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Microsoft Works To Port Ubuntu To Windows ARM (neowin.net)

Billly Gates shares a report: It was this time last year that Microsoft announced that it was bringing Ubuntu to the Windows Store (now the Microsoft Store), along with other Linux distributions. If you check out the app in the Store now though, you'll find that it only works on x64 devices, meaning that you can't run it on any of the new Windows 10 on ARM PCs. That's all about to change though. In a session at Microsoft's Build 2018 developer conference today called Windows 10 on ARM for Developers, the company showed off Ubuntu running on an ARM PC, with the app coming from the Microsoft Store. It will finally support ARM64 PCs, although x86 devices are still out of luck.

67 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. It's *not* Linux! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not "running Linux" by definition, because Linux is only a kernel and it is completely absent. Instead, MS is providing an emulation of the Linux syscall interface enabling unaltered Linux applications to run.

    (That said, this will probably prove to be the simplest way of running "Linux" on an ARM laptop, thanks to the joys of ARM SoC vendors not providing sane drivers..)

    1. Re:It's *not* Linux! by darthsilun · · Score: 2

      ... providing an emulation of the Linux syscall interface enabling unaltered Linux applications to run.

      Something FreeBSD has been doing for the better part of 20 years. It's not rocket surgery.

    2. Re: It's *not* Linux! by vm · · Score: 1

      It looks like Linux, smells like Linux, tastes like Linux... better not step in it!

    3. Re:It's *not* Linux! by sconeu · · Score: 2

      As I recall, SCO did something similar as well (before they turned evil). It was used as evidence in part of the trial.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    4. Re:It's *not* Linux! by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      And no one but aspies actually care.

    5. Re:It's *not* Linux! by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      FreeBSD support is partial, because it is rocket surgery

    6. Re: It's *not* Linux! by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Informative

      It only looks, smells and tastes like Linux until you find that your app doesn't run on Linux in production because you did your development on "Linux" on Windows.

      Microsoft has an incentive to make this happen in the future so that people in crisis mode will throw up their hands and just switch to Microsoft-Linux, and then maybe get rid of Linux altogether.

      Microsoft tried to do the same with Java. Introduce sweet addictive delicious Microsoft-only APIs into Java, hoping lazy developers wouldn't notice that these APIs are only on Microsoft's Java. This was in directly violation of the black-letter language of the written contract. Sun sued. Won $1.2 Billion. Microsoft abandoned Java and created .NET because the Java story was just too compelling. Here we are today where Java popularity (on various sites like TIOBE) exceeds .NET popularity.

      Too bad nobody will ensure the "purity" of Linux. And who says Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is dead?

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    7. Re:It's *not* Linux! by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      As I recall, SCO did something similar as well (before they turned evil). It was used as evidence in part of the trial.

      It was called iBCS. A Linux version came into being later, which begat or was renamed (don't know) the Linux ABI Project.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re: It's *not* Linux! by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Not likely, as the whole point of this work is to enable Windows developers to use some of their favorite native Linux-based tools. It would completely ruin the point if they introduced some artificial incompatibility. Remember, Microsoft is also hosting native Linux in Azure, right alongside their own Windows Server OS. This means they have, in fact, every reason to ensure these systems remain as compatible as possible with native Linux.

      Microsoft is not motivated by ideology, but by money. Linux used to be a competitor to Windows, their big money-maker, so they hated Linux. Now Linux is making money for them in Azure, so they're embracing Linux and, to some extent, open source. Because money. You don't need to make things any more complicated than that.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    9. Re: It's *not* Linux! by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nobody will ensure the "purity" of Linux, because that's what the GPL does. I'm not sure what specific FUD you're trying to imply with the EEE remarks, but the evidence for chicanery is pretty weak, and you're sort of pointing out that they aren't that effective at it.

      And not to defend Microsoft, but .NET is better than Java in most respects, and Java's popularity has been propped up by Android. I'm not sure where .NET is headed, but Kotlin is likely to start cutting into Java on mobile in a big way.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    10. Re: It's *not* Linux! by macinnisrr · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Embrace, extend, extinguish will never go away. It's everyone's mantra from Microsoft, to Apple, and even Google who have been so "pro open source". Check out my essay on how to combat this: https://volocian.com/adopt-adapt-abandon/

    11. Re:It's *not* Linux! by jaklode · · Score: 1

      Wait, what's rocket surgery? How does that work?

    12. Re:It's *not* Linux! by stooo · · Score: 1

      That's rocket surgery : https://www.youtube.com/result...

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      aaaaaaa
    13. Re:It's *not* Linux! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Can NetBSD run Google Chrome? Not last time I checked, because the Linux system call ABI is huge. There's a lot of stuff that's common to all *NIX platforms that is trivial, or requires a tiny bit of plumbing (e.g. the values of mmap flags). There's a bit of stuff like epoll, which can be implemented with a little bit of work on the same underlying kernel interfaces that are used to implement kqueue. Then there's weird stuff like seccomp-bpf or, worse, anything used by libkvm, which expose kernel implementation details to userspace. These are very hard to emulate.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    14. Re: It's *not* Linux! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Office has always been Microsoft's golden cash cow. Windows was never a big money maker for Microsoft, but it was the gateway drug to Office

      Look at the Microsoft financials from the late '90s. They were around 45% Windows, 45% Office, and 10% everything else. The ones from the last few years are very different.

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    15. Re: It's *not* Linux! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      One word: Netflix.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    16. Re:It's *not* Linux! by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Found the article on Groklaw. What I was thinking of was the SCO Linux Kernel Personality.

      http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20090304032134127

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    17. Re:It's *not* Linux! by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      no, NetBSD has partial support for Linux API too.

      It's hard...in fact impossible for 100% support

  2. who's still selling x86 hardware? by vm · · Score: 2

    ...and why would you buy an x86 desktop or laptop to run Linux under Windows Subsystem for Linux? If you're talking about low power embedded hardware then that's got to be a VERY niche use case.

    1. Re:who's still selling x86 hardware? by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

      I have a Windows tablet that has an x64 chip but for whatever reason they put an x86 UEFI BIOS. It won't load an x64 OS despite having the hardware to do so.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    2. Re:who's still selling x86 hardware? by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 1

      Why the fuck didn't you return it as defective?

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    3. Re:who's still selling x86 hardware? by Hank+the+Lion · · Score: 1

      I have an ASUS EEEbook X205ta that has the same.
      I'm running 64-bit XUbuntu on it.
      I only needed a 32-bit UEFI loader for grub on it to make it work.
      Unfortunately, the Linux kernel still has trouble with the power saving modes of the Baytrail chipset, but some workarounds have been made.
      Here and here are links with helpful information.

  3. It's like the year 2001 again by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Embrace, extend, and extinguish -- United States v. Microsoft Corp., 2001

    Microsoft's long history makes them untrustworthy. I think we should be very skeptical of relying on any technology out of Redmond, and view it as a potential trap.

    It seems obvious that MS would like every Linux computer to have a copy of Windows installed. And for people to run their favorite Linux application along side Office 365 or whatever. I can't really blame them, it's a reasonable business strategy. But once MS has power over a market they aren't likely to act in their customer's best interests. Ultimately us consumers need to be cautious of what bargains we strike.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Embrace, extend, and extinguish -- United States v. Microsoft Corp., 2001

      EEE only works if you dominate a market. Linux dominates on servers and portable devices (Android is Linux). Microsoft has no chance of executing an EEE strategy against Linux. To the contrary, WSL is Microsoft's way of conceding defeat in those markets, and accepting that it has to accommodate Linux on the desktop to avoid slipping even more.

    2. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by iggymanz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microsoft dominates the desktop and laptop market

    3. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 2

      I'd be concerned by Google. They're the "don't be evil" guys and I'm typing this on a Google branded device but food for thought.

      Almost every consumer Linux device includes Google Play, first on Android and now Chrome OS.

        Chrome OS now running desktop Linux apps in a container. So your choices for a 'Linux' laptop are bare metal, a surface pro WSL or a pixel book.

    4. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by tepples · · Score: 1

      Linux dominates on servers and portable devices (Android is Linux).

      Are laptop computers "portable devices" by your definition? If not, how meaningfully not? Answering that question might help you understand what Microsoft is targeting with Windows on ARM.

    5. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by DogDude · · Score: 1

      Microsoft's long history makes them untrustworthy. I think we should be very skeptical of relying on any technology out of Redmond, and view it as a potential trap.

      A "trap"? In what sense? Are you describing a movie, perhaps?

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    6. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

      I'd be concerned by Google.

      I think that's a false dilemma as Google doing bad thing and Microsoft doing bad things are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, I'd recommend being skeptical of the motives of any business. Things can be great as long the business and customers have complementary desires and act in mutual benefit. Things go awry when there is a power imbalance in a relationship, especially if it is possible to act for a short term gain or for an increase in power.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    7. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by Alok · · Score: 1

      For laptops, its certainly not as much as it used to - for many companies, the laptops issued are Macs or else there is a choice between Mac or Windows. Most desktops are Windows, but some could be Linux also (curiously, I rarely see Mac desktops in offices though MBPs are everywhere).

      The fact there are credible alternatives makes it very hard for EEE to work. Personally I think MS is trying hard to turn over a new leaf post-Ballmer, though there have been some severe missteps like the XBox One DRM saga where they gloriously kneecapped their console launch. They did learn from that, outdoing PS4 in backwards compatibility and also better hardware in their midcycle refresh console.

    8. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Microsoft dominates the desktop and laptop market

      A market with no Linux marketshare so what's your point?

    9. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      actually it's 3.5 percent, Mac 8.7 percent

    10. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So like I said, no marketshare.

    11. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      tens millions of machines, you're wrong

    12. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      tens millions of machines, you're wrong

      10s of millions of machines is effectively zero marketshare in desktop computing.

      Perspective: You're in desperate need of some. When you get some we can work on your understanding of business strategy.

    13. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      er no, that was over ten percent in total. that is not insignificant, either as percentage or whole

    14. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      er no, that was over ten percent in total.

      Wow. So either you suck at Math or have no idea what the PC market actually looks like.

      10% Linux Desktop market share.... Oooooh you're just trying a standup routine on me. meh. 2/5 needs work, the joke isn't very funny.

    15. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      no linux desktop market share was 3%, try to pay attention. the 10% was non-windows, linux+mac.

    16. Re:It's like the year 2001 again by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      no linux desktop market share was 3%, try to pay attention. the 10% was non-windows, linux+mac.

      Your grasp of staying on point and not flipping on numbers is amazing. Have you considered a career in politics? God knows business is nothing for you.

  4. Re: ARM PC's? by vm · · Score: 1

    Microsoft isn't shipping any on their own hardware. Asus & HP are releasing some of these "Always Connected PCs."

  5. MS Works? by idontusenumbers · · Score: 3, Funny

    Who's using Microsoft Works to port an operating system? It could barely do simple word processing! Maybe one of the bajillion wizards or templates is for porting.

    1. Re:MS Works? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      Did Dane Cook write that “joke” for you?

    2. Re:MS Works? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      I agree, english-style titles are annoying and make comprehension harder than it should be.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:MS Works? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      What language would you prefer they be written in?

    4. Re:MS Works? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      C or assembly.

    5. Re:MS Works? by dhaen · · Score: 1

      Unnecessary capitalisation wrecks readability. I'm English but would prefer nouns capitalised as in German language.

    6. Re:MS Works? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      I think you mean American style. Many English styles, including Cambridge style, for example, use the same capitalisation rules for titles as for normal sentences.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. Re: ARM64 by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

    Congress or the military I'd reckon.

  7. Re:Steve Ballmer by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

    ".... gave me aids"

    -- RMS

  8. Just use linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I realize some of you have not yet switched to linux. I believe that the time is now, the microsoft and apple operating systems are simply unfit for most actual use cases due to spying, corporate shenannigans and general untrustworthyness.

    Linux will not spy on you, has a low overhead, an extremely high uptime, better security, and tends to keep their applications small and useful.

    The benefits stretch far into the horizon beyond the points I have brought up. It really is time to just get rid of the spyware and start using a machine properly to get work done. We all want to make money and having issues with updates, instability, lack of control, spying etc etc etc just keep costing more and more money while delivering fewer results.

    If you are a business, a private institution or an individual the reasons to have windows are running out rapidly.

    Linux is easy to install, has wide driver and printer support (at present wider support than microsoft, though not apple as apple is now based off the linux kernal), and by default assumes you are in control of your own machine which you purchased vs your machine simply being a physical dongle to connect to a corporations walled services.

    If games are eliminated as well as specialty applications (which should have been web based and not installed applications to begin with) then what reason is left to run such an abusive thing upon your hardware?

    1. Re:Just use linux by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      I agree with your sentiment 100%. Very well spoken. Just wanted to point out that OSX isn't based on the Linux kernel (with an 'e', not an 'a'), it's based on FreeBSD.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  9. Re: ARM PC's? by Junta · · Score: 1

    Also, MS is currently downplaying the significance of the ARM systems:
    https://www.windowscentral.com...

    This together with Qualcomm having to tighten it's belt all around, I wouldn't expect them to last long as a product line... again... (See Surface RT)

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  10. Weird by dhaen · · Score: 1

    And creepy... There must be a carcinogen in the code.

  11. why? by 4wdloop · · Score: 1

    What's M$ business model to spent shareholders money on this?

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    4wdloop
    1. Re:why? by theCoder · · Score: 1

      Microsoft makes money from people running Windows. In license fees for Windows, and in license fees for Windows applications (which are built by developers running Windows). If people are running Ubuntu, they aren't running Windows, and not making money for Microsoft.

      Further, there's "secure" boot to consider. Right now, it is optional. But if users can run Linux applications under Windows, then why do they need to run Linux kernel natively? And if they don't need to run the Linux kernel, then there's no reason for SecureBoot to allow it.

      So look forward to a future where you won't be able to run the Linux kernel at all, and through that, have real trouble running a truly Free system. That's the end game for WSL.

      --
      "Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
  12. Money, it's a gas by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    That's exactly what Microsoft does. They have a guaranteed revenue stream, and they've been trying to convert that into dominant positions in various other related industries. They've had success with the console market after burning an insane amount of money, they've failed repeatedly in the phone market after burning even more money, and it seems like they're achieving a pretty comfortable position in the tablet market. Microsoft can certainly afford to hire all of the talent that they want, and they actually do not want for qualified engineers. Also, this is not exactly novel ground here, it's the exact same type of work that was done to create WSL. Money may not solve every problem in the world, but it's actually a pretty effective way to get things done, and there's no reason to believe that this would be an exception.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Money, it's a gas by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      They should conentrate on the corporate market (top to bottom fully integrated everything). It takes serious money to manage that properly so they will always have an edge over free software. Also they should have their software run on the major OS's not just Windows.

  13. Re: Windows on Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because as someone who has used nothing but floss software since 2004, my girlfriend is angry at me because I am ethically opposed to installing excell while she thinks libre Office is the biggest pile of crap she has ever seen and thinks it's still lacking functionality from 1993. You can change the libre Office/ms Office juxtaposition for pretty much any software comparison probably. I know when I began I was frustrated at the lack of decent CAD tools. 14 years later the offerings have not improved in the slightest degree. When you are prepared to tinker floss is great. Even fun. For most it's a stinking steaming pile of half assed crap. Crap I love using.

  14. So.... Microsoft Surface 1 finally becomes useful? by Xystance · · Score: 1

    So... if they're posting this in the Windows store... and the Microsoft Surface 1, which has been a dead-end device for years, has access to the Microsoft store... *checks Tegra 3 architecture* ...goddamnit.

  15. How about Windows running on Linux instead? by molarmass192 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I might actually consider a Windows shell that runs on Ubuntu, but an Ubuntu shell running on Windows, yeah, no thanks. The broken bits are still non-optional.

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  16. Re:Been there. done that. by stooo · · Score: 1

    >> I have the Ubuntu logo tattooed on my arm.
    Perhaps you should have your tatoo removed or modified before Ubuntu is synonym of Bluescreen

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    aaaaaaa
  17. Re:ARM64 by stooo · · Score: 1

    >> How about working on enabling 64-bit Windows apps to run on ARM?
    Why would you ever do that? Recompile your programs to run natively.

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    aaaaaaa
  18. Re:ARM64 by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    How about working on enabling 64-bit Windows apps to run on ARM?

    64-bit ARM programs do run. 64-bit x86 programs do not

    Is it difficult?

    Yes, getting an x86-64 emulator working well enough that you can enable it for end users and expect stuff to work out of the box turns out to be a nontrivial problem.

    They could hire the top 1000 programmers in the world

    I very much doubt that there are 1,000 programmers with experience working on high performance binary translation (I'd actually be quite surprised if there are 100). If they don't have this expertise, then you need to train them. That takes time to do and it takes developer time away from the people who do already have the expertise. It improves bandwidth but not latency (i.e. you won't get the product out of the door quicker).

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  19. Re: Windows on Linux by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2
    F/OSS can't be decoupled from the business model. Whatever your licensing model, someone needs to do requirements analysis and needs to pay the developers. For very small projects, the developers can be paid by the product itself: i.e. it saves them more time in the long run than they spend developing it. I've released open source projects for that reason: it costs me nothing to release the code and if I get even one useful bug report with a reduced test case then it's a net win for me. For something like an office suite, you typically have a few hundred million potential users with very similar sets of requirements. It's easy as a proprietary software company with a lot of money in the bank to do the development up-front and then get them all to pay a relatively small amount to cover the costs. It's much harder to get them to agree up front to fund development, and if you do they tend to expect that the features / bugs that are most important to them are prioritised. There's also a business case for picking whatever is the most popular one, because you're sharing the risk with more other companies. Even if the total risk is higher with a proprietary product, because the vendor can move it in a direction you don't like or discontinue it entirely, your company's share of the risk may be lower.

    Open source works very well when you have either a relatively small number of customers, who have a sufficient need that they will fund development directly, or when you have a large number of customers with sufficiently different needs that they all want to pay someone to add the specific features that they need. There are also some half-way steps that are convenient for a lot of companies. A number of big companies don't really use MS Office in important places, they use a custom stack that happens to be implemented on top of the MS Office platform. They get some of the benefits of open source (it can be customised for their use) and those are the ones that they care the most about.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  20. Re:ARM64 by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What we need is a full support of Windows apps on Linux...and then throw Windows away.

  21. Re:ARM64 by KingBenny · · Score: 1

    actually if bandai namco and a few others make linux versions of their games by default id already be willing lol, but i got a license key for win10 on a superbargain for about €20 so i guess that's an actual decent price for an obese OS to give my rig heart attacks and make it sweat ... i dont really understand why anyone would want to run ubuntu in a window, and actually if you do isnt it possible to just run a virtualbox ? dunno, never did it directx is the only thing windows has left imo, anything else doesnt even need ported windows apps, i couldnt think of one that doesnt exist in one version or another for linux (well not the ones i use anyway lol)

    --
    Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  22. Re:ARM64 by Shirley+Marquez · · Score: 1

    It wouldn't be that difficult, but Microsoft probably doesn't feel that it's important. Running applications under emulation is always going to be slower than running native ones. 64-bit Windows applications are mostly ones that are still under active development, so it's not that difficult for the developers to do native ARM builds. Aside from device drivers, if the code is written correctly it shouldn't require much more than just building it for a different architecture.

    What the 32-bit emulation is really meant for is legacy applications that can't be easily replaced, often because they are no longer under development. The company that developed it may no longer exist, the source code may not be available, or there just aren't enough people still using it for anybody to bother. Those objections are far less likely to apply to 64-bit applications.