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This is a pity. One of the things I like with the Mac is being able to use Mac-side editors like BBEdit to be able to make changes to the configuration and file

This is a pity. One of the things I like with the Mac is being able to use Mac-side editors like BBEdit to be able to make changes to the configuration and files of the Unix-y server tools I need. If I can't reliably use Windows GUI editors that would limit my ability to migrate from macOS. If one is running NGINX/PHP under WSL would one not even be able to safely edit .php files?

bphogan 10y ago
Like the article says. You point your Nginx to serve files out of the "c" drive mount point.
sp332 10y ago
No, at least not from that directory. You need to use tools that know how to update the WSL-specific metadata in the NTFS extended attributes, and Windows programs do not do that. You would need to set up a file server so that the programs could communicate using a standard protocol. Edit: or as hartator says in another thread, store your files somewhere under /mnt/c/.
kej 10y ago
The lxss folder is for things you only want to access from Linux. Things like a .php file you want to access from both sides goes somewhere else. In Windows you go to C:\MyPHPFiles and in Linux you go to /mnt/c/MyPHPFiles.
- sbuttgereit 10y ago
  This. I use WSL daily and edit in both Linux & Windows... but the files I'm dealing with are in a directory structure that set up on the windows side and I get to them through /mnt/<drive letter>. Completely painless for me. I do have to occasionally edit Linux config files and whatnot and, yes, I do that with emacs or vim (depending on mood), but it's honestly not often and I personally prefer the terminal based editors in Linux for that better (yeah, a preference thing there... ). Anyway, been working like this since before the Anniversary Update on the later insider builds and it's been pretty solid and seamless for me.
  - nickjj 10y ago
    Have you tried using an xserver to run GUI Linux apps through it? If so, how's the delay? Is it instant and ready for full time development? Use case would be wanting to use an editor that can take advantage of programming runtimes installed on the Linux side of things. Think about using Sublime, where you'd want to run a Python linter. In this case Sublime needs to be installed and ran in Linux alongside your Python installation.
    - sbuttgereit 10y ago
      I have not. I use Sublime on the Windows side; in those cases where I have issues like linting I'm just doing it via the Windows equivalent (I'm not working with Python) and having a different source for linting vs. some of the runtime environment hasn't been a problem for me... though I could see where you'd want something more apples = apples. For myself, an xserver is probably more overhead than I'd want to take on... I'd just drop WSL and go back to my VM at that point (different pain points, but simpler pain points).
      - nickjj 10y ago
        That's unfortunate. Having to "double install" things like that is very inconvenient. Yep, I use a VM now (a seamlessly integrated one with vmware) but sadly vmware support for Unity mode Linux guests has been dropped and VirtualBox has too many problems to consider using. Was hoping to eventually change to Windows 10 but it's sounding like I might as well stick with what I have now, despite the bugs and being stuck with a ~4 year old Linux distro because nothing else works. If Windows can solve the problem of running GUI Linux apps through it, I'd be the happiest developer ever.
    - wvenable 10y ago
      You can run bash.exe with command line options to start specific Linux applications. I setup the Windows VSCode to run use Bash as it's terminal and the build actions to trigger Linux programs. I've run a few small GUI applications and the performance was pretty much native-level. I use VcXsrv as my X server. I've read that some people run entire Linux tiled window managers through WSL without complaint.
- kccqzy 10y ago
  Do windows people have any respect for the idea of home folders? You should put your own files in /home/blah/foo or C:\Documents and Settings\blah\foo, not /myfiles or C:\myfiles
  - kej 10y ago
    That was just for illustrative purposes. Your personal files should indeed be under C:\Users\name\
wvenable 10y ago
You can work this way beautifully; just do it from the Windows file system as intended and don't delve into the hidden/system files that back the Linux subsystem.

bphogan 10y ago

Like the article says. You point your Nginx to serve files out of the "c" drive mount point.

sp332 10y ago

No, at least not from that directory. You need to use tools that know how to update the WSL-specific metadata in the NTFS extended attributes, and Windows programs do not do that. You would need to set up a file server so that the programs could communicate using a standard protocol. Edit: or as hartator says in another thread, store your files somewhere under /mnt/c/.

kej 10y ago

The lxss folder is for things you only want to access from Linux. Things like a .php file you want to access from both sides goes somewhere else. In Windows you go to C:\MyPHPFiles and in Linux you go to /mnt/c/MyPHPFiles.

sbuttgereit 10y ago
This. I use WSL daily and edit in both Linux & Windows... but the files I'm dealing with are in a directory structure that set up on the windows side and I get to them through /mnt/<drive letter>. Completely painless for me. I do have to occasionally edit Linux config files and whatnot and, yes, I do that with emacs or vim (depending on mood), but it's honestly not often and I personally prefer the terminal based editors in Linux for that better (yeah, a preference thing there... ). Anyway, been working like this since before the Anniversary Update on the later insider builds and it's been pretty solid and seamless for me.
- nickjj 10y ago
  Have you tried using an xserver to run GUI Linux apps through it? If so, how's the delay? Is it instant and ready for full time development? Use case would be wanting to use an editor that can take advantage of programming runtimes installed on the Linux side of things. Think about using Sublime, where you'd want to run a Python linter. In this case Sublime needs to be installed and ran in Linux alongside your Python installation.
  - sbuttgereit 10y ago
    I have not. I use Sublime on the Windows side; in those cases where I have issues like linting I'm just doing it via the Windows equivalent (I'm not working with Python) and having a different source for linting vs. some of the runtime environment hasn't been a problem for me... though I could see where you'd want something more apples = apples. For myself, an xserver is probably more overhead than I'd want to take on... I'd just drop WSL and go back to my VM at that point (different pain points, but simpler pain points).
    - nickjj 10y ago
      That's unfortunate. Having to "double install" things like that is very inconvenient. Yep, I use a VM now (a seamlessly integrated one with vmware) but sadly vmware support for Unity mode Linux guests has been dropped and VirtualBox has too many problems to consider using. Was hoping to eventually change to Windows 10 but it's sounding like I might as well stick with what I have now, despite the bugs and being stuck with a ~4 year old Linux distro because nothing else works. If Windows can solve the problem of running GUI Linux apps through it, I'd be the happiest developer ever.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    You can run bash.exe with command line options to start specific Linux applications. I setup the Windows VSCode to run use Bash as it's terminal and the build actions to trigger Linux programs. I've run a few small GUI applications and the performance was pretty much native-level. I use VcXsrv as my X server. I've read that some people run entire Linux tiled window managers through WSL without complaint.
kccqzy 10y ago
Do windows people have any respect for the idea of home folders? You should put your own files in /home/blah/foo or C:\Documents and Settings\blah\foo, not /myfiles or C:\myfiles
- kej 10y ago
  That was just for illustrative purposes. Your personal files should indeed be under C:\Users\name\

wvenable 10y ago

You can work this way beautifully; just do it from the Windows file system as intended and don't delve into the hidden/system files that back the Linux subsystem.