New Windows 10 Preview For PCs With Bash, Cross-Device Cortana Released

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs. The preview, dubbed build 14316, comes with a range of features including support for Bash, which Microsoft had announced at its developer conference Build last week. Users interested in it can enable the feature by turning on Developer Mode (detailed instructions here), searching for "Windows Features," choosing "Turn Windows features on or off," and enable Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta). To get Bash installed, open Command Prompt and type in "bash" (without the quotes.) Other features included in the new build include low battery notification, find my phone (ring my phone), and the ability to share map directions across devices. Additionally, the company has also released a new universal Skype app.

Comments

trumpet winsock:win95:cygwin bash:win10

[nyet]

Only took 15 years to get tcp/ip into windows.

Makes sense it took another 15 to get it a reasonable shell.

Re:trumpet winsock:win95:cygwin bash:win10

[AvitarX]

What about PowerShell?

That was pretty reasonable.

Re:trumpet winsock:win95:cygwin bash:win10

[squiggleslash]

Pedantic note:

No it didn't. Even if you count from Windows 1.0, and start counting from 1983 despite it not really being available to the public until 1985, that'd be 12 years until Windows 95, or 11 until Wolverine (the official Microsoft Windows for Workgroups extension.)

But in practice there wasn't really a high demand for TCP/IP until well after 1990.

Re:trumpet winsock:win95:cygwin bash:win10

[MightyMartian]

PowerShell ain't Bash. It's like Bash's insane first cousin, the one who keeps his urine in the fridge and has a name for all the spiders in his attic.

Re:trumpet winsock:win95:cygwin bash:win10

[MightyMartian]

Got there first? Huh? Bash is the latest iteration of the Bourne Shell, which has been around since the 1970s, and has had a number of offshoots. I mainly cut my teeth on ksh, but because the *nix world goes by the credo "if it ain't broke", it meant that a lot of the old /bin/sh scripts still run pretty much unmodified, and moving to Bash just meant learning a superset of that which I had been using for years.

And then came along PowerShell, which is just enough like the Bourne ecosystem to remind you of how Microsoft comes so close sometimes, but the inherent anti-*nix attitudes of its developers means it never quite gets there.

The fact is that if Microsoft really wants to make inroads into the realms dominated by Unix flavors, then it isn't going to do it with a scripted layer over .NET. There are decades worth of Bourne-variant scripts and libraries out there, and maybe, just for once, Microsoft might land on the right side of the question.

Unless of course, this Bash shell is nothing more than the latest iteration of the broken Posix subsystem, in which case, it's pretty much worthless.

Typical Microsoft

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Users interested in it can enable the feature by turning on Developer Mode (Settings - Update - Security - For developers)

Let me get this straight: to enable Developer Mode, you need to go into settings (okay), update (wait, what?), security (why?), for developers (could be named a bit better IMHO).

No wonder I always feel lost when I use Microsoft products. They can't even make a proper navigation tree.

Re:Typical Microsoft

[setantae]

No it doesn't, at least on my device.

Windows Subsystem for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that be Linux Subsystem for Windows?

Re:Bash?

[alantus]

Just use Python. It'll let you accomplish the same tasks, likely in a fraction of the time, and with a much better result. Plus your script will likely be more portable, too, even to Windows!

Sure, as long as you have the same version of Python installed, your script might be portable. I can't remember when was the last time I had to check $BASH_VERSION.

Bash is a relic from a pre-Python world. It's time to move away from bash.

How about using the right tool for each job?
Use Bash for simple tasks that involve running programs, piping their output, checking their exit code, etc.
Use Perl for text manipulation, regular expressions, complex data structures, complex logic, one-liners, etc.
Use Python for your code to be readable by an 8 year old.

Re:clippy

[vux984]

That was windows 98 era stupid. We have progressed since then.

It seems like you are trying to ssh to a server, should I share the password with everyone in your contacts?

Yes always / Yes right now / Cancel connection

However if you go into Settings -> Advanced -> Personalization -> Sharing -> Extra Settings -> SSH Options there is a check box that says "Disable SSH Passwords" that will add a "No" box to the other dialog box.

There is also a group policy that makes No the default and turns off the prompt.

RTFM n00b!

They Did? -- "Windows PowerShell ISE"

[CrashNBrn]

Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE):
---> C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell_ise.exe

Or you can launch PowerShell via the console:
---> C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Microsoft Linux

[Kaenneth]

I've said many times, Linux can't 'beat' MS, because MS can always do MS Linux.