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ELI5: What does this mean to me, as a developer who's really familiar with (and prefers) Linux, but has to use Windows? What cool possibilities will this "Linux

ELI5: What does this mean to me, as a developer who's really familiar with (and prefers) Linux, but has to use Windows? What cool possibilities will this "Linux Subsystem For Windows" open up to me? What things will it specifically not open up to me?

dvlsg 10y ago
I think the gist of it / watered down version is that you would be able to compile / run a good amount / most Linux (ubuntu) applications natively-ish in Windows. For example, I read a blog where someone pulled down the redis source, compiled it, and was running it in wsl. That would be great for me, because it means I can just run redis in my dev environment, instead of turning on a vm to run redis (I know windows ports exist, but I've found it was faster and more reliable to just run the vm). I also typically add ports of common applications (ls, grep, touch, etc) in my windows environments just to fill the gaps windows has. With this, I probably won't need to do that anymore.
- supernovae 10y ago
  You don't even need to compile it, just install the apt repo (if not already bundled in Ubuntu 14.04 defaults) and run apt-get install yourapp. This subsystem runs the exact binaries that you would run in your native boot system. It's as simple as "apt-get install redis-server redis-tools"
mark-r 10y ago
What it opens up is the ability to use the commands and environment that are familiar to you, with as little change as possible. It runs the same bash as a Linux system, at a binary compatibility level. There will still be wrinkles to deal with, such as the case insensitivity of the Windows file systems.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
SwellJoe 10y ago
I've been primarily a Linux user since 1995, and have been using Windows 10+WSL for the past week or so, since getting a new laptop. The only thing I can think of that it'll open up for you is if you want to develop for Windows, while still having Linux available to you. Whether that's for developing games (most of the good game development tools run only on Windows, even if they can deploy to Linux/Mac/Android), or developing for Windows Phone (or whatever it's called this week), using Microsoft technology like Visual Studio and C# (though it's now possible to do most things on Linux via .Net Core, I think), or playing games that aren't available for Linux. The modern Linux desktop is every bit as good as Windows (and Mac OS), IMHO, though I'd be willing to bet accessibility is still better on Windows. Hardware compatibility for modern devices is probably still better for Windows, too, though old devices certainly are more likely to run on Linux than Windows (a lot of my pro audio and music equipment hasn't run under Windows since like Windows Vista or something, but still works fine under Linux). From my perspective after a week of tinkering with it, and using is exclusively for my development work, I don't feel like it has given me anything over my Linux environment. But, it does make the Windows development experience much closer to what I expect from Linux. If I developed Windows desktop applications, I would tell a different story, but I develop applications that run on Linux servers; developing on Windows provides no benefits, only negatives...but the negatives have gotten so small that they probably don't matter, anymore. A new developer just learning to build web apps, for example, could do it pretty much as easily on Windows as they could on Linux. Which has never been as true as it is today. WSL is still very buggy and quirky, and the Windows build it runs on crashes several times a day (at least on my laptop, it does), so it's a net loss in productivity for me, as I'm spending some time waiting on reboots. But, in a few months, it'll probably be stable, widespread, well-documented, etc. And, at that point, maybe it'll even be an ideal option for some developers who are building for cross-platform deployment. Who knows, maybe in a few months, I'll find myself wanting to build something for Windows. I might come back from Linux for a while to spend time in Windows; I certainly don't hate it as much as I used to.
- lj3 10y ago
  I agree with everything you've said. I also have been using WSL for the past few months. I can run everything in it that I run on Linux and OS X, which is great. I can now officially run any major operating system and have my zsh and vim setup and ready to go in 10 minutes flat. As for advantages Windows gives me over Linux, there are two. 1) Visual Studio. Even with all of its warts, it's a better debugging tool than anything linux or mac has to offer. 2) Gaming. Games on linux and OS X are catching up, but they're not there yet. I develop as well as play and Unity3D and Unreal Engine, not to mention the graphics drivers, just work better on windows.
MichaelGG 10y ago
If I can figure out if W10 can turn off its spyware, it'll allow me to ditch VMware for most use cases. Since you can run a Windows X server, I can use graphical emacs. If perf is good enough, I'll run a whole WM like XMonad and use Firefox and stuff inside it.
- MrFlynn 10y ago
  I found that this tool works pretty well for disabling telemetry: https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking
- jscholes 10y ago
  > If perf is good enough, I'll run a whole WM like XMonad and use Firefox and stuff inside it. What advantages would this give you over running Firefox natively on Windows?

dvlsg 10y ago

I think the gist of it / watered down version is that you would be able to compile / run a good amount / most Linux (ubuntu) applications natively-ish in Windows. For example, I read a blog where someone pulled down the redis source, compiled it, and was running it in wsl. That would be great for me, because it means I can just run redis in my dev environment, instead of turning on a vm to run redis (I know windows ports exist, but I've found it was faster and more reliable to just run the vm). I also typically add ports of common applications (ls, grep, touch, etc) in my windows environments just to fill the gaps windows has. With this, I probably won't need to do that anymore.

supernovae 10y ago
You don't even need to compile it, just install the apt repo (if not already bundled in Ubuntu 14.04 defaults) and run apt-get install yourapp. This subsystem runs the exact binaries that you would run in your native boot system. It's as simple as "apt-get install redis-server redis-tools"

mark-r 10y ago

What it opens up is the ability to use the commands and environment that are familiar to you, with as little change as possible. It runs the same bash as a Linux system, at a binary compatibility level. There will still be wrinkles to deal with, such as the case insensitivity of the Windows file systems.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

SwellJoe 10y ago

I've been primarily a Linux user since 1995, and have been using Windows 10+WSL for the past week or so, since getting a new laptop. The only thing I can think of that it'll open up for you is if you want to develop for Windows, while still having Linux available to you. Whether that's for developing games (most of the good game development tools run only on Windows, even if they can deploy to Linux/Mac/Android), or developing for Windows Phone (or whatever it's called this week), using Microsoft technology like Visual Studio and C# (though it's now possible to do most things on Linux via .Net Core, I think), or playing games that aren't available for Linux. The modern Linux desktop is every bit as good as Windows (and Mac OS), IMHO, though I'd be willing to bet accessibility is still better on Windows. Hardware compatibility for modern devices is probably still better for Windows, too, though old devices certainly are more likely to run on Linux than Windows (a lot of my pro audio and music equipment hasn't run under Windows since like Windows Vista or something, but still works fine under Linux). From my perspective after a week of tinkering with it, and using is exclusively for my development work, I don't feel like it has given me anything over my Linux environment. But, it does make the Windows development experience much closer to what I expect from Linux. If I developed Windows desktop applications, I would tell a different story, but I develop applications that run on Linux servers; developing on Windows provides no benefits, only negatives...but the negatives have gotten so small that they probably don't matter, anymore. A new developer just learning to build web apps, for example, could do it pretty much as easily on Windows as they could on Linux. Which has never been as true as it is today. WSL is still very buggy and quirky, and the Windows build it runs on crashes several times a day (at least on my laptop, it does), so it's a net loss in productivity for me, as I'm spending some time waiting on reboots. But, in a few months, it'll probably be stable, widespread, well-documented, etc. And, at that point, maybe it'll even be an ideal option for some developers who are building for cross-platform deployment. Who knows, maybe in a few months, I'll find myself wanting to build something for Windows. I might come back from Linux for a while to spend time in Windows; I certainly don't hate it as much as I used to.

lj3 10y ago
I agree with everything you've said. I also have been using WSL for the past few months. I can run everything in it that I run on Linux and OS X, which is great. I can now officially run any major operating system and have my zsh and vim setup and ready to go in 10 minutes flat. As for advantages Windows gives me over Linux, there are two. 1) Visual Studio. Even with all of its warts, it's a better debugging tool than anything linux or mac has to offer. 2) Gaming. Games on linux and OS X are catching up, but they're not there yet. I develop as well as play and Unity3D and Unreal Engine, not to mention the graphics drivers, just work better on windows.

MichaelGG 10y ago

If I can figure out if W10 can turn off its spyware, it'll allow me to ditch VMware for most use cases. Since you can run a Windows X server, I can use graphical emacs. If perf is good enough, I'll run a whole WM like XMonad and use Firefox and stuff inside it.

MrFlynn 10y ago
I found that this tool works pretty well for disabling telemetry: https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking
jscholes 10y ago
> If perf is good enough, I'll run a whole WM like XMonad and use Firefox and stuff inside it. What advantages would this give you over running Firefox natively on Windows?