40 ms·

Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

• staticelf 10y ago
  They sure seem to deliver. Unfortunately I am not a windows insider. I will probably wait until the anniversary update. I guess this bash on ubuntu on windows won't be available for Windows 7?
  • justinlardinois 10y ago
    I think it was specifically announced as Windows 10 only.
  • aandrieiev 10y ago
    https://insider.windows.com/ https://insider.windows.com/ — Becoming an insider is just a registration away, takes no longer than 5 minutes. Use preview builds at your own risk, though.
• simplemath 10y ago
  Look at me, im the Linux now. -MSFT
• ghshephard 10y ago
  I'll be interested in hearing from anyone who uses this and finds it offers them more than they are currently getting from cygwin or VMware+Linux VM. I realize it's a very different beast from cygwin - an entire User Mode Linux environment, as opposed to being able to download windows versions of the Linux Environment, but, on a day to day basis, It will be interesting to see what people do differently, and why they would use WSL as opposed to just running a Linux VM on their workstation if cygwin isn't sufficient.
  • sz4kerto 10y ago
    My potential use case: run the IDE on the host (Windows UI is fast, font rendering is great), but use git, etc. from the Linux command line (to get file permissions, etc. right).
    • tracker1 10y ago
      I've been doing that for a while, I setup Samba in the VM, and map a drive in the windows host... Works pretty well.
    • tdicola 10y ago
      Install git (the real git from https://git-scm.com/ https://git-scm.com/, not a fancy GUI) and use the git bash shell today. It runs msys and has a full set of Linux utilities like ls, etc.
      • zbjornson 10y ago
        The powershell extensions in Git Shell (not git bash) are also fantastic and less clunky (doesn't feel like mingw). Comes bundled with github for Windows.
  • tracker1 10y ago
    One serious advantage to WLS over a VM, is you don't have yet another layer of NAT at play... That's the biggest one to come to mind... you also don't have a fully linux system spun up to work on a few tasks in a bash prompt. Don't get me wrong, I've been fine using a "remote" VM machine locally for linux, and a lot of my work the past few years has been that way (CIFS in the VM, to run a gui editor on the desktop), but to be able to run closer to native is a good thing imho... hopefully it stays well supported.
  • sspiff 10y ago
    I'm using it on my tablet instead of previously using a VMWare image and msys+mingw+cygwin. The main advantage over a VM is no resource partitioning: on a 4GB RAM tablet with 64GB eMMC, you can't allocate more than 2GB RAM to a VM without trouble, and putting 20GB of disk aside for it is also a pain., and much improved power efficiency (even an idle VM drastically reduces battery life, while Ubuntu for Windows doesn't). Compared to Cygwin: a lot more packages are available, a lot more just works out of the box, and you can painlessly use online tutorials for Linux, which often assume Ubuntu and don't consider Cygwin a target platform.
    • evacchi 10y ago
      since you are already up and running may I ask what friends have been asking me? Can you apt-get install zsh ?
      • sspiff 10y ago
        Ask away. I don't have the tablet with me, but I can answer what I know so far. I haven't tried zsh, but I'm pretty sure you can install it. I installed a bunch of applications, including using third party repos and ppa's. I don't see why zsh would not work. Perhaps zsh uses some unsupported escape sequences (for instance, screen doesn't seem to work), but you can readily work around that by using another terminal in windows (mintty) or launching a VNC server from Linux and a VNC client to your localhost I assume.
        • JdeBP 10y ago
          The reason that zsh gives the errors reported earlier in this sub-thread will be different to the reason that screen doesn't work. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417227 It's readily apparent from the error messages earlier in this sub-thread that the zsh problem isn't to do with escape sequences. And of course the screen problem (at least the one known so far) is not escape sequences, either. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416392
      • 10y ago
  • jibsen 10y ago
    I would love to see how it compares to a Linux VM for tasks that involve a lot of shelling out to run other tools. The native Windows versions of git and CMake can be awfully slow [1]. [1]: https://gist.github.com/jibsen/7ebeddde3bc2bfd421b96ae53a824ad9 https://gist.github.com/jibsen/7ebeddde3bc2bfd421b96ae53a824...
• silliconeheart 10y ago
  Embrace, extend, and exterminate Edit: removed sarcasm tags.
  • spicyj 10y ago
    Not so much. https://bitquabit.com/post/separate-support-serve/ https://bitquabit.com/post/separate-support-serve/
  • dewiz 10y ago
    I guess you prefer experiment, excite, extinguish, by Google.
    • creshal 10y ago
      Which Microsoft loves to do just as much – XNA, Silverlight, TxF, …
      • dewiz 10y ago
        Maybe, personally I look at some of those as transient technologies, MS usually provides a migration path, as painful that might be, to better solutions.
        • creshal 10y ago
          In all these cases the official migration path was "good luck ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
• sz4kerto 10y ago
  I can confirm that you can run (at least some) GUI apps if you start an X server on Windows (like Xming, etc.), and export DISPLAY.
  • baq 10y ago
    yay! \o/ can you check what happens after you wake from sleep/hibernation? are those apps still fully functioning?
    • sspiff 10y ago
      I did not try GUI stuff, but when my tablet went to sleep while executing a long-running command, when I returned to the bash shell, the command failed with a message stating "interrupted syscall" or the like. Not sure if this is the common/intended behaviour.
      • bechampion 10y ago
        Love it
      • zxcvcxz 10y ago
        This frankenstein contraptions isn't going to work correctly until they add so much bloat it's not even worth it.
  • rjtobin 10y ago
    Oh man, thanks for the tip! Works wonderfully. I just apt-get'ed synaptic and it seems totally functional :) Xemacs and Angband don't work, but the fact that so much works already bodes pretty well for the future.
    • Esau 10y ago
      Wait, someone still uses Xemacs? I think you're the first I've run across in a long while.
  • SXX 10y ago
• NamTaf 10y ago
  What a time to be alive! I'm holding out on upgrading to Win10 until I buy a new PC since my 7 -> 10 upgrade ties to hardware, but I hope to have that done by the end of next month. I can't wait to try this out. edit: Specifically, I want to understand to what extent - if any - will it allow some of the horror problems you have working with certain Python libraries (compiling Numpy on Windows is like pulling teeth) to be a thing of the past. I'd be more than happy to work in WinBash for Python if it means having the easy Linux install processes available for some of the more scientific packages.
  • tdicola 10y ago
    If anything it's going to make it worse. When you type python in a command prompt which version is going to run, the windows version or the Ubuntu version? Even worse when you pip install a package what pip are you running, windows or Ubuntu? Python on Windows is painful mostly because of the amount of binary packages that have to be compiled since distributing binary packages hasn't been in vogue until only recently with Python. You can save a ton of trouble using something like Anaconda, or honestly just run a Linux VM. If you're compiling numpy you're doing something wrong IMHO--use a prebuilt version that's optimized for your processor (ideally using Intel's commercial compiler with full SSE, etc. optimizations).
    • manigandham 10y ago
      Command prompt should run the windows version and bash should run the linux version. Why would there be an issue here?
      • chx 10y ago
        Exactly. The Linux file system will have Windows mounted into it but I think Windows won't be able to see the Linux filesystem. We will see.
        • sspiff 10y ago
          Linux and Windows can both see each others filesystem, but they are visible at specific mount points in each environment. You can't just use /home/chx/todo.txt as a path from any Windows application, but you can find that file through some other path.
• jagermo 10y ago
  Can anyone say anything about the stability of build #14316?
  • dewiz 10y ago
    Coming from a previous build which was pretty good to do my daily job, I have high expectations from this one.
• annnnd 10y ago
  So, if I understand correctly, one can now run Docker containers "natively" on Windows?
  • StreamBright 10y ago
    This is not the case. Depending on your definition of native you could run Docker containers on Windows even before this. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/quick_start/manage_docker https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowsconta...
    • annnnd 10y ago
      No, that doesn't suit my definition of native. ;) Too bad, that would really be a game changer for me. Running bash itself though... yeah, ok, whatever. But maybe I'm not the target audience.
      • ZenoArrow 10y ago
        > "No, that doesn't suit my definition of native. ;)" Why is that? Because the containers are running in Hyper-V? From a user standpoint I doubt you'd notice any difference, especially once Hyper-V is supported in Windows 10: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2016/04/04/build-2016-container-announcements-hyper-v-containers-and-windows-10-and-powershell-for-docker/ https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2016/04/04...
        • annnnd 10y ago
          I would imagine resource consumption being much worse on Hyper-V because such containers are basicaly VMs. Am I mistaken?
          • ZenoArrow 10y ago
            If you need fast storage resources you may notice a performance hit. Performance for CPU and memory resources seems to be mostly the same as Docker on Linux. https://caleblloyd.com/hardware/docker-performance-bare-metal-vs-virtual/ https://caleblloyd.com/hardware/docker-performance-bare-meta...
• bigiain 10y ago
  So 2016 is _finally_ the year of Linux on the Desktop?
  • chx 10y ago
    No, Linux on the Desktop has just died. I expect both the KDE and Gnome projects dead within a (very few) years, probably X.org close behind. All hail Winux though. (That's the name for this mix I came up with.) Before you downvote this without thinking ... consider, for example, KDE is severely understaffed and this will deplete them further. Who will bother with X.org bugs and drivers now? What's the point? Who is your target audience? You need to drink a real big dose of Stallman kool-aid to continue with Linux if this thing on Windows works as promised. I have been using Linux solely on my laptop since 2004. I am sick of the constant driver problems. Yes, yes, you can connect to your home router or the router in the cafe. Now go and try and connect to an enterprise network. Perhaps with VPN.
    • cyphar 10y ago
      I do all of the things you mention without problem. I don't definitely don't think GNU/Linux will die as a result. First off, syscall emulation will always be clunky. Secondly, many people care about their freedom. Thirdly, what makes you think that a majority of people using GNU/Linux will switch. I haven't had driver or network problems for the past 3 years on any of my various machines.
      • andresmanz 10y ago
        Same here. I use Windows maybe once or twice a year, and it's always a pain. "Winux" won't change that for me and to be honest, I don't really want to support Microsoft. Sure, I think VS is a pretty nice piece of software, but that's about it - too few reasons to switch.
      • chx 10y ago
        Congrats! What about this guy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11445505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11445505 and what I typed up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11413469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11413469 here.
• BoysenberryPi 10y ago
  Maybe it's because I haven't been following this very closely but I'm confused. Does this mean I can do things like compile Haskell or OCaml from terminal as easily as I do on my Linux install? Can I use apt-get?
  • skrebbel 10y ago
    Yes
    • annnnd 10y ago
      Can I use Docker?
      • chx 10y ago
        I would be shocked. As I mentioned above, I wouldn't expect wireshark to run either. From what we gathered so far, this is a syscall translation layer and > No new system calls are added for cgroups - all support for querying and modifying cgroups is via this cgroup file system. Per https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cgroup-v1/cgroups.txt https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cgroup-v1/cgroups.t...
        • bpye 10y ago
          There is basic emulation for /dev and /proc too but it is minimal.
        • kchoudhu 10y ago
          No cgroups = no systemd. Windows: a better linux than linux.
          • redpanda_ua 10y ago
            I am a new-ish Linux user. Can someone explain to me why systemd is so bad? Is it because it monopolized so many features? So it's not UNIX way of tiny programs working together? I feel like I am missing something.
• groktor 10y ago
  Now we just need someone to make a nice laptop that can compete with the MBP...
  • snklee 10y ago
    They already did: surface book.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • Gigablah 10y ago
      I checked out the Surface Book briefly, and boy was it a massive disappointment. The screen is much more heavier than the keyboard so it's unbalanced, detaching and reattaching the screen is extremely awkward, and there were touch issues with the stylus that the salesperson could not resolve. I'd rather hold out for the next iteration.
  • fpoling 10y ago
    Hei, you can install Windows on MBP :)
  • mands 10y ago
    Asus Zenbook UX305 series - they are well priced and run both Linux and Windows fantastically.
    • oneweekwonder 10y ago
      But battery life is only 6 hours[0]. For the new macbook it is 10 hours[1], the same for the macbook air 13'[2]. I'm aware not all reviews is equal, so pointing out errors or adding better resources would be appreciated. [0]: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/asus-zenbook-ux305-1264384/review/3 http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs... [1]: http://www.trustedreviews.com/12-inch-macbook-2015-review-battery-life-and-verdict-page-3 http://www.trustedreviews.com/12-inch-macbook-2015-review-ba... [2]: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-13-2015-Notebook-Review.144375.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-13-2015-Noteb...
• StreamBright 10y ago
  I am hoping there is going to be CentOS/RedHat available like this too. It would be pretty awesome.
  • RobMurray 10y ago
    I'm sure you could just copy all the files from an existing system, then delete the ubuntu files.
• giis 10y ago
  - Does ls -li (show/emulate inode number ? I don't know whether NTFS has inode number or not) - Find with exec , xargs is supported?
  • jagger27 10y ago
    1125899906857921 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Apr 7 07:56 test2.txt 562949953436608 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 7 07:56 test.txt Two files created seconds apart. Some sort of internal NTFS construct, maybe?
    • giis 10y ago
      Thanks for the output, it looks interesting. If these entries doesn't change with next ls -li then yes,its the NTFS inode number in readable format.
• holografix 10y ago
  I've been using Docker for my dev environment (Python, Django, Postgres, etc). I expose a folder with my code to the Docker container so I can keep editing the code on Windows using Sublime. One thing that has been annoying me is the fact that I can't get Python code completion on sublime because Python and the packages are in the container. Does anyone know if it's possible to point Sublime to the Linux subsystem and get code completion? Also, has anyone tried installing Tensorflow yet?
  • baq 10y ago
    from previous posts it looks like the linux image is just a folder in your AppData somewhere, so it should be trivial.
• spriggan3 10y ago
  This is great for cross-platform development Linux will benefit from this.
• eulji 10y ago
  I do not get the hate. This is superb
  • creshal 10y ago
    Many (including me) feel that this is just the start of a new EEE cycle by a panicked Microsoft, and will be killed off by Microsoft once they managed to reverse their current downward trend – just like other supposedly community-/interoperability friendly projects before, e.g. this project's direct predecessor SFU.
    • oneweekwonder 10y ago
      Googled for "Microsoft SFU" and found a bunch of Office 365 links before finding the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX
    • eulji 10y ago
      And the problem with that is what ? You are afraid that you might like it. You migrate and they will kill the project ? If yes then...well...same can happen to any kind of software / project
      • creshal 10y ago
        > You migrate and they will kill the project ? Everyone migrates, draining valuable developer resources from projects like cygwin, mingw and colinux and others. When Microsoft kills it, they will have killed off not only their project, but also the community projects that could replace it. Meanwhile, because the NT kernel has vastly different performance characteristics (e.g., bad forking performance), we're going to see an increase of "Linux/NT" optimized software that will perform poorly on native Linux kernels, pressuring more developers (and ops) to buy into Microsoft's effectively proprietary solution, completing a vendor lock-in that will continue to bleed the industry long after it stopped being beneficial (see also, every other instance of vendor lock-in ever).
      • morsch 10y ago
• siscia 10y ago
  I am a little scared from the distinction we are start to make between "computers" and "developers' computers" In most computer nowadays you cannot code (tables and smartphones), are computers doomed to be an expensive tool for few "nerd" ? What will be the impact on computer literacy ?
  • chx 10y ago
    Here's my blogpost on this from 5.5 years ago http://drupal4hu.com/future/freedom.html http://drupal4hu.com/future/freedom.html
  • cm-t 10y ago
    Well, because we are on an ubuntu thread, I will link you those just for the fun ;) http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet/developers http://www.ubuntu.com/tablet/developers https://plus.google.com/u/0/105864202742705090915/posts/jNvZ281GEeh https://plus.google.com/u/0/105864202742705090915/posts/jNvZ...
  • omaranto 10y ago
    What do you mean you "cannot" code on tablets and smartphones? There are nice interpreters and compilers in the official app stores for major mobiles OS, aren't there? I've used Python on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Also J, Ocaml, some dialects of Lisp, C# and Ruby, that I can remember now (each language on at least one of those OSes, sometimes more than one). Not to mention these devices all come with web browsers which means at the very least you can use JavaScript (I've done at least one Project Euler question on an iPod Touch in CoffeeScript standing in line at the bank.) The tablet I currently own cost me $80 and came with a C# compiler preinstalled! (Maybe that's an extreme example: It is a Windows tablet, and Android or iOS only come with JavaScript JIT compilers preinstalled.)
    • lossolo 10y ago
      I tried to code on smartphone, never again. I am x times more productive on desktop.
      • 10y ago
• janus24 10y ago
  Sad that the VM (1) are no update to the #14316 version. (1) https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/mac/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...
  • dewiz 10y ago
    I don't think 14316 is sufficiently tested for that use case. Those VMs will probably stick to the stable builds
• greenspot 10y ago
  Just went to Amazon looking for a Windows notebook
• bechampion 10y ago
  Man i do think this is a big step for windows , it's 2016 and still complex to pull a du -sh or df on windows. Things we take for granted on *nixes. Much love.
  • rat87 10y ago
    According to http://stackoverflow.com/a/868290/259130 http://stackoverflow.com/a/868290/259130 function directory-summary($dir=".") { get-childitem $dir | % { $f = $_ ; get-childitem -r $_.FullName | measure-object -property length -sum | select @{Name="Name";Expression={$f}},Sum} } I could get a shorter non exact version if I was on windows.
    • bechampion 10y ago
      that's almost as easy as just typing "du -sh"
      • MandieD 10y ago
        Add that function (or whatever combo of attributes you want to see on a regular basis) to your PowerShell profile, as well as this line: New-Alias -Name "du" -Value "Directory-Summary"
    • nailer 10y ago
      For 'du': > Get-ChildItem C:\windows | Measure-Object -property length -sum Count : 28 Average : Sum : 6407920 Maximum : Minimum : Property : length For 'df': > get-WmiObject win32_logicaldisk DeviceID : C: DriveType : 3 ProviderName : FreeSpace : 21796540416 Size : 31685865472 VolumeName : DeviceID : D: DriveType : 5 ProviderName : FreeSpace : Size : VolumeName : DeviceID : Z: DriveType : 4 ProviderName : \\veertu\share FreeSpace : 44674220032 Size : 399999991808 VolumeName : VeertuFS
      • 10y ago
• woodman 10y ago
  Does anybody know if this interface is Linux kernel functions + whatever POSIX is required to run Ubuntu stuff? I haven't seen that addressed, which strikes me as strange because it could have some pretty serious implications. Am I worrying over nothing, or could this make POSIX irrelevant pretty quickly as the new portability standard becomes the Linux ABI. I've cheered on Microsoft's recent moves in open source, but if they wanted to deal a serious blow - rendering POSIX irrelevant would be pretty devastating.
  • cyphar 10y ago
    It's Linux syscall emulation. As for the death of POSIX, many unixes have had the same (even superior) functionality for years. POSIX wasn't dead yesterday. It isn't dead today
    • woodman 10y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. I wish I could be as unconcerned, but I remember what IE did to web developers.
      • cyphar 10y ago
        Yeah, we got Firefox out of it. ;)
• paradite 10y ago
  I honestly don't really see the point in this. If you like Ubuntu/Linux more, then just install Ubuntu/Linux on the computer without Windows. Why go through the additional layer of Windows? Perhaps the use case is limited to people who need to run Windows/Mac-only software like AutoCAD or some Adobe software.
  • x5n1 10y ago
    Because Microsoft wants to lock in developers to their expensive OS so they can make billions more, obviously. It's because programmers are expected to not be the smartest bunch and just be shoveled around with a bit of money and marketing expenditure. You know we took all the free stuff and made it proprietary, come serve are corporate goals. Meanwhile they have been allegedly screwing over Linux for years with backend deals with companies like Foxconn. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249
  • mobiuscog 10y ago
    Because many people like Windows and develop on/for it, but also develop server-side code which generally requires Linux... so we don't have to keep virtualising OSs or running multiple machines - we can now develop for both within a single desktop. This is exactly the type of thing that many people want.
    • x5n1 10y ago
      What I wanted is to run Windows in a Virtual Machine on my Linux box. Can I do that? Not without paying Microsoft $150. You can get their trial to run for 90 days, but it sucks having it expire and shut off after a few mins.
      • tempestn 10y ago
        Windows isn't free software. You can't expect to run it for free just because it's in a VM. Honestly being able to run it for 90 days for free (after which all you have to do is go back to an earlier snapshot) seems pretty good to me.
• sveme 10y ago
  Smart move by Windows. I guess that developer usage of an OS ultimately results in developer developments for the OS, though I don't have any number for this. It seems to me that a lot of developers, especially at startups, have switched to OS X with its shiny GUI and UNIX compatibility. I'd hazard the guess that this will ultimately result in OS X becoming more of a developer target over time. Initially for developer-related stuff (see Dash as an example that is only available for OS X (and Zeal for Linux)), but later probably for other stuff as well. What's illustrative for the dominance of *NIXes in development are the number of projects on Github that contain only +NIX installation instructions and no Windows instructions (again, anecdata). So if Windows wants to remain competitive, they need to retain developers. And as the +nix way of developing seems to be dominant now in quite a number of fields, Microsoft needs to adapt. Why, you're asking, do I think that the +NIX way of development is dominant today? In a nutshell, Web -> Unix Servers -> POSIX shells -> Languages that work best with POSIX -> OSs that are POSIX-compliant. Edit: Asterisks don't work as expected here. At least not in a Markdown-compatible way.
  • jayflux 10y ago
    Is it that smart? Being developer friendly sounds like just plain common-sense, not some genius breakthrough. The question should be more why has it taken them so long to get to this point.
    • pjc50 10y ago
      They always tried to be Microsoft developer friendly, and I think sort of assumed that UNIX was going to go away when they won. But it's now clear that UNIX has won for web services, and the web has beaten old-style client-server. And the Windows remote admin/cloud admin/mass deployment features appear to have lost as well.
    • sveme 10y ago
      Maybe. It is definitely the common-sense thing to do today, five years ago, it would have been smart. From a pre-Nadella perspective, you could have called it revolutionary, but now we're used to Microsoft participating in OSS, so it's much less so.
• simula67 10y ago
  Will this be enabled by default ? The ability to do 'curl some-site.com | bash' or ssh <hostname> 'curl some-site.com | bash' without having to worry about platform compatibility would be amazing.
  • creshal 10y ago
    Why would you ever want to do 'curl please-pwn-my-computer-so-hard | bash'?
    • ake1 10y ago
      maybe he's actually curling https://please-pwn-my-computer-so-hard.own-domain.com/script-he-himself-wrote.sh https://please-pwn-my-computer-so-hard.own-domain.com/script... ?
    • izacus 10y ago
      Same reason you want to `brew please-pwn-my-computer-so-hard` or `apt-get please-pwn-my-computer-so-hard` or `please-pwn-my-computer-so-hard.exe`. There's little practical distinction between piping a shell script from a random site or downloading a binary from it.
      • creshal 10y ago
        > or `apt-get please-pwn-my-computer-so-hard` Installing a package manually vetted by distribution maintainers, signed and verified with GPG, is the same as blindly running a random script off the internet? I don't think you appreciate how much effort Linux distributions invested into creating safe ways of distributing software.
      • forgotmypassw 10y ago
        The difference being that distro packages are distributed in a safe matter (signing and verification) whereas a website could be hijacked and the script replaced or you could get MITM'd if you access it over HTTP.
    • oneweekwonder 10y ago
• aurelien 10y ago
  GNU / Windows That is just GNU running on the Windows kernel. And not the Linux kernel running in windows!
  • kyberias 10y ago
    No. This is a "Windows subsystem" [1] that implements a LINUX compatible ABI for LINUX application binaries. GNU has nothing to do with it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT
    • drdaeman 10y ago
      How come? It's heavily marketed as "bash on Windows", and that "bash" is a GNU Bourne Again Shell, a part of GNU Operating System, developed under GNU Project.
      • kyberias 10y ago
        This is not about Bash or any GNU software per se. Bash is just an example of a Linux executable that can be run on this system. One can apt-get install many more Ubuntu application binaries. Please invest some time to understand what it's about technically.
        • drdaeman 10y ago
          I do understand that technically speaking, this is an implementation of Linux-compatible APIs/ABIs on Windows, so an ELF binary targetting POSIX-compatible environment could be ran on Windows. No dependencies on GNU OS parts here, of course. However, please notice that it's also marketed as - quoting the article - "the ability to run native Bash and GNU/Linux command-line tools [on Windows]" and currently implemented as GNU-based OS (Ubuntu) running on Windows. So - in practice - essentially, it's MS-supported (although hosted by Canonical) GNU on Windows.
          • kyberias 10y ago
• captainmuon 10y ago
  I have to say after the initial excitement, I'm a bit disappointed about how this is implemented. Apparently, there is no or little interaction between the Linux world and the Windows world in this system. I don't see the benefits over running a classical Linux-as-a-process like coLinux, or something like Cygwin or MinGW. The option to run unmodified executables is nice if you have closed-source linux binaries, but they are rare, and this is directed towards developers and not deployment anyway (where this might be a useful feature). When I heard "Linux subsystem", I was hoping for a fuller integration. Mapping Linux users to Windows users, Linux processes to Windows processes etc.. I want to do "top" in a cmd.exe window and see windows and linux processes. Or for a more useful example, I want to use bash scripts to automate windows tools, e.g. hairy VC++ builds. And I thought it would be possible to throw a dlopen in a Linux program and load Windows DLLs. Since I don't need to run unmodified Linux binaries, I don't see what this brings to me over cygwin. I am hoping though that this might be a bit more stable (due to ubuntu packages) and faster than Cygwin, and that it might push improvements of the native Windows "console" window.
  • pjc50 10y ago
    Mapping the processes across implies all sorts of strange things - what happens if you try to send a Linux signal to a Windows process? Mapping the users is possible and "SFU" did this, with a couple of caveats (Windows requires group and user names to be different, while UNIX systems often have groups with the same name as users). I don't think this is a Linux or GNOME killer, but it might put a dent in Cygwin and git-bash.
    • SXX 10y ago
      Wine somehow solve that. Even if almost nobody use that Windows application still able to use native APIs if it's detect that it's running in Wine. E.g for example Windows Steam client checked Wine version long before native Steam appear. I think Microsoft can do something similar.
    • netheril96 10y ago
      > what happens if you try to send a Linux signal to a Windows process Performs the default action as if it were a Linux process. Mostly terminate or ignore.
• themckman 10y ago
  Can anyone comment to how nice or awful running some sort of Linux VM (maybe under Hyper-V) and using Putty to SSH to it for development on Windows would be? This work is promising, but doesn't appear "quite there", yet. I run OSX now, but don't really ever develop directly on the machine and am mostly SSH'ed to Linux hosts for development.
  • captainmuon 10y ago
    It works not bad, and I did it for some time. The biggest pain points are the lack of integration with the file system (I always forget how to set up shared folders) and that it can be hard to set up a decent ssh client. I use Cygwin ssh and mintty, and then ssh into the VM or external machines. Also there are the usual performance and space issues of VMs. For this use case, "Ubuntu on Windows" seems to be a nice improvement.
  • jrapdx3 10y ago
    Hyper-V can work well. I use it very frequently on my Surface Pro 2 with Win10. Currently I'm running FreeBSD 10.3, though in the past I've had Linux distros running in Hyper-V and that was good too. It's a very convenient arrangement for developing web apps/servers. I have the servers running on FBSD which can be accessed from a browser on the Windows host. This perfectly replicates connecting to a remote server, so when the app is working properly and committed to the repo on the remote host, it's almost guaranteed to work as intended! When I acquired the SP2 I originally thought I'd dual boot. Turns out that's difficult to accomplish, but in a way using Hyper-V is better because I have Windows and FBSD running at the same time. Of course the VM imposes limits so not optimum for every purpose but good enough for my uses. I should mention that Cygwin is installed as well. Runs Bash nicely in a terminal, and a good way to ssh to remote servers as well as FBSD in Hyper-V.
  • iaskwhy 10y ago
    It works amazingly well. Vagrant helps a lot setting everything up. I even used several VM instances at the same time trying to mimic microservices running in different servers. I edited all the files in my fave IDE running in Windows, a file change would trigger an automatic server restart on the affected service/VM. Debug worked just fine as did mobile debug using Vagrant Share. It's my workflow for web stuff. I sound like a Vagrant fanboy or shareholder but I'm just a very happy dev since I started using this setup. https://www.vagrantup.com/ https://www.vagrantup.com/
• poizan42 10y ago
  Unfortunately it seems that it won't install if you are running as a domain user: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfZhLruXEAEp56x.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfZhLruXEAEp56x.jpg:large It works if I try as a local user on the same machine. Also Windows Store otherwise works fine for that domain user.
• altano 10y ago
  Everything I try to apt-get is giving me the error "Could not resolve 'archive.ubuntu.com'"
• doczoidberg 10y ago
  I switched to fast Ring on my two PCs yesterday. I don't get the update? Any ideas why?
  • Sanddancer 10y ago
    It takes a bit for you to change rings. Give it a day or two.
• ngrilly 10y ago
  Do symlinks, mmap and epoll work?
• TorKlingberg 10y ago
  How much work is it to try this, starting from a normal Windows 10 install?
  • philjohn 10y ago
    A fair bit. You need to become a windows insider, if you aren't one already, opt in to insider builds (which can take a couple of days) and then install the insider preview. Not worth it if you're just wanting to try it out, but if you want to test it and feed back, then knock yourself out!
    • nikbackm 10y ago
      Yes, easier to just wait some time until the "Windows 10 Anniversary Update" goes public for everyone. Will surely be installed automatically like the November Update.
      • TheLogothete 10y ago
        The Anniversary Update will be an automatic probably, yes (don't see this as a bad thing), but I am a bit skeptical that this feature will be included in the general update. Probably opt-in/separate download. It's a developer feature, after all.
      • drewstiff 10y ago
        I have it on good authority that W10 Anniversary Update will go live for the general public before the end of July if all goes to plan. I think you will still then have to enable dev mode and install it as a feature as per the OP link.
• solarized 10y ago
  And windows now more vulnerable. #bashViruses. From: Alien To: SomeWindowsBashUser Attachment: naked.jpg naked.jpg ------------------------ #!/bin/bash rm -rf / ------------------------
• mih 10y ago
  What about character sets? Do I still need to 'chcp 65001' from the DOS prompt to type/cat utf-8 encoded text files before running bash?
• kyriakos 10y ago
  "bash on Ubuntu on Windows" am I the only one who finds the name weird?
  • JdeBP 10y ago
    As I mentioned elsewhere on this page, the developers are interested in serious discussion of a better name. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391931
  • TheLogothete 10y ago
    It is super weird. I think Ubuntu shell for Windows is much, much better.
    • progman 10y ago
      "Bash emulation in Ubuntu Layer on Windows" would probably be the accurate version :-)
  • chris-at 10y ago
    Microsoft has always been great at naming things! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
• gambiting 10y ago
  Can you do that on Windows 7? I could use this on work but our company hasn't updated to Windows 10 yet.
  • Sanddancer 10y ago
    No, it's windows 10 only, and still in beta at that.
• amgin3 10y ago
  I'm not seeing this windows feature in the options.. is it not available on Windows 10 Home?
  • Sanddancer 10y ago
    Right now it's only on the insider builds, not everyone. Unless you are getting beta/alpha builds, you're not going to see it for a wbile.
• nailer 10y ago
  Just switched the the 'fast' ring and have installed all updates, but can't see the new 'Windows Services for Linux' item in 'Features'. Anyone know how to fix it?
• elcct 10y ago
  This is awesome! Can't wait to get my hands on it. If this works well, it is like a dream come true. I never wanted to abandon Windows because of a lot of music software that I am using. Now I will have the best of both worlds. Neat.
• SXX 10y ago
  Sorry for off-topic, but have a legal question regarding Windows Insider. Is it legal to install Insider build without activation and keep it running if it stay in fast updates ring? Currently updates postpone temporary license expiration, but I can't find an answer how licensing work actually. I only run Windows in VM and I don't want to mess my 8.1 system with genuine license.
• heldrida 10y ago
  Why is it called Bash on Ubuntu on Windows ? What benefits does this bring in comparison with running a Ubuntu VM for example ? Sounds interesting although.
  • JdeBP 10y ago
    The developers are interested in serious discussion of a better name. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391931
• Keyframe 10y ago
  I am still on Windows 8.1, so if anyone that tries it can confirm if this works well with ConEmu and if Vim works well? Also, what the performance is like compared to running stuff on full stack linux. Also, does one have access to full hardware, like GPUs? That would be a good start. On Windows, my tool of choice was/is Babun... but damn 32-bit cygwin and it tends to get real slow (git especially so).
  • dduarte 10y ago
    It works fairly nice with ConEmu and other terminals. The performance is also quite good: I installed clang and built a big-ish C++ project and it compiled faster than using MSVC on Windows directly (10 vs 12 mins, roughly).
• edwinyzh 10y ago
  No Windows 7 support, and I guess I will stick with Windows 7 in the near future.
• koolba 10y ago
  Can anyone who's tried this out comment on the terminal? Does it have all the same issues as gitbash/cygwin/mingw/winpty (garbling, bad resizing, etc) or is there finally a decent local terminal on Windows?
  • contextfree 10y ago
    Windows 10 console (not just for Bash, but cmd/powershell too) added a bunch of options like normal line wrap, highlighting and copy/paste that do improve a lot. The annoying thing is that these options aren't the default (for compatibility I guess?) and your settings in one don't seem to carry over to other console windows, I feel like I've set them like six times now.
• shultays 10y ago
  I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Windows, is in fact, GNU/Windows, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Windows.
  • zxcvcxz 10y ago
    I call it NSA/Windows.
    • coroutines 10y ago
      Windows 5 Eyes ?
  • adm_hn 10y ago
    at MS they're just waiting for hurd to be available
  • JdeBP 10y ago
    Just remember to attribute this particular flavour of this well-worn running joke to Mike Gerwitz. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446696
• atgreen 10y ago
  As I understand it, Microsoft has copied the Linux kernel system call interfaces and provided their own underlying implementation. Given that Microsoft supported Oracle's view that the structure, sequence, and organization of the Java programming interfaces were covered by copyright law, then surely they would also agree that the same holds true for the Linux kernel system call interfaces. I don't like the APIs-are-copyrightable decision, but given that's the current state, why aren't we talking about how this is a violation of the Linux kernel copyright license -- the GPL?
  • tacos 10y ago
    libc is LGPL. The "problem" you're highlighting here is EXACTLY opposite what the entire open source movement was designed to prevent. It couldn't be less of an issue.
    • atgreen 10y ago
      I'm not talking about libc. I'm talking about the kernel system call interfaces. They are defined by the kernel, not libc.
      • 1_player 10y ago
        IANAL but the kernel _code_ is GPL. Nothing forbids you to implement from scratch some functionality with a different license. As long as you don't copy and paste GPL code. A system call is a function entry point. The code executed when those functions are called is GPL licensed, and Microsoft wrote that from scratch.
        • atgreen 10y ago
          What I'm pointing out is the absurdity of the current state of law. It doesn't matter if Microsoft wrote all of the code from scratch, because according to them the definitions of the interfaces alone -- not code and not header files -- fall under copyright law.
• krisroadruck 10y ago
  Installed it to give it a go. It's impossible to install java on it. This is makes it fairly useless for my purposes. sigh
  • JdeBP 10y ago
    What goes wrong when you try to install Java?
    • krisroadruck 10y ago
      if you go the apt-get route you get a sha256sum mismatch on both java7 & java8. If you try to be clever and manually download it and throw it in the cache, same story. If you try to be really really clever and manually download it and try to manually extract the tar it throws a bunch of cannot create symlink: invalid argument errors. I spent a good 2+ hours trying to force it to install in various ways. For now at least it seems java is not meant to be on Windows Bash.
      • JdeBP 10y ago
        For those interested in this, here's a more detailed report from someone named Joachim Moeyens. * https://community.lsst.org/t/lsst-stack-on-ubuntu-linux-on-windows/666 https://community.lsst.org/t/lsst-stack-on-ubuntu-linux-on-w... Be aware that the Java8 installer/uninstaller has other potential symbolic link problems (not "invalid argument", though) that exist on actual Ubuntu Linux. * http://askubuntu.com/questions/608961/ http://askubuntu.com/questions/608961/ * http://askubuntu.com/questions/653885/ http://askubuntu.com/questions/653885/
• askvictor 10y ago
  Does this make installing Python binary packages (such as numpy) less hellish?
  • cmdrfred 10y ago
    I'm not sure but try Anaconda. 'conda install numpy' works for me, while pip throws an exception.
• cmdrfred 10y ago
  Sometimes I feel like Microsoft is spying on me. I've used Windows since I've used computers, a few months ago I 'upgraded' to 10. Sure it was slower and unstable but I figured I'd give Microsoft some time to fix it and struggled on. Then one day I come home and my lock screen is a ad. Right then I downloaded Debian, made a usb drive and said goodbye to Microsoft on my personal machines forever. I'll never look back. A week or two later they announce this. Sorry Microsoft, after you get a taste of the power, customization and flexibility of Linux you never go back.
• jordigh 10y ago
  Which bash version is it? Is MSFT actually shipping GPLv3 without killing their entire company? Could it be that GPLv3 isn't a death blow to business? Whatever happened to cancer?
  • xorblurb 10y ago
    They don't. Canonical ships the GPLv3 software.
• jedisct1 10y ago
  Doesn't work for me :( The initial "bash" command freezes and doesn't download anything.
• ruffrey 10y ago
  It's not on Ubuntu on Windows, right? It is Ubuntu bash on Windows via a compatibility layer.
  • grimgrin 10y ago
    A graphical layer isn't present, but you can apt-get install anything that runs in the background/command line. vim, emacs, etc. At least as far as I know. A commenter here mentioned having difficulties installing java, however: > if you go the apt-get route you get a sha256sum mismatch on both java7 & java8. If you try to be clever and manually download it and throw it in the cache, same story. If you try to be really really clever and manually download it and try to manually extract the tar it throws a bunch of cannot create symlink: invalid argument errors. I spent a good 2+ hours trying to force it to install in various ways. For now at least it seems java is not meant to be on Windows Bash. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446913
• basicplus2 10y ago
  could this be the thin edge of a very large wedge?
• MattBearman 10y ago
  I really want to try this on a VM in OSX, just so it could be "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows on VirtualBox on OSX"
• dboreham 10y ago
  I wonder who came up with the "Bash on Windows" tagline. That was a really smart idea. I think most of us would have run with "Emulated Linux syscall layer from user mode processes on Windows". Promoting bash specifically seems to me like engineering marketing genius -- less technically knowledgeable people are more likely to be familiar with bash, while the more knowledgeable are going to think "wait...what? how do they do that? that would mean...", which works better than simply saying what they have done.
  • hellameta 10y ago
    Is this sarcasm? Bash on Windows definitely comes before "Emulated Linux syscall layer from user mode processes on Windows" ... it's a great name, sure, but marketing genius?
    • JdeBP 10y ago
      It's probably not a reference to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11391931 , but see that anyway. Naming is up for discussion according to the developers.
  • wrs 10y ago
    Not totally clear to me, since most of the devs around here saw it and thought more along the lines of Cygwin. This is a much bigger deal than Cygwin!
• ivthreadp110 10y ago
  Finally a reason to upgrade my office PC to Windows 10 (I run linux on my personal machines)...
• partiallypro 10y ago
  I have it installed, and I don't know how you are supposed to set up bash profiles with this folder structure, or for instance if I need to move something to my /bin/ folder to set up commands. I'm sure there is a way, but it's not quite like base Ubuntu since it's using the Windows folder structure and permissions.
• johnchristopher 10y ago
  Why is it promoted with Ubuntu since it's basically - as put here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446420 - the implementation of the `Linux kernel system call interfaces' ?
• Starsgen 10y ago
  Can I run chron and schedule jobs? I have Win 7, so I was thinking of running a VM with Win 10 to try it out (once it is officially released). It sounds like it runs X/Windows which is fantastic!
• Bedon292 10y ago
  I put this on my machine last night, and quite enjoyed playing around with it. apt-get, python and everything I tried worked. Even vim works great, as long as you don't mind 16 colors. The one thing I could not figure out was getting 256 colors out of Command Prompt. Has anyone come up with a solution for that yet? I wonder if you can install something like xterm, and get that running outside of Command Prompt...
• jsmith0295 10y ago
  There's a lot of comments related to the legality of this and whether or not it violates either the GPL or at least the Linux trademark. Even if it wasn't technically legal, I don't think the right parties have anything to gain by suing.