4 ms·

Yes WSL2

by unxdfa 4y ago

Yes WSL2

bharathyes 4y ago
while WSL2 is great for what it is it just doesn't compare to working in a linux distro. there are a lot of pain points where external tools wont always work well with WSL. I also like the productivity customizations posseble in Linux while the same are difficult or impossible on Windows. of course if your work is tied into the windows eco system having WSL is good to have.
- unxdfa 4y ago
  Completely agree. For me it’s a trade off. I’d rather use Linux on the desktop myself but it doesn’t work for me or the business I work for.
jb1991 4y ago
That's interesting to hear. I've not used Windows in over a decade (I primarily work on mac) but I've heard that WSL was quite compromising and not a great experience for people who primarily use Linux tools.
- weeeeelp 4y ago
  bash (and other shells), coreutils, pipes, git, text/cli utilities etc. work just fine on WSL, I'd call them Linux tools. My in-shell workflow consists of using mainly those + VSCode (with the WSL plugin) + ssh'ing somewhere now and then, and it's entirely sufficient for this purpose. I haven't tried running typical webserver/db services on it though.
  - unxdfa 4y ago
    I’ve run 120 containers in native docker on it and it worked fine :)
howinteresting 4y ago
WSL2 is great if you're stuck on Windows, but it's still really not there yet. For example: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/8725 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/8725
- unxdfa 4y ago
  Better to run docker native than docker desktop. Doesn’t leak.
apatheticonion 4y ago
Controversially, I have a better development experience on Windows using msys2 + zsh (basically "git-bash" on steroids). I would put that development experience almost on par with MacOS. WSL2's virtualized workflow just causes too many issues for me. WSL1 was better IMO but it wasn't significantly better than msys2 and also had issues (like you still need remote development tools to mount codebases inside editors) - unless you want to run/develop Linux binaries while on Windows. For anything that isn't making basic non containerized applications (simple web applications, web servers), Windows is pretty good. For anything more involved, requires multiple containers/compose/etc, I prefer Linux as it has the tools I need available natively and no gotyas or performance penalties. That said, credit to Microsoft on WSL2. The auto-scaling hardware provisioning inside the VM has made containerized workflows on Windows much better. To me, it's just not better than running Linux inside VMWare/Hyper-V/VBox and "DIY"ing WSL2 yourself, something I had been doing for years before WSL2 anyway. WSL2 is more fool-proof then hand-rolling a Linux VM, so there is that.

Yes WSL2

by unxdfa 4y ago

Yes WSL2

while WSL2 is great for what it is it just doesn't compare to working in a linux distro. there are a lot of pain points where external tools wont always work well with WSL. I also like the productivity customizations posseble in Linux while the same are difficult or impossible on Windows. of course if your work is tied into the windows eco system having WSL is good to have.

unxdfa 4y ago
Completely agree. For me it’s a trade off. I’d rather use Linux on the desktop myself but it doesn’t work for me or the business I work for.

jb1991 4y ago

That's interesting to hear. I've not used Windows in over a decade (I primarily work on mac) but I've heard that WSL was quite compromising and not a great experience for people who primarily use Linux tools.

weeeeelp 4y ago
bash (and other shells), coreutils, pipes, git, text/cli utilities etc. work just fine on WSL, I'd call them Linux tools. My in-shell workflow consists of using mainly those + VSCode (with the WSL plugin) + ssh'ing somewhere now and then, and it's entirely sufficient for this purpose. I haven't tried running typical webserver/db services on it though.
- unxdfa 4y ago
  I’ve run 120 containers in native docker on it and it worked fine :)

howinteresting 4y ago

WSL2 is great if you're stuck on Windows, but it's still really not there yet. For example: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/8725 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/8725

unxdfa 4y ago
Better to run docker native than docker desktop. Doesn’t leak.

apatheticonion 4y ago

Controversially, I have a better development experience on Windows using msys2 + zsh (basically "git-bash" on steroids). I would put that development experience almost on par with MacOS. WSL2's virtualized workflow just causes too many issues for me. WSL1 was better IMO but it wasn't significantly better than msys2 and also had issues (like you still need remote development tools to mount codebases inside editors) - unless you want to run/develop Linux binaries while on Windows. For anything that isn't making basic non containerized applications (simple web applications, web servers), Windows is pretty good. For anything more involved, requires multiple containers/compose/etc, I prefer Linux as it has the tools I need available natively and no gotyas or performance penalties. That said, credit to Microsoft on WSL2. The auto-scaling hardware provisioning inside the VM has made containerized workflows on Windows much better. To me, it's just not better than running Linux inside VMWare/Hyper-V/VBox and "DIY"ing WSL2 yourself, something I had been doing for years before WSL2 anyway. WSL2 is more fool-proof then hand-rolling a Linux VM, so there is that.