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My brain threw an exception when I read this title. Awesome that this is a reality though. Now that we have a Linux kernels running and accessible on both Windo

My brain threw an exception when I read this title. Awesome that this is a reality though. Now that we have a Linux kernels running and accessible on both Windows and Chromebooks I feel like we can finally say: 2019 actually is the year of Linux on the desktop. It's not a meme anymore, it's finally just a true statement. Edit: To those questioning if this really counts as Linux on the Desktop. Yes, I understand what you're saying, I too am a bit of a blowhard about Linux and prefer to use the real deal, not some kernel on a kernel bs. But I think this is still a huge deal in terms of the accessibility of Linux, think of how many young programmers will be able to dip their toes in the Linux pool on their gaming rigs without having to go through an Ubuntu install process (I write, thinking in the back of my mind that I had to go through that, and so maybe they should too.) Yes there is something of an ideological compromise here, because the Linux they're running is sitting on a binary blob and not truly free... but Linux still exists in it's gloriously free form for them to use when they decide that's important to them, I see no harm in them reaping some of the other benefits of Linux without the freedom, it will hopefully become an on ramp to more Linux adopters and programmers.

wrs 7y ago
Well, technically yes, but…talk about moving the goalposts! Almost like swapping the goalposts.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Always remember to lift the goalposts with your knees, not your back.
- mrbungie 7y ago
  Yep, except in this case is just one goalpost and everyone wins. Now we can enjoy using software as MS Office and userland from Linux distros in the same machine seamlessly.
  - phkahler 7y ago
    This is the "embrace" phase. It also kind of encompasses "extend" by adding hardware support via Windows drivers. This alone is not enough to get to "extinguish" though, so allow me to make a prediction. The next step is fully locked down hardware that requires a signed OS. Linux will not run on it, but MS will pretend to support you by allowing linux apps to run on their kernel. Then, once no hardware will allow you to run linux natively they will depreciate it and get people to migrate to better supported APIs of their own. People are just walking right into this as if none of Microsofts history ever happened. The only OK scenario is that MS becomes a larger version of Redhat and migrates users the other direction. Is that happening? No. It's all about bringing your toys to their house.
    - arpa 7y ago
      Exactly this. I still remember M$ playing rough in the browser game. Bad actors never change. You can purge "bad apples" again and again, change masks, pretend to be fluffy and lovable, but you're still same old evil co. We remember. We see you snooping. We see you seething with hate for FOSS underneath your let's opensource .net core mask. And I, personally, will never forgive M$ for Elopcalypse, burning platform and death of nokia.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      That kind of locked down hardware already exists, and microsoft never needed to make any kind of argument about how you can technically run linux in a VM. In other words, I'm not worried about WSL as a vector.
    - ozim 7y ago
      Problem with this line of thinking is that operating system kernel matters. It does not anymore. What matters now is: if people are buying their cloud solution. No one cares about desktop users, no one cares about selling server OS. Real money is in big/medium companies buying their cloud stuff with nice monthly subscription. Good luck making people pay you every month for an OS, they don't want to upgrade and pay for new one even in 10 years so running Win XP. In that line of thinking you also want costs of running your own cloud solution as low as possible, so it kind of even makes sense to phase out Windows because all competitors are running their cloud on Linux based systems, where they get all upsides of collaboration on Linux. Where MS trying to run all their stuff on Win pour money into something they could have for free or just also investing a lot less into Linux than what they spend maintaining Win.
rolph 7y ago
problem is the kernel is sitting on top of a binary blob, and that manipulates the access to the real machine. we shouldnt be so worried about the kernel, we should be concerned about what the binary between the kernel and the hardware is doing/notdoing , and what degree of control do we have over that layer.
- qplex 7y ago
  As far as I know the binary blob is packed with anti-user features such as ads and mandatory telemetry. It's not very sane to run anything on Windows.
- briffle 7y ago
  The same problem exists in VMware, or really any cloud provider...
  - polyomino 7y ago
    Or on any proprietary firmware...
  - meruru 7y ago
    A cloud provider and your personal machine are different things with different considerations. The advantage of using Linux on a cloud provider is primarily to prevent vendor lock-in and be able to move to a different provider or a physical server under your control as needed. Using Linux on a personal machine is primarily so you can trust your machine to serve you and no one else. This is defeated if Windows or backdoored firmware is running below Linux. Note that the no lock-in benefit also exists on the desktop and because of that it makes sense to switch to Linux on a machine that requires proprietary firmware as an intermediate step to moving to a better machine like those from https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Cloud providers have no profit motive in breaking your trust. I fully believe an OS-vendor for personal computers would, especially if there's almost no alternatives.
MuffinFlavored 7y ago
How? Wouldn't it be the year of the "Microsoft emulating Linux behind the scenes" desktop, aka still Microsoft windows?
- danellis 7y ago
  That's the point—they're not emulating Linux anymore, they're actually running Linux as some kind of lightweight Hyper-V VM.
- xfer 7y ago
  Emualting? Literally shipping a kernel and distro with their OS..
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    Wine is not an Emulator
    - perennate 7y ago
      Also at one point "Windows Emulator": http://www.faqs.org/faqs/windows-emulation/wine-faq/ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/windows-emulation/wine-faq/
  - MuffinFlavored 7y ago
    What's the GUI going to run? X.org? Wayland? Or in the Windows ecosystem?...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kop316 7y ago
I was like you when I read that. I remember when Ballmer called Linux cancer: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_...
- qplex 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure that Microsoft (and Ballmer) still consider Linux a cancer. It's just progressed very far, and their latest moves are only desperate efforts to "embrace the cancer" before it completely consumes the market.
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  I was hardwired with that memory.
  - inlined 7y ago
    My hardwired memory is when Ballmer mocked me publicly during an intern Q&A for asking if Apple could become a threat in 2006.
    - gregw2 7y ago
      How could Apple be a thteat with such a glorious Zune coming out in 2006?! Oh wait...
    - hn23 7y ago
      Would you like to elaborate? Always eager to hear such anecdotes:)
      - inlined 7y ago
        I asked whether apple’s user friendly (integrated) experience, iPod halo effect, consumer interest in the new iPhone, and their shift to low cost Mac mini would be a threat. He laughed it off. I asked “what about those who have gotten tired of waiting for the new Windows to come out and bought a Mac?” He asked if that was a personal story & told me to come back; I’d make enough money to buy a real computer. He was right. I bought an iMac as a full time employee and was one of the top bug filers for Win7 compat issues. It took years for Microsoft to take iPhone seriously. They never predicted the “byo phone” era and figured IT pros would insist on enterprise features. Years after iphones were out the Windows phone OS code names were bears that ate blackberries.
mixmastamyk 7y ago
Yes, it’s a gateway drug, like firefox and libreoffice.
gorio 7y ago
Despite the wording I don't think that is the original definition? The idea is to make Linux viable as a desktop operating system, and whatever comes with that. Not running Linux as an application on another desktop. Which is almost the opposite as in leveraging capabilities outside of Linux. Maybe more importantly redefining the goal isn't helping Linux much. I remember everyone raving about Android, but now look at the lack of vanilla graphics drivers for embedded platforms. That said, I have nothing against WSL.
- Osiris 7y ago
  Given that drivers are Linux's biggest problem, isn't there benefit to leveraging Windows drivers and then running Linux on top of that virtualized hardware? I don't see why you couldn't run x11 in the window manager with the new Linux kernel in Windows.
  - goodcanadian 7y ago
    Drivers are sometimes a bit slow to come to Linux, but it's been years since I've had a problem with any hardware more than about 1 year old. The community is large and talented and has a diverse range of interests. Some truly old and obscure stuff is supported. Most new hardware is supported with a reasonable time after release.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    You can run X11 today with Cygwin.
    - naikrovek 7y ago
      You can run X11 on Windows today without Cygwin, too.
      - c-smile 7y ago
        Can we just have Linux kernel but without that XXX thing please?
newnewpdro 7y ago
Running Linux in a VM under Windows is not a new capability, nor is this convenience development particularly helpful to Linux's long term support of modern desktop hardware if it results in what would be new linux-on-metal users never bothering and instead using Windows as a driver layer for Linux VMs. Chrome and Windows using the Linux kernel as a POSIX support layer is only going to diminish the Linux desktop community and the quality of its modern hardware support.
VvR-Ox 7y ago
I had to laugh when I read about this "Ubuntu install process" - Is there really still people on earth who can screw that up? :-D
- sametmax 7y ago
  Most people don't know what a URL is, and you want them to install an OS ?
  - VvR-Ox 7y ago
    No. But I think the people who know how to install a windows can also install ubuntu.
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  Yes, many people I know would get stuck on the very first step: formatting and creating the bootable USB drive.
  - floatboth 7y ago
    Canonical needs to put USB drives with Ubuntu into retail stores then :D
  - VvR-Ox 7y ago
    Aren't there apps to do that for you nowadays? :-D
    - bonoboTP 7y ago
      Yeah, you need to google for a tutorial, install something like Rufus or unetbootin. Have the whole mental model about what iso files are what is a boot disk, how to fix the boot order in bios if needed, etc... Very far from trivial for most people.
kylek 7y ago
>> on their gaming rigs Maybe if ms makes an nvidia driver too. :/
vbezhenar 7y ago
Installing Linux in VirtualBox is not hard. If anything, it's extremely easy. Microsoft does not bring anything substantial, you could use Linux in VirtualBox since forever and they just bundle it in their OS. Windows just getting worse and worse. I was amazed when they decided to develop Linux syscall layer, but now it's just extremely lazy approach. Hey, guys, we don't have enough money to build proper Linux layer, let's just ship VirtualBox with Windows. LoL. I just don't understand all that hype. There's nothing innovative with their approach.
- ComodoHacker 7y ago
  >Microsoft does not bring anything substantial Microsoft brings integration not possible in VM. You can actually make Linux tools part of your complex heterogeneous workflow.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    Can you tell me more or provide a link where I can read about it? I know that WSL1 indeed provided that level of integration, when you can launch Linux binary from Windows program or vice versa, because they are actually executing on the same Windows kernel, when files are actually on the same NTFS file system. That is truly amazing integration. How is their WSL2 integration is different from something like shared folders?
- lawik 7y ago
  From what I've heard the change from the layer approach to the virtual linux was mostly related to file system performance. Does it have to be innovative if it offers better integration than VirtualBox? Or is it reasonable that they use well-known and working tech? Also, while I think it is useful. I imagine much of the hype here is also from the weirdness of it all. Would you agree that it is noteworthy that Microsoft is publishing a Linux-kernel for Windows? It think it is.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    If there's not enough file system performance, they should improve their file system layer. It'll benefit all Windows applications as a side-effect. Believe it or not, but people actually use Git with Windows :) If Linux is able to pull much better file system performance, I don't believe that it's just impossible for Windows to achieve similar levels. I think that Microsoft sent many patches to Linux kernel before. It might look weird, but it's nothing really new. Their Azure business uses Linux.
dehrmann 7y ago
While people nitpick over what "linux desktop" means, don't lose sight of the fact that general purpose computing is slowly dying and being replaced by iOS and Android. Roughly as many iPhones are sold per year as desktops and laptops combined.
- snaky 7y ago
  OTOH considering Termux popularity, you may say that general purpose computing on Android is growing rapidly.
- meruru 7y ago
  One contributing factor to that statistic it that the phone lifecycle is a lot shorter than the desktop/laptop lifecycle. Also desktops and laptops are more likely to be shared between family members. The point is people still have access to and use traditional computers.
  - hrktb 7y ago
    While this must be true for a sizeable part of the population, more and more people also don’t ever touch a desktop/laptop or only use the one at work. Unsurprisingly, the latter case gets truer for low computer litteracy adults for who investing in a decent smartphone has a better ROI than buying a meh phone with a cheap laptop. Anecdotally we bought our aging parents each an ipad two years ago. They were decent but not that proficient at Windows, but got comfortable very fast at viewing/saving photos, printing, email/messaging and browsing on the ipad. From there they gave up on their budget “my carrier gave it for free” phone to move to the iphone Xr and started doing all of the above on their phones most of the time. The laptop is now a third rank device they use to check their savings once a month.
    - meruru 7y ago
      In your anecdote, your parents weren't really using their PC before they got the iPad. I think this is true of a lot of people who are smartphone-only today. Android and iOS are expanding to a market that PCs never really got to.

wrs 7y ago

Well, technically yes, but…talk about moving the goalposts! Almost like swapping the goalposts.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Always remember to lift the goalposts with your knees, not your back.
mrbungie 7y ago
Yep, except in this case is just one goalpost and everyone wins. Now we can enjoy using software as MS Office and userland from Linux distros in the same machine seamlessly.
- phkahler 7y ago
  This is the "embrace" phase. It also kind of encompasses "extend" by adding hardware support via Windows drivers. This alone is not enough to get to "extinguish" though, so allow me to make a prediction. The next step is fully locked down hardware that requires a signed OS. Linux will not run on it, but MS will pretend to support you by allowing linux apps to run on their kernel. Then, once no hardware will allow you to run linux natively they will depreciate it and get people to migrate to better supported APIs of their own. People are just walking right into this as if none of Microsofts history ever happened. The only OK scenario is that MS becomes a larger version of Redhat and migrates users the other direction. Is that happening? No. It's all about bringing your toys to their house.
  - arpa 7y ago
    Exactly this. I still remember M$ playing rough in the browser game. Bad actors never change. You can purge "bad apples" again and again, change masks, pretend to be fluffy and lovable, but you're still same old evil co. We remember. We see you snooping. We see you seething with hate for FOSS underneath your let's opensource .net core mask. And I, personally, will never forgive M$ for Elopcalypse, burning platform and death of nokia.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    That kind of locked down hardware already exists, and microsoft never needed to make any kind of argument about how you can technically run linux in a VM. In other words, I'm not worried about WSL as a vector.
  - ozim 7y ago
    Problem with this line of thinking is that operating system kernel matters. It does not anymore. What matters now is: if people are buying their cloud solution. No one cares about desktop users, no one cares about selling server OS. Real money is in big/medium companies buying their cloud stuff with nice monthly subscription. Good luck making people pay you every month for an OS, they don't want to upgrade and pay for new one even in 10 years so running Win XP. In that line of thinking you also want costs of running your own cloud solution as low as possible, so it kind of even makes sense to phase out Windows because all competitors are running their cloud on Linux based systems, where they get all upsides of collaboration on Linux. Where MS trying to run all their stuff on Win pour money into something they could have for free or just also investing a lot less into Linux than what they spend maintaining Win.

rolph 7y ago

problem is the kernel is sitting on top of a binary blob, and that manipulates the access to the real machine. we shouldnt be so worried about the kernel, we should be concerned about what the binary between the kernel and the hardware is doing/notdoing , and what degree of control do we have over that layer.

qplex 7y ago
As far as I know the binary blob is packed with anti-user features such as ads and mandatory telemetry. It's not very sane to run anything on Windows.
briffle 7y ago
The same problem exists in VMware, or really any cloud provider...
- polyomino 7y ago
  Or on any proprietary firmware...
- meruru 7y ago
  A cloud provider and your personal machine are different things with different considerations. The advantage of using Linux on a cloud provider is primarily to prevent vendor lock-in and be able to move to a different provider or a physical server under your control as needed. Using Linux on a personal machine is primarily so you can trust your machine to serve you and no one else. This is defeated if Windows or backdoored firmware is running below Linux. Note that the no lock-in benefit also exists on the desktop and because of that it makes sense to switch to Linux on a machine that requires proprietary firmware as an intermediate step to moving to a better machine like those from https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Cloud providers have no profit motive in breaking your trust. I fully believe an OS-vendor for personal computers would, especially if there's almost no alternatives.

MuffinFlavored 7y ago

How? Wouldn't it be the year of the "Microsoft emulating Linux behind the scenes" desktop, aka still Microsoft windows?

danellis 7y ago
That's the point—they're not emulating Linux anymore, they're actually running Linux as some kind of lightweight Hyper-V VM.
xfer 7y ago
Emualting? Literally shipping a kernel and distro with their OS..
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  Wine is not an Emulator
  - perennate 7y ago
    Also at one point "Windows Emulator": http://www.faqs.org/faqs/windows-emulation/wine-faq/ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/windows-emulation/wine-faq/
- MuffinFlavored 7y ago
  What's the GUI going to run? X.org? Wayland? Or in the Windows ecosystem?...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

kop316 7y ago

I was like you when I read that. I remember when Ballmer called Linux cancer: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_...

qplex 7y ago
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft (and Ballmer) still consider Linux a cancer. It's just progressed very far, and their latest moves are only desperate efforts to "embrace the cancer" before it completely consumes the market.
ngcc_hk 7y ago
I was hardwired with that memory.
- inlined 7y ago
  My hardwired memory is when Ballmer mocked me publicly during an intern Q&A for asking if Apple could become a threat in 2006.
  - gregw2 7y ago
    How could Apple be a thteat with such a glorious Zune coming out in 2006?! Oh wait...
  - hn23 7y ago
    Would you like to elaborate? Always eager to hear such anecdotes:)
    - inlined 7y ago
      I asked whether apple’s user friendly (integrated) experience, iPod halo effect, consumer interest in the new iPhone, and their shift to low cost Mac mini would be a threat. He laughed it off. I asked “what about those who have gotten tired of waiting for the new Windows to come out and bought a Mac?” He asked if that was a personal story & told me to come back; I’d make enough money to buy a real computer. He was right. I bought an iMac as a full time employee and was one of the top bug filers for Win7 compat issues. It took years for Microsoft to take iPhone seriously. They never predicted the “byo phone” era and figured IT pros would insist on enterprise features. Years after iphones were out the Windows phone OS code names were bears that ate blackberries.

mixmastamyk 7y ago

Yes, it’s a gateway drug, like firefox and libreoffice.

gorio 7y ago

Despite the wording I don't think that is the original definition? The idea is to make Linux viable as a desktop operating system, and whatever comes with that. Not running Linux as an application on another desktop. Which is almost the opposite as in leveraging capabilities outside of Linux. Maybe more importantly redefining the goal isn't helping Linux much. I remember everyone raving about Android, but now look at the lack of vanilla graphics drivers for embedded platforms. That said, I have nothing against WSL.

Osiris 7y ago
Given that drivers are Linux's biggest problem, isn't there benefit to leveraging Windows drivers and then running Linux on top of that virtualized hardware? I don't see why you couldn't run x11 in the window manager with the new Linux kernel in Windows.
- goodcanadian 7y ago
  Drivers are sometimes a bit slow to come to Linux, but it's been years since I've had a problem with any hardware more than about 1 year old. The community is large and talented and has a diverse range of interests. Some truly old and obscure stuff is supported. Most new hardware is supported with a reasonable time after release.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  You can run X11 today with Cygwin.
  - naikrovek 7y ago
    You can run X11 on Windows today without Cygwin, too.
    - c-smile 7y ago
      Can we just have Linux kernel but without that XXX thing please?

newnewpdro 7y ago

Running Linux in a VM under Windows is not a new capability, nor is this convenience development particularly helpful to Linux's long term support of modern desktop hardware if it results in what would be new linux-on-metal users never bothering and instead using Windows as a driver layer for Linux VMs. Chrome and Windows using the Linux kernel as a POSIX support layer is only going to diminish the Linux desktop community and the quality of its modern hardware support.

VvR-Ox 7y ago

I had to laugh when I read about this "Ubuntu install process" - Is there really still people on earth who can screw that up? :-D

sametmax 7y ago
Most people don't know what a URL is, and you want them to install an OS ?
- VvR-Ox 7y ago
  No. But I think the people who know how to install a windows can also install ubuntu.
bonoboTP 7y ago
Yes, many people I know would get stuck on the very first step: formatting and creating the bootable USB drive.
- floatboth 7y ago
  Canonical needs to put USB drives with Ubuntu into retail stores then :D
- VvR-Ox 7y ago
  Aren't there apps to do that for you nowadays? :-D
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    Yeah, you need to google for a tutorial, install something like Rufus or unetbootin. Have the whole mental model about what iso files are what is a boot disk, how to fix the boot order in bios if needed, etc... Very far from trivial for most people.

kylek 7y ago

>> on their gaming rigs Maybe if ms makes an nvidia driver too. :/

vbezhenar 7y ago

Installing Linux in VirtualBox is not hard. If anything, it's extremely easy. Microsoft does not bring anything substantial, you could use Linux in VirtualBox since forever and they just bundle it in their OS. Windows just getting worse and worse. I was amazed when they decided to develop Linux syscall layer, but now it's just extremely lazy approach. Hey, guys, we don't have enough money to build proper Linux layer, let's just ship VirtualBox with Windows. LoL. I just don't understand all that hype. There's nothing innovative with their approach.

ComodoHacker 7y ago
>Microsoft does not bring anything substantial Microsoft brings integration not possible in VM. You can actually make Linux tools part of your complex heterogeneous workflow.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  Can you tell me more or provide a link where I can read about it? I know that WSL1 indeed provided that level of integration, when you can launch Linux binary from Windows program or vice versa, because they are actually executing on the same Windows kernel, when files are actually on the same NTFS file system. That is truly amazing integration. How is their WSL2 integration is different from something like shared folders?
lawik 7y ago
From what I've heard the change from the layer approach to the virtual linux was mostly related to file system performance. Does it have to be innovative if it offers better integration than VirtualBox? Or is it reasonable that they use well-known and working tech? Also, while I think it is useful. I imagine much of the hype here is also from the weirdness of it all. Would you agree that it is noteworthy that Microsoft is publishing a Linux-kernel for Windows? It think it is.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  If there's not enough file system performance, they should improve their file system layer. It'll benefit all Windows applications as a side-effect. Believe it or not, but people actually use Git with Windows :) If Linux is able to pull much better file system performance, I don't believe that it's just impossible for Windows to achieve similar levels. I think that Microsoft sent many patches to Linux kernel before. It might look weird, but it's nothing really new. Their Azure business uses Linux.

dehrmann 7y ago

While people nitpick over what "linux desktop" means, don't lose sight of the fact that general purpose computing is slowly dying and being replaced by iOS and Android. Roughly as many iPhones are sold per year as desktops and laptops combined.

snaky 7y ago
OTOH considering Termux popularity, you may say that general purpose computing on Android is growing rapidly.
meruru 7y ago
One contributing factor to that statistic it that the phone lifecycle is a lot shorter than the desktop/laptop lifecycle. Also desktops and laptops are more likely to be shared between family members. The point is people still have access to and use traditional computers.
- hrktb 7y ago
  While this must be true for a sizeable part of the population, more and more people also don’t ever touch a desktop/laptop or only use the one at work. Unsurprisingly, the latter case gets truer for low computer litteracy adults for who investing in a decent smartphone has a better ROI than buying a meh phone with a cheap laptop. Anecdotally we bought our aging parents each an ipad two years ago. They were decent but not that proficient at Windows, but got comfortable very fast at viewing/saving photos, printing, email/messaging and browsing on the ipad. From there they gave up on their budget “my carrier gave it for free” phone to move to the iphone Xr and started doing all of the above on their phones most of the time. The laptop is now a third rank device they use to check their savings once a month.
  - meruru 7y ago
    In your anecdote, your parents weren't really using their PC before they got the iPad. I think this is true of a lot of people who are smartphone-only today. Android and iOS are expanding to a market that PCs never really got to.