Linux Subsystem Files To Become Accessible via Windows File Explorer (zdnet.com)

One of Windows Subsystem for Linux's more annoying tricks is it's hard to get at your Linux files from Windows. From a report: Oh, you can do it, but you take a real chance of ruining the files. To quote Microsoft, "DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, access, create, and/or modify files in your distro's filesystem using Windows apps, tools, scripts, consoles, etc." In the forthcoming Windows 10 April 2019 Update, aka Windows 10 19H1, this Linux file problem will finally be fixed. According to Craig Loewen, a Microsoft programming manger working on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), "The next Windows update is coming soon and we're bringing exciting new updates to WSL with it! These include accessing the Linux file system from Windows, and improvements to how you manage and configure your distros in the command line."

Comments

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

The head of Linux file systems on windows explorer on the desktop has arrived. Truly we are blessed

Re:Finally

[arglebargle_xiv]

Sorry, there was a typo in that headline, please replace:

Linux Subsystem Files To Become Accessible via Windows File Explorer

with:

Windows Malware Now Gets Access to Linux Files as Well

Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I could access Windows files on Linux just fine. Some OSs are behind the times I guess.

Re:Funny

[rednip]

Actually, the difference is that Windows works just fine with the standard UNIX line ending (\n'), but many unix programs will crash if they see a DOS line ending ('\r\n'). I'm guessing that Microsoft simply made sure to preserve the line endings already present in a file (like the regular setting in all better text editors), or changed the default to the UNIX endings, which is already handled in Windows (as best as I know) . In fact a recent article annouces UNIX EOL support in notepad

When you see '^M' at the end of every line in a Linux config file you know that someone edited the file on a Windows system. It's a simple fix (dos2unix), but it can really trip up new developers and sometimes even some 'old pros' on a bad day.

Re:Funny

[Kremmy]

If Windows worked just fine with UNIX line endings, they wouldn't have waited until 2018 to patch support into Notepad...

Re: Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Their POSIX support was pretty much baked in from the get go. They used \r\n to make CP/M, UNIX and MacOS (classic) interoperability happen in DOS, while also following standards correctly. On a typewriter, carriage return makes the printing arm mechanism reset on the left hand side, while line feed shifts the paper. Hence CRLF as a line ending.

So Windows got it right here. No one else did.

Re: Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, that explains why I always get messed up prints with this command:

cat file_with_unix_line_endings >/dev/old_fashioned_typewriter

Except I don't. The mechanical properties of typewriters aren't relevant for digital text files.

According to Wikipedia this is the origin of the CRLF line ends:

The sequence CR+LF was in common use on many early computer systems that had adopted Teletype machines, typically a Teletype Model 33 ASR, as a console device, because this sequence was required to position those printers at the start of a new line. The separation of newline into two functions concealed the fact that the print head could not return from the far right to the beginning of the next line in one-character time. That is why the sequence was always sent with the CR first. A character printed after a CR would often print as a smudge, on-the-fly in the middle of the page, while it was still moving the carriage back to the first position. "The solution was to make the newline two characters: CR to move the carriage to column one, and LF to move the paper up."[1] In fact, it was often necessary to send extra characters (extraneous CRs or NULs, which are ignored) to give the print head time to move to the left margin. Even many early video displays required multiple character times to scroll the display.

Note that no current standard for line endings contains the extraneous CRs or NULs. It obviously doesn't make sense to have mechanical properties of some devices determine file formats. For the same reason it doesn't make sense to retain the CR either. Multics did the sensible thing and used a driver to add whatever a device needed to correctly print text and used a single character (LF) for line endings. Unix followed that convention.

They figured this out in the 1960's, well before Microsoft existed. Windows inherited CRLF from MS-DOS, which I suspect used CRLF because CP/M did. The right thing as far as I'm concerned is what the Multics people did: pay attention to details and do what actually makes most sense.

Re: Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

It also
                      allows you
                                                          to print like this
                                                                                                              using fewer characters

Re: Funny

[spongman]

In many cases, the ting that makes the most sense is backwards compatibility.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience with notepad suggests you're speaking nonsense, but you're right that the old dos edit program did the right thing in terms of \r\n support (though trying to write makefiles in an editor that auto-converted tabs into spaces kinda sucked).

Re:Funny

[mcswell]

I haven't seen that. I use CR in my linux programs to create a running tally of the number of records my program has processed. Of course I don't cat that to other programs, but I can't imagine crashing a program if I did.

What *really* bothers me on Linux tools is how hard it is to use most such tools with non-ASCII Unicode characters. Try grepping Devanagari or Arabic characters, for example, or using sed to modify such text. (I'm not saying Windows is better, in fact I've never really tried to do such things in cmd.exe.)

Which Linux users really care and why?

[couchslug]

It's trivially easy setting up a proper VM and doesn't cost a dime.

If you know how to use Linux, installation is nothing. If you don't, you don't need Linux or WSL.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[vegabook]

uses a lot more RAM though.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[CoolCash]

I do. I use Windows for most of my job, but once in a while running bash and other scripts is just easier than Windows.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[kqs]

I can see a few reasons for using WSL. Installing and maintaining a whole Linux VM is more effort/support/danger than needed for people who just need a program or two and have little Linux experience.

My bigger question is: "wait, linux files were visible to windows programs, but accessing them could cause corruption? WHY WAS THIS EVER A THING???". This seems like a terrible implementation. I could see it for a "this is really beta, here play with it, but we'll be fixing this terrible feature within a month" product, but that's it. But then, I don't mount a filesystem r/w between multiple VMs because it's a terrible idea and I feel dirty for even considering it.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[hamster_nz]

I use WSL quite a bit on my work laptop. Why?

- It complies with our security policy

- I can use things like linux-based microcontroller tool chains exactly as I would on my Linux boxes at home

- I don't have problems with USB passthrough with serial adapters

- I can awk, grep, cut and sed files in my windows file system without any file sharing hassles

- I can use gcc to build little utilities as needed

- ssh and scp are easier to use from WSL

- it is always there - one click away on the task bar

Sure, it has a few tiny foibles, but is just simpler than using a VM.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I care, but for a specific reason.

I run a media pc with Kodi and Steam. Windows is better suited to this to this task than Linux because I do want to play games from my media pc.

However, along with Kodi comes my nice large media library and torrents and the various file operations that come with such a setup. Being able to manage those files over SSH from a laptop using POSIX commands is just much easier.

To accomplish this in the past, I'd have to use cygwin, but this linux subsystem feature feels cleaner and simpler.

Beyond that though, I'm not sure what it's used for.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me honestly it's a minor issue. It's not even the biggest thing affecting linux. I'm more concerned with the maltreatment of root and how it's been walled off. No one ever considers expression and open hearts in these debates. It's just optimization.

Re: Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Creimette Letter Continued)
The canvas tore apart before I finished cutting. We fell and slammed into the large wooden post holding up the other end of the hammock. I hit the post hard and saw stars for a moment. I shook my head to clear it and realized I wasnâ(TM)t holding on at all. Creimette had my wrist. I frantically waved my arm around until I found a handhold. are you okay? she asked looking searchingly into my face. I nodded.
The support structure was just a few feet away. We swung a few times and Creimette jumped. On the return swing I jumped, and she caught my wrist again. We sat, relieved. We had no strength left for treacherous climbs.
(Continued...)

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not need WSL to do any of these things on Windows (natively). I do not understand why anyone would want WSL. It is a complete waist of time.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[Alain Williams]

I use WSL quite a bit on my work laptop. Why?

- ssh and scp are easier to use from WSL

And because it is running under MS Windows, the telemetry gets to send all your keystrokes, including passwords, back to Microsoft HQ ... lord knows where they go beyond that!

If you want to run both operating systems on the same machine: install Linux first and run MS Windows is a VM --- it is much safer that way.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you utterly retarded? They literally, in the post you're replying to, JUST EXPLAINED why they use and want WSL, find it saves them time over a VM, and presumably use WSL tools to do stuff because they're more familiar and comfortable/with them over windows native stuff.

Re: Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to ask such an idiotic question then you don't belong here.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[williamyf]

[...]

My bigger question is: "wait, linux files were visible to windows programs, but accessing them could cause corruption? WHY WAS THIS EVER A THING???". This seems like a terrible implementation.[...]

In reality, by default, you were supposed to see the files read only. Just like in a mac with bootcamp, were from the macOS side you can see the NTFS files read only, and from the Windows side, you could se the HFS+ files read only. If you bypased the protections (say, by installing FUSE on macOS, or, in this case, fumbling with the WSL configuration) and got RW access, corruption could ensure.

This release seems to finally fix that.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[hamster_nz]

My employer mandates Windows OS for corporate laptops. Not my data, not my call.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[williamyf]

Many linux users do care. Those that use Linux at home (or used it at a previous job, or learned it in the university), and would like to use linux at work, but their company policy forbids it. Also, may, many, windows users care about it too...

There are a bunch of reasons to use this WSL thing. But before we get to those reasons, let's clarify something. If someone is already happyly using Linux, WSL will not make them go back to Windows. WSL is targeted to people who must use windows, or want to use Windows, for most of their tasks. After all, if most of your SW was in linux, and your company allowed you to run linux, you would be running Linux on the bare metal, and would be dualbooting windows (for gaming), and running windows in a VM from the raw partition (for other SW) like I do on my MAC (with macOS instead of linux, but you get the idea).

Many of the reasons for WSL were articulated elsewere in the thread, but I'll recap and add some of my own:

1.) Reiterating, for whatever reason you must run Windows (company policy, most of your SW is in Windows, you are more familiar with windows, etc), yet you need some specific linux things for whatever reason*.

2.) Your machine can not run a VMM because:
2.a) Your machine is low on resources to run a VM. Not unheard of in corporate, even for technical people.
2.b) Your processor does not support VM acceleration, which leads you to low performance, which leads you to 1.a).
2.c) The manufacturer of said machine disabled HW VM Acceleration in the BIOS/UEFI, which again leads to 1.a)
2.d) Your company's policy does not allow you to run the VM SW, or the company policy disables the VM acceleration in the firmware (or both).

3.) You do not know or care to learn how to set up a VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor, ex. WMware Player, VirtualBox, etc). *

4.) You do not know how or do not want the hassle to create the VM and install a distro from scratch. Nor the pain of configuring USB passthroughs, shared folders, shared clipboards and whathaveyou. *

5.) You do not want to learn the ins and outs of alternatives like Cygwin* (or you are forbiden to run it as per company policy)

Now, what are the advantages of using WSL:

i.) Is right there on windows, so all previous 5 points are solved in one fell swoop.

ii.) If you want to do some shell script or use some SW (say, ssh) that for whatever reason is easier for you on *nix than on powershell, is right there.

iii.) If there is a piece of SW that you need to use that is linux only (say, as some poster indicated, toolchains for enbeded SW development), is right there.

iv.) All pheripherals are integrated. So no USB/PCI passthough, or weird interactions because of the VM drivers, or GuestAdditions to install.

v.) Performance is better than in a VM, for both the Windows side and the Linux side.

vi.) If you are a windows user who wants to learn or experiment with the comand line side of linux, is a good place to start.

vii.) If there is some linux thing you need to test, perhaps you can test it here.

viii.) If there is something you need to develop, and your IDE runs here, you can develop it here.

JM2C YMMV

* Believe it or not, some very smart and technically inclined people do not like to endlessly fiddle with computers as an end to itself, for them the computer is a tool to do a job, and the idea is to do the job through the path of less ressistance.

I used to fiddle a lot in my young age, CP/M, Apple DOS, C64, MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD, Linux, and in my Sysadmin days, Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, Windows, Sinix, VMS to name a few. But, nowadays I value other things in my life. My confort included. The liberty to fiddle when I want to , instead of being forced to fiddle because something goes wrong. So macOS it is, with VMs for windows, Khali, Tails and #!++ and Bootcamp for games... Nice GUI on the outside, commercial SW aplenty (word, excel, and powerpoint are very usefull when interacting with corporate clients), BSD-ish guts, well integrated HW/OS/Kexts. The only thing to complain about is the price of the combo, but that is why I worked hard, to be able to afford some luxuries. (Before you ask, android cellphone, no tablet).

Re: Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Waist?

Re: Which Linux users really care and why?

[spongman]

Itâ(TM)s a single operating system, remember, windows. It just happens to be able
To run elf binaries. The same issues arise if you run any two applications that mess with the same files without adequate locking.

Re: Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

WSL is superior to a VM. For starters, a Windows user can encapsulate a whole UID/PID/IPC namespace. This allows proper Linux containers with Kerberos/AD integration that are constrained without any complex policy involved. This allows for a potentially seamless on/off ramp for migrating between Windows and Linux. People can add WSL containers while having legacy services on Windows to move away from.... OR people can migrate their legacy Linux services to WSL containers and gradually Windows-native shift parts (e.g. move MySQL to native Win32, keep Linux style Apache+PHP combo)

Secondly, if MS add proper virtualised GPU support to the WSL, it could be the first Linux implementation to get decent Wayland support. This would be incredible for games developers who could then test their games against many distros userlands during alpha/beta and then possibly only test the finished product once across each distro bare metal that they wish to target. Likewise, games which favoured Linux developers (e.g. Tremulous) could go the other way

Re: Which Linux users really care and why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple use case: making PowerShell scripts that can monitor both Windows and Linux services and apply uniform configurations. Much cheaper to run every major distro in its own tree than in its own VM.

There are many many more cases like that, which is why the BETA it made - developers, developers, developers, developers......

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[AmiMoJo]

One use case WSL works well for is cross compilation using a Linux based toolchain. Similarly when building .NET based software you can compile and test Linux binaries using Mono without the hassle of a VM.

Clearly the desire to have all this stuff has been there for many years, hence the existence of CygWin and several others.

Re:Which Linux users really care and why?

[pnutjam]

Grab a copy of MobaXterm, it's runs off a USB and gives you access to all the bash tools along with an Xserver and some other nice stuff. I used it alot when I was in a controlled environment.

Nice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get docker working under WSL, instead of needing that shitty HyperV nonsense, I will flip my wig and buy you a beer.

Re: Nice!

[spongman]

It doesnâ(TM)t use hyper-v. Itâ(TM)s not a VM.

for what gain really?

[nimbius]

microsoft still hasnt explained exactly what they hope to achieve with the linux subsystem work. namely, what is it you hope to offer of value to something that you could install for free from any of more than 30 cloud providers and hundreds of VPS hosting sites? Who would actively go out of their way to add windows as a layer of complexity, and most importantly, why??

Re:for what gain really?

[Anonymous Coward]

They hope to achieve EEE.

Re:for what gain really?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about keeping their user base and expanding their other business *cough 365 cough*

Linux doesn't even have proper AD replacements, and now it's all moving out of your datacenters, and soon, your datacenter is *poof* gone.

Meanwhile geeks will wonder why they delivered all the changes required to undermine their very existence.

Re: for what gain really?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it works good enough I don't think I would use Linux as much

Re:for what gain really?

[novakyu]

They already have.

Re:for what gain really?

[somenickname]

I don't know if there is a general use case but there are definitely niche use cases. The niche use cases where I've seen it useful are, amusingly, the same as using WINE on Linux. A lot of the data scientist where I work use WSL because the products we engineer don't have a Windows API and will never have a Windows API. So, we tell them to install WSL, then point them at a README that shows them how to apt-get some stuff, git clone some stuff and off they go doing... whatever data scientist do when confronted with a bash prompt... Probably just type "python" or something.

Re:for what gain really?

[AmiMoJo]

It's primarily aimed at developers, especially web devs who want to run a Linux based stack for local testing. Also great if you want to do cross-development for a Linux target.

Why not use a VM? WSL consumes far fewer resources, and makes it easier to share files between the two sides with native performance.

Been able to do this for a decade

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the big deal over WSL? There is nothing that WSL can do that I can not already do with VirtualBox and Putty with X forwarding.

https://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways-to-access-your-linux-partitions-from-windows/

If Microsoft was not so focused on file system incompatibility, it would have supported EXT2,3,4 a long time ago. It also would have made NTFS more easily accessible from Linux. It also would not have encumbered its file systems with patents and extort money from everyone from TomTom to USB manufactures that interact with those systems.

Then again, let's not blame Microsoft, a faceless company. Let's blame the CEO (Ballmer) and all of the minions (Brad Smith) that made this extortion possible.

Re:Been able to do this for a decade

[halivar]

If Microsoft was not so focused on file system incompatibility, it would have supported EXT2,3,4 a long time ago.

You're faulting the folks who picked an FS and stuck with it for 26 years, during which time Linux has at least 5 (that I can think of and used, at least) different file-systems that were the "new standard" all new installs should be on. Look, MS made a lot of boneheaded architectural decisions, but consistent backwards compatibility in their file system (regardless of how awful it is [and it is]) is not one of them.

Re:Been able to do this for a decade

[Yosho]

You're faulting the folks who picked an FS and stuck with it for 26 years

Are you talking about FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, exFAT, NTFS 1.0, NTFS 1.1, NTFS 1.2, NTFS 3.0, or NTFS 3.1?

To be fair, many of those are backwards-compatible with previous versions, but if you're going to collapse them down like that, it's only fair to do the same with Ext.

Re:Been able to do this for a decade

[halivar]

It's absolutely fair to collapse Ext like that; after all, Ext, at least, kept a chain of compatibility over the same period NTFS did (both began in '93). But it has had, over the last 15 years, plenty of large-share competition with which it was incompatible (this is what I was addressing about GGP's gripe about Microsoft introducing system incompatibility), such as ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, etc.

Again, not trying to put NTFS on a pedestal; just addressing the notion that is was MS who fragmented the FS ecosystem.

Re:Been able to do this for a decade

[novakyu]

There is nothing that WSL can do that I can not already do with VirtualBox and Putty with X forwarding.

Really? Can your VirtualBox and putty with X forwarding prevent the overhead of having to run two separate operating systems in order to do a single task?

WSL accomplishes the same thing that WINE has been trying to do (except, of course, Microsoft gets more assistance with its evil plans than WineHQ ever has).

Re:Been able to do this for a decade

[serviscope_minor]

Look, MS made a lot of boneheaded architectural decisions, but consistent backwards compatibility in their file system (regardless of how awful it is [and it is]) is not one of them.

Why not?

It's not like the ext2-ext3-ext4 switchover had any meaningful effect on anything I did except that things got faster and more stable in the event of a power outage, and much more tolerant of me doing stupid shit like having tons of files in one directory. About the main "downside" is I couldn't plug a storage device into a very much older machine and expect it to work out of the box. I never got on the MurderFS bandwagon, but I did run JFS for a while, too. Likewise there was no day to day difference (except lower CPU usage for JFS), or difference upgrading, switching machines and so on and so forth.

Of all the things that have changed in Linux, the FS type has had some of the biggest benefits and will have been noticed by far the least.

Re:Been able to do this for a decade

[MightyMartian]

Um, that's why NFS was developed. And all the Linux file systems, indeed all the *nix file systems conform to certain basic standards which delivers a pretty high degree of interoperability. I get why DOS used crlf , for instance, but I can't sort out why MS has ridden that horse this long.

Re: Been able to do this for a decade

[spongman]

Why would you want to run a whole other OS with all its overhead just to run a few user-mode programs once in a while?

But still less than a Windows file open dialog

[raymorris]

Yes, a Linux VM will need 128-256 MB of RAM. (WSL isn't competing with Gnome).
Also, we're talking about people who use *Windows*, where some dialog boxes use that much RAM by themselves.

Re: But still less than a Windows file open dialog

[spongman]

The point is that wsl uses zero ram when youâ(TM)re not running anything in it. Whereas a vm is either using ram doing nothing, or is taking time to boot. Why bother with that unnecessary nonsense?

Education use cases

[godrik]

I teach computer science at a state school. And some students laptop can not quite run VMs, for a bunch a reasons (that range from shitty hardware, to not enough memory, and through the virtualization bit got disabled in the BIOS because the constructor wanted to sell a more expensive laptop for developpers).

I had used WSL for the class. And that was a complete catastrophe. The filesystem interaction were just not working right. I am guessing it is because students went editting the file through the file explorer. But we were getting the strangest bugs.

So I have told students to absolutely use the VM and we are working around the few cases of laptops that are not quite good enough. And the clas goes fine so far.

If MS can deliver a working WSL, I may consider using it again.

Re:Education use cases

[rednip]

Unix vs DOS line endings should have always been the 'go to problem check' for a weird error in a Windows to Linux environment, sadly I've seen it in a professional environment dozens of times. Any decent text editor (including those in IDEs) will handle both and resist changing when saving, but notepad had until recently always 'automagically' converted the file to DOS which was the only way to save.

Re:Education use cases

[Anonymous Coward]

> If MS can deliver a working WSL, I may consider using it again.

What about a terminal????? It's 2019, and Windows still has no functioning ssh capable terminal like on every other computer in the planet. No, I don't consider Putty or Moba-Xterm or others good enough.

Re:Education use cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Just set up a samba share. No need for any drama.

Re:Education use cases

[pnutjam]

I feel like I'm spamming this, but I hope it's useful. Try out MobaXterm. It's a much better terminal emulator then putty and it wraps up an Xserver and a graphical file browser like winscp.

You might consider running local server that the kids connect to with ssh, or forwarded X sessions, or NX.
One more thing to teach about and in my experience, most linux systems are accessed remotely.

Re:Education use cases

[thegarbz]

2 words: Line endings.

It's absolutely essential when using WSL that you don't mix line endings. E.g. in Notepad only open files created in WSL first. Or better still use a text editor that allows you to specify the line endings.

Other than this issue there should really not be any reason WSL doesn't run like a standard VM (at least as far as features which it's capable of are concerned e.g. you don't need a GUI).

Glad some progress for once.

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest this is legitimately good. It makes things a little more respectful to the systems by not walling things off. Now only if we could restore root...

I'm waiting for the day they make this all you get

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to be able to boot other operating systems anymore. Why would you want to boot Linux when you can have Linux inside Windows? You can even share files with Windows. This is much better than Linux without the comfort of Windows.

one way

[geoskd]

Notice that all of these changes to windows are 1 way: They all provide windows access into the linux sub-systems, not the other way around... This is not an accident, and it is not in your best interests

Do not use MS products unless you want to continue your guaranteed lock in as their cash cow. You are the product, you are for sale, but you will not see a dime of the profit.

Re:one way

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of FUD in your bullshit response is astounding. You can access windows files using WSL.

Re:one way

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.... /mnt/ seems to get to all my Windows drives from WSL just fine?

Re:one way

[Anonymous Coward]

Only thing good about it is it makes things simpler to use for those of us who can't switch but it really shouldn't be news. Though Linux is poorly run at least we have the power to change it.

Re:one way

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how do you access Windows processes in WSL? The registry? Run something like DXVK? You miss the forest for the trees to argue that you can access Windows drives from WSL. The OP's point was the improvements being made are precisely the sort that extend to benefit Linux as a subsystem of Windows, not one with some sort of co-equal relationship with Windows let alone risking making Windows a subsystem of Linux.

Re:one way

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus thanks you for your loyalty and you may even get fucked up the ass by some faggot junkies for your devotion.

All hail Linux!!!!!!

Re:one way

[thegarbz]

They all provide windows access into the linux sub-systems, not the other way around... This is not an accident

You're right, this is not an accident. This is the result of MS's malevolent actions of ensuring the OTHER direction works first. How fucking dare they!

Re:one way

[spongman]

wow, your use case must be really different from mine. i have never needed to do any of these things from ubuntu/wsl and i have been using it since it was made public. the only thing i have found that doesn't work correctly is openconnect, and that's because they haven't implemented the TAP interfaces yet. it doesn't really matter as i can just run the win32 version of openconnect just fine.

Re:one way

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, that is a worrisome point to consider
Window$ is an American business that works hand in hand with your Government.
The Window$ global business has thrived right from the beginning to this thanks to their EEE policy.
Embrace, Extend... Extinguish.
When I see M$ techs submitting kernel patches... I cringe

Cygwin already did better.

[ron_ivi]

Twenty four years ago (when it launched) Cygwin got reputation of being a bit flakey; but it's come a long way in the past two and a half decades.

If you haven't tried it recently, you can think of it as a lighter-weight and more complete version of WSL.

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[cdwiegand]

Hahaha. Wow... really? you know that WSL comes with full, real distros, like Ubuntu, right? Cygwin still doesn't have a command line way to install packages. No apt-get install anything, or (ugh) rpm -ivh some.rpm. Updates are non-trivial, you have to use a GUI, instead of just do-release-upgrade (or whatever Suse/Redhat/etc. use). Give me WSL any day of the week over Cygwin.

Re: Cygwin already did better.

[spongman]

More complete? Err, not even close, son.

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[Kremmy]

Cygwin is SLOW.
WSL must have significantly less overhead than cygwin to be so fast.
WSL is lighter weight and more complete, offering the userland of multiple distributions.
It's weird and all but you can't beat the native Linux support :P

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is definitely not 'lighter weight'. WSL is actually lighter weight because it is doing syscall emulation at the kernel level; Cygwin has to emulate things in userspace, which for instance leads to absolutely horrible forking performance because that's just not something the Win32 API is designed to do.

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[pnutjam]

If your stuck on windows, and you haven't tried MobaXterm, your missing out. It's got an Xserver, cygwin, scp browser, etc., all baked in. There is an install version and a portable version.

It's only free as in beer, but your already using windows.

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[thegarbz]

Lighter weight? Undoubtedly

More complete? ... hahahhahahaha. Oh man. You had such an air of authority about you until you announced to the world that you've never compared the 20 year old baby of Cygwin to WSL.

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[Anonymous Coward]

WSL is slow and shitty and full of bugs. SWAN cygwin is well integrated and it works. The package management needs improvement but it's adequate.
Sure WSL will give you a full ubuntu distro. The downside is that now you're running a full desktop linux distribution with all the end user bullshit tacked on dragging you down and half of that massive heap of hair and shit doesn't work right yet "beta". Sure WSL happens in kernel but it's shit.

For at least the next year SWAN Cygwin is still much better than WSL. If cygwin is extremely slow for you it could be because you like running Pointy Haired Boss MBA/Granny tier antivirus on your windows machine. I'll bet you have at least one DLL injected into all your running applications sticking it's nose into everything double checking if it's safe.

This happened at work and made me give up windows for everything except gaming. The typical call flow went from something like App->Component Libraries->libc->syscalls in linux and App->Component Libraries->libc->posix-"syscalls"/cygwin.dll->Windows syscalls to App->injected.DLL1->Injected.DLL2->Component Libraries->injected.DLL1->Injected.dll2->libc->injected.dll1->injected.dll2->"posix-syscalls"/cygwin.dll->Injected.dll1->injected.dll2->windows syscall also every operation that involved a posix file handle was interacting with Active Directory in order to check ACLs.

Yes there are two different dlls and after that cygwin went from even running complicated X11 apps like web browsers and HEVC video in VLC at a perfectly acceptable speed and responsiveness; to taking 5 fucking minutes to start an xterm with screen and a zsh session. I'm talking a dual xeon 2620 workstation with an SSD 32gb of ram and hardware support for 24 threads... turned into a fucking potato.

But as I said it wasn't cygwin's fault it was because of the amount of tacked on dingleberries and herpes sores you need to inflict on windows before it's suitable as an engineering platform at an APT-targeted org

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[Anonymous Coward]

WSL is not lighter weight because you have to run a full desktop distro in order to get anywhere near the functionality that SWAN cygwin provides. Sure you could install a lighter distro and add the stuff you need but WSL is so buggy that there is a good chance WSL will be out of beta and officially supported before you get all that shit working right.

Re:Cygwin already did better.

[Anonymous Coward]

The native linux support is garbage and the article proves it. You shouldn't need to run an entire ubuntu linux userland when all you need is a full featured unix cli and maybe 1 or 2 x11 programs
Look at the article "hey guys pretty soon you can run linux and windows and touch the same files." wow after 3 years!!! Not bad!!

Check out swan cygwin

Re: Cygwin already did better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Consider it has an X-windows server, etc.

WSL is way behind.

Re: Cygwin already did better.

[Anonymous Coward]

LMAO! "Windows...engineering platform..."

We really should not let this distract us.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows sucks. The people running it are a little better than linuxers sometimes, but it sucks. Linux can still be saved. You just have to give up on the unreasonable security standards and go to a facts based analysis of it. Scrap X, keep sysmd and move into a more comfortable realm. No su, no sudo, just pure old root. Consider the ethics of walling things off. What we need is more open sustainable systems that don't need security updates all the time do to the bloat.

Lol, which one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can name nearly a dozen "Linux filesystems".

I wonder which ones they refer to?

Re:Lol, which one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was searching thread for someone to tell me. I give up guess its ext2/3/4?.

Re:Lol, which one?

[novakyu]

I assume they mean ReiserFS. It's the "killer app" for Linux.

Deliberate incompatibility

[michaelcole]

Why did Microsoft make "Ctrl-c" the keyboard shortcut for copy? Because ctrl-c on unix hard exits programs.

Why did Microsoft make systems paths with C:\this\slash instead of /this/slash? Deliberate incompatibility.

Why did Microsoft make their line endings different? Deliberate incompatibility.

News story: Microsofts deliberately broken shit, still expensive and broken. Marketing in progress.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did Microsoft make systems paths with C:\this\slash instead of /this/slash? Deliberate incompatibility.

And VMS used [diskroot.folder.folder]. Different systems from an era where compatibility wasn't even an idea of a thing.

Why did Microsoft make their line endings different? Deliberate incompatibility.

Unix used line feed. Early Macs used carriage return. MS-DOS and VMS used carriage return and line feed - which made the most sense to me, since you could copy text files straight to a printer with no driver. All choices made long before compatibility was even a thought, let alone a goal.

News story: Microsofts deliberately broken shit, still expensive and broken. Marketing in progress.

They have, but not here. Look harder for a place to direct your MS hate.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[williamyf]

For Ctrl+c for copy, you should blame Xerox P.A.R.C., not Microsoft. Actually, microsoft follows convention. In the GUI ctrl+c is for copy, while Ctrl+c in comand line is interrupt, just like in *nix. So, no "deliberate incompatibility"

About c:\folder\subfolder, you should ask the CP/M guys. You see, they used the / for parameter passing, so when MSoft decided to support folders in MS-DOS 2.0 onwards, the character was already in use. Actually, if memory serves well, there was an obscure command in early MS-DOS to change the path separator to / . Since no one used it, it was retired without much fanfare. So no "deliberate incompatibility here". As a matter of fact, at that time MSoft was selling a unix (called Xenix) and, if anything, they wanted MS-DOS and Xenix to converge, that's why they included the aforementioned obscure command.

About the line endings, as some other comentator indicated, using CR+LF together meant that you could copy a plain text file to the printer directly without further conversion. And also, dos (and windows latter), mac and *nix all had differnt ways of skinning that particular cat. And do not even ask about the complications of line separation in VMS, you will not believe it!!!. So, no "deliberte incompatibility" here.

If you want examples of deliberate incompatibility, better check your history books for things like running Windows 3.x on DR-DOS, or running lotus 123 on early versions of Windows, that sort of thing, but, the three examples you choose, don't quite cut it.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[dryeo]

Why did Microsoft make "Ctrl-c" the keyboard shortcut for copy? Because ctrl-c on unix hard exits programs.

For Mac compatibility. The correct Windows shortcut for copy is ctrl-insert, paste is shift-insert and cut is shift-del. Try them, they still work fine, even in most Linux programs.

The slash vs backslash comes from copying CPM where slash was used for parameters and there were no subdirectories. In this day, all programs should support both slash and backslash as directory separators

MS line ending are actually more correct, a CR (carriage return) to bring the cursor to the beginning of the line and a LF (linefeed) to do a linefeed. Trying to save bytes resulted in using a linefeed as a line ending. Apple was closer where the CR as a line ending was much like a typewriter. BTW, back in the '60's, the ASCII standard was decided.to have both as EOL chars rather then a dedicated one.
The : goes back to PDP 8 where devices ended with a : such as CON: before you ask.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[gawbl]

Sorry to be pedantic... IIRC, DOS file I/O primitives would accept either '\' or '/' as a path separator. COMMAND.COM was the issue; it would always interpret '/' as the beginning of a command-line option. If you were writing a command-line utility, it could employ "C:\path\to\my\file" or "C:/path/to/my/file". Actually, I think you could pass "C:/path\to/my\file" and that would still work. Yes, there was an internal variable inside DOS that recorded the option character; I think it was "SWITCHAR", and you could alter it in your environment (e.g. AUTOEXEC.BAT). Setting "SWITCHAR=-" meant that COMMAND.COM options now begin with '-', like UN*X. This took effect on the command-line, and inside .BAT files. But now your .BAT files are incompatible with everybody else's system...

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[gawbl]

Oh, yeah. I think CP/M copied the "/option" convention from DEC's RSTS.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[squiggleslash]

Why did Microsoft make "Ctrl-c" the keyboard shortcut for copy? Because ctrl-c on unix hard exits programs.

They didn't. That was Wordperfect. In MS DOS and MSBASIC before it ^C means break, just like it does in Unix.

Why did Microsoft make systems paths with C:\this\slash instead of /this/slash? Deliberate incompatibility.

Quite the opposite. When MS DOS first came out, it didn't support subdirectories (each disk just had a root directory.) The designer (MS DOS was bought, not written, by Microsoft) chose to use "/" as a prefix for options to DOS commands (for example "DIR /W") - similar to, for example, DCL

When MS DOS 2.0 came out Microsoft added subdirectories. They chose backslash because it was the nearest thing they had available to regular slashes, but slashes were already used by legacy software to indicate command line options. There's supposedly a switch you can throw that flips the meaning of backslashes and slashes, but it wasn't default because MS DOS 2.0 was supposed to be compatible with MS DOS 1.x. I don't know if it still exists in NT based operating systems, my guess is not.

Anyway, the reason Microsoft wanted slashes, and wanted to make them at least available, is because for a time the "high end" OS it wanted to push was its own version of Unix, Xenix. So, actually, yes they did want to use the same format, they just couldn't make it default.

Why did Microsoft make their line endings different? Deliberate incompatibility.

No, deliberate compatibility. At the time MS DOS was written, the "standard" operating system was CP/M. MS DOS contained some features designed to make it easy to live in a CP/M world. This included a similar API, making it easier for CP/M software to be ported. But they also adopted, wholesale, the format for CP/M text files, which are: plain ASCII, CR+LF for EOL, and ^Z for EOF.

FWIW Bear in mind both (let's forget the ^C thing given you're wrong, cmd.exe treats ^C as break too) of the decisions you're criticizing that aren't false were made before 1982, when Unix was something most people ran on minicomputers, was still relatively obscure, and when the company that was doing the most to try to make it available for PCs was... Microsoft.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[williamyf]

Switchchar was the eviroment variable for DR-DOS. In MS-DOS the procedure was different, but the idea was the same. Do not feel bad though. I can't remember how it was done in DOS either, It has been a looong time.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[ortholattice]

Originally, the CR came before LF for the following reason. Teletypes, at 10 char/sec, could complete an LF in 1/10 sec, but a CR could take up to 1/5 sec. It was 100% mechanical, with no buffering. With the CR issued first, both would complete in 1/5 sec, ready to print the first character on the new line.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[dryeo]

Good point. All (or most?) of the CTRL characters were about controlling the printer and probably go back to before computers.

Re:Deliberate incompatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I used shift ins for ages until some program I needed all the time./.. maybe a 5250 emulator? didn't work with it. I then discovered that crtl+v and c are the modern correct official copy and paste keys for windows. ins and del were "correct" for DOS

Which one

[Anonymous Coward]

Which filesystem. ext3, ext4, xfs, btrfs, ubifs, zfs, ...

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though some comments are very derogatory towards WSL, it is one of my favorite features of windows. As a Linux terminal WSL is better than the previously limited options on windows.

Re:Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though some comments are very derogatory towards WSL, it is one of my favorite features of windows. As a Linux terminal WSL is better than the previously limited options on windows.

Its really the best feature since Notepad, and I find it hard to complement anything on Windows 10.

It's using Plan 9 (for real)

[netux]

This is actually really cool since you can interact with the Plan 9 system and do all kinds of crazy stuff. The big question will be how much can we get into that part.
Those of you that are wondering what kind of stuff, you could force the FS to only see files as lowercase, you could have it be case insensitive, you could have if be case sensitive on match and insensitive otherwise, mount remote plan 9 filesystems (good ol' grid computing). It could be a MUCH bigger deal than it seems.

Annexation of Linux continues on schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will one day soon say:
"Why bother with messy, unsafe, complicated 'Linux' when you can do all that under Windows without rebooting? We're just trying to protect you."
Don't fall for it, lads.

Use Cygwin

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried this wsl, or what it should be called, lsw. It is a joke, can not be taken seriously. Cygwin is leaps and bounds above it. All the small things just do not work, exist. The experience is something like over-cmd-ified terminal. Window size, copy paste, filesystem use are just ridiculous. That is like being used to BMW and now some salesman claims his Dacia is better, you should sell your BMW and buy this Dacia. No way in hell I'm doing it until the Dacia gets at least to Hyndai level.

Re:Fuck Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I once fucked Bill Gates up the ass with a stylish double bass. He liked it so much that he instructed top brass to make eveyone feel like that when using windows.

WSL facilitates collaboration with other Win users

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you collaborate with other windows users/devs that need to use these Linux tools that you have chosen to make part of your toolchain, getting them to install WSL is a whole lot easier than "real" Linux.

MSYS2

[weberjn]

MSYS2 is the better WSL.
No problems with filesystems, does not break Windows update, perfect integration, pacman package manager.
No ELF, but never missed it, pacman brings all the good tools.

Re:MSYS2

[weberjn]

and I forgot: does not need Aministrator rights to install.

Re:MSYS2

[spongman]

the problem is that all the compatibility stuff in msys2 just doesn't quite work right. it's not that it's buggy, it's due to what it's trying to do: provide a compile-time windows/posix compatibility layer. which, of course, is impossible. it has to make tradeoffs.

wsl is the better cygwin. it's kernel-mode. it's distro-agnostic. and the compatibility is excellent.

WSL vs MSYS2

[weberjn]

I once compared WSL and MSYS2 git checkout times. Practically equal.
Then I compared Ubuntu in VirtualBox and WSL. The latter 20-fold slower. Until I excluded the folder from Security Essentials scanning ..

Windows needs ext support

[Anonymous Coward]

This still doesn't enable ext support on Windows, it just allows Explorer to see the WSL files, which you could already do by other means...

Weird use cases, like opening files :)

[raymorris]

> Why bother with that unnecessary nonsense?

My use case may be different, but sometimes I like to do weird things, like open a file. Microsoft says WSL will destroy my files if I do that. I have no problems opening files in either Windows or Linux when using Virtualbox.

I happen to have 256MB available, maybe you don't. People with only 512MB of physical memory probably don't want to use Virtualbox. Or Windows.

I do have a machine running some Perl scripts on Windows which were designed for Linux. We've been using Cygwin. WSL might be a good option for that.

Re:Weird use cases, like opening files :)

[pnutjam]

Is WSL an option on Windows versions that will function on 512mb of RAM?

Re: Weird use cases, like opening files :)

[spongman]

If you mount your file system in vbox so both machines can see the same file and you modify it at the same time with programs on both machines then youâ(TM)ll get corruption.

Same thing in wsl.

I recommend thinking a little more before posting.

Embrace and extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

because if you can put a Windows shell over Linux, who needs standalone unix?
if you can tuck Unix away in an OS that is essentially a cloud app, why have terminals or clients?
when the time comes when computing will be embedded in your body, how do you install the license?

No, not the same at all. See summary

[raymorris]

Not at all the same thing in WSL. Let me quote the summary for you, and then explain further:

"DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, access, create, and/or modify files in your distro's filesystem using Windows apps, tools, scripts, consoles, etc." says Microsoft.

Here's the next sentence from MSDN:

Creating/changing Linux files from Windows will likely result in data corruption and/or damage your Linux environment requiring you to uninstall & reinstall your distro!

The issue is that creating a file or opening a file from Windows, without ever touching it from Linux, frequently damages the directory that it is. (Directory means "folder", for the Windows folks"). So saving a new text file inside of /usr makes all of /usr inaccessible and you have to reinstall the OS.

WSL is a cool idea. Not quite ready from prime time, it seems.

Re:No, not the same at all. See summary

[spongman]

no. if you edit wsl distro files with windows tools, you might mess things up if you're not careful. but similarly if you mess with a native linux distros system files and you're not careful you can also mess things up. i edit my own wsl files in both ubuntu & wsl tools all day long and i have never run into any issues. i even have some files open in editors in both environments and i see updates in one tool (eg ubuntu vim) appear in the other tool (eg win32 vscode). but i don't edit sensitive system files in notepad, for example, because i'm not an idiot.

I guess Microsoft is wrong :) or you can learn

[raymorris]

So there are two possibilities here. Either:

A) Microsoft is horribly wrong, and is strongly warning people about a major problem with their software that doesn't actually exist.

B) Your first guess when you soon the summary wasn't quite right. Once you got an idea, you refuse to learn any new information because that would mean you were DUN DUN DUN wrong! Omg that's not possible that you don't already know everything!

Here's the thing, all of us had to learn how to count, and how to use the potty. We weren't born knowing everything, and now of us knows everything today. *We all already know* that you don't know everything. Trying to pretend you know everything is futile. Nobody will fall for it. Even on this bug specifically, trying to pretend you know better than Microsoft is futile, we ALL know better. The *only* way you can look good or look stupid is this -
Your response to new information tells us whether you are smart (capable of learning new things) or purposefully ignorant (refusng to learn from new information). The only way to look smart is here is to say "oh, okay, I really that wrong the first time".

There is zero chance you're going to convince anyone that Microsoft is shipping an update to fix a major bug that doesn't exist. You can only convince us that you are able to process new information and learn, or that you aren't able to.

Re:I guess Microsoft is wrong :) or you can learn

[mcswell]

I think you misunderstood spongman. He said he could edit wsl files in ubuntu and wsl tools, but he did not edit wsl files with *windows* tools. That seems to correspond with the Microsoft statement.

For the record, I do the same as spongman: I edit my .bashrc etc. wsl files with vi in a wsl terminal (Ubuntu bash), no problem. I would not attempt to edit those files using, for example, my Windows jEdit editor. That said, I have a link from my /home/ dir to the dir I keep my Windows data in (for the record, I use c:\Data\), and I can edit files *there* with both wsl files and with my Windows editor, no problem.

Re:I guess Microsoft is wrong :) or you can learn

[raymorris]

I wish I did misunderstand. But here are his exact words:

--
you modify it at the same time with programs on both machines then you'll get corruption.
Same thing in wsl.
--

He in fact said that of you simultaneously modify it in both operating systems at once, that could corrupt the file. Of course two programs writing to the same file at the same time without coordinating will result in garbage - that's not a bug for which Microsoft is issuing a major fix. There is no find for that.

The truth is that opening or creating a file in Windows, without ever touching it from the Linux side, can destroy the entire directory it is in, requiring that the system be wiped and reinstalled. That's per MSDN. The issue isn't two programs accessible the same file. The issue is when Windows goes to update the last-modified time, which is part of the file's directory listing, it does it wrong and destroys the directory.

Re:How big of an idiot

[mcswell]

You have to be like me. How big of an idiot are you?