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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

#751

Post by jasonm23 »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #537
jjcm wrote: post #151

When WSL came out I was absolutely overjoyed - finally an actual linux shell on windows! I use windows for my gaming pc, and I wanted to have a unified gaming/dev box. It felt like the solution. Over time though more and more small issues with it came up. Packages working not quite right, issues with the barriers between the two, etc. It always felt like there was a little bit more friction with the process. With Val…

I had the same experience. Even installing linux is easier for me now. And with new spyware features of windows, there is really no incentive to use it

Honestly accurate for a dev work machine.

For a gamer... still not quite, but very close.

For the corps ... it's a legacy issue, but that may slip away as a side effect of Trump destroying global soft power and making it a hard sell to remain on a US led platform, purely op sec concerns, the spyware issue will add more weight to that.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#752

Post by pjmlp »

f1shy wrote: post #720
dbdoskey wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the WSL 1 ended up working, it would have been one of the best historical coincidences in MS's history. A long forgotten feature in the NT kernel, unique to pretty much any other OS out there, used to push it's dominance in the 90's, is revived almost 30 years later, to fight for relevance with Unix based OS, once again. To quote Gorge Lucas, It's like poetry, it rhymes.

That would not be unique, as is what BSD has done for Linux compatibility basically forever.

Solaris did as well.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#753

Post by mmx1 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #732
f1shy wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would not be unique, as is what BSD has done for Linux compatibility basically forever.

BSD and Linux are in the same bucket, so that doesn't count, not any more than MacOS compatibility with Linux. Windows is the odd one out.

I don't think it is fair to brush it off under "same bucket; doesn't count." The syscalls are still different and there's quite a bit of nuance. I mean the lines you're drawing are out of superficial convenience and quite arbitrary. In fact, I'd argue macOS/Darwin/XNU are really Mach at their core (virtual memory subsystem, process management and IPC) and BSD syscalls are simply an emulated service on Mach, which is quite different from traditional UNIX. The fact that as a user you think of macOS much more similar to Linux is not really reflective of what happens under the hood. Likewise NT has very little to do with Win32 API in its fundamentals but Win2k feels the same to the user as WinME, but under your framing, you'd same-bucket those.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#754

Post by tjoff »

dbdoskey wrote: post #717
hypercube33 wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSL 1 was supposed to be like "Windows on NT" where it emulated the Linux kernal to the NT one. they skipped a ton of features then dumped the whole thing for a containerized virtual machine thing for version 2. Wish the NT one worked out but I get it being complicated.

If the WSL 1 ended up working, it would have been one of the best historical coincidences in MS's history. A long forgotten feature in the NT kernel, unique to pretty much any other OS out there, used to push it's dominance in the 90's, is revived almost 30 years later, to fight for relevance with Unix based OS, once again. To quote Gorge Lucas, It's like poetry, it rhymes.

WSL 1 works fine. I much prefer it over 2 because I only run windows in a VM and nested virtualization support isn't all there.

Also feels a lot less intrusive for light terminal work.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#755

Post by pjmlp »

dbdoskey wrote: post #717
hypercube33 wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSL 1 was supposed to be like "Windows on NT" where it emulated the Linux kernal to the NT one. they skipped a ton of features then dumped the whole thing for a containerized virtual machine thing for version 2. Wish the NT one worked out but I get it being complicated.

If the WSL 1 ended up working, it would have been one of the best historical coincidences in MS's history. A long forgotten feature in the NT kernel, unique to pretty much any other OS out there, used to push it's dominance in the 90's, is revived almost 30 years later, to fight for relevance with Unix based OS, once again. To quote Gorge Lucas, It's like poetry, it rhymes.

I can tell that if POSIX subsystem in Windows NT was actually a good enough UNIX experience, I would never bothered with those Slackware 2.0 install disks.

And the subsystems concept was quite common in micro-computers and mainframes space, Microsoft did not come up with the idea for Windows.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#756

Post by nkydr0i0 »

Matl wrote: post #58

OT but the name irks me; Windows subsystem for Linux makes it sound like some sort of official Wine layer. It's a Linux subsystem for Windows if anything. It makes it sound like Microsoft is giving some capability to Linux whereas it's the other way around.

They tend to name things like that. For example in Azure you have "Azure Database for MySQL" and "Azure Cache for Redis"

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#758

Post by udev4096 »

guardian5x wrote: post #743
udev4096 wrote: post #724

I still can't believe how people use windows as their main system with all the extremely invasive telemetry and bogus "AI" features that hogs a LOT of resources at idle

And yet games run pretty fast on Windows.

[flagged]

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#759

Post by bayindirh »

reisse wrote: post #748
rcleveng wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know -- I was super excited to see WSL1 and wished it worked. NT when started was the OS/2 personality and back at that time was excited to see NT as the OS to end all OSes (by running them all as a personality). But WSL2 is freaking incredible, I'm super excited to see this and just wish the rest of windows would move to a Linux kernel and support bash natively everywhere. I was never a fan of powershell, sh/dash/…

Why not just use Linux then? The whole point of Windows right now is having a kernel that a) does not shove GPL down the device manufacturer's throat and b) care about driver API stability so that drivers actually work without manufacturer or maintaner intervention every kernel upgrade.

People like to talk like GPL is evil, but it's underpinning more of the world than many people see.

And thanks to no ABI/API stability guarantees, Linux can innovate and doesn't care about what others might say. Considering Linux is developed mostly by companies today, the standard upkeep of a driver is not a burden unless you want to shove planned obsolescence down the throats of the consumers (cough Win11 TPM requirements cough).

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#760

Post by shipmaker »

dustedcodes wrote: post #493
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 tried it and found it to be such an abomination. I can’t understand why any self respecting software developer would use Windows with a bastard linux like WSL instead of just using actual Linux. Feels like a massive skill issue.

it's for when your corpo provides you with a windows laptop for development. hope that helps with your understanding
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