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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

#991

Post by dabockster »

smatija wrote: post #796
0xEF wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses would. The problem with that is you have decision makers in said businesses who don't know any better, so Microsoft-all-the-things gets pushed down the line. Offices are all trapped on Windows 10/11 and using Teams/Outlook with Exchange/Entra/Azure chugging along in all its misconfigured glory. Heck, half the MSPs I work side-by-side with seem to only offer support on Windows machines. It gets worse. When…

I would be very happy with Windows 7 on manufacturing side - lots of CNCs that are still in use and supported by manufacturers are still on Windows 98.

I worked at a neighborhood IT shop during the height of COVID and we’d see XP laptops all the time that were used as offline/airgapped controllers for things like CNC mills.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#992

Post by [deleted] »

gloosx wrote: post #812
Peanuts99 wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're underestimating how many businesses rely on Excel alone.

You're saying it like there is no alternative and you can't just open and edit same excel files in Libre Office Calc, Google Sheets or Numbers without any problem whatsoever.

[deleted]

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#993

Post by dabockster »

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…

Yeah! Even as a dev who can navigate vim, I absolutely don't want to do that on a daily basis. Give me pretty GUIs and some automation!

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#995

Post by apfsx »

dabockster wrote: post #988
gexla wrote: post #973

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just go straight to Hyper-V, without all the WSL stuff.

Hyper-V for a cheap solution. But VMware still excels at running desktop Linux on Windows. Especially for distros that use 3D accelerated desktops (aka literally anything that uses a recent GNOME or KDE release).

One thing that I notice nobody mention about VMWare on Windows is what about the issues with "Virtualization Based Security"? If you have this enabled VMWare uses "Windows Hypervisor Platform" which I think is also tied in with Hyper-V for running VMs through VMware making them noticeably worse and more unstable especially when dealing with USB devices. During the installer, you'll be warned of this too if memory serves correct. Cons are you cannot use WSL2 and reduced security. How much in reality does it reduce security I'm not exactly sure but I wish it wasn't like this or there was a better workaround for VMware on Windows. VBS feature is enabled by default on all Windows 11 and I think most later releases of Windows 10.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#996

Post by MonaroVXR »

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.

>Why not just use Linux then?

Why not both? Like me?

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#997

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

lproven wrote: post #156
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…

> Where is the reverse WSL on Linux, where Windows is deeply embedded and you have all the Windows features in your hands? https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps Enjoy.

Late I am, but this reminded me of someone else here posting about https://usebottles.com

( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44025837 )

Seems to be based on very polished https://www.winehq.org , so no full VM, but maybe it's less 'heavy'?

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#998

Post by codeguro »

dabockster wrote: post #989
bayindirh wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requ…

I wouldn’t call the GPL “evil”, but I do think it’s more unrealistic given current western economics and mooching practices. Some copyright here and there does help keep food and water on the table.

Nothing prevents one from selling GPL'd software. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#999

Post by AStonesThrow »

dabockster wrote: post #989
bayindirh wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requ…

I wouldn’t call the GPL “evil”, but I do think it’s more unrealistic given current western economics and mooching practices. Some copyright here and there does help keep food and water on the table.

Despite the FSF's word games with "copyleft", the GNU GPL, Creative Commons, and F/OSS licenses rely on legal copyright protections in order to work. It's the copyright holder who reserves the right to license the software by those terms.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

https://creativecommons.org/faq/#is-creative-commons-against...

Closed source is protected in other ways besides copyright. Trade secrets, confidentiality, NDA, proprietary ownership, obfuscation, and in the case of hardware, big globs of epoxy and other countermeasures to ensure nobody can get in and reverse-engineer it.

Re: The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source

#1000

Post by bayindirh »

dabockster wrote: post #989
bayindirh wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requ…

I wouldn’t call the GPL “evil”, but I do think it’s more unrealistic given current western economics and mooching practices. Some copyright here and there does help keep food and water on the table.

> Some copyright here and there does help keep food and water on the table.

While I'm a strong Free Software proponent, I'm not a zealot and insist on a black or white approach.

Yes, some software can be closed source, I agree, but it shouldn't be the bedrock software, i.e. anything required to enable hardware (firmware, OS, and preferably the utilities).

For the record, I'm paying for a couple closed source software packages on Linux which provide very unique feature s. These are inSync and Pagico.

On top of that, you can always sell GPL software (remember, you shall ship the source with the product. opening it it to everyone is not a requirement). On top of it, you can sell support or special versions. curl has a special version for paying customers, and ccid driver developers sell ccid compliance testing.

So, there are always alternatives, and the reality has more shades of gray than two distinct colors.

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