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Disclosure: I work at Microsoft but not on Windows (and my work machine is a MacBook Pro FWIW) WSL 2 is a lot like that -- it's a VM in the sense that it uses

Disclosure: I work at Microsoft but not on Windows (and my work machine is a MacBook Pro FWIW) WSL 2 is a lot like that -- it's a VM in the sense that it uses Hyper-V, but it's super lightweight. And in fact, when WSL 2 is enabled, both Windows AND Linux are running in the same type of VM (separate, obviously), so it's near-native performance in a lot of ways. There are still some I/O issues that the team is actively working on, but early benchmarks are quite promising.

solotronics 7y ago
I am a network/systems guy so not being able to do full packet captures and such on WSL is the only thing stopping me from using it full time.
anthony_doan 7y ago
> There are still some I/O issues that the team is actively working on, but early benchmarks are quite promising. =/ Hoping to run my R code on WSL 2. Glad I got the answer. I wish you guys well on I/O issues. Is there any performance hit for WSL2 in regard to process forking? I recall that how window and unix deal with process is different (my R code uses mclapply parallel package for unix). I'm curious if there will be any performance hit that stands out versus running on a unix system for parallel/concurrency code.
- kumarharsh 7y ago
  On Reddit, they had a benchmark for WSL1 vs WSL2 and it showed that the Single core perf of WSL2 was sometimes better than Windows (and even bare metal linux - how that happened I am not sure). The multi-core was not as good, but still better than WSL1. I can't find that exact thread right now, but here's another one comparing WSL with Windows: https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/c1r6w0/wsl2_ubuntu_vs_windows_pro_18917_insider/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/c1r6...
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    I bet the windows hardware drivers for initialising caches, memory busses, power states, cooling etc. set certain systems up for slightly better performance.
hermitdev 7y ago
I'm nervous about WSL 2. I use WSL at home quite a bit and I'm on the Fast Insider ring. My PC hasnt been able to boot Win10 for over a year with virtualization support enabled in my BIOS. No errors or anything, just hangs at boot. Ive left feedback in the hub, but crickets. Don't know what the problem is. It used to work, but at some point an update broke it. Not bleeding edge hardware, either. About a 4 to 5 year old PC. Intel i7 CPU, think it's an X79 chipset (not at the computer, so cant verify). Its just weird...
- nickflood 7y ago
  Microsoft said that the classic WSL will be available alongside WSL2, so you'll be able to continue using WSL1 no problem if WSL2 will have issues
- cududa 7y ago
  Why is op getting downvoted? This is a legitimate issue he’s facing on a specific hardware configuration
  - crispinb 7y ago
    This is a total aside, but I really don't understand voting on comments. I've no idea what it could mean - levels of agreement, interest, offensiveness (or scores of other possibilities)? It seems entirely meaningless, therefore pointless, to me.
    - chungy 7y ago
      I'm giving you an upvote. Make of it what you will. :)
      - crispinb 7y ago
        Thank you (I think?) for making me aware of that ;)
    - nine_k 7y ago
      Upvoting moves comments (threads) closer to top. Downvoting does the opposite, and dowvoting below 0 makes comments look fainter.
idividebyzero 7y ago
Just out of curiosity: did they let you use the MacBook Pro without problems? Can you guys @ Microsoft decide to use whatever OS is more suitable for what you do?
- toyg 7y ago
  Microsoft has had Macs in use for a very long time, even pre-dating the famous Gates investment. There are some infamous pics of delivery vans unloading tons of Apple boxes in Redmond. I would expect them to be even more liberal now under Nadella, but to be honest, they probably get great prices on Surfaces, which are very nice machines now.
- filmgirlcw 7y ago
  Just saw this. The answer is it depends on the team, but unless there is a hardware/software reason tied to your job for a specific platform, people can choose what they want. Many of my colleagues use macOS, some use Windows, some Linux. I have a work-issued Mac and a work-issued Surface Book, because it’s important to test compatibility, especially when it comes to CLI stuff, across different platforms. I have Linux VMs and docker containers and WSL configured too.
marsrover 7y ago
> it uses Hyper-V does this mean there will be issues using VirtualBox if WSL 2 is enabled?
- beart 7y ago
  Unless virtual box utilizes hyper v, you'll have to reboot to switch between
- Operyl 7y ago
  As of VirtualBox 6.0, they should be able to coexist (because VirtualBox piggies onto Hyper-V when it’s enabled effectively).
  - tjoff 7y ago
    But then it is really Hyper-V with a VirtualBox UI. Seems like a recipe for incompatibilities etc.
  - kyriakos 7y ago
    In practice it's not really working though. At least not yet. There's a very long thread on virtualbox forums with people trying to get it to work but failing. I personally have to reboot when I need to use docker or virtualbox. Very annoying.
    - withinrafael 7y ago
      Yep, this is currently confirmed broken on Windows 10 1903 (Windows Hypervisor Platform extended user-mode APIs). Affects VirtualBox, qemu, etc. We may see a patch, but it's up in the air right now. (<closes eyes and sighs>, I know.)
      - anticensor 7y ago
        Qemu? Qemu does processor emulation AFAIK.
- filmgirlcw 7y ago
mlevental 7y ago
do you know if there's hardware pass through for gpu? ie can you do cuda stuff in wsl2?
- filmgirlcw 7y ago
  On Twitter, the team has said [1] it won’t be supported at launch but that this will make it easier to add that support in the future. [1]: https://twitter.com/tara_msft/status/1125888319974400000?s=21 https://twitter.com/tara_msft/status/1125888319974400000?s=2...
  - mlevental 7y ago
    thanks
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    I really hope this results in PCIe passthrough on Hyper-V becoming reasonable, it was an absolute nightmare to try to configure and I could never get it to work more than a single VM boot.
fooker 7y ago
>both Windows AND Linux are running in the same type of VM Is there a way to suspend windows? From what you say, there is nothing technical preventing this.
- filmgirlcw 7y ago
  It’s happening at the hypervisor level, and in this case it’s Type 1, so I guess you could but I don’t know how. My ops colleagues are hanging their heads at me right now. You can learn more about the architecture of WSL2 in this video from Build https://youtu.be/lwhMThePdIo https://youtu.be/lwhMThePdIo

solotronics 7y ago

I am a network/systems guy so not being able to do full packet captures and such on WSL is the only thing stopping me from using it full time.

anthony_doan 7y ago

> There are still some I/O issues that the team is actively working on, but early benchmarks are quite promising. =/ Hoping to run my R code on WSL 2. Glad I got the answer. I wish you guys well on I/O issues. Is there any performance hit for WSL2 in regard to process forking? I recall that how window and unix deal with process is different (my R code uses mclapply parallel package for unix). I'm curious if there will be any performance hit that stands out versus running on a unix system for parallel/concurrency code.

kumarharsh 7y ago
On Reddit, they had a benchmark for WSL1 vs WSL2 and it showed that the Single core perf of WSL2 was sometimes better than Windows (and even bare metal linux - how that happened I am not sure). The multi-core was not as good, but still better than WSL1. I can't find that exact thread right now, but here's another one comparing WSL with Windows: https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/c1r6w0/wsl2_ubuntu_vs_windows_pro_18917_insider/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/c1r6...
- londons_explore 7y ago
  I bet the windows hardware drivers for initialising caches, memory busses, power states, cooling etc. set certain systems up for slightly better performance.

hermitdev 7y ago

I'm nervous about WSL 2. I use WSL at home quite a bit and I'm on the Fast Insider ring. My PC hasnt been able to boot Win10 for over a year with virtualization support enabled in my BIOS. No errors or anything, just hangs at boot. Ive left feedback in the hub, but crickets. Don't know what the problem is. It used to work, but at some point an update broke it. Not bleeding edge hardware, either. About a 4 to 5 year old PC. Intel i7 CPU, think it's an X79 chipset (not at the computer, so cant verify). Its just weird...

nickflood 7y ago
Microsoft said that the classic WSL will be available alongside WSL2, so you'll be able to continue using WSL1 no problem if WSL2 will have issues
cududa 7y ago
Why is op getting downvoted? This is a legitimate issue he’s facing on a specific hardware configuration
- crispinb 7y ago
  This is a total aside, but I really don't understand voting on comments. I've no idea what it could mean - levels of agreement, interest, offensiveness (or scores of other possibilities)? It seems entirely meaningless, therefore pointless, to me.
  - chungy 7y ago
    I'm giving you an upvote. Make of it what you will. :)
    - crispinb 7y ago
      Thank you (I think?) for making me aware of that ;)
  - nine_k 7y ago
    Upvoting moves comments (threads) closer to top. Downvoting does the opposite, and dowvoting below 0 makes comments look fainter.

idividebyzero 7y ago

Just out of curiosity: did they let you use the MacBook Pro without problems? Can you guys @ Microsoft decide to use whatever OS is more suitable for what you do?

toyg 7y ago
Microsoft has had Macs in use for a very long time, even pre-dating the famous Gates investment. There are some infamous pics of delivery vans unloading tons of Apple boxes in Redmond. I would expect them to be even more liberal now under Nadella, but to be honest, they probably get great prices on Surfaces, which are very nice machines now.
filmgirlcw 7y ago
Just saw this. The answer is it depends on the team, but unless there is a hardware/software reason tied to your job for a specific platform, people can choose what they want. Many of my colleagues use macOS, some use Windows, some Linux. I have a work-issued Mac and a work-issued Surface Book, because it’s important to test compatibility, especially when it comes to CLI stuff, across different platforms. I have Linux VMs and docker containers and WSL configured too.

marsrover 7y ago

> it uses Hyper-V does this mean there will be issues using VirtualBox if WSL 2 is enabled?

beart 7y ago
Unless virtual box utilizes hyper v, you'll have to reboot to switch between
Operyl 7y ago
As of VirtualBox 6.0, they should be able to coexist (because VirtualBox piggies onto Hyper-V when it’s enabled effectively).
- tjoff 7y ago
  But then it is really Hyper-V with a VirtualBox UI. Seems like a recipe for incompatibilities etc.
- kyriakos 7y ago
  In practice it's not really working though. At least not yet. There's a very long thread on virtualbox forums with people trying to get it to work but failing. I personally have to reboot when I need to use docker or virtualbox. Very annoying.
  - withinrafael 7y ago
    Yep, this is currently confirmed broken on Windows 10 1903 (Windows Hypervisor Platform extended user-mode APIs). Affects VirtualBox, qemu, etc. We may see a patch, but it's up in the air right now. (<closes eyes and sighs>, I know.)
    - anticensor 7y ago
      Qemu? Qemu does processor emulation AFAIK.
filmgirlcw 7y ago

mlevental 7y ago

do you know if there's hardware pass through for gpu? ie can you do cuda stuff in wsl2?

filmgirlcw 7y ago
On Twitter, the team has said [1] it won’t be supported at launch but that this will make it easier to add that support in the future. [1]: https://twitter.com/tara_msft/status/1125888319974400000?s=21 https://twitter.com/tara_msft/status/1125888319974400000?s=2...
- mlevental 7y ago
  thanks
- zamadatix 7y ago
  I really hope this results in PCIe passthrough on Hyper-V becoming reasonable, it was an absolute nightmare to try to configure and I could never get it to work more than a single VM boot.

fooker 7y ago

>both Windows AND Linux are running in the same type of VM Is there a way to suspend windows? From what you say, there is nothing technical preventing this.

filmgirlcw 7y ago
It’s happening at the hypervisor level, and in this case it’s Type 1, so I guess you could but I don’t know how. My ops colleagues are hanging their heads at me right now. You can learn more about the architecture of WSL2 in this video from Build https://youtu.be/lwhMThePdIo https://youtu.be/lwhMThePdIo