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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.
No one really cares. What benefits are there to this, other than MS trying to lock people into the MS/Linux space? It's like the Borg. Anyone with sense pushes people AWAY from MS, not toward it just because it 'runs linux'.
Pax Vobiscum
Has everyone forgotten: embrace, extend, extinguish? This is just step one.
The Windows Store should be graced with every Linux distro. Only a few thousand of 'em, right? ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
Run Windows in a VM on Linux, don't run Linux apps on Windows.
#DeleteFacebook
They're appealing to the market that wants spyware for Linux but can't seem to find any, so they're going to just run Linux as a subsystem of the spyware. Fairly ingenius, if you think about it.
The security of Windows with the application availability of Linux.
That combination simply cannot be beat!
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.
I haven't used SuSE since the late 1990's. It was one of my favorite Linux distro. These days I'm using Red Hat Linux as I may study for the certification and Linux Mint on my vintage black MacBook.
Linux on desktop... finally arrives in 2017 !!!
I'm still struggling to understand the use case for this.
Everyone who really needed Windows and Linux on one box has already setup dual-boot or virtualization. You can even pick which OS to use on bare metal and which to virtualize these days. It's great.
Does Microsoft envision themselves selling Linux apps in the Windows Store (like they sell MySQL and PostgreSQL on Azure)? I don't see that working because anyone can distribute a free version outside of the store.
Telemetry in Windows 7/8/10 proves that Microsoft is perfectly willing to sell out their customers for a marginal benefit. But I don't really see what benefit WSL gives them that they don't already get with Hyper-V.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
It may come as a surprise to the obviously `l33t Linux fans that populate slashdot, but many of us spend all day every day working in and supporting Windows.
I need to use Linux a few times a week, and it is a lot easier for me to type bash.exe and do what I need to do than it is to launch a VM. Especially when enabling WSL on Windows is 3 checkboxes and takes 5 minutes.
>but if they want to run Linux they can do it in WSL and have the best of both worlds.
In which world does this count as 'running linux'? It's like saying your linux distro which has WINE installed is 'running Windows'.
If this allows end users to install Sandstorm, and the project becomes popular because of it, it could be a big push for open source & Free software.
A big hurdle to overcome for using 95% web applications found in Git is managing to install them in the first place, if you don't already have a web development stack running in your desktop.
With a platform like Sandbox, anyone could install server-based web applications on their Windows PC, making using Free Software finally as convenient as any walled garden app store.
For every time you here a developer saying "people should really run their own server and keep their data there", this could be a step in the right direction to make this really happen.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
You mean like installing Cygwin or MobaXterm?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Beware of Microsoft.
On Windows 10 I used Bash (WSL) for Linux use and Hyper-V for a Windows 7 VM I need. The system crashed so hard that it could not be repaired, restored or resuscitated in any way. In a sick way I was amused when Bash was reclassified as Beta and removed from the Long Term Servicing Base (LTSB) not long after my system crashed. The official MS line was that WSL was included in LTSB by accident. Somebody was as stupid as I was and thought WSL was ready for the real world. I reinstalled Windows 10 from scratch (I have to use it for work) and now use VirtualBox for both the Windows 7 VM and now an Ubuntu Server VM (which I ssh into from Windows 10). I now have no problems, plus the video with VirtualBox is much better than the video with Hyper-V.
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
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This is harmful to Linux, otherwise Microsoft would not be involved. Its not Linux at all, since you are just running some userland tools on Windows. Something that gives people a reason to not run the fully open source Linux kernel is not healthy for Linux, or open source. Microsofts hope with this is to starve the Linux kernel of userbase by giving people a reason to not install Linux, why install Linux when you can get the userland installed as an app on windows? None of the distros should cooperate with this. Instead, efforts should focus on funding efforts to get WINE to where it can run 99% of windows apps flawlessly.
Is Microsoft paying Canonical for all this? As I understand it, the Linux subsystem for Windows required Ubuntu up until now. Seems like this would entail some kind of licensing agreement for Ubuntu.
So I wonder if Microsoft is paying Canonical. If the number is large enough, Microsoft could ultimately influence the direction Ubuntu takes.
and run your favorite flavor of Linux on the bare metal, it will not only run better it also wont be any complicated layers of Microsoft problems or vulnerabilities that MS is so famous for
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Linux in Windows will doubtless leak data through various hooks to the Windows Data collection centre just like Regular Windows 10. I have little confidence in my privacy or security in anything windows 10 related (which is why I do Linux, native)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Everyone is saying "run a VM".
Well I have that as well, but frankly being able to fire up an Ubuntu shell in a window has made me much more productive. It has replaced using putty, winscp, notepad++, TortoiseGIT, and god knows what else I used to have to do just to get stuff done when stuck with the corporate standard Windows desktop.
It is my main interface now to ssh to systems to support them, transfer files back and forth to my desktop, edit files, use git, etc.
I am quite addicted to WSL now myself. It would be even better if there were multiple distros to chose from such as RHEL, Centos, Fedora, Debian etc in addition to Ubuntu.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
Not easy, since 99% of employers deploy Windows, and OS is not the top consideration in the process of changing employers. In fact, I got a permission to convert my second desktop to Linux but so far found no use for it, since the rest of the company is all Windows servers.
I have been using Cygwin and ssh for some time. There is some file permission compatibility and username letter case headache, but it mostly works otherwise. We are still on Windows 7 though.
If the case was that Linux costs a lot of money to run
On a laptop, it does. A System76 or ZaReason laptop, which is warranted to run GNU/Linux, costs more than an entry-level Staples special that is warranted to run Windows.
even old farts using a laptop some of them with 8GB RAM max
RAM is cheap. Cheap. I use 32 GB on my workstation at home, and on each of two workstations at work.
How much RAM is in the workstation that you use while riding the bus between home and work?
One problem Sandstorm has is that it needs a wildcard TLS certificate because it generates a unique hostname per session. Let's Encrypt had no plans to issue those last I checked.
What problems would that create for end users? Maybe an impossibility to check the origin of the applications installed?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
An impossibility of using sensitive JavaScript APIs that are restricted to secure contexts.
Fedora is too close to RedHat, whom have been traitors to FOSS for many years, collaborating with IBM and such (closed-source drivers, you can't change yer kernel config or you lose all support, etc.. I know, I've been forced to work with them..)
Why do you say that? Fedora has really championed FOSS since the beginning. A lot of what the distros are today are because of RedHat. Such as your wifi - that was RedHat. I could go on and on and on... most of Ubuntu's core stuff was developed at RedHat. So was everyone else's. They donated it for free to us so we all have it.
Microsoft are still trying to be the masters of all computerdom, it seems. I predicted this crap long ago. Their original products are failing, so they are searching for secondary means of staying relevant. Just look at it: Fall Creators Update https://software.informer.com/... tweaking Cortana https://software.informer.com/... making up the new versions of Win 10 to hope and compete with Chrome OS... It's all about the desperate search for relevance.
It's GNU/NT if anything, ultimately an emulator with Micro$oft still having too much control like they've been doing since Window$ 8.