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

The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

blogs.windows.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#171

Post by int_19h »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #81
tgma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a 3% layoff in a big company affect anything unless they want to specifically axe some project? It’s just lubrication for the machine. 3% is less than nothing compared to the bloat in any bigco and let me tell you Microsoft’s reputation is not the leanest of the bunch.

Didn’t Microsoft use to have annual 10% layoffs? Just culling the lowest performers every year.

If you mean stack ranking, the hard 20/70/10 bucketing was in force >15 years ago, but even then it didn't mean that those 10% automatically get fired.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#172

Post by alex_smart »

pton_xd wrote: post #106
elif wrote: post #7

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. It's as powerful as Linux with some janky custom local docker wrappers for device support, local storage mapping, and network mapping. Except it's not janky at all. It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop…

Running a Linux VM on Windows is nicer than just booting into Linux? That's quite a take. Windows is so user-hostile these days that I feel bad for those who have to deal with it. Calling it delightful must be symptomatic of some sort of Stockholm syndrome.

> symptomatic of some sort of Stockholm syndrome

I have since moved to macbooks for the hardware, but until not too long ago WSL was my linux "distro" of choice because I didn't want to spend time configuring my computer to make basic things work like suspend/wake on lid down/up, battery life, hardware acceleration for video playback on the browser, display scaling on external monitor and so on.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#173

Post by randunel »

dvtkrlbs wrote: post #65
righthand wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. This is why you pay karma tax. This statement is so clearly representative of a falsity. My linux can run multiple linuxes as well without VM overhead. Something Windows can’t do. Furthermore WINE allows me to forgo running any vm to run windows applications. I developed on WSL for 3 years and consisten…

Except Wine cant cover all of Windows (partly due to fault of Windows). I can't run UWP apps for example. Windows is not a good operating system but if you need it. WSL creates way more intuitive working environment for you. So even if you can run multiple Linux OSes in Linux you can't run Windows as easily you can do linux on Windows. So OPs statement is not incorrect.

There are virtual machines for Linux with seamless window integration, so upgrading to Linux is still recommended imo.

OP's statement remains incorrect, because their assumption is that the WSL experience can't be reproduced in Linux.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#174

Post by trey-jones »

Theodores wrote: post #62
trey-jones wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'd still rather just use linux, but I take your meaning.

Me too. Particularly after having to do Docker things a few years ago, destroying my productivity due to file system speed. However, for those of us that went Linux many years ago, and like our free open source, in 2025, is it better to go back to the dark side, to run Windows and have things like a LAMP stack and terminals run with WSL? I don't play games or run Adobe products, I use Google Docs and I don't need lot…

As someone who occasionally does use WSL, I definitely think it's not better no. But I'm still biased, because I know a lot more about using linux than I do about using windows, and WSL is still windows.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#175

Post by jsmith99 »

thewebguyd wrote: post #105
elif wrote: post #7

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. It's as powerful as Linux with some janky custom local docker wrappers for device support, local storage mapping, and network mapping. Except it's not janky at all. It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop…

You can accomplish the same with Distrobox on Linux, but there's definitely something to be said about having the best of both worlds by running Windows + WSL. I honestly think Microsoft could win back some mind share from Apple if they: * Put out a version of windows without all the crap. Call it Dev edition or something and turn off or down the telemetry, preinstalled stuff, ads, and Copilot. * Put some effort into…

There's a dedicated settings page for quickly setting popular dev settings such as showing extensions and full paths. Getting rid of the rest just involves tweaking a few other settings like don't show tips or welcome screen. I also hide the weather and news widget because it's tabloid rubbish but many people seem to love it.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#176

Post by airstrike »

nightski wrote: post #134
thewebguyd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can accomplish the same with Distrobox on Linux, but there's definitely something to be said about having the best of both worlds by running Windows + WSL. I honestly think Microsoft could win back some mind share from Apple if they: * Put out a version of windows without all the crap. Call it Dev edition or something and turn off or down the telemetry, preinstalled stuff, ads, and Copilot. * Put some effort into…

I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but with Windows 11 Pro and group policy I was able to disable all of the annoying stuff, and because it is group policy it has persisted through several years of updates. It is annoying you have to do this, and it does take some time to get set up right. But it's a solution. That said I'd pay for a dev edition as you described it, that would be fantastic.

There is no flavor of Windows 11 that is acceptable. Even the UI itself is a disaster. A cornucopia of libraries and paradigms from React Native to legacy APIs as if an interdimensional wave function of bad ideas had collapsed into an OS, but with ads.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#177

Post by kobalsky »

liendolucas wrote: post #107

I would do it the other way round: use Windows in a virtual machine from Linux. If you are in Windows and have the urge to use Linux, do the proper switch once and for all. You will never look back. I haven't in almost 15 years. Given what Windows has become and already discussed here on HN I would even hesitate to run it in a virtual machine. Edit: more than 15 years.

Running Windows from a ZFS partition with its own dedicated GPU, viewed through looking-glass on the Linux host at 1440p@120Hz, has been super useful.

I set it up originally for gaming, but nowaways I install a lot of disposable software there.

I use Linux guests VMs too (a la Qubes), but sadly there's no guest support for looking-glass on Linux. Native rendering speeds on VMs are something hard to let go.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#178

Post by ActorNightly »

mschuster91 wrote: post #34
behnamoh wrote: post #8

meanwhile Apple won't even make it easy to boot Asahi Linux on Apple Silicon.

Apple might not be releasing documentation on their peripherals, but they went out of their way in making it possible in the first place. Apple could just have gone and do a straight port of the iOS boot procedure to their ARM Mac lineup... and we'd have been thoroughly screwed, given how long ago the latest untethered bootrom exploit was. Or they could have pulled a Qualcomm, Samsung et al and just randomly change i…

Macs are almost universally seen as developer computers. If you are going to be developer friendly, then you need to do things that are developer friendly. Asahi project is 80% reverse engineering stuff.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#179

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx »

elif wrote: post #7

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. It's as powerful as Linux with some janky custom local docker wrappers for device support, local storage mapping, and network mapping. Except it's not janky at all. It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop…

ELI5 does it allow me to run windows programs in Linux?

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#180

Post by alex_smart »

thewebguyd wrote: post #105
elif wrote: post #7

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. It's as powerful as Linux with some janky custom local docker wrappers for device support, local storage mapping, and network mapping. Except it's not janky at all. It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop…

You can accomplish the same with Distrobox on Linux, but there's definitely something to be said about having the best of both worlds by running Windows + WSL. I honestly think Microsoft could win back some mind share from Apple if they: * Put out a version of windows without all the crap. Call it Dev edition or something and turn off or down the telemetry, preinstalled stuff, ads, and Copilot. * Put some effort into…

I don't think Microsoft losing the mind share has anything to do with software. Macbooks are winning the laptop war because of superior hardware.
Post reply on HN