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File System Improvements To the Windows Subsystem for Linux (microsoft.com)
An anonymous reader shares a new article published on MSDN: In the latest Windows Insider build, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) now allows you to manually mount Windows drives using the DrvFs file system. Previously, WSL would automatically mount all fixed NTFS drives when you launch Bash, but there was no support for mounting additional storage like removable drives or network locations. Now, not only can you manually mount any drives on your system, we've also added support for other file systems such as FAT, as well as mounting network locations. This enables you to access any drive, including removable USB sticks or CDs, and any network location you can reach in Windows all from within WSL.
I'm glad to see Microsoft fixing basic Linux problems. Perhaps this is the years of Linux on Windows on the desktop.
Seems like Microsoft is headed rapidly towards migrating towards full Linux compatibility. Soon we'll be able to run WINE under Windows.
They ported the 'mount' command to Linux! How novel!
What's next, 'dir'?
I think we're seeing Linux becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Linux had an important place in the 1990s. Back then, both Windows and Mac OS offered systems that were nothing like traditional UNIX. So Linux stepped in and provided a robust, reliable, and very capable OS back when its main competitors didn't (Windows and Mac OS), were expensive (commercial PC UNIXes), very limited (Minix), or tied up in a legal quagmire (the BSDs).
But times change.
Mac OS X and now macOS have brought us an extraordinarily high quality workstation OS built upon proven UNIX-style technologies, but while still offering a superb GUI environment.
We've increasingly seen the robustness of Windows increase, and now we're even seeing it get better UNIX-like support than it has had in the past.
The commercial UNIXes are quite irrelevant these days, outside of certain corporate niches.
Minix has become irrelevant.
The BSDs are doing well, and are seen as among the most trusted server OSes.
These days, Linux finds itself lost and wandering.
It still doesn't offer a desktop environment that's as pleasant to use as Windows and macOS are, while they offer a suitable enough UNIX-style environment. It still doesn't deliver the extraordinarily high degree of reliability that the BSDs offer.
Linux has become a second-tier player across the board. It's nobody's first choice for a desktop environment. It's nobody's first choice for a server environment. Even in the mobile/embedded department, it tends to only be the kernel that's used, and even then it's buried under many layers of proprietary or custom software (like in Android).
At this point, if you want a workstation OS you use macOS, or Windows, or FreeBSD.
If you're running a server, you use FreeBSD or OpenBSD.
If you're working on embedded software, you use NetBSD or just the Linux kernel as a simple hardware abstraction layer (and almost totally replace the userland).
The need for traditional Linux distributions is coming to an end. I think that's why we've seen so much consolidation and so much thrashing around. Systemd, GNOME 3, Unity, Wayland, and PulseAudio are symptoms of Linux trying to stay relevant, but failing to do so. None of this software is as good as its competitors. There's no compelling reason to use any of it.
I really don't like saying this, but I think Linux has lost its reason to exist. There are better workstation OSes. There are better server OSes. There are better mobile/embedded OSes. Traditional Linux distros have no place. They have no reason to exist.