Live data from Hacker News

WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

boxofcables.dev

91–100 of 178 posts

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#91
post #69
post #18

Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux. If I were in charge there would be a team devoted to fixing this a decade ago. WSL singlehandedly stemmed much of tide of developers moving away from Windows, but WSL native filesystem performance gave devs that magical experience when they boot into Linux the first time and see that the filesystem doesn't have to be ass. There's always…

Just a comment on Proton... I've recently shifted to linux (garuda ) as a native OS for gaming (still dual booting, but linux is my main OS now, I used to run linux VMs in windows). My experience with Proton is that only ~30% of my games work out of the box. Some games like dota2, and factorio are native linux and work MUCH better (faster/higher fps) in linux. A bunch of windows games work fine, other's semi work, an…

Isn't Garuda an arch distribution? It could be that (less common, so more issues). Running SteamOS likely has better chance of running games, but yeah the linux experience is not streamlined at times (but it is functional!)

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#92
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm obviously referring to upgrading drivers. Important especially when playing new games since they come with specific optimizations.

It's also usually automated.

It can be automated on Windows too so I don't really understand what your point is here?

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#93
post #38
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind elaborating (for those of us uninformed)

/mnt/c is a mounted C: drive in WSL2, that allows WSL2 guests to read/write files on the Windows host. The mount is fine and speedy enough, but the underlying reads/writes turn into native NTFS reads/writes through Windows. NTFS file API is incredibly slow - high fixed overhead for initial file access. So patterns like node_modules with many small individual files (or compiling code in general) are much much slower o…

Could you expand? I never understood why this was considered acceptable, how is windows filesystem so slow compared to linux?

I am familiar with the issue, doing any sort of ruby development is a nightmare on windows because each require loads a file becoming increasingly slow at boot time

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#95
post #69
post #18

Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux. If I were in charge there would be a team devoted to fixing this a decade ago. WSL singlehandedly stemmed much of tide of developers moving away from Windows, but WSL native filesystem performance gave devs that magical experience when they boot into Linux the first time and see that the filesystem doesn't have to be ass. There's always…

Just a comment on Proton... I've recently shifted to linux (garuda ) as a native OS for gaming (still dual booting, but linux is my main OS now, I used to run linux VMs in windows). My experience with Proton is that only ~30% of my games work out of the box. Some games like dota2, and factorio are native linux and work MUCH better (faster/higher fps) in linux. A bunch of windows games work fine, other's semi work, an…

What games don't work? I've never had a game I wanted to play but couldn't due to being on Linux.

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier than windows (generally) because it'll just update with your OS. It's in the repo (sometimes) or a third party repo. It's automatic.

Oh yes, I distinctly remember having to use an outdated driver from a third-party repository to fix some sort of compatibility issue. Never had to do that on Windows

Well, my integrated GPU has a hard time with external 5k screens on Windows fairly often. I need to manually install the Intel drivers, which work for a while, but then Windows helpfully updates them to the earlier, borked version.

At least now this sometimes works if I turn the laptop on with the screen plugged-in. If I go to the toilet and the screen turns off, it's back to some low resolution. When my computer was new 5 years ago, it never did work in 5k, so... baby steps, right?.

Worked perfectly OOB on Linux.

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#98
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/mnt/c is a mounted C: drive in WSL2, that allows WSL2 guests to read/write files on the Windows host. The mount is fine and speedy enough, but the underlying reads/writes turn into native NTFS reads/writes through Windows. NTFS file API is incredibly slow - high fixed overhead for initial file access. So patterns like node_modules with many small individual files (or compiling code in general) are much much slower o…

Could you expand? I never understood why this was considered acceptable, how is windows filesystem so slow compared to linux? I am familiar with the issue, doing any sort of ruby development is a nightmare on windows because each require loads a file becoming increasingly slow at boot time

WSL2 operates through a file-level translation layer, not unlike NFS in Linux, which can be a huge performance problem for programs that manipulate lots of tiny files, like git or npm.

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#99
post #18

Proton, Copilot, and literally this single issue are what pushed people to Linux. If I were in charge there would be a team devoted to fixing this a decade ago. WSL singlehandedly stemmed much of tide of developers moving away from Windows, but WSL native filesystem performance gave devs that magical experience when they boot into Linux the first time and see that the filesystem doesn't have to be ass. There's always…

Onedrive constantly trying to steal all my files, bing in the start menu, windows update hogging resources then rebooting at the worst time, offline updates taking fking forever even with a fast SSD, layers and layers of bloat and garbage we have to click through or remove on new installs, removing customisation features and taking a decade to half-ass a control panel rewrite, I could go on...

Re: WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely due to the better and more stable NVIDIA drivers available to Windows and the greater compatibility with every game without having to mess around with configuration files or other hacks. But you do you.

Linux drivers are now first class and are faster and easier to install than any Windows drivers. There's no bullshit extras with them. They just work. Plus steam launches games in containers so there's zero configuration. If you don't know what you're talking about it is in fact better to say nothing than to just make shit up.

I, who has to professionally support installs running Linux with Nvidia hardware, would personally say the situation is very far from ideal on Linux. I dislike this 'my dad can beat yours' kinda competition when it's very clear Linux still has significant issues to resolve.
Post reply on HN