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I'm seriously considering moving back to Windows from Arch. I miss some software. Can you give some downsides of WSL2 so I know you're being impartial (I am) an

I'm seriously considering moving back to Windows from Arch. I miss some software. Can you give some downsides of WSL2 so I know you're being impartial (I am) and to help me make a decision. I wasted a few days with WSL1 and don't want to repeat that.

throwaway13249 7y ago
Just minor issues: You need to be on the insider programmer which forces telemetry and means you have a PITA windows style upgrade every other week (and the nagging associated with it). Whilst you can read /mnt/c/ you can't read virtual file systems such as Google drive stream /mnt/g/ is just empty. You need to do a bit of fuckery like pinning your ssh-agent to a known file socket and test this in your bash/zsh startup - not a biggie since you arent starting this off your WM No X support - there are third party x viewers though but not officially endorsed. So no apps like xkeynav and xkill. None of the intellij ecosystem have WSL support - sure you can set the terminal to be use wsl.exe but stuff like using your WSL2 distro's openssh config or using the agent running in your WSL2 etc... arent there or coming, VSCode is lightyears ahead in this department due to the way its modelled. Sadly intellij team aren't thinking in the same way of the vscode team, so instead of proxying through a remote demon they are thinking of doing something like reading //wsl$/distro/home/you/.ssh/config instead, hacking WSL support in their ssh/git bits
- throwaway13249 7y ago
  Need to set max memory in wslconfig too - not so well documented - otherwise your VM will just balloon to fill up all your RAM and windows and windows app will start swapping
  - jstarks 7y ago
    We are working on solving that. No promises that we will solve it completely the first time, but it should get better soon.
- throwaway8941 7y ago
  >None of the intellij ecosystem If you're doing C or C++ development, CLion does support WSL compilers/debuggers.
  - throwaway13249 7y ago
    It's all hacked in on intellij platform and reading their youtrack that their plan - each plugin bakes in WSL knowledge, where as VSCode basically launches a remote command proxy so it works the same weather WSL2 or a local vbox with ssh or a remote VPS and plugins dont need to change (or do so in a minor away). More an IntelliJ rant I guess
- rits 7y ago
  If I got you right about ssh-agent, there is a console frontend https://www.funtoo.org/Keychain https://www.funtoo.org/Keychain.
- adar 7y ago
  > You need to be on the insider programmer which forces telemetry and means you have a PITA windows style upgrade every other week (and the nagging associated with it). FWIW you can upgrade to the Fast Ring version of Windows that gets you WSL 2 and then switch to the Slow Ring that only gives you updates every month or so.
kbumsik 7y ago
WSL2 aren't shipped with systemd (or any other init processes) out of the box. So you, as an Arch user especially, will have much trouble managing Linux daemons. If you are an embedded dev keep in mind that USB or any native devices on WSL2 is not supported. If you are a web dev keep in mind that localhost is not available so that you need to figure out the IP address of WSL2.
- y4mi 7y ago
  > If you are a web dev keep in mind that localhost is not available so that you need to figure out the IP address of WSL2. Which sounds like a non-issue, but is actually quite annoying, as almost every unconfigured daemon binds to localhost...
  - throwaway13249 7y ago
    This is fixed at least in the fast ring

throwaway13249 7y ago

Just minor issues: You need to be on the insider programmer which forces telemetry and means you have a PITA windows style upgrade every other week (and the nagging associated with it). Whilst you can read /mnt/c/ you can't read virtual file systems such as Google drive stream /mnt/g/ is just empty. You need to do a bit of fuckery like pinning your ssh-agent to a known file socket and test this in your bash/zsh startup - not a biggie since you arent starting this off your WM No X support - there are third party x viewers though but not officially endorsed. So no apps like xkeynav and xkill. None of the intellij ecosystem have WSL support - sure you can set the terminal to be use wsl.exe but stuff like using your WSL2 distro's openssh config or using the agent running in your WSL2 etc... arent there or coming, VSCode is lightyears ahead in this department due to the way its modelled. Sadly intellij team aren't thinking in the same way of the vscode team, so instead of proxying through a remote demon they are thinking of doing something like reading //wsl$/distro/home/you/.ssh/config instead, hacking WSL support in their ssh/git bits

throwaway13249 7y ago
Need to set max memory in wslconfig too - not so well documented - otherwise your VM will just balloon to fill up all your RAM and windows and windows app will start swapping
- jstarks 7y ago
  We are working on solving that. No promises that we will solve it completely the first time, but it should get better soon.
throwaway8941 7y ago
>None of the intellij ecosystem If you're doing C or C++ development, CLion does support WSL compilers/debuggers.
- throwaway13249 7y ago
  It's all hacked in on intellij platform and reading their youtrack that their plan - each plugin bakes in WSL knowledge, where as VSCode basically launches a remote command proxy so it works the same weather WSL2 or a local vbox with ssh or a remote VPS and plugins dont need to change (or do so in a minor away). More an IntelliJ rant I guess
rits 7y ago
If I got you right about ssh-agent, there is a console frontend https://www.funtoo.org/Keychain https://www.funtoo.org/Keychain.
adar 7y ago
> You need to be on the insider programmer which forces telemetry and means you have a PITA windows style upgrade every other week (and the nagging associated with it). FWIW you can upgrade to the Fast Ring version of Windows that gets you WSL 2 and then switch to the Slow Ring that only gives you updates every month or so.

kbumsik 7y ago

WSL2 aren't shipped with systemd (or any other init processes) out of the box. So you, as an Arch user especially, will have much trouble managing Linux daemons. If you are an embedded dev keep in mind that USB or any native devices on WSL2 is not supported. If you are a web dev keep in mind that localhost is not available so that you need to figure out the IP address of WSL2.

y4mi 7y ago
> If you are a web dev keep in mind that localhost is not available so that you need to figure out the IP address of WSL2. Which sounds like a non-issue, but is actually quite annoying, as almost every unconfigured daemon binds to localhost...
- throwaway13249 7y ago
  This is fixed at least in the fast ring