5 ms·

Microsoft should invest in Proton, make Windows apps work seamless on linux, and then just make a "Windows" replacement for Wayland that runs on Kernel... Then

Microsoft should invest in Proton, make Windows apps work seamless on linux, and then just make a "Windows" replacement for Wayland that runs on Kernel... Then, and only then, will we have "The year of the linux desktop"

krylon 3y ago
Hehe, that thought was going through my mind as well just now. It's not really such a far out idea; if Microsoft wanted to, they could certainly put the manpower behind it to make it happen. It would also be the most delicious plot twist ever. But I don't think this is in the cards for the foreseeable future.
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
I mean, this is actually backwards from a pure engineering POV from what would be actually excellent. The core Windows NT kernel is quite excellent, and was always in some ways far superior to what Unix offered. E.g. proper asynchronous I/O from day one. Dave Cutler and crew did a bang-up job. Linux is only getting competitive things like io_uring now(ish). The problem was the shitty API and user space they papered in front of it with. Lack of a proper CLI shell, slow filesystem, the godawful "registry", a low quality, unsafe windowing toolkit (Win32 API), and then, after WinXP, bad UX / environment stuff. And, of course, the fact that everything was proprietary, closed/closed-source, and the $$ licensing story for running a WindowsNT server was always garbage. As a user operating system none of this mattered so much because the sheer mass of the market meant that driver support and application support was always going to win out on Windows. But these days, with all my attached devices being USB-Cish things that just implement USB standards I have zero issues in Linux. In fact, audio interface support works better for me in Ubuntu than it does in Windows right now. But people who were serious about running servers naturally stuck with Unix, despite it being in some ways technically inferior on paper -- because that experience on NT just wasn't as good. Remote administration via GUI. Anemic CLI. MS proprietary everything. Per-user $$ licensing stuff. Tight coupling with IIS & SQL Server, which has their own licensing stuff, etc. etc. etc. Anyways, I think it would be a shame if MS gave up on the NT kernel. With WSL1 they did an interesting job of getting Linux user space running overtop of the NT kernel, but they dropped that approach with WSL2 and went with a more VM approach.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
  > Anyways, I think it would be a shame if MS gave up on the NT kernel. I can't say this more. The NT kernel is really the best part of Windows. Almost everything that people complain about in Windows 11 is in the userspace. Start menu nerfed? Right-click menu hidden? Settings versus Control Panel? Cortana, Copilot? There's nothing in the kernel or lower-level OS constructs that require any of these.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Does a poor filesystem count as part of the kernel? In my experience, Windows file systems are the main source of Windows underperformance.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Funny, I just went back and edited my comment to add in filesystem where I didn't have it before and then saw your reply. Because, yes, NTFS is just slow as hell. I have never been clear why but as I said elsewhere, various *nix filesystems have always outperformed it. I understand that on paper NTFS was technically superior back when Linux was stuck with ext2 & ext3 as standard, but in practice it just made for a really slow system.
    - vetinari 3y ago
      Have you ever seen IFS (Installable File System) SDK for Windows and the associated documentation? And then compared that, for example to linux vfs? No wonder that so few people tried. They can spend their time on something simpler, like on building a highway bridge to Hawaii or something.
delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
I really dunno why people advocate ripping out the kernel and using Linux instead, while keeping Windows userspace. The NT kernel is the best part of Windows. It has built-in asynchronous real-time I/O. A completely plug-and-play driver model. Far more advanced permissions model. It is far ahead of the competition. The userspace and UI of Windows is very straightforwardly modified; that's why it has changed so much every iteration of Windows. Telling people that we should keep 'Windows apps' and then rip out the kernel and use the Linux kernel instead is like saying one has a small rash, let's do chemotherapy. It is breaking a fly with a wheel. I want to go back to the Windows 2000-era UI, with the same advancements in the kernel and core Windows technologies we have today.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  >>A completely plug-and-play driver model. this is one of the things I despise about windows that most. The Driver model. I hate it, it causes soooooooooo many issues from security to just breaking randomly in weird ways, problems you do not have with a monolithic kernel >> Far more advanced permissions model. This is a double edges sword, very very easy to get into all kinds of trouble here, sometimes "less advanced" is better. >> It is far ahead of the competition. That seems to be subjective >>dunno why people advocate ripping out the kernel and using Linux instead Well my parent comment was more tongue and cheek jab at the "year of linux desktop meme"... >>Telling people that we should keep 'Windows apps' More about Win32 API compatibility to keep 80-90% of software working. >>I want to go back to the Windows 2000-era UI I 100000000% do not... Windows 2000 UI was terrible.
- vetinari 3y ago
  Because the userspace, old and baroque it is, is the compatibility layer for the existing apps. Not the kernel. The kernel is a very nice piece of work, but it come from slightly different assumptions, than the reality turned out to need. Btw, the recent Dave Cutler interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE) is great. Worth the 3 hours it takes.

krylon 3y ago

Hehe, that thought was going through my mind as well just now. It's not really such a far out idea; if Microsoft wanted to, they could certainly put the manpower behind it to make it happen. It would also be the most delicious plot twist ever. But I don't think this is in the cards for the foreseeable future.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

I mean, this is actually backwards from a pure engineering POV from what would be actually excellent. The core Windows NT kernel is quite excellent, and was always in some ways far superior to what Unix offered. E.g. proper asynchronous I/O from day one. Dave Cutler and crew did a bang-up job. Linux is only getting competitive things like io_uring now(ish). The problem was the shitty API and user space they papered in front of it with. Lack of a proper CLI shell, slow filesystem, the godawful "registry", a low quality, unsafe windowing toolkit (Win32 API), and then, after WinXP, bad UX / environment stuff. And, of course, the fact that everything was proprietary, closed/closed-source, and the $$ licensing story for running a WindowsNT server was always garbage. As a user operating system none of this mattered so much because the sheer mass of the market meant that driver support and application support was always going to win out on Windows. But these days, with all my attached devices being USB-Cish things that just implement USB standards I have zero issues in Linux. In fact, audio interface support works better for me in Ubuntu than it does in Windows right now. But people who were serious about running servers naturally stuck with Unix, despite it being in some ways technically inferior on paper -- because that experience on NT just wasn't as good. Remote administration via GUI. Anemic CLI. MS proprietary everything. Per-user $$ licensing stuff. Tight coupling with IIS & SQL Server, which has their own licensing stuff, etc. etc. etc. Anyways, I think it would be a shame if MS gave up on the NT kernel. With WSL1 they did an interesting job of getting Linux user space running overtop of the NT kernel, but they dropped that approach with WSL2 and went with a more VM approach.

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
> Anyways, I think it would be a shame if MS gave up on the NT kernel. I can't say this more. The NT kernel is really the best part of Windows. Almost everything that people complain about in Windows 11 is in the userspace. Start menu nerfed? Right-click menu hidden? Settings versus Control Panel? Cortana, Copilot? There's nothing in the kernel or lower-level OS constructs that require any of these.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
Does a poor filesystem count as part of the kernel? In my experience, Windows file systems are the main source of Windows underperformance.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Funny, I just went back and edited my comment to add in filesystem where I didn't have it before and then saw your reply. Because, yes, NTFS is just slow as hell. I have never been clear why but as I said elsewhere, various *nix filesystems have always outperformed it. I understand that on paper NTFS was technically superior back when Linux was stuck with ext2 & ext3 as standard, but in practice it just made for a really slow system.
  - vetinari 3y ago
    Have you ever seen IFS (Installable File System) SDK for Windows and the associated documentation? And then compared that, for example to linux vfs? No wonder that so few people tried. They can spend their time on something simpler, like on building a highway bridge to Hawaii or something.

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago

I really dunno why people advocate ripping out the kernel and using Linux instead, while keeping Windows userspace. The NT kernel is the best part of Windows. It has built-in asynchronous real-time I/O. A completely plug-and-play driver model. Far more advanced permissions model. It is far ahead of the competition. The userspace and UI of Windows is very straightforwardly modified; that's why it has changed so much every iteration of Windows. Telling people that we should keep 'Windows apps' and then rip out the kernel and use the Linux kernel instead is like saying one has a small rash, let's do chemotherapy. It is breaking a fly with a wheel. I want to go back to the Windows 2000-era UI, with the same advancements in the kernel and core Windows technologies we have today.

phpisthebest 3y ago
>>A completely plug-and-play driver model. this is one of the things I despise about windows that most. The Driver model. I hate it, it causes soooooooooo many issues from security to just breaking randomly in weird ways, problems you do not have with a monolithic kernel >> Far more advanced permissions model. This is a double edges sword, very very easy to get into all kinds of trouble here, sometimes "less advanced" is better. >> It is far ahead of the competition. That seems to be subjective >>dunno why people advocate ripping out the kernel and using Linux instead Well my parent comment was more tongue and cheek jab at the "year of linux desktop meme"... >>Telling people that we should keep 'Windows apps' More about Win32 API compatibility to keep 80-90% of software working. >>I want to go back to the Windows 2000-era UI I 100000000% do not... Windows 2000 UI was terrible.
vetinari 3y ago
Because the userspace, old and baroque it is, is the compatibility layer for the existing apps. Not the kernel. The kernel is a very nice piece of work, but it come from slightly different assumptions, than the reality turned out to need. Btw, the recent Dave Cutler interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE) is great. Worth the 3 hours it takes.