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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

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...
      - temac 6y ago
        It's already possible to have other app stores than Play Store on Android, even simultanously. I think some features are reserved to Play Store in practice (to stores pre installed on the phone) so there could be some improvement on this point.
        chc 6y ago
        Google also currently prevents OEMs from installing competitors' stores by threatening to withhold access to Google's services. This is one of the points in Epic's lawsuit.
        dmitrygr 6y ago
        Um.... Samsung phones come with Samsung store...in usa..and have google services on them just fine... There is also a web frontend for it: https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/ https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/
    - jayd16 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. They own App Center so maybe its not that far away.
    - tracker1 6y ago
      At this point I could see how some developers may prefer an MS store for ios and android devices over the native stores. Especially if they make deeper cuts on pricing (10% of sales instead of 30% and 3% of transactions instead of 30%). I'm slightly leery about it all, but definitely warming up to MS this past decade. WSL2 and VS Code have made my life much easier to say the least. Of course this is the intended effect, I no longer have the urgency to get into a full Linux environment this way. On-Topic: glad to see this GWSL thing, as I'd been thinking about doing similar... getting X and pulseaudio working in windows, and configured right in WSL environment is a pain to say the least. If this eases that pain even if only for local logins, I'm pretty happy with it. I spent a couple days trying to get it all working... I could launch Ubuntu's Firefox instance, but couldn't for the life of me get audio working right and just gave up after a couple days.
phkahler 6y ago
They are working on Wayland support: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-Writing-Wayland-Comp https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof...
- sterlind 6y ago
  Will they run into the same roadblocks that befell Wayland on Nvidia? I guess not, because they'll likely create their own compositor that bridges into dwm, so they can use EGLStreams but I sorta hope MS does pressure Nvidia into some kind of support.
pjmlp 6y ago
Microsoft has shown it at X Developer Days 2020.

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...
    - temac 6y ago
      It's already possible to have other app stores than Play Store on Android, even simultanously. I think some features are reserved to Play Store in practice (to stores pre installed on the phone) so there could be some improvement on this point.
      - chc 6y ago
        Google also currently prevents OEMs from installing competitors' stores by threatening to withhold access to Google's services. This is one of the points in Epic's lawsuit.
        dmitrygr 6y ago
        Um.... Samsung phones come with Samsung store...in usa..and have google services on them just fine... There is also a web frontend for it: https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/ https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/
  - jayd16 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. They own App Center so maybe its not that far away.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    At this point I could see how some developers may prefer an MS store for ios and android devices over the native stores. Especially if they make deeper cuts on pricing (10% of sales instead of 30% and 3% of transactions instead of 30%). I'm slightly leery about it all, but definitely warming up to MS this past decade. WSL2 and VS Code have made my life much easier to say the least. Of course this is the intended effect, I no longer have the urgency to get into a full Linux environment this way. On-Topic: glad to see this GWSL thing, as I'd been thinking about doing similar... getting X and pulseaudio working in windows, and configured right in WSL environment is a pain to say the least. If this eases that pain even if only for local logins, I'm pretty happy with it. I spent a couple days trying to get it all working... I could launch Ubuntu's Firefox instance, but couldn't for the life of me get audio working right and just gave up after a couple days.

phkahler 6y ago

They are working on Wayland support: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-Writing-Wayland-Comp https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof...

sterlind 6y ago
Will they run into the same roadblocks that befell Wayland on Nvidia? I guess not, because they'll likely create their own compositor that bridges into dwm, so they can use EGLStreams but I sorta hope MS does pressure Nvidia into some kind of support.

pjmlp 6y ago

Microsoft has shown it at X Developer Days 2020.