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Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

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Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#291
post #115

I haven't had any problems running all types of GUIs in WSL (1 & 2) through Xming for years now.

I recall running the X11 server that came packaged with Cygwin back in the 90s. Where there is a will, there is a way, for several decades now.

>I recall running the X11 server that came packaged with Cygwin back in the 90s. Where there is a will, there is a way, for several decades now.

And Cygwin still runs like a champ today. At least for my use case.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#292

I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘you never have to leave Windows’ is a nice thing for their business, but I don’t see this being a reason I would stop dual-booting. The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games. Otherwise I really enjoy the bloat-free, ad-fre…

Every single person who has ever claimed Linux runs flawlessly on a piece of hardware has had some flaws. I include myself here - I once bought a laptop with entirely OSS mainline kernel supported hardware and compositing didn’t work on external displays.

99% hardware support isn’t good enough. I want to make new software not troubleshoot other people’s.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#293
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I mean come on, they're Microsoft. If they really wanted filesystem access to be efficient across systems, we'd have it by now. Here's one of the developers saying it is hard back in the WSL days. https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/873#issuecomment-391... The reason makes sense to me, but I'm not an expert. Maybe you could expand on why you think they could do it but chose not to?

Seeing how every file system (NTFS) imrovement since windows 7 (like new compression methods) is done in layers running on top of ntfs. I think that Microsoft has either lost the source to ntfs driver or institutional knowledge of how it works.

The real answer is that they're building filters on top of NTFS because that's precisely how it was designed to work.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#294

I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘you never have to leave Windows’ is a nice thing for their business, but I don’t see this being a reason I would stop dual-booting. The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games. Otherwise I really enjoy the bloat-free, ad-fre…

Terminal emulator.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#295

I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘you never have to leave Windows’ is a nice thing for their business, but I don’t see this being a reason I would stop dual-booting. The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games. Otherwise I really enjoy the bloat-free, ad-fre…

I use WSL with VcXsrv on my work machine. For me, the biggest feature is that I can share clipboard between vim running in WSL and windows. It's also often significantly faster to get a program up and running in Linux than on Windows, especially if it has lots of dependencies.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#296
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though our dev environment at work is Ubuntu, I greatly prefer running Windows on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, because of the superior hardware support for the devices I use. Specifically: • I spend a fair amount of time on Zoom calls (who doesn't?), and I like to use my Apple AirPods so I can move around while we talk. I was never was able to get these or any other Bluetooth headset to work on Ubuntu. They pair only…

Bluetooth headsets (I have Bose) and automatic input switching works with pipewire, fractional scaling with different settings for each monitor works with Wayland. I am using it on Archlinux without any problems whatsoever. The problem with Ubuntu is - when it releases their latest version, it is already shipping a couple years old software versions. And for pipewire, wayland, mesa and other desktop related things yo…

I'm using Fedora. Scaling works, but not for all apps. Gnome apps work just fine. But Chrome, Intellij Idea and some other apps do not scale when moved to other display. AFAIU Wayland-native apps work, but those which use Xlib do not re-scale properly.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#298
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A super fast one. After one click, within 2-3 seconds I can have an Ubuntu terminal open with wsl. To spin up a vm from let’s say VMware, I need at least 10times that.

I don't think that's magic in the hypervisor, so I doubt it affects overall performance of the VM very much. But WSL images have a special boot process instead of a full init system like systemd, which is probably where the fast startup comes from. Maybe it also has to do with how they configure storage for the VM. On real hardware with a decent SSD, Ubuntu usually gets you a graphical login in less than 10 seconds.…

And the fact that they probably use a slimmed down kernel with just the right amount of modules, I guess.

In any case, booting Linux (the kernel) is always incredibly fast, and booting to a tty, without all the systemd units that are generally loaded, is incredibly fast per se.

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#299
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac is a small slice of the software engineer market, and mostly in the web-app/mobile space.

every single FAANG (and many middle tier companies too) distributes macbook pros to its devs.

Just because there is no viable enterprise-ish Linux computer that fits those environments. Sadly :(

Re: Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI

#300
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though our dev environment at work is Ubuntu, I greatly prefer running Windows on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, because of the superior hardware support for the devices I use. Specifically: • I spend a fair amount of time on Zoom calls (who doesn't?), and I like to use my Apple AirPods so I can move around while we talk. I was never was able to get these or any other Bluetooth headset to work on Ubuntu. They pair only…

Bluetooth headsets (I have Bose) and automatic input switching works with pipewire, fractional scaling with different settings for each monitor works with Wayland. I am using it on Archlinux without any problems whatsoever. The problem with Ubuntu is - when it releases their latest version, it is already shipping a couple years old software versions. And for pipewire, wayland, mesa and other desktop related things yo…

  > The problem with Ubuntu is - when it releases their latest version, it is already shipping a couple years old software versions.
That is quite a dramatic take and simply not true.

It maybe fits somewhat for Debian Stable (that has a freeze of 4 to 6 months), but Ubuntu bases off Debian Unstable (sid) and sid is very close to the Arch experience - I know because I use both a lot. Granted, Ubuntu adds a bit of a delay due to QA and all that release fuzz a rolling release like Arch does not has to care for, but if an upstream software release happened one or two months before an Ubuntu release it's really likely to be included in that release.

  > And for pipewire, wayland, mesa and other desktop related things you want to run the latest version at all times.
Meh, in general I agree with the sentiment, but there are also regressions that hurt running into, and if you have HW that was released over a year ago it may not matter that much.

  > This is one of the major reasons why Valve chose Archlinux as a base for their new SteamOS version for Steam Deck.
Not directly, they could have used Debian sid for that, and the fact that SteamOS 2.0 is still on Debian 8 (newest is 11) also shows that they did not try to go for the latest releases until now. I'm working on a Debian derivative and we just backport things ourself if really required, it is a bit of work but not that much (we're definitively orders of magnitudes smaller than Valve) - especially as the Debian unstable/sid repo is quite up-to-date and thus we often can just take it from there and base on that anyway.

But actually Debian and Arch Linux are really close anyway, I do packaging for both (but neither a DM nor Arch trusted user) and if the software is not awful to package in general it's quite the bliss to do for both, there are also lots of parallels, even if often slightly hidden. So I won't care much; may even try out setting up Debian Sid once I get my Steam Deck :)

FYI: here's some good background read regarding all this from a Debian developer whom also works for Collabora on the Steam Runtime: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2021/07/msg00214.html

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