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

This could be good for the Linux gaming community.

[Mal-2]

If small developers with limited time budgets can just target their game at Linux, and have it automagically run on Windows, this might be quite the attractive option. No porting, just write for one "lowest common denominator" and let the OSes themselves sort it out. I would assume things intended to be cross-platform, like Vulkan, would also fit into this "it just works, everywhere" paradigm.

Re: No Thank you....

[dbreeze]

Part of earning my living is done using the gEDA tools to reverse engineer old CNC controls. Linux is no toy for me. I'm sure there's a few network admins and others who are also glad there's a legit alternative to the Microsoft universe for doing real work.

Re: This could be good for the Linux gaming commun

[Dutch Gun]

If game developers were to move away from Direct X, and on to something cross-platform, then the bar is much lower to supporting Linux and friends.

Speaking as a game developer... I'd suggest its not any technical hurdles that keep games away from Linux. Most game engines, whether commercial or custum, are written in portable C++, and use abstraction layers to hide any platform-specific code. In my own game engine, I'd estimate that platform-specific code only amounts to less than 5% of the total code.

Rather, I think it's simply the market-share of Linux... or rather, the lack thereof. Many games have Mac ports, meaning they obviously have an OpenGL renderer and POSIX compliant backend, but still no Linux support. It's pretty hard to get motivated to support an entirely new platform that only has 1% market-share, and it doesn't help matters when that 1% is further fragmented into a bunch of different distros, further complicating support and compatibility testing.

It's the same problem Windows phones have. By all accounts, Windows phones are pretty nice, but no one makes apps for them because of the abysmal market-share, which in turn drives more users away. It's sort of a catch-22 for platforms with a small market-share, making it extremely difficult to break in.