Microsoft Windows 10 Gains Linux/WSL Console Copy and Paste Functionality (betanews.com)

BrianFagioli writes: For better or worse, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) initiative seems to be moving full steam ahead. There are some very respectable distributions available in the Microsoft Store, such as Debian, Ubuntu, and Kali to name a few. Not to mention, Microsoft is trying to encourage even more maintainers to submit their distros with a new tool.

Apparently, some Windows 10 users have been clamoring for the ability to copy and paste both from and to WSL consoles -- a reasonable request. Well, as of Insider Build 17643, this is finally possible.

'As of Windows 10 Insider build #17643, you can copy/paste text from/to Linux/WSL Consoles!!! We know that this is a feature MANY of you have been waiting for -- our sincerest thanks for your patience and continued support while we untangled the Console's internals, allowing us to implement this feature. To ensure that we don't break any existing behaviors, you'll need to enable the 'Use Ctrl+Shift+C/V as Copy/Paste' option in the Console 'Options' properties page,' says Rich Turner, Microsoft.

Comments

What's the point?

[fred911]

And, why would you want to run a high performance OS virtualized on a bloated OS when you can virtualize the bloated OS on top of the high performance OS that has provided this ability for years?

 

Re:Why does the WSL exist?

[Mascot]

I can't answer for anyone else but, while I have no interest in running a full Linux desktop at this time, I do like some of the tools available in the Linux terminal.

I did, in the past, try to run Linux as my main desktop, it failed miserably (don't get me started). I tried booting into it for the few tools that I preferred on the platform, it proved to be much too cumbersome to be worth it. Getting easy access to them from within Windows in a fashion that is not Cygwin, is all good in my book.

So, to answer your question, I guess WSL exists for people like me.

Re:How long before...

[Rob Y.]

The endgame is to marginalize desktop Linux as much as possible. This WSL thing is not desktop linux at all - it's a way to make sure linux back-end developers run Windows on their desktops instead of using desktop linux as the only way to bring their development environment with them.

And maybe, just maybe, that's enough for today's Microsoft. Sure, they'd love to lock down the hardware farther - and they may well try to do it. But they don't need to. Back-end Linux is no longer a threat to them - if only because they've already lost that battle. These days they'd rather you pay them to run Linux for you on their Azure cloud than worry about the fact that you're not using Windows for back-end development. But anything that marginalizes the Windows desktop stands a chance of harming the cash cow that makes the rest of their business work. So, Chromebooks are definitely a threat. Android, again, was a threat up until the moment that Microsoft conceded they'd lost that battle too. The biggest difference between today's Microsoft and Ballmer's is that they're capable of admitting loss and have figured out how to thrive anyway.