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Confirmed: Microsoft and Canonical Partner To Bring Ubuntu To Windows 10 (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the microsoft-loves-linux dept.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports for ZDNet: According to sources at Canonical, Ubuntu Linux's parent company, and Microsoft, you'll soon be able to run Ubuntu on Windows 10. This will be more than just running the Bash shell on Windows 10. After all, thanks to programs such as Cygwin or MSYS utilities, hardcore Unix users have long been able to run the popular Bash command line interface (CLI) on Windows. With this new addition, Ubuntu users will be able to run Ubuntu simultaneously with Windows. This will not be in a virtual machine, but as an integrated part of Windows 10. [...] Microsoft and Canonical will not, however, sources say, be integrating Linux per se into Windows. Instead, Ubuntu will primarily run on a foundation of native Windows libraries. Update: 03/30 16:16 GMT by M : At its developer conference Build 2016, Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed that it is bringing native support for Bash on Windows 10. Scott Hanselman writes: This isn't Bash or Ubuntu running in a VM. This is a real native Bash Linux binary running on Windows itself. It's fast and lightweight and it's the real binaries. This is a genuine Ubuntu image on top of Windows with all the Linux tools I use like awk, sed, grep, vi, etc. It's fast and it's lightweight. The binaries are downloaded by you - using apt-get - just as on Linux, because it is Linux. You can apt-get and download other tools like Ruby, Redis, emacs, and on and on. This is brilliant for developers that use a diverse set of tools like me.

6 of 492 comments (clear)

  1. Does this give me native CLI tools or not by bigdady92 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The only thing keeping me on my mac is the heavy integration of native *NIX tools for the command line.

    Yes I could install cygwin (it's a mess), I could use putty (has limitations) for ssh, or other apps that mirror the functionality of *NIX CLI tools, but none work as good as having everything built into the core of the OS.

    If this allows me to open up a cmd.exe and ssh to systems right off the bat, I'm scrapping the macbook and getting a surface pro.

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    1. Re:Does this give me native CLI tools or not by The-Ixian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I find that by just including the Cygwin bin path in the system PATH variable gives me seamless command-line functionality without an issue.

      Open CMD and use any command you need. This has the benefit of being able to mix Windows and UNIX commands together on the same command line.

      I am also not sure what limitations you are running into with PuTTY... I have never run into any situation that PuTTY is not able to handle (port redirection, pass through agent authentication, X11 redirection, keep alive, etc). Not only does it do all the SSH stuff, but it also has functionality similar to telnet and screen.

      That said, if I could get a native X11 interface inline with Windows... that would be great! No more need for PuTTY + Xming + remote linux box. I know that you can run a local X11 server though Cygwin... but that is definitely a mess and is very slow.

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  2. I guess I see the point of this by LichtSpektren · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The only reasons people use Windows is because (a) it's familiar to office drones, and (b) legacy Win x86 applications. The only reasons people DON'T use Linux desktop are basically the inverse of the above: (a) it's not familiar to the tech-retarded who have a psychological block to learning anything new, and (b) it won't run legacy enterprise cruft. So what Microsoft is proposing is that they use their shitty unstable insecure spyware base OS that will nevertheless (a) have the Windows desktop and (b) still run legacy enterprise cruft, and try to graft an actually usable OS on top of it by having Ubuntu's CLI utilities run on top of it. Perhaps a slight improvement, but I doubt it'll sway very many people from just using Linux.

    1. Re:I guess I see the point of this by thsths · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The main reason people are not running Linux is that it is not pre-installed. And the next reason is that it is hard to install on modern machines, especially on laptops (which, as you should have heard, are more popular than desktops).

  3. Response to Mac OS X by PineHall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A lot of developers use Macs because of the Unix foundation and the nice interface. It makes it easy to develop applications and put them on a linux web server. I think Microsoft is doing this to provide a familiar Unix foundation for developers, and making it Ubuntu compatible may make it easier to use than the Max OS X.

  4. I hope... by ADRA · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For god sake, I hope Microsoft threw a dump-truck full of money on Canonical's door because otherwise, bad news for them.

    All this does is piss off existing Linux customers, bridges a few muddled though mostly gutless windows swappers from booting Linux (Who would probably just use something like VirtualBox with seemless mode and get 100% of the same features / performance). The OS integration layers for UNIX in Windows has existed since NT. Microsoft clearly doesn't give enough sh*ts enough to invest serious money into it, so why waste your time chasing a market that simply doesn't exist? You better be counting your millions or else I'd be seriously sad for you.

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