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I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘y

I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. I get how ‘you never have to leave Windows’ is a nice thing for their business, but I don’t see this being a reason I would stop dual-booting. The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games. Otherwise I really enjoy the bloat-free, ad-free, telemetry-free, snappy, tractable, and undistracted experience that is Linux desktop computing. It would be nice if they did something actually useful, like add native ext4 support.

908B64B197 5y ago
> It would be nice if they did something actually useful, like add native ext4 support. Other way around. The Kernel getting real support for NTFS (was merged into Linus' tree a month ago [0]) there's hope to get native performance on WSL2. Microsoft is building the dev environment for the next decade. [0] https://www.linuxtoday.com/news/linux-kernel-5-15-will-have-improved-ntfs-file-system-support/ https://www.linuxtoday.com/news/linux-kernel-5-15-will-have-...
- pritambaral 5y ago
  Linux and Windows use mutually exclusive permission/ACL bits, even on the same NTFS filesystem.
  - pxc 5y ago
    > even on the same NTFS filesystem can you explain a bit how this works?
    - pkaye 5y ago
      I think they use extended attributes in NTFS to provide the Linux file system permission. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/file-permissions https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/file-permission...
      - chx 5y ago
        That was WSL v1. WSL v2 is a full blown VM and the filesystem is native ext4 and lives in an image file.
  - chungy 5y ago
    If Linux would just adopt NFSv4 ACLs, there'd be nothing mutually exclusive about it, but instead perfectly in tandem.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Linux has had read-only support for NTFS longer than WSL has been around. And if you think that Kernel patch is a testament to the greatness of Windows, you should try reading some of it. It's infamously incomprehensible. I'd be onboard with Windows as a next-gen dev environment if it was compatible with more filesystems, had a more organized file structure, featured greater CPU compatibility, and eliminated the system registry altogether.
- gitgud 5y ago
  > Microsoft is building the dev environment for the next decade. Big claim, most devs I've met either use Mac or Ubuntu. Can't remember anyone using Windows...
  - reilly3000 5y ago
    It’s pretty common among game, .net, and Java EE devs. For me as a Python/Node/Cloud dev it was kinda a nonstarter (it all theoretically works, but has all kinds of little bugs and caveats) until WSL was stable. Since then it’s been perfectly viable for anything I’m working on, and I was able to use it exclusively for dev work for about 6 months. I have a Mac laptop too, but my desktop is too beefy to not use as my daily driver. Still, I prefer Linux for development work.
  - PufPufPuf 5y ago
    There are literally dozens of us! No, really, when all of my development happens over SSH or inside Docker anyway, it doesn't really matter which is the "outer" OS. I'm happy with Windows.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    <raises hand> I've consistently developed Unix (then Linux) server software on WindowsNT since 1996.
  - noisem4ker 5y ago
    Have a look at JetBrains' developer surveys. Windows is consistently the most used OS. https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2021/#Main_on-which-operating-systems-are-your-development-environments https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2021/#Main_on-whic... Windows: 61% Linux: 47% macOS: 44%
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - FpUser 5y ago
    I develop Linux software on Windows using Visual Studio / C++. It lets me build and debug my servers on Linux machines remotely using nice IDE and tools. Also use CLion from Jet Brains the same way
d_k_f 5y ago
Whenever you want to natively operate on files within WSL instead of going through the network share abstraction, this is definitely helpful. I'm running my git GUI (Sublime Merge) on the Linux side and am currently piping the UI through to Windows using VcxServe. If I can remove another dependency using this - great.
phendrenad2 5y ago
I think it's mostly a "because they can". WSL is a no-brainer because developers are used to Unix shells and most programming languages are Unix-first, Windows-maybe. But WSLg feels like a weird experiment with no purpose.
- mainedotpy 5y ago
  This could very well be the case, but as someone who is just dipping a toe into programming, installing and using WSL2 knowing that I can fall back on GUI when I can't figure out bash is a feature for me.
- hawtkey 5y ago
  I think the main target is ML applications that depend on GPU access and being able to run a WM is just a side-benefit.
PennRobotics 5y ago
My networked workplace computer needs to be able to compile a Windows application plus peripherals running various other architectures. The Windows part happens best in Windows, while the other parts are remarkably painful to compile without Linux. And all the platforms can compile in parallel.
jonathanlydall 5y ago
As someone who uses Windows as their main driver, I will personally find it a useful way to test/debug our Electron based app on Linux. Right now I’m using a full VM. When you consider that Edge is available for Linux, MS could very well be using WSLg to develop it. So it seems to me that this just makes it easier to anything you need to do on Linux, “on” Windows. Of course making it easier for people on Windows to make software for Linux seems like a way to help Linux, which is a bit confusing to see MS do.
- pxc 5y ago
  > Right now I’m using a full VM. WSL2 is also a full VM
  - sverhagen 5y ago
    Is that so? Isn't it more like a bridge between Linux and Windows kernels, so that stuff is ultimately delegated to Windows?
    - bat_sy 5y ago
      WSL 1 was. WSL2 is a VM.
      - dboreham 5y ago
        But a special VM.
        denysvitali 5y ago
        Still a VM :)
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      A bridge between kernels is how most VMs work these days. The kernel inside the VM has special drivers for extra-simple 'hardware' that the host OS provides. As opposed to WSL1 where there's a wine-esque module in the windows kernel, and there is no linux kernel at all.
MikusR 5y ago
They made it specifically for machine learning
reilly3000 5y ago
I was looking into this further because it’s sort of impacting my dual-boot workflow. I have ext4 media drives on Linux that aren’t viewable or readable from Windows, but Linux can at least read the NTFS drive. The third parties I’ve tried in the past for making Ext4 readable in Windows File Explorer have some sketchy security concerns and/or missing Win10 support. It looks like using the method described in the link below it’s now possible to mount ext4 drives via WSL2 and even browse them in File Explorer: https://superuser.com/a/1630438 https://superuser.com/a/1630438 It’s not clear if they are also writable or not, I’m off to try it!
- reilly3000 5y ago
  So far no good. That feature was a preview release that required insider builds, which require enabling telemetry that sends, among other things, "information about websites you browse, apps and features you use..." Moreover, I'm not able to use Windows 11 which has the feature because of my AMD Threadripper 1950X processor.
  - sharken 5y ago
    I wonder if disabling telemetry works on the insider builds. There is a guide here: https://medium.com/geekculture/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-spying-on-you-b071134a11f6 https://medium.com/geekculture/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-s... However waiting for 21H2 is probably a lot easier.
- AkshitGarg 5y ago
  You can use WSL to mount ext4 and other filesystems supported in linux. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk
II2II 5y ago
> I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. It would be more of a case of how well certain software works, or how well that software works together, than one of supporting Linux exclusive software. There have been a variety of ways to run Unix software under Windows for decades. Quite often, there are quirks to deal with unless considerable effort has also been put into the Windows native version. I doubt that WSL will actually appeal to many existing Linux users, but it will probably prevent the slow flow of people from Windows to Linux. I agree that native ext4 support would be more useful for people who dual boot.
merb 5y ago
the reverse would also be pretty useful. heck if they would pull off office for linux even when they would charge windows pro and a 365 license it would probably be welcomed.
- reilly3000 5y ago
  I would buy that the moment it is released. That would be the fabled Year of the Linux Desktop.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    You can always just use Unity mode on the free VMware Player. VMware may allocate resources, but plays nicely with sharing them when not actually in use, so there's not much a performance hit on the host machine unless you really need to do something that has the CPU pegged. I think VirtualBox has a similar feature, but in my limited experience VB doesn't perform as well as VMware.
- lobocinza 5y ago
  Would be bad for vendor lock-in.
mcbuilder 5y ago
I have a Windows machine for my work at giant megacorp. I run Linux on my at home machines, but the honest to god I can't believe it's not Linux experience I've gotten from WSL has been great. I pretty much tab into my full screen Linux Window manager running in a X11 client window and get down to work.
sixothree 5y ago
Qemu manager would be good.
gigel82 5y ago
IIRC, they were primarily interested in getting GPU acceleration (for ML tasks) to work in WSL2. I presume getting GUI working on top of those GPU APIs was a trivial task (and maybe done by one of their interns or during a hackathon).
- reilly3000 5y ago
  That sounds like the killer app. GPU passthru can be an absolutely gnarly undertaking with any virtualization system.
- gobookdev 5y ago
  Anyone could already do it with a few lines of code. Edit: Seems people don't believe me, here's an article how to do it: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-dev-appconsult/running-wsl-gui-apps-on-windows-10/ba-p/1493242 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-dev-appconsul...
  - rrss 5y ago
    That shows how to set up an X server in windows that WSL can access. How do you get GPU acceleration for ML tasks using X11?
- PufPufPuf 5y ago
  GPU passthrough on WSL2 is a thing since around December 2020 -- but I'm not sure if it's in stable yet, I had to install an insider build for it. It works surprisingly well and I was able to develop my ML project using it (with the help of VSCode devcontainers)
  - jimmaswell 5y ago
    Why did you want to develop it through WSL2 instead of just compiling it on windows?
- mook 5y ago
  It sounds like they did significant work getting the whole stack to work well, from Wayland to the RDP back-end to improvements to the RDP client on the Win32 side. Your interns must be rock stars on meth.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
They’re supporting servers. That’s the whole story. They won business desktops but lost enterprise in the “anything that requires network access”, and want to continue to sell software to those customers. Making development less onerous supports that goal.
accurrent 5y ago
To be honest, theres alot of research related software (including for visualization) that works on Linux only or has very poor support for windows. As a roboticist one example that comes to mind is the whole open source robotics ecosystem with ROS/Gazebo which is pretty linux only. Personally I've been using linux as a daily driver for 10+years now so its not a problem for me per-se, however I'm sure there are many who would be interested in seeing better windows support. I've heard of similar issues in the domain of particle physics and a few other niche research areas.
Stratoscope 5y ago
Even though our dev environment at work is Ubuntu, I greatly prefer running Windows on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, because of the superior hardware support for the devices I use. Specifically: • I spend a fair amount of time on Zoom calls (who doesn't?), and I like to use my Apple AirPods so I can move around while we talk. I was never was able to get these or any other Bluetooth headset to work on Ubuntu. They pair only as headphones with no microphone. On Windows they work "out of the box". • I use a triple-monitor configuration with three 4K displays: the ThinkPad's internal 15" display and two 24" externals. In Ubuntu I can only get two displays to work. (BTW one external display is in landscape mode above the ThinkPad, and the other is to the left in portrait mode. I highly recommend this configuration - the portrait mode display is great for reading docs and especially PDF files.) • I run the external displays at 200% scaling and the internal at 300% to match the differing pixel density. I didn't see any way to support this configuration in Ubuntu, much less be able to move an app window between displays and have it automatically update its scaling factor to match the display. This works "out of the box" in Windows. So I run Windows on the hardware and Ubuntu with my dev tools like PyCharm and SmartGit in a VMware VM. (VMware works a lot better for this than VirtualBox - the display response is much snappier.) Of course these are my own needs, and I have no quarrel with anyone who has different preferences. But I welcome anything Microsoft can do to make this an even smoother experience than it already is.
- p2t2p 5y ago
  This. It is basically a way out for people that don't want to run Mac.
  - Stratoscope 5y ago
    Indeed. We take for granted this kind of robust hardware support on macOS and Windows. macOS by itself wouldn't work for me, though. I would still need to run a Linux VM because of our very fussy build system. And besides, where would my beloved TrackPoint be? :-)
- JoshTriplett 5y ago
  > • I run the external displays at 200% scaling and the internal at 300% to match the differing pixel density. I didn't see any way to support this configuration in Ubuntu, much less be able to move an app window between displays and have it automatically update its scaling factor to match the display. This works "out of the box" in Windows. This works if you use Wayland rather than X11. I'm using a similar configuration today.
jpalomaki 5y ago
If all your development is on Linux, it’a convenient to run IDE there as well.
jbhouse 5y ago
you would be surprised at what a large effect the removal of friction can have. I bet this will convince a decent chunk of people that dual booting isn't worth it
- sharken 5y ago
  Exactly, don't underestimate what removal of a few annoying hoops to jump through can do. The other day I wanted to compare gitk on Windows with the same on Linux. But there was no Xserver installed, so the idea was dropped. The whole reason was to see if gitk also had that annoying enumeration at startup in Linux.
alex_smart 5y ago
So even if a windows build is available, sometimes the user experience of linux-first software on windows can be subobtimal because of differences in filesystem and process model of the two operating systems. I much prefer using git and emacs within WSL than their windows builds. > The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games Another reason to use windows is if you are on a laptop and care about battery life. Browsers on Linux still don't have hardware accelerated video playback.
- lobocinza 5y ago
  > Another reason to use windows is if you are on a laptop and care about battery life. Browsers on Linux still don't have hardware accelerated video playback. That's just not true. Might be a problem with some GPUs but not with all. At least I got hardware accelerated video playback on Chromium with my AMD GPU.
  - mmerlin 5y ago
    I happily found Chromium-VAAPI almost 2 years ago and it works great with Intel integrated GPU video acceleration on Arch Manjaro Xfce https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/chromium-vaapi https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/chromium-vaapi
    - lobocinza 5y ago
      At least for AMD cards it works with no extra configuration. Besides installing the open-source driver if the distro doesn't do it automatically. I'm not sure which framework it's using VAAPI/VDPAU. My test method is: my GPU activity spike up when I hit play on a Youtube video. :) I'm on Arch/Gnome.
nailer 5y ago
Every single person who has ever claimed Linux runs flawlessly on a piece of hardware has had some flaws. I include myself here - I once bought a laptop with entirely OSS mainline kernel supported hardware and compositing didn’t work on external displays. 99% hardware support isn’t good enough. I want to make new software not troubleshoot other people’s.
- kaba0 5y ago
  Thinkpads generally work perfectly. Also, windows hardly has even 99% compatibility with hardware. There is hardware that behaves better under linux than windows as well.
  - nailer 5y ago
    I have a colleague that uses Linux with a thinkpad, he was the person that made me think of my comment. Linux works perfectly but then starting Citrix causes a weird perpetually zooming effect on his external display.
ezoe 5y ago
Terminal emulator.
lancebeet 5y ago
I use WSL with VcXsrv on my work machine. For me, the biggest feature is that I can share clipboard between vim running in WSL and windows. It's also often significantly faster to get a program up and running in Linux than on Windows, especially if it has lots of dependencies.
usrusr 5y ago
> Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. And using them is an endless shuffle with fractured distribution and update. WSL gives you apt-get. And good luck when every port you use integrates with a different subset of the ca 5 SSH options that are in common use on Windows.
anaisbetts 5y ago
> It would be nice if they did something actually useful, like add native ext4 support. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk
WhyNotHugo 5y ago
I suspect this is to try to push large business/corporate clients to drop Linux. Windows adds support for running Linux apps, then spreads some FUD about Linux, and convinces companies they need to ban dual-booting and only allow Windows internally. It certainly does _sound_ like MS.
eitland 5y ago
Almost everything I use runs faster on Linux so even if it isn't Linux exclusive I'd very much prefer to run it on Linux. VS Code brilliantly lets me develop on WSL2, IntelliJ is getting there but with these new developments it might become easier to run everything on Linux. That said, IT at work not only tolerates Linux but actively support it so I might be back on Linux again very soon.
jvanderbot 5y ago
Well, ROS? I can't tell you how many people want to mess around with the robot operating system but don't want to dive head first into Linux. Hell, my very large robotics company won't even give you a linux machine. You're forced to use Mac or Windows or build it yourself. But in general, I haven't dual-booted my main machine since WSL got good, and I'm a linxu-first kind of person with a penchant for windows gaming.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  I bet Microsoft would rather that they used Azure Sphere OS or Azure RTOS for that purpose.
  - jvanderbot 5y ago
    Possibly, but that would be misguided. That's not even close to the niche ROS fills. ROS runs on Ubuntu pretty much exclusively, is essentially a mediocre messaging middleware and a mediocre build system, upon which 95% or more of the worlds decent robotics research is conducted. The main research tools, like Gazebo, require gobs of GPU processing that usually preclude virtual machines. So everyone dual boots or goes Ubuntu-native. I'm not saying that's why WSLg is being invented, but if it can produce native-ish GPU performance, that would be an amazing use case. WSLg had an early demonstration of ROS simulations running, in fact. So I can double down on this being a use case.
Rd6n6 5y ago
I just really like the OS experience of Ubuntu. I’d rather run a windows vm but the gpu doesn’t play very nice sometimes

908B64B197 5y ago

> It would be nice if they did something actually useful, like add native ext4 support. Other way around. The Kernel getting real support for NTFS (was merged into Linus' tree a month ago [0]) there's hope to get native performance on WSL2. Microsoft is building the dev environment for the next decade. [0] https://www.linuxtoday.com/news/linux-kernel-5-15-will-have-improved-ntfs-file-system-support/ https://www.linuxtoday.com/news/linux-kernel-5-15-will-have-...

pritambaral 5y ago
Linux and Windows use mutually exclusive permission/ACL bits, even on the same NTFS filesystem.
- pxc 5y ago
  > even on the same NTFS filesystem can you explain a bit how this works?
  - pkaye 5y ago
    I think they use extended attributes in NTFS to provide the Linux file system permission. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/file-permissions https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/file-permission...
    - chx 5y ago
      That was WSL v1. WSL v2 is a full blown VM and the filesystem is native ext4 and lives in an image file.
- chungy 5y ago
  If Linux would just adopt NFSv4 ACLs, there'd be nothing mutually exclusive about it, but instead perfectly in tandem.
smoldesu 5y ago
Linux has had read-only support for NTFS longer than WSL has been around. And if you think that Kernel patch is a testament to the greatness of Windows, you should try reading some of it. It's infamously incomprehensible. I'd be onboard with Windows as a next-gen dev environment if it was compatible with more filesystems, had a more organized file structure, featured greater CPU compatibility, and eliminated the system registry altogether.
gitgud 5y ago
> Microsoft is building the dev environment for the next decade. Big claim, most devs I've met either use Mac or Ubuntu. Can't remember anyone using Windows...
- reilly3000 5y ago
  It’s pretty common among game, .net, and Java EE devs. For me as a Python/Node/Cloud dev it was kinda a nonstarter (it all theoretically works, but has all kinds of little bugs and caveats) until WSL was stable. Since then it’s been perfectly viable for anything I’m working on, and I was able to use it exclusively for dev work for about 6 months. I have a Mac laptop too, but my desktop is too beefy to not use as my daily driver. Still, I prefer Linux for development work.
- PufPufPuf 5y ago
  There are literally dozens of us! No, really, when all of my development happens over SSH or inside Docker anyway, it doesn't really matter which is the "outer" OS. I'm happy with Windows.
- dboreham 5y ago
  <raises hand> I've consistently developed Unix (then Linux) server software on WindowsNT since 1996.
- noisem4ker 5y ago
  Have a look at JetBrains' developer surveys. Windows is consistently the most used OS. https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2021/#Main_on-which-operating-systems-are-your-development-environments https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2021/#Main_on-whic... Windows: 61% Linux: 47% macOS: 44%
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FpUser 5y ago
  I develop Linux software on Windows using Visual Studio / C++. It lets me build and debug my servers on Linux machines remotely using nice IDE and tools. Also use CLion from Jet Brains the same way

d_k_f 5y ago

Whenever you want to natively operate on files within WSL instead of going through the network share abstraction, this is definitely helpful. I'm running my git GUI (Sublime Merge) on the Linux side and am currently piping the UI through to Windows using VcxServe. If I can remove another dependency using this - great.

phendrenad2 5y ago

I think it's mostly a "because they can". WSL is a no-brainer because developers are used to Unix shells and most programming languages are Unix-first, Windows-maybe. But WSLg feels like a weird experiment with no purpose.

mainedotpy 5y ago
This could very well be the case, but as someone who is just dipping a toe into programming, installing and using WSL2 knowing that I can fall back on GUI when I can't figure out bash is a feature for me.
hawtkey 5y ago
I think the main target is ML applications that depend on GPU access and being able to run a WM is just a side-benefit.

PennRobotics 5y ago

My networked workplace computer needs to be able to compile a Windows application plus peripherals running various other architectures. The Windows part happens best in Windows, while the other parts are remarkably painful to compile without Linux. And all the platforms can compile in parallel.

jonathanlydall 5y ago

As someone who uses Windows as their main driver, I will personally find it a useful way to test/debug our Electron based app on Linux. Right now I’m using a full VM. When you consider that Edge is available for Linux, MS could very well be using WSLg to develop it. So it seems to me that this just makes it easier to anything you need to do on Linux, “on” Windows. Of course making it easier for people on Windows to make software for Linux seems like a way to help Linux, which is a bit confusing to see MS do.

pxc 5y ago
> Right now I’m using a full VM. WSL2 is also a full VM
- sverhagen 5y ago
  Is that so? Isn't it more like a bridge between Linux and Windows kernels, so that stuff is ultimately delegated to Windows?
  - bat_sy 5y ago
    WSL 1 was. WSL2 is a VM.
    - dboreham 5y ago
      But a special VM.
      - denysvitali 5y ago
        Still a VM :)
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    A bridge between kernels is how most VMs work these days. The kernel inside the VM has special drivers for extra-simple 'hardware' that the host OS provides. As opposed to WSL1 where there's a wine-esque module in the windows kernel, and there is no linux kernel at all.

MikusR 5y ago

They made it specifically for machine learning

reilly3000 5y ago

I was looking into this further because it’s sort of impacting my dual-boot workflow. I have ext4 media drives on Linux that aren’t viewable or readable from Windows, but Linux can at least read the NTFS drive. The third parties I’ve tried in the past for making Ext4 readable in Windows File Explorer have some sketchy security concerns and/or missing Win10 support. It looks like using the method described in the link below it’s now possible to mount ext4 drives via WSL2 and even browse them in File Explorer: https://superuser.com/a/1630438 https://superuser.com/a/1630438 It’s not clear if they are also writable or not, I’m off to try it!

reilly3000 5y ago
So far no good. That feature was a preview release that required insider builds, which require enabling telemetry that sends, among other things, "information about websites you browse, apps and features you use..." Moreover, I'm not able to use Windows 11 which has the feature because of my AMD Threadripper 1950X processor.
- sharken 5y ago
  I wonder if disabling telemetry works on the insider builds. There is a guide here: https://medium.com/geekculture/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-spying-on-you-b071134a11f6 https://medium.com/geekculture/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-s... However waiting for 21H2 is probably a lot easier.
AkshitGarg 5y ago
You can use WSL to mount ext4 and other filesystems supported in linux. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk

II2II 5y ago

> I wonder what Linux exclusive software they are hoping to support. It would be more of a case of how well certain software works, or how well that software works together, than one of supporting Linux exclusive software. There have been a variety of ways to run Unix software under Windows for decades. Quite often, there are quirks to deal with unless considerable effort has also been put into the Windows native version. I doubt that WSL will actually appeal to many existing Linux users, but it will probably prevent the slow flow of people from Windows to Linux. I agree that native ext4 support would be more useful for people who dual boot.

merb 5y ago

the reverse would also be pretty useful. heck if they would pull off office for linux even when they would charge windows pro and a 365 license it would probably be welcomed.

reilly3000 5y ago
I would buy that the moment it is released. That would be the fabled Year of the Linux Desktop.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  You can always just use Unity mode on the free VMware Player. VMware may allocate resources, but plays nicely with sharing them when not actually in use, so there's not much a performance hit on the host machine unless you really need to do something that has the CPU pegged. I think VirtualBox has a similar feature, but in my limited experience VB doesn't perform as well as VMware.
lobocinza 5y ago
Would be bad for vendor lock-in.

mcbuilder 5y ago

I have a Windows machine for my work at giant megacorp. I run Linux on my at home machines, but the honest to god I can't believe it's not Linux experience I've gotten from WSL has been great. I pretty much tab into my full screen Linux Window manager running in a X11 client window and get down to work.

sixothree 5y ago

Qemu manager would be good.

gigel82 5y ago

IIRC, they were primarily interested in getting GPU acceleration (for ML tasks) to work in WSL2. I presume getting GUI working on top of those GPU APIs was a trivial task (and maybe done by one of their interns or during a hackathon).

reilly3000 5y ago
That sounds like the killer app. GPU passthru can be an absolutely gnarly undertaking with any virtualization system.
gobookdev 5y ago
Anyone could already do it with a few lines of code. Edit: Seems people don't believe me, here's an article how to do it: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-dev-appconsult/running-wsl-gui-apps-on-windows-10/ba-p/1493242 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-dev-appconsul...
- rrss 5y ago
  That shows how to set up an X server in windows that WSL can access. How do you get GPU acceleration for ML tasks using X11?
PufPufPuf 5y ago
GPU passthrough on WSL2 is a thing since around December 2020 -- but I'm not sure if it's in stable yet, I had to install an insider build for it. It works surprisingly well and I was able to develop my ML project using it (with the help of VSCode devcontainers)
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  Why did you want to develop it through WSL2 instead of just compiling it on windows?
mook 5y ago
It sounds like they did significant work getting the whole stack to work well, from Wayland to the RDP back-end to improvements to the RDP client on the Win32 side. Your interns must be rock stars on meth.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

They’re supporting servers. That’s the whole story. They won business desktops but lost enterprise in the “anything that requires network access”, and want to continue to sell software to those customers. Making development less onerous supports that goal.

accurrent 5y ago

To be honest, theres alot of research related software (including for visualization) that works on Linux only or has very poor support for windows. As a roboticist one example that comes to mind is the whole open source robotics ecosystem with ROS/Gazebo which is pretty linux only. Personally I've been using linux as a daily driver for 10+years now so its not a problem for me per-se, however I'm sure there are many who would be interested in seeing better windows support. I've heard of similar issues in the domain of particle physics and a few other niche research areas.

Stratoscope 5y ago

Even though our dev environment at work is Ubuntu, I greatly prefer running Windows on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme, because of the superior hardware support for the devices I use. Specifically: • I spend a fair amount of time on Zoom calls (who doesn't?), and I like to use my Apple AirPods so I can move around while we talk. I was never was able to get these or any other Bluetooth headset to work on Ubuntu. They pair only as headphones with no microphone. On Windows they work "out of the box". • I use a triple-monitor configuration with three 4K displays: the ThinkPad's internal 15" display and two 24" externals. In Ubuntu I can only get two displays to work. (BTW one external display is in landscape mode above the ThinkPad, and the other is to the left in portrait mode. I highly recommend this configuration - the portrait mode display is great for reading docs and especially PDF files.) • I run the external displays at 200% scaling and the internal at 300% to match the differing pixel density. I didn't see any way to support this configuration in Ubuntu, much less be able to move an app window between displays and have it automatically update its scaling factor to match the display. This works "out of the box" in Windows. So I run Windows on the hardware and Ubuntu with my dev tools like PyCharm and SmartGit in a VMware VM. (VMware works a lot better for this than VirtualBox - the display response is much snappier.) Of course these are my own needs, and I have no quarrel with anyone who has different preferences. But I welcome anything Microsoft can do to make this an even smoother experience than it already is.

p2t2p 5y ago
This. It is basically a way out for people that don't want to run Mac.
- Stratoscope 5y ago
  Indeed. We take for granted this kind of robust hardware support on macOS and Windows. macOS by itself wouldn't work for me, though. I would still need to run a Linux VM because of our very fussy build system. And besides, where would my beloved TrackPoint be? :-)
JoshTriplett 5y ago
> • I run the external displays at 200% scaling and the internal at 300% to match the differing pixel density. I didn't see any way to support this configuration in Ubuntu, much less be able to move an app window between displays and have it automatically update its scaling factor to match the display. This works "out of the box" in Windows. This works if you use Wayland rather than X11. I'm using a similar configuration today.

jpalomaki 5y ago

If all your development is on Linux, it’a convenient to run IDE there as well.

jbhouse 5y ago

you would be surprised at what a large effect the removal of friction can have. I bet this will convince a decent chunk of people that dual booting isn't worth it

sharken 5y ago
Exactly, don't underestimate what removal of a few annoying hoops to jump through can do. The other day I wanted to compare gitk on Windows with the same on Linux. But there was no Xserver installed, so the idea was dropped. The whole reason was to see if gitk also had that annoying enumeration at startup in Linux.

alex_smart 5y ago

So even if a windows build is available, sometimes the user experience of linux-first software on windows can be subobtimal because of differences in filesystem and process model of the two operating systems. I much prefer using git and emacs within WSL than their windows builds. > The only reason I run windows in the first place is for a few apps, mostly games Another reason to use windows is if you are on a laptop and care about battery life. Browsers on Linux still don't have hardware accelerated video playback.

lobocinza 5y ago
> Another reason to use windows is if you are on a laptop and care about battery life. Browsers on Linux still don't have hardware accelerated video playback. That's just not true. Might be a problem with some GPUs but not with all. At least I got hardware accelerated video playback on Chromium with my AMD GPU.
- mmerlin 5y ago
  I happily found Chromium-VAAPI almost 2 years ago and it works great with Intel integrated GPU video acceleration on Arch Manjaro Xfce https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/chromium-vaapi https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/chromium-vaapi
  - lobocinza 5y ago
    At least for AMD cards it works with no extra configuration. Besides installing the open-source driver if the distro doesn't do it automatically. I'm not sure which framework it's using VAAPI/VDPAU. My test method is: my GPU activity spike up when I hit play on a Youtube video. :) I'm on Arch/Gnome.

nailer 5y ago

Every single person who has ever claimed Linux runs flawlessly on a piece of hardware has had some flaws. I include myself here - I once bought a laptop with entirely OSS mainline kernel supported hardware and compositing didn’t work on external displays. 99% hardware support isn’t good enough. I want to make new software not troubleshoot other people’s.

kaba0 5y ago
Thinkpads generally work perfectly. Also, windows hardly has even 99% compatibility with hardware. There is hardware that behaves better under linux than windows as well.
- nailer 5y ago
  I have a colleague that uses Linux with a thinkpad, he was the person that made me think of my comment. Linux works perfectly but then starting Citrix causes a weird perpetually zooming effect on his external display.

ezoe 5y ago

Terminal emulator.

lancebeet 5y ago

I use WSL with VcXsrv on my work machine. For me, the biggest feature is that I can share clipboard between vim running in WSL and windows. It's also often significantly faster to get a program up and running in Linux than on Windows, especially if it has lots of dependencies.

usrusr 5y ago

> Everything I use in my Ubuntu daily driver has a Windows build or corollary app. And using them is an endless shuffle with fractured distribution and update. WSL gives you apt-get. And good luck when every port you use integrates with a different subset of the ca 5 SSH options that are in common use on Windows.

anaisbetts 5y ago

> It would be nice if they did something actually useful, like add native ext4 support. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-disk

WhyNotHugo 5y ago

I suspect this is to try to push large business/corporate clients to drop Linux. Windows adds support for running Linux apps, then spreads some FUD about Linux, and convinces companies they need to ban dual-booting and only allow Windows internally. It certainly does _sound_ like MS.

eitland 5y ago

Almost everything I use runs faster on Linux so even if it isn't Linux exclusive I'd very much prefer to run it on Linux. VS Code brilliantly lets me develop on WSL2, IntelliJ is getting there but with these new developments it might become easier to run everything on Linux. That said, IT at work not only tolerates Linux but actively support it so I might be back on Linux again very soon.

jvanderbot 5y ago

Well, ROS? I can't tell you how many people want to mess around with the robot operating system but don't want to dive head first into Linux. Hell, my very large robotics company won't even give you a linux machine. You're forced to use Mac or Windows or build it yourself. But in general, I haven't dual-booted my main machine since WSL got good, and I'm a linxu-first kind of person with a penchant for windows gaming.

pjmlp 5y ago
I bet Microsoft would rather that they used Azure Sphere OS or Azure RTOS for that purpose.
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  Possibly, but that would be misguided. That's not even close to the niche ROS fills. ROS runs on Ubuntu pretty much exclusively, is essentially a mediocre messaging middleware and a mediocre build system, upon which 95% or more of the worlds decent robotics research is conducted. The main research tools, like Gazebo, require gobs of GPU processing that usually preclude virtual machines. So everyone dual boots or goes Ubuntu-native. I'm not saying that's why WSLg is being invented, but if it can produce native-ish GPU performance, that would be an amazing use case. WSLg had an early demonstration of ROS simulations running, in fact. So I can double down on this being a use case.

Rd6n6 5y ago

I just really like the OS experience of Ubuntu. I’d rather run a windows vm but the gpu doesn’t play very nice sometimes