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Windows 10 Gets A New Linux: openSUSE (fossbytes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: "Running Linux binaries natively on Windows... that sounds awesome indeed," writes Hannes Kuhnemund, the senior product manager for SUSE Linux Enterprise. He's written a blog post describing how to run openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 on Windows 10, according to Fossbytes, which reports that currently users have two options -- openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2. Currently it's Ubuntu that's enabled by default in the Windows Subsystem for Linux, although there's already a project on GitHub that also lets you install Arch Linux. "It's quite unfortunate that Microsoft enabled the wrong Linux (that's my personal opinion) by default within the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)," writes Kuhnemund, "and it is time to change it to the real stuff.

103 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Submitter Troll detected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "It's quite unfortunate that Microsoft enabled the wrong Linux (that's my personal opinion) by default within the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)," writes Kuhnemund, "and it is time to change it to the real stuff."

  2. No by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

    Running Windows binaries on Linux would be far more useful but very little effort seems to be devoted to that from the major Linux players.

    1. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Give us the source code to make it work, then.

    2. Re: No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A linux environment should be capable of maintaining a very tight jail to run windows binaries within. It might turn out to be the optimal solution in the long run.

      I could see linux becoming the preferred platform to run legacy windows applications on. I have some favorite Win32 applications that won't run on 64 bit Windoes, for example. Corel bought the company that made them and snubbed them out, but they ran perfectly up to 32 bit XP.

    3. Re: No by cas2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      > A Linux system without a bunch of proprietary software is almost unusable

      Bullshit.

      > MP3 and MP4 playback come to mind

      There are dozens of FOSS music and video players, capable of playing pretty much any common (and most uncommon) format. including mp3, mp4 and many others.

      > Nvidia drivers.

      The proprietary nvidia driver is currently much better than nouveau. for AMD cards, it's much harder to tell. radeon is better for some things, fglrx is better for others.

      BTW, the nvidia driver and steam (plus some games - both native linux and with WINE) are the ONLY proprietary software I have installed on my machines, and i've been using linux as my "desktop" OS since the early 90s - switched from OS/2 to MCC Linux and never looked back.

      In all that time, I've never had any need or use for any other proprietary software. Don't need it, don't want it, don't care at all about it.

      and i couldn't care less about what other people choose or need to run on their computers - aside from the security risk they pose if they connect garbage software to the internet, it's none of my business.

      > Especially CUDA

      CUDA is almost completely irrelevant outside of a tiny niche of scientific computation, computer-science research, and other very parallelisable number-crunching jobs. I happen to do a lot of work in fields that use it, but I'm well aware that it's a very tiny niche.

      > These sort of if idiot thoughts are why I moved to BSD from Linux.

      yeah, because any/all of the *BSDs can run lots more proprietary software than Linux.

      Your sort of idiot thoughts are why people think you're both a liar and a moron.

    4. Re: No by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      And if you don't want to buy a Windows license?

    5. Re: No by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      What's stopping you maintaining the purity of your installs?

    6. Re: No by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      EFI/BIOS, CPU microcode, wi-fi firmware, the list goes on...

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    7. Re: No by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Is it possible to use the Windows license that came preinstalled on the computer that now has Linux running on it? I'd imagine any PC would come w/ that, unless it's been bought from someone like System76

  3. Shudder. by fisted · · Score: 2

    Running Linux binaries natively on Windows... that sounds awesome indeed

    Sounds horrible to me. Why bother?

    1. Re:Shudder. by coastwalker · · Score: 1

      Presumably it gives the NSA the same access to Linux activity that Windows 10 already does?

      --
      Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
    2. Re:Shudder. by JanneM · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sounds horrible to me. Why bother?

      Not sure what MS' motivation is, but it's good news for a lot of scientific software developers. Small teams or single researchers rarely have enough time to even keep the main development going, never mind keeping up with multiple OS targets. With this everybody can simply focus on Linux, and tell Windows users to just run it under the Linux layer and stop asking about a native port.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    3. Re:Shudder. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Sounds horrible to me. Why bother?

      For the same reason that GIMP is no substitute for Photoshop. Sometimes the other platform has a natively far better product. To put it simply: You're running Windows due to some other limitation and you need to crank out a script, do you do it in the abortion that is batch files? Or would you rather bash out some bash?

    4. Re:Shudder. by JanneM · · Score: 1

      That's all fine and dandy until the day comes at MSFT stops maintaining the WSL subsystem and/or lets subtle incompatibilities creep in.

      Bring it up with Microsoft? What do Windows app developers do when Wine doesn't run their application correctly?

      How does it compare to offering a build linked against the Cygwin library?

      Zero extra work and no need for a separate box or VM, and a Windows licence, to test the build.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  4. Re:Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 4, Informative

    Doing what I do now - developing for Linux in Visual Studio. And, to be honest, even though I develop for Linux, I personally prefer using Windows on the desktop both at work and at home (my little home server runs on Debian, but it is mostly used as a data graveyard and the only time I actually use it is when running midnight commander in a ssh session).

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  5. Why is that useful? by cjonslashdot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why run Windows in the first place? I am an Agile transformation coach, and I work in large organizations, and I always wonder, Why, if they are deploying on RHEL, are their developers writing code on Windows laptops? The problems that result are endless. And the solution is simple: either (1) run real Linux in an VM; or (2) run Linux natively. #1 will satisfy enterprise access to email, etc. The solutions are already here. Trying to cram Linux into the Windows kernel seems bizarre to me. What do others think?

    1. Re:Why is that useful? by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Embrace.

      Extend.

      Extinguish,

      They're hoping that "linux" comes to mean just a particular set of utilities, no matter the OS.

      In this day and age, virtualise. And it doesn't matter what OS you host virtual machines on, so long as they run.

      Which is a death-knell to Windows, because the choice between "server core" and a barebones Linux install with a hypervisor? What's to choose except price and licensing?

      Developers should be able to code on - literally - anything they want to. It helps in testing, if nothing else, if they are checking in code that is Windows-only and everyone complains that it breaks builds.

      But they should all have all the target platforms as VMs, too. Then it's a matter of personal preference.

      To be honest, I don't get why so many coders actually use MacBooks. It seems completely the wrong decision to me, if given free choice.

      But the days of which OS is actually running on the hardware mattering are long gone. The choice of what you use as desktop is personal preference. The choice of what to use for backend services doesn't matter so long as you have people managing it.

      Windows, at this point, is just a fancy GUI, not unlike which choice of DE you use on Linux. I think Microsoft are trying to claw that back a little and make you think that you can get rid of the Linux desktops and interfaces by using Windows.

    2. Re:Why is that useful? by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You said it yourself -- "large organizations".

      They're aiming for some kind of economies of scale in purchasing, application deployment and security that go way beyond the single-digit percentage of user base that developers represent.

      They could just hand over the hardware and let the developers run their own machines, but this has all kinds of security implications and often bleed developer productivity in desktop maintenance overhead.

      Running dev machines natively in Linux makes some sense, but may cut them off from other Windows-only applications they need to be part of the larger organization. as well as lack of visibility in enterprise management software. Running it in a VM has the same problems plus the added complexity of two environments.

      I doubt Microsoft's solution is designed principally as a developer solution, either, but probably a long-term gambit to make it a more universal platform to retain users when the year of Linux on the Desktop rolls around. They must see some future in their crystal ball where enough Linux desktops exist that *not* being able to run some application is an existential risk to Windows.

    3. Re:Why is that useful? by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      Indeed. One thought: it is nice if your native OS can run containers natively. Regarding Macbooks, everyone has their own reasons, but my personal reason is hardware quality: the hard aluminum case, the keys, the slimness. There are downsides of course - can't easily replace the battery, lack of ports on new ones. It is a tradeoff. I carry mine everywhere, so physical durability and lightness are important to me. But using OSX/MacOS means that to run true Linux containers, I have to run a VM. In practice, I do most of my own dev in AWS anyway, so it is not an issue.

    4. Re: Why is that useful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      For one, Windows doesn't have systemd.

    5. Re: Why is that useful? by houghi · · Score: 1

      There will not be a year of the Linux Desktop, but not because people do not want it, but because people do not care.
      You know what the wonderword is? Pre-installed.

      People buy an android phone and an iPad and a Win10 Portable. Because people do not care. And Microsoft is well aware of that.

      Have Linux pre-installed on a machine and people will buy it. And I do not mean somewhere on a website. I mean in the store with no option of selecting anything else. Not just one store, all of the stores and if they want Windows, they need to download and install it themselves.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    6. Re:Why is that useful? by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Why run Windows in the first place? I am an Agile transformation coach, and I work in large organization ?

      We fired our agile transformation coach. What a goddamn bureaucrat.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    7. Re:Why is that useful? by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      Sorry you had that experience. In the organization I am working with, I have spearheaded the introduction of ATDD and the use of docker containers on laptops. To do that, I had to have lots of conversations with various stakeholders in the bureaucracy, to explain why we were doing things differently. IMO, a good Agile transformation coach needs to (1) know the technology, and (2) be able to explain it to managers who don't know it.

    8. Re:Why is that useful? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      I think that's a bingo.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    9. Re:Why is that useful? by avandesande · · Score: 1

      People have been running dual boot or Wine since Linux came out. Putting conspiracy theories aside, maybe Microsoft did this because it answers a lot of use cases for a number of users?

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    10. Re: Why is that useful? by reanjr · · Score: 1

      Developers should use whatever platform they are most comfortable with.

      Where I work, all of our code is designed to run on Linux, but all the developers ran Windows. Things were messy, because everyone created a tool chain around Windows (VMs with mounted shares, dev tools run locally on Windows, etc.), which did not work in production. When I came in and moved the toolchain to Linux, the integration became much nicer, because I could target Linux, but hand those tools off to the Windows users expecting minimal cross-platform fuss.

      It's different enough to be frustrating (which is the best anyone can ever claim for Windows), but it definitely provided a lot of real value to us.

    11. Re:Why is that useful? by gtall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly what I'd expect said from an Agile transformation coach; fixation on the process instead of the result.

    12. Re:Why is that useful? by bayankaran · · Score: 1

      Why run Windows in the first place? I am an Agile transformation coach, and I work in large organizations, and I always wonder, Why, if they are deploying on RHEL, are their developers writing code on Windows laptops?

      I have no admiration for M$ and I have used Linux in some form or other for more than fifteen years. I admit Windows 7 is a decent OS, may be the best after Win 2000.

      Linux is still not a viable substitute to Windows when it comes to Desktop. I don't know how good/bad the IDEs used for enterprise SW development are on Linux. Coding is not the *only* activity a developer does and as an Agile coach you would know the *endless stream of meetings*...do we have a substitute for MS Outlook? IMHO Agile ideas may make a stronger case for M$ SW.

      --
      Tat Tvam Asi
    13. Re: Why is that useful? by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      Yes, and there is also the issue that if a test fails in a downstream production-like env, it is nice if the developers are familiar with that env so that they can diagnose the problem. If they work in Windows and the downstream test failure is in a Linux env, then the devs need to be comfortable in both Win and Linux. Did you have experiences with that situation?

    14. Re:Why is that useful? by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      I think you are jumping to conclusions about me. This is not about me.

      You are right that it is not just about process. Process is part of it. The largest issue, IME, is knowledge: do people know about VMs? Containers? ATDD? DevOps? etc. - at all levels, from the developers through the various managers who set the rules (and therefore can change the rules).

      One thing that I have found is that if you give developers Windows machines, they learn that - they don't learn about Linux. That's fine if the org deploys on Windows, but if it deploys on Linux, it is nice if the devs know about Linux; and if you want them to know about Linux, the best way to achieve that is to have them live in Linux most of the time.

      There are always exceptions: people who will learn all of the envs. That's why I don't believe in forcing people to use one env over another. Most of my work is in large organizations where one has to think about the range of skills and personalities.

      PS - Don't assume that because I am an Agile transformation coach that I am not technical - I am (I code).

    15. Re:Why is that useful? by cjonslashdot · · Score: 1

      I don't claim to know the best solution for this. I was merely sharing my own experiences. Have you used the Outlook Web client? It is pretty effective, IME. I have used it quite a bit, but I am sure there are shortcomings that I have not come across. I also wonder (I don't know) if MS apps like Word can now be deployed in a private cloud. If so, perhaps that could be a solution.

    16. Re:Why is that useful? by chispito · · Score: 1

      What has been "extinguished" lately that wasn't a) a failed experiment or, b) a product that no longer had a purpose?

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    17. Re:Why is that useful? by ledow · · Score: 1

      Dual boot requires rebooting.

      Nobody in commerce or enterprise is doing that with any kind of regularity, on clients or servers.

      Virtualised hardware, however, let's them run everything without changing the machine. It also lets Linux be the underlying OS while Windows is just a VM.

      That gives them an incentive for "one OS" top-to-bottom (e.g. Server licensing for HyperV) that can run Windows and Linux commands (even the hypervisor itself) without having to install a rival OS.

    18. Re:Why is that useful? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Embrace,

      Extend,

      I didn't read further, for two reasons. a) The senior management of Microsoft is not the same as it once was. You're talking about ruthless strategists, who have set plans in their mind to kill off competitors. Nadella by comparison struggles to tie his shoe laces and would happily just sell the entire thing to the highest bidder and move on to destroy another company.

      b) The return key is not a substitute for a full stop.

      You comment was impossible to read.

      Don't do that.

    19. Re: Why is that useful? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      There will not be a year of the Linux Desktop, but not because people do not want it, but because people do not care.

      Of course they don't care, before Apple came along and popularized smartphones nobody really cared what cell phone they had either so even when they had to make a choice they just chose the incumbent. Given the choice of Windows or Linux they'd probably still choose Windows. That will be the case until Linux comes up with some disruptive, innovative feature that users just have to have. At the moment it's just another OS that doesn't run as many programs, if you really don't want Windows then OSX is a better choice than Linux.

      People buy an android phone and an iPad and a Win10 Portable. Because people do not care. And Microsoft is well aware of that.

      This has been the case with smartphones and tablets too, the incumbent tablet is the iPad and the choice in smartphones comes down to Android or iOS. There have been plenty of other options like Windows Phone, webOS, Meego, etc but why would anybody want them when they do the same thing? People don't want to express individuality through choice of electronic devices, it's just a tool to do a job.

      Have Linux pre-installed on a machine and people will buy it.

      No, they won't. Even Best Buy had them on shelves and nobody wanted them.

      I mean in the store with no option of selecting anything else. Not just one store, all of the stores and if they want Windows, they need to download and install it themselves.

      So the only way to get Linux used is to effectively force it on people.

    20. Re:Why is that useful? by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      You're on to something here... getting developers with a Linux mindset enticed by Linux on Windowscould aide in migration of scientific development and server maintenance toward the Windows way of doing things. Alternatively, it could make those Windows developers move to Linux and then code porting could be minimal, lowering the barrier for Linux ports of things, such as games.

      Makes me wonder if MS is slowly giving up on Windows and providing a transition to a Linux-based system. Maybe in a few years we'll have the Apple-Unix crowd bickering with the Windows-Linux crowd about which OS is superior.

    21. Re:Why is that useful? by MooseMiester · · Score: 1

      For a manager who spends hours every day with email browser based solutions just don't cut it.

      Nobody has created a shared calendar that works as well as Exchange/Outlook.

      I have quite a few clients in highly regulated environments where Google anything is not permitted as it's too easy to create public documents that are visible to anyone with the link...

      --
      Murphy was an optimist
  6. Re:Real Stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Weird, isn't it. Getting Linux working on Windows has to be MS's effort, since they're the ones with access to the build process of official releases, and they have access, like everyone, to Linux code and build process, even for SuSE. Getting Windows on Linux has to be MS's effort, since they're STILL the only ones with legitimate access to the source code of Windows and the "patented" stuff therein.

    Yet it's Linux's fault that Windows programs don't work on Linux, and Linux's fault that Linux programs don't run on Windows.

    MS still have the only legitimate access to all the information necessary to make this work. But failure is someone else's fault...

  7. Arrogance by geeper · · Score: 2

    It's quite unfortunate that Microsoft enabled the wrong Linux (that's my personal opinion) by default within the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL),

    Coming from someone who must use windows at work, it's fortunate that they (MS) are doing this at all. This arrogance and public disagreement within the community is uncalled for.

    --
    Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
    1. Re:Arrogance by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Also ubuntu kind of makes me ill

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re:Arrogance by Dareth · · Score: 1

      sudo echo "Feel better soon"

      --

      I only look human.
      My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
    3. Re:Arrogance by chispito · · Score: 1

      Coming from someone who must use windows at work, it's fortunate that they (MS) are doing this at all. This arrogance and public disagreement within the community is uncalled for.

      I think it was meant to be cheeky, not mean-spirited.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    4. Re:Arrogance by erapert · · Score: 1

      Why are you using sudo for this?

  8. sounds awesome but means nothing. by nimbius · · Score: 1, Interesting

    this functionality exists for multinationals governed by micromanagement and committee. companies that view changing their break room coffee with the same bureaucratic mentality as changing the mission statement. The ability to run Linux natively in Windows is the compromise insecure managers want to drive their "microsoft only" environment that crosses its T's and dots its I's of formal standards and compliance regulatory navel gazing. While it sounds wildly pointless to the average slashdotter, this "containerized" linux is exactly what the doctor ordered for companies that cant decide whether they want to enable emoji support in the office chat program without four or five rounds of meetings and an agenda signed by a director.

    the only comfort you can take if your company does indeed decide to do this, is that while trading in your redhat licenses for whatever under-the-table credits Redmond is going to grease you with you can rest assured that thanks to high leadership turnover at your boat-without-a-sail megacompany youll eventually through the laws of statistical probability be gifted a manager that find Microsoft Linux on Windows to be just as insane as it sounds. the downside is that youll have to spend another year undoing this debacle.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  9. Or a bunch of other distributions by complete+loony · · Score: 2

    All managed by a python script to download, install & switch whenever you want. https://github.com/RoliSoft/WSL-Distribution-Switcher

    --
    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  10. Re:Real Stuff by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    To answer your first question. Linux distributions fill different needs. RedHat, SUSE, Are Enterprise Linux solutions meaning your CIO won't have a fit with using them. Debian, Fedora are Server based where you realize you are not paying for anything important from getting the Enterprise support. Then you have the likes like Ubuntu and Mint. Which are more Desktop/Workstation linux distributions meant for people to work with. Not just set it and forget it.

    Linux was designed to be a lot like Unix so it was mainly a server OS. So for some people the Real Linux is used for a server on big iron systems.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  11. Re:Pfff. by Joce640k · · Score: 1

    I'm wondering why they don't do a sensible, stable version like OpenBSD.

    --
    No sig today...
  12. Re: Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, uh...

    "sensible" is the word you're looking for.

    Visual Studio beats anything on Linux. If that's your main use for a computer then run whatever system it takes.

    --
    No sig today...
  13. Re: Real Stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A lot of real people use Ubuntu Servers as basis for real business like Dropbox. So keep it real, bruh

  14. Re:Is this one broken too? by admin7087 · · Score: 1

    Even if it's not broken, what would be the point? It could break at any time with a forced OS upgrade.

  15. Where's the Windows Subsystem for Linux? by DrXym · · Score: 1

    Somehow I doubt Microsoft will make one of those any time soon.

    1. Re:Where's the Windows Subsystem for Linux? by hemanman · · Score: 1

      Please, don't wine about that...

      -H

    2. Re:Where's the Windows Subsystem for Linux? by DrXym · · Score: 1
      The same level of integration as LSW. Literally you should be able to open a command prompt or remote desktop and start using windows.

      And yes you can make a virtualized image of your own but it's not one supplied by Microsoft, configured and performance tuned for that purpose.

    3. Re:Where's the Windows Subsystem for Linux? by DrXym · · Score: 1

      Linux doesn't need to run a subsystem. It requires Microsoft to ship an image and some hyper-v tools that you can install and have an instance of Windows running on Linux. Better yet, support Xen or some other Linux friendly virtualization from the guest Windows OS.

    4. Re:Where's the Windows Subsystem for Linux? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Microsoft should build images of Windows - maybe 7 or XP - to some common VMs like KVM, Bhyve, Virtualbox and VMware, so that users of these OSs can run them. Obviously, Microsoft can regulate how they are licensed: one solution is to allow them to use the original license that came on their PCs before they were replaced

  16. Re:Linux on Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Crappy tablets?? Surface Pro 3 and 4 RULES!

  17. Said before, but bears repeating by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Linux on Windows is part of Microsoft's 3-E strategy. If they can stunt the growth of Linux as an OS by co-opting Linux applications to run on Windows, they may eventually succeed in cutting the heart out of FOSS altogether. And they would LOVE to do that, because FOSS is one of the few significant forces standing between them and the conversion of the whole world to a software-as-a-service model, wherein the average user doesn't own shit and has fuck-all in the way of rights, choice, or legal recourse.

    Anybody who has a choice shouldn't run Windows, and certainly shouldn't run Linux applications on Windows. And anybody who MUST run Windows, should also run Linux, and use Windows ONLY for those things that absolutely require it.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Said before, but bears repeating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Said before, but no longer true-- This isn't eee (that's old news), this is "dear God-- We have to support linux containers or we're screwed".

      And of course, docker containers are a fantastic way to extend the whole software-as-a-service thing. The cloud may be open source, but you don't own it, and you can't control it.

      Have a nice doomsday.

    2. Re:Said before, but bears repeating by chispito · · Score: 2

      Linux on Windows is part of Microsoft's 3-E strategy.

      Microsoft, you: only one of these is still hung up on that 20-year-old phrase.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  18. Re: Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

    Obviously I run the software I develop, how else can I test it?
    I simply don't use Linux as a workstation operating system.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  19. Embrace, extend, extinguish. by kurt555gs · · Score: 2

    The more things change, the more they remain the same.

    --
    * Carthago Delenda Est *
  20. Re: Real Stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yeah Ubuntu 'server edition' is mainly a desktop/workstation distro. Ya Muppet.

  21. SUSE by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

    I keep forgetting SUSE still exists.

    Does anybody still use it, and how does it stack up against the other distro's?

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    1. Re:SUSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I keep forgetting SUSE still exists.

      Does anybody still use it, and how does it stack up against the other distro's?

      According to DistroWatch, OpenSUSE is the 4th most popular Linux distribution. (Ubuntu is the 3rd most popular.)

    2. Re:SUSE by cas2000 · · Score: 1

      you're lucky. i wish I could forget. it's been years, and i still have terrible flashbacks.

  22. Re:Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by itsdapead · · Score: 1

    Using Wine on Linux is much better for development and there are hardly any other use-cases.

    ...only for the subset of Windows applications (often old versions) that have gold/platinum support in Wine.

    That said, once you accept that some people do actually want to run Windows (probably for the GUI - Linux folk never did get the message that a GUI is more than a way of running 8 copies of vim side-by-side), the real competitor to WSL for development is running Windows, with Linux as a virtual machine (as others have said, nobody ever picked Linux for its user-friendliness) set up to mimic your target environment.

    Seems like the long-term advantage of WSL would be if future containerisation products could support both Windows and Linux containers side-by-sice while running natively on a Windows machine: currently Docker et. al. on WIndows install a Linux VM as the base OS. Of course, presumably you could use Wine to run server-side Windows stuff on a Linux container, but you can see that Microsoft wouldn't see that as Plan A. That said, hell did freeze over when MS started doing SQL Server for Linux...

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  23. Re: Real Stuff by reanjr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Enterprise" is a marketing term. It has no technological meaning. The "real" Linux is the one with the capabilities you need. If you need RedHat, then it's because you have incompetent tech workers who need a support contract, not because you need "real" Linux.

  24. A Dented Pickup Truck to Carry Your Ferrari Around by biggaijin · · Score: 1

    Why would you want to keep the truck around when you can jusr drive the Ferrari?

  25. Suse origins by SeriousTube · · Score: 2

    The article says "Well, SUSE knows what they are doing because they have been in the Linux business since 1992. Try to find a Linux “vendor” (or in that sense, distributor) which is older. You won’t. There aren’t any." This is deceptive. SLS was the first linux distribution in 1992. Slackware was developed from that and released in 1993. The first SUSE distribution was a German translation of Slackware. Stating the obvious, Slackware is still around and is older. Then in 1996 Suse made their own distribution based on Jurix.

    1. Re:Suse origins by Shompol · · Score: 1

      Suse is as much in Linux business as Nokia is in smartphone business. If they did not go belly up yet they will soon. For now they will stay afloat as MS proxy, until MS no longer needs them.

    2. Re:Suse origins by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      Well, Slackware isn't a vendor, it is a hobby project by a handful of people. So in this sense, SuSE is, indeed, the oldest Linux vendor.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    3. Re:Suse origins by RDW · · Score: 3, Informative

      Slackware does sell its distribution on DVD/CD, which I think makes its a 'vendor'. SUSE may have been 'in the Linux business' since 1992, but only as a service provider and third party re-distributor of existing distributions (SLS and Slackware). They didn't actually sell a distribution under their own branding until 1994, and that was really just Slackware translated into German. So Hannes Kuehnemund is being a bit cheeky here!

  26. Re: Real Stuff by pak9rabid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you need RedHat, then it's because you have incompetent tech workers who need a support contract, not because you need "real" Linux.

    Or, you run something shitty like Oracle DBMS, where the company will refuse to support you unless you run one of their approved OS's (i.e., Red Hat).

  27. Re:Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by gtall · · Score: 1

    Linux folks generally don't get GUIs because that was never part of their education. Most are perfectly happy with a command line interface. GUI development is hard and requires a very different skill set. It is more of an art with a lot of touchy-feely air about it. And one person's GUI is another's bane if not done correctly. Consider allowing the command line interface to be lifted into a GUI. What are the paradigms that must be supported? How orthogonal are the features? How do modal interactions cloud the intent of the commands? Are there even commands?

  28. Re: Real Stuff by runningduck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The "support contracts" also gain you access to developers when needed. At times I have had enterprise agreements with both RedHat and SUSE. On more that one occasion when facing esoteric bugs we have been able to escalate via our support contracts. As soon as they were able to reproduce the bugs they are were able to drive upstream code changes to fix the bugs.

    Conversely I have worked directly with a number of open source software developer to address bugs, but I will say that it was much effective working with developers that are paid to address bug and already a reputation in the open source community. Because my team's time is much more valuable than the cost of enterprise support contracts I would much rather keep them focused on much higher value activities.

    To put things into snarky terms you might understand, "real" Linux is a complete open source ecosystem of capabilities and services. [snark mode]If you do not need an enterprise support contract it is likely because you do not provide much value to a company and so your time is best spent tinkering and chasing down issues.[/snark mode]

    The point is I know how to grow my own food, but I still go to the grocery store because my time is in demand. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate my neighbors who have beautiful gardens, and I doubt that they think of me as incompetent because I go to grocery store either.

    --
    -rd
  29. Re:Real Stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    MS still have the only legitimate access to all the information necessary to make this work. But failure is someone else's fault...

    Well, it's not so strange. After all, they have problems sometimes making *Windows* binaries work right on Windows.

  30. Re: Real Stuff by Rob+Y. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People run RedHat for the long-term support. Enterprises don't like being forced to upgrade on a vendor's schedule, and RedHat was the first Linux provider to recognize that and cater to it. Timely security upgrades for a consistent platform - over years - is what enterprise users want. And like it or not, that is a technological meaning.

    --
    Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
  31. MS-Linux is guaranteed to be broken by Shompol · · Score: 2

    And by "broken" I mean not compatible to itself, and MS will insist that theirs is the correct one and the original should be fed to the dogs. This is the sad story of every "open" product support by MS:
    1. MS-Java was taken to court by Sun for not being compartible to Java. MS had to rename it to .Net
    2. MS implementation of open document standard is never 100% compatible with open document readers.
    3. IE is not HTML compatible to this day. I don't do web development but based on my research they struggle with IE peculiarities big time
    4. MS Linux is guaranteed to break everything Linux, not just because of lack of diligence but due to MS custom APIs, enhancements and "improvements". We are only safe until MS distro becomes the leading one.

  32. Re:Real Stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I used to be in a position to have a lot of behind-the-scenes discussions with hardware and software companies about their development and product plans, and their biggest headache, by far, was Linux, for exactly the reason you mention: Linux is not a monolithic platform. (And please, no one deliver the tired, pedantic argument that Linux is the relatively coherent kernel and distros are where things go off the rails. That's precisely the kind of thinking that's keeping Linux off the mainstream desktop.)

    I desperately want to ditch Windows for Linux, but there's no way I can do it, even though I've been trying for a couple of decades; I have the latest Ubuntu on a laptop right now, in fact, as part of my latest charge up that hill. It lacks some apps I must have, as well as some drivers. (I just bought a Canon wide-carriage ink jet printer, only to find that there's no Linux driver for it. What a mess.)

    The core problem is not that you can't totally ignore the command line or that there are so many sorta kinda almost compatible distros or the lack of app/driver support, but that so few people in the "Linux community" even agree there's a problem in these areas. Until that happens, I guarantee that Linux will never get beyond its current status of being a greater server OS but a geek toy in the end user space.

  33. Re:Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by unixisc · · Score: 1

    What's so awesome about getting all of the disadvantages of Windows with none of the benefits of Linux in order to run less user-friendly applications from Linux? Using Wine on Linux is much better for development and there are hardly any other use-cases.

    Not just that, what Linux application is there that is not available under Windows? That Windows needs a way to run it?

    Also, there are some hundreds of Linux distros out there, so why pick any? It would have made more sense for Microsoft to do what FreeBSD does - have specific Linux jails - like Debian, Fedora, Gentoo and Slack, and then let people run their applications on them. Also provide the user the option of using anything w/ or w/o systemd

  34. Re: Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Well, uh...

    "sensible" is the word you're looking for.

    Visual Studio beats anything on Linux. If that's your main use for a computer then run whatever system it takes.

    I think AC was questioning dundelfalke's practice of developing software for Linux, but not having a Linux bed to actually test it on. You'd think that a Linux developer would have computers w/ the various base distros, like Debian, Fedora, Gentoo and Slackware, which would enable him to ensure that his stuff would work on the bulk of distros out there.

  35. Re:Zealot detected! by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Something tells me that he's trolling RMS

  36. GNU/Linux distro without a Linux kernel by BlackPignouf · · Score: 2

    If I understand it right, it's a GNU/Linux distro without a Linux kernel on top of a compatibility layer on Windows, right?

    What should it be called? It's not exactly Linux, and we don't say that WINE is a Windows on Linux. It's also not only GNU.

  37. Wait, what? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    Getting Linux to run under Windows is like paying a call girl to hold the Fleshlight for you.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re:Wait, what? by TheSync · · Score: 1

      Getting Linux to run under Windows is like paying a call girl to hold the Fleshlight for you.

      Perhaps, but it combines an attractive user interface with picking up fewer viruses...

    2. Re:Wait, what? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      That's what I meant, why use Windows to run Linux? Just run Linux and be done with it.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  38. p-sweet by thebullshitpatrol · · Score: 2

    I'd imagine having a bunch of different distros embracing this Bash for Ubuntu Linux subsystem for Windows will lead to a lot of the bugs being ironed out.

    Embrace, extend, extinguish. At least the New Microsoft (TM) is giving us what we want, though.

  39. To insure full data mining by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

    Clearly this move is to insure Microsoft is able to data mine you/serve ads as you use Linux/Linux programs natively they don't want people dual booting, Cant data mine that way without breaking laws. that is all IMO

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
  40. Stop repeating repeating yourself by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    He's written a blog post describing how to run openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 on Windows 10, according to Fossbytes, which
    reports that currently users have two options -- openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2.

    So you can run openSUSE Leap 42.2 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2? But how do you choose which of openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 to run?

    openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  41. WINE ; ReactOS by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Then you could use either ReactOS in your VM, or run Wine straight in your userspace.

    And again there are also companies supporting *that*.
    (e.g.: CrossOver pays developers)

    So *there is* company-sponsored efforts to be able to run windows programs in a GNU/LInux or Android/Linux environment.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  42. Yup, GNU/NT-Kernel by DrYak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I understand it right, it's a GNU/Linux distro without a Linux kernel on top of a compatibility layer on Windows, right?

    Yup, mostly(*).

    So "GNU/Windows NT Kernel" is better than "Linux" - That actually one of the rare few occastion a typical "GNU/Linux" distro gets used without the Linux kernel part.

    But because "Linux" has brand recognition, it's still used.

    ---

    (*): there's no separate compatibility layer (unlike things like Cygwin which are a user-mode compatibility layer that translates POSIX API-calls into Win32 calls - and thus enables soure compatibility).
    The NT-Kernel has a bizare peculiarity : it can export several different ABI's to usermode software - it has different "personnalities".
    - Win32 is just *one* of the set of ABI available.
    - A long time ago, that made it possible to run OS/2 software on Windows NT.
    - A little bit less longer time ago, Windows NT also had a "Unix" personality.
    - Now WSL is actually the NT kernel exhibiting a small subset of the ABI featured by the linux kernel - about the bare minimum to get a few basic user-mode software (e,.g.: the "GNU" part of "GNU/Linux") run unmodified.

    These are straight ABI available from the NT-Kernel, not a mere Linux-to-Win32 API conversion like Cygwin.

    e.g.:
    - Among other defaults Win32 has a poor multi-processing (forking is expensive). Cygwin application have to rely on that poorer cousin in order to provide multi-processing to POSIX.
    - The recent kernels of Windows NT intoduced pico-thread which are very cheap, weren't available in the Win32 API back when introduced, but where exposed through the "Linux-lite" API that is WSL in order to make a usefull multiprocessing.

    On the other hand WSL is far from complete. There is tons of stuff that you can do on your GNU/Linux that you can't do with WSL (e.g.: filesystem drivers)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  43. Re: Real Stuff by TheOuterLinux · · Score: 2

    Ubuntu is run by Canonical, which is partnered with Micro$oft. That's why Ubuntu gets more attention. However, funny how they did partner with Micro$oft and actually lost 3 million dollars at the end of the year. I prefer OpenSUSE over Unbuntu not only because I can't trust them anymore, but because they actually have more packages available (RPMs). The problem is, Ubuntu made things easier and every one got spoiled and all the tutorials on the Internet are now for "Ubuntu." The package management is different (replace 'apt-get' with 'zypper'...that was hard ðY'). The file structure is the same. But, OpenSUSE is soooooo much faster. I built my distro using Susestudio and I don't seeing myself going back to Ubuntu anything anytime soon. I'd post a link to it, but Slashdot keeps flagging me when I do it. Just take a look at my username and guess if your interested.

  44. Re:Real Stuff by retchdog · · Score: 1

    libraries. basically anything you plug in to a motherboard will have different linux projects which sort of make it work, each of which will have a couple of forks and several subtly-incompatible minor versions and patches. then there will be a bunch of interface projects duct-taped on top of those projects, which are even more muddled and confusing, and the only documentation is hoping that someone has made a wiki page about it.

    even free software developers are giving up on distro package systems because it's a god-awful mess that depends on good will and free labor which just isn't there right now.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  45. Re:Real Stuff by retchdog · · Score: 1

    a driver is a binary, unless you're running an interpreted kernel for some reason.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  46. Re: Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Visual Studio beats anything on Linux.

    This is the sort of thing you hear from Windows devs in a bubble. Visual Studio is the best.......only for C# and .NET. The fact is it doesn't even have basic refactoring tools, something that even Eclipse has had for a decade. Visual Studio without Resharper is really a pain. With Resharper, Visual Studio becomes tolerable, and you have to pay for it. And this only relevant if you prefer the kind of corporate development environment of Java/C# (which in many cases is the right choice). If you prefer the freedom of dynamic languages like Python, or low level languages like C, or for some reason think Node is King, then Visual Studio is a joke that will leave you crying. It's not even a competitor.

    Incidentally, the reason VS was better than Eclipse a decade ago was because it was easier to set up projects. Not anymore, Eclipse has advanced past VS in that category.

    Also NuGet is a dog. Even Jon Skeet says so.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  47. Re: Real Stuff by St.Creed · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm no fan of Oracle, but if they didn't require that the OS can at least be recognized by the support workers, they'd never get around to actually support anything. They're not Linux support, they're application support. And remember, they are actually supporting Linux where they've dropped support for Mac OS.

    Oracle is getting pretty long in the tooth, and Microsoft is outstripping them in both performance, features AND cost, so there is some justification to call them shitty. But to call them that because they support the "wrong Linux" and not your pet project just illustrates the problem with Linux: it's a sect, not an OS.

    --
    Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  48. Re: Real Stuff by theendlessnow · · Score: 1

    People run RedHat for the long-term support. Enterprises don't like being forced to upgrade on a vendor's schedule, and RedHat was the first Linux provider to recognize that and cater to it. Timely security upgrades for a consistent platform - over years - is what enterprise users want. And like it or not, that is a technological meaning.

    Uh... no. SLES (Oct 2001) came months before RHELAS (Mar 2002) and even so Red Hat doesn't acknowledge the existence of 2.1 (wikipedia does) which still came after regardless. Red Hat's official position is that RHELAS didn't exist until v3 (Jan 2004). Feature for feature, IMHO, Red Hat didn't have an enterprise worthy product until RHEL 5.

    I get your meaning, you just used the wrong distro in your argument.

  49. Re: Real Stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The hardware manufacterers are moaning about Linux because it's hostile to closed source software. When the hardware manufacterers actually start contributing code to the relevant open source projects, they'll find that Linux is a lot more easy to develop for.

    But no, the hardware manufacterers want to remain in control of their drivers and find that the open source projects simply keep moving forward, possibly breaking the binary only drivers.

    The hardware manyfacterers are at fault here, not the community.

    All projects which deal with hardware are easily accessible and are willing to work with hardware manufacterers to produce drivers. So, the excuse that it's hard to produce drivers for Linux is just bullshit to cover up that they want to remain in control... and yes, at that point things get hard with Linux.

    Even if they just provide documentation, the community will come up with a driver.

  50. Re:Real Stuff by loonycyborg · · Score: 1

    What running linux binaries on windows is good for anyway? Pretty much all staple linux software has native windows ports. So they could drop those ports and rely on WSL?

  51. Re:Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by Teun · · Score: 1

    Uhh, whenever I'm forced to run Windows I'm reminded how spoiled I am with KDE's Dolphin file manager.
    The windows offerings are no comparison.

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  52. File-locking semantics by JThundley · · Score: 1

    I can't wait to see this error:

    rm: The action can't be completed because the file is open in another program. Close the file and try again.

  53. Re: Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

    There is no need to test it for several Linux distributions, I target specific hardware with a specific runtime environment. You know all these WiFi routers that run Linux underneath a web GUI? Something like that.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  54. Re: Running Linux on Windows is awesome? How so? by michael_wojcik · · Score: 1

    I still don't understand what so great about Visual Studio

    Agreed. I've used dozens of development environments, from PCs to mainframes. Some have been very constraining; some have been very limited; some have been downright odd (PDM on the AS/400 circa 1989, for example[1]).

    Is Venomous Studio full of features? Sure. Is it extensible? Sure. Is it appealing? Well, that's in the eye of the beholder; some people like some incarnations of the VS GUI.

    But claims that it's "better" than other development environments are either highly domain-specific (domains which the VS proponents generally forget to mention), or they're just subjective preference masquerading as argument - probably because the person making it doesn't understand the difference, and refuses to accept that their personal experience doesn't describe everyone's. That's one of the most popular fallacies in software development, of course; there's a reason why the Jargon File has that "All the world's a VAX" entry.

    I use VS when I have to - I've been using it for over a decade - but most of my Windows development is done using an IDE I call "bash". It has a wide range of extensions, including my editor of choice (gvim), my preferred Windows native-mode debugger (windbg), a build system that handles various generations of Microsoft build scripts (nmake & msbuild), and a huge array of tools. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone else, but it works for me.

    [1] Prolepsis: No, it really wasn't much like ISPF at all.