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The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

blogs.windows.com

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Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#601

Post by frollogaston »

Affric wrote: post #600
sureglymop wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On linux it's quite trivial. KVM is part of the kernel. Installing libvirt and virt-manager makes it really easy to create vms. I'd say even passing through a GPU is not that hard these days though maybe that depends on hardware configuration more.

“On Linux it’s quite trivial…” giving big “ or a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.”[1] vibes. Convenience features in software are huge and even if a system is well designed a system…

Even the described FTP-based Dropbox replacement is easier than getting a VM to work properly with DRM'd software and/or GPU acceleration.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#602

Post by lostmsu »

ActorNightly wrote: post #161
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.

The big difference is hardware access. I used to do VFIO with hardware passthrough so I could have linux but still run windows software like CAD that takes advantage of the gfx card. That was a pain to set up and use. The other way, its very simple. WSL2 can run ML tasks with just a tiny bit of overhead in moving the data to the card.

PyTorch and most of other ML stuff have native Windows ports.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#603

Post by emmelaich »

rao-v wrote: post #186
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…

I'm with you - after years of messing with dualboot Linux, including (foolishly) running multiday Gentoo builds, WSL + Windows now gives me everything I want from Linux with zero friction. In fact, I'm a little annoyed that I can't get a comparably smooth experience on my MacBook without spinning up a full QEMU VM. I know it's a bit hypocritical since, like most people, I run WSL2 (which is container/VM-based), not W…

Perhaps with the Mac Hypervisor someone is working on it.

But Qemu (via UTM) starts up pretty quickly for me. No slower than WSL2 under Windows. My only issue is that it seems to drain power even when idle.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#604

Post by Dwedit »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #570
okanat wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can setup local and limited user accounts under Windows. Many applications including every development tool out there doesn't need any admin permissions. Spyware and adware is a government policy / regulation problem. Thanks to GDPR and DMA, using Windows in EU is significantly better experience (try setting a Windows desktop with an EU image). You can remove almost all of the apps including Edge and Copilot. The…

The current process to install windows11 with a local account… is to, press SHIFT + F10 at a screen in the middle of install after the first reboot, enter into the command prompt: ODBE/BYPASSNRO, and disconnect from any internet options, and/or ipconfig disable your networking… But guess what? Fuck You because that is the old way of doing it now, and now the new command is start ms-chx:localonly This is a company tha…

Or you just use Rufus to build the USB installation disk.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#605

Post by emmelaich »

ndriscoll wrote: post #54
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…

I find it to be incredibly janky. Pretty much every every time my computer sleeps (so every morning, at least) I have to restart it because somehow the VM-host networking gets screwed up and VS code connections into the VM stop working. You also can't just put things in your Windows User directory because the filesystem driver is so slow that git commands will take multiple seconds, so now you have two home directori…

FWIW, you can run a VPN (e.g. tailscale) in WSL2. I have WSL2 start up on boot and I can remotely ssh to WSL2 without logging into Windows at all.

I also have tailscale running on Windows itself and they don't conflict.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#606

Post by CoolCold »

nickjj wrote: post #523
CoolCold wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The delay is related to starting WSL 2, not starting a systemd service btw. Maybe it's specific to Windows 10 Pro, who knows. I'm using the latest WSL 2 from the MS app store. I just know when I installed Docker directly into WSL 2, when I launched a terminal I could not run `docker info` and connect to the Docker daemon for 2 minutes. The culprit was the Docker service was not available. I was able to reproduce this…

First opening of my main wsl2 Ubuntu 22.04 instance takes roughly 20 seconds, the next new terminals opens in ~1s. As it happens once a 3 weeks or so when Windows rebooted for updates, I don't care much.

It takes me more time to fill passwords for ssh keys to agent anyways.

Granted, I'm not using native docker inside.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#607

Post by danielheath »

kristianp wrote: post #575
yndoendo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My development is mainly Windows and I prefer Linux host with Windows VM guests. The experience is more stable and I can revert to a snapshot when Windows or Microsoft product update brakes something or new test configuration does. It also allows to backup and retain multiple QA environments that are rarely used, like a client's Oracle DB. It is nice being able to save the VM state at the end of the week and shut it…

Can you share more details of how you make that work well? What hypervisor, what backup/replication, for instance? I can only imagine that being a world of irritation.

It's been a few years since I used it, but Virtualbox (free) had perfectly good suspend/restore functionality, and the suspended VM state was just a file.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#608

Post by SchemaLoad »

jjcm wrote: post #558
throwaway148773 wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if you're on Nvidia...

Am currently on nvidia and have no issues with their proprietary drivers. While they aren't following the linux ethos, the software runs just fine.

Have they fixed the drivers on wayland yet?

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#609

Post by coderenegade »

alex_smart wrote: post #183
ThinkBeat wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment that you can do Linux things on Linux missed the point entirely. Where is the reverse WSL on Linux, where Windows is deeply embedded and you have all the Windows features in your hands? You can use Wine/Crosseover, which is cool, but even now the number of software products it supports is tiny. Steam has a lot of games. You can run a virtual machine with Windows on it. That is identical to what you can d…

I preferred WSL to running linux directly even though I had no need for any windows only software. Not having 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 was reason enough.

I use Windows with wsl for work, and Linux and MacOS at home. Windows is a mess, it blows my mind that people pay for it. Sleep has worked less reliably on my work machine than my Fedora Thinkpad, and my Fedora machine is more responsive in pretty much every way despite having modest specs in comparison. Things just randomly stop working on Windows in a way that just doesn't happen on other OSes. It's garbage.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#610

Post by mindwok »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #582
tgma wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t? Just install UTM for a full VM one-click install (easier than wsl /install and two reboots) or any number of docker thingies that people build for the Mac.

This is very far from smooth, it has network issues, runs muuch slower than native etc. etc. Would be just better to have linux but doesn’t seem realistic how everything works so flawlessly in macos, touchpad, sound etc.

I’ve done this numerous times and it’s never been onerous and everything has worked flawlessly. It’s also not slower than native if you’re running an ARM build of Linux.
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