The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source • Hacker News Board

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#511

Post by CoolCold » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

nickjj wrote: post #268

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…

> It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop or laptop, with no configuration required. I have been using it since the beginning of WSL 1 with a very terminal heavy set up but it has some issues. For example WSLg's clipboard sharing is buggy compared to VcXsrv. It doesn't handle pasting into Linux apps without introducing Windows CRs. I opened an issue for this https://github.com/microsoft/wslg/iss…

never had problems of systemd/2 minutes delays

not sure what would be the correct test here, but:

root@LP-T16:~# uname -rn

LP-T16 5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2

root@LP-T16:~# time systemctl restart ssh

real 0m0.039s

user 0m0.008s

sys 0m0.001s

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#512

Post by ok123456 » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

jchw wrote: post #56

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…

"More powerful than Linux" is silly. It's a VM. The most useful thing is that it does a bunch of convenience features for you. I am not suggesting that it is not extremely convenient, but it's not somehow more powerful than just using Linux. You know what's even more convenient than a VM? Not needing a VM and still having the exact same functionality. And you don't need a bunch of janky wrapper scripts, there's more…

My coworkers stubbornly try to use WSL instead of Linux directly. They constantly run into corner cases and waste time working around them compared to just using Linux. Some tooling detects that it is running on Windows, and some detects that it is running on Linux. In practice, it's the worst of both worlds.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#513

Post by dark-star » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

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…

For WSL 1, I kinda agree. It was basically the Posix Subsystem re-implemented and improved. Technically amazing, and running parallel to Windows without virtualization. Too bad it had so many performance issues.

But WSL2 is just a VM, no more, no less. You can do the same with VMware Workstation or similar tools, where you even get a nice accelerated virtual GPU.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#514

Post by CoolCold » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

rini17 wrote: post #481

phendrenad2 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by that?

As a reply to: You don't have to stress "do I update my OS?"

I'm also not sure on your question, over the last 5 years, average interruption time is ~ 5 minutes to apply update, which happens roughly once a 3 weeks or so. Once or twice per year, release updates happen and that takes may be 30 minutes of interruption (not totally sure here as I usually grab my coffee and cigarrets and go reading news on balcony, which may easily take ~1h for me).

So for me, updates practically doesn't affect my workflow at all.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#515

Post by ashirviskas » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

okanat wrote: post #477

tacker2000 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting comment there: “ I still hope to see a true "Windows Subsystem for Linux" by Microsoft or a windows becoming a linux distribution itself and dropping the NT kernel to legacy. Windows is currently overloaded with features and does lack a package manager to only get what you need...”

NT is a better consumer kernel that Linux. It can survive many driver crashes that Linux cannot. Why should Microsoft drop a better kernel for a worse one?

Can you expand on this? I've used Windows 10 for 2-3 years when it came out and I remember BSODs being hell.

Now I only experienced something close to that when I set up multiseat on single PC with AMD and Nvidia GPUs and one of them decided to fall asleep. Or when I undervolt GPU too much.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#516

Post by micromacrofoot » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:39 PM UTC

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…

This would be a great point if WSL didn't require running Windows

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#517

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:39 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#518

Post by mattl » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:43 PM UTC

resource_waste wrote: post #431

alex_smart wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Macbooks are winning the laptop war because of superior hardware. No. This is just you repeating marketing. No Nvidia chip = B tier at best. I have a $700 Asus with a 3060 that is better. Go ahead and scale up to a $2000 computer with an Nvidia chip and its so obviously better, there is nothing to debate. No one cares about performance per watt, its like someone ran a 5k race, came in 3rd and said "Well at least I b…

Why would I need an Nvidia chip in my laptop?

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#519

Post by grujicd » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

oasisbob wrote: post #430

lolinder wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same spirit if "it depends", there are other options that may work for people with different Linux/Windows balance points: * Wine is surprisingly good these days for a lot of software. If you only have an app or two that need Windows it is probably worth trying Wine to see if it meets your needs. * Similarly, if gaming is your thing Valve has made enormous strides in getting the majority of games to work flawl…

I'm struggling to find an option for running x86 Windows software on MacOS/Apple Silicon performantly. (LiDAR point cloud processing.) The possibilities seem endless and kinda confusing with Windows on ARM vs Rosetta and Wine, think there's some other options which use MacOS's included virtualization frameworks.

Have you tried to install Windows 11 ARM under UTM on Mac? UTM is a kind of open source Parallels. Then you'll run x86 software using Windows' variant of Rosetta. Probably slower than Rosetta but perhaps good enough.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#520

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 19, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #37

signal11 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

qemu on Linux solves a bunch of these problems as well. But yeah, UX-wise WSL is pretty good at solving the problem of “provide Windows devs a POSIX environment”.

Qemu is nothing like wsl UX wise. The UX on windows is double click gimp and then a window for gimp opens. For qemu it opens a new window for the wm, has awkward input focus interactions, you probably have to log in to the vm, and it can not be easily setup to automatically open the app you want.

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