[HN Gopher] GUI app support is now available for the Windows Sub...
___________________________________________________________________
GUI app support is now available for the Windows Subsystem for
Linux
Author : velmu
Score : 412 points
Date : 2021-04-21 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (devblogs.microsoft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (devblogs.microsoft.com)
| DonnyV wrote:
| ...or I can use VirtualBox and spin up multiple versions and
| flavors of Linux and use that. Then delete when I don't need them
| anymore. Not sure what this is trying to solve.
| porphyra wrote:
| having real gpu acceleration is nice
| dekhn wrote:
| As a user of Interix on Windows NT (porting an entire X windows
| application including Motif and OpenGL) around 2000, I'm glad to
| see they finally managed to improve on it.
|
| For real, though, I will give MSFT tons of credit for this. They
| really did an impressive job all-around.
| jascii wrote:
| Weren't there X11 systems for windows for a long time?
| tyingq wrote:
| Yes, though out of the box functional wayland, gpu
| acceleration, and pulse audio is new.
|
| You're right, though, that the article is a bit awkward in not
| acknowledging that most people were already using VcXsrv or
| similar on the Windows side to run Linux gui apps.
| [deleted]
| evolve2k wrote:
| The moment you notice that the guy posting it is literally
| wearing an suit and tie.
|
| This is no Linux from the inside collaboration, speaks volumes as
| to the culture around the project.
|
| Since when are developer outreach teams wearing traditional suit
| and ties?
| thiht wrote:
| I wouldn't read too much in this. When I posted on the
| technical blog of the company I work for, I chose my resume
| picture as an avatar, on which I happen to wear a suit. It
| doesn't mean I'm overly corporate or the suit & tie type, I
| just think I look good in a suit and like using this picture to
| present myself professionally.
| nynx wrote:
| Is this saying that WSL 2.0 supports Vulkan now? Because if it
| just supports opengl, that's pretty meh.
| fulafel wrote:
| There are almost no Vulkan apps on Linux, compared to apps
| using other graphics APIs. And even fewer Vulkan-only apps (are
| there any non toy ones?).
| [deleted]
| gfiorav wrote:
| The video [0] is great!
|
| Main takeaway: you can open apps by clicking on the icons. So
| you'll be able to have shortcuts without opening a terminal.
| That's great! Will render my local X server obsolete.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8_nvJzuaSU&t=12s
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| You could already do that with that X. Simplest way is using
| wslusc provided in wslu.
| tyingq wrote:
| A little clunky, but it works well. I make a "bin" directory
| in my windows home directory with visual basic scripts in it
| to launch things from Windows shortcuts. The "xterm.vbs"
| script from my "bin" directory: args = "-c" &
| " -l " & """export DISPLAY=:0.0;xterm -fn 10x20 -bg black -fg
| green"""
| WScript.CreateObject("Shell.Application").ShellExecute
| "bash", args, "", "open", 0
| whatever_dude wrote:
| "Now available" is a bit misleading. It's only available on the
| latest version of Windows Insiders.
| gfiorav wrote:
| Main website for those lazy to read the article: aka.ms/wslg
| yread wrote:
| So, as a mostly Windows guy: What Linux GUI apps are you going to
| run? What has a Linux GUI but no Windows app or alternative?
| aye01 wrote:
| its mostly for people doing work in the WSL world. If you're
| writing code, you can throw up an IDE running directly inside
| WSL and run toolchains that exist inside WSL altogether.
| Before, you'd have to do something like use WSL remote or open
| the project in a Windows program and edit the Linux file, then
| use the Windows version runtime of whatever langauge youre
| using to use any of the built in IDE features for that
| language.
| jraph wrote:
| > What has a Linux GUI but no Windows app or alternative?
|
| I don't know about alternatives (it seems Cubase is a
| proprietary one), but Rosegarden [1] is a GNU/Linux "audio and
| MIDI sequencer, scorewriter and musical composition and editing
| tool" that does not seem to have a Windows build (a maintained
| one anyway). It's a great app, I guess it could convince a
| musician to use Linux for some music-related activities.
|
| I don't know if it runs (well) in WSL (1 or 2).
|
| Rosegarden aside, I'm not sure there is a single app I use
| regularly that absolutely can't run on Windows (some _can_ run
| on Windows (and Mac), but probably run way better on GNU
| /Linux, like the Kate editor, and Clementine seems to have a
| spotty Windows support too).
|
| [1] https://rosegardenmusic.com/
| SSLy wrote:
| transmission-remote-gtk
| gizmo385 wrote:
| My first reaction would be custom terminal applications (i.e.
| Terminator)
| Lownin wrote:
| I suspect it'd be easier to set up a more robust DOOM Emacs
| inside WSL than native Windows (which the DOOM docs advise is
| somewhat unadvised), and the GUI version fo Emacs provides some
| features the CLI version doesn't have.
| Narishma wrote:
| Wine, so you can run old Windows apps on Windows 10.
| accelbred wrote:
| All that I can install in wsl instead. Firefox, alacritty, etc.
|
| I'd rather use Linux versions even if there is a Windows
| version just for sane package management.
| macmac wrote:
| For now unfortunately you have to turn on "Optional diagnostic
| data" - aka "full spy mode" - to access this feature.
| 2Xheadpalm wrote:
| Are you able to turn it on for the 'Windows Insider Program',
| do an update to latest dev build, then opt out of 'Window
| Inside Program' and in turn disable 'Optional Diagnostic data'
| ? Genuinely asking, as I would like to test it but would like
| to keep diagnostics phoning back to M$ home to a min. if
| possible.
| tester756 wrote:
| It's impressive as hell
| tomComb wrote:
| I wonder if the motivation for this is really to give Linux
| machine learning apps access to the GPU in WSL?
| xfer wrote:
| No, the gpu compute support landed a few months ago already.
| This is about the Graphical program support.
| MikusR wrote:
| https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2020/06/17/gpu-ac...
| stuaxo wrote:
| It is, petty sure they said as much previously.
| johnvega wrote:
| On my 2nd chromebook computer but likely moving back to mostly to
| Windows because of WSL2.
|
| Just 1 of many benefits: build native Windows GoLang app from
| WSL2: (Caddy server)
|
| env GOOS=windows go build -o caddy.exe
|
| No need to setup gcc in native Windows. Not sure if this works on
| all GoLang apps, but at least works for a reasonably complex
| Caddy server
| chaoticmass wrote:
| I have to use a secure Windows laptop for work, but I admin
| Linux servers. WSL has been great for me, if only so that I can
| use a real linux command line and terminal instead of PuTTY
| when I SSH into boxes.
| denysvitali wrote:
| I was under the impression that Go cross-compilation between
| architectures and operating systems wasn't a problem already...
|
| Am I missing something? What does this have to do with WSL 2?
| kuschku wrote:
| You can compile for windows, on windows, without the pain of
| setting up a compilation environment on windows.
| Stevvo wrote:
| That's awesome, although it's not as great as it might
| appear at first glance. I once took on a job to write a
| .bat script to compile a GO app any Windows machine without
| any Go environment installed. The script ended up about 20
| lines long, and could compile the app on a fresh Windows
| install on any machine. It just took all day to write when
| I thought it would be done in 30 minutes.
|
| Working with GO on Windows can be a pain, but my takeaway
| from this ordeal was that it wasn't really the fault of MS
| or Google, but due to most Windows users actually having
| _no idea_ how Windows works, even software developers who
| have been using the OS for 20 years.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| The NT kernel/hypervisor is a marvel of software
| engineering but unfortunately it is not as easy to teach
| in OS classes compared to Unix/Linux family systems.
| thepangolino wrote:
| STEP 1: Embrace STEP 2: Extend <-- you are here STEP 3:
| Extenguish
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| They've done a couple things you could file under extend. But
| running Linux GUI programs is not extending, it's catching up.
| meowster wrote:
| That sounds like semantics.
|
| Who needs a privacy-respecting operating system when a
| popular privacy-invasive operating system runs the Linux
| software just fine?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You can't EEE if you don't Extend. It's not semantics.
|
| If you stay at "Embrace" you have Edge or Windows Terminal,
| nobody's going to get mad about those.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Should be a top-level comment.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Who needs to justify or explain how "run Linux in a VM"
| leads to extinguishing anything, or how it will stop you
| forking your own Linux or runing any of the distros
| unrelated to Microsoft/WSL2 any time you like, when you can
| simply copypaste 20 year old fearmongering?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Bill Gates quit Microsoft 20 years ago dude.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| In March 2020 he left the Microsoft board. While Bill Gates
| wasn't involved in daily operation, he didn't really leave
| Microsoft until a year ago.
| meowster wrote:
| That doesn't stop the threat.
|
| Ideas can outlive individual people.
| supernintendo wrote:
| How do you imagine Microsoft pulling off the "extinguish" step?
| Linux is the most popular OS for servers even on Microsoft
| Azure [0] so I don't see any threat in that regard. Then you
| have weirdos like me who have been running some variant of
| GNU/Linux as their primary desktop OS for years and will
| continue to do so. Sure, it's cool that Windows can run Linux
| software now but that doesn't make me want to switch. I like
| Linux. It handles all of my computing needs, I enjoy the
| control I have over my OS and a lot of the features of Windows
| simply do not appeal to me (Windows Shell, Windows Update, the
| whole "registry" architecture, built-in telemetry and
| advertising, and more). To people who don't enjoy running Linux
| as their daily driver or need to use Windows for some other
| reason there's WSL, and I think that's great.
|
| [0] https://build5nines.com/linux-is-most-used-os-in-
| microsoft-a...
| voidfunc wrote:
| STEP 4: Yawn
| dlevine wrote:
| I have been a Mac user for many years, and typically used Macs
| for development and a Windows PC for gaming. I recently setup
| WSL2 on my new Ryzen desktop, and it has been great for web
| development. Works pretty seamlessly, and not being able to run
| GUI apps was one of my few complaints (mostly because I wanted to
| run a graphical git difftool). Glad to see they have addressed
| this.
| wvenable wrote:
| With WSL1 way back, I ran GUI apps using a Win32 X server. I
| had some Linux GUI tools that I needed to be able to run and it
| was pretty seamless.
| litoorachure wrote:
| I actually still use WSL1 and vcxsrv to do that when I use
| Windows.
|
| It is seamless, even the icons that show up in the Windows
| taskbar are correct.
|
| If this new WSL2 experience works just as well, I might
| finally switch :)
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| I was somewhat surprised that WSL1 could run the valgrind
| memory checks at least well enough to match results of basic
| tests on a real Linux machine.
| ohmyzee wrote:
| I've always found it to be 99% there. But that 1% prevents you
| from doing any serious work. Things like mongo become a
| nightmare when using WSL. Its been entirely frustrating for me.
| I would have much rather they focused on getting popular
| libraries to work rather than focus on the flashy GUI features
| 0x38B wrote:
| Yes. On my Surface Go 2, WSL2 got me 99% of the way there,
| but having to forward my ADB port (for KaiOS dev) and then
| other issues (unresponsive X apps on resume) led me to
| install Arch and then wipe Windows.
|
| More specifically: i3 helps me make better use of my limited
| 10.5" screen AND my limited RAM & CPU. Plus, 'composing' my
| own desktop environment has advantages: with the help of i3's
| wonderful docs, customizing things to fit me is easy: foreign
| city's time next to local? Done. A custom brightness command
| whose intervals I can adjust? Check.
|
| I loved WSL2 until I discovered the speed of my Arch + i3
| install.
| waheoo wrote:
| I used to think i3 was only going to be useful on my small
| laptop screen.. then I got dual monitors.. it's so nice
| having such control over my windows.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Isn't it easier to simply run Linux anyway? Either in a VM or
| barebone?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Very interesting -- especially the fact that CBL-Mariner
| (Microsoft's internal linux distro) is used to plumb X11/Wayland
| apps across to a Windows-based RDP client. The complexity
| involved is a little unreal to behold[0].
|
| I wonder - is Microsoft truly committed to this path of building
| Linux support into Windows for the _long_ term? Have they
| considered building an MS Linux distro with support for Windows
| apps? Perhaps by embedding the actual Win32 COM server, which
| would function like the COM server in WINE but be multi-threaded.
|
| I'm not a Windows guy, but I'd be sorely tempted to switch from
| MacOS if Microsoft released a fully-supported Linux distro (with
| or without Win32 support).
|
| [0] https://github.com/microsoft/wslg#wslg-architecture-overview
| john_moscow wrote:
| WSL allows some developers targeting Linux to continue using
| Windows as their main OS. It also makes them more likely to
| choose Azure over AWS due to integration with the tools. It's a
| well-planned move that translates into real revenue.
|
| Free fully supported Linux distro with Windows support will
| only reduce the sales of Windows itself. So no, this isn't
| happening.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Free fully supported Linux distro with Windows support will
| only reduce the sales of Windows itself.
|
| I didn't say _free_ , though that is one option.
|
| I'm thinking if they could build a DisplayPS compositing
| window manager on top of, say, an MS-supported Ubuntu
| derivative, make the window manager awesome, market and sell
| it as Windows NC for Next Century, build in hardware support
| for everything -- basically go all-in.
|
| Keep the next-gen window manager, core apps, and the
| Win32/DirectX compatibility layers proprietary, the rest
| open-source, and license the whole thing. Charge $200 per
| license or something.
|
| If they did all that, they'd make a _killing_.
|
| The fact that it's a Linux distro at its core would be a
| relatively small detail (and a killer feature for developers
| at the same time). Darwin is also open-source, but MacOS on
| top is highly proprietary and profit-producing.
| cyberCleve wrote:
| I learned from the video you can launch VS code from within WSL
| with "code ."
|
| That's really useful. I like it.
| adolfojp wrote:
| You can also launch the Windows file explorer the same way.
| "explorer.exe ."
| tester756 wrote:
| In Power-Shell
|
| >ii .
|
| :)
| jtvjan wrote:
| So pretty much, this starts an RDP server on the WSL side, with
| Windows acting as the client. I liked the old solution of running
| a Win32 X11 server and connecting to it from WSL more.
| imhoguy wrote:
| That reminds me the project which does exactly the same but in
| reverse: uses RDP Windows server and Linux acts as client, and
| then integrates everything like app menus, shortcuts, FS even I
| think. https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps
| tyingq wrote:
| Out of the box pulseaudio is also there.
| thorum wrote:
| That's really cool.
|
| When I tried WSL a while back, file system access was pretty slow
| especially for scanning large folder trees with many files
| (important for programming projects). Is this still an issue or
| has it improved in that area?
| craigaloewen wrote:
| We improved the file system performance overall when we
| introduced WSL 2 by about 3-6x in general, and 20x for specific
| disk heavy operations. This still does bring its own challenges
| (You'll need to move your files to the Linux file system, and
| Cross OS file perf is slower in WSL 2) but we are working on
| these as well! :)
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| From our perspective WSL2 only made file system performance
| worse. The caviet of moving files to the Linux file system is
| kind of a big one.
|
| We just want to Rsync some files from a Linux server to a
| windows build server without garbage performance and somehow
| there isn't a way to do that still.
| e12e wrote:
| With native opensshd in windows, and a windows build of
| rsync - why would wsl be needed?
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| What windows build of Rsync are you referring to?
|
| I haven't found one that doesn't use Cygwin (slow
| filesystem).
| e12e wrote:
| I thought there was a mingw build, but apparently not. :/
|
| You see that slow file access with cygwin?
|
| Last time I had such a use case for windows, I used
| unision - but isn't rsync, of course.
|
| https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
|
| Judging by this scoop.sh issue, there are no obvious not-
| cygwin builds/ports:
|
| https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/issues/2295
|
| Looks like there are libraries for rust and go - but not
| clients that are a drop in replacement (yet).
| binarycrusader wrote:
| Haven't tried this commercial client myself and I'm not
| endorsing it, but this one claims to be native rsync
| without cygwin:
|
| https://acrosync.com/windows.html
| eknkc wrote:
| WSL2 has its own filesystem (ext4 and everything). Accessing it
| is fast, accessing windows filesystem from wsl and vice versa
| is still slow.
|
| This is a big deal because, say you wanted to use intellij idea
| on wsl, using it on windows side and accessing the wsl
| filesystem does not really work. It is too slow. Now you can
| run it in linux, access the native fs. I imagine it would
| perform pretty good.
| hnbad wrote:
| FWIW this is why VSCode has the Remote extension, which
| includes support for running VSCode headless in WSL and
| connecting to that from Windows.
|
| Theoretically this change would eliminate the need for that
| but it's nice to have the same VSCode on Windows as in WSL.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| I haven't tried this yet, but would something like this
| https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2021/03/11/projector-is-out/
| help out?
| voidfunc wrote:
| Perf is decent, I already do this with x410 and IntelliJ. I
| have noticed some quirks tho with slow syncs between editor
| and actual file contents that ive never noticed on a host
| running just Linux
| jnwatson wrote:
| File system access definitely had issues for WSL 1. WSL 2,
| however, is much perkier.
|
| FYI, WSL 1 and WSL 2 are completely different architectures, so
| you have to explicitly upgrade your instances from 1 to 2.
| ohthehugemanate wrote:
| That's an issue with WSL1, which translated system calls from
| Linux to Windows. Unfortunately the Linux and Windows
| filesystem drivers are radically different; many operations
| that are fast/cheap on linux (eg checking file metadata, which
| is stored in memory) are super exensive on the NT kernel (eg
| metadata involves reading the file from disk, and running any
| programs that have registered event handlers for file reads...
| like virus scanners and context menu items). So Git, for
| example, which on Linux keeps its state spread across thousands
| of files' metadata, was a dog.
|
| WSL2 takes a different approach: HyperV was always good at thin
| VMs... they took it to the next level and made WSL2 a super
| thin VM. Now performance is near native, depending on your
| benchmark.
|
| Bias: I work at MS in an unrelated area. I run Arch as my daily
| driver, but am damn impressed by the engineering in WSL2.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Are those operations an issue on the NT kernel or the NTFS
| filesystem?
| dataflow wrote:
| The former.
| nwsm wrote:
| Now the question is can I run Wine on WSL...
| craigaloewen wrote:
| Haha yes you can! We've even had some fun running QEMU things
| with this too.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| I can't wait to get this running to see Word 97 in Wine.
| Animats wrote:
| This should be called the Linux Subsystem for Windows. The real
| Windows Subsystem for Linux is WINE, which runs Windows programs
| on Linux. It can not only run GUI programs, it runs games
| reasonably well.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| Superb. WSL goes from strength to strength.
| Rabidgremlin wrote:
| Any ideas around what could be leveraged here with docker? I'm
| thinking it would be great to have all dev tooling + IDE bundled
| into containers for quickly switching projects/ getting devs up
| to and running fast.
| wmf wrote:
| Check out Flatpak which is basically Docker for GUI apps.
| Rabidgremlin wrote:
| Interesting... Thanks
| jfdi wrote:
| Does anyone know if native or near-native disk IO performance is
| coming to WSL? This has been a pretty big challenge from using it
| if your use case requires any decent iops. It would be magical if
| WSL could do physical NVMe pass through for example....
| dshacker wrote:
| I think WSL2 has that, WSL1 used to be super slow disk wise,
| but I've seen near-native disk speeds on NVME drives on WSL2
| (Specially useful for node_modules)
| hansvm wrote:
| Only when accessing WSL-owned files though right? Like, if
| you're wanted to work on the same repo with some Linux tools
| and some Windows tools you'd still have a ton of pain points?
| withinboredom wrote:
| You're going to probably run into issues anyway. Linux
| tools expect case-sensitive file systems and explode in
| interesting ways when they're not.
| amilios wrote:
| This is one of the things that turned me off from WSL: not sure
| if something has changed recently with WSL2, but for example
| installing Node deps would take _forever_ on the old WSL, to
| the extent of ridiculousness and just not being worth using
| modeless wrote:
| Cool, GPU support via a D3D12 backend for Mesa! OpenGL only
| though. I hope they plan to do a Vulkan Portability
| implementation on D3D12 as well.
|
| > rendered content needs to be copied to system memory before
| being presented to the compositor, to be brought back onto the
| GPU in the RDP client running on Windows
| (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wslg-architecture...)
|
| Ouch, that's pretty bad for performance. I hope they plan to
| improve this as well.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Windows still does not support sub virtualization on amd
| hardware. I.E you cannot use kvm in wsl. Why would you want to?
| Testing in clean environments. Microsoft also does not allow
| vmware to use AMD-V if you have WSL or hyperV enabled. I believe
| that is also an effect of sub virtualization.
|
| There's currently plenty of bugs wherein if you use vmware
| without amd-v things like disk encryption don't work (fedora 34,
| ubuntu 20.10 etc).
|
| Microsoft continually says "they're working on it" but it's been
| a long while and it's obvious they have other priorities here.
| AMD ryzen cpu's have been the superior CPU for a while now,
| methinks there's lots of handshakes between intel and microsoft.
| voidfunc wrote:
| > AMD ryzen cpu's have been the superior CPU for a while now,
| methinks there's lots of handshakes between intel and
| microsoft.
|
| Or you know... customer/user demand isn't that high.
| xbar wrote:
| "In fact, it is the number 1 ask on Windows Server's
| uservoice page. At the time of this blog post, it was almost
| 5x more than the next feedback item."
| ctoth wrote:
| Hi. I'm a customer who would like to ask for this. Where can
| I do it?
| aargh_aargh wrote:
| If you have to ask you're not a big enough customer.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| https://windowsserver.uservoice.com/forums/295047-general-
| fe...
| voidfunc wrote:
| GitHub issue, or your Microsoft account rep.
| craigaloewen wrote:
| Support for nested virtualization on AMD processers is now
| available! You can see this blog post for more info:
|
| https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/virtualization/amd-ne...
| moondev wrote:
| You made my day! So excited to try this
| bogwog wrote:
| So now developers can stop writing apps for Windows. Instead,
| they can write for Linux and distribute on Windows using WSL.
|
| Thanks Microsoft!
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Judging by the performance/UI catastrophe of Outlook, Teams,
| Windows Terminal and the rest of Office, Microsoft has already
| stopped writing apps for Windows. Look at them, eating their
| own dog food.
| sandyarmstrong wrote:
| Hold up, what's your beef with Windows Terminal? I've really
| been enjoying it!
| weakfish wrote:
| Same, it's a joy to use.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| My judgement of Windows Terminal might have been unfair,
| but it has its annoyances.
|
| - Sometimes the preferences just decide to go through the
| "open as a json file" path
|
| - I don't know if it's my settings or what, but in
| WSL2/Ubuntu 20.04 I keep getting into a state where my
| background is black but lines fill in white. I've used the
| same .bashrc for a decade without that issue.
|
| - The copy/paste UI is different both from normal Linux
| interfaces, from CMD, and from the Windows standard.
|
| - As far as I can see, no support for USB CDC devices
| either via WSL2 or through Windows itself. There's no
| reason I should need PuTTY still to access a usb-serial
| console.
| sandyarmstrong wrote:
| Fair criticisms!
|
| Personally I'm thrilled to finally have a good terminal
| experience on Windows. The copy/paste behavior is very
| comfortable to me, given the similarity to gnome-
| terminal. And to be honest I never really got comfortable
| with CMD's behavior.
|
| I don't use WSL itself much, so I can't comment on those
| bugs except to say I hope you find fixes.
|
| I've ended up doing a lot of PowerShell for work lately,
| so I jotted down a guide for myself for getting the
| terminal to behave the way I like, if it's useful to
| anyone: https://gist.github.com/sandyarmstrong/8b48d7dd0c
| b01c63cabc6...
| swest wrote:
| Agreed! It's the only terminal I can find that both
| respects my color settings and runs tmux well.
| pxc wrote:
| Same. I am not a Windows person and never have been, but
| Windows Terminal is clearly lovingly maintained and already
| much, much better than previous terminal emulator offerings
| for Windows. I don't particularly wish I had it on Linux,
| but it's already my go-to when I have to use Windows for a
| bit, and I think it's an impressive piece of software.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I believe Microsoft is expected to replace Outlook with a web
| app-based version in the next major release. Google Chrome is
| the new Microsoft development platform, it seems.
| jraph wrote:
| This would allow them to run Outlook natively in EdgeOS,
| their fork of ChromeOS, in which the default search engine,
| Bingle, is a proxy to Google Search with nice backgrounds.
|
| (all of this comment completely fictional).
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I sure hope they improve the searching, conversation
| merging (realistically non-merging) and RSS support, but
| something tells me they won't.
| xnyan wrote:
| >...Windows Terminal...
|
| One of these things is most certainly not like the other. I'm
| not saying your experience is wrong, just that the general
| opinion of Windows Terminal is quite positive and can't
| really be lumped in with the likes of Teams and Outlook.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Yeah, I might not be being fair about Windows terminal. I
| get into my issues with it above, but I was also a very
| happy Cygwin/MinTTY user so my standards might be warped.
| Ombudsman wrote:
| Pretty sure WSL is a developer tool, so "normal" would still
| need native apps, unless they go through the hoops of
| activating WSL so that they can listen to Spotify.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| I'm still convinced the long term plan is to stop people being
| able to boot a Linux kernel on desktop hardware (think secure
| boot) and when people complain the response is going to be "but
| you can run Linux on Windows!"
| ROARosen wrote:
| After all, there must be something diabolical when Microsoft
| is just doing something to appease devs who have for years
| railed against them for being dev hostile.
| waheoo wrote:
| Ah... Yes.
|
| Seriously, you kids do not remember things clearly or
| simply weren't around.
|
| Microsoft simply cannot be trusted.
|
| Maybe ya'll are fine forgiving and forgetting but
| personally I take a stance on a company for this kind of
| behaviour I don't forgive.
|
| Same goes for a lot of companies with awful histories of
| Child Labor and agregious abuses.
|
| > Linux is the long term threat against our core business.
| Never forget that!
|
| I won't.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2001/11/12/ms_promotes_linux_fr
| o...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| If you've been bitten by a tiger, it seems right to be wary
| when it invites you for dinner.
| bachmeier wrote:
| Is that a problem for Microsoft? It's not like folks are going
| to move away from Windows as a result. The reason they run
| Windows is because that's what they know and that's what's
| installed on their machine when they buy it. This for the most
| part _eliminates_ the reason someone would have to move from
| Windows to Linux.
| spinningslate wrote:
| Spot on. This is no knit-your-own-yoghurt altruistic move.
| It's all part of a well-coordinated effort to re-establish
| Microsoft as _the_ place that everyone does compute.
| "Commoditize your complement" as Joel Spolsky put it [0];
| "windows on every desktop" for the cloud era.
|
| Ballmer went head to head with open source and thought he
| could crush the threat. That didn't work, and things weren't
| looking great for MS before he was ousted.
|
| Nadella's strategy is far more subtle: not quite
| Embrace/Extend/Eliminate, more Embrace/Neutralise/Replace.
|
| Linux is a threat to server-side windows? Fine. Let them
| deploy on linux, so long as those linux boxes are in Azure.
| But that means devs get familiar with linux at the expense of
| windows, which means (a) they'll want linux on their desktop
| and (b) things are more readily transferable to
| AWS/GCP/whatever.
|
| So: give them linux _in_ windows. Make appealing tools like
| vscode available free to create good will and positive
| sentiment towards Microsoft. Re-build the advocacy that
| hemorrhaged in the latter days of Ballmer's tenure.
|
| And they're nailing it. By comparison to
| Google/Facebook/Amazon, there's very little negative press
| for Microsoft. And lots of positivity, even just in this
| thread.
|
| It's hard not to be impressed by how successful they're
| being. And I say that as someone who still bears the scars
| from the 90s/00s hegemony. Microsoft was positively reviled
| by swathes of people in those days. Their attitude and market
| abuses rightly got them into hot water with the DOJ.
|
| So, whilst I respect the turnaround, I'm wary. Microsoft is
| cruising inexorably back to dominance. History says that
| wouldn't be a good outcome.
|
| [0]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-
| letter-v/
| d1zzy wrote:
| This is a very smart strategic move on behalf of Microsoft
| that I would have never guessed (not because it doesn't
| make sense but simply out of corporate pride, considering
| they are the authors of the "Linux Facts" memorandum...).
|
| I think it's smart because this will capture all those
| Linux people who aren't super comfortable administrating
| their own distro and even for those that are it's now
| giving them another option if they ever need to run things
| both in Windows and Linux at the same time or just run into
| some Linux issues and don't want to spend the time on them
| they can switch to Windows 10 WSL.
|
| At this point the only thing that I still think it doesn't
| make much sense is Microsoft running/developing their own
| kernel. It's entirely possible for them to start running
| Linux and run all the WIN32 support, drivers, DirectX, etc
| as a separate sandbox (similar to the type of sandbox WSL
| runs). The performance overhead from doing that should be
| negligible on modern hardware.
|
| EDIT: note that I only mean switching to Linux kernel for
| their desktop OS, there are plenty of usecases of Microsoft
| kernels where every bit of performance matters but I
| suspect those will continue to use their own kernel as part
| of Windows Server releases.
| xnyan wrote:
| >corporate pride
|
| Corporate pride took a huge hit after they completely
| wiffed on mobile, then went on to throw good money after
| bad for a long long time before they were willing to
| admit that they had lost. Think about where MS could be
| if they taken google/android seriously at the beginning.
| For a while, the prevailing opinion was that Microsoft
| was nearly (or already) no longer a a supermax tech
| company.
|
| Lots of business orthodoxy got nixed, most prominently
| the supremacy of Windows over all.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > Embrace/Neutralise/Replace
|
| I haven't really seen that, as a primarily Windows Dev all
| the moves they are making are to encourage you to use Linux
| over Windows for backend work.
|
| Hell, they own Windows but for some reason App Services
| targeting Windows are more expensive than Linux on Azure.
| It's almost as if they want us off Windows.
| ljm wrote:
| I see it a bit more simply:
|
| A lot of developers use MacOS, particularly web developers
| who are almost always deploying the server to a linux
| machine. With the Mac being BSD-flavoured, a lot of open
| source tooling works the same as it does on Linux. MacPorts
| and Homebrew have done a lot to drive that.
|
| The experience on Windows for this has been incredibly
| poor. There are solutions, but they're less integrated.
|
| WSL comes in, along with Windows Terminal, and now you can
| have a much nicer time with it all without dual booting or
| running a VM.
|
| Who knows where it'll be in a decade, but if anything,
| they're just making themselves a viable competitor to Apple
| by providing better development tools than they do.
| jasonfarnon wrote:
| Do you think there is something inherent in MS's DNA that
| makes it more dangerous in a position of dominance than its
| competitors? Where you can extrapolate from MS in 2000 to
| now? (In any event, I personally don't think MS when it was
| dominant and going through the anti-trust suit was doing
| much that isn't routinely done by its competitors these
| days.)
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| _Do you think there is something inherent in MS 's DNA
| that makes it more dangerous in a position of dominance
| than its competitors? Where you can extrapolate from MS
| in 2000 to now? (In any event, I personally don't think
| MS when it was dominant and going through the anti-trust
| suit was doing much that isn't routinely done by its
| competitors these days.)_
|
| Microsoft is very good at making deals with management.
| The marketing/sales apparatus is what really sets them
| apart. I can imagine being forced to give up my mac
| because someone who is barely technical made a decision
| after going out to lunch and hearing that WSL solves all
| the reasons I would use a Mac while giving more control
| to the enterprise.
|
| While that example is a stretch to match the story, it's
| basically the reason why all the developers where I work
| have to spend time migrating from our self-hosted GitLab
| to GitHub enterprise. BTW If anyone at GitHub is reading
| this, can someone pretty please add sub namespaces within
| the enterprise?
| HomeDeLaPot wrote:
| I have the same feeling. Nothing altruistic about it,
| Microsoft stands to benefit greatly from having Linux
| inside Windows. Altruistic would be open-sourcing Windows
| or something.
|
| That said, I'm glad they're seeking to benefit by
| increasing interoperability and developer goodwill. Their
| current strategy is good for users and devs and probably
| the best we can hope for. This will change if/when Windows
| becomes the one and only viable platform again and switches
| back to using that as leverage, but with the way things are
| going I think that will take a while. Not only have they
| been losing to Linux on the server front, they've been
| losing to the web and Apple/Google on the application &
| mobile fronts, so they are a long way from lock-in there.
| [deleted]
| fmakunbound wrote:
| Yeah this is just like when IBM's OS/2 ran Windows
| applications. Software developers thought "Great. I'll just
| code it once for Windows and be on OS/2 for free!"
| tyingq wrote:
| s/Thanks/Embrace :)
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| s/Embrace/Extend
|
| ... except that if Microsoft did, likely very few would
| embrace such extensions.
|
| A successful EEE play requires a lot of pre-existing trust
| that has to last through the Extend phase, which is why I
| don't think they'll ever try that again in the foreseeable
| future.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| Anecdotally, I've seen apparent fanfare and demand for
| DirectX for WSL that Microsoft recently built so I'm
| skeptical of this.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| When will Android Apps appear in the Start menu?
| IceWreck wrote:
| Who will be the first one to try to run Windows GUI apps in Wine
| inside WSL ?
| thrower123 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I did this a decade ago with whatever insanity
| you needed to use to run Linux apps inside of Windows XP/7 -
| http://www.andlinux.org/ maybe?
| davidgerard wrote:
| there's been a shitload of attempts to do Wine on Windows, I
| went through a pile of failed ones around 2008-2009 and
| succeeded in 2019:
|
| https://reddragdiva.dreamwidth.org/607714.html
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20632942
|
| This should make it as simple as "sudo apt install wine"
| though.
| thecrumb wrote:
| Anyone with a Mac who can compare file system operations between
| Mac and WSL2? I jumped ship from Windows to Mac before WSL2 as it
| was just too slow to use. Unfortunately the Mac isn't much better
| so I'm curious if it's worth moving back with WSL2.
| OJFord wrote:
| What do you do that fs performance is your primary/a major
| concern in choosing an OS (esp. among the major ones)? I don't
| mean to sound snarky, I'm curious. For all I know it _should_
| matter to me more!
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| JavaScript development tends to involve a lot of files.
| Between Babel, ESLint, Webpack, Post-CSS with their high
| number of plugins, presets, and other support modules,
| Typescript, testing frameworks like Jest (that comes with
| it's own test runner, mocking facilities, transpile-aware
| code coverage etc.), and general tendency for JS developers
| to favor composing software out of many small modules - a
| typical JavaScript project (browser or Node) has thousands of
| modules and tens of thousands of files in node_modules
| folder.
|
| Plus, a typical JS development process involves a filesystem-
| based watcher that reloads parts of an application on a fly
| as a developer changes code.
|
| As a result, for a very big percentage of programmers
| filesystem performance is crucial for their day-to-day work.
|
| There's an argument to be made that JS development ecosystem
| is unnecessary complex, and there are projects that try to
| change the status quo, but they are not ready for a prime
| time and aren't widespread enough yet.
| OJFord wrote:
| Hm I certainly sympathise, just hadn't occurred to me the
| filesystem might be a bottleneck here. I switched from my
| work Mac to my desktop and bought (or rather, so I could
| buy) more RAM, since it was exhausted building, and would
| frequently crash.
|
| I now have enough to be able to give it 'enough' and cgroup
| limit it from hogging more and interrupting my browsing
| etc. but I don't think I've given it so much that, what,
| the speed at which it can read the 100ks of files in order
| to 'webpack' them is the limiting factor.
|
| Perhaps I'm just (foolishly) content living with it much
| slower than you are, so I don't have everything else fast
| enough for that to be the problem.
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Don't have a Mac but I'm on a team where I use WSL2 and my
| fellow engineers use Macs, which I believe consist of the 2020
| i7 and i9 13" and 15" Macbook Pros, depending on engineer
| choice. My Dell laptop has an i7-9750H and 32GB RAM, which I
| think is roughly comparable.
|
| I can say that my WSL2 and Docker builds, especially when
| volume mounting a code directory into a Docker container, are
| typically much faster. I don't know if I could quantify it, but
| I'd rank it roughly like this:
|
| 1. Windows WSL2 (EXT4 fs) when using WSL2 directly or docker
| and code is in WSL2 (since Docker is just using the overlay
| storage driver)
|
| 2. Mac APFS directly - no Docker, just brew-based npm and "npm
| install"
|
| [big gap]
|
| 3. NTFS
|
| 4. APFS volume mount into container
|
| 5. WSL1 "npm install"
|
| [gap]
|
| 6. WSL2 <-> Windows filesystem bridge (files on Windows NTFS,
| running npm install from Linux)
| runjake wrote:
| Mac FS performance was abysmal, last I checked. WSL2 FS
| performance is still even worse (but still tolerable).
| aargh_aargh wrote:
| Is this to be expected in the next regular Win10 update (outside
| of the insiders build)?
| jhoechtl wrote:
| > That's because with this feature we are automatically starting
| a companion system distro, containing a Wayland, X server, pulse
| audio server, and everything else needed to make Linux GUI apps
| communicate with Windows.
|
| You see me impressed. Especially as they are supporting Wayland.
| Now please make electron apps non-blurry on Wayland
| rowanG077 wrote:
| any electron app that is uptodate should no longer be blurry.
| Electron recently landed support for wayland so xwayland no
| longer has to be used.
| zxzax wrote:
| For the curious, see this comment from the electron
| contributor on how to enable it: https://github.com/electron/
| electron/pull/26022#issuecomment...
| akvadrako wrote:
| I would consider electron support for Wayland to be alpha
| quality at the moment.
| vially wrote:
| I've been using it for a couple of months now (by patching
| the applications which haven't upgraded to Electron 12 yet)
| and it's been working great for me.
|
| Is there anything in particular that is broken and/or
| missing from Electron's Wayland implementation? Or are you
| referring to GNOME's refusal to implement server-side
| decorations [1][2] as a limitation of Electron?
|
| [1] - https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217
| [2] - https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/27522
| zxzax wrote:
| I don't think GNOME adding SSD would really help,
| considering a lot of Electron apps tend to use CSD to
| integrate with the target platform [0] [1] [2] [3].
| Likely those apps should be fixed to correctly use CSD
| when applicable on all platforms, including GNOME.
|
| [0] https://code.visualstudio.com/assets/home/home-
| screenshot-wi... [1] https://a.slack-
| edge.com/a084c/marketing/img/downloads/scree... [2]
| https://pureinfotech.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/12/microsof... [3] https://www.chip.
| de/ii/1/1/4/4/7/3/5/4/0/ea621fe64b8418e9.jp...
| akvadrako wrote:
| It's by their own admission, this is "very experimental"
| in Electron 12 and hence not enabled by default.
|
| https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/26022#issuecomm
| ent...
| zxzax wrote:
| You are responding to the same person who wrote that
| comment, with their own comment :)
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| Will ROCm or Pytorch GPU work on Ryzen processors with this new
| update?
| johnghanks wrote:
| so much negativity in this thread for a great feature they
| absolutely didn't have to implement.
| davidgerard wrote:
| _obviously_ they just wanted Wine on Windows to work properly,
| 'cos that's an easier way to make Encarta 97 work than adding
| Win16 support to Windows 10
| synergy20 wrote:
| Microsoft, just go all in: embrace Linux kernel and make a MS GUI
| on top of it, call it MSLinux or something. It will save
| time/money along the way I believe.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Why? Theres literally no good reason to do this except for the
| developer/ops market and its not clear its a major benefit over
| the current approach which works well for most users.
| Narishma wrote:
| Call it Xinux.
| dcow wrote:
| Dear Microsoft, please release an open source window manager
| that runs on linux. You can call it windows. If you add tiling
| support I will never touch another Mac. Only you can usher in
| the era of the linux desktop. Make Linus' dream a reality.
| Humbly, your servant.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I think that long-term, that's the plan. They're going to need
| a few years to switch their tooling over though, but I think
| Linux could have an incredible Windows Legacy Layer if
| Microsoft had the initiative to make one desu.
| brundolf wrote:
| One of the main values of Windows today, at least for
| businesses, is backwards-compatibility- not the GUI. DOS
| programs still run on it, if that tells you anything. So they
| aren't going to be dropping Windows Proper in favor of a
| skinned Linux distro any time soon.
|
| That said, maybe it would be feasible if they built a "Linux
| subsystem for Windows" that could run any legacy Windows app
| inside Linux, just like Windows can currently run any legacy
| DOS app (without actually being based on DOS). An official
| Wine, if you will.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| > One of the main values of Windows today, at least for
| businesses, is backwards-compatibility
|
| That may be true for small businesses, but I think the single
| biggest value of Windows to BIG businesses is the ability to
| screw around with the policies such that, for instance, you
| can lock a user out of changing their screensaver timeout or
| their desktop background, as though this had any actual
| impact on security.
|
| My corporate laptop is infested with tracker programs and
| scripts which make sure I literally can't do anything with it
| that I shouldn't, but I have friends who work at places which
| have even more "corporatized" environments. At least, as a
| dev, I'm allowed to have local admin through a separate,
| privileged account.
|
| Thanks to a Microsoft-funded trade press, every CIO of a
| Fortune-sized company believes you have to implement all of
| this crap in order to be "secure." (Meanwhile, the mainframe
| skates by on non-encrypted connections and 6-digit
| alphanumeric passwords. Straining at gnats and swallowing
| camels.)
|
| We switched from Lotus to Office365, for a few glorious
| months, I could access everything from my personal Mac. Then
| they instituted Mobile Iron. So I created a Windows VM to let
| MI have it's way with, but then my company further locked
| down Office365 (and the Azure portal and everything else) so
| that ONLY their images could get to them. Sigh.
|
| I have scores of company-specific programs on my laptop.
| They're all either Java or .NET, and could easily be
| recompiled for Linux or Mac. (I've done it for several of my
| own programs.) Every commercial app I have is supported on at
| least Mac. Everything else is web-based anyway. The only
| thing keeping companies on Windows is the control it gives
| them over the desktop. I, for one, am very glad that people
| involved in Linux don't care about this aspect of computing,
| and that Apple is catering to PEOPLE, not companies.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| 64-bit Windows doesn't support 16 or 8 bit applications any
| longer, a VM is needed. At that point it doesn't matter much
| what the host OS is.
| marcodiego wrote:
| > DOS programs still run on it,
|
| I don't think that is correct. Any windows after 9x will need
| something like dosbox to run dos programs.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| NT has NTVDM. It worked on many applications up until they
| added 64 bit into the mix. At which point they never ported
| it over. Once you move to any 64 bit version you can no
| longer do that and need a VM or DOSBox.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_DOS_machine
|
| Also NTVDM was kind of hit or miss. So if you are using a
| 32 bit version of any windows you may still get away with
| running many DOS and win16 applications. But within a
| particular set of limitations.
| merb wrote:
| > DOS programs still run on it, if that tells you anything
|
| trust me without dosbox a shit ton of stuff does not work
| anymore. heck even tons of xp software does not work on win
| 10 or needs patches (especially games) compat is dropped more
| and more, especially old cruft that is barely used.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| Yeah, I went to install some older games in my Steam
| library, and some of my favorites need so much futzing, I
| just gave up. I considered building an XP machine, but gave
| up that for the same reasons. I'm just too old for this
| crap any more.
| devmor wrote:
| Microsoft actually already has a linux distro of their own for
| internal use. So they're partway there.
| jonpalmisc wrote:
| Any more info on this available? I'd be curious to read about
| it.
| favorited wrote:
| It's called CBL-Mariner: https://github.com/microsoft/CBL-
| Mariner
| disk0 wrote:
| Coincedentally, The system distro is
| where all of the magic happens. The sytem distro is a
| containerized Linux environment where the WSLg XServer,
| Wayland server and Pulse Audio server are running.
| ... The system distro is based on the Microsoft
| CBL-Mariner Linux. This is a minimal Linux environment,
| just enough to run the various pieces of WSLg. For
| details on how to build and deploy a private system
| distro please see our build instructions. [0]
|
| [0]: https://github.com/microsoft/wslg#wslg-system-distro
| neilsimp1 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Sphere
|
| As far as I know, it's the only Linux distro that requires
| Windows and VS in order to build it.
| davidgerard wrote:
| As predicted by Wired in 2005:
| https://www.wired.com/2005/02/microsoft-5/
| siproprio wrote:
| If you thought electron apps used a lot of memory, this thing
| will surprise you [0]:
|
| With WSL2, apps will now use either 50% or 8GB of your available
| memory.
|
| Happy coding!
|
| [0]: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4166
| [deleted]
| siproprio wrote:
| Also, looking forward for that new gvim 8GB memory footprint
| new feature!
| gfiorav wrote:
| Are you sure? I watched the conference and this uses the RDP
| framework behind the scenes, integrating with Wayland. Why
| would it consume much more than running natively?
| 2ion wrote:
| PS C:\Users\2ion> cat .\.wslconfig [wsl2]
| memory=6G processors=4
|
| These settings are being respected, as far as I can tell. Since
| when is it not common sense to assign a reasonable amount to a
| VM? The only thing that does not seem to work well at the
| moment is a "memory balloon" RAM allocation scheme. WSL2 is a
| VM, not a shared memory container. They could do better, but
| RAM is pretty cheap nowadays and WSLg is IMO the much more
| productive feature.
|
| See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-
| config#conf....
| HideousKojima wrote:
| A single (idle) SQL Server Docker container shouldn't be
| using 5 GB of ram
| piaste wrote:
| SQL Server by design grabs as much RAM as it can, as
| aggressively and preemptively as it can, because it assumes
| it's the most important process running on the machine.
| Which is almost always the case in production environments,
| and a reasonable default behaviour as a result. If that's
| not the case, you can easily set resource limits at the
| application, container, and/or VM level.
|
| (This comment coming from someone who used to have to
| support running small backup MSSQL instances on Windows 8
| tablets.)
| 1_player wrote:
| PS C:\Users\1_player> cat .\.wslconfig [wsl2]
| memory=32GB
|
| Eh, who cares.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| It's not exactly wsl is it? Linux considers free memory useless
| and uses it as cache.
|
| https://www.linuxatemyram.com/
|
| Weird that i didn't knew this. Couple of years ago i wasted
| some time to get more "free" memory on my server. Lol
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Except that the cache needs to be intelligently shared or
| split between operating systems, and it's not. Or at least
| not well, as of 20H2.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| That's not really an issue under normal usage; unused memory
| _is_ useless. The problem is that in this case Linux has to
| share memory with another OS.
| ROARosen wrote:
| Did you try setting a RAM limit in .wslconfig ?
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config#conf...
| HideousKojima wrote:
| That's been going on for a few months already, I have a single
| Docker image running in WSL2 running SQL Server and it's using
| 5 GB of memory while idle.
| donkarma wrote:
| wsl2 is such a downgrade from wsl1
| kuroguro wrote:
| +1 If I wanted a VM, I would run a VM. Looks like this is
| WSL2 only :/
| bitwize wrote:
| If you want a GUI in WSL1, VcXsrv still works.
| xbar wrote:
| First I've heard this. I've used neither. What is the major
| harm of WSL2?
| segmondy wrote:
| I'm curious why the parent comment doesn't have an upvote or
| downvote button.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Maybe it's what it's doing for me but I run it for days at a
| time and it's only taking 2GB.
| math0ne wrote:
| Nice that this is easier, but is this better than just using
| VcXsrv?
| Railsify wrote:
| But... Can I run virtualbox along side wsl2 without the massive
| performance hit in virtualbox?
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| YMMV. VirtualBox couldn't coexist with WSL2 in the beginning,
| and even when support was officially announced by VirtualBox
| and listed on Microsoft's website, it still didn't work for a
| lot of people. I had that problem during 2020 and gave up, but
| it appears that others are having success in 2021:
| https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/WSL/issues/798
| ncphil wrote:
| Looks like some kind of group policy now prevents me from running
| WSL on my work machine. In the past Hyper-V bluescreened the
| peculiar Win 10 build my company uses, making WSL2 (and Docker
| Desktop, for that matter) a no-go. WSL1 still worked, but I
| eventually requisitioned VMware Workstation to run Linux and
| docker for projects that required them. For anything else I've
| got tried-and-true MSYS2 installed, which works well enough.
| jpm48 wrote:
| Looking forward to testing my OpenGL lecture code on this, it
| works under Windows and Linux natively so working on WSL will be
| a major bonus for me :-)
| jpm48 wrote:
| First initial test (after 3hrs to update everything!) I can't
| create an OpenGL Core 4.1 Context with SDL2 Oh well it's late
| now will investigate more in the morning.
| lostmsu wrote:
| They only support OpenGL 3.x
| lsllc wrote:
| So, 2021 is finally [0] going to be the year of the Linux
| Desktop?
|
| /s
|
| [0]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3038d4/when_was_the_...
| marcodiego wrote:
| Half of me: "Cool! Now we only need to release software for
| linux!"
|
| Other half of me: "Hmmm... Now companies will have less incentive
| to support linux running natively on their hardware..."
| alexisread wrote:
| It could be even more problematic than that. With windows
| drivers supporting a windows ABI, that becomes a Linux ABI
| under WSL. Kinda puts a wrench in the Linux no-ABI
| philosophy...
| squarefoot wrote:
| That's exactly what is going to happen. Hopefully I'm wrong,
| but I'm afraid we'll soon also see software advertised as
| running "better" under WSL than Linux.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Questions:
|
| 1. Does the vGPU support mean that we get decent cuda support AND
| wayland? I know they mentioned a nvidia specific driver
|
| 2. Given they are supporting x/wayland, would it be possible to
| run i3wm or sway for window management?
| vetinari wrote:
| 1. You had it before in Linux, too; what you didn't have is
| OpenGL acceleration under for Xwayland clients.
|
| 2. No, CBL-Mariner uses Weston, and then RDP to tunnel it into
| the Windows side. Client decorations are CSD, for window
| management you will be stuck with Windows shell. Try PowerToys
| (Fancy Zones), makes it less painful.
| jonpalmisc wrote:
| I'm personally very excited for this. Also, the fact that Linux
| apps will show up in the Start Menu is a nice touch and will be
| much more enjoyable than starting GUI apps from the terminal.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| I wonder whether the approach utilized in WSLg could be used as
| (alternatively to waypipe) a way to provide network transparency
| in Wayland on Linux. A use could be seamlessly running native
| Wayland apps on Xorg.
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