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Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

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Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#51
post #49

Is anyone here using this for *Nix traditional tools? Mostly curious about Vim/Tmux, and having serve operations spit out the server into the actual Windows browser? I did read something about the creator update adding 24 color support.

I use vim in it when I code on my home computer, haven't had any problems. I haven't tried tmux, but I think that'd be fine too.

I'm less sure about things that require a GUI, and last time I tried postgres it didn't work. That was a while ago, though, and they might have made progress since. TFA says the postgres tests are passing.

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#53

Does anyone use this for work? Could I replace Ubuntu with Windows now?

I used it for a while, when Fedora 24 refused to work reliably on my 4k laptop (it worked under 23, and now works again under 25). It was OK. I mean, it's an amazing feat of engineering, but there's a ton of little (and not so little) quirks that made it painful.

Sharing files across the two systems was (maybe still is?) disastrous. I've heard of total Linux system corruption, but I personally had files disappear (they were checked into a remote git repo, so no loss, except for recent changes). It's covered in the docs, but I didn't grok what they were saying and the real gravity of it. Since I was using Windows native Atom for my editor, this was cumbersome.

But, most things work about how you'd expect them to. I was able to install the software I work on (which runs as root, and pokes at everything on the system), and it worked as I expected it to. I didn't even have to tweak it.

I'm still more comfortable and productive in Linux, so I'm happy to have my Linux partition running well again. I also prefer Fedora to Ubuntu, so that's a win for running Linux natively. But, if I liked developing in, say, Visual Studio, and was deploying my software to Linux servers or working on cross-platform desktop apps, having the local Linux would be a big win. Even with the forced separation of filesystems, it's still more transparent than a Vagrant managed VirtualBox, or something.

Also worth noting: Windows is remarkably better as a development environment than the last time I had to develop on a Windows machine (about 10 years ago, one of my jobs included building cross-platform software packages). The quality of tools available is very high. There are good terminals, all of the languages I use have good installers available. Even if Linux weren't there, it's much less painful to develop on Windows than it used to be. (Still painful, and I still had a huge variety of headaches, mostly due to absolutely shitty package management on Windows.)

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#54
post #49

Is anyone here using this for *Nix traditional tools? Mostly curious about Vim/Tmux, and having serve operations spit out the server into the actual Windows browser? I did read something about the creator update adding 24 color support.

I use vim in it when I code on my home computer, haven't had any problems. I haven't tried tmux, but I think that'd be fine too. I'm less sure about things that require a GUI, and last time I tried postgres it didn't work. That was a while ago, though, and they might have made progress since. TFA says the postgres tests are passing.

Things that require a GUI require you to have a separate X server running. WSL, as far as I know, does not support running X11. However, if you do have a Windows native X11 server running (like xming, for example) things like emacs and gvim seem to work. I haven't tried anything more intensive than those, though.

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#55
post #2

I still have a hard time with bash-backwards name: "Windows Subsystem for Linux". Its a Linux subsystem for Windows.

Whatever name is better than "Bash for Windows", the worst possible name and the least tech-savvy way of describing what is going on. A real embarrassment.

They justify their choice saying they had a survey where the most popular option was Bash for Windows. Well, surveys also led to a boat called Boaty McBoatface...

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#57

Does anyone use this for work? Could I replace Ubuntu with Windows now?

That's a bit loaded, but I'll attempt to answer seriously:

Can you replace Ubuntu? Maybe, if you are OK with 14.04 LTS level support. Certain simple things straight up don't work -- you can't send a ping without an admin level windows shell (sudo wont do it either). You also won't magically get driver support for hardware that works in Linux, but not Windows (if you think this isn't a thing, try plugging in a random USB-to-something adapter without finding obscure, broken, or nonexistant drivers on Windows). If you just need access to some tools that only run on Linux, I've found WSL invaluable, so long as those tools are available on Ubuntu 14.04.

Can you replace Linux in general? Nope - I'm a 90+% Linux user for work and home, and neither Debian, Ubuntu, or its derivatives work for me, with the notable exception of some server and embedded applications. If you want a wide variety of up-to-date software, there is no replacement for something like Arch.

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use vim in it when I code on my home computer, haven't had any problems. I haven't tried tmux, but I think that'd be fine too. I'm less sure about things that require a GUI, and last time I tried postgres it didn't work. That was a while ago, though, and they might have made progress since. TFA says the postgres tests are passing.

Things that require a GUI require you to have a separate X server running. WSL, as far as I know, does not support running X11. However, if you do have a Windows native X11 server running (like xming, for example) things like emacs and gvim seem to work. I haven't tried anything more intensive than those, though.

youtube in firefox played ok.

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#59
As a Linux user, MS Windows Subsystem for Linux is as interesting as Microsoft Bob.

Microsoft cannot say it loves Linux until they launch their flagship products such as MS Office and MS Visual Studio on Linux. Until then, it's all fugazzi.

MS SQL Server on Linux was good progress.

Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#60
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the needless confusion when everything needed to have .NET tacked onto the name. Or after they bought Skype, and rebranded the unrelated Lync as Skype for Business. Not to mention that Lync is a homophone of LINQ, which was coming out around when Office Communication Server became Lync... Or lately, when you had Visual Studio 2015, and what is now Visual Studio 2017 being called Visual Studio '15 while it was pre-…

I guess it is Visual Studio 15 (as in version 15), and that still holds.

Yep, while in pre-release they always just use the version number and that only happened to be similar to the actual product name in VS 2010, I think.
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