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

Support Open Source

[OrangeTide]

Then Microsoft needs to release MinWin.

Re:Microsoft haters

[Tanktalus]

I hate Windows, and don't care for Ubuntu. But if I have to take a job working on Windows, you can bet I'll be looking at this carefully. Stands a good chance of being better than cygwin anyway.

whatever

[stooo]

Ubuntu in the Windows store ?
Whatever.
Get the original.

Re:Microsoft haters

[Hognoxious]

Sure it's not a stack?

Trojan Horse

[Fragholio]

The only reason that a for-profit company would make overtures like this is if they thought that they had something to gain by doing so, using some business strategy that says that this will help them in the long run. They're not doing it for the sake of the open source community,

Re:Trojan Horse

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason that a for-profit company would make overtures like this is if they thought that they had something to gain by doing so, using some business strategy that says that this will help them in the long run.

Like providing customers with features that they want? Yes I can certainly see how that would be advantageous.

They're not doing it for the sake of the open source community

Oh really? This isn't an act of charity? They are doing this for their customers because their customers want UNIX tools and features alongside the wide-ranging hardware and software support you get in Windows. No that combination isn't for everybody but a lot of people are going to be interested in it, if you aren't then that is ok. If you want an act of charity toward the open source community then look elsewhere.

How is Ubuntu's move inside Windows a trojan horse? Ubuntu is full of metaphorical trojan warriors ready to take down Windows from the inside?

Re:Trojan Horse

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not attacking the Linux community with this. They're trying to put the final nail in OS X's coffin.

There was a time when OS X was the OS of choice for business developers. It was based on UNIX so it ran the UNIX toolchain, but it also ran the commercial software that IT required. It was either the choice of least resistance (since IT would support it) or the only choice (if IT forbid Linux entirely). This was before Apple went off the deep end and started iOS-ifying it and renamed it "macOS" and back when OS X hardware was actually cost-competitive if not outright superior to Windows hardware. (Yes, there was a time when you simply could not get a Windows PC as nice as a MacBook. Hasn't been true for years now, but it was true once.)

The one thing "macOS" still has going for it is the UNIX toolchain. If Microsoft can provide all the developer tools under Windows by offering a Linux layer, that last reason to keep using "macOS" goes away and there becomes no reason to bother with "macOS" instead of Windows. That's why they're doing it - to win back all the developers that left for Apple but are now sick and tired of Apple focusing only on the iPhone and ignoring everything else. Or, worse, taking iOS features and dumping them into their desktop OS.

Re:Microsoft haters

[sexconker]

Stands a good chance of being better than cygwin anyway.

A spontaneous bout of diarrhea stands a good chance of being better than cygwin.

Re:Microsoft haters

[MightyMartian]

One of my proudest achievements was managing to get OpenRADIUS compiled under Cygwin (this was around 2003 or 2004), but what it did teach me is that while Cygwin was at the time the best available solution for running *nix software on Windows, it still sucked horribly. I installed Cygwin again a few years back and found that while some things had been cleaned up, all in all it was still a bloody awful kludge.

Hell is Freezing Over

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cubs have won a World Series, Donald Trump is President of the United States of America and Microsoft is embracing Linux. The end is near......

Expected year of the desktop first

[Subm]

I always expected to see the year of GNU/Linux on the desktop before seeing the year of it on Microsoft, but I'll take it.

Next, I'd love to see Richard Stallman having dinner with Bill Gates. I believe I have a vivid imagination, but I can't imagine how that dinner would go.

The annexation and subversion of Linux

[Rick Schumann]

It's slowly happening, like I feared it would, and none of you believed me.

Why install messy and complicated 'linux' when you can get the look and feel within your nice, safe, compatible Windows computer? Silly Linux!

None of the power of Linux and none of the respect for your privacy. Sandboxing Linux under Windows instead of the other way around like it should be. Screw that.

Re:The annexation and subversion of Linux

[stooo]

>> The annexation and subversion of Linux ...
Nope, Linux source is versionned on GIT, not Subversion

Accuracy, please

[lucm]

Stands a good chance of being better than cygwin anyway.

A spontaneous bout of diarrhea stands a good chance of being better than cygwin.

You mean: A spontaneous bout of diarrhea in a stalled elevator stands a good chance of being better than cygwin.

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.

Yeah but does it run WINE?

[Gumbercules!!]

Now I can install Ubuntu under Windows in Parallels on my Mac. If I can get WINE running under that, I can just about go full circle...

Windows Service for Linux.

[DrYak]

So run Windows in a VM under Ubuntu which is itself a VM under Windows, since the Microsoft Store doesn't replace Windows or even create a separate partition, but just runs Ubuntu in a VM.

No. That's not possible, that's not how Windows Service for Linux (WSL) works.
(And that's why, as other have pointed, the link points to the official Ubuntu website to get a full blown real-deal Ubuntu Linux).

WSL isn't a virtual machine.
It a different "personnality" of the Windows Kernal, where it speaks a different API than the usual Win32.
(the capability dates backs from the earilest WinNT, used to run OS/2 software natively).

WSL enables the Windows kernel to expose a tiny subset of the APIs exposed by the Linux kernel, so some of ubuntu's ELF executable can run natively. (Mostly a few command-line tools).
bash.exe is actually just a launcher that start this alternative kernel API.
The bash you're seeing is the same actual bash executable as on Ubuntu, but running natively directly on the Windows kernel.

So no, Linux on windows isn't running in a VM, it's windows directly executing the few native linux executable it managed to be compatible with.

Saddly, only a very tiny subset of the Linux API is supported by WSL (stdin/stdout/stderr streams, multi-theading multi-processing, some high level networking (TCP/IP), a 2 special surpose filesystem drivers, and that's about it).
None of the various API needed by virtual box are exposed in WSL (no low-level hardware access to kick in the CPU virtualisation (VT-x and co), no graphics access at all, etc.), so you just can start it.
So you can't run a Windows VM inside an instances of ubuntu running in WSL.
Apache and SSHD are about the most complex task you can get running (that's the whole reason WSL is marketed for : so a web developper can quickly test some server code directly from windows without even needing to start some VM up)

Also, you cannot use the same partition inside VirtualBOX if that's also the same partition the top host of your "piles of VM-turtles all the way down" stack.

You cannot run 2 instances of windows of the same physical media (maybe except if you're running 2 instances of WinPE BootCD of the same CD...)
It's NOT linux, it's definitely not as flexible (in Linux this has been possible nearly from the beginning. That's part of the reasoning behind the standard Unix tree (/usr/, ...), as long as each instance has its own /var mount. And recent advances in systemd vastly diminish the /var requirements).

Re: Microsoft haters

[OhPlz]

X11 stuff works, but it's not "officially" supported.

Re: Microsoft haters

[BronsCon]

If you install an X server in Windows, yes, X11 works.