9 ms·

Ubuntu, SUSE Linux, and Fedora Are All Coming to the Windows Store

106 points by ptrptr 9y ago

julio83 9y ago
Is-it docker compatible?
- sitepodmatt 9y ago
  Dockerd relies on kernel features like cgroups and namespaces so I doubt the docker daemon can run inside WSL. There is a docker daemon for windows that I believes uses hyperv as container runtime. You could probably run docker cli inside wsl if you could expose the socket on the host to it (guessing)
  - raesene6 9y ago
    Docker on windows seems to be a little bit complex. There's Docker for windows which allows for linux docker containers to be run on windows, using Hyper-V. Then there's Windows Container Services which allows for Windows Docker containers. Those can either be run on the host kernel or they can be isolated in a Hyper-V layer.
  - zamalek 9y ago
    Somewhat, Docker for Windows (in Linux mode) creates a MobyLinux VM in Hyper-V. MobyLinux then does all the container magic.
notum 9y ago
WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) isn't virtualized, as the article states. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subsystem-for-linux-overview/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subs... It's aim is to run Linux binaries natively. The degree of it's usefulness, issues and filesystem interoperability was discussed before so won't get into that.
- Drakim 9y ago
  So it's sorta like a reverse WINE?
  - notum 9y ago
    Sort of? Exactly! Windows Is Not an Emulator!
    - Piskvorrr 9y ago
      Emulator Not Is Windows, to be precise.
      - Y0DA 9y ago
        Hmm?! An Emulator, Windows Is Not!
        alexvoda 9y ago
        A bot, you are?
    - cerved 9y ago
      Awesome! Can't wait to install linux on WINE
      - JoBrad 9y ago
        Wine does work in WSL, so you can install WSL on your Windows box, then use WINE to run a Windows app on the Linux instance on your Windows box.
        sevensor 9y ago
        Are people doing this to play Win9x-era games? I find Wine does a better job being compatible with old Win32 applications than Windows does.
hardwaresofton 9y ago
While I can see this is an excellent strategy for the Windows platform, and will probably make developers on Windows more productive, I for one will never give up natively installed linux distributions for development. It may be childish, but I resent Windows for every anti-privacy, anti-competitive move they make, despite how much it is within their rights and fitting with their corporate goals. Trying to put linux in windows and pretend that they've been on the side of developers who push F/OSS this whole time is a hard pill to swallow. I recoil at the possibility that some developer 5 years from now might ask me "Why bother installing your own linux distribution? You can just get Windows Go 15 and run Arch/Ubuntu/SUSE from inside there. Don't forget to disable the ads and tracking that come standard".
- eddiedunn 9y ago
  I agree with you, but there is a flip side. More people might start asking themselves what the point of Windows is, since everything they need is available on Linux. "Why bother paying the Windows tax? Everything I need runs on Linux natively."
- loudmax 9y ago
  On the other hand, we could be entering a phase where an open source developer might say "Why bother porting to Windows? Just target Arch/Ubuntu/SUSE."
  - ygra 9y ago
    Not sure how viable that strategy is, considering that WSL is more a developer tool than something normal end users would install. But many open-source developers already don't care about porting to Windows, so not much changes, I guess.
    - supremesaboteur 9y ago
      I suspect you will be able to write an installer that enables WSL and installs your application as a Linux app on Windows
  - 9y ago
ramshanker 9y ago
Guess the only reason to have VMWare on my windows machine is going away soon. Hope there are some reduction in computational overhead.
- fb03 9y ago
  This is something that bothers me on my current setup (Xubuntu on Virtualbox): LATENCY while using X. On the tty everything feels snappy but as soon as I use a graphic terminal, it feels choppy and typing feels sluggish. I'm not even using Unity because then it'd be just unusable..
  - Nullabillity 9y ago
    Did you install the guest additions?
    - fb03 9y ago
      Yeah I did. Console-based (tty) video feels snappy and devoid of lag, but X.org feels a bit sluggish, still. I've tried Windows XP etc on VBOX with the guest addition and it feels soo much snappier ;(
- glenneroo 9y ago
  I'm guessing they talked with VMWare before doing this? I wonder what implications/benefits this has for VMWare, since their (limited) Player has been free for a while now. Then again, according to Wikipedia, maybe they were already planning for this? > VMware Workstation versions 12.0.0, 12.0.1, and 12.1.0 were released at intervals of about two months in 2015.[61] In January 2016 the entire development team behind VMware Workstation and Fusion was disbanded and all US developers were immediately fired.[8][9][10][12] The future of these products remained vague; the company said that development would continue. On April 24, 2016, maintenance release 12.1.1 was released. VMware announced the release on 8 September 2016 of Workstation 12.5 and Fusion 8.5 as a free upgrade supporting Windows 10 Anniversary edition and Windows Server 2016.[13]
  - 9y ago
fb03 9y ago
Genuine question: Why not just virtualbox/vmware it up with an ISO ? That's how I've been doing for years and it works just fine.
- NikolaeVarius 9y ago
  Virtualbox reserves system resources for itself. This runs fully alongside the Host OS, from what I can see.
- ygra 9y ago
  It's a different approach. WSL is more like CoLinux back in the day, in that Windows and Linux kernels run alongside each other. Even a bit better integrated because processes across both worlds can run each other, and see and talk to each other. No one is taking away your VM, don't worry.
  - fb03 9y ago
    Ah, nice, thanks for the explanation! I do remember CoLinux. This should provide way better latency than my VM tho, right?
    - pmilot 9y ago
      Theoretically, yes, but WSL is still beta and performance (especially filesystem I/O) is mediocre at best. They'll get there eventually!
      - fb03 9y ago
        Nice, because right now altough I use a linux VM for dev work, I am still bummed by the latency and stuff. For tty based work it is there but any X.org workload is still laggy as fuck, which kinda bothers me a little while coding (I'm using Xubuntu with all the VirtualBox additions on).
  - detaro 9y ago
    WSL doesn't run a Linux kernel – a Windows Subsystem just provides a different API to the underlying Windows kernel, in this case the API Linux applications expect. So arguably, it's even further from a VM than CoLinux.
filomeno 9y ago
Are we submitting this story every day? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14317482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14317482
- qb45 9y ago
  Yes, we are. Parent's link is btw much better and straight from the horse's mouth, more details and doesn't confuse WSL with virtualization.
douche 9y ago
The installation process for the WSL still blows - and I say that as somebody who really likes this feature. I tried doing it today on my laptop: 1.) Open up the Programs and Features control panel. 2.) Go to Turn Windows Features on or off 3.) Select the Windows Subsystem for Linux option and hit OK. Installs, prompts for reboot. 4.) Try to launch C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe. Console window flashes momentarily and disappears. 5.) Open CMD window and run bash.exe. See a message that says "In order to use this feature you must have Developer Mode enabled." 6.) Faff around trying to find where the developer mode switch is hidden, in the newer Settings app. Enable that. Wait five-ten minutes as it does... things. Reboot again. 7.) Try to run bash again, and again console window flashes in and out of existence in a millisecond. Run it again from a CMD window. Type "y" to accept license terms. More things download from the Windows Store(?). Create a linux account. 8.) Finally have bash working on Windows, albeit in the terrible, terrible default console shell. Go look up how to setup ConEmu... This really should be streamlined a little bit, right?
- JBiserkov 9y ago
  Hate to be that guy, but you missed Step 0: Read The Fine Installation Instructions. Also, the default console shell has gotten a ton of improvements.
- heywire 9y ago
  Weird that the console windows just disappeared like that for you. I just went through this process yesterday (I had re-installed Windows on a spare laptop), and for each of those the window appeared and waited for my input.
- jhasse 9y ago
  If you just want Bash / zsh / fish on Windows, give MSYS2 a try: http://www.msys2.org/ http://www.msys2.org/
- beart 9y ago
  Following the actual installation instructions, I found the process to be extremely simple. 1) Enable developer mode 2) Install using Windows Features 3) Reboot
cerved 9y ago
I like Windows, I like Linux, I like this news.
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
  We don't take kindly to folks like you 'round here. Please pick a side immediately.
  - cerved 9y ago
    A large french fries with mayo please
JoBrad 9y ago
For me, the big news is being able to install the distros on your non-system drive, as well as being able to run multiple distros at the same time. Pretty cool.
RichardHeart 9y ago
Embrace...Extend...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

106 points by ptrptr 9y ago

julio83 9y ago

Is-it docker compatible?

sitepodmatt 9y ago
Dockerd relies on kernel features like cgroups and namespaces so I doubt the docker daemon can run inside WSL. There is a docker daemon for windows that I believes uses hyperv as container runtime. You could probably run docker cli inside wsl if you could expose the socket on the host to it (guessing)
- raesene6 9y ago
  Docker on windows seems to be a little bit complex. There's Docker for windows which allows for linux docker containers to be run on windows, using Hyper-V. Then there's Windows Container Services which allows for Windows Docker containers. Those can either be run on the host kernel or they can be isolated in a Hyper-V layer.
- zamalek 9y ago
  Somewhat, Docker for Windows (in Linux mode) creates a MobyLinux VM in Hyper-V. MobyLinux then does all the container magic.

notum 9y ago

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) isn't virtualized, as the article states. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subsystem-for-linux-overview/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subs... It's aim is to run Linux binaries natively. The degree of it's usefulness, issues and filesystem interoperability was discussed before so won't get into that.

Drakim 9y ago
So it's sorta like a reverse WINE?
- notum 9y ago
  Sort of? Exactly! Windows Is Not an Emulator!
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    Emulator Not Is Windows, to be precise.
    - Y0DA 9y ago
      Hmm?! An Emulator, Windows Is Not!
      - alexvoda 9y ago
        A bot, you are?
  - cerved 9y ago
    Awesome! Can't wait to install linux on WINE
    - JoBrad 9y ago
      Wine does work in WSL, so you can install WSL on your Windows box, then use WINE to run a Windows app on the Linux instance on your Windows box.
      - sevensor 9y ago
        Are people doing this to play Win9x-era games? I find Wine does a better job being compatible with old Win32 applications than Windows does.

hardwaresofton 9y ago

While I can see this is an excellent strategy for the Windows platform, and will probably make developers on Windows more productive, I for one will never give up natively installed linux distributions for development. It may be childish, but I resent Windows for every anti-privacy, anti-competitive move they make, despite how much it is within their rights and fitting with their corporate goals. Trying to put linux in windows and pretend that they've been on the side of developers who push F/OSS this whole time is a hard pill to swallow. I recoil at the possibility that some developer 5 years from now might ask me "Why bother installing your own linux distribution? You can just get Windows Go 15 and run Arch/Ubuntu/SUSE from inside there. Don't forget to disable the ads and tracking that come standard".

eddiedunn 9y ago
I agree with you, but there is a flip side. More people might start asking themselves what the point of Windows is, since everything they need is available on Linux. "Why bother paying the Windows tax? Everything I need runs on Linux natively."
loudmax 9y ago
On the other hand, we could be entering a phase where an open source developer might say "Why bother porting to Windows? Just target Arch/Ubuntu/SUSE."
- ygra 9y ago
  Not sure how viable that strategy is, considering that WSL is more a developer tool than something normal end users would install. But many open-source developers already don't care about porting to Windows, so not much changes, I guess.
  - supremesaboteur 9y ago
    I suspect you will be able to write an installer that enables WSL and installs your application as a Linux app on Windows
- 9y ago

ramshanker 9y ago

Guess the only reason to have VMWare on my windows machine is going away soon. Hope there are some reduction in computational overhead.

fb03 9y ago
This is something that bothers me on my current setup (Xubuntu on Virtualbox): LATENCY while using X. On the tty everything feels snappy but as soon as I use a graphic terminal, it feels choppy and typing feels sluggish. I'm not even using Unity because then it'd be just unusable..
- Nullabillity 9y ago
  Did you install the guest additions?
  - fb03 9y ago
    Yeah I did. Console-based (tty) video feels snappy and devoid of lag, but X.org feels a bit sluggish, still. I've tried Windows XP etc on VBOX with the guest addition and it feels soo much snappier ;(
glenneroo 9y ago
I'm guessing they talked with VMWare before doing this? I wonder what implications/benefits this has for VMWare, since their (limited) Player has been free for a while now. Then again, according to Wikipedia, maybe they were already planning for this? > VMware Workstation versions 12.0.0, 12.0.1, and 12.1.0 were released at intervals of about two months in 2015.[61] In January 2016 the entire development team behind VMware Workstation and Fusion was disbanded and all US developers were immediately fired.[8][9][10][12] The future of these products remained vague; the company said that development would continue. On April 24, 2016, maintenance release 12.1.1 was released. VMware announced the release on 8 September 2016 of Workstation 12.5 and Fusion 8.5 as a free upgrade supporting Windows 10 Anniversary edition and Windows Server 2016.[13]
- 9y ago

fb03 9y ago

Genuine question: Why not just virtualbox/vmware it up with an ISO ? That's how I've been doing for years and it works just fine.

NikolaeVarius 9y ago
Virtualbox reserves system resources for itself. This runs fully alongside the Host OS, from what I can see.
ygra 9y ago
It's a different approach. WSL is more like CoLinux back in the day, in that Windows and Linux kernels run alongside each other. Even a bit better integrated because processes across both worlds can run each other, and see and talk to each other. No one is taking away your VM, don't worry.
- fb03 9y ago
  Ah, nice, thanks for the explanation! I do remember CoLinux. This should provide way better latency than my VM tho, right?
  - pmilot 9y ago
    Theoretically, yes, but WSL is still beta and performance (especially filesystem I/O) is mediocre at best. They'll get there eventually!
    - fb03 9y ago
      Nice, because right now altough I use a linux VM for dev work, I am still bummed by the latency and stuff. For tty based work it is there but any X.org workload is still laggy as fuck, which kinda bothers me a little while coding (I'm using Xubuntu with all the VirtualBox additions on).
- detaro 9y ago
  WSL doesn't run a Linux kernel – a Windows Subsystem just provides a different API to the underlying Windows kernel, in this case the API Linux applications expect. So arguably, it's even further from a VM than CoLinux.

filomeno 9y ago

Are we submitting this story every day? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14317482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14317482

qb45 9y ago
Yes, we are. Parent's link is btw much better and straight from the horse's mouth, more details and doesn't confuse WSL with virtualization.

douche 9y ago

The installation process for the WSL still blows - and I say that as somebody who really likes this feature. I tried doing it today on my laptop: 1.) Open up the Programs and Features control panel. 2.) Go to Turn Windows Features on or off 3.) Select the Windows Subsystem for Linux option and hit OK. Installs, prompts for reboot. 4.) Try to launch C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe. Console window flashes momentarily and disappears. 5.) Open CMD window and run bash.exe. See a message that says "In order to use this feature you must have Developer Mode enabled." 6.) Faff around trying to find where the developer mode switch is hidden, in the newer Settings app. Enable that. Wait five-ten minutes as it does... things. Reboot again. 7.) Try to run bash again, and again console window flashes in and out of existence in a millisecond. Run it again from a CMD window. Type "y" to accept license terms. More things download from the Windows Store(?). Create a linux account. 8.) Finally have bash working on Windows, albeit in the terrible, terrible default console shell. Go look up how to setup ConEmu... This really should be streamlined a little bit, right?

JBiserkov 9y ago
Hate to be that guy, but you missed Step 0: Read The Fine Installation Instructions. Also, the default console shell has gotten a ton of improvements.
heywire 9y ago
Weird that the console windows just disappeared like that for you. I just went through this process yesterday (I had re-installed Windows on a spare laptop), and for each of those the window appeared and waited for my input.
jhasse 9y ago
If you just want Bash / zsh / fish on Windows, give MSYS2 a try: http://www.msys2.org/ http://www.msys2.org/
beart 9y ago
Following the actual installation instructions, I found the process to be extremely simple. 1) Enable developer mode 2) Install using Windows Features 3) Reboot

cerved 9y ago

I like Windows, I like Linux, I like this news.

SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
We don't take kindly to folks like you 'round here. Please pick a side immediately.
- cerved 9y ago
  A large french fries with mayo please

JoBrad 9y ago

For me, the big news is being able to install the distros on your non-system drive, as well as being able to run multiple distros at the same time. Pretty cool.

RichardHeart 9y ago

Embrace...Extend...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]