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Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

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Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#41

Post by red75prime »

sundvor wrote: post #17
frankohn wrote: post #8

I advice people to not use WSL. It seems to me that this is the first step of their well-known embrace, extend, extinguish microsoft's strategy. They are now embracing the gnu/linux way of working like the packaging tools, the command line with the shells, the easy of having a compiler and developer tools, etc etc. At the same time they don't let you create from WSL standard Windows application that you can redistrib…

the updates .. reset without asking many of the configurations you carefully made on your system. Funny you should say that, I am normally quite fond of Win10 but I just installed the April update on my HTPC which uses a 4k TV as monitor. The graphics settings went to hell, making the screen push past the boundaries or "overscanning" them. Reinstalling Nvidia graphics drivers now to hopefully bring things back into o…

Overscan is an unfortunate fossil of CRT era. I don't know why videocard manufacturers keep using it, some compatibility requirements probably.

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#42

Post by Nullabillity »

barrkel wrote: post #32
some_account wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By letting users run Linux, they are moving people away from the Linux distributions and into the windows ecosystem. This the embrace step, so they later can watch Linux distribution usage decline to nothing. That leaves Windows as the professional choice for Linux. Anything that moves users from Linux distributions to Windows is very bad for free software, since it's already a small market.

I really deeply disagree. You could use the same argument against Msys2 and Cygwin, yet they were key to me choosing the Unix command line as my common interface across all OSes when I was a teenager, with plenty of games that I wasn't going to give up any time soon to live in Linux. I think it's ridiculously naive to think that businesses are going to build on top of a closed source licensed system like WSL when wit…

In theory I would agree with you, but clearly a lot of businesses are not rational. Just look at how many built stuff on top of MS products to begin with!

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#43

Post by ygra »

xmrsilentx wrote: post #10
grewil2 wrote: post #3

Shouldn't it be called Windows Subsystem for GNU? There's a boatload of GNU-tools in there, but does it include a Linux kernel too?

Too put it more simply ladies and gents', it's the doppelgänger of WINE.

Just inside the NT kernel.

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#44

Post by pritambaral »

oblio wrote: post #37
frankohn wrote: post #8

I advice people to not use WSL. It seems to me that this is the first step of their well-known embrace, extend, extinguish microsoft's strategy. They are now embracing the gnu/linux way of working like the packaging tools, the command line with the shells, the easy of having a compiler and developer tools, etc etc. At the same time they don't let you create from WSL standard Windows application that you can redistrib…

I’ve been using Linux for more than 10 years. Don’t be ridiculous. Linux desktop usage has always been pitiful, 2% of the market at best. What is there to extinguish? There is a reason “the year of Linux on the desktop” is a meme. You’re completely misreading their strategy. They’re targeting development for Azure. These days a ton of development tools are *nix native and Windows is a second class citizen, because Li…

> What is there to extinguish?

The Linux CLI development environment? The point of WSL clearly can't be to try to extinguish the Linux Desktop, because WSL doesn't even embrace the Linux Desktop.

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#45

Post by EvilTerran »

xmrsilentx wrote: post #10
grewil2 wrote: post #3

Shouldn't it be called Windows Subsystem for GNU? There's a boatload of GNU-tools in there, but does it include a Linux kernel too?

Too put it more simply ladies and gents', it's the doppelgänger of WINE.

WSL's kinda the mirror-universe Wine, but not quite - AIUI, it doesn't translate Linux syscalls into Windows ones, it's an alternative Windows kernel ABI that bypasses the normal one entirely.

That makes a big difference when it comes to the implementation of syscalls that have no remotely close analogue in regular Windows. fork() and exec() spring to mind - the hoops Cygwin had to jump through to fake those[0] are pretty eye-watering, but for WSL Microsoft added new kernel functionality to support them directly.

[0] https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/highlights.html#ov-hi-proce...

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#46

Post by ta848347 »

Nullabillity wrote: post #42
barrkel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really deeply disagree. You could use the same argument against Msys2 and Cygwin, yet they were key to me choosing the Unix command line as my common interface across all OSes when I was a teenager, with plenty of games that I wasn't going to give up any time soon to live in Linux. I think it's ridiculously naive to think that businesses are going to build on top of a closed source licensed system like WSL when wit…

In theory I would agree with you, but clearly a lot of businesses are not rational. Just look at how many built stuff on top of MS products to begin with!

How is that not rational? You're letting your biases cloud your judgement.

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#47

Post by pritambaral »

jchw wrote: post #36
frankohn wrote: post #8

I advice people to not use WSL. It seems to me that this is the first step of their well-known embrace, extend, extinguish microsoft's strategy. They are now embracing the gnu/linux way of working like the packaging tools, the command line with the shells, the easy of having a compiler and developer tools, etc etc. At the same time they don't let you create from WSL standard Windows application that you can redistrib…

WSL is not for developing Windows applications, it's a full Linux ABI-compatible subsystem. The intent is to run Linux-based operating systems and tools unmodified. It's mostly just to make life easier for people developing on platforms like Ruby on Rails where Unix has better support. WSL feels no more dangerous than Wine.

> WSL feels no more dangerous than Wine.

Wine is not really a fair comparison against WSL, especially when it comes to comparing 'potential to extinguish the embraced'.

Wine has nowhere near the amount and quality of resources (both human and IP) available to WSL.

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#48

Post by stinos »

some_account wrote: post #29
stinos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time they don't let you create from WSL standard Windows application that you can redistribute, I guess this is part of their strategy. I fail to see how that has anything to do with embrace/extend/whatever. Maybe I'm missing something but they simply let you run largely unmodified linux. Which obviously is not windows. And which can already cross-compile for windows seemingly making your point extra moot…

By letting users run Linux, they are moving people away from the Linux distributions and into the windows ecosystem. This the embrace step, so they later can watch Linux distribution usage decline to nothing. That leaves Windows as the professional choice for Linux. Anything that moves users from Linux distributions to Windows is very bad for free software, since it's already a small market.

My comment actually just addressed the part where the parent complains about MS not providing a way to create native Windows applications from within WSL. Maybe you wanted to reply to someone else?

In any case:

away from the Linux distributions

When running Linux on WSL you're effectively still running it so you're not really away from Linux, are you?

Actually you can even try and turn the argument around. For a windows user it is now probably easier than ever to try linux: no need for dual-boot or bootable media or virtual machines but a simple way to install and run it. So this might actually lead to more linux users, not less. But we'd need to count to be sure, everything else is guesswork.

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#49

Post by Nullabillity »

ta848347 wrote: post #46
Nullabillity wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory I would agree with you, but clearly a lot of businesses are not rational. Just look at how many built stuff on top of MS products to begin with!

How is that not rational? You're letting your biases cloud your judgement.

> I think it's ridiculously naive to think that businesses are going to build on top of a closed source licensed system like WSL when with minimal effort they could choose Linux. The business risks of the former are huge and they're handing a big lever to MS to screw them in the future - why would they do that?

All of that applies just as much to native Windows development, except you no longer have a canonical escape hatch (aside from WINE, I guess).

Re: Command Line and Windows Subsystem for Linux – The Windows 10 April Update

#50

Post by Vogtinator »

oblio wrote: post #37
frankohn wrote: post #8

I advice people to not use WSL. It seems to me that this is the first step of their well-known embrace, extend, extinguish microsoft's strategy. They are now embracing the gnu/linux way of working like the packaging tools, the command line with the shells, the easy of having a compiler and developer tools, etc etc. At the same time they don't let you create from WSL standard Windows application that you can redistrib…

I’ve been using Linux for more than 10 years. Don’t be ridiculous. Linux desktop usage has always been pitiful, 2% of the market at best. What is there to extinguish? There is a reason “the year of Linux on the desktop” is a meme. You’re completely misreading their strategy. They’re targeting development for Azure. These days a ton of development tools are *nix native and Windows is a second class citizen, because Li…

The end goal is to use WSL on servers, to extinguish linux servers.
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