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

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.

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: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.