[HN Gopher] Windows Subsystem for FreeBSD
___________________________________________________________________
Windows Subsystem for FreeBSD
Author : rguiscard
Score : 201 points
Date : 2025-10-11 07:32 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| CJefferson wrote:
| This is cool, I hope it gets finished, and Microsoft Can help if
| required.
|
| I love WSL2, I basically live in it. I need Office, and working
| laptops, too much to go full time Linux, and I want to be able to
| play games so I don't want a Mac (yes I know Mac has some games,
| but not anything compared to windows).
| tiahura wrote:
| Right there with you. The crazy thing is that with the way MS
| is moving Office away from native towards garbage React,
| they're facilitation moving away from Windows.
| bombcar wrote:
| I believe this is defensive to protect Office and their
| online services from Apple. They need Office to be a first-
| class citizen on Mac.
| jen20 wrote:
| It used to be so first class that Excel 1.0 was only
| available for the Mac.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I was already enjoying VMware Workstation and Virtual Box,
| depending on private vs corporate laptop, since returning to
| Windows as main on with Windows 7.
|
| What WSL has brought is that now it is one thing less to
| install.
|
| However what got me started with Linux back in 1995, was the
| not so great support of POSIX in Windows NT.
|
| Had Microsoft kept selling Xenix, or done Windows NT POSIX
| subsystem property, Linux would most likely never taken off.
|
| Quite ironic given how Bill Gates used to talk about Xenix
| taking over.
| toast0 wrote:
| > What WSL has brought is that now it is one thing less to
| install.
|
| How? You still have to install WSL, it's not on the machine
| out of the box, although if it's really just about not
| installing things, you might use Hyper-V, that may already be
| installed.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Hyper-V is required for the Windows 10 security
| improvements regarding kernel and drivers sandboxing, and
| even more so on Windows 11.
|
| Enabling WSL isn't the same as going through VMWare
| Workstation or Virtual Box installation, and naturally
| paying for the commercial features.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Microsoft gave up on Xenix/Unix when AT&T took interest in a
| commercial Unix and exerting influence/control over the
| direction of Unix.
|
| Microsoft didn't see a profitable future in following AT&T.
| pjmlp wrote:
| See UNIX World magazine from 1985, the Bill Gates interview
| on the future of Xenix.
| walkabout wrote:
| There's one major benefit to separating your gaming and work
| machines, _if_ you aren't also using a lot of graphics
| horsepower for work[0]: NVidia and AMD graphics cards tend to
| ~double major problems on a machine (or halve system stability,
| to put it another way). This was even true of Macs, back when
| they were on x86.
|
| Now, this won't help if you play a lot of new games at launch
| (and aren't ok playing them on a console instead of PC) or lots
| of multiplayer games with heavy-handed anti-cheat, but
| otherwise, Linux as a gaming OS has become pretty damn viable
| lately. Windows hasn't been for anything but gaming for me
| since somewhere around the turn of the millennium, and I've
| _just_ finally been able to ditch it completely. Which is
| really nice.
|
| What I'm getting at is all-Linux (if you have more tolerance
| for Linux on the Desktop jank than I do) or Mac-for-work,
| Linux-for-play are now both non-terrible combos for having
| gaming available, and unless you _need_ Nvidia or AMD graphics
| on your work machine (in which case, sure, may as well share
| that hardware for both roles), there are real benefits to work-
| system stability you can get by separating those.
|
| (I do agree with you that running Linux under virtualization on
| either Windows or Mac is the only non-crazy-making and/or non-
| professionally-embarrassing way to work in Linux on a laptop,
| and I write that as someone who _did_ run Linux on a laptop as
| my primary serious OS for most of a decade)
|
| [0] nb. depending on what "a lot" means, Apple Silicon with a
| lot of system memory might still be a really good option.
| dijit wrote:
| Office is the true killer.
|
| Games are pretty much there for linux, reasonable stress about
| anti-cheat aside; but the network effects of Microsoft office
| are the real poison pill.
|
| The irony of course is that if it wasn't for games you could
| have a good time using office on MacOS with their cut down
| versions: but no such version exists for Linux and FreeBSD.
|
| Since its purely network effects, I've taken to trying to
| promote Google Docs usage; since their tools anywhere with a
| modern browser, which is practically every modern desktop
| environment.
|
| I know its pushing another US tech giant, but somehow the
| network effects are less egregious.
| leoedin wrote:
| The web versions of Office tools are pretty good these days.
| There's a few missing features, but you can get by mostly. I
| don't think my company even gives licenses for desktop office
| by default any more.
| dijit wrote:
| I get why you'd say the web versions are "pretty good" for
| most people, and I agree they've improved, but I think
| that's only true if you're doing basic stuff. The moment
| you hit a complex corporate or academic document, the web
| version of Office falls apart. It's materially worse than
| even LibreOffice when you consider a power user's reality.
|
| The real killer is Excel. The web version has zero support
| for crucial tools like Power Query or Power Pivot, which
| are essential for any modern data analysis. You can't run,
| edit, or even create serious VBA/Macros, and advanced data
| validation and conditional formatting are stripped down to
| the bone.
|
| For Word, if you're in law or academia, forget it. Features
| like Table of Authorities or Table of Figures are either
| completely missing or so simplified they are useless. Even
| the ability to handle standard APA or MLA citation styles
| is heavily cut down compared to the desktop app.
|
| And for PowerPoint? You lose access to serious third party
| add-ins, and the granular control over animations and
| timers that professionals need just isn't there.
|
| So, while the web version might be fine for a quick edit of
| a simple file, if you need to reliably work with a complex
| document from a Windows-based company, the compatibility
| issues and missing features will force you into a desktop
| app eventually. If you're going to be forced into a desktop
| experience anyway, you might as well bite the bullet and go
| LibreOffice for its feature completeness on Linux/FreeBSD.
|
| It's a stronger bet than relying on Microsoft's cut-down
| web versions.
| Sincere6066 wrote:
| I don't use office stuff much. What office components are
| available in Microsoft Office that aren't available on Linux?
|
| I also try to avoid google wherever possible.
| vachina wrote:
| Office and the entire Office 365 ecosystem is the true
| killer. Microsoft is so entrenched in enterprise it's
| almost scary. And they're still trying very hard to wedge
| themselves in with their AI offerings.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Excel
| tombert wrote:
| I was completely unsuccessful in getting Microsoft Office
| to run natively with Wine in Linux. Like I wasn't even able
| to get past the installer for any version of Office later
| than 2007. Of course the web version works well enough, but
| in my case, I don't think I will ever be able to convince
| my parents to move to Linux if I cannot get proper
| Microsoft Office working on there. I am quite confident
| that they will not be happy with Kaligra or LibreOffice or
| OpenOffice or OnlyOffice or anything other than the
| Microsoft-branded Office.
|
| In fairness to them, they've been using Windows and Office
| a lot in the last ~30 years, so asking them to abandon all
| that stuff isn't a trivial endeavor, but my point is that
| morshu9001 wrote:
| I don't play video games much, so maybe it's law of small
| numbers, but recently putting Linux on my spare PC, I didn't
| get how people say it's fine for games now. Proton didn't
| work right for my one Steam game BeamNG, and Gamecube
| controllers had unfixable input lag for Dolphin (Slippi).
| Nvidia GPU + Intel integrated spelled trouble for Xorg to the
| point where I had to change to Ubuntu just to have Wayland,
| and that worked.
|
| On top of the game stuff, this PC is under my TV, so I kinda
| wanted a way to remote in. VNC is surprisingly jank, and
| Chrome Remote Desktop somehow never worked. So combined with
| 0/2 of my games working, I just gave up and went back to
| Win10.
| tombert wrote:
| Interesting; I haven't played BeamNG but it looks like it
| should work according to the ProtonDB
| https://www.protondb.com/app/284160. Sample size of one,
| but I haven't really had any issues with Proton on Linux,
| particularly within the "SteamOS" tenfoot interface. I
| don't play online games, and admittedly most of my games
| are several years old, so I can't tell you how well modern
| games play (though a friend of mine didn't appear to have
| too much trouble getting Pacific Drive working on full
| blast).
|
| Not trying to diminish your struggle, and if it didn't work
| for you then obviously you shouldn't use it.
|
| I don't own a Gamecube controller anymore, but I haven't
| noticed much lag with a wireless Switch Pro controller with
| Dolphin. I played through Tony Hawk's Underground and Tony
| Hawk's American wasteland on my laptop a few months ago
| using Dolphin, and as far as I could tell my terrible
| scores had nothing to do with lag, and I was able to finish
| them.
|
| Definitely have had issues with Nvidia drivers though. It
| cost me an entire weekend getting one working a few months
| ago and I didn't enjoy that process.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| Yeah this is why I don't trust the ProtonDB ratings. It
| says gold, but everyone else has the same problem as me
| where it's slower and crashes if you spawn traffic. Also
| had to wait like 30 minutes to generate vulkan shaders.
| AoE2:DE's ProtonDB page says gold but there are a bunch
| of comments saying multiplayer doesn't work at all... I
| feel like that's not gold either.
|
| The GC thing is specifically the Wii U adaptor. There's
| an overclock kmod, but it's known (on gh issues) to be
| finicky and didn't work for me. Regular controllers have
| no lag but also don't work quite the same; on Win and Mac
| the standard is that Wii U adaptor.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > but recently putting Linux on my spare PC, I didn't get
| how people say it's fine for games now.
|
| It is because there are _way_ more games that work than
| games that do not work at all. Also in general the "golden
| path" is really an all AMD PC (since that is where most of
| the testing and open development goes).
|
| That said sometimes you may need to tinker/tweak things but
| this applies to Windows too, hence the existence of
| pcgamingwiki (which recently has added Linux info, though
| that is still dwarfed by the Windows info). I've been
| gaming on Linux for a few years now and was gaming on
| Windows before that and i do not find Linux any worse at
| all when it comes to getting stuff working (this was
| certainly not the case before ~2021 or so though).
| morshu9001 wrote:
| This stuff and other games I played in the past worked
| without any tweaks in Windows, though. Unless you're
| modding ofc.
| sebazzz wrote:
| Is FreeBSD used a lot?
| cimnine wrote:
| The OS of PS4 and PS5 is apparently based on FreeBSD. Netflix
| uses FreeBSD for its CDN servers. pfSense and OPNsense are
| popular firewalls that are based on FreeBSD.
|
| See also
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_Free...
| hylaride wrote:
| JunOS from Juniper is also based off of FreeBSD (I think
| they're moving to Linux, though) as (were?) NetApp filers
| (they made heavy use of the Berkley FFS snapshots back in the
| day).
|
| FreeBSD was popular for many appliances, especially in the
| late 1990s and early 2000s, as it was generally rock-solid,
| had very mature networking, and the legal departments at the
| time liked the more permissive licence.
|
| It's getting less and less common to see it, though. Sheer
| market share numbers mean performance, driver support, user
| familiarity, and companies no longer being afraid of the GPL
| mean that has Linux pretty much taken over.
|
| It makes me a bit sad, but the OS on most Juniper gear is
| just a control plane for ASICs nowadays and NetApp has moved
| on to more advanced filesystems. Finding developers to write
| drivers/software for Linux is probably an order of magnitude
| easier.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| They are scared shirtless of GPL-3 though. See all the
| hoops that apple jump through to avoid it.
| ori_b wrote:
| For a new, buzzy company: Antithesis built their hypervisor
| on it.
| bxparks wrote:
| No, unless you have a laptop used by their developers. Every 2
| years, I try to install FreeBSD on some of my Dell laptops,
| find that the wifi doesn't work, then give up. Been doing that
| for about 8 years..
| atmosx wrote:
| Most Lenovo Thinkpads WiFis should work out of the box with
| FreeBSD.
|
| A USB distributions like NomadBSD ( https://www.nomadbsd.org/
| ) can be used to test compatibility without installing the
| OS.
|
| Also, for HW compatibility: https://bsd-hardware.info/
| Touche wrote:
| Also framework laptops work (mostly):
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/freebsd-on-framework
|
| Even if true, not having great support for laptops doesn't
| mean "no one uses FreeBSD". Obviously it's supported by
| essentially all server hardware and is used there, as well
| as many routers and the Playstation.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I use it on the desktop as daily driver. It's great.
|
| It's a desktop (a NUC) though so I don't use WiFi. I
| really hate laptops.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I use Fedora on my desktop. Whether Bluetooth works or not
| depends on the position of Venus. 2026 will be the year of
| desktop Linux
| tombert wrote:
| I haven't tried FreeBSD on a laptop in about a decade
| (~2016-2017), and I had similar issues. I couldn't get WiFi
| working even though I thought it should be supported, I
| couldn't get the laptop brightness controls working, the
| sound would just randomly cut out, and after a certain point
| I have to ask myself how much time I am realistically willing
| to spend on getting this working. I was trying to run it
| because of Jails and ZFS, but by 2016 Linux containers were
| generally "ok enough" nowadays, and ZFS On Linux seemed to
| work ok on Arch after a bit of finagling, and Linux stuff
| seemed work more consistently.
|
| FreeBSD is pretty neat, don't get me wrong, I have played
| with it on servers and I ran an OPNsense router for years, so
| this isn't a dig on the OS as a whole, just that I don't
| think it's a good fit for laptops, at least the ones I've
| tried.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| My MSI Modern 5, a 2024 laptop works is my perfect daily
| driver, to the point or closing the lid and reopening it
| resumes HDMI.
|
| The only issues I have with is Bluetooth which to be fair was
| trying to connect a Xbox controller and HDMI-Sound, otherwise
| it all works.
|
| WiFi too. A bit archaic to change SSID but that's more
| software then hardware.
|
| Couldn't be happier and with ZFS I have on-boot encryption.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| If it hadn't been for the Facebook acquisition, there's a good
| chance WhatsApp would have continued running on FreeBSD until
| today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38434103
| wkat4242 wrote:
| A lot, no. On the desktop it's 0.01% according to one of those
| stats websites. However it's hard to detect because Firefox
| identifies itself as running on Linux.
|
| I run it myself on my desktop and it's great. What I like is
| that it's not constantly changing stuff for the sake of it like
| with Linux. New init systems, changing ifconfig for other
| commands etc. And it's much better documented.
| tom_alexander wrote:
| I use FreeBSD on my machines because it has netgraph:
| https://klarasystems.com/articles/inside-freebsd-netgraph-
| ad...
| doublerabbit wrote:
| NetGraph and bHyve are a match made in heaven. I need to
| master them some more.
|
| I have isolated jails with their own vNics running a nested
| bHyve VM instance inside which inside you then host a jail
| with its own vnic.
|
| If something jumps out of the they are dead locked to the
| VM, if they jump out of that, they're trapped in a jail.
| munchlax wrote:
| Netflix is a popular example
| surfingdino wrote:
| Not as much as it used to be. Before cloud computing became a
| thing, if you wanted to squeeze the last bit of performance out
| of hardware, FreeBSD was the way to go. Yahoo! used it when
| Yahoo! was the biggest site on the internet. Over time Linux
| became more performant and ever since it has become the OS of
| choice for AWS and other cloud provides, FreeBSD's popularity
| has dropped.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| On PCs no, on other stuff yeah
| bni wrote:
| I look forward to running Windows on FreeBSD
| metaltyphoon wrote:
| Does this open the possibility for easier cross compilation to
| macOS?
| p_ing wrote:
| macOS doesn't have much to do with FreeBSD, so no.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...
| okanat wrote:
| You got some downs for a simple question.
|
| While macOS used some userspace components from FreeBSD, it has
| no commonality with it. Darwin is a different kernel that works
| completely differently. macOS also has quite a bit its own
| stuff in the userspace.
| liendolucas wrote:
| Uff, they are really really pushing for people to keep using
| Windows, huh? Some time ago it was Windows Subsystem for Linux.
| Now this.
|
| I already said the same in that HN thread and will repeat it
| here:
|
| Let's do it the other way round: run Windows in FreeBSD with
| bhyve and voila. But even better, just switch to FreeBSD. It's an
| amazing and rock solid OS.
|
| Microsoft loves open source so much that they are putting efforts
| into... making you keep using their lousy closed source OS
| infested with telemetry and dark patterns. No thanks.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| >This is a personal, experimental project and is not affiliated
| with Microsoft, the FreeBSD Foundation, or the FreeBSD Project.
| Use at your own risk.
| liendolucas wrote:
| Uh, apologies for not properly reading about the project. It
| was not my intention to diminish the project or the its
| author. Feel free to downvote my comment!
| rkagerer wrote:
| I realize not everyone will care about this, but I find the
| naming for these WSL-like subsystems is confusingly backwards.
| i.e. It should have been Linux Subsystem for Windows, or Window's
| Subsystem for [Linux | FreeBSD | etc].
| asveikau wrote:
| The explanation they give is they need to put their trademark,
| Windows, before Linux. Sometimes they say this is advice from
| the legal department.
|
| I still think they could fulfill that requirement and call it
| the "Windows Linux subsystem" or something, but what do I know?
|
| Unrelated, but I think the WSL2 design is kind of stupid. It's
| just a VM. I think the WSL1 design, where it was a syscall
| layer, is a better call. But that was slower, IIRC chiefly
| because the NT filesystem syscalls are slower than Linux's VFS.
| Rather than improve that problem, they side-step it by running
| Linux in a VM.
| ronsor wrote:
| Improving that problem probably would've been a massive
| undertaking. That aside, there's the problem that
| implementing kernel mechanics is a lot more than faking
| syscalls: the various types of namespaces, FUSE, random edge
| cases that applications _do_ expect, kernel modules, etc. At
| the end of the day, users don 't want to stumble into some
| weird compatibility issue because they're running not-quite-
| Linux; it's a better UX to just offer normal Linux with
| better integration.
|
| The WSL2 design isn't stupid, it's practical. What I will
| give you is that it's not elegant in an "ivory tower of ideal
| computing" sense.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Can I even use a usb serial port yet after how many years?
| (Possibly by now but how long did it take, and does it
| actually work well?)
|
| It is stupid in that it's not really any kind of subsystem,
| it's just a vm. VMs have their uses, but it's basically
| just an app.
|
| The reason hardware such as my usb serial example (or any
| serial) worked on wsl1 was because it actually was a
| subsystem.
| beagle3 wrote:
| Your serial might have worked, but your docker didn't.
| (And someone else's other drivers didn't, and mmapping
| had ever-so-slightly different semantics causing rare and
| hard to reproduce issues).
|
| WSL2, on the whole, is much more compatible. If you want
| 100% Linux compatibility, just run Linux.
| watermelon0 wrote:
| There is no native USB passthrough support, but you can
| use USB/IP to access them via network.
|
| https://github.com/dorssel/usbipd-win
| kbolino wrote:
| The bigger problem was how fast Linux evolves. Windows kernel
| development is glacial by comparison. Keeping up with every
| new thing in Linux was tantamount to maintaining a second
| operating system.
| bayindirh wrote:
| IIRC, there was an article, whose author said that
| improving NT kernel without blessing from higher ups is
| even frowned upon.
|
| So making a better WSL on syscall layer, which NT kernel is
| designed for, is not only behind a technical effort wall,
| but also behind a big red tape.
| bee_rider wrote:
| > I still think they could fulfill that requirement and call
| it the "Windows Linux subsystem" or something, but what do I
| know?
|
| Your name is bizarrely better considering how small the
| difference is.
|
| > The explanation they give is they need to put their
| trademark, Windows, before Linux. Sometimes they say this is
| advice from the legal department.
|
| It feels like they have some strange internal naming policy.
| Maybe it is called the "Policy Product for Naming."
| al_borland wrote:
| Is this because, in the WSL example, it's not Linux that's the
| subsystem, but rather a Windows subsystem that enables running
| Linux. Thus the name, Windows Subsystem for Linux?
| 1718627440 wrote:
| It is because the NT kernel implements multiple
| personalities, so it could compete in the UNIX market. The
| component in the kernel that implements a personality is
| called a subsystem. It used to be a correct technical term,
| but of course using it to describe a well-integrated VM isn't
| correct.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Windows' subsystem for Linux feels ok. It is a subsystem of
| Windows after all, not a subsystem of Linux.
|
| So I guess this project should be FreeBSD's subsystem for
| Linux? Or should it be FreeBSD's subsystem for Windows'
| subsystem for Linux?
| sebtron wrote:
| > It is a subsystem of Windows after all, not a subsystem of
| Linux.
|
| Sure, but it is a Linux _system_.
|
| It's kind of like saying Edge is a "Windows subsystem for the
| browser".
| jayd16 wrote:
| "Windows' <integrated VM> for Linux" makes some sense.
| vermaden wrote:
| As usual with Microsoft - its all fucked up.
|
| WINE => Windows Subsystem for Linux/FreeBSD/UNIX
|
| WSL => Linux/FreeBSD Subsystem for Windows
| surfingdino wrote:
| A remnant of their 'Linux is a cancer' phase and the famous
| fight against Open Source that started with the "Halloween
| Document" then helping SCO
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/04/01/1647259/sco-linux-fu...
| They are not Open Source's friend and at one point extracted
| license fees from Amazon for using Linux...
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-becomes-the-latest-comp...
| Yeah, I wish they would leave OS alone.
| 9front wrote:
| Before WSL, Microsoft provided "Windows Services for UNIX" to
| "Seamlessly integrate Microsoft Windows into your UNIX
| environment."
|
| The same Windows services are provided to "Seamlessly integrate
| Microsoft Widows into your Linux environment."
|
| WSU became WSL!
| gdulli wrote:
| "Linux subsystem" would be a subsystem of Linux, which it
| isn't. It makes more sense the way it is. People seem confused
| because their mind naturally wants to go to "Linux for
| Windows", but it's better if they're trained to think of it as
| a series of Windows subsystems, since that's what they are.
| iamtedd wrote:
| _That_ doesn 't make any sense. Using the Linux kernel as an
| example, it has multiple subsystems.
|
| - Power management subsystem
|
| - Scheduling subsystem
|
| - Sound subsystem
|
| etc
|
| The word before "subsystem" describes the subsystem itself,
| not the greater system to which it belongs.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I find the naming for these WSL-like subsystems is confusingly
| backwards._
|
| Whoever decided on the name didn't have sentence diagramming in
| elementary school English class.
| aryonoco wrote:
| For the same reason it's called "Azure Database for
| PostgreSQL", whereas the sensible name would have been
| "PostgreSQL Database for Azure".
|
| If Microsoft is putting someone else's trademark (in this case
| Linux or PostgreSQL) in its product name, their own trademark
| will always come first and someone else's trademark will come
| last.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It follows their old "Windows Services for UNIX" product's
| naming scheme. I don't like it either, but it's consistent.
| dev1ycan wrote:
| Winapps is really such a great addition to Linux, being able to
| run Adobe/Office apps is really great, it makes it so that
| basically the only reason you would need Windows at all is those
| terrible games with kernel level anticheat like League of
| Legends, it's so funny how League can put malware on your pc but
| it still doesn't have voice chat 15 years after release.
| invader wrote:
| Yet another klunge in the ivory tower of software bloat. It is
| like all existing software is gravitating towards a single point
| of singularity, with all existing platforms merging into an
| incomprehensible black hole, sucking the whole of humanity with
| it.
|
| There was no real point in WSL in the first place, except for
| desperate attempts by Microsoft to stay relevant in the cloud
| age. To take two huge and very different systems with all their
| bugs and idiosyncrasies, merge them (creating even more bugs and
| idiosyncrasies along the way), and call it progress? I call it
| insanity. Only now with FreeBSD.
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(page generated 2025-10-11 23:00 UTC)