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"but the Arch community isn't onboard with the concept of WSL, or they aren't exactly comfortable with how easy WSL makes Linux installations for Windows users.

"but the Arch community isn't onboard with the concept of WSL, or they aren't exactly comfortable with how easy WSL makes Linux installations for Windows users." That's a bit disingenuous. WSL is generally irrelevant to a Linux user. I don't hear many discussions about pacman or yay amongst Windows users. OK, better analogy: I don't hear much about QEMU discussed by Windows users. Good effort and nicely written up. I happen to be a PHB that uses Arch and KDE (since I managed to get something like KDE 2.something to compile on my Slackware powered Pentium II back in the day.) I'm also a Windows sysadmin with 30 odd years under me belly errr belt.

1_player 6y ago
It is not disingenuous. WSL is a taboo term in the Arch Linux community, for one reason or the other. If you search for it in the Wiki, you get redirected to the Code of Conduct. It is less about being irrelevant and more of a "we do not want to deal with that in any official capacity because of unspecified reasons."
- chungy 6y ago
  Do you have an citation for it being taboo? The whole structure of Arch, by contrast, makes having one-click installable images extraordinarily likely to be broken just for being out of date.
  - 1_player 6y ago
    I do not know WHY it is taboo. I know it is because the only official resource given for the WSL term is a code of conduct document with no further explanation. Draw your own conclusion, I ain't got more than that.
  - krick 6y ago
    Well, being redirected to the Code of Conduct when you search for WSL seems enough of a citation to me. Kind of surprised of such a behaviour of arch community, to be honest. Usually, it's one of the user-friendliest knowledge-bases on the Internet.
    - spijdar 6y ago
      Caveat, I don't use Arch and am not in any way connected to the community. However, since several people have mentioned it but no-one has actually linked it, this is the redirect for WSL in the arch wiki: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/service-agreements/-/blob/master/code-of-conduct.md?rdfrom=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.archlinux.org%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DWSL%26redirect%3Dno#arch-linux-distribution-support-only https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/service-agreements/-/... It specifically redirects to the subheader "Arch Linux distribution support ONLY". I'd draw specific attention to "Posting issues with, and requesting support for, derivative distributions or operating systems other than Arch Linux are prohibited." It sounds like they're taking a very hard stance against allowing discussion on anything but "arch linux as installed described by our documentation and using our repositories". I know Arch has a lot of spin off distros with custom repositories or configurations, and they probably get annoyed answering support questions for them. It seems like a loss to me, since these WSL images are using "native" Arch repos/userlands except for the WSL2 kernel, but I guess they'd rather play it safe than sorry.
LordDragonfang 6y ago
>I don't hear much about QEMU discussed by Windows users. Interesting that you chose QEMU and not, say, WINE, which definitely gets discussed even by Windows users. And, for that matter, is even more relevant since WSL also isn't an emulator. As you said, a bit disingenuous.
- lostmsu 6y ago
  WSL 2 is an emulator (Hyper-V).
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    It is not an emulator. It is a compatibility layer for ELF binaries that implements Linux system calls on Windows, among other things. It uses the same approach WINE ("WINE is not an emulator") uses.
    - cmeacham98 6y ago
      You're thinking of WSL 1 (which behaves as you describe). WSL 2 actually uses virtualization and a linux kernel. Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions#whats-new-in-wsl-2 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-version...
  - cbsks 6y ago
    To be pedantic, Hyper-V is a hypervisor not an emulator.
- gerdesj 6y ago
  "Interesting that you chose QEMU and not, say, WINE, which definitely gets discussed even by Windows users." I've no idea what WSL is as such (virty, para-virty, emulator or whatever) but I do know what WINE and QEMU are and I run quite a lot of VMware and Hyper-V clusters. I have a fair few employees who insist that Windows is lovely (mad fools.) They really don't spend much time discussing Linux virty technologies. It is possible I've been a Windows sysadmin longer than you have been on the planet. I'm 50 and 30 years in the saddle.

1_player 6y ago

It is not disingenuous. WSL is a taboo term in the Arch Linux community, for one reason or the other. If you search for it in the Wiki, you get redirected to the Code of Conduct. It is less about being irrelevant and more of a "we do not want to deal with that in any official capacity because of unspecified reasons."

chungy 6y ago
Do you have an citation for it being taboo? The whole structure of Arch, by contrast, makes having one-click installable images extraordinarily likely to be broken just for being out of date.
- 1_player 6y ago
  I do not know WHY it is taboo. I know it is because the only official resource given for the WSL term is a code of conduct document with no further explanation. Draw your own conclusion, I ain't got more than that.
- krick 6y ago
  Well, being redirected to the Code of Conduct when you search for WSL seems enough of a citation to me. Kind of surprised of such a behaviour of arch community, to be honest. Usually, it's one of the user-friendliest knowledge-bases on the Internet.
  - spijdar 6y ago
    Caveat, I don't use Arch and am not in any way connected to the community. However, since several people have mentioned it but no-one has actually linked it, this is the redirect for WSL in the arch wiki: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/service-agreements/-/blob/master/code-of-conduct.md?rdfrom=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.archlinux.org%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DWSL%26redirect%3Dno#arch-linux-distribution-support-only https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/service-agreements/-/... It specifically redirects to the subheader "Arch Linux distribution support ONLY". I'd draw specific attention to "Posting issues with, and requesting support for, derivative distributions or operating systems other than Arch Linux are prohibited." It sounds like they're taking a very hard stance against allowing discussion on anything but "arch linux as installed described by our documentation and using our repositories". I know Arch has a lot of spin off distros with custom repositories or configurations, and they probably get annoyed answering support questions for them. It seems like a loss to me, since these WSL images are using "native" Arch repos/userlands except for the WSL2 kernel, but I guess they'd rather play it safe than sorry.

LordDragonfang 6y ago

>I don't hear much about QEMU discussed by Windows users. Interesting that you chose QEMU and not, say, WINE, which definitely gets discussed even by Windows users. And, for that matter, is even more relevant since WSL also isn't an emulator. As you said, a bit disingenuous.

lostmsu 6y ago
WSL 2 is an emulator (Hyper-V).
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  It is not an emulator. It is a compatibility layer for ELF binaries that implements Linux system calls on Windows, among other things. It uses the same approach WINE ("WINE is not an emulator") uses.
  - cmeacham98 6y ago
    You're thinking of WSL 1 (which behaves as you describe). WSL 2 actually uses virtualization and a linux kernel. Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions#whats-new-in-wsl-2 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-version...
- cbsks 6y ago
  To be pedantic, Hyper-V is a hypervisor not an emulator.
gerdesj 6y ago
"Interesting that you chose QEMU and not, say, WINE, which definitely gets discussed even by Windows users." I've no idea what WSL is as such (virty, para-virty, emulator or whatever) but I do know what WINE and QEMU are and I run quite a lot of VMware and Hyper-V clusters. I have a fair few employees who insist that Windows is lovely (mad fools.) They really don't spend much time discussing Linux virty technologies. It is possible I've been a Windows sysadmin longer than you have been on the planet. I'm 50 and 30 years in the saddle.