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Microsoft Open Source Tool Lets You 'Bring Your Own Linux' To Windows (microsoft.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the alternatives-to-overwriting dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader Billly Gates writes: Debian is now available in the Windows app store. It joins Ubuntu, Suse Leap, SuSe enterprise, and Kali Linux for those who cannot or do not want to bother with a virtual machine or a full install of the OS. However, it included stable 9.3. 9.4 is available from the repository if you run apt-get update and apt-get upgrade.
"Fedora is not yet available, although Microsoft has stated openly that it is working to make it so," reports Computer Weekly. And there's more: Microsoft has also provided an open source tool called Microsoft WSL/DistroLauncher for users who want to build their own Linux package where a particular distribution is either a) not available yet or b) is available, but the user wants to apply a greater degree of customisation to it than comes as standard.

4 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Slowly letting users get used to linux by gweihir · · Score: 1, Informative

    I don't think they would survive that long-term. But, MS being fundamentally incompetent and clueless, they may not realize that. So you definitely have a point.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  2. Does no one remember Microsoft's 3 E's? by geekprime · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Embrace, extend, and extinguish",[1] also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate",[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  3. Windows is losing, Office is their money maker by raymorris · · Score: 1, Informative

    Microsoft sees that they are losing in the OS space.
    Yes, corporate desktops still run Windows, but the vast majority of CPUs sold in the last ten years aren't corporate desktops. Where MS is making their money is MS Office cloud subscriptions.

  4. Microsoft's revenue numbers disagree with you by raymorris · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here are some revenue numbers quoting directly from Microsoft's audited annual report:

    ---
              Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 10% (up 10% in constant currency) driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 41% (up 41% in constant currency) ...
    Windows commercial products and cloud services revenue decreased 4% (down 5% in constant currency)
    ---

    Office 365 up 41%, Windows down 5â.... Those are the numbers.