4 ms·

Pico Process Overview – Linux binaries on Windows

83 points by danieldk 10y ago

nix0n 10y ago
Compare to the way Cygwin does things: https://www.cygwin.com/faq.html#faq.api.fork https://www.cygwin.com/faq.html#faq.api.fork
- nitrogen 10y ago
  That link contains some fascinating insight into the machinations required to get POSIX-like behavior on a Win32 backend. Thanks for posting.
zxcvcxz 10y ago
I realized I was constantly programming services that would be run on Linux servers, through a Linux container dev environment, running on a Linux VM running on Windows. I finally just cut out the middle man and installed Linux (Fedora w/ GNOME3) and it was the best decision I ever made. I might try "bash on windows" but there have been compatibility layers like this for years and there are always drawbacks. For instance it'll be years before this can be considered stable for production, so this is purely for developers. As most developers know, when you go to deploy on a production machine things don't always work the way you expected them to because the production environment is slightly different than your development environment. If your development environment is a frankenstein OS with different parts sewn together to make it work then it's going to just add further complication to the process (Will a Linux service interface with a windows service?). My workflow involves spinning up containers (usually gentoo) on a remote server for each new project and just sshing into them and using vim and other cli tools to build projects. This has been the most superior workflow I've found. I can use a light laptop for pretty much everything because a remote server does all the hard work. I know many developers who use this workflow and for large projects that require powerful computational resources this is essential. The only reason I see to use Windows for development is if you were developing Windows desktop apps and I don't know anyone who's building new windows desktop apps, most people are targeting mobile. Those who do work on Windows desktop apps are usually maintaining something that's been around for years. There are a few other reason to use Windows over a unix or unix-like OS but most of them come down to Microsoft and other companies releasing proprietary software which is locked into their ecosystem, and I'd like to avoid software like that. Also I'd just like to add that I never realized how bad fonts were on Windows until I tried other operating systems. If MS wants to attract developers they need to fix their fonts. IMO this is even more important than a Linux compatibility layer because all I do is stare at text all day.
- ajoy39 10y ago
  > I don't know anyone who's building new windows desktop apps You don't know any game developers?
  - bigdubs 10y ago
    In fairness with steam putting a big emphasis on linux Windows time as the OS of choice for gaming might be coming to an end.
    - milkey_mouse 10y ago
      Have you seen the Linux NVIDIA drivers‽
- 0xFFC 10y ago
  Have you tried win10? It's font rendering for modern app is fucking disaster, and I really mean it. After they switched from cleartype to directwrite it is fucking disaster for display lower than 2k. I have double 1080p and it is fucking hurt my eyes to look at Microsoft edge or any UWP app text.
- blackoil 10y ago
  Mac is very popular in developers, while not being used on servers. Reason? You get high end laptops with drivers and a linux like command line. But the applications and frameworks are all different, osx and linux have separate binaries for node, java etc. Luckily that doesn't matter, most of the programming and testing is done at a high level, where base OS doesn't matter. This is the market they are after.
  - emsy 10y ago
    As someone who has done (Unixoid) web development on all 3 systems, I'd say OSX was the best experience. On Windows it's really weird to use command line tools, even with Cygwin. There's no package manager for dev tools. Linux is fine but I occasionally had problems with UI quirks, driver issues and so on. It feels "hacky" at times. Once you've installed homebrew on OSX you have the best of both worlds. A stable Unix system with a nice UI (Though the stable part was recently lacking).
cmdrfred 10y ago
This is part of the 'drawbridge project', I wonder if the idea is to pull up the bridge at some point. Embrace, extend and extinguish.
- pkaye 10y ago
  Describe how the "extinguish" process would work.
  - nix0n 10y ago
    Well, occasionally MS will deprecate an API and remove it from Windows. https://brianreiter.org/2011/09/15/sua-deprecated-in-windows-8/ https://brianreiter.org/2011/09/15/sua-deprecated-in-windows...
  - Sir_Substance 10y ago
    Hypothetically, it comes after the "extend" phase, during which Microsoft alters, extends or replaces the functionality of GNU tooling in attractive ways under non-free licenses so that, over the course of several years, users end up building their applications on non-free foundations that Microsoft has made available both in windows and in linux distributions. When moving to the "extinguish" phase, Microsoft uses their non-free licenses to unilaterally retract support for linux, leaving windows server as the only option. There's no concrete evidence that this technique is what's going to happen, but Microsoft has a history of it and everyone who invests in this platform should be aware that even if that is not the plan right now, it is possible for the plan to change at any point down the track. I recommend maintaining a healthy level of suspicion for the next few years.
    - RaleyField 10y ago
      Except nobody is migrating to Windows, not on servers where it counts. It's an attempt to prevent developers from migrating to OS X, because OS X is and soon won't be (if Microsoft doesn't fumble this) more interoperable with Linux ecosystem.
    - xorblurb 10y ago
dbm5 10y ago
Instead, MS should create a properly supported Win ABI for Linux. That might actually be useful.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  WINE and ndiswrapper are doing just fine.
  - alfalfasprout 10y ago
    I don't know when the last time you used Wine was but there's a ton of incompatibility still. A properly supported compatibility layer from Microsoft would remedy a lot of problems.
- hiram112 10y ago
  Not useful for MS Shareholders. You'd have half of MS users worldwide (that dont require ActiveDirectory) moving to CentOS tomorrow if they could run their old VB apps, MS office, etc.
ac2u 10y ago
The video in the post is worth a watch, very informative whiteboarding.

83 points by danieldk 10y ago

nix0n 10y ago

Compare to the way Cygwin does things: https://www.cygwin.com/faq.html#faq.api.fork https://www.cygwin.com/faq.html#faq.api.fork

nitrogen 10y ago
That link contains some fascinating insight into the machinations required to get POSIX-like behavior on a Win32 backend. Thanks for posting.

zxcvcxz 10y ago

I realized I was constantly programming services that would be run on Linux servers, through a Linux container dev environment, running on a Linux VM running on Windows. I finally just cut out the middle man and installed Linux (Fedora w/ GNOME3) and it was the best decision I ever made. I might try "bash on windows" but there have been compatibility layers like this for years and there are always drawbacks. For instance it'll be years before this can be considered stable for production, so this is purely for developers. As most developers know, when you go to deploy on a production machine things don't always work the way you expected them to because the production environment is slightly different than your development environment. If your development environment is a frankenstein OS with different parts sewn together to make it work then it's going to just add further complication to the process (Will a Linux service interface with a windows service?). My workflow involves spinning up containers (usually gentoo) on a remote server for each new project and just sshing into them and using vim and other cli tools to build projects. This has been the most superior workflow I've found. I can use a light laptop for pretty much everything because a remote server does all the hard work. I know many developers who use this workflow and for large projects that require powerful computational resources this is essential. The only reason I see to use Windows for development is if you were developing Windows desktop apps and I don't know anyone who's building new windows desktop apps, most people are targeting mobile. Those who do work on Windows desktop apps are usually maintaining something that's been around for years. There are a few other reason to use Windows over a unix or unix-like OS but most of them come down to Microsoft and other companies releasing proprietary software which is locked into their ecosystem, and I'd like to avoid software like that. Also I'd just like to add that I never realized how bad fonts were on Windows until I tried other operating systems. If MS wants to attract developers they need to fix their fonts. IMO this is even more important than a Linux compatibility layer because all I do is stare at text all day.

ajoy39 10y ago
> I don't know anyone who's building new windows desktop apps You don't know any game developers?
- bigdubs 10y ago
  In fairness with steam putting a big emphasis on linux Windows time as the OS of choice for gaming might be coming to an end.
  - milkey_mouse 10y ago
    Have you seen the Linux NVIDIA drivers‽
0xFFC 10y ago
Have you tried win10? It's font rendering for modern app is fucking disaster, and I really mean it. After they switched from cleartype to directwrite it is fucking disaster for display lower than 2k. I have double 1080p and it is fucking hurt my eyes to look at Microsoft edge or any UWP app text.
blackoil 10y ago
Mac is very popular in developers, while not being used on servers. Reason? You get high end laptops with drivers and a linux like command line. But the applications and frameworks are all different, osx and linux have separate binaries for node, java etc. Luckily that doesn't matter, most of the programming and testing is done at a high level, where base OS doesn't matter. This is the market they are after.
- emsy 10y ago
  As someone who has done (Unixoid) web development on all 3 systems, I'd say OSX was the best experience. On Windows it's really weird to use command line tools, even with Cygwin. There's no package manager for dev tools. Linux is fine but I occasionally had problems with UI quirks, driver issues and so on. It feels "hacky" at times. Once you've installed homebrew on OSX you have the best of both worlds. A stable Unix system with a nice UI (Though the stable part was recently lacking).

cmdrfred 10y ago

This is part of the 'drawbridge project', I wonder if the idea is to pull up the bridge at some point. Embrace, extend and extinguish.

pkaye 10y ago
Describe how the "extinguish" process would work.
- nix0n 10y ago
  Well, occasionally MS will deprecate an API and remove it from Windows. https://brianreiter.org/2011/09/15/sua-deprecated-in-windows-8/ https://brianreiter.org/2011/09/15/sua-deprecated-in-windows...
- Sir_Substance 10y ago
  Hypothetically, it comes after the "extend" phase, during which Microsoft alters, extends or replaces the functionality of GNU tooling in attractive ways under non-free licenses so that, over the course of several years, users end up building their applications on non-free foundations that Microsoft has made available both in windows and in linux distributions. When moving to the "extinguish" phase, Microsoft uses their non-free licenses to unilaterally retract support for linux, leaving windows server as the only option. There's no concrete evidence that this technique is what's going to happen, but Microsoft has a history of it and everyone who invests in this platform should be aware that even if that is not the plan right now, it is possible for the plan to change at any point down the track. I recommend maintaining a healthy level of suspicion for the next few years.
  - RaleyField 10y ago
    Except nobody is migrating to Windows, not on servers where it counts. It's an attempt to prevent developers from migrating to OS X, because OS X is and soon won't be (if Microsoft doesn't fumble this) more interoperable with Linux ecosystem.
  - xorblurb 10y ago

dbm5 10y ago

Instead, MS should create a properly supported Win ABI for Linux. That might actually be useful.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
WINE and ndiswrapper are doing just fine.
- alfalfasprout 10y ago
  I don't know when the last time you used Wine was but there's a ton of incompatibility still. A properly supported compatibility layer from Microsoft would remedy a lot of problems.
hiram112 10y ago
Not useful for MS Shareholders. You'd have half of MS users worldwide (that dont require ActiveDirectory) moving to CentOS tomorrow if they could run their old VB apps, MS office, etc.

ac2u 10y ago

The video in the post is worth a watch, very informative whiteboarding.