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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.
Has everyone forgotten: embrace, extend, extinguish? This is just step one.
Many Linux server developers run Windows. This way they don't need a separate machine or VM.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Run Windows in a VM on Linux, don't run Linux apps on Windows.
#DeleteFacebook
The security of Windows with the application availability of Linux.
That combination simply cannot be beat!
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.
running bash.exe
There's blood coming out of my eyes just by reading this part.
Because its so hard to shift gears manually. (Auto transmission)
Because its so hard to reheat things on a stove. (Microwave)
Because its so hard to go to your desktop computer to send email. (Smart phone or laptop)
Because its so hard to get the calculator out to add. (... stupid)
Because its so hard to retype text. (Copy and paste)
With your simple minded thinking no progress should be made. Because its not hard to do anything the old fashion way.
Better get on your horse.
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.
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.