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Ubuntu 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10 (omgubuntu.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the choice-is-yours dept.

The latest Windows 10 Insider preview -- build 14936 -- features Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. When a user enables the 'Bash on Ubuntu on Windows' feature for the first time, OMGUbuntu reports, Windows 10 now installs an Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) image instead of Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr). From the report: The updated version of Ubuntu in the WSL only affects new instances, i.e., those created by running lxrun.exe /install or on the very first run of the bash.exe setup. It is possible to upgrade WSL instances from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04 manually by running the do-release-upgrade command. Other changes in the WSL in Build 14936 include support for chroot system call, epoll support for /dev/null and the ability for bash -c to redirect to a file.

20 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. You know the rest... by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think this is the "embrace" stage...

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    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  2. Why? by JamesTRexx · · Score: 2

    This now makes me wonder what reason there could be to run Ubuntu on Windows instead of Windows on Linux. For the few pieces of software like CAD (or games) I can understand, but then I can't think of a use for those professionals to use Linux in a virtual machine.

    So, what scenario would fit best to use Linux on Windows instead of Windows on Linux for the professional? (I myself use Proxmox as a desktop with severeal machines for testing on it)

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    1. Re:Why? by RDW · · Score: 2

      There are any number of Unix/Linux applications that have never been ported to Windows by their developers and have no direct equivalent in the MS world. If most of your work is in Windows, it makes obvious sense to run that as your main OS, but having the ability to use additional Unix/Linux packages fills a real need. I've been doing this by varous means since the 90s, using Cygwin, VMs, and now this thing. It may possible to (e.g.) use Windows-native GNU tools (MinGW, etc.) to build the software you need, but that's not always straightforward or worth the bother - much easier to 'apt-get install' and get on with your work.

    2. Re:Why? by jcdr · · Score: 2

      For that reason I always wanted that the win32/win64 API will be a international standard managed by an official organization like ISO. That way Microsoft will lost evil control of an API that is actually a very effective tool to kick off any concurrent. This will allow Wine to implement a good implementation based on detailed documentation.

      This is curious that no government on the planet require that win32/win64 are international standard, while there usually require standard certification on a tone of less critical parts of there infrastructure. OpenOffice did a genius master move by making ODF an international standard before Microsoft was able to do the same. If only Wine would get enough support to standardize win32/win64 before Microsoft. Seem to be an impossible dream actually.

  3. Re:why just why by mccalli · · Score: 2

    Because I want to use grep. Because I want to run scripts and write them in Bash. Because I like the find command. Because...

    You get the idea. I run OS X^H^H^HmacOS as my main operating system and use the shell frequently. I used Red Hat as my desk top in the late 90s and early 2000s. I like the idea that my knowledge and familiarity is portable across all the environments I may come across.

  4. Re:why just why by mlts · · Score: 2

    I also use Git for storing documents. If ransomware comes a-knocking and trashes my files, a reinstall, reload of apps, and a git clone gets all my data back. Having a native command line for that, as well as for using a deduplicating backup program like borg backup, attic, or others, is quite nice to have.

  5. Re:why just why by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's not cygwin-like. Cygwin tries to translate Unix calls to Windows calls, and provides a DLL to link your source code against. WSL actually provides an ELF loader and handles Linux system calls; it runs Linux programs the way a Linux kernel would, albeit the kernel is more of an academic project written from scratch (e.g. FreeBSD or Minix implementing Linux-compatible system calls so as to straight run a Linux userland).

    WSL is excellent for those of us in an actual Windows enterprise environment doing Linux system development or administration. It gives a real Unix-like environment with real tools, rather than Cygwin. In general, it's kind of clunky and unpolished; but it's better than Cygwin.

    I'd like to see Microsoft release a Winbind-type service that connects (via TCP) to localhost and mediates between the Winbind socket and the local authentication daemon. Otherwise you have to join your computer *and* the Bash shell on your computer to the domain. Would also like to see them implement Docker under WSL tbh.

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  6. Out-of-Touch IT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As an engineer, many places I have worked have IT departments which are run for the benefit of non-techies and completely out-of-touch with engineering. These companies simply do not understand the engineers' desires whatsoever. Windows is forced upon the engineers (80% of the white collar workforce) because it's simpler to maintain a single OS, and the remaining 20% wants windows. I am not saying that every engineer agrees with me. However, only one side of the debate is heard at most companies: those who want Windows.

    1. Re:Out-of-Touch IT by perpenso · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My Windows boxes at home and work have dual booted since the mid 90s. Even at companies whose software products targeted Windows only. Occasionally a task was better performed under *nix. I also try to separate UI and core code in projects and build/test the core code under both Windows and Linux. Crossplatform builds/testing is a nice way to find some bugs, some bugs are difficult to manifest in one environment and turn out to manifest easily in the other.

      Although to be honest the cross platform stuff worked best when I had a Mac around and could also target a completely different architecture, 68K or PPC CPUs back in the day. Admittedly it was easier to get an extra hard drive for Linux than a Mac. Fortunately at some of these jobs we also had Mac products.

  7. Re:why just why by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

    Seems to me you would just be better off running Linux in a virtual machine. I've tried this Linux on Windows stuff, and there was quite a bit of basic stuff that didn't work. It's definitely not production ready yet. Even if it was production ready, what would this provide that running a virtual machine would not provide?

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    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  8. Re:why just why by Nunya666 · · Score: 2

    Because I want to use grep. Because I want to run scripts and write them in Bash. Because I like the find command. Because... You get the idea. I run OS X^H^H^HmacOS as my main operating system and use the shell frequently. I used Red Hat as my desk top in the late 90s and early 2000s. I like the idea that my knowledge and familiarity is portable across all the environments I may come across.

    Most of those individual commands have been available in Windoze for a long time. Try installing UnxUtils or GnuWin32 to get grep and other *Nix commands in Windows.

  9. Re:why just why by julian67 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "...WSL actually provides an ELF loader and handles Linux system calls; it runs Linux programs the way a Linux kernel would..."

    Lots of people seem to miss this point. And a huge benefit of this is that performance is excellent. Running my ffmpeg bash scripts for x264 encoding/conversion I get identical speed in Ubuntu on Windows as I get on Debian Stretch on the same hardware. And it's great to be able to run screen or tmux locally, not just on a remote machine I ssh'd into. This is much better than using putty or running a VM.

    I boot Windows 10 most days because my Steam games mostly don't run on Steam for Linux and gaming under Wine is just too unreliable in many cases. If I don't have to reboot to accomplish some regular tasks than that's a bonus for me.

  10. The cart before the horse? by evolutionary · · Score: 2

    Gee, doesn't it make MORE sense to run Windows in Linux (VirtualBox, Proxmox, KVM). Safer, easier to audit network activity. It's amazing how people don't seem to see the light, even when the potion is on the table in front of them saying "drink me" AND they know people who have already tasted the potion and haven't died, or gotten sick.

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
    1. Re:The cart before the horse? by _merlin · · Score: 2

      It's not even easy to audit network activity on Linux once you get stuff like TCP offload engines involved. You pretty much need to use instrumented switches if you want to be sure of everything going in or out of your NICs.

  11. Re:why just why by Megol · · Score: 2

    Better performance, lower overheads, better integration between Windows and Ubuntu etc.

  12. Re:I want Mint without systemd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anyone else in this position? What are you trying?

    I'm running Ubuntu under Windows 10, using the 'Bash on Ubuntu on Windows' feature. That way I can have Windows monitor the Linux environment and intervene in case of problems. It gives me the best of both worlds, Windows robustness and stability and access to the myriad of applications that are only available for Linux.

  13. Re:why just why by batkiwi · · Score: 2

    My belief is that the 99% use case of this is for running docker images.

    Before this you could run docker on windows, but you had to create a "bizarre" tiny linux distro VM (100mb or so storage), and the docker on windows launcher would leverage that to provision and run the docker images. You had to dedicate ram to that VM to run your docker pool.

    With this you can run docker images "natively", without a separate VM memory space, and due to the elf loader support they actually are running on windows itself.

    I do not see this as a good alternative to traditional VMs.

  14. Docker by batkiwi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A re-paste of a comment I posted as a reply:

    My belief is that the 99% use case of this is for running docker images.

    Before this you could run docker on windows, but you had to create a "bizarre" tiny linux distro VM (100mb or so storage), and the docker on windows launcher would leverage that to provision and run the docker images. You had to dedicate ram to that VM to run your docker pool.

    With this you can run docker images "natively", without a separate VM memory space, and due to the elf loader support they actually are running on windows itself.

    I do not see this as a good alternative to traditional VMs.

  15. No systemd by The-Forge · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'd figure everyone would be jumping for joy because there's no systemd in this.

  16. Re:why just why by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2

    Wrong. IO-bound tasks are slow in VM because IO requires a kernel call. So does task switching, memory mapping (mmap(), brk()), getting the time, getting process information, changing memory protections, advising on memory use (madvise()), sleeping, interprocess communication (pipes), creating shared memory, and several other things. Modern VMs are faster because they eliminate the large amount of work required to make a kernel call.

    CPU-bound tasks can lose clock cycles to task switching and context switches. Task switching destroys CPU cache, causing major performance hits on certain types of applications, notably media-encoding applications; additional task switching by the host OS exacerbates this.

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