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Windows 10 Gets Core Console Host Enhancements (nivot.org)
x0n writes: As of Windows 10 TH2 (10.0.1058), the core console subsystem has support for a large number of ANSI and VT100 escape sequences. This is likely to prepare for full Open SSH server/client integration, which is already underway over on github. It looks like xterm is finally coming to Windows. OpenSSH was previously announced (last year) by the very forward-looking PowerShell team. The linked article provides some context, and explains that the console host isn't the same as either cmd.exe or powershell.exe, but there is a lot of overlap in functionality.
Is it just me, or is this actually news for nerds?
Why does it have to be innovative to be a good thing? Should they just not do it if it has already been done by someone else?
Exchange Server is one of the killer points, yes. The other one is Domain Login with the attendant domain-wide security model. As a *nix booster, I must say those two continue to absolutely show up *nix to this day. Those two give more than enough of a "point".
Powershell has some great features and ideas. And whilst it can be great to script in, it is very long winded to just type and use in an adhoc fashion. Sure there's aliases but its still a bit tedious.
The other thing power shell needs is more social interaction and perhaps just a bit more fun. I guess it's still quite new and evolving. Bash is ancient relatively speaking.
I'd like to see stuff like figlet, write, wall, mutt natively in powershell so it becomes more of a destination than a mere dull workhorse of productivity.
Slashdot needs ones. Seriously, for a community that claims to hate FUD, the OSS types sure like spreading it when it is about the "right" groups. If you actually care about what kinds of things the telemetry communicates back at various settings, the information is all out there for you. No, SSH data isn't one of them. However I am going to imagine you don't, and this is just crap you want to fling at "the bad guys" because you can.
Also a thought for you: Your OS, by definition, has access to anything any program on the system is doing. What would stop it from looking in at any 3rd party SSH server you ran, if you think it does that?
The same as it's always been... full integration with the entire line of business-oriented Microsoft products (including Exchange) and support for the vital third-party software that requires Windows.
For many years, Microsoft's business model has been to promote a Microsoft-centric universe. If you use Office, you'll get the best service with an Exchange server, which must run on Windows Server, and really needs Active Directory, which supports your Windows workstations, which integrate with Office. It's not just that Windows is a GUI-based OS. Microsoft products are a part of a whole tangled mess of dependencies, and for years we've been stuck dealing with the downside of that glorious integration.
Every IT admin has a story about the vital business process that involved a human robot. Every day a human logs in, and runs an Excel macro to generate a spreadsheet, that he saves as a CSV file and loads into a third-party program, which generates a RTF document, that needs to be renamed to .txt and moved to a different folder for another program to find and render into a PDF, which the human has to open and read the third line on the fifth page to determine which managers need the report emailed to them. This is a GUI-based process, because the software runs on a GUI-based OS. It can't be automated, because the software doesn't support it. For decades, automation has been a "nice to have" feature, because it never fit into the Microsoft business model, so there was never a good framework to support it built into Windows.
Sure, we had some old tricks... Batch files, DDE, COM, OLE, WSH, VBA... but they never really enjoyed full support from Microsoft. They were supported features, but not supported enough that third-party vendors would feel pressure to support any automation.
Now, with PowerShell and the Core offering of Windows Server, there's the notion that everything should be able to be automated. Sure, we've had that idea from the very first days of Unix, and *nix has embraced the concept to maturity, but *nix still doesn't run every piece of business-critical third-party software. For those of us who are already firmly entrenched in that Microsoft-centric world, this is a much-needed good omen.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
But why in the hell do you want to shell out thousands of dollars on Windows Server ($6k or so to run unlimited virtualized environments?) for something that runs perfectly fine on (free) Linux.
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