Ubuntu Is Now Available On the Windows Store (windowscentral.com)

Ubuntu is now available for download on the Windows Store. "Initially spotted by Rafael Rivera and Necrosoft Core on Twitter, Ubuntu on the Windows Store will let you install and run the Ubuntu terminal on Windows next to your other apps," reports Windows Central. From the report: Ubuntu's arrival, and that of SUSE, are part of a recent push by Microsoft to embrace Linux and the open source community more broadly. This began with the arrival of the Windows Subsystem for Linux in 2016, allowing users to use the Bash shell from within Windows. Keep in mind that this is limited to the Fall Creators Update, which isn't set for a public release until later this year. If you're running a PC testing the Fall Creators Update through the Windows Insider Program, however, you should be able to download and try Ubuntu from the Windows Store just fine.

Comments

Re:Ubuntu or bash?

[squiggleslash]

Ubuntu comes in many flavors. What's available on Windows is something similar to Ubuntu Server, a bare bones system where opening a new window gives you another terminal session with a specified user. You can apt-get anything you want, though anything requiring a GUI will need an X server, and you won't be able to run X.org.

Be aware you're not getting Linux (the kernel) with this system - everything is running over a compatibility layer over Windows. Almost everything works anyway. The advantage is that it's tightly integrated with Windows in much the same way as Cygwin is. Unlike Cygwin, the Ubuntu environment runs in a file system very similar in functionality to ext2/3/4 (so, no "ls.exe" needed.) The actual Windows file system is at /mnt/c so you can process files on the Windows side too.

I like it more than Cygwin - the availability of apt-get alone to install packages is a major improvement.