Ubuntu Arrives in the Windows Store, Suse and Fedora Are Coming To the Windows Subsystem For Linux (venturebeat.com)

At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft announced that Ubuntu has arrived in the Windows Store. From a report: The company also revealed that it is working with Fedora and Suse to bring their distributions to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in Windows 10. At the conference last year, Microsoft announced plans to bring the Bash shell to Windows. The fruits of that labor was WSL, a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables (in ELF format) natively on Windows, which arrived with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update released in August 2016. Microsoft also partnered with Canonical to allow Ubuntu tools and utilities to run natively on top of the WSL. By bringing Ubuntu to the Windows Store, the company is now making it even easier for developers to install the tools and run Windows and Linux apps side by side. Working with other Linux firms shows that Microsoft's deal with Canonical was not a one-time affair, but rather part of a long-term investment in the Linux world.

Comments

Welcome to our new corporate overlords

[passionplay]

Has everyone forgotten: embrace, extend, extinguish? This is just step one.

Think of it this way

[passionplay]

Step 1. Make Linux compatbile on Windows
Step 2. Teach children that learn on the ubiquitous windows that Linux runs on Windows
Step 3. Those children when they grow up, think Linux is something to run on Windows
Step 4. When Microsoft pulls the plug, the children don't think they've lost anything.

This is exactly how the RIAA and the MPAA have eroded copyright in the US.

Re:But... why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gamers. Like it or not Windows is where PC gaming happens, and many/most major titles only ship for Windows, never for Linux. So people need a native Windows install, but if they want to run Linux they can do it in WSL and have the best of both worlds.

Opposites.

[DrYak]

How many real Linux developers are on Windows and have trouble with running a VM, or a separate box?

The opposite also happens :
There are a few scientific fields where nearly everybody uses Linux (e.g.: Life-science research - bioinformatics, etc.)
The servers and clusters run Linux.
The devs run Linux (or Linux VM on laptops with unusual hardware) (or sometime stay on MacOS X because it's still a type of Unix and "Good Enoug" for them).
So the dev write Linux software that end-up being run on Linux compute nodes.

BUT... there are a few research labs with users stuck on Windows (usually the wet labs guys).
They might need to do some data pre-processing locally before uploading onto the cluster (e.g.: because the un-processed files are way to big).

Here there used to be only 2 options :

- the wetlab people install an Ubuntu VM on their machine and run the Linux software this way.
(it's not trivial. Again, we're not talking about the devs or sysadmins, we're talking about the wet lab researchers)
(at least some dev release ready-to-use virtual appliances)

- the dev recompile a windows version using Cygwin.
(but unlike a Linux to Mac OS X port, these tend to be non-trivial, even if you use a full blown POSIX abstraction layer (cygwin) instead of a minimalistic compiéer (mingw) or... gasp... the native Visual Studio)

Now WSL offers a third option :
- just download the Linux version and run it using Bash.EXE

In otherwords : the consumer of software can also have an advantage by using WSL - when in a Linux dominated field (e.g.: research) and not wanting to fumble with Linux/VM installation.

Surely Microsoft would introduce some "extra" features that are addictively sweet into it's Linux ABI. Just like Microsoft did with Java a decade and a half ago -- in violation of the agreement Microsoft signed with Sun -- and got sued for it and cost them $1.2 Billion. Surely nice, friendly Microsoft wouldn't want you to get hooked on something that doesn't exist in the real Linux, and therefore makes you consider deploying Windows in production?

There's a difference :

- back then, in the target market (enterprise servers), Microsoft's own servers (Windows NT OS, running Microsoft IIS web server, etc.) had a significant market share, next to Sun's own Unix machines (solaris, etc.)

So, devs working with Microsoft tools, will end up producing things that work better on the Microsoft servers than on Sun's (due to different extensions) : will lead to some preferences toward the Microsoft servers. (The code just works better here, let's buy more of these).

In other words: The Microsoft E.E.E strategy can work, because there's an actual market share that they can favour while extending the standard as per the second E.

Nowadays, in the target market (Cloud, embed, etc. - i.e.: everything except the desktop) Linux is nearly omni-present.
(With maybe the sole exception of Windows instances being available on the Azure Cloud, I've hear. Does anybody really use those ?)

Now imagine a developer producing a Linux software with Microsoft's extensions that require WSL.
Developer tries it on their cluster/webserver/cloud/raspberry pi/cubesat/whatever... and it doesn't work. Well, to bad. Developer tosses the useless crap and moves on.

In other words, you need an actual monopoly (or even at least some significative market presence) to leverage for the Extend phase to actually work.
Otherwise you're just "that werid company with a non-working product".

Actually, this time, if you think about it, Microsoft is the one on the receiving side.
Linux kernel is developped *extremely fast*, by a very vast community.
On the other hand, Microsoft is only throwing a small finite number of developers at this, and has only currently implemented the strict minimum subset of Linux ABI calls to enable some ELFs to run natively. There are still ton