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I, for one, am hoping Microsoft inverts WSL and releases their own Linux distro based on Debian, maybe with a proprietary Windows compatibility layer called "LS

I, for one, am hoping Microsoft inverts WSL and releases their own Linux distro based on Debian, maybe with a proprietary Windows compatibility layer called "LSW" with a virtualized NT kernel hosted in KVM. How about call it "Windows X"? If something like that were available on ARM (even without the baked-in NT support), I'd probably switch from macOS, or at least buy another computer to use MS Linux for my development work. MacOS is less and less appealing for web development these days, but I'm not switching to any NT-based Windows.

depressedpanda 6y ago
What is it that makes web dev less appealing on MacOS?
- TimTheTinker 6y ago
  A few things: - Docker on macOS is an absolute performance dog when you get above about 8 containers running simultaneously. I finally gave up and set up a Linux VM via Parallels. Now my battery lasts at least twice as long during local development. - Cloud deployment targets (including serverless) are almost always running Linux, so running/debugging on the Mac is less accurate (unless you're using Docker, but performance is bad). - Homebrew is great and all, but Ubuntu is a more important compile/release target for most open-source packages. Now for front-end development, I still prefer the Mac for a few reasons, especially the quality of the screen, trackpad, and the Quartz display-PDF window manager. If design work is necessary, some of the best tools are on the Mac. Maybe a Linux VM in Parallels on macOS is the best solution for now, but you can see why I'd prefer a Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) Linux OS if I could have that with a great screen, trackpad, display-PDF window manager, and graphics/design software.
  - depressedpanda 6y ago
    Thanks for the summary. I do web dev on Linux on a Thinkpad X1 but it seems I'm clearly in a minority there -- which I think is a bit weird since Apple is so obviously anti-web. For me, it's a great experience; maybe you should try it? ;)
nine_k 6y ago
IIRC with the introduction of WSL2, they ended up having a common hypervisor for both NT and Linux kernels. That is, booting into Linux and invoking Windows from it should be about the same thing as invoking Linux from Windows via WSL. Debian is great, but also sooo late. I wish on something more dynamic.

depressedpanda 6y ago

What is it that makes web dev less appealing on MacOS?

TimTheTinker 6y ago
A few things: - Docker on macOS is an absolute performance dog when you get above about 8 containers running simultaneously. I finally gave up and set up a Linux VM via Parallels. Now my battery lasts at least twice as long during local development. - Cloud deployment targets (including serverless) are almost always running Linux, so running/debugging on the Mac is less accurate (unless you're using Docker, but performance is bad). - Homebrew is great and all, but Ubuntu is a more important compile/release target for most open-source packages. Now for front-end development, I still prefer the Mac for a few reasons, especially the quality of the screen, trackpad, and the Quartz display-PDF window manager. If design work is necessary, some of the best tools are on the Mac. Maybe a Linux VM in Parallels on macOS is the best solution for now, but you can see why I'd prefer a Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) Linux OS if I could have that with a great screen, trackpad, display-PDF window manager, and graphics/design software.
- depressedpanda 6y ago
  Thanks for the summary. I do web dev on Linux on a Thinkpad X1 but it seems I'm clearly in a minority there -- which I think is a bit weird since Apple is so obviously anti-web. For me, it's a great experience; maybe you should try it? ;)

nine_k 6y ago

IIRC with the introduction of WSL2, they ended up having a common hypervisor for both NT and Linux kernels. That is, booting into Linux and invoking Windows from it should be about the same thing as invoking Linux from Windows via WSL. Debian is great, but also sooo late. I wish on something more dynamic.