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I have a Mac at work. When I decided my personal Mac needed replacement, I decided to take a serious look at Windows. Ended up choosing Windows because I coul

I have a Mac at work. When I decided my personal Mac needed replacement, I decided to take a serious look at Windows. Ended up choosing Windows because I couldn't justify buying older generation hardware (at Apple prices). I made sure to buy locally so I could return it if I hated it. I am impressed with Ubuntu on Windows. Some bugs, but overall I can see this working for me. Since I use Ubuntu in production, the Linux environment is closer to production than a Mac shell. I have felt lately, though, that the Mac vs Windows vs Linux debate is getting less relevant with most things being in a web browser. The diminishing requirement for Windows around 5 years ago caused me to switch to Mac. And now back to Windows. I can see myself buying a Mac again, though. Maybe even a Chromebook.

Waterluvian 10y ago
What is "Ubuntu on Windows"? Are you using that new fangled Linux literally in Windows thing I heard of? How's that going?
- mrighele 10y ago
  He's probably referring to "Windows Subsystem for Linux" which is a compatibility layer for Windows 10 that allows you to run unmodified Ubuntu binaries. It is also called "Ubuntu on Windows" since the userspace part is based on Ubuntu [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux [2] https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/30/ubuntu-on-windows-the-ubuntu-userspace-for-windows-developers/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/30/ubuntu-on-windows-the...
- socmag 10y ago
  I use Linux Mint for most of my dev work, but thought I'd give the new Ubuntu subsystem on Windows a try yesterday side it came with the Windows 10 Anniversary update. It seems to work as advertised. My only complaint thus far is that all the packages that you can get via apt-get seem really ancient. I had to go through hell building a lot of stuff myself to get anything remotely recent running. After much pain, I finally got our product built and running, ran it then tried to connect to it and it core dumped. That's probably my fault I guess. I haven't dug into that yet, but there must be some platform difference I'm not aware of. Anyway, it seems pretty stable in general although a little quirky. Having direct access between the Windows file system and the *nix side is pretty cool too. I don't think I'll be switching to it full time but it is certainly interesting.
  - bdcravens 10y ago
    > all the packages that you can get via apt-get seem really ancient I think this is an Ubuntu issue, even on stand-alone Ubuntu. I assume the subsystem lets you add PPAs like in vanilla Ubuntu?
    - socmag 10y ago
      It does, but for some reason it didn't seem to work. I was totally unable to install later versions of GCC, CMake or Node. Had to manually install from releases or build from source. Maybe I screwed something up, but I really did try.
    - socmag 10y ago
      Actually I take that back. I did get GCC-6 installed via PPA. Not sure why the other ones had issues.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    WSL Uses Ubuntu 14.04 with no plans to upgrade it soon. Some people have had success upgrading to 16.04, but I haven't run into enough recency issues to justify trying. It still has a lot of rough edges, but they seem to be actively working on it, so I'm hopeful this leads to a virtuous cycle of more developers using it and more investment from Microsoft.
rangibaby 10y ago
Why not just use Ubuntu full time? I'm probably going to build a Linux desktop for my next home computer (Mac user for 10 years).
anentropic 10y ago
"Since I use Ubuntu in production, the Linux environment is closer to production than a Mac shell." Docker
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  How do you run Ubuntu binaries on Mac by using Docker? As far as I know it's not a virtualization layer.
  - gecgooden 10y ago
    Docker on Mac runs in a VM, either by one of the traditional virtualisation solutions (Virtualbox, VMWare, Parallels) or via xhyve. The VM acts as a Docker server, so the client on the mac side just passes options to the Docker VM. See: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/mac/ https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/mac/
    - magoon 10y ago
      Docker now also has a native Mac client that doesn't require docker-machine
      - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
        Thanks both! I believe the native Mac announcement is what put me off track.
      - TurboHaskal 10y ago
        Which gets pretty bad the moment you need to use shared volumes.
      - sigjuice 10y ago
        What does "native" mean in this context? The Mac client still runs containers in a Linux VM.
- freestockoption 10y ago

Waterluvian 10y ago

What is "Ubuntu on Windows"? Are you using that new fangled Linux literally in Windows thing I heard of? How's that going?

mrighele 10y ago
He's probably referring to "Windows Subsystem for Linux" which is a compatibility layer for Windows 10 that allows you to run unmodified Ubuntu binaries. It is also called "Ubuntu on Windows" since the userspace part is based on Ubuntu [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux [2] https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/30/ubuntu-on-windows-the-ubuntu-userspace-for-windows-developers/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/30/ubuntu-on-windows-the...
socmag 10y ago
I use Linux Mint for most of my dev work, but thought I'd give the new Ubuntu subsystem on Windows a try yesterday side it came with the Windows 10 Anniversary update. It seems to work as advertised. My only complaint thus far is that all the packages that you can get via apt-get seem really ancient. I had to go through hell building a lot of stuff myself to get anything remotely recent running. After much pain, I finally got our product built and running, ran it then tried to connect to it and it core dumped. That's probably my fault I guess. I haven't dug into that yet, but there must be some platform difference I'm not aware of. Anyway, it seems pretty stable in general although a little quirky. Having direct access between the Windows file system and the *nix side is pretty cool too. I don't think I'll be switching to it full time but it is certainly interesting.
- bdcravens 10y ago
  > all the packages that you can get via apt-get seem really ancient I think this is an Ubuntu issue, even on stand-alone Ubuntu. I assume the subsystem lets you add PPAs like in vanilla Ubuntu?
  - socmag 10y ago
    It does, but for some reason it didn't seem to work. I was totally unable to install later versions of GCC, CMake or Node. Had to manually install from releases or build from source. Maybe I screwed something up, but I really did try.
  - socmag 10y ago
    Actually I take that back. I did get GCC-6 installed via PPA. Not sure why the other ones had issues.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  WSL Uses Ubuntu 14.04 with no plans to upgrade it soon. Some people have had success upgrading to 16.04, but I haven't run into enough recency issues to justify trying. It still has a lot of rough edges, but they seem to be actively working on it, so I'm hopeful this leads to a virtuous cycle of more developers using it and more investment from Microsoft.

rangibaby 10y ago

Why not just use Ubuntu full time? I'm probably going to build a Linux desktop for my next home computer (Mac user for 10 years).

anentropic 10y ago

"Since I use Ubuntu in production, the Linux environment is closer to production than a Mac shell." Docker

NetStrikeForce 10y ago
How do you run Ubuntu binaries on Mac by using Docker? As far as I know it's not a virtualization layer.
- gecgooden 10y ago
  Docker on Mac runs in a VM, either by one of the traditional virtualisation solutions (Virtualbox, VMWare, Parallels) or via xhyve. The VM acts as a Docker server, so the client on the mac side just passes options to the Docker VM. See: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/mac/ https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/mac/
  - magoon 10y ago
    Docker now also has a native Mac client that doesn't require docker-machine
    - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
      Thanks both! I believe the native Mac announcement is what put me off track.
    - TurboHaskal 10y ago
      Which gets pretty bad the moment you need to use shared volumes.
    - sigjuice 10y ago
      What does "native" mean in this context? The Mac client still runs containers in a Linux VM.
freestockoption 10y ago