Does anyone use this for work? Could I replace Ubuntu with Windows now?
No, absolutely not. There are major technical limitations, but the biggest "soft feature" you will never get on Windows is FREEDOM.
Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
71–80 of 142 posts
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#72Is there telemetry built into this too? I'd worry about ssh logins being logged for diagnostic and privacy journey purposes.
You will see ads on your command prompt from time to time and the bash completion will contain "sensible recommendations" based on your general behavior, psychological state and political orientation. Now that everything was published they also plan to pre-install the diverse arsenal of hacking tools on every machine, as there is no reason now anymore to hide that stuff - what will make the fight for freedom much eas…
Last part of your post is a bit wild, but you got me at the start.
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 (th…
> There are good terminals Can you name some good ones? I am sick of putty/cygwin :(
ConEmu and Cmder are the ones that get recommended the most, I think. I used ConEmu because it was the first good one I found. It worked pretty good. I like Gnome Terminal better, still, mostly due to the lack of chaos. Those Windows terminals hook into all of the shells...so, my ConEmu had a huge menu of available shells when creating a new one: a bunch of PowerShells (32/64 bit, admin/user), and bunch of Cmd.exe (32/64, admin/user), and a bunch of bash shells (git bash, WSL bash, Cygwin bash). Just a crazy amount of complexity.
It was configurable...but, sometimes I needed one of those other shells to get something done. So, I left them alone.
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#74I gave up WSL after experiencing significant performance drop on GHC, Stackage. It was less than 1/10th of native for compiling Haskell code.
Here's the issue on GitHub if you'd like to track it: https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues/1671 benhills describes the cause: For some context, I've looked at what causes this slowdown. For some reason stack has mapped an mind-bogglingly huge region of memory (I'm talking dozens of terabytes). When we fork we walk the entire address range to set up the new process's state. We have a design that should va…
For some context: amd64 has 256TiB of address space. So 1 dozen is half a percent of what seems like a mind boggling amount of address space.
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#75I'd just like to interject for moment. What you're refering to as WSL, is in fact, GNU/NT, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus NT. NT is not an operating system unto itself, but rather a non-free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, a version of GNU which is widely used today is often called WSL, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is an NT, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. NT is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. WSL is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with NT added, or GNU/NT. Windows 10, the so-called NT distribution, is really a distribution of GNU/NT!
(Sorry for the copypasta, I couldn't resist.)
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
It uses a Linux-compatible kernel interface with no Linux kernel code plus Ubuntu's userland. I guess that's why they sometimes call it Bash on Windows. I'm surprised no one's proposed "Windows Subsystem for GNU".
Because the main bit is translating Linux syscalls to windows. Which isn't gnu.
Isn't the main use of WSL "first-class GNU tools for Windows"?
I can't really imagine people running anything other than development tools on WSL, and most of those come from the GNU project.
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#77Wake me when MS offers Linux subsystem for Windows (basically commercial WINE). From what I have read, MS is not actually that interested in improving the Windows kernel anymore unless needed or profitable. Why don't they give up and run windows user space on Linux (or BSD) :)
Why would they do that? NT is a very good kernel design.
And, moreover, the ability to run multiple operating system "personalities" on top of it like this was part of that design pretty much from the start.
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#78I still have a hard time with bash-backwards name: "Windows Subsystem for Linux". Its a Linux subsystem for Windows.
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Bikeshedding
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#79I still have a hard time with bash-backwards name: "Windows Subsystem for Linux". Its a Linux subsystem for Windows.
Yes, but names starting with a trademark are a no-no. See [0] (bitcrazed works on WSL) and [1]. Also IANAL. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13697918 [1]: https://www.andreas-jung.com/contents/dont-use-docker-in-git...
And sometimes even parts of a trademark can be risky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire
Re: Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux
#80Earlier 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.
> 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.
They mention X/GUI support in the "What's new in Bash/WSL" article[1].
> Note: Some of you may also have been following along with some intrepid explorations into running X/GUI apps and desktops on WSL. While we don’t explicitly support X/GUI apps/desktops on WSL, we don’t do anything to block/prevent them from running. So if you manage to get your favorite editor, desktop, browser, etc. running, GREAT but know that we are still focusing all our efforts on delivering a really solid command-line experience, running all the command-line developer tools you need.
[1]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/04/11/wind...