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Microsoft Releases New Tool To Get More Distros on Windows (zdnet.com)
Microsoft has released a tool to help Linux distribution maintainers bring their distros to the Windows Store to run on Windows 10's Windows Subsystem for Linux. From a report: Microsoft describes the tool as a "reference implementation for a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) distribution installer application," which is aimed at both distribution maintainers and developers who want to create custom Linux distributions for running on WSL. "We know that many Linux distros rely entirely on open-source software, so we would like to bring WSL closer to the OSS community," said Tara Raj of Microsoft's WSL team. "We hope open-sourcing this project will help increase community engagement and bring more of your favorite distros to the Microsoft Store." WSL helps programmers build a full Linux development environment for testing production code on a Windows machine.
I am not hating Microsoft but WSL main purpose is to bring Linux compatibility as a secondary purpose to a primarily Windows usage.
This is the case you need or want a Windows systems as your primary, but there is a subset of tools that work much better in Linux, but you don't need them as your primary set of tools.
Most distributions are built in mind of being your primary OS. Then running it in WSL you really don't get to experience all its real advantages.
I guess if a distribution maker may want to make a distribution specialized for WSL they could do that.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have one computer now that been trying to get Win10 1709 for over 3 months. Keeps getting 83% done then bows off, reloads old version of Win10, then starts at it all over again starting with the download. There is no way to stop it or control it.
You want Linux to run on such a broken system? My Linux boxes are going on over 100 days of uptime (moved from one room to another). Maybe Win10 should be a subsystem to Linux? At least I know Linux is stable enough to run a subsystem.
I mean, when /. first started, it was all "embrace, extend, extinguish" with MS using a Borg Gates avatar.
Is this the "embrace" part or the "extend" part of that whole process? Or can we really trust them?
-> I dislike sigs...
Open source wasnt developed as a 'feature' or a clever gimmick that people wanted as part of their computing experience. Open source was developed in direct opposition to the types of traditional licenses and restrictions placed on code and programs from Microsoft and other companies like them. The fact is Linux never needed windows support, and no one has explained the net-gain from supporting the execution of free software that has run stand-alone for decades other than the potential to sell more licenses for the proprietary OS under which it is being made to run.
in other words, given the chance, no one is going to intentionally shell out cash to run GCC on a copy of windows.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Linux on windows = stupid. Windows on linux = ok, but still stupid. Windows is a bloated, fat OS where FAR greater than 75% of its code is there to LIMIT what you can do in some way. It is always working against you and policing what you can do on your own system. Why would you allow it to be the base OS?
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The one thing Windows Subsystem For Linux doesn't actually have is....Linux. For once, the argument about GNU/Linux is completely correct and relevant. Linux is the kernel - Windows is using its own kernel for ELF support and various APIs. It isn't Linux. Even the Wikipedia article on the naming controversy states that the shorter Linux "...serves as a generic term for systems that combine that kernal with software from multiple other sources".
I mean, I'm not exactly getting bent out of shape over it. I just find it wryly amusing.
Cygwin is slow to create or fork processes, while WSL is much faster there. So things like autotools, config scripts, or make run a lot faster under WSL than Cygwin.
Also, there is more software and library availability for the Linux distros than on Cygwin.
I know a lot of people have ideological objections to WSL, but from a practical standpoint WSL isn't even very good. I tried it for about two weeks before abandoning it.
First, windows has a terrible terminal emulator. I don't think it's improved since Windows 95. Basic stuff like copy/paste is not intuitive, let alone nice features like tabs. I tried an alternative (cmder I think) and it was OK, but something as important as the terminal emulator should not be an afterthought.
Raw sockets didn't seem to work correctly (or at all). I tried a few network tools and they generally fell flat on their face.
It seems really slow. Maybe it's just my imagination, but sometimes I'd do something as simple as an 'ls' and patiently wait.
There was no GUI support out of the box. I had to setup Xming on the windows side. Again, not super complicated, but it seems like little thought was put into it. I don't need a GUI very often (usually just to display plots I generated), but there should have been more effort.
The goal was to basically have python, R, a C compiler, some networking tools, etc, available when I am in Windows and not have to boot a Linux box for basic things. The quality was just too low and went back to using a combination of VMWare and native windows versions.
Maybe it will get better, but it seems like it's trying to solve a problem most people don't have.
Other than not having to recompile and relink binaries with cygwin, or Ming, how is this very different?
You say "other than not having to recompile binaries" as if this is a small thing. It is a very big difference and fundamentally being able to emulate the Linux Kernel ABI to natively run entire linux distributions within windows makes comparing cygwin to WSL similar to comparing Docker to VMWare.
They are emulating a completely different layer and as such providing a completely different level of compatibility and usability. Cygwin is great for running some scripts and some basic small binaries, but it's quite painful to do anything more than that.
Is this the "Embrace" or "Extend" phase?
The point is making sure people who develop for a Linux target (a mobile device, a phone, etc) use Windows on their desk.
Has WSL gained support for X.Org or Wayland or both recently? If not, then how is someone who develops a GUI application for an X11+Linux or Wayland+Linux target supposed to test?
Have they disabled telemetry in Windows 10 yet? Why was ON in the _first_ place??
Which of the following would you prefer that the maintainer of a computer program do, given a limited budget of time=money?
A. Fix bugs in components that end users often use
B. Fix bugs in components that end users seldom use
If you guessed "A", then the next step is to measure which features end users often use. Telemetry does this. Even GNU/Linux distributions have this sort of thing, such as the optional popularity-contest package in Debian and Ubuntu. I think Microsoft forces it on as a condition of support so that users can't disable telemetry and then turn around and complain that this or that feature is broken or is being removed from the system.
Can Explorer show me folder sizes yet?
Would it be acceptable for folder sizes in a file manager to initially appear as a throbber and then be replaced with the actual size after several seconds of HDD thrashing? Or would you prefer that a file manager hide the contents of a folder entirely until it has run the equivalent of du to query all folders within that folder for their sizes? On any Linux distribution, try time du on your home directory after a fresh reboot. And what value would you prefer that a file manager show for the size of the folder if the current user lacks permission to traverse some subfolder?