6 ms·

Isn't it officially coming anyway from Microsoft - https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263377/microsoft-windows-10-linux-gui-apps-gpu-acceleration-wsl-features

Isn't it officially coming anyway from Microsoft - https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263377/microsoft-windows-10-linux-gui-apps-gpu-acceleration-wsl-features https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263377/microsoft-window...

SftwreEngnr 6y ago
You really contributed a lot to this post. Congratulations.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
This will be a game changer if they flesh it out. Imagine Linux apps right alongside your windows apps with their own icons and everything. Windows Terminal + Visual Studio Code + WSL2 is the bee's knees.
- folkrav 6y ago
  Until they allow USB passthrough (which is more or less blocked by the fact that Hyper-V itself doesn't seem to have the feature), a whole bunch of my use cases are basically barred from WSL2. Shame, cause otherwise I really, really enjoyed using it - coming from a guy who's been on Linux for 99% of his time for ~15 years at this point.
  - ljm 6y ago
    I really hope that happens at some point, since there's so much messing around just to get a yubikey working in WSL. I eventually gave up on that.
  - uponcoffee 6y ago
    Wsl 2 is really cool, right up until you want/need to do anything with the underlying hardware. No usb passthrough, no hardware acceleration, gpu passthrough is there but it's still early stages as performance is about half of native and vendor tooling is absent, etc It's getting better all the time though - they tease usb passthrough might be doable as it's already supported with remote desktop
    - folkrav 6y ago
      Yeah it's actually pretty damn good. Performance was better than it was with WSL1 for me, at least (especially IO). IIRC they are exploring USB passthrough using Hyper-V sockets, but it's still very early to actually talk about having that included[1] Once they figure that out I might just as well be able to switch over and stop dual booting. I hate dual booting more than I hate Windows, so it would be an improvement. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/2195#issuecomment-743421442 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/2195#issuecomment-74...
      - 1996 6y ago
        > Performance was better than it was with WSL1 for me, at least (especially IO). WSL1 performance is better for CPU-bound problems WSL2 only shines due to the VHDX approach. If WSL1 could use a VHDX or (gasp!) a native partition in a native linux format, it would smoke WSL2.
        folkrav 6y ago
        WSL1 was more or less the reverse-equivalent of WINE as I understood it, more or less a translation layer for a subset of syscalls, the approach is awfully limited from the get go. Not sure how using a VHDX or partition would solve that. We'd be back to square one, with things like containers being unusable again.
        1996 6y ago
        > Not sure how using a VHDX or partition would solve that The problem with WSL1 is limited to disk IO performance, because the compatibility layer that's easy to do with system calls isn't so easy to do with the filesystem. > We'd be back to square one, with things like containers being unusable again. It's complementary. WSL2 when you play with containers, WSL1 when you don't. Personally, I don't bother with containers for about 90% of the development cycle - and it's just for testing before being deployed to a genuine linux, not some VM. Also, if you want to run servers with WSL (say, postgres), having containers is the last of your problems.
  - dhimes 6y ago
    uh oh. I intend to use only external HDs on my new box (the SSD HD is small) and if I can't mount a USB it ain't gonna work. I can do it fine in WSL1.
    - uponcoffee 6y ago
      You can mount partitions/drives but something like a yubikey, mic, etc you can't right now
      - dhimes 6y ago
        Ah, ok. I was trying to follow a support thread and it wasn't clear about that. It made it sound like WSL2 didn't support USB at all.
    - folkrav 6y ago
      WSL2 is backed by an actual virtual machine, so it comes with the limitations of its hypervisor (Hyper-V). Hyper-V doesn't support full USB passthrough. AFAIK it does support passing down USB volumes though.
  - voxic11 6y ago
    It seems many people find USB/IP works as a replacement for real USB passthrough http://usbip.sourceforge.net/ http://usbip.sourceforge.net/
    - folkrav 6y ago
      Found this guide a couple of days ago[1]. Looks awfully convoluted and impractical. Good if it works, but I personally draw my line of acceptable minimum functionality somewhere between "working" and "practical". This is a bit much, and has a couple of pretty bad gotchas, unfortunately. [1] https://github.com/rpasek/usbip-wsl2-instructions https://github.com/rpasek/usbip-wsl2-instructions
  - FuckButtons 6y ago
    I managed to get usb pass through working the other day for the serial monitor on a development board, they may have updated since last you tried.
- ljm 6y ago
  You can already do some of this with wslu (out of the box on the ubuntu image). You can create desktop shortcuts to linux apps (and I think provide an icon, otherwise it'll try to guess), wslview proxies to your default browser on the Windows side, and I think there are a couple of other things.
- raghava 6y ago
  All that goodness limited by networking troubles of WSL2 while on a VPN. Wonder why it is never seen by WSL devs! Most of those trying to use WSL are running Windows, in a corp network, where a VPN is there by default.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    I'm glad we're using dedicated vpn boxes... kind of annoying that I can't use a wifi directly, but usually at my home desk and tethered in anyway. Didn't know about the VPN issues in practice.
gorkish 6y ago
The author of that article seems to be conflating GPU support somehow with GUI apps. GPU support is indeed coming to WSL2 and is available currently in Insider builds along with a special release of the Nvidia driver and some Linux support packages. This, however has nothing to do with graphical applications or GPU acceleration of such. It’s entirely targeted to machine learning frameworks. I do think Microsoft has said that GUI stuff is on the roadmap. I hope they can continue to force the hand of Nvidia on the ridiculous matter of not providing any kind of GPU virtualization on their consumer cards.
- cpascal 6y ago
  You should be able to run Linux GUI apps via WSL2 on a preview build soon. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/whats-new-in-the-windows-subsystem-for-linux-september-2020/#gui-apps https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/whats-new-in-the-...
  - temac 6y ago
    I love how WSL was put in the "command line" team and they are now doing graphics, GPU, and audio (plus probably Android again) :)
    - uponcoffee 6y ago
      There was a story a few weeks back about Microsoft working on a new android subsystem. So truly coming full circle; android OS stability (via project treble), the vm approach instead of compatibility layer approach, and improvements to hardware sharing/passthrough to wsl 2 mean that they can finally realize what they tried to do with Projecy Astoria. They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'll have gapps//shims out of the box, but that works in their favor if they wanted to do another mobile play.
      - danieldk 6y ago
        They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'll have gapps//shims out of the box, but that works in their favor if they wanted to do another mobile play. When the new EU fair market regulation is accepted, they will be able to compete with an app store op Android (or iOS): allow the installation and effective use of third party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, operating systems of that gatekeeper and allow these software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the core platform services of that gatekeeper. Since they already allow alternative app stores (e.g. Steam) on regular Windows, not much changes for them in this respect. But they will also be able to compete with the Play Store and iOS App Store with their own store. Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0842&from=en https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

SftwreEngnr 6y ago

You really contributed a lot to this post. Congratulations.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

This will be a game changer if they flesh it out. Imagine Linux apps right alongside your windows apps with their own icons and everything. Windows Terminal + Visual Studio Code + WSL2 is the bee's knees.

folkrav 6y ago
Until they allow USB passthrough (which is more or less blocked by the fact that Hyper-V itself doesn't seem to have the feature), a whole bunch of my use cases are basically barred from WSL2. Shame, cause otherwise I really, really enjoyed using it - coming from a guy who's been on Linux for 99% of his time for ~15 years at this point.
- ljm 6y ago
  I really hope that happens at some point, since there's so much messing around just to get a yubikey working in WSL. I eventually gave up on that.
- uponcoffee 6y ago
  Wsl 2 is really cool, right up until you want/need to do anything with the underlying hardware. No usb passthrough, no hardware acceleration, gpu passthrough is there but it's still early stages as performance is about half of native and vendor tooling is absent, etc It's getting better all the time though - they tease usb passthrough might be doable as it's already supported with remote desktop
  - folkrav 6y ago
    Yeah it's actually pretty damn good. Performance was better than it was with WSL1 for me, at least (especially IO). IIRC they are exploring USB passthrough using Hyper-V sockets, but it's still very early to actually talk about having that included[1] Once they figure that out I might just as well be able to switch over and stop dual booting. I hate dual booting more than I hate Windows, so it would be an improvement. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/2195#issuecomment-743421442 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/2195#issuecomment-74...
    - 1996 6y ago
      > Performance was better than it was with WSL1 for me, at least (especially IO). WSL1 performance is better for CPU-bound problems WSL2 only shines due to the VHDX approach. If WSL1 could use a VHDX or (gasp!) a native partition in a native linux format, it would smoke WSL2.
      - folkrav 6y ago
        WSL1 was more or less the reverse-equivalent of WINE as I understood it, more or less a translation layer for a subset of syscalls, the approach is awfully limited from the get go. Not sure how using a VHDX or partition would solve that. We'd be back to square one, with things like containers being unusable again.
        1996 6y ago
        > Not sure how using a VHDX or partition would solve that The problem with WSL1 is limited to disk IO performance, because the compatibility layer that's easy to do with system calls isn't so easy to do with the filesystem. > We'd be back to square one, with things like containers being unusable again. It's complementary. WSL2 when you play with containers, WSL1 when you don't. Personally, I don't bother with containers for about 90% of the development cycle - and it's just for testing before being deployed to a genuine linux, not some VM. Also, if you want to run servers with WSL (say, postgres), having containers is the last of your problems.
- dhimes 6y ago
  uh oh. I intend to use only external HDs on my new box (the SSD HD is small) and if I can't mount a USB it ain't gonna work. I can do it fine in WSL1.
  - uponcoffee 6y ago
    You can mount partitions/drives but something like a yubikey, mic, etc you can't right now
    - dhimes 6y ago
      Ah, ok. I was trying to follow a support thread and it wasn't clear about that. It made it sound like WSL2 didn't support USB at all.
  - folkrav 6y ago
    WSL2 is backed by an actual virtual machine, so it comes with the limitations of its hypervisor (Hyper-V). Hyper-V doesn't support full USB passthrough. AFAIK it does support passing down USB volumes though.
- voxic11 6y ago
  It seems many people find USB/IP works as a replacement for real USB passthrough http://usbip.sourceforge.net/ http://usbip.sourceforge.net/
  - folkrav 6y ago
    Found this guide a couple of days ago[1]. Looks awfully convoluted and impractical. Good if it works, but I personally draw my line of acceptable minimum functionality somewhere between "working" and "practical". This is a bit much, and has a couple of pretty bad gotchas, unfortunately. [1] https://github.com/rpasek/usbip-wsl2-instructions https://github.com/rpasek/usbip-wsl2-instructions
- FuckButtons 6y ago
  I managed to get usb pass through working the other day for the serial monitor on a development board, they may have updated since last you tried.
ljm 6y ago
You can already do some of this with wslu (out of the box on the ubuntu image). You can create desktop shortcuts to linux apps (and I think provide an icon, otherwise it'll try to guess), wslview proxies to your default browser on the Windows side, and I think there are a couple of other things.
raghava 6y ago
All that goodness limited by networking troubles of WSL2 while on a VPN. Wonder why it is never seen by WSL devs! Most of those trying to use WSL are running Windows, in a corp network, where a VPN is there by default.
- tracker1 6y ago
  I'm glad we're using dedicated vpn boxes... kind of annoying that I can't use a wifi directly, but usually at my home desk and tethered in anyway. Didn't know about the VPN issues in practice.

gorkish 6y ago

The author of that article seems to be conflating GPU support somehow with GUI apps. GPU support is indeed coming to WSL2 and is available currently in Insider builds along with a special release of the Nvidia driver and some Linux support packages. This, however has nothing to do with graphical applications or GPU acceleration of such. It’s entirely targeted to machine learning frameworks. I do think Microsoft has said that GUI stuff is on the roadmap. I hope they can continue to force the hand of Nvidia on the ridiculous matter of not providing any kind of GPU virtualization on their consumer cards.

cpascal 6y ago
You should be able to run Linux GUI apps via WSL2 on a preview build soon. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/whats-new-in-the-windows-subsystem-for-linux-september-2020/#gui-apps https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/whats-new-in-the-...
- temac 6y ago
  I love how WSL was put in the "command line" team and they are now doing graphics, GPU, and audio (plus probably Android again) :)
  - uponcoffee 6y ago
    There was a story a few weeks back about Microsoft working on a new android subsystem. So truly coming full circle; android OS stability (via project treble), the vm approach instead of compatibility layer approach, and improvements to hardware sharing/passthrough to wsl 2 mean that they can finally realize what they tried to do with Projecy Astoria. They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'll have gapps//shims out of the box, but that works in their favor if they wanted to do another mobile play.
    - danieldk 6y ago
      They'll need to manage their own app store as I can't imagine they'll have gapps//shims out of the box, but that works in their favor if they wanted to do another mobile play. When the new EU fair market regulation is accepted, they will be able to compete with an app store op Android (or iOS): allow the installation and effective use of third party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, operating systems of that gatekeeper and allow these software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the core platform services of that gatekeeper. Since they already allow alternative app stores (e.g. Steam) on regular Windows, not much changes for them in this respect. But they will also be able to compete with the Play Store and iOS App Store with their own store. Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0842&from=en https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...