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.

Comments

Re:Real Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Why is that useful?

[ledow]

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.

Re:Why is that useful?

[swb]

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.

Re: Real Stuff

[Rob Y.]

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.