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Microsoft's 'Windows Subsystem For Linux' Finally Leaves Beta (microsoft.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Microsoft's Developer blog: Early adopters on the Windows Insider program will notice that Windows Subsystem for Linux is no longer marked as a beta feature as of Insider build 16251. This will be great news for those who've held-back from employing WSL as a mainline toolset: You'll now be able to leverage WSL as a day-to-day developer toolset, and become ever more productive when building, testing, deploying, and managing your apps and systems on Windows 10... What will change is that you will gain the added advantage of being able to file issues on WSL and its Windows tooling via our normal support mechanisms if you want/need to follow a more formal issue resolution process. You can also provide feedback via Windows 10 Feedback Hub app, which delivers feedback directly to the team.
Microsoft points out that distro-publishers are still responsible for supporting and fixing the internals of their distros -- and they have no plans to support X/GUI apps or desktops. And of course, Linux files are not currently accessible from Windows -- though Microsoft says they're working on a fix.

99 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Summary full of shit by dnaumov · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Linux files are not currently accessible from Windows"

    Except they are.

    1. Re:Summary full of shit by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Just because the AppData folder doesn't show up by default when you browse to your profile directory doesn't mean it's not there and inaccessible.

    2. Re:Summary full of shit by tfranzese · · Score: 1

      Mis-moderated.

    3. Re: Summary full of shit by J.+T.+MacLeod · · Score: 2

      They are accessible... At the risk of corrupting your data if anything is saved to that location without using the WSL.

      It would be foolish of them to stand behind the statement that it is accessible when it would be so easy to lose data by accident.

    4. Re: Summary full of shit by Megol · · Score: 1

      Citation needed!

    5. Re:Summary full of shit by Megol · · Score: 1

      Start "bash":
      touch x
      exit

      Pretty easy to test.

    6. Re:Summary full of shit by dnaumov · · Score: 1

      Except the linked Microsoft Developer's blog says they aren't and the team writing the code is a likely to know a bit more about it than Necky McNeckbeard.

      I find it somewhat unlikely that Microsoft's developers are incapable of browsing to C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\lxss with Windows Explorer.

    7. Re: Summary full of shit by Milharis · · Score: 2
    8. Re:Summary full of shit by somenickname · · Score: 1

      Writing to that directory with a Windows program will bring you pain and misery. I learned this the painful way the first time I used WSL, did a "git clone" then brought up Visual Studio on that directory. Couple hours of work lost as my disk writes just went poof.

    9. Re:Summary full of shit by mcswell · · Score: 1

      Huh? The original post by dnaumov of 29 July 10:41 AM, which is second up from your post, says Linux files aren't accessible from Windows. Your post is the other way around--Windows files accessible from Linux. The latter is of course a design goal, and works just fine--I'm posting as a break from editing .tex files using a Windows app (jEdit), which I then convert to PDF using latex or xelatex under bash.

      When I first started using bash-in-Windows, I did in fact edit my .bashrc file from windows (using jEdit). That was a mistake, as I realized when bash would no longer start up, and upon reading the documentation. I re-installed the entire thing, and now when I want to edit my .bashrc (etc.) file, I use vim in bash (actually, I can also start a separate Linux version of jEdit from there, but I seldom do so). At least back then (six months ago?), it wasn't impossible to access Linux files from Windows, it was just a Very Bad Idea.

    10. Re: Summary full of shit by Megol · · Score: 1

      IMHO that doesn't say what was stated above. That there are problems due to file system differences should be obvious for people who are familiar with both Windows and Unix on a lower level. But saying that one simply shouldn't do that ignores the fact that one can do it in a safe manner* by just following a restriction to just use compatible features. Lusers perhaps should avoid the problem entirely but then they aren't likely to use the "Linux subsystem"...

      (* unless MS have really fucked things up - I hope not given that this is the third Posix type subsystem they have included in NT systems, they should have some experience by now)

    11. Re: Summary full of shit by J.+T.+MacLeod · · Score: 1

      As the Linux metadata isn't written without going to the WSL subsystem, there is really no safe way to edit a file in the Linux directories using Windows tools.

      I agree that it seems crazy that a POSIX type system wouldn't support this, but I imagine it had a lot to do with supporting Linux binaries directly. Cygwin, for example, doesn't have this limitation.

  2. Re: I'm seriously considering moving back to Windo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    muh gnome thuree

    Use MATE of you like Gnome 2 so much. Or XFCE. Gnome 3 has gotten better, but I will always consider it a pile of developer condescenions. Thankfully a shit ton of other DEs are available free and outta the box with many distros.

  3. Huh? by Misagon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Shouldn't it be called "Linux Subsystem for Windows", because it is running under Windows and not the other way around?

    --
    "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    1. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      you must be new to Microsoft's way of thinking. Windows is the center of the universe and all else is subservient to it. So this addon to MS Windows is a subsystem FOR Linux. ie it is a subsystem for Linux to help it run on Windows so in Microserf speak it's a Windows subsystem for Linux.

      Reminds me of what Bill Gates said in a product development meeting discussing the integration of Java and Java products into/on Windows. He had to yell out "Does anyone remember Windows?"

    2. Re:Huh? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't it be called "Linux Subsystem for Windows", because it is running under Windows and not the other way around?

      No. There's no Microsoft programs titled like that. It's the Subsystem for running Linux that runs under Windows, Hence Windows Subsystem for Linux. Quite consistent with Windows Defender, Windows Explorer, or Windows Media Player.

    3. Re:Huh? by John+Allsup · · Score: 1

      It is best understood as a subsystem which emulates Linux from the point of view of software running on top of it. As for X support, what would be interesting is a naive Windows compositor for Wayland.

      --
      John_Chalisque
    4. Re:Huh? by Megol · · Score: 1

      This naming scheme goes back a long time, e.g. "OS/2 subsystem for NT" was what the OS/2 subsystem was called back in the days. MS now have decided that there should only be one unified Windows system so NT is replaced with Windows. And it is logical even if you don't like it.

  4. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I use windows 10 every day and I have not had a single reliability issue.

  5. Re: I'm seriously considering moving back to Windo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Thanks! Your check is in the mail!!

    Billyg

  6. Containers? by pat.ferrel2551 · · Score: 1

    This looks like a container implementation rather than a VM. Anyone know? If so are they doing their own containers or is this Docker or Kubernetes?

    1. Re:Containers? by Bozzio · · Score: 1

      It is not like Cygwin.

      IIRC Cygwin requires your applications to be recompiled with Cygwin support. WSL runs native binaries by doing system call translation.

      --
      I just pooped your party.
    2. Re:Containers? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Wine is not a syscall translator. Wine emulates Win32 userspace ABI. WSL emulates Linux kernel ABI, and runs native userspace on top of that.

      Cygwin is like Wine. WSL is like FreeBSD Linux emulation.

  7. i'll just leave this here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
  8. Windows Subsystem for Linux Apps by tepples · · Score: 1

    It's a subsystem inside Windows (a Windows subsystem) for running applications that use the Linux ABI. Perhaps "Windows Subsystem for Linux Apps" would have been more honest

    1. Re:Windows Subsystem for Linux Apps by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Agreed that "Apps" in this case clarifies it perfectly. I guess people will probably start calling it Anti-WINE.

      It this really was a windows subsystem running on Linux, ala WINE, it would have been called:

      Windows Subsystem for GNU/Linux.

    2. Re:Windows Subsystem for Linux Apps by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      I guess people will probably start calling it Anti-WINE.

      So, vinegar?

    3. Re:Windows Subsystem for Linux Apps by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      LOL !

  9. Win32 and other NT subsystems by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    On the NT kernel, Windows itself runs in a container called the "Win32 subsystem". WSL is a container that uses the Linux ABI. There used to be an OS/2 subsystem as well.

  10. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Highdude702 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I switched back to Windows from Linux when 10 came out cause they fixed all the windows 7 fuckups. UI was a pain in the ass to get used to, but that's with any new OS. I'm currently looking to run a Windows fm inside of Linux for gaming, since that's the only special thing I do on Windows that Linux doesn't fully support yet. But over the year that 10 has been out and "stable" they are taking the stability away from it weekly. And not allowing me to do what I want with my system. Not to mention every update resets my privacy settings back to "tell Microsoft every click I make" mode. If you don't notice that shit happening, then you don't actually use Windows you just browse the web. Which you can do on almost any device these days, including refrigerators.

  11. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by thegreatbob · · Score: 2

    I'm in need of a shiny new bridge, the one the last guy sold me never showed up... still shows 'out for delivery' six years later.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  12. Well that's a relief! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Finally, now you can run all your favorite Linux server applications on an OS that will run them a bit slower, could BSOD at any moment, needs significant patching regularly which could nuke the whole box! All that uptime with Linux is really boring for the guys in IT! ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Well that's a relief! by Megol · · Score: 1

      Last time I had a BSOD was ages ago, probably at least 10 years. Caused by a driver that didn't like flaky hardware. Never tried Linux on that machine but I don't think it would be better unless it just didn't use the flaky hardware bits.

      Safe mode worked fine on that machine but the graphics performance was quite a bit worse...

    2. Re:Well that's a relief! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Considering the patch system reboots your computer at least once every two weeks, I'm not impressed. You can begin talking about stability when your desktop system has been running for at least six months. Today is literally my desktop's 300th day of uptime.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    3. Re:Well that's a relief! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      The creators update lets you set updates for up to 60 days just like Windows 7 and Vista did.

    4. Re:Well that's a relief! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      A third of the way there!

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  13. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by thegreatbob · · Score: 3, Informative

    It works, excepting that it doesn't always work quite right. Try administering it in a non-homogeneous hardware environment (in this case, spanning the entirety of the Intel i-series era; I've never used it on anything older). The biggest issues I've faced on it are:

    It really, really wants to update. Seems like no less than 4, and often more than 10 man-hours of productivity down the toilet every work week across a couple dozen users.
    Unnecessarily frequent hardware driver updates are a scourge; doesn't make the system unusable, but randomly losing peripherals is a nuisance.
    Taskbar/startmenu is a buggy mess. It has gotten better, but random disappearance/non-responsiveness of same still persists.
    Random bouts of extreme CPU and/or disk usage, especially on older hardware, that should still be highly performant (e.g. high-end Nehalem-era laptops).

    None of these things are the end of the world, but Microsoft's inattentiveness to what are clearly common issues (speaking from my own experience, as well as dredging through forums and other resources in search of answers/solutions) is very bothersome.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  14. Been good for me so far by raymondcamden · · Score: 1

    I was primarily an OSX user, but switched back to Windows earlier this year. I've been using WSL for a while now and it's working very well. I do all my Node/web dev/etc from the shell and use Visual Studio Code for editing. You can easily work with files under C:\ from WSL so basically it feels just like the dev I did on OSX.

  15. Re:Embrace, Extend, Then Fuck It Up (also extingui by Njorthbiatr · · Score: 2

    Wow.

    I use WSL (not linux subsystem for windows) because I like to use bash, especially when programming in python or anything. I work on macs and ubuntu at work and this helps keep everything standard for me when I use my windows stuff at home.

    Why still use windows? First, I like to program in C#/WPF simply because it's the most enjoyable and richest feature set for building native GUI applications. Second, I like to play video games, and run them stable at 144 Hz, which for many games, isn't possible on Linux. Third, the MS Office suite of products is best on Windows, and really doesn't have a true competitor in terms of ease of use for someone like me. Fourth, almost every piece of software I use is also available on Windows, but the same can't be said of Linux.

    I want to use Linux because I don't want MS to automatically restart my computer when it decides it while I'm using it and them gathering info on me is meh. On the same shake, you give away personal information to Google all day every day. Even if you don't use them as your search engine they're collecting data on you. If Microsoft wants to collect anonymous usage data, which you can tell it only to collect stuff that's pretty basic, in return for using their OS, then I don't see how I have room to complain without getting all up in arms about Google doing it 100x more.

    As always, you just use the stuff that's best for you.

  16. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Have you used Windows 10? The GUI is fucking terrible. I'd say there are no decent desktop systems these days, but really, under the hood, Linux is as solid as ever. I run Debian installs as custom routers that are up 24/7/365 and I'm not seeing any evidence at all of instability. So frankly, your claim is just a load of shit.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  17. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by unixisc · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't use Linux, but do use TrueOS and Windows 10

    TrueOS comes w/ Lumina, which is very similar to your standard Windows XP like experience, plus some extra features that make it great. If I had Linux, I'd have gone w/ Razor-qt or LX/QT, rather than GNOME 3 or KDE 4/5

    I use Windows 10 w/ Classic Shell, which restores the Windows 7 look to the interface. In fact, I get a wide choice - can make it look like Windows 8, Windows 7, Aero, Windows XP, and have tried out quite a number of them.

  18. Or I could just have a real Linux installation by gweihir · · Score: 2

    You know, with the features that make Linux better, like stability, performance and security. This is just a crappy Windows kernel with a Linux interface. If I want that, Cygwin gives me that and (of course!) the ability to run X11 applications as well.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Or I could just have a real Linux installation by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      You know, with the features that make Linux better, like stability, performance and security. This is just a crappy Windows kernel with a Linux interface. If I want that, Cygwin gives me that and (of course!) the ability to run X11 applications as well.

      Cygwin is worse as it translates posix calls to win32 and last I looked was outdated. Part of the problem too is Windows is not text based as it is object based. What good will awk and sed do in Windows?

      You can run X11 on Windows. Google headless Xorg in Windows 10? In many ways WSL is better. For me I would just say run a damn VM if you need features of both platforms :-)

      KMS is free. Virtualbox is free. If you have Windows 10 pro or enterprise Hyper-V is free under add or remove features and is a solid type 1 hypervisor like Vmware ESX and KMS. My take is if you need .NET run Windows. If you need ngix run Unix and not mix. WIth cheap Ryzen cpus with 6 - 8 cores, gigs of ram, and ssds everywhere it is not a big deal to run a virtual machine anymore.

    2. Re:Or I could just have a real Linux installation by gweihir · · Score: 1

      I agree to the VM approach. Although I will be virtualizing Windows, not Linux. May as well have the good infrastructure accessing the hardware directly.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Or I could just have a real Linux installation by Bill+Hayden · · Score: 2

      In my personal experience, WSL is about an order or magnitude faster than Cygwin. If it weren't for 2 important things, we'd use WSL for everything that we used to use Cygwin for. Those 2 things are:
      1. Pathing. Cygwin still handles pathing better (e.g. WSL can't handle translating Windows path in commands like "cd c:\" and also can't handle native Windows apps using the WSL filesystem mounted at /mnt). This is pretty much a dealbreaker for us, since we need bash to script native Windows apps.
      2 GUI. WSL has no GUI support. This is no a big deal for us, but might be for some.

      --
      Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
    4. Re:Or I could just have a real Linux installation by mcswell · · Score: 1

      "WSL has no GUI support": no advertised support, but in fact some Linux GUIs work just fine. You have to run Xming (I have it in my startup folder), and then install them using apt-get. I'm running both mupdf and the Linux version of jEdit that way; I suspect many (but not all) other Linux gui-based programs would run that way as well.

    5. Re:Or I could just have a real Linux installation by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      You can also use XRDP.

    6. Re:Or I could just have a real Linux installation by mcswell · · Score: 1

      Interesting, I hadn't heard of that. What would be the advantages/ disadvantages vs. XMing? XMing is pretty transparent to me--as I say, I just have it in my startup folder. Would I use XRDP the same way? I have heard that there are Linux gui-based applications that don't play well with XMing (I think I had issues with other pdf viewers before I found mupdf), is XRDP more reliable?

      In partial answer to my own question, there's this: https://icesquare.com/wordpres.... I haven't tried it all yet, but it looks like part of the answer is that xming works with individual apps, whereas xrdp is for running whole desktops. But maybe I misunderstand...

    7. Re:Or I could just have a real Linux installation by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      With Xrdp, you're using the usual Xorg X server, so any issues with incompatibilities of apps with Xming because the latter doesn't support some feature or the other go away. It also means that you can set up fonts etc in your Linux install as usual, FreeType settings are respected etc. Basically the output you get is a pixel-perfect match of what it would be for the same Linux setup running natively.

      Implementation-wise, IIRC it uses VNC as a backend, and then translates that to RDP, so you can use the usual Windows RDP client to connect (the only trick is that you need to specify a non-default RDP port to avoid clashing with Windows' own RDP server). So it doesn't really buy you that much compared to VNC, but I find most VNC clients for Windows to be less convenient than just using the standard RDP one.

  19. Re: I'm seriously considering moving back to Windo by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    I've had the same issue with Windows Server doing that. It doesn't happen every time but when it does, the lack of information on what's going on (an unknown error has occurred ffs and a log file that tells you bugger all) you end up having to rebuild the server. I hate both Windows and Linux though. They're both not as good as they could and should be.

  20. Re: I'm seriously considering moving back to Wind by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Windows is developer hostile? Based on what?

  21. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    I switched back to Windows from Linux when 10 came out cause they fixed all the windows 7 fuckups. UI was a pain in the ass to get used to, but that's with any new OS

    I'd disagree - OSX has been relatively stable across many many releases as far as GUI interaction goes. Linux, on the whole, has kept its GUI more stable than any 2 consecutive releases of windows ever has since XP, possibly with the exception of the 8.0->8.1 point release, which I personally avoided like the steaming pile of shit it was.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  22. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you have a "couple dozen users", then this is what WSUS is for. If you're not using it, this is your failing, not Microsoft's, as they've provided a solution that solves this problem.

  23. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by cheesybagel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which Windows 7 fuckups? Windows 7 was pretty decent actually. Windows 8 was the horrible one with the forced transition to that touch screen GUI.

  24. It sucks that they don't have an X server. by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

    Even if it was just as an optional download. I know there are open source third party ones you can use but it's too much assle to configure.

    1. Re:It sucks that they don't have an X server. by Stomper_Stoddard · · Score: 1

      Actually most everything works just fine with Xming.

    2. Re:It sucks that they don't have an X server. by sabbede · · Score: 1

      I use VcXsrv and it works great. Stupid easy setup too.

  25. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 1

    Troll troll troll your boat....

    Maybe he is trolling, but he's got a point. In a number of ways, Linux is slowly converging toward Windows, while leaving behind the original Unix philosophy. For ordinary users, Linux in the desktop is making less and less sense, when compared to Windows or Mac.

  26. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 1

    here's an idea.. you hate systemd so much, you hate gnome so much.. instead of the constant whining and crying.. why not step-up and CONTRIBUTE to the solution instead of being part of the problem.

    Here is an idea - why don't we put this red herring to bed, once and for all? The vast majority of people out there are interested in using the system, and they do not have the inclination or capability to tinker with it. But they sure can know what they want, and they sure can be pissed off at the many questionable decisions that have been in made in the Linux desktop world in the last ten years. With an attitude like yours, Linux is doomed to remain a non-entity in the desktop - and, in view of what certain people are pushing for, that is a good thing.

  27. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 2

    I think the thread has been hijacked by the NSA to tell people how great Windows is, and make people switch to it. Windows has been a pile of crap since they introduced their "telemetry", which is in fact a "report all my activity to the governments please" feature. I have switched to CentOS for my main desktop, and even though there are actually some stability problems with KDE Plasma and some apps that I compiled and installed, the OS itself is pretty stable.

    However, I would never put a Linux in the hands of my mom.

    That being said, to get back to the main subject, it is a plain shame to see that bash has its .exe version. Disgusting.

  28. Re:Windows 7 is a stable OS, 10 not so much by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    Hillary thought I did a good job.

  29. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by chipschap · · Score: 1

    Here's an idea ... stop posting as an AC.

  30. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by chipschap · · Score: 1

    posted in wrong place sorry. /. does not always put stuff where I want it

  31. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by donaldm · · Score: 1

    Troll troll troll your boat....

    Maybe he is trolling, but he's got a point. In a number of ways, Linux is slowly converging toward Windows, while leaving behind the original Unix philosophy. For ordinary users, Linux in the desktop is making less and less sense, when compared to Windows or Mac.

    Do you even know what Unix philosophy is?

    Take a look at Free/OpenBSD, HP-UX, Solaris and AIX they are all Unix and they all do things differently. Things change over time get used to it.

    As for Linux converging towards Microsoft Windows, I think it is the other way around since what I was doing in the early 1980's is not much different from what I do today when using Linux and I was using Windows on Unix (all types) before Microsoft thought it was a good idea. Also having tested Microsoft Windows 10 in a virtual machine I doubt I would trust it with my personal data.

    --
    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  32. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Megol · · Score: 1

    IOW we should continue this entitled whining shit instead of using the reason free software (and open software, freeware etc.) exists in the first place?

    There are alternatives. Use them if you don't like something in your current system _and_ can't be bothered to do something to fix that. Even if you can't code you sure as fuck can start a website and try to collect like minded hopefully attracting those that can code. Whining is a losers game.

    I am starting to be increasingly irritated in the direction Windows is moving. Do I whine? Nope. I consider what alternative would be the best system to switch to as a replacement if that is what it comes to, I also try to remove/reduce those things that are irritating. Much better than flailing and posting (mostly) uninformed shit on online forums.

  33. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Megol · · Score: 1

    Been there. Do a thorough hardware checkup before blaming MS (or the driver vendors), in all cases I've seen it have been caused by failing hardware (HDD, RAM). Once the failing component was exchanged the system installed correctly. YMMV of course.

  34. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by donaldm · · Score: 1

    However, I would never put a Linux in the hands of my mom.

    My wife uses Fedora 26 (ie. latest release - took about an hour to install from 25) and she does not have any problems with it.

    Yes, I do know that there are people that you should not let within two meters of any electronic device but most people are very capable of running most applications under a Linux distribution although to be proficient in any application you still have to learn it and even if you use Microsoft Windows you still have to learn a particular application either by teaching yourself or getting someone to train you.

    The main reason why people use Microsoft Windows is the fact that most PC's (laptops and desktops) are shipped with it (ie. The Microsoft Tax) and most people don't know or care that there are alternatives since it usually is either too hard to grasp or they have locked themselves into a Microsoft ecosystem.

    --
    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  35. Re:Why call it Linux? by Megol · · Score: 1

    Because it implements a Linux compatible subsystem which can be used for running Linux compatible stuff _including_ the GNU bits you mention. What the subsystem implements is a translation layer changing Linux system calls into Windows system calls.

  36. Re:Windows 7 is a stable OS, 10 not so much by Megol · · Score: 1

    I don't think I use anything MS except the basic UI. No problems here.

  37. will they add linux bonding and bridgeing to windo by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    will they add linux bonding and bridgeing to windows?

  38. can you add your own repos for packmangaers? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    can you add your own repos for an package manger or even let people put Linux software in the windows store?

  39. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

    Honestly I was talking about windows in that aspect, I dont use anything apple except for the iphone, and i will as of now not upgrade from my jailbroken 6S. With linux its implied that you can keep what ever UI you prefer as there is many desktop environments to choose from, versions included on almost every linux distro. And things like Enlightenment allow you to roll your own DE

  40. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

    I am no MS shill, I prefer Linux, but with a shitty GPU at the time and the stability and performance upgrade of the windows version of the game I play, I ended up jumping on win10 after using it. Which means to me that MS can make a decent OS they just prefer to ruin it once its adopted. By decent I don't mean secure, they seem to think that's completely an end user issue.

  41. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Have you used Windows 10? The GUI is fucking terrible. I'd say there are no decent desktop systems these days, but really, under the hood, Linux is as solid as ever. I run Debian installs as custom routers that are up 24/7/365 and I'm not seeing any evidence at all of instability. So frankly, your claim is just a load of shit.

    Why is the gui bad? Compared to 8 it is wonderful. Is it too flat? Are the tiles weird? How old are you if you do not mind me asking? I am not saying you are an old but as we get older change does become harder. I am 40 and noticed I am already resistant to some changes and video games where 15 years ago I would be playing and learning new things I do not get a quick now as reaction time and fast paced learning is too much.

    Good news is in 2017 Windows is not the POS it once was based on DOS back in the 1990s. We also have virtualizers and lots of cores and cheap ram and SSDs. Run what you like and run another OS in a VM. I do this too as I wanted to learn some web development work and I always fuck up my host and end up reinstalling last decade. Now I just download a www.turnkeylinux.com appliance for simple stuff so the host never gets screwed. I did this for Linux and now I do it for Windows 10 in Hyper-V.

    Linux has KMS which is also a type 1 hypervisor that uses the drivers of Hyper-V. No need to buy that expensive POS known as VMWare Workstation today in 2017.

  42. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I just cursed at TrueOS again this afternoon as I tried to get it to work in a VM. It is based off of FreeBSD 12 current and is alpha grade and not worthy for production.

  43. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I just cussed at TrueOS and Chrome wouldn't install either in a VM with Xubuntu until I did some hacks all this afternoon.

    Linux is buggy too but in it's own little ways. Xorg and the lack of a kernel ABI means things break when you do updates. This problem doesn't exist for Windows as you can use closed source drives which are a plus. You click on them and after an install it works. Done. Still waiting for this on Linux but the GNU zealots are black listing this. Windows 10 so far as a desktop is the most reliable OS I have besides FreeBSD. FreeBSD I use for other purposes besides a desktop.

  44. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I switched back to Windows from Linux when 10 came out cause they fixed all the windows 7 fuckups. UI was a pain in the ass to get used to, but that's with any new OS

    I'd disagree - OSX has been relatively stable across many many releases as far as GUI interaction goes. Linux, on the whole, has kept its GUI more stable than any 2 consecutive releases of windows ever has since XP, possibly with the exception of the 8.0->8.1 point release, which I personally avoided like the steaming pile of shit it was.

    ?? XP? Does the term Winrot bring any memories of the past? I was going to say Windows is supperior in the fact it doesn't break between releases because it has an ABI compared to Linux. Hairyfeet on here has the hairyfeet challenge. Get any Linux distro in a VM and run more than 2 updates and see if it will still work? Really try it. Graphics drivers will always break and Xorg is a whole mess unto itself which breaks itself all the time.

    If you think OSX is stable you must not have used mountain lion or used wifi with yosemite. Safari sometimes can work with Office 365. Every other browser works fine with it. When you uninstall something on MacOSX it leaves part of its traces on the system which become a nightmare to troubleshoot. Apple in it's wisdom wants to make sure you can't read hidden files in your ~libraries to find the cryptic containers to rid of the broken app that sticks around after an uninstall.

    Linux might have a GUI that changed little but it is unusable. I do not want a cell phone my desktop with Gnome3.

  45. Re: Embrace, Extend, Then Fuck It Up (also extingu by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Don't be ridiculous. It's nice to have a package manager to install things, such as git, on Windows. My website runs on IIS, and it's nice for my development environment to be the same.

    Microsoft oddly has contributed to GIT with GITFS which Microsoft uses internally for Office development. :-) Nice to see them use open source stuff.

    Git comes with visual studio and you do not WSL. Last I looked WSL looked like a fun cool hack but lacked networking and Xorg needed work to even run headless. Has this changed?

  46. Re:Windows 7 is a stable OS, 10 not so much by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    What tools was she using?

  47. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    ?? XP? Does the term Winrot bring any memories of the past?

    I have a feeling that would be more than 1 story to properly cover it. What do you mean by Winrot? The guaranteed self-destruction of NTFS via fragmentation? The guaranteed corruption of the registry? Or the guaranteed library DLL hell after a few months of updates and running various programs? Or something else entirely? There's so many things that term can apply to, all negative, and all requiring a reinstall.

    I was going to say Windows is supperior in the fact it doesn't break between releases because it has an ABI compared to Linux. Hairyfeet on here has the hairyfeet challenge. Get any Linux distro in a VM and run more than 2 updates and see if it will still work?

    I had no issues with Linux Debian 8->11. Then again, I don't use it for my fulltime desktop. So a plain vanilla install probably has fewer gotchas.

    If you think OSX is stable you must not have used mountain lion or used wifi with yosemite.

    I ran yosemite until I had to upgrade to macOS Sierra on my laptop. I had exactly 0 issues with 10.10, and, it being a laptop frequently moved, I guess I would have seen a wifi issue. Now, granted, I don't search automatically for wifi connections. I had 10.8 on my HTPC until just last month. Rock solid compared to any windows install I ever owned. Compared to 10.6 or 10.10? Not quite as good. However, 10.12 is running better than the previous 10.8, we'll see how it continues.

    Safari sometimes can work with Office 365. Every other browser works fine with it.

    MS product doesn't work 100% with Safari? Color me shocked.

    When you uninstall something on MacOSX it leaves part of its traces on the system which become a nightmare to troubleshoot. Apple in it's wisdom wants to make sure you can't read hidden files in your ~libraries to find the cryptic containers to rid of the broken app that sticks around after an uninstall.

    I don't seem to have a problem with reading any of those "hidden" files. Now, does the ~/Library file show up in Finder? It sure does, if you alter the preferences. (I had to look, admittedly, because I use Finder so seldom for Library file access)

    Linux might have a GUI that changed little but it is unusable. I do not want a cell phone my desktop with Gnome3.

    I'm not sure what that means. If it changed little, it's a functional clone of XP. Otherwise it changed a lot, and it looks like a cell phone. It can't be both. Personally, Gnome is dead to me. Systemd is not something I want on my systems.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  48. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Not a fan of Windows per say. I am just frustrated with the lack of progress with Linux and hate each OS like a bitter old man for different reasons. Thank God at for vms. I want a FreeBSD based stable OS with the GUI and ease of use of Ubuntu of 2006 with compviz and the app and development ecosystem of Windows.

    If they DOJ split MS we would have a cool office suite, SharePoint, visual studio and cloud services on all platforms. Oddly the new MS is moving in this direction as it cares about clouds azure and software rentals. But the Windows kernel is not bad today and like what vs code and visual studio are today.

  49. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Why aren't you going w/ the version that comes w/ FreeBSD 11 or even 10? Who's asking you to use the bleeding edge versions? Is there something major that's there on FreeBSD 12 that's not yet there on 11 that's listed in the above summary?

  50. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by youngatheart · · Score: 1

    I'm kind of with you. For most of my working life, I've needed to use Windows there. Almost all that time, I've used some Unix variant (usually Linux) at home.

    I've loved and hated both Windows and Linux depending on what nuisance "feature" I was having to work around. I've had problems with both, and also with the BSD variants, AIX, SCO, and even Xenix. All that I ask of an OS really is that it does the basics without too much trouble and that it gets out of my way.

    Windows 10 gets in my way a bit, but most of the time it's fine, better than its predecessors and not much worse than Ubuntu. It's not as good for that as many of the *nix variants, but it goes a long way toward the "just works" principle most of the time.

    Can I run the software I want? Yes. Does it support the programming languages I use? Yes. Does it support my preferred shell? No, at least not well. Not until recently. I like bash. I'm good with DOS, functionally literate with PowerShell (not great,) but I missed bash when working with Windows and the dozens of tools like sed, nl, wc, awk and similar whenever I was in Windows. There are so many little things that I want to do from time to time which were just a pain to do in Windows, so much so that usually I have to put time into importing some poor substitute versions of the tools I missed. Finally, Windows gives me the tools that make daily work easier in a way that is actually supported. I can't help but be ecstatic about that.

    I see the holy war of Unix/Linux/BSD vs Apple/Microsoft still makes tolerance of the "enemy" a crime. Be that as it may, I'm happy that the OS that I'm forced to use on a daily basis finally has the tools that make my life easier.

  51. Re: I'm seriously considering moving back to Windo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I use Linux every single day and I have not had a single reliability issue. Meh. Talk is cheap.

  52. Isn't Windows Subsystem for Linux a misnomer? by Zappy · · Score: 1

    There has been a 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' for years now, and we call it Wine (www.winehq.org)

    What Microsoft is providing is a Linux compatibility subsystem for Windows. Something Cygwin has been doing for decades, granted the Microsoft solution seems to be more polished.

  53. Still unusable for web developers by nickjj · · Score: 1

    The biggest problem with WSL is that the mount performance is unusable for every day web development.

    There's been a pending issue on GitHub for a year at https://github.com/Microsoft/B....

    The TL;DR is, a real world web application might be able to load and get updated in 5 seconds in development on native Linux (imagine a large Rails app with hundreds of assets), but the same exact app ran through WSL takes 32 seconds before you can see your changes. That's straight up unusable.

    Personally, I just run VMWare in Unity mode. At the end of the day it lets me run graphical Linux apps with floating windows that feel and act as if they were running in Windows. The performance is excellent (it feels nearly identical to a native Linux experience with none of the WSL downsides). If anyone is interested, I put together a screencast and have a few screenshots showing how to do it at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog....

  54. I want to see LSW, Linux Subsystem for Windows by SysEngineer · · Score: 1

    I have been running only Linux for the last 20 years. There are some media programs that only run in Windows. I do not trust Windows privacy at all. I would love to see Microsoft create a container that runs programs that Wine can not run.

  55. Re: I'm seriously considering moving back to Wind by KGIII · · Score: 1

    LOL It was a good choice, I think. The person who moderated my post down also has a strange definition for "fact."

    They can mod this one down too. I've got karma to burn.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  56. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    TrueOS is based off of current which is why I always had problems. If it were based off of stable it would be different

  57. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by mcswell · · Score: 1

    "Windows 10 is just a HUGE regression over Windows 7." Agreed. Fortunately, I've been able to get rid of some of the regression using Classic Start Menu and WinAero Tweaker, including most importantly for me the stupid way that the top bar on apps doesn't change color to tell whether it has keyboard focus. (I don't think it works for MsOffice, but I don't have that installed, so I can't tell.)

    Does anyone know why the top bar on an app has to be so big? It used to be much smaller (i.e. not take up so much screen real estate) under Win7. It's one Win10 annoyance that I haven't been able to get rid of.

  58. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by mcswell · · Score: 1

    I thought the Linux (ok, not Unix...) philosophy was this: http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-...

  59. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by mcswell · · Score: 1

    Adobe Acrobat (which I'm assuming looks the same as Adobe's reader, maybe bad assumption) is the one piece of software that makes Edge look good. Sort of like ISIS making Al Qaeda look good--but I digress... Each iteration of Acrobat has gotten a worse UI. Huge icons that you can't get rid of, everything is flat so you can't tell what is turned on or off, menu no longer makes sense, and so on and on. At home, I use the free version of PDF-XChange Editor for reading (and annotating) PDFs; highly recommended.

  60. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by mcswell · · Score: 1

    Contact me directly, I'll sell you one!

  61. Paging RMS by lbalbalba · · Score: 1

    Is it time to start calling this 'GNU/Windows' yet ?

  62. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    I want a FreeBSD based stable OS with the GUI and ease of use of Ubuntu of 2006 with compviz and the app and development ecosystem of Windows.

    NetBSD would be better ;) But, I do admit the Ubuntu circa 2006-2011 or so were pretty easy, but why not go with Mint as of 2014 or 2015? I never used compviz, so can't comment.

    Regarding the app and development ecosystem of windows? Are you kidding me? The apps are generally terrible, the development ecosystem seriously blows donkey turds. And yes, I have done windows system development recently enough to have a real opinion about how badly the entire windows system sucks, internally. I don't believe win10 made any improvements.

    If they DOJ split MS we would have a cool office suite, SharePoint, visual studio and cloud services on all platforms. Oddly the new MS is moving in this direction as it cares about clouds azure and software rentals. But the Windows kernel is not bad today and like what vs code and visual studio are today.

    MS Office sucks ass. Always has. It didn't "win" because it was best. It won because MS leveraged their OS monopoly to kill all competition.

    Sharepoint, let me count the ways it sucks. You can start with having to write code for every little function and....never mind, I'll never finish this post.

    The windows kernel is a pile of moldy swiss cheese as far as security goes. It's a fundamental failure at the base architectural level. I don't expect this to ever get fixed until the kernel is replaced.

    While Visual Studio is sucky, so is Xcode. Android Studio isn't absolutely terrible, I'm still getting used to it. Eclipse works pretty well for what I use it for, IntelliJ seems adequate as well, I just don't prefer it (No choice with Android Studio, obviously) There's a host of other IDEs I've used in the past, all are pretty much subsets of VS/Xcode functionality, with some being significantly less capable.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  63. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I want a FreeBSD based stable OS with the GUI and ease of use of Ubuntu of 2006 with compviz and the app and development ecosystem of Windows.

    NetBSD would be better ;) But, I do admit the Ubuntu circa 2006-2011 or so were pretty easy, but why not go with Mint as of 2014 or 2015? I never used compviz, so can't comment.

    Regarding the app and development ecosystem of windows? Are you kidding me? The apps are generally terrible, the development ecosystem seriously blows donkey turds. And yes, I have done windows system development recently enough to have a real opinion about how badly the entire windows system sucks, internally. I don't believe win10 made any improvements.

    If they DOJ split MS we would have a cool office suite, SharePoint, visual studio and cloud services on all platforms. Oddly the new MS is moving in this direction as it cares about clouds azure and software rentals. But the Windows kernel is not bad today and like what vs code and visual studio are today.

    MS Office sucks ass. Always has. It didn't "win" because it was best. It won because MS leveraged their OS monopoly to kill all competition.

    Sharepoint, let me count the ways it sucks. You can start with having to write code for every little function and....never mind, I'll never finish this post.

    The windows kernel is a pile of moldy swiss cheese as far as security goes. It's a fundamental failure at the base architectural level. I don't expect this to ever get fixed until the kernel is replaced.

    While Visual Studio is sucky, so is Xcode. Android Studio isn't absolutely terrible, I'm still getting used to it. Eclipse works pretty well for what I use it for, IntelliJ seems adequate as well, I just don't prefer it (No choice with Android Studio, obviously) There's a host of other IDEs I've used in the past, all are pretty much subsets of VS/Xcode functionality, with some being significantly less capable.

    Exactly they all suck in their own little ways :-)

    As old farts as we are you can whine about Microsoft Office but I do not see much is better these days. It won for a reason. Sure WordPerfect was better and some law firms stuck around with it and a few enterprises used Lotus Notes over Exchange because it was better at the time. However, overall with Excel and PowerPoint and Outlook with the PHB must have free/busy and conference room availability it won. Libreoffice is plain ugly and the included spreadsheet program is no Excel. It reminds me of office 97. Actually, I think Microsoft has a history of making mediocre operating systems or buying them I should say. But make decent developer tools and office productivity programs. That is their strength.

    You may hate me but I am getting used to Office 365 with SharePoint, Dwelve, Dynamics, teams, and bookings besides the standard office suite it includes. They are web based so check them out? I disagree with Eclipse. But if I had a gun to my head and had to choose Apple or Windows. I would pick Windows in a heart beat.

    The good news is Microsoft is going pro opensource and multiplatform now as people are moving to mobile and clouds and do not care about Windows like they once did. It is a different company now as Gates and Balmer have both left and competition changed them

  64. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    Exactly they all suck in their own little ways :-)

    As old farts as we are you can whine about Microsoft Office but I do not see much is better these days. It won for a reason.

    Maybe that's because:

    MS Office sucks ass. Always has. It didn't "win" because it was best. It won because MS leveraged their OS monopoly to kill all competition.

    Libreoffice is plain ugly and the included spreadsheet program is no Excel. It reminds me of office 97.

    That's interesting. Because that's the last usable interface of Office, IMNSHO. (Office 2000/2003 etc used the same interface, more or less, it wasn't until the horrible ribbon in 2010 that things really went south - yeah, that's a great idea - let's make context sensitive menus where 70% of the things you'd need to look up through the menu system are hidden by default - make it a game of hide and seek instead, because, you know, there's nothing more productive than that.)

    But make decent developer tools and office productivity programs. That is their strength.

    You may hate me but I am getting used to Office 365 with SharePoint, Dwelve, Dynamics, teams, and bookings besides the standard office suite it includes. They are web based so check them out?

    Why would I hate you? The fact that they're web-based is the first reason I dislike them. I'm often moving about and not connected to the internet when I need to use office software. Their offline functionality just isn't there yet. Sharepoint as a consumer isn't overly terrible, I guess. It's when you need to customize it you wind up having to write code for everything, no matter how small a change to the basic flow Sharepoint provides out of the box. That sucks. Their development tools are mediocre at best, and their documentation, well, used toilet paper is sometimes a better source of information.

    I disagree with Eclipse. But if I had a gun to my head and had to choose Apple or Windows. I would pick Windows in a heart beat.

    Eclipse is a system you have to use enough to like, much like IntelliJ. Although, having used the latest iterations of both quite a bit recently, IntelliJ appears to be lacking some significant ease of use features I leverage in Eclipse. Nothing too terrible, but it does require thinking and typing more. On the plus side, it does handle method completions a little better when looking up a new name with arguments, but fails in loading args for a new reference.

    As for having to choose windows or something else, it would almost always be something else. It would always be something else if the choice is win10, as that's not a choice, but something you wish on your enemies. Given Apple's relatively stable OS since 10.9 more than 3 years ago, I wonder at your Apple hatred. They certainly make good hardware, although I'm no fan of the latest touchbar MBPs. Note that OSX overall has been pretty decent, the instability introduced in 10.7/10.8 will wind up being for a good reason that will become evident in another 3-5 years. That's when MS will figure out that massively multi-core CPUs are the future and scramble to cobble together some sort of OS that works on it while Apple's OSX will just work, because that's what the fundamental change under the covers was all about. I'm amazed on the one hand they pulled it off with so little negative effects. OTOH, I would have preferred that it didn't come out until at least 10.9. iOS is also benefiting from those changes, and also has experienced some of the pain, since iOS 9 and later.

    The good news is Microsoft is going pro opensource and multiplatform now as people are moving to mobile and clouds and do not care about Windows like they once did. It is a different company now as Gates and Balmer have both left and competition changed them

    They're moving to cloud because if they don't, their business will b

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  65. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    Sadly we're stuck with the results of the previous management's purchasing decisions ("whatever's cheap at BestBuy"). I think we have 4 machines that have 'pro' versions of Windows now, so we're getting there. I guess it's my failing for not being able to implement the solution for lack of a time machine.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  66. Re:I'm seriously considering moving back to Window by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    Also, having followed the totally problem free release of Windows 10 fairly closely, I've seen a large number of threads detailing random issues and breakage with WSUS. Hopefully all fixed, it would be very nice to have.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...