10 ms·

I'm still trying to understand the use case. I've been at this for 27 years (or 40, depending on where you want to start), and I just can't understand why anyon

I'm still trying to understand the use case. I've been at this for 27 years (or 40, depending on where you want to start), and I just can't understand why anyone cares about WSL2. If you need a Linux VM, I have no idea why you wouldn't run a full-blown VM software like Fusion or VitualBox, and have total control over the emulation, but I guess that comes down to preference. Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? What sort of application is that? What's that software development cycle?

cjvirtucio 5y ago
Some companies only support OSX or Windows workstations, in which case WSL helps (for the latter scenario).
eledra 5y ago
I often use WSL2 for my work on my Windows laptop. It supports Kubernetes, Docker that you installed on the Windows machine. You can also easily throw files, deploy web services, servers on WSL and access it from windows browsers. I can use my MS Office at the same time without any problem. It is much better than using Ubuntu in my opinion
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  I hear you saying that you like to be able to run native Outlook and Teams while you work on things that need to deploy to Linux. Am I reading that right?
invokestatic 5y ago
I am often happy to give up full control in exchange for convenience. WSL2 works fantastic for very quickly getting a Linux box up and is pre-configured for interoperability with Windows. Sometimes I don’t want to mess around getting these types of tools up myself.
exnihilo21 5y ago
If your desktop environment is Windows, but an open source project you want to contribute to supports Linux more naturally, but Windows is more tricky to get up and running. It is easier with the support VS code has for the integration with WSL2. I can develop in a Windows environment, but run tests and build on Linux.
supernovae 5y ago
The simple answer, is you just have to try it. It's not a use case. It's linux. Fusion and Virtualbox are terrible in comparison. With WSL2(g) you get GPU acceleration, audio, X apps and whatever distro you want (and running them in parallel if you so wish). VS Code in WSL with Docker is great - much better experience than MacOS if you ask me - especially with an architecture change.
mythz 5y ago
Windows is better as a Desktop, Linux is better as a server, WSL lets you work with both, seamlessly. So I do most of my development on Windows, but deploy to Linux servers.
- cies 5y ago
  > Windows is better as a Desktop Warning opinion ahead... W98SE was better as a desktop back then. Nowadays, I prefer Linux any day. Reinstalling a Windows machine is a total nightmare, reinstalling a Linux takes me 1.5h at most.
  - amq 5y ago
    I have the opposite experience, but maybe it's just because you and me know the quirks of each system.
  - fleaaa 5y ago
    I like working with linux but linux as a desktop is still a nightmare outside of dev environment bubble.
  - Mashimo 5y ago
    When it comes to things like HDR, floating point scaling, hardware accelerated browser, DRM (netflix etc) it seems linux on the Desktop still "not there" At least what I gather from user reports on /r/linux Of course if you don't use any of these features it's not that big of a deal. I'm happy with my windows 7 that got upgraded to win 8 that got upgraded to win 10 + wsl1. ~5 year old installation by now.
    - throwawaycuriou 5y ago
      I don't have an HDR display, but the rest of the items you list are 'there' at least on Wayland.
      - formerly_proven 5y ago
        Except DRM where Amazon, Netflix et al. just decide that Linux doesn't get HD streaming, but Windows does (one might claim that Linux is maybe better to circumvent DRM since it's the hacker OS, but there is no material difference between a non-secure-boot non-TPM Windows and Linux here; both allow the user to run kernel code and permit effectively full control of the machine).
perryizgr8 5y ago
I also thought what you have described. However I have noticed that there are some advantages to WSL2. The biggest is that VS Code is so tightly integrated. It is truly plug and play. With virtual machines I had to constantly keep fiddling with ports and network interfaces and IP addresses. It really "just works" when you use VS Code with WSL2. Another is that Windows is smart about starting and stopping the Linux VM. I don't have to manage it. It starts up when you open a terminal or open your project in VS Code. It shuts down after some time if you don't use it. No memory usage, no CPU usage.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  That's interesting. I've never tried it, but having it "just work" would indeed be nice, IF it always did the right thing. The first time it made a bad assumption that I had to tweak a config file to fix, I'd be running back to a "real" VM host. Have you ever had to do modify how it runs? (Maybe that's not even possible.)
  - perryizgr8 5y ago
    > Have you ever had to do modify how it runs? No I haven't modified its behavior beyond a few of the common preferences in the settings page.
mehphp 5y ago
For me personally, it's just ease of use. I can open a terminal, type `wsl` and it "just works". I use a mac for my job by at home I have a Windows PC and using WSL has been great to use for my side business/projects. I have no need for "total control" over the emulation. I much prefer linux to the windows command line and this gives me that.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  > I have no need for "total control" over the emulation. A lot of people are saying this, and I guess I just have a mental block. Full-blown emulation was the only game in town for 20 years. Plus there was the 6 years I ran lots and lots of KVM's. I suppose I'm just used to it.
  - ghshephard 5y ago
    All of our solution architects on Windows Systems that require Unix Utilities run WSL - none of them even considered running virtualbox/vmware. I can think of a couple reasons. The first is that there is zero learning curve to installing Ubuntu - they have a hundred things they need to learn, and futzing with virtual machines/installing linux is one less thing they have to deal with. The second is seamless integration between their windows applications and linux file system.
  - sharikous 5y ago
    Of course if you are so used to it you may not see the benefits, it's like those people who have crafted their vim/emacs environments and do not appreciate IDE advancements. But if you think about the occasional user, the new user, the one who does not have such an experience it's like sky vs earth. In VMs you have to think about a lot of things. Mounting external filesystems, bridging the network, starting and stopping the machine, GPU integration, copy/paste, guest additions, headless vs screen (what screen? do you need a VNC instance?) and so on. It's overwhelming and even dangerous (did you do "rm -rf /directory" withour remembering you mounted your whole host filesystem there? oh my..) All this stuff is greatly simplified with a lot of Microsoft engineering time that went behind it. Linux processes are very integrated with Windows ones, you install everything with one command, it "just works", and, being target at programmers, all the developing tools stuff work seamlessly. So yes, for a lot of users it's a huge deal
createmyaccount 5y ago
Linux is a nicer development environment, Windows is a nicer desktop environment. I use WSL2 full time for development (python/django, ruby/rails) and it's almost as nice as being on OSX. Almost.
- smallerfish 5y ago
  You say that, but what you do like about the desktop environment on Windows more? Of course we don't need a battle of desktops, just curious about what you've tried and didn't like on the Linux side. (I abandoned Windows in 2000, and have hated the limitations Windows desktop I've tried since, up through Windows 10.)
- nikau 5y ago
  I prefer WSL2 over OSX, just from the fact that apt is so much quicker and reliable than brew.
simonh 5y ago
You can launch into a WSL shell in seconds without having to wait for a VM to spin up. WSL doesn't run the full slew of linux processes and uses the same memory space, so both CPU and memory utilisation is much lower than a VM. You don't need to contend with all the fiddly configuration parameters and config of VM software, and it integrates into the Windows environment by default, again without fiddly configuration. If you're doing sysadmin work or web development, and need to run Windows software as well or are on hardware with better Windows support, it's hard to see why you wouldn't use WSL. To your point on total control of the emulation, not everybody needs that. If your use case means you need a real Linux OS environment, then sure, WSL isn't for you.
- yakubin 5y ago
  > You can launch into a WSL shell in seconds without having to wait for a VM to spin up. Serious question: how long does it take to spin up a VM on Windows then? Does it take seconds? (Not disputing your other points.)
  - tehbeard 5y ago
    For a "cloud image" I have in virtualbox (so no gui) for testing cloud-init/ansible, about 15-20 seconds. WSL1 takes about a second, and I'm pretty sure most of that is the init script that spits out network/update info.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  > WSL doesn't run the full slew of linux processes and uses the same memory space, so both CPU and memory utilisation is much lower than a VM. Well, I thought this was the case with WSL, but that WSL2 changed this, such that it's really just a full-blown VM now. Are you saying that you're still using WSL 1, or have I misunderstood the nature of WSL2?
  - jve 5y ago
    WSL2 still runs instantly. I haven't been bothered with waiting. I tried wsl --shutdown and then opening wsl - didn't take a second. Cold boot may have been longer, but I don't remember being bothered with startup times. However older powershell console startup time did bother me for sure.
DRW_ 5y ago
As others have mentioned, the preference for the Windows desktop environment, but also Microsoft are putting work into development tools that integrate into WSL quite well. For example, VSCode integrates fairly seamlessly into WSL, so your app can be running in WSL but your editor in native Windows and they manage all the complexity of the host -> vm communication for you.
woile 5y ago
Windows is "better" at enterprise, big companies give windows machines to thousands of employees. Big contracts, vpns, proxies, active record, etc. Microsoft sells a "working-integrated" (or maybe easy to setup) solution. Developers work best under Unix envs, most tooling is built around unix. Thus, having a usable dev environment on windows becomes easier with WSL2. That's where I think WSL2 fits well.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  My corporate desktop is behind. We're running a build of Windows 10 that doesn't even support WSL2. We're going to have to wait until next year's hardware refresh to get Windows 11, but I don't know if they'll allow us to enable it. All it would take is for one person to point out how it's basically another machine running on the same hardware, and my IT department would probably freak out and demand that we install all the anti-virus and "endpoint protection" software on it.
  - jve 5y ago
    Windows Defender for me was late to the party when scanning source code... it detected it but little bit too late. If your IT dep ever freaks out, tell that someone on the internet was actually protected within WSL + Docker: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29159990#29160902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29159990#29160902
bluedays 5y ago
Because for some reason people think Windows is a good desktop experience.
jve 5y ago
Corporately managed desktops/notebooks within Active directory with various security and automation settings applied. (If that sounds scary, to you, well... I have actually better piece of mind for my work laptop than home. As a bonus, I get to know the applied configurations as I was one of responsible to implement them). Yet, powering up wsl to start node application and fiddle around if necessary. To me it sounds great. Ofcourse, node can be configured on windows too. But then you need different docker commands/builds and docker desktop now is not free for everyone, etc. By the way, playing around with docker build for npm app within WSL, I happened to npm install the vulnerable ua-parser-js version. Security gave me a call and we were relieved that it was within windows-wsl-docker instance. So after validation, no compromise within upper layers. This was actually an eye-opener for me that, given the threats of npm and stuff, gave some serious bonus points for jumping into docker-fan-bandwagon. Running VM takes more hassle (but is ofcourse an option). Setting up WSL and playing around was very easy. And you don't have to think about forwarded ports and mapping file system. And running "code ." within WSL felt good - vscode poped up locally but terminal/code is actually on WSL. And you get to browse your localhost on Windows that is actually on linux. Doable on VM, but then one needs to know how to configure ssh, passwordless auth. If you are Linux-first user, yeah, maybe you don't see value. But think about it - this is also introducing windows folks to Linux!
- dTal 5y ago
  >this is also introducing windows folks to Linux! I highly doubt that. Nobody is playing around with WSL for fun, and it's more annoying to get into than just writing a USB and booting Linux directly. No, what WSL accomplishes is pulling people who need Linux due to its technical superiority away from Linux-proper. It's embrace-and-extend.
ABeeSea 5y ago
Virtual box is incredibly slow and graphically buggy on even a beefy windows machine. I was very happy when I moved to wsl2 from an Ubuntu VM run through a virtual box window.
shirleyquirk 5y ago
In a word, embedded. All our user facing software and development tools are Windows, all the code I actually write runs on Linux.
ramblerman 5y ago
My use case is simpler. Finally a proper terminal in windows that makes it a worthy dev environment. wsl2 with docker surpasses the osx experience now as well.
Bayart 5y ago
>I have no idea why you wouldn't run a full-blown VM software like Fusion or VitualBox Integration etc. It's just much faster and easier to pop up a terminal window straight into a shell on WSL than it is doing the same through a third party virtualization system. >Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? Me ? Enough people that it justifies putting time into WSL and adjunct software (Windows Terminal) ? There's certainly enough software on Windows that I need, especially on the audio/video front but also stuff like Visual Studio for my C# code. And there's UNIX software I equally need (headless vim and anything that runs on the CLI). It's a near perfect fit for me.
- nikau 5y ago
  Even just the fact you can run windows binaries from wsl2 is a killer feature, its nice being able to run something like tasklist.exe and process the stdout in bash. Sure you could write a similar script in Powershell or cmd, but its a headache I don't need.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    I hadn't even thought of that, though I did start the odd Windows .exe from the WSL. Is it usable for actual Windows sysadmin stuff (I mean as the main shell, as opposed to Powerwhell) ?
    - nikau 5y ago
      Anything that uses stdin/stdout will work fine
rafaelvasco 5y ago
I use WSL2 daily for work. It's much better then using a fullblown VM, because it's much much faster to open and is completely integrated into Windows, and works seamlessly with Docker for Windows, which is now an order of magnitude faster compared to before. Soon, using VM applications like VirtualBox will make no sense at all for most use cases.
- eecc 5y ago
  well... completely integrated is a stretch. I'm currently wrestling with Ubuntu because IntelliJ will crash hard when opening a Java project on a WSL path. When it doesn't crash (downgrade the jbr) it will fail to establish the RMI connection with the mvn process in Linux. In a previous Scala project I also had to go Ubuntu native because the IntelliJ sbt plugin would run the Win10 jvm even when running in the WSL2 context. So, yeah... there's enough differences to make it unusable for me.
  - madeofpalk 5y ago
    Seems like you would have these exact same problems if you were running Ubuntu in a VirtualBox VM also?
    - eecc 5y ago
      Nah, I wouldn’t have tried to run IntelliJ from windows at all, or I’d have run Mingw or just booted to Linux. Or just gone MacOS as I’ve done for 15 years. I tried out windows out of exasperation for Apple’s latest intel lemons and out of curiosity, wondering if the grass has finally grown on the other side of the wall. Nope, still the same
emptyfile 5y ago
> Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? I do, because desktop Linux is a pile of burning garbage. Do we really have to reiterate this point every time? Never been happier in my job then the day I realized I can run my full Linux dev environment on Windows. If you folks like spending your free time configuring Linux or virtual boxes on Windows, feel free to do so. But please don't act like "you just don't understand". I don't wanna debug the OS in my free time, I would rather go hiking.
- dkersten 5y ago
  > desktop Linux is a pile of burning garbage. Purely subjective. I personally think that Windows is a pile of burning garbage, YMMV obviously. My own desktop linux experience in the past ~5 or so years has actually been better than my Windows experience. Nowadays, I use a mix of Linux and OS X with a lot more time spent on Linux[1] and I'm very happy. The only thing I consider perhaps installing Windows for some day is games, but between SteamOS and Proton, even that is very low on my priority list and if I did want to do it, I'd probably install it in a VM with GPU passthrough rather than running it directly. I've been using Linux in various capacities (at home, not just on servers) since maybe 2006 or 2007, sometimes as my primary system, sometimes dual booting, sometimes in VirtualBox, but I've pretty much switched away from Windows entirely (last time I had a Windows install was 2015) and while I have a Macbook I use, my primary machine is a Dell XPS running Linux. I wouldn't even consider using Windows anymore, I've never been happier than when I left it behind for good. > If you folks like spending your free time configuring Linux I see people who don't use Linux say this, but its just not true. I spend exactly zero time configuring Linux, outside a half a day of initial setup (which, when I used Windows, is also how long I'd spend setting that up after an initial install) and much of that is largely because I can configure it to suit my particular tastes, not because I have to, outside installing a some stuff from the package manager (but again, I'd have to install the software I want on Windows too). Sure I spend more time on the commandline doing this than you might on Windows, but I prefer the commandline so it feels largely a choice rather than a necessity. I spent just as much time "fiddling" with drivers and settings on my last install of Windows as I have with my current install of Linux. I actually have a very low tolerance for dealing with shit not working. > I don't wanna debug the OS in my free time I've had more bugs in my last year of using Windows than I have in my previous year of using Linux. I've had to debug more Windows issues on family members laptops than I've ever had on my current Linux laptop. I personally don't want to deal with all the live tiles and advertisements that Windows had on my mothers laptop. With Linux, I have nothing that I don't want (and if a distro installs stuff I don't want by default, its usually trivial to remove). [1] As of about 2 years ago, prior to that the split was reversed, but that was largely due to my work at the time.
nickjj 5y ago
> I just can't understand why anyone cares about WSL2 It works seamlessly with Docker Desktop, the MS terminal has built in support to switch between WSL 2 distros and you don't need to set up an X server to run what feels like a native Linux terminal emulator from Windows like you would if you manually ran a VM. All of these are advantages over rolling your own VM. Around 6-8 years ago I used to run a self managed Linux VM on Windows with VMware Player and Unity mode. Current day WSL 2 is better in pretty much every way for general purpose web development and wanting to use the command line from Linux.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  I believe the question is who actually needs a Windows machine. Office also runs on Macs and, unless you need to do some fancy spreadsheeting, LibreOffice is there for you. If not, the web-based Office or their Google counterparts can do a lot through the browser. WSL is still much slower than a native install of Linux on the same hardware.
  - vips7L 5y ago
    I prefer to work on windows. My hardware just works, all of the programs I need just work, and it has better integration with the shell I prefer (powershell). The only time I ever need Linux/Unix is when some Unix dev decides to not use cross platform tools in their project (e.g. posix shell).
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      While I have been cautious, avoiding bleeding-edge CPUs and dGPUs (and Nvidia), I haven't had a computer that didn't work with Linux in at least 15 years. I am always curious what hardware doesn't work that is essential enough to use Windows.
vp8989 5y ago
"Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it?" Backend developers at .NET shops who were issued Windows laptops by their companies.
jimlikeslimes 5y ago
I use it to run Emacs with Magit quite nicely :) $> wsl --install -d Ubuntu-20.04 $> wsl $> sudo apt upgrade $> sudo apt update $> sudo apt install emacs $> git clone https://github.com/.../.emacs.d.git $> emacs --daemon Shortcut on desktop (with VcXsrv running): C:\Windows\System32\wsl.exe bash -c "export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0 && export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 && export XCURSOR_SIZE=16 && setsid emacsclient -c"
heresie-dabord 5y ago
Linux affords the GNU userland: unencumbered and well-tested FOSS tooling. I use WSL the way I use Cygwin. But if I had to choose between the too, I would favour the longevity of Cygwin.
coliveira 5y ago
This is MS trying to bring back developers to their closed platform. I wouldn't touch this with a 10m pole.
dboreham 5y ago
I've always used Windows to develop Linux (previously Unix) server applications. Have done since 1996. Originally I used Windows because it was the only way to have a laptop. I like to code on airplanes and so on. Subsequently, I never saw a reason to change -- Macbooks are much more costly than Windows and "weird" if you're used to Windows. The flavor of Unix supported in macos is not the same as Linux. Linux on the laptop was never a serious solution because none of the Windows apps that I use would work. Also historically many hardware features (power management, WiFi, ...) didn't work well. I began this journey before VMs on the desktop existed, and although I have used VMWare and VirtualBox, I found them cumbersome vs my preferred approach which was to make the Windows shell work like Unix (then Linux). For most of history I used Cygwin for this. You click a button and get a shell where you can run your build, utility commands etc, and you can use Windows native IDE such as IntelliJ. I'm now a heavy WSL2 user. For me it is : Cygwin that works perfectly (since it's running a real Linux kernel and distro). Yes, underneath it's a VM but the implementation is extremely fast and well integrated. I still get to click a button and have a shell I can run my build in. Filesystem access in both directions works. Docker even works. I no longer need to worry that yarn behaves oddly when running on Windows. I don't (for this purpose) want "total control", I just want it to work out of the box. I also want it to keep working when my NT kernel updates, which can't always be said for VirtualBox and kin.
avsteele 5y ago
Reasons I installed: * I wanted to work at the Linux command line without exiting windows/rebooting * I didn't know anything about VMs. What options are available, cost, how to set them up etc.. * zero-knowledge to installation took 5 minutes.
kuroguro 5y ago
Personally I use it for the command line tools / bash scripts that I can use with files on windows drives seamlessly. It's just convenient.
signal11 5y ago
> Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? Lots of developers: NodeJS, Ruby, Python, Data Science folk... They typically deploy on Linux in production so often want Macs to get a POSIX-ish environment on their development environment (sadly, too few developers run Linux on their laptops). Yes, VirtualBox is helpful. Many people use automation on top of it, too e.g. vagrant. But WSL2 arguably improves the dev experience by making it a standard, "out of the box" affair. I see WSL2 as a way for Windows to compete better against Macs. It definitely isn't going to convince Linux fans to switch. But they can ask you to consider: you can now get a newer `bash' out of the box with Windows than macOS. Which OS works better for POSIX-stack development?
- Steltek 5y ago
  I don't know if it's too late for that group. Macs are fashionable and I think people will feel they're being treated poorly if given a Windows laptop instead. You're right on with WSL2 providing a standard usable environment though. Windows and Mac developers both need a ton of handholding to get started and WSL2 makes it a lot easier to hand them a wiki page and expect fewer 1:1 calls to tweak setups.
- trelane 5y ago
  > Which OS works better for POSIX-stack development? Linux. The one you're _actually_ using. Skip the proprietary ad company desktop and use what you're wanting to.
girvo 5y ago
For me it’s just a useful underlay for Docker development containers with VSCode. Previously I was using Multipass with Ubuntu (on Hyper-V) but that had some weird issues annoyingly, that WSL2 just doesn’t. It’s basically seamless for me at this point. But my use case is narrow as heck.
kitkat_new 5y ago
a linux VM is an isolated OS, WSL is fully integrated with Windows
madeofpalk 5y ago
I don't use WSL because it's linux, I use it just because it's a better prompt/shell environment for Windows. I have a decent Windows for gaming (and to do the occasional actual Windows app development, but very rarely), so I use that for my work now (web development). The tooling is just better within WSL than natively in Windows. I'm not sure about the actual overhead of WSL vs a full VM, but I've never experienced any problems with WSL and it's pretty seamless. A full blown VM running in VirtualBox just feels like a lot more overhead.
porker 5y ago
And what do people do for versioning software on WSL2? My benefit with full-blown VMs is that when piece of software I'm writing needs specific packages, I can set them up and not affect anything else. This goes beyond venv, virtualenv, nvm to having multiple database point releases installed, or underlying graphics processing libraries. I like the speed and seamlessness of WSL2 but my nightmare on Windows and OSX has been the mismatch of versions which when you've 20+ projects over a few years starts to make keeping them all in running states a nightmare. Is the WSL2 answer to VMs to use WSL2+Docker?
- rocqua 5y ago
  Yeah docker for repeatability. Has the advantage of making it much more reproducible for others. A dockerfile and docker-compose.yml are much easier to check into git than a full VM image.
- TheGuyWhoCodes 5y ago
  yes, WSL2+Docker works well enough and a lot of tools have wsl and Docker integration so it's easy. If you already use docker containers it's a win win.
lghh 5y ago
I don't want a full VM with a full desktop experience with all my development related applications to be a separate experience from the rest of my non-development computer use cases. I like that I can very quickly open a single terminal, open my local install of VSCode that I do some non-Linux specific development in as well, open my normal day-to-day browser to look at docs, etc and just have it. It's the same computer and the same environment that I do everything in. I don't need two sets of keybindings, two sets of applications, two terminal configs, a whole new desktop env etc just to write some non-Windows software. It's just VSCode using my exact same config and keybindings, my normal browser, and my same terminal emulator.
hk1337 5y ago
For the most part I am with you, I would prefer either Linux or macOS if I want that sort of environment but I recently setup windows 10 with docker and wsl2 and it has come quite a long way since I first tried it. Like, I could actually see myself working in that environment.
jasode 5y ago
>If you need a Linux VM, I have no idea why you wouldn't run a full-blown VM software like Fusion or VitualBox, If anyone is confused about the benefits of WSL2 like the above statement, here's a video demonstrating the automatic integration of Linux+Windows. A deep link to get past the install & setup: https://youtu.be/A0eqZujVfYU?t=5m46s https://youtu.be/A0eqZujVfYU?t=5m46s tldw: The difference is WSL2 is more tightly integrated with Windows. E.g. the WSL2 "Linux" environment can automatically "see" Windows drives and likewise, Windows can see into Linux mount points. You can immediately type "ls /mnt" and see the C: drive of Windows without any setup. In contrast, with full VMware/VirtualBox, I'd have to type in something like: sudo mount -t cifs -o username=administrator //mywindesktop/c\$ /mnt/win-c Of course, entering a command isn't a big deal for technical folks but with WSL2, you don't even bother with the ceremony of it. Also, network ports are automatically set up, so Windows & Linux can communicate with each other. It's lightning fast and seamless, unlike a full vm. Another UI convenience with WSL2 is normal Ctrl+V paste works unlike a Ubuntu vm where I had to mentally pause and remember to press Shift+Ctrl+V. I stopped running a full Linux VM unless I need the extra isolation for investigating malware.
misja111 5y ago
> Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? There are plenty of companies that are locked in to Windows for their workstations but have servers running on Linux. Many financial companies for instance. As a developer you have the choice of developing in Windows, in a VM or in WSL2. I personally find WSL2 the lesser evil of the three.
dom96 5y ago
I'm also not sure why I'd use WSL2 and there are at least three big problems I ran into with it straight after upgrading: * It broke my ability to flash my ESP32 via USB (guessing WSL2 has trouble accessing USB devices) * It uses significantly more RAM than WSL1 * There is performance problems when working on NTFS partitions, or at least there were when I tried it: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4401 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4401
npteljes 5y ago
It's so that the next generation of developers don't need to learn Virtualbox or any other virtualization stuff. I think the power tools are not en vogue in general. I have seen many of my software engineer colleagues doing their work with basic tools like Notepad and Windows Explorer. So answer your question: this is one Microsoft's newer efforts to lock people into Windows. This is one of the ways which are not locking people in by force; this one works by inducing complacency.
- guhidalg 5y ago
  Or, hot take here, they just want you to be more productive on Windows so you continue buying Windows. Surprise! That's how innovation works! You keep using the product if it's easier than the alternative.
  - npteljes 5y ago
    There's an even better thing, for them, which is when people don't have a real alternative.
hulitu 5y ago
It makes sense for ramsonware people. With WSL they can encrypt also your linux files so they can ask for more money.
stonemetal12 5y ago
What you see as an up side "total control" I see as a downside "Required Control". Why do I need to specify how many VCPUs it gets and exactly how much ram it gets? I don't really care, I just want a little Linux environment to fool around with.
__s 5y ago
I am. Work laptop is Windows, but I'm writing code that runs on Linux VMs. The software cycle is the same as using Linux (but granted, I've always kept my development process in terminals) I started out in a virtual machine before wsl2. I want a terminal that interacts with the Windows environment (easy copy paste, mouse support in terminal, no lag of running graphical environment in terminal), so I was sshing into my virtual machine. wsl2 skips that step. I was sshing into wsl until Windows Terminal since before that I was using some Chrome SSH app which had mouse support
kkapelon 5y ago
WSL: - starts instantly - takes as much memory as it uses - just works No setup, No config, no fuss. It doesn't get any easier than this.
phendrenad2 5y ago
Because a VM requires you to manage a window for the VM itself. WSL is more seamless. Speaking of seamless, VirtualBox has a "seamless mode", where guest OS apps can appear as normal host OS windows. However, if you're running a "full Linux distro" inside your VM, this isn't very useful, because you'll have this ugly and tricky-to-manage Linux GUI widget also (the dock on GNOME, or the taskbar on KDE). WSL also lets you launch Linux apps from the Windows start menu, which you can absolutely achieve with VirtualBox, but it'll be a manual effort of writing BATCH files.

cjvirtucio 5y ago

Some companies only support OSX or Windows workstations, in which case WSL helps (for the latter scenario).

eledra 5y ago

I often use WSL2 for my work on my Windows laptop. It supports Kubernetes, Docker that you installed on the Windows machine. You can also easily throw files, deploy web services, servers on WSL and access it from windows browsers. I can use my MS Office at the same time without any problem. It is much better than using Ubuntu in my opinion

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
I hear you saying that you like to be able to run native Outlook and Teams while you work on things that need to deploy to Linux. Am I reading that right?

invokestatic 5y ago

I am often happy to give up full control in exchange for convenience. WSL2 works fantastic for very quickly getting a Linux box up and is pre-configured for interoperability with Windows. Sometimes I don’t want to mess around getting these types of tools up myself.

exnihilo21 5y ago

If your desktop environment is Windows, but an open source project you want to contribute to supports Linux more naturally, but Windows is more tricky to get up and running. It is easier with the support VS code has for the integration with WSL2. I can develop in a Windows environment, but run tests and build on Linux.

supernovae 5y ago

The simple answer, is you just have to try it. It's not a use case. It's linux. Fusion and Virtualbox are terrible in comparison. With WSL2(g) you get GPU acceleration, audio, X apps and whatever distro you want (and running them in parallel if you so wish). VS Code in WSL with Docker is great - much better experience than MacOS if you ask me - especially with an architecture change.

mythz 5y ago

Windows is better as a Desktop, Linux is better as a server, WSL lets you work with both, seamlessly. So I do most of my development on Windows, but deploy to Linux servers.

cies 5y ago
> Windows is better as a Desktop Warning opinion ahead... W98SE was better as a desktop back then. Nowadays, I prefer Linux any day. Reinstalling a Windows machine is a total nightmare, reinstalling a Linux takes me 1.5h at most.
- amq 5y ago
  I have the opposite experience, but maybe it's just because you and me know the quirks of each system.
- fleaaa 5y ago
  I like working with linux but linux as a desktop is still a nightmare outside of dev environment bubble.
- Mashimo 5y ago
  When it comes to things like HDR, floating point scaling, hardware accelerated browser, DRM (netflix etc) it seems linux on the Desktop still "not there" At least what I gather from user reports on /r/linux Of course if you don't use any of these features it's not that big of a deal. I'm happy with my windows 7 that got upgraded to win 8 that got upgraded to win 10 + wsl1. ~5 year old installation by now.
  - throwawaycuriou 5y ago
    I don't have an HDR display, but the rest of the items you list are 'there' at least on Wayland.
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      Except DRM where Amazon, Netflix et al. just decide that Linux doesn't get HD streaming, but Windows does (one might claim that Linux is maybe better to circumvent DRM since it's the hacker OS, but there is no material difference between a non-secure-boot non-TPM Windows and Linux here; both allow the user to run kernel code and permit effectively full control of the machine).

perryizgr8 5y ago

I also thought what you have described. However I have noticed that there are some advantages to WSL2. The biggest is that VS Code is so tightly integrated. It is truly plug and play. With virtual machines I had to constantly keep fiddling with ports and network interfaces and IP addresses. It really "just works" when you use VS Code with WSL2. Another is that Windows is smart about starting and stopping the Linux VM. I don't have to manage it. It starts up when you open a terminal or open your project in VS Code. It shuts down after some time if you don't use it. No memory usage, no CPU usage.

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
That's interesting. I've never tried it, but having it "just work" would indeed be nice, IF it always did the right thing. The first time it made a bad assumption that I had to tweak a config file to fix, I'd be running back to a "real" VM host. Have you ever had to do modify how it runs? (Maybe that's not even possible.)
- perryizgr8 5y ago
  > Have you ever had to do modify how it runs? No I haven't modified its behavior beyond a few of the common preferences in the settings page.

mehphp 5y ago

For me personally, it's just ease of use. I can open a terminal, type `wsl` and it "just works". I use a mac for my job by at home I have a Windows PC and using WSL has been great to use for my side business/projects. I have no need for "total control" over the emulation. I much prefer linux to the windows command line and this gives me that.

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
> I have no need for "total control" over the emulation. A lot of people are saying this, and I guess I just have a mental block. Full-blown emulation was the only game in town for 20 years. Plus there was the 6 years I ran lots and lots of KVM's. I suppose I'm just used to it.
- ghshephard 5y ago
  All of our solution architects on Windows Systems that require Unix Utilities run WSL - none of them even considered running virtualbox/vmware. I can think of a couple reasons. The first is that there is zero learning curve to installing Ubuntu - they have a hundred things they need to learn, and futzing with virtual machines/installing linux is one less thing they have to deal with. The second is seamless integration between their windows applications and linux file system.
- sharikous 5y ago
  Of course if you are so used to it you may not see the benefits, it's like those people who have crafted their vim/emacs environments and do not appreciate IDE advancements. But if you think about the occasional user, the new user, the one who does not have such an experience it's like sky vs earth. In VMs you have to think about a lot of things. Mounting external filesystems, bridging the network, starting and stopping the machine, GPU integration, copy/paste, guest additions, headless vs screen (what screen? do you need a VNC instance?) and so on. It's overwhelming and even dangerous (did you do "rm -rf /directory" withour remembering you mounted your whole host filesystem there? oh my..) All this stuff is greatly simplified with a lot of Microsoft engineering time that went behind it. Linux processes are very integrated with Windows ones, you install everything with one command, it "just works", and, being target at programmers, all the developing tools stuff work seamlessly. So yes, for a lot of users it's a huge deal

createmyaccount 5y ago

Linux is a nicer development environment, Windows is a nicer desktop environment. I use WSL2 full time for development (python/django, ruby/rails) and it's almost as nice as being on OSX. Almost.

smallerfish 5y ago
You say that, but what you do like about the desktop environment on Windows more? Of course we don't need a battle of desktops, just curious about what you've tried and didn't like on the Linux side. (I abandoned Windows in 2000, and have hated the limitations Windows desktop I've tried since, up through Windows 10.)
nikau 5y ago
I prefer WSL2 over OSX, just from the fact that apt is so much quicker and reliable than brew.

simonh 5y ago

You can launch into a WSL shell in seconds without having to wait for a VM to spin up. WSL doesn't run the full slew of linux processes and uses the same memory space, so both CPU and memory utilisation is much lower than a VM. You don't need to contend with all the fiddly configuration parameters and config of VM software, and it integrates into the Windows environment by default, again without fiddly configuration. If you're doing sysadmin work or web development, and need to run Windows software as well or are on hardware with better Windows support, it's hard to see why you wouldn't use WSL. To your point on total control of the emulation, not everybody needs that. If your use case means you need a real Linux OS environment, then sure, WSL isn't for you.

yakubin 5y ago
> You can launch into a WSL shell in seconds without having to wait for a VM to spin up. Serious question: how long does it take to spin up a VM on Windows then? Does it take seconds? (Not disputing your other points.)
- tehbeard 5y ago
  For a "cloud image" I have in virtualbox (so no gui) for testing cloud-init/ansible, about 15-20 seconds. WSL1 takes about a second, and I'm pretty sure most of that is the init script that spits out network/update info.
TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
> WSL doesn't run the full slew of linux processes and uses the same memory space, so both CPU and memory utilisation is much lower than a VM. Well, I thought this was the case with WSL, but that WSL2 changed this, such that it's really just a full-blown VM now. Are you saying that you're still using WSL 1, or have I misunderstood the nature of WSL2?
- jve 5y ago
  WSL2 still runs instantly. I haven't been bothered with waiting. I tried wsl --shutdown and then opening wsl - didn't take a second. Cold boot may have been longer, but I don't remember being bothered with startup times. However older powershell console startup time did bother me for sure.

DRW_ 5y ago

As others have mentioned, the preference for the Windows desktop environment, but also Microsoft are putting work into development tools that integrate into WSL quite well. For example, VSCode integrates fairly seamlessly into WSL, so your app can be running in WSL but your editor in native Windows and they manage all the complexity of the host -> vm communication for you.

woile 5y ago

Windows is "better" at enterprise, big companies give windows machines to thousands of employees. Big contracts, vpns, proxies, active record, etc. Microsoft sells a "working-integrated" (or maybe easy to setup) solution. Developers work best under Unix envs, most tooling is built around unix. Thus, having a usable dev environment on windows becomes easier with WSL2. That's where I think WSL2 fits well.

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
My corporate desktop is behind. We're running a build of Windows 10 that doesn't even support WSL2. We're going to have to wait until next year's hardware refresh to get Windows 11, but I don't know if they'll allow us to enable it. All it would take is for one person to point out how it's basically another machine running on the same hardware, and my IT department would probably freak out and demand that we install all the anti-virus and "endpoint protection" software on it.
- jve 5y ago
  Windows Defender for me was late to the party when scanning source code... it detected it but little bit too late. If your IT dep ever freaks out, tell that someone on the internet was actually protected within WSL + Docker: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29159990#29160902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29159990#29160902

bluedays 5y ago

Because for some reason people think Windows is a good desktop experience.

jve 5y ago

Corporately managed desktops/notebooks within Active directory with various security and automation settings applied. (If that sounds scary, to you, well... I have actually better piece of mind for my work laptop than home. As a bonus, I get to know the applied configurations as I was one of responsible to implement them). Yet, powering up wsl to start node application and fiddle around if necessary. To me it sounds great. Ofcourse, node can be configured on windows too. But then you need different docker commands/builds and docker desktop now is not free for everyone, etc. By the way, playing around with docker build for npm app within WSL, I happened to npm install the vulnerable ua-parser-js version. Security gave me a call and we were relieved that it was within windows-wsl-docker instance. So after validation, no compromise within upper layers. This was actually an eye-opener for me that, given the threats of npm and stuff, gave some serious bonus points for jumping into docker-fan-bandwagon. Running VM takes more hassle (but is ofcourse an option). Setting up WSL and playing around was very easy. And you don't have to think about forwarded ports and mapping file system. And running "code ." within WSL felt good - vscode poped up locally but terminal/code is actually on WSL. And you get to browse your localhost on Windows that is actually on linux. Doable on VM, but then one needs to know how to configure ssh, passwordless auth. If you are Linux-first user, yeah, maybe you don't see value. But think about it - this is also introducing windows folks to Linux!

dTal 5y ago
>this is also introducing windows folks to Linux! I highly doubt that. Nobody is playing around with WSL for fun, and it's more annoying to get into than just writing a USB and booting Linux directly. No, what WSL accomplishes is pulling people who need Linux due to its technical superiority away from Linux-proper. It's embrace-and-extend.

ABeeSea 5y ago

Virtual box is incredibly slow and graphically buggy on even a beefy windows machine. I was very happy when I moved to wsl2 from an Ubuntu VM run through a virtual box window.

shirleyquirk 5y ago

In a word, embedded. All our user facing software and development tools are Windows, all the code I actually write runs on Linux.

ramblerman 5y ago

My use case is simpler. Finally a proper terminal in windows that makes it a worthy dev environment. wsl2 with docker surpasses the osx experience now as well.

Bayart 5y ago

>I have no idea why you wouldn't run a full-blown VM software like Fusion or VitualBox Integration etc. It's just much faster and easier to pop up a terminal window straight into a shell on WSL than it is doing the same through a third party virtualization system. >Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? Me ? Enough people that it justifies putting time into WSL and adjunct software (Windows Terminal) ? There's certainly enough software on Windows that I need, especially on the audio/video front but also stuff like Visual Studio for my C# code. And there's UNIX software I equally need (headless vim and anything that runs on the CLI). It's a near perfect fit for me.

nikau 5y ago
Even just the fact you can run windows binaries from wsl2 is a killer feature, its nice being able to run something like tasklist.exe and process the stdout in bash. Sure you could write a similar script in Powershell or cmd, but its a headache I don't need.
- Bayart 5y ago
  I hadn't even thought of that, though I did start the odd Windows .exe from the WSL. Is it usable for actual Windows sysadmin stuff (I mean as the main shell, as opposed to Powerwhell) ?
  - nikau 5y ago
    Anything that uses stdin/stdout will work fine

rafaelvasco 5y ago

I use WSL2 daily for work. It's much better then using a fullblown VM, because it's much much faster to open and is completely integrated into Windows, and works seamlessly with Docker for Windows, which is now an order of magnitude faster compared to before. Soon, using VM applications like VirtualBox will make no sense at all for most use cases.

eecc 5y ago
well... completely integrated is a stretch. I'm currently wrestling with Ubuntu because IntelliJ will crash hard when opening a Java project on a WSL path. When it doesn't crash (downgrade the jbr) it will fail to establish the RMI connection with the mvn process in Linux. In a previous Scala project I also had to go Ubuntu native because the IntelliJ sbt plugin would run the Win10 jvm even when running in the WSL2 context. So, yeah... there's enough differences to make it unusable for me.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  Seems like you would have these exact same problems if you were running Ubuntu in a VirtualBox VM also?
  - eecc 5y ago
    Nah, I wouldn’t have tried to run IntelliJ from windows at all, or I’d have run Mingw or just booted to Linux. Or just gone MacOS as I’ve done for 15 years. I tried out windows out of exasperation for Apple’s latest intel lemons and out of curiosity, wondering if the grass has finally grown on the other side of the wall. Nope, still the same

emptyfile 5y ago

> Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? I do, because desktop Linux is a pile of burning garbage. Do we really have to reiterate this point every time? Never been happier in my job then the day I realized I can run my full Linux dev environment on Windows. If you folks like spending your free time configuring Linux or virtual boxes on Windows, feel free to do so. But please don't act like "you just don't understand". I don't wanna debug the OS in my free time, I would rather go hiking.

dkersten 5y ago
> desktop Linux is a pile of burning garbage. Purely subjective. I personally think that Windows is a pile of burning garbage, YMMV obviously. My own desktop linux experience in the past ~5 or so years has actually been better than my Windows experience. Nowadays, I use a mix of Linux and OS X with a lot more time spent on Linux[1] and I'm very happy. The only thing I consider perhaps installing Windows for some day is games, but between SteamOS and Proton, even that is very low on my priority list and if I did want to do it, I'd probably install it in a VM with GPU passthrough rather than running it directly. I've been using Linux in various capacities (at home, not just on servers) since maybe 2006 or 2007, sometimes as my primary system, sometimes dual booting, sometimes in VirtualBox, but I've pretty much switched away from Windows entirely (last time I had a Windows install was 2015) and while I have a Macbook I use, my primary machine is a Dell XPS running Linux. I wouldn't even consider using Windows anymore, I've never been happier than when I left it behind for good. > If you folks like spending your free time configuring Linux I see people who don't use Linux say this, but its just not true. I spend exactly zero time configuring Linux, outside a half a day of initial setup (which, when I used Windows, is also how long I'd spend setting that up after an initial install) and much of that is largely because I can configure it to suit my particular tastes, not because I have to, outside installing a some stuff from the package manager (but again, I'd have to install the software I want on Windows too). Sure I spend more time on the commandline doing this than you might on Windows, but I prefer the commandline so it feels largely a choice rather than a necessity. I spent just as much time "fiddling" with drivers and settings on my last install of Windows as I have with my current install of Linux. I actually have a very low tolerance for dealing with shit not working. > I don't wanna debug the OS in my free time I've had more bugs in my last year of using Windows than I have in my previous year of using Linux. I've had to debug more Windows issues on family members laptops than I've ever had on my current Linux laptop. I personally don't want to deal with all the live tiles and advertisements that Windows had on my mothers laptop. With Linux, I have nothing that I don't want (and if a distro installs stuff I don't want by default, its usually trivial to remove). [1] As of about 2 years ago, prior to that the split was reversed, but that was largely due to my work at the time.

nickjj 5y ago

> I just can't understand why anyone cares about WSL2 It works seamlessly with Docker Desktop, the MS terminal has built in support to switch between WSL 2 distros and you don't need to set up an X server to run what feels like a native Linux terminal emulator from Windows like you would if you manually ran a VM. All of these are advantages over rolling your own VM. Around 6-8 years ago I used to run a self managed Linux VM on Windows with VMware Player and Unity mode. Current day WSL 2 is better in pretty much every way for general purpose web development and wanting to use the command line from Linux.

rbanffy 5y ago
I believe the question is who actually needs a Windows machine. Office also runs on Macs and, unless you need to do some fancy spreadsheeting, LibreOffice is there for you. If not, the web-based Office or their Google counterparts can do a lot through the browser. WSL is still much slower than a native install of Linux on the same hardware.
- vips7L 5y ago
  I prefer to work on windows. My hardware just works, all of the programs I need just work, and it has better integration with the shell I prefer (powershell). The only time I ever need Linux/Unix is when some Unix dev decides to not use cross platform tools in their project (e.g. posix shell).
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    While I have been cautious, avoiding bleeding-edge CPUs and dGPUs (and Nvidia), I haven't had a computer that didn't work with Linux in at least 15 years. I am always curious what hardware doesn't work that is essential enough to use Windows.

vp8989 5y ago

"Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it?" Backend developers at .NET shops who were issued Windows laptops by their companies.

jimlikeslimes 5y ago

I use it to run Emacs with Magit quite nicely :) $> wsl --install -d Ubuntu-20.04 $> wsl $> sudo apt upgrade $> sudo apt update $> sudo apt install emacs $> git clone https://github.com/.../.emacs.d.git $> emacs --daemon Shortcut on desktop (with VcXsrv running): C:\Windows\System32\wsl.exe bash -c "export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0 && export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 && export XCURSOR_SIZE=16 && setsid emacsclient -c"

heresie-dabord 5y ago

Linux affords the GNU userland: unencumbered and well-tested FOSS tooling. I use WSL the way I use Cygwin. But if I had to choose between the too, I would favour the longevity of Cygwin.

coliveira 5y ago

This is MS trying to bring back developers to their closed platform. I wouldn't touch this with a 10m pole.

dboreham 5y ago

I've always used Windows to develop Linux (previously Unix) server applications. Have done since 1996. Originally I used Windows because it was the only way to have a laptop. I like to code on airplanes and so on. Subsequently, I never saw a reason to change -- Macbooks are much more costly than Windows and "weird" if you're used to Windows. The flavor of Unix supported in macos is not the same as Linux. Linux on the laptop was never a serious solution because none of the Windows apps that I use would work. Also historically many hardware features (power management, WiFi, ...) didn't work well. I began this journey before VMs on the desktop existed, and although I have used VMWare and VirtualBox, I found them cumbersome vs my preferred approach which was to make the Windows shell work like Unix (then Linux). For most of history I used Cygwin for this. You click a button and get a shell where you can run your build, utility commands etc, and you can use Windows native IDE such as IntelliJ. I'm now a heavy WSL2 user. For me it is : Cygwin that works perfectly (since it's running a real Linux kernel and distro). Yes, underneath it's a VM but the implementation is extremely fast and well integrated. I still get to click a button and have a shell I can run my build in. Filesystem access in both directions works. Docker even works. I no longer need to worry that yarn behaves oddly when running on Windows. I don't (for this purpose) want "total control", I just want it to work out of the box. I also want it to keep working when my NT kernel updates, which can't always be said for VirtualBox and kin.

avsteele 5y ago

Reasons I installed: * I wanted to work at the Linux command line without exiting windows/rebooting * I didn't know anything about VMs. What options are available, cost, how to set them up etc.. * zero-knowledge to installation took 5 minutes.

kuroguro 5y ago

Personally I use it for the command line tools / bash scripts that I can use with files on windows drives seamlessly. It's just convenient.

signal11 5y ago

> Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? Lots of developers: NodeJS, Ruby, Python, Data Science folk... They typically deploy on Linux in production so often want Macs to get a POSIX-ish environment on their development environment (sadly, too few developers run Linux on their laptops). Yes, VirtualBox is helpful. Many people use automation on top of it, too e.g. vagrant. But WSL2 arguably improves the dev experience by making it a standard, "out of the box" affair. I see WSL2 as a way for Windows to compete better against Macs. It definitely isn't going to convince Linux fans to switch. But they can ask you to consider: you can now get a newer `bash' out of the box with Windows than macOS. Which OS works better for POSIX-stack development?

Steltek 5y ago
I don't know if it's too late for that group. Macs are fashionable and I think people will feel they're being treated poorly if given a Windows laptop instead. You're right on with WSL2 providing a standard usable environment though. Windows and Mac developers both need a ton of handholding to get started and WSL2 makes it a lot easier to hand them a wiki page and expect fewer 1:1 calls to tweak setups.
trelane 5y ago
> Which OS works better for POSIX-stack development? Linux. The one you're _actually_ using. Skip the proprietary ad company desktop and use what you're wanting to.

girvo 5y ago

For me it’s just a useful underlay for Docker development containers with VSCode. Previously I was using Multipass with Ubuntu (on Hyper-V) but that had some weird issues annoyingly, that WSL2 just doesn’t. It’s basically seamless for me at this point. But my use case is narrow as heck.

kitkat_new 5y ago

a linux VM is an isolated OS, WSL is fully integrated with Windows

madeofpalk 5y ago

I don't use WSL because it's linux, I use it just because it's a better prompt/shell environment for Windows. I have a decent Windows for gaming (and to do the occasional actual Windows app development, but very rarely), so I use that for my work now (web development). The tooling is just better within WSL than natively in Windows. I'm not sure about the actual overhead of WSL vs a full VM, but I've never experienced any problems with WSL and it's pretty seamless. A full blown VM running in VirtualBox just feels like a lot more overhead.

porker 5y ago

And what do people do for versioning software on WSL2? My benefit with full-blown VMs is that when piece of software I'm writing needs specific packages, I can set them up and not affect anything else. This goes beyond venv, virtualenv, nvm to having multiple database point releases installed, or underlying graphics processing libraries. I like the speed and seamlessness of WSL2 but my nightmare on Windows and OSX has been the mismatch of versions which when you've 20+ projects over a few years starts to make keeping them all in running states a nightmare. Is the WSL2 answer to VMs to use WSL2+Docker?

rocqua 5y ago
Yeah docker for repeatability. Has the advantage of making it much more reproducible for others. A dockerfile and docker-compose.yml are much easier to check into git than a full VM image.
TheGuyWhoCodes 5y ago
yes, WSL2+Docker works well enough and a lot of tools have wsl and Docker integration so it's easy. If you already use docker containers it's a win win.

lghh 5y ago

I don't want a full VM with a full desktop experience with all my development related applications to be a separate experience from the rest of my non-development computer use cases. I like that I can very quickly open a single terminal, open my local install of VSCode that I do some non-Linux specific development in as well, open my normal day-to-day browser to look at docs, etc and just have it. It's the same computer and the same environment that I do everything in. I don't need two sets of keybindings, two sets of applications, two terminal configs, a whole new desktop env etc just to write some non-Windows software. It's just VSCode using my exact same config and keybindings, my normal browser, and my same terminal emulator.

hk1337 5y ago

For the most part I am with you, I would prefer either Linux or macOS if I want that sort of environment but I recently setup windows 10 with docker and wsl2 and it has come quite a long way since I first tried it. Like, I could actually see myself working in that environment.

jasode 5y ago

>If you need a Linux VM, I have no idea why you wouldn't run a full-blown VM software like Fusion or VitualBox, If anyone is confused about the benefits of WSL2 like the above statement, here's a video demonstrating the automatic integration of Linux+Windows. A deep link to get past the install & setup: https://youtu.be/A0eqZujVfYU?t=5m46s https://youtu.be/A0eqZujVfYU?t=5m46s tldw: The difference is WSL2 is more tightly integrated with Windows. E.g. the WSL2 "Linux" environment can automatically "see" Windows drives and likewise, Windows can see into Linux mount points. You can immediately type "ls /mnt" and see the C: drive of Windows without any setup. In contrast, with full VMware/VirtualBox, I'd have to type in something like: sudo mount -t cifs -o username=administrator //mywindesktop/c\$ /mnt/win-c Of course, entering a command isn't a big deal for technical folks but with WSL2, you don't even bother with the ceremony of it. Also, network ports are automatically set up, so Windows & Linux can communicate with each other. It's lightning fast and seamless, unlike a full vm. Another UI convenience with WSL2 is normal Ctrl+V paste works unlike a Ubuntu vm where I had to mentally pause and remember to press Shift+Ctrl+V. I stopped running a full Linux VM unless I need the extra isolation for investigating malware.

misja111 5y ago

> Who here is writing software which runs on Linux, yet needs to be running Windows while they do it? There are plenty of companies that are locked in to Windows for their workstations but have servers running on Linux. Many financial companies for instance. As a developer you have the choice of developing in Windows, in a VM or in WSL2. I personally find WSL2 the lesser evil of the three.

dom96 5y ago

I'm also not sure why I'd use WSL2 and there are at least three big problems I ran into with it straight after upgrading: * It broke my ability to flash my ESP32 via USB (guessing WSL2 has trouble accessing USB devices) * It uses significantly more RAM than WSL1 * There is performance problems when working on NTFS partitions, or at least there were when I tried it: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4401 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4401

npteljes 5y ago

It's so that the next generation of developers don't need to learn Virtualbox or any other virtualization stuff. I think the power tools are not en vogue in general. I have seen many of my software engineer colleagues doing their work with basic tools like Notepad and Windows Explorer. So answer your question: this is one Microsoft's newer efforts to lock people into Windows. This is one of the ways which are not locking people in by force; this one works by inducing complacency.

guhidalg 5y ago
Or, hot take here, they just want you to be more productive on Windows so you continue buying Windows. Surprise! That's how innovation works! You keep using the product if it's easier than the alternative.
- npteljes 5y ago
  There's an even better thing, for them, which is when people don't have a real alternative.

hulitu 5y ago

It makes sense for ramsonware people. With WSL they can encrypt also your linux files so they can ask for more money.

stonemetal12 5y ago

What you see as an up side "total control" I see as a downside "Required Control". Why do I need to specify how many VCPUs it gets and exactly how much ram it gets? I don't really care, I just want a little Linux environment to fool around with.

__s 5y ago

I am. Work laptop is Windows, but I'm writing code that runs on Linux VMs. The software cycle is the same as using Linux (but granted, I've always kept my development process in terminals) I started out in a virtual machine before wsl2. I want a terminal that interacts with the Windows environment (easy copy paste, mouse support in terminal, no lag of running graphical environment in terminal), so I was sshing into my virtual machine. wsl2 skips that step. I was sshing into wsl until Windows Terminal since before that I was using some Chrome SSH app which had mouse support

kkapelon 5y ago

WSL: - starts instantly - takes as much memory as it uses - just works No setup, No config, no fuss. It doesn't get any easier than this.

phendrenad2 5y ago

Because a VM requires you to manage a window for the VM itself. WSL is more seamless. Speaking of seamless, VirtualBox has a "seamless mode", where guest OS apps can appear as normal host OS windows. However, if you're running a "full Linux distro" inside your VM, this isn't very useful, because you'll have this ugly and tricky-to-manage Linux GUI widget also (the dock on GNOME, or the taskbar on KDE). WSL also lets you launch Linux apps from the Windows start menu, which you can absolutely achieve with VirtualBox, but it'll be a manual effort of writing BATCH files.