is more significant from a user's perspective that they get the GNU tools to run on their NT machine with MS support. What's the use of Linux syscall -> NT syscall translation if not compatibility with developer tools, most of which are GNU software?

So you were actually serious? I thought your first post was great satire. Poe's law strikes again...

I think the syscall translation part is an irrelevant hack, seems silly to act like that is what makes the project more useful because it does not guarantee performance, compatibility or stability.

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#103

Post by hultner »

cryptarch wrote: post #101
skrebbel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developer tools, most of which are GNU software? such as python, nodejs, elixir and PHP?

You can say that about Linux as well; the bread-and-butter of the CLI experience is still the GNU stuff. EDIT: Yes, there are non-GNU Linux distributions, but WSL is based off Ubuntu specifically and ships with a GNU userland by default.

What if you run a ToyBox userland then? Or BusyBox for that matter

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#104

Post by netzone »

baq wrote: post #89
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a bit loaded, but I'll attempt to answer seriously: Fair enough. I specifically mean, can I replace Ubuntu for development work? Can I use apt-get to install various tools? Does docker work better? That sort of stuff.

i'd say don't expect docker to work in the same way as on native ubuntu, at least not soon. http://serverfault.com/questions/767994/can-you-run-docker-n... has a good set of answers.

It'll probably work better than on mac though!

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#105

Post by mikegerwitz »

cryptarch wrote: post #75

I'd just like to interject for moment. What you're refering to as WSL, is in fact, GNU/NT, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus NT. NT is not an operating system unto itself, but rather a non-free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of t…

In all seriousness (your message could be in favor of, hostile to, or neutral toward GNU; I can't be sure), I got rms' opinion on all of this in April of last year and wrote about it:

https://mikegerwitz.com/2016/04/GNU-kWindows

(He proofread, and I made suggested changes.)

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#107

Post by skrause »

cryptarch wrote: post #101
skrebbel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developer tools, most of which are GNU software? such as python, nodejs, elixir and PHP?

You can say that about Linux as well; the bread-and-butter of the CLI experience is still the GNU stuff. EDIT: Yes, there are non-GNU Linux distributions, but WSL is based off Ubuntu specifically and ships with a GNU userland by default.

There are Linux distributions which contain almost no GNU software, e.g. Alpine Linux which is built around musl libc and busybox: https://alpinelinux.org/about/

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#108

Post by [deleted] »

hultner wrote: post #103
cryptarch wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say that about Linux as well; the bread-and-butter of the CLI experience is still the GNU stuff. EDIT: Yes, there are non-GNU Linux distributions, but WSL is based off Ubuntu specifically and ships with a GNU userland by default.

What if you run a ToyBox userland then? Or BusyBox for that matter

[deleted]

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#110

Post by jcwayne »

tankenmate wrote: post #85
jcwayne wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "Windows's Subsystem for Linux"?

Windows is plural so it should be Windows' Subsystem for Linux.

I'd argue that it's singular in the same sense that Williams[1] is singular, despite have origins which imply it describes a plural concept. Plus, "Windows's" sounds funny.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_(surname)

Post reply on HN