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It's cool, but it's not what you'd normally understand "Linux" to be. It implements the Linux kernel syscalls, so it supports most of glibc and some of the GNU
by j0057 8y ago
It's cool, but it's not what you'd normally understand "Linux" to be. It implements the Linux kernel syscalls, so it supports most of glibc and some of the GNU userland, but misses a lot of the stuff that makes Linux, well, Linux. You can't use iptables. No namespaces AKA containers. When you get to userland, your session is just a bash login shell. There's no DBus, no systemd, no X11, no clipboard. You have to do some fairly ugly hacking to share an ssh-agent between two consoles. And so on and on and on. It's cool for some things, but not good enough for some other things, and I don't see it growing support for those in the future either.
- opless 8y agoX11 just requires a Windows based X-Server. Then you can use your favourite xterm emulator and worry less about your ssh agent woes. No Dbus - because no drivers. No systemd - hurrah No proper init system - sucks, but at least you get fstab mounting drives. I think we'll see a better init mechanism in future, and I hope loadable module support for filesystems / usb devices
- j0057 8y ago(Well that was a really subtle dig at systemd.)
- rayvy 8y agoI ended up uninstalling the Linux subsystem (after reading through this thread), and going with a Hyper VM using an Ubuntu image. Enjoying it so far.
- bitcrazed 8y agoI recommend enabling WSL, installing your favorite distro from the Windows store and giving it a try. I think you'll be surprised by what WSL CAN do and the scenarios in which it's more useful than a full VM. Distros running on WSL also consume FAR fewer resources (esp. memory) compared to full VM's, so runs well alongside all your usual tools. It doesn't (and wasn't designed to) replace a full Linux instance, but often goes ~80% of the way towards meeting the every-day needs of a lot of developers who just need their code to build and run locally. YMMV.