4 ms·

Windows 10 is getting a Microsoft-built Linux kernel

48 points by PandaRider 7y ago

angrygoat 7y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844989
mkesper 7y ago
Maybe change to https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/
aduitsis 7y ago
An equally important piece of news is hidden near the end. They announced Windows Terminal, a new console application that will be able to host cmd, powershell and wsl sessions. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-windows-terminal/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-windo...
- chaotic_clanger 7y ago
  MS embracing CLI.. feels out of place, like teenager listening to opera .)
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > MS embracing CLI.. feels out of place Not so much to those of us old enough to remember when the two main personal computing platforms were DOS and MacOS.
- teh_klev 7y ago
  See yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844678
- madspindel 7y ago
  What I also find interesting is that in the announcement video of Windows Terminal (0:20) you can see the command "wt install", which sounds like a possible future package manager? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gw0rXPMMPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gw0rXPMMPE
setquk 7y ago
I'd be interested more if they fixed the NTFS performance issues MFT contention on small files. That would have massive platform benefits. But the problem is it's hard and they already forked off ReFS and didn't fix anything really with that.
- j16sdiz 7y ago
  It is more then just "MFT contention". Lots of time are spend on other parts of the kernel: https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/873#issuecomment-425272829 https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/873#issuecomment-425...
  - setquk 7y ago
    My issue is across the whole windows platform not just WSL. If you check large repos out on windows native it sucks too. Rather than just fixing WSL and declaring victory they should fix the NTFS problem.
denysonique 7y ago
2030: Windows is now a fully WinAPI compatible Linux distribution.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  *some metro windows to configure proton
denysonique 7y ago
I hope Linux font rendering will also become a Windows feature. Currently Windows font rendering is painful to the eyes on low DPI displays.
- gmueckl 7y ago
  Habe you tried to play with the ClearType settings? Fiddling around with them should give you an improvement.
  - denysonique 7y ago
    Only a third party application called MacType was able to get Linux/MacOS quality font rendering. Since Windows 10 MacType no longer works as Microsoft changed the underlying font rendering API.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    I have disabled antialiasing altogether on my computer (which sadly now can only be done via the registry, WTF Microsoft?) but several applications (thankfully it is mostly UWP crap, but it is also stuff like IE and the IE ActiveX control, which includes CHM files) ignore that setting (and often ignore ClearType too so even if you have ClearType set up, they do not use subpixel antialiasing).
    - gmueckl 7y ago
      Okay, not sure what you are getting at here. Low DPI text without anti-aliasing is the worst way you can render text. Clarity of the rendered glyphs is practically obliterated by the jaggy and imprecise outlines.
      - Crinus 7y ago
        Depends on how (and if) the font is hinted. The default Windows GUI font has good hinting and thus is mostly sharp (and even if it wasn't there are other Windows fonts that have good hinting and use the same metrics). Any program that uses that font looks perfectly fine. It is also why i vastly prefer to stick with programs that use the native font rendering and settings. There are some fonts that do not care about hinting though and look bad - especially emoji fonts (smiley icons often look droopy :-P). I wish Windows had some sort of autohinting like FreeType has for such cases. This is mainly an issue with web sites though and i either avoid sites that use such fonts or, if i care about visiting them often, i use a custom font for those sites with Stylus. Also depends on what you mean with low DPI. For something like a 1440p 27" monitor, i find it is mostly a personal preference, but i'd call that as "mid" DPI than low. My monitor is 1366x768 at 24" and antialiasing looks a bit blurry there, so i prefer the sharp pixels. Although FWIW even on a 1440p 27" monitor i prefer to disable antialiasing and (at least on Linux where it is easier to do so) use bitmap fonts which are designed to be sharp (some bitmap fonts are just conversions of vector fonts and aren't that great looking).
rohan1024 7y ago
How far is the day when Windows is just another desktop environment for Linux?
- gmueckl 7y ago
  Pretty far still. The design of the whole Windows stack is very different from Linux. A translation layer that is fast, robust and complete enough would be a major investment. It is far more economical to virtualize at least one of the two systems.
- thunderbong 7y ago
  You could say the same thing about Apple as a dev environment, isn't it? Most of the devs I see working on Apple systems are primarily using the terminal. And this is back from the ruby dev days. In all the conferences, in all the presentations they would open a terminal and demonstrate their software. And I always used to wonder why they were so crazy about their Apple laptops when all they were using was the terminal. Why couldn't they install Linux on way more powerful hardware at a fraction of the cost. And now that Microsoft is doing it I see all these comments about Windows being a shell on Linux! The hypocrisy is sickening. Honestly, the engineering innovations that Microsoft is showing is head and shoulders above anything that Apple had ever done for developers. Give credit where its due.
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    > And I always used to wonder why they were so crazy about their Apple laptops when all they were using was the terminal. But it was a nice terminal! On a more serious note: The cost of purchasing an Apple laptop is dwarfed by the cost of selecting a set of hardware that works with Linux. I did switch from Apple to Linux in one of the last iterations and despite using a Thinkpad, the time I sink into making sure that my machine works, does a proper backup that I can restore, ... is higher than the one-time price difference to a nice Apple laptop. Their hardware is good for years, it’s usually working pretty well. It comes with a price tag, true, but so does maintenance for a Linux machine.
    - 7y ago
baybal2 7y ago
No, Win 10 is not replacing NT Kernel with Linux, that was a clickbait headline. It will only use Linux to run WSL

48 points by PandaRider 7y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844989

Maybe change to https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/

aduitsis 7y ago

An equally important piece of news is hidden near the end. They announced Windows Terminal, a new console application that will be able to host cmd, powershell and wsl sessions. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-windows-terminal/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-windo...

chaotic_clanger 7y ago
MS embracing CLI.. feels out of place, like teenager listening to opera .)
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > MS embracing CLI.. feels out of place Not so much to those of us old enough to remember when the two main personal computing platforms were DOS and MacOS.
teh_klev 7y ago
See yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844678
madspindel 7y ago
What I also find interesting is that in the announcement video of Windows Terminal (0:20) you can see the command "wt install", which sounds like a possible future package manager? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gw0rXPMMPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gw0rXPMMPE

setquk 7y ago

I'd be interested more if they fixed the NTFS performance issues MFT contention on small files. That would have massive platform benefits. But the problem is it's hard and they already forked off ReFS and didn't fix anything really with that.

j16sdiz 7y ago
It is more then just "MFT contention". Lots of time are spend on other parts of the kernel: https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/873#issuecomment-425272829 https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/873#issuecomment-425...
- setquk 7y ago
  My issue is across the whole windows platform not just WSL. If you check large repos out on windows native it sucks too. Rather than just fixing WSL and declaring victory they should fix the NTFS problem.

denysonique 7y ago

2030: Windows is now a fully WinAPI compatible Linux distribution.

LoSboccacc 7y ago
*some metro windows to configure proton

denysonique 7y ago

I hope Linux font rendering will also become a Windows feature. Currently Windows font rendering is painful to the eyes on low DPI displays.

gmueckl 7y ago
Habe you tried to play with the ClearType settings? Fiddling around with them should give you an improvement.
- denysonique 7y ago
  Only a third party application called MacType was able to get Linux/MacOS quality font rendering. Since Windows 10 MacType no longer works as Microsoft changed the underlying font rendering API.
- Crinus 7y ago
  I have disabled antialiasing altogether on my computer (which sadly now can only be done via the registry, WTF Microsoft?) but several applications (thankfully it is mostly UWP crap, but it is also stuff like IE and the IE ActiveX control, which includes CHM files) ignore that setting (and often ignore ClearType too so even if you have ClearType set up, they do not use subpixel antialiasing).
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    Okay, not sure what you are getting at here. Low DPI text without anti-aliasing is the worst way you can render text. Clarity of the rendered glyphs is practically obliterated by the jaggy and imprecise outlines.
    - Crinus 7y ago
      Depends on how (and if) the font is hinted. The default Windows GUI font has good hinting and thus is mostly sharp (and even if it wasn't there are other Windows fonts that have good hinting and use the same metrics). Any program that uses that font looks perfectly fine. It is also why i vastly prefer to stick with programs that use the native font rendering and settings. There are some fonts that do not care about hinting though and look bad - especially emoji fonts (smiley icons often look droopy :-P). I wish Windows had some sort of autohinting like FreeType has for such cases. This is mainly an issue with web sites though and i either avoid sites that use such fonts or, if i care about visiting them often, i use a custom font for those sites with Stylus. Also depends on what you mean with low DPI. For something like a 1440p 27" monitor, i find it is mostly a personal preference, but i'd call that as "mid" DPI than low. My monitor is 1366x768 at 24" and antialiasing looks a bit blurry there, so i prefer the sharp pixels. Although FWIW even on a 1440p 27" monitor i prefer to disable antialiasing and (at least on Linux where it is easier to do so) use bitmap fonts which are designed to be sharp (some bitmap fonts are just conversions of vector fonts and aren't that great looking).

rohan1024 7y ago

How far is the day when Windows is just another desktop environment for Linux?

gmueckl 7y ago
Pretty far still. The design of the whole Windows stack is very different from Linux. A translation layer that is fast, robust and complete enough would be a major investment. It is far more economical to virtualize at least one of the two systems.
thunderbong 7y ago
You could say the same thing about Apple as a dev environment, isn't it? Most of the devs I see working on Apple systems are primarily using the terminal. And this is back from the ruby dev days. In all the conferences, in all the presentations they would open a terminal and demonstrate their software. And I always used to wonder why they were so crazy about their Apple laptops when all they were using was the terminal. Why couldn't they install Linux on way more powerful hardware at a fraction of the cost. And now that Microsoft is doing it I see all these comments about Windows being a shell on Linux! The hypocrisy is sickening. Honestly, the engineering innovations that Microsoft is showing is head and shoulders above anything that Apple had ever done for developers. Give credit where its due.
- Xylakant 7y ago
  > And I always used to wonder why they were so crazy about their Apple laptops when all they were using was the terminal. But it was a nice terminal! On a more serious note: The cost of purchasing an Apple laptop is dwarfed by the cost of selecting a set of hardware that works with Linux. I did switch from Apple to Linux in one of the last iterations and despite using a Thinkpad, the time I sink into making sure that my machine works, does a proper backup that I can restore, ... is higher than the one-time price difference to a nice Apple laptop. Their hardware is good for years, it’s usually working pretty well. It comes with a price tag, true, but so does maintenance for a Linux machine.
  - 7y ago

baybal2 7y ago

No, Win 10 is not replacing NT Kernel with Linux, that was a clickbait headline. It will only use Linux to run WSL