Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment can run in Windows (wordpress.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: "This is one of the coolest tickets I've seen on GitHub," writes Ubuntu developer Adolfo Jayme Barrientos, adding "this kind of surreal compatibility between platforms is now enabled...the fact that you can execute and use Linux window managers there, without virtual machines, is simply mind-blowing."

"The Windows 10 Anniversary Update coming in August includes an unusual feature aimed at developers: an Ubuntu sub-system that lets you run Linux software using a command-line interface," explains Liliputing.com "Preview versions have been available since April, and while Microsoft and Canonical worked together to bring support for the Bash terminal to Windows 10, it didn't take long for some users to figure out that they could get some desktop Linux apps to run in Windows. Now it looks like you can even load Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment, making windows 10 look like Ubuntu.

Comments

Re:How does it work?

[benjymouse]

The subsystem for Linux (SFL) implements a (large) subset of Linux syscalls.It allows unmodified ELF64 binaries to run. The syscalls are implemented in kernel, but acts upon Windows resources.

Re:How does it work?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

It's linked in the second page attached to this story:
https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues/637

Re:Windows(tm) or windows as in rectangle?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Not to completely dis Softway, the OpenNT guys. Walli and team were a big part of getting POSIX and ISO reconciled in the 90's.

Here's a recent recounting, from the man who made it happen:

Now, six years later, what if you could properly port all of your business-critical UNIX applications to Windows NT and have them behave with absolute fidelity? And by port, I mean type “make” at the command line and fiddle a bit in an afternoon, not rewrite the application over months of time to Win32. What if you no longer had to buy and maintain outrageously priced hardware from the UNIX system vendors, but could buy PC-class hardware? Microsoft was on an explosive growth curve and Windows NT was a proper operating system. Linux was still very much in its infancy and a long way from being proven. The UNIX Systems Labs v. Berkeley Software Design lawsuit had put a chill over the BSD community.

https://medium.com/@stephenrwalli/running-linux-apps-on-windows-and-other-stupid-human-tricks-part-i-acbf5a474532#.o7vb5eph9