10 ms·

The biggest problem I have with the WSL is that it is intrinsically tied to stable Windows releases; there is no way to get incremental updates for Bash on Wind

The biggest problem I have with the WSL is that it is intrinsically tied to stable Windows releases; there is no way to get incremental updates for Bash on Windows unless you subscribe to the Windows Insider program, which is a way of running prerelease versions of Windows. So in order to get Linux features like inotify working you have to sacrifice the stability of your operating system. This looks like it'll be true till the end of time. Does your dev work depend on bug fixes or certain syscall implementations? Well, either run an OS that may or may not work at any given time or wait several months for the next release. A couple weeks back I tried to give WSL a try but everything was broken. Inotify prevents hot reloading, which really makes my life just dandy, so I tried to transition to the insider program in order to get my fix. To my chagrin, this caused Node to up and break on me. Like, full stop doesn't work anymore. I ended up going back to Linux. I really hope that developing on Windows becomes something other than 'awful' - for me at least - but I don't think it's quite there yet.

kirkdouglas 10y ago
IIRC WSL is still in beta.
oblio 10y ago
Does anyone know the roadmap for WSL? My guess is that WSL itself is still unstable right now and later on it won't really need a lot of updates. On top of it, the Ubuntu userland should be freely upgradable - I think.
- nailer 10y ago
  > My guess is that WSL itself is still unstable right now Correct, it's currently a 'technology preview'.
  - bitcrazed 10y ago
    Actually, it's currently a 'beta' feature while we continue to expand the breadth and depth of WSL's syscall implementation & supporting tools. That said, WSL is now far, FAR more compatible with the majority of mainstream dev tools than it was in Anniversary Update or early Insider builds. Don't take my word for it - I am biased ;) - but if you've not taken a look at WSL in 2017, you might be surprised by how much now works very well :)
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Yes, the Ubuntu userland is upgradable using exactly the tools you would expect. (The system even includes a Scheduled Task that does security updates every week.)
tornadoboy55 10y ago
Output from `bash --version` on macOS: `GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin16) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.` that's a 10yr old bash and there's barely any shell magic that you can do on Linux that won't work on macOS. And since by far most devs use macOS, most binaries support at least the macOS version of bash. All in all, no need to worry :p
- xrisk 10y ago
  You can get a newer bash, so that comparison is particularly moot.
  - tornadoboy55 10y ago
    My point is you don't need to, even running a shell that's 10 years old :)
- throwaway2048 10y ago
  its more about supported syscalls and buggy behaviour in their linux kernel emulation than specific versions of specific tools.
- kupiakos 10y ago
  > by far most devs use macOS I'm not sure about this - that seems too extreme of a statement. If there is any winner, it's going to be Windows. IMO, Linux and macOS will be within 5 percentage points of each other. From what I've seen at university, it's something like 60% Windows, ~20% macOS, ~20% Linux (usually Ubuntu). Much more Linux/Mac in the "hackier" courses, usually with a slight majority to Macs. Where can reliable statistics be found on this? HN isn't exactly indicative of developers in general.
  - derefr 10y ago
    My impression is that most devs who write POSIX software these days use macOS (with possibly Linux running in a VM.) AFAIK, that's more to do with preferring Apple hardware, and then Linux not having 100% support for said hardware (e.g. touchpad multitouch / "force touch".) Devs who write native apps for an OS (e.g. DirectX games for Windows) will of course use that OS.
CJefferson 10y ago
I think you are being too harsh -- this is an in-development feature. Once it gets stable things should "just work", and you'll get an update in a few months, like most pieces of software. At the moment you wouldn't want to rely on the beta version for anything important -- some betas are fairly broken (as you would expect with betas). It is unfortunate that Microsoft couldn't figure out how to write this in a less kernel-attached way, but this is adding some powerful new functionality at many levels of the kernel, that will hopefully provide long-term benefits.
- OhSoHumble 10y ago
  You could very well be right. I really don't want to take away from the fantastic work that the WSL team has done. However, as a developer, I want a development environment that is stable and easy to setup. Windows has always been a huge mess to develop on and is the red headed step child as far as support for every open source project out there and the WSL implementation solves 90% of associated problems. That being said... both MacOS and Linux are easier to code on. From compiling C extensions to file path parsing, UNIX-based operating systems have just turned out to be better development platforms. From my perspective, at least. To emphasize, I have less of a problem with the work-in-progress nature of the project as I do with the release cycle. If the operating system stands in the way of getting work done, then the end user shouldn't have to face the dichotomy of whether or not to sacrifice core system stability in order to achieve his or her goals.
bitcrazed 10y ago
@OhSoHumble: Second Point: "A couple weeks back I tried to give WSL a try but everything was broken" Did you run an Insider build? 14986 completed a batch of inotify related syscall improvements since we first added inotify support in 14328 (Details here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl/release_notes https://msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl/release_notes)
- OhSoHumble 10y ago
  My main project is a Rails/Ember.js application to help people find affordable housing in the bay area. My problem was that the CLI built to help glue the two together didn't work on Windows so I tried it out in the WSL. Because of missing inotify support, hot reloading was broken. I found that I really missed that functionality so I moved to the fast ring of insider builds. After an update, node was completely broken. I didn't know how to switch to the slow ring to get a build that may have worked so I switched to developing to the Arch install I have on another drive.
  - bitcrazed 10y ago
    What OS build & Linux version are you running? Type `ver` at the Cmd prompt, and `lsb_release -a` at the Bash prompt. What do you mean when you say your node is "broken"? And I don't follow re. your Arch install on another drive?
bitcrazed 10y ago
@OhSoHumble: We totally hear you. We'd love to ship WSL builds uncoupled from the rest of the OS, but at the moment, we're developing WSL at a breakneck pace alongside several other critical kernel feature changes which all have to ship in lock-step. A good example of this is the work we've been doing with the networking team to add additional network socket mode support to the NT kernel's networking stack so that we can create the correct socket semantics that Linux apps expect. We're also working with the NTFS team, process & scheduling team, management infrastructure, etc.
- OhSoHumble 10y ago
  That's good to know. Maybe I'll try to use Windows as a development platform when it has another major release. I'm really impressed that WSL exists at all. I didn't think Microsoft had it in them to allow such a project to flourish. At the end of the day, however, I really hate writing code on Windows. I don't write much Java or C#, instead sticking to Elixir, Ruby, Python, Node, and Golang. Every time I try to use Windows I just get super frustrated. I remember showing up to a Code for San Francisco meeting with a Windows laptop and being the only person there without a Mac. I mean, go check out node-gyp's 500 comment 'windows users arent happy' issue to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. WSL makes an impact on a lot of the issues that frustrate me. Knowing I have a tool chain that can actually compile C extensions matters. I'll never, ever bet my career on Windows but I might one day use it as hobbyist development platform. While I have you here, will the Windows console ever 'get better?' Rendering console text on Windows is... pretty awful, I'm not going to lie. Going from Linux to Windows is fairly painful; when I `cat` a large file in Windows it then takes seven years for all the text to render. Day to day usage just feels sluggish and awkward in comparison to a Linux terminal. Even if WSL was a flawless piece of engineering, the 'terminal experience' on Windows could do with some TLC. Are there any internal plans to make improvements?
  - zadjii 10y ago
    As far as the console "getting better" - it's getting better with every release. This last release we focused on enabling full 256color/24 bit color support, and enabling VT mouse mode, to better support terminal applications. Not only that, but we've also been working constantly on performance enhancements under the hood. IIRC, before AU, we would try to repaint the frame every character, now they're aggregated to 60 FPS. It's getting better, not terribly quickly, but we're getting there :)

kirkdouglas 10y ago

IIRC WSL is still in beta.

oblio 10y ago

Does anyone know the roadmap for WSL? My guess is that WSL itself is still unstable right now and later on it won't really need a lot of updates. On top of it, the Ubuntu userland should be freely upgradable - I think.

nailer 10y ago
> My guess is that WSL itself is still unstable right now Correct, it's currently a 'technology preview'.
- bitcrazed 10y ago
  Actually, it's currently a 'beta' feature while we continue to expand the breadth and depth of WSL's syscall implementation & supporting tools. That said, WSL is now far, FAR more compatible with the majority of mainstream dev tools than it was in Anniversary Update or early Insider builds. Don't take my word for it - I am biased ;) - but if you've not taken a look at WSL in 2017, you might be surprised by how much now works very well :)
WorldMaker 10y ago
Yes, the Ubuntu userland is upgradable using exactly the tools you would expect. (The system even includes a Scheduled Task that does security updates every week.)

tornadoboy55 10y ago

Output from `bash --version` on macOS: `GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin16) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.` that's a 10yr old bash and there's barely any shell magic that you can do on Linux that won't work on macOS. And since by far most devs use macOS, most binaries support at least the macOS version of bash. All in all, no need to worry :p

xrisk 10y ago
You can get a newer bash, so that comparison is particularly moot.
- tornadoboy55 10y ago
  My point is you don't need to, even running a shell that's 10 years old :)
throwaway2048 10y ago
its more about supported syscalls and buggy behaviour in their linux kernel emulation than specific versions of specific tools.
kupiakos 10y ago
> by far most devs use macOS I'm not sure about this - that seems too extreme of a statement. If there is any winner, it's going to be Windows. IMO, Linux and macOS will be within 5 percentage points of each other. From what I've seen at university, it's something like 60% Windows, ~20% macOS, ~20% Linux (usually Ubuntu). Much more Linux/Mac in the "hackier" courses, usually with a slight majority to Macs. Where can reliable statistics be found on this? HN isn't exactly indicative of developers in general.
- derefr 10y ago
  My impression is that most devs who write POSIX software these days use macOS (with possibly Linux running in a VM.) AFAIK, that's more to do with preferring Apple hardware, and then Linux not having 100% support for said hardware (e.g. touchpad multitouch / "force touch".) Devs who write native apps for an OS (e.g. DirectX games for Windows) will of course use that OS.

CJefferson 10y ago

I think you are being too harsh -- this is an in-development feature. Once it gets stable things should "just work", and you'll get an update in a few months, like most pieces of software. At the moment you wouldn't want to rely on the beta version for anything important -- some betas are fairly broken (as you would expect with betas). It is unfortunate that Microsoft couldn't figure out how to write this in a less kernel-attached way, but this is adding some powerful new functionality at many levels of the kernel, that will hopefully provide long-term benefits.

OhSoHumble 10y ago
You could very well be right. I really don't want to take away from the fantastic work that the WSL team has done. However, as a developer, I want a development environment that is stable and easy to setup. Windows has always been a huge mess to develop on and is the red headed step child as far as support for every open source project out there and the WSL implementation solves 90% of associated problems. That being said... both MacOS and Linux are easier to code on. From compiling C extensions to file path parsing, UNIX-based operating systems have just turned out to be better development platforms. From my perspective, at least. To emphasize, I have less of a problem with the work-in-progress nature of the project as I do with the release cycle. If the operating system stands in the way of getting work done, then the end user shouldn't have to face the dichotomy of whether or not to sacrifice core system stability in order to achieve his or her goals.

bitcrazed 10y ago

@OhSoHumble: Second Point: "A couple weeks back I tried to give WSL a try but everything was broken" Did you run an Insider build? 14986 completed a batch of inotify related syscall improvements since we first added inotify support in 14328 (Details here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl/release_notes https://msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl/release_notes)

OhSoHumble 10y ago
My main project is a Rails/Ember.js application to help people find affordable housing in the bay area. My problem was that the CLI built to help glue the two together didn't work on Windows so I tried it out in the WSL. Because of missing inotify support, hot reloading was broken. I found that I really missed that functionality so I moved to the fast ring of insider builds. After an update, node was completely broken. I didn't know how to switch to the slow ring to get a build that may have worked so I switched to developing to the Arch install I have on another drive.
- bitcrazed 10y ago
  What OS build & Linux version are you running? Type `ver` at the Cmd prompt, and `lsb_release -a` at the Bash prompt. What do you mean when you say your node is "broken"? And I don't follow re. your Arch install on another drive?

bitcrazed 10y ago

@OhSoHumble: We totally hear you. We'd love to ship WSL builds uncoupled from the rest of the OS, but at the moment, we're developing WSL at a breakneck pace alongside several other critical kernel feature changes which all have to ship in lock-step. A good example of this is the work we've been doing with the networking team to add additional network socket mode support to the NT kernel's networking stack so that we can create the correct socket semantics that Linux apps expect. We're also working with the NTFS team, process & scheduling team, management infrastructure, etc.

OhSoHumble 10y ago
That's good to know. Maybe I'll try to use Windows as a development platform when it has another major release. I'm really impressed that WSL exists at all. I didn't think Microsoft had it in them to allow such a project to flourish. At the end of the day, however, I really hate writing code on Windows. I don't write much Java or C#, instead sticking to Elixir, Ruby, Python, Node, and Golang. Every time I try to use Windows I just get super frustrated. I remember showing up to a Code for San Francisco meeting with a Windows laptop and being the only person there without a Mac. I mean, go check out node-gyp's 500 comment 'windows users arent happy' issue to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. WSL makes an impact on a lot of the issues that frustrate me. Knowing I have a tool chain that can actually compile C extensions matters. I'll never, ever bet my career on Windows but I might one day use it as hobbyist development platform. While I have you here, will the Windows console ever 'get better?' Rendering console text on Windows is... pretty awful, I'm not going to lie. Going from Linux to Windows is fairly painful; when I `cat` a large file in Windows it then takes seven years for all the text to render. Day to day usage just feels sluggish and awkward in comparison to a Linux terminal. Even if WSL was a flawless piece of engineering, the 'terminal experience' on Windows could do with some TLC. Are there any internal plans to make improvements?
- zadjii 10y ago
  As far as the console "getting better" - it's getting better with every release. This last release we focused on enabling full 256color/24 bit color support, and enabling VT mouse mode, to better support terminal applications. Not only that, but we've also been working constantly on performance enhancements under the hood. IIRC, before AU, we would try to repaint the frame every character, now they're aggregated to 60 FPS. It's getting better, not terribly quickly, but we're getting there :)