20 ms·

Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax but I will die on this hill. WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on t

• hobs 1y ago
  And yet when I reboot my computer windows has shown me an entirely new place I can see ads - this week it was my lock screen. So I left - I am willing to do more work to be spied on less, to be used as a product less, and to fight with my computer about who owns it less.
  • wkat4242 1y ago
    Yeah this is what pisses me off the most about windows. Telemetry that can't be turned off normally. Ads everywhere. Microsoft deciding when I must restart for updates. Microsoft trying to manage my behaviour telling me to try new features. Screw that. My computer is my own and must do what I choose. This feature thing is really one of their strategies. At work they send us "adoption managers" that run reports to check whether people use feature xyz enough and set up stupid comms campaigns to push them to do so. I really hate that. I decide how I use my computer. Not a vendor.
  • malux85 1y ago
    > and to fight with my computer about who owns it less. This is a great way of saying it and expresses the uneasy feeling windows has given me recently. I use Linux machines but I have 1 windows machine in my home as a media PC; and for the last several years windows has made me feel like I don’t own that computer but I’m just lucky to be along for the ride. Ramming ads on the task bar and start menu, forcing updates on me, forcing me to make a Microsoft account before I can login (or just having a dark UI pattern so I can’t figure out how to avoid it, for the pedantic). With Linux I feel like the machine is a turing complete wonderbox of assistance and possibility, with windows it feels like Microsoft have forced their way into my home and are obnoxiously telling me they know best, while condescendingly telling me I’m lucky to be here at all. It’s a very different feeling.
  • WorldMaker 1y ago
    Yeah, "Weather and More" is such a joke. I like the idea of Weather on my lock screen in theory, and I sometimes miss Windows 8's great support for Lock Screen live data, but I have huge problems with almost everything else in the "and More" (news, no thanks, ads, definitely no thanks, tips, maybe not). Thankfully it is still really easy to turn off "Weather and More", but I wish they'd give us a "Weather and Nothing Else". (Same reason one of the first things I do is disable the "Widgets" display on the taskbar in Windows 11. Weather is great, everything else I don't want and/or actively hate.)
• trey-jones 1y ago
  Well, I'd still rather just use linux, but I take your meaning.
  • Theodores 1y ago
    Me too. Particularly after having to do Docker things a few years ago, destroying my productivity due to file system speed. However, for those of us that went Linux many years ago, and like our free open source, in 2025, is it better to go back to the dark side, to run Windows and have things like a LAMP stack and terminals run with WSL? I don't play games or run Adobe products, I use Google Docs and I don't need lots of different Linux kernels. Hence, is it better to run Linux in Windows now? Genuinely asking.
    • trey-jones 1y ago
      As someone who occasionally does use WSL, I definitely think it's not better no. But I'm still biased, because I know a lot more about using linux than I do about using windows, and WSL is still windows.
    • CoolCold 1y ago
      for me, > is it better to run Linux in Windows now? Genuinely asking. definitely is. Servicing takes ~ 1 minute per month to click on "yeah, let's apply those updates and reboot". Peace of mind with no worrying on external hardware won't work or monitor will have issues or laptop won't sleep or during the call battery will discharge faster due to lack of hardware acceleration or noise cancellation not working or ...
  • TiredOfLife 1y ago
    wsl2 is linux
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • johnisgood 1y ago
      I would rather use Linux, outside of VM.
• tuetuopay 1y ago
  It's a... VM? Like the Linux VMs running on Linux computers in the cloud? Sorry but not sorry, it's not easier to run than on linux. It requires the Windows store to work, and to use Hyper-V (which breaks VMware workstation, among other things). It's in a better package, to be sure, but it's not "easier to run multiple OS on the same computer". It's easier to use multiple OSes (no SSH, GUI forwarding, etc), as long as all those OSes are Linux flavors supported by WSL. Want FreeBSD or Windows? Nope!
  • wkat4242 1y ago
    Does it really need the store? I thought you could just go "wsl install" on the console.
    • tuetuopay 1y ago
      You're likely right, I haven't used it in ages. Though I recall that at one point you had to get distributions from the Store, but it may have been that long ago that it was still being called "Bash for Windows".
      • Firehawke 1y ago
        As of 24H2, you can just "wsl install" from the commandline and it'll do all necessary setup to get you up and running, including installation of Hyper-V components if needed.
    • WorldMaker 1y ago
      The files, including and especially the distro files, `wsl install` installs still originate from the Store's CDN, so the truly paranoid that distrust the Store (including some corporate environments) and just entirely block Store CDN access at the DNS and/or firewall level still break WSL installs.
      • kcb 1y ago
        There's a --web-download argument which helped with issues when I had limited access to the store.
• wkat4242 1y ago
  Well, WSL is Linux. It's really just a VM of it (since WSL2, WSL1 was actually running on the windows kernel which was pretty cool). The big drawback to WSL to me is the slow filesystem access because NTFS sucks. And having to deal with Windows in the first place. Ps I wouldn't worry about your karma. It's just a number :P
  • ActorNightly 1y ago
    >The big drawback to WSL to me is the slow filesystem access because NTFS sucks Thats if you are going from VM/host. If you use the allocated space for VM, its pretty fast.
  • xPaw 1y ago
    Slow IO is why I still use wsl1.
    • ohashi 1y ago
      I liked the networking in WSL1 more too
      • brewmarche 1y ago
        Corporate networking is why I still use WSL1 (I didn’t spend enough time to check why it doesn’t with WSL2, zScaler could be the culprit maybe). However it’s not perfect, for example I hit this bug when trying to run node a few days ago https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/8219#issuecomment-1094123281 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/8219#issuecomment-10... and I don’t think they’re fixing bugs in WSL1 anymore
    • psyclobe 1y ago
      This. WSL was SO much more interesting in v1 times.
  • deetz 1y ago
    still use WSL1 also because VMWare runs so dreadfully slow with any kind of Hyper-V enabled - if so, VMWare must also use it, so you get a Type-2 running under a Type-1 the lag is untennable lag and performance.
• rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 1y ago
  >WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously Is VMWare more powerful than Linux?
• jgd9dsv 1y ago
  I love WSL, but you can do these things with Distrobox.
• coconut08 1y ago
  I don't understand. Docker/podman/distrobox/lxc all allow you to do the exact same thing without the virtual machine overhead. I think the real win of WSL is that its a best of all worlds. You get to use Windows with access to every game ever made plus all of the proprietary apps everyone needs to use, with all of the upside of having a full and complete linux command line experience.
  • SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
    You get all of Windows telemetry, vulnerabilities and backdoors, the always fun game of spot the new Advertising opportunity, AI “copilot” spyware I mean feature, updates that reset your machine at will, a terrible UAC model that encourages “just click OK already!”, and dependence on a company that has gone out of their way to prove how much of an unstoppable behemoth they are; and best of all you get to pay for the privileges above. I know… every year is the year of the Linux desktop… but seriously the AI spyware included was enough to get me gone for good.
    • encom 1y ago
      It's hard to pick the Windows feature I hate the most, but floating around at the top is Defender. It can't be disabled, at least not easily, and it demolishes IO performance. And Windows update takes the computer hostage, and takes ages to do anything giving no feedback in the process, meanwhile APT can update to a new major version in like 5-10 minutes.
    • phendrenad2 1y ago
      Yes, you get Windows telemetry which enabled fixing bugs without a bug report, you get minimal ads in the start menu (if you're playing "spot the new advertising opportunity" I found it. It's in the start menu. You can stop playing now), AI "copilot" which isn't spyware just because you think it is, updates that ASK you nicely multiple times to update (I don't want to be ableist, if you suffer from a Christopher Nolan Memento-like disability where you don't remember the warnings, you might think it's "resetting at will", but I assure you, it isn't), a great UAC model that's a lot better than "just type your root password into this terminal already, and just hope the binary wasn't hijacked in some way to keylog you, because unlike UAC, there is no visual evidence that you're not getting hacked", and dependence on a company that SV_BubbleTime thinks "has gone out of their way to prove how much of an unstoppable behemoth they are" with no evidence or clarity so they must just be making FUD, and best of all the OS costs so little you can pay it in 8 hours of working as a software developer.
• signal11 1y ago
  qemu on Linux solves a bunch of these problems as well. But yeah, UX-wise WSL is pretty good at solving the problem of “provide Windows devs a POSIX environment”.
  • charcircuit 1y ago
    Qemu is nothing like wsl UX wise. The UX on windows is double click gimp and then a window for gimp opens. For qemu it opens a new window for the wm, has awkward input focus interactions, you probably have to log in to the vm, and it can not be easily setup to automatically open the app you want.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
• righthand 1y ago
  > WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. This is why you pay karma tax. This statement is so clearly representative of a falsity. My linux can run multiple linuxes as well without VM overhead. Something Windows can’t do. Furthermore WINE allows me to forgo running any vm to run windows applications. I developed on WSL for 3 years and consistently the biggest issue was the lack of ability to use tooling across the shared OSes. Your karma depleting statements are biased, unfounded, and it shows as you do not really provide counter evidence. That’s why you lose karma.
  • dvtkrlbs 1y ago
    Except Wine cant cover all of Windows (partly due to fault of Windows). I can't run UWP apps for example. Windows is not a good operating system but if you need it. WSL creates way more intuitive working environment for you. So even if you can run multiple Linux OSes in Linux you can't run Windows as easily you can do linux on Windows. So OPs statement is not incorrect.
    • randunel 1y ago
      There are virtual machines for Linux with seamless window integration, so upgrading to Linux is still recommended imo. OP's statement remains incorrect, because their assumption is that the WSL experience can't be reproduced in Linux.
      • dvtkrlbs 1y ago
        Still can't run everything. Especially apps or games that does vm detection.
        • dvtkrlbs 1y ago
          Another thing is GUI integration is not as good as WSL. You can't make Windows windows as Linux windows. You can do that easily with WSL.
• ivanmontillam 1y ago
  I agree. Back in the day (10+ years ago), I used to argue with people about why I ran VMs instead of just partitioning the disk and booting up the OS I needed. XAMPP did not work out of the box with me on Windows (skill issue on my part, I know), so my preferred setup was to run a Ubuntu Server VM (LAMP stack) and then develop whatever I had on a Windows IDE. I could have done that under full Linux, I just did not want that. Then Vagrant came into existence, which I'd say was for my use case (but never came around to adopt it). I'm really happy with my WSL2 setup. I stopped using VMware Workstation when WSL2 broke it, but WSL2 is exactly what I needed to match my use case.
  • JCattheATM 1y ago
    > XAMPP did not work out of the box with me on Windows (skill issue on my part, I know), so my preferred setup was to run a Ubuntu Server VM (LAMP stack) and then develop whatever I had on a Windows IDE. Why wouldn't you have just spent 5 minutes to get XAMPP working?
    • ivanmontillam 1y ago
      It's really a skill issue on my part. LAMP stack worked for me perfectly on Linux out of the box, whether Ubuntu Server or any RHEL-based distro (even with SELinux enabled!). I spent some solid 8+ hours on that, saw it uneconomical and went the VM way.
  • rkagerer 1y ago
    I stopped using VMware Workstation when WSL2 broke it Is it still broken?
    • petronio 1y ago
      Nope, VMWare added the capability to work as a sort of nested hypervisor atop Hyper-V (which WSL2 and newer Windows security features depend on). That being said, there is a performance impact.
• MarkusWandel 1y ago
  My acid test for WSL2 was to install the Linux version of Google Chrome in it, and then play Youtube videos fullscreen with that. It worked. Somehow WSL1 was the more impressive hack but how can you argue with what works? WSL2 works fine. Also 1980s style X11 widgets on the Windows desktop in their own windows? Cool.
  • smw 1y ago
    You get much nicer window decorations if you use the wayland support instead of X11.
    • hulitu 1y ago
      > You get much nicer window decorations if you use the wayland support instead of X11. Wayland supports window managers ?
  • MarkusWandel 1y ago
    I have to say too, though, once you get the hang of the way an EFI system boots, it's really good for dual boot. I let the Linux installer mount the undersized existing one as /boot/orig_efi and made a new, bigger EFI system partition. Not only was the UEFI on that particular laptop fine with it, scanning both EFI system partitions for bootable stuff, but also, grub2 installed in the new one automatically included the Windows boot in the old one as a boot option. Cool because nothing about how Windows boots is intercepted; you can just nuke the new partitions (or overwrite them with a new Linux installation). I still prefer a native Linux boot with "just in case" Windows option to WSL.
    • efdee 1y ago
      But not having to dual boot and just get both worlds at the same time definitely beats having to dual boot.
    • phendrenad2 1y ago
      I don't think people are using WSL to avoid problems with dual booting. Dual-booting has become about as simple as it can be, thanks to UEFI, but it's still not exactly fun to have to close all of your open apps to switch to another OS to run just one app.
• ezekg 1y ago
  WSL gave me the push to switch from macOS to Windows. And I couldn't be happier, tbh. There was a lot lacking in my Hackintosh/Windows dual boot setup.
• bsnnkv 1y ago
  I will also die on this hill - NixOS on WSL + Windows + komorebi[1] for tiling window management is peak productivity for me. [1]: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komorebi
  • randunel 1y ago
    Why not a Linux distro with i3wm, instead? What could possibly hold you back from upgrading?
    • bsnnkv 1y ago
      I've yet to find anything comparable feature-wise on Linux - and they all come with the huge downside of having to roll your own cohesive settings widget ecosystem for basic everyday things like WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. I run Cosmic Epoch on my old Macbook which is better, but again, feature-wise, it's just not comparable for serious work.
      • randunel 1y ago
        Thanks for your reply, but as a Linux user for over 20 years, all I take away from your post is that you haven't really tried, probably because the variety of distros vastly exceeds the two classic options of mac vs windows. I understand the "roll your own" argument very well. In my time, I've experienced quite the variety of configs and dotfiles, but I'm not young anymore so I've settled with using Regolith which is an opinionated set of tools, including my favourite i3wm, on top of Ubuntu, and I simply use defaults for the most things. Anyway, it's much easier to use Linux as a daily driver than it's ever been. The choice of distro is simply which package manager to use, and everything else just works, as long as it's in the package manager's inventory. I haven't compiled my own computer's kernel in 6 years (but I still cross compile for rpi and other IoT), and I haven't used my dotfiles in 3 years, just defaults.
        • bsnnkv 1y ago
          > Thanks for your reply, but as a Linux user for over 20 years, all I take away from your post is that you haven't really tried, probably because the variety of distros vastly exceeds the two classic options of mac vs windows. A very big and very incorrect assumption. This reads like you asked the initial question without any actual curiosity behind it.
• ndriscoll 1y ago
  I find it to be incredibly janky. Pretty much every every time my computer sleeps (so every morning, at least) I have to restart it because somehow the VM-host networking gets screwed up and VS code connections into the VM stop working. You also can't just put things in your Windows User directory because the filesystem driver is so slow that git commands will take multiple seconds, so now you have two home directories to keep track of. There were also some extremely arcane things I had to fix when setting it up involving host DNS and VPN adapter priority not getting propagated into the VM so networking was completely broken. IIRC time would also not match the host after a sleep and get extremely far out of sync, though I haven't run into that for a while since now I have to reboot Windows constantly anyway. I don't have a need to run multiple OSes though. All of my tools are Linux based, and in companies that don't let people run Linux, the actual tools of the trade are almost all in a Linux VM because it's the only reasonable way to use them, and everything else is cross-platform. The outer OS just creates needless issues so that you now need to be a power user with two operating systems and their weird interactions.
  • arcastroe 1y ago
    Thats odd. I have none of these problems. Sleep doesnt interrupt the VM. And I regularly use the git CLI through WSL on projects living within windows user directories. Both work fine.
  • phendrenad2 1y ago
    > somehow the VM-host networking gets screwed up > extremely arcane things I had to fix when setting it up involving host DNS and VPN adapter priority not getting propagated into the VM so networking was completely broken Are you sure you set up the VPN properly? Messing around with Linux configs is a good way to end up with "somehow" bugs like that.
    • ndriscoll 1y ago
      I don't know how it's set up. That's kind of my point though. I have to now be an expert in Linux and Windows to debug this stuff, which is a waste of my time as someone who's job it is to develop (server, i.e. Linux) software. I had exactly zero issues when I was using Fedora. At one point my company made all of the Linux users move off (we do now have an IT-supported Linux image, but I haven't found the time to re-set up my laptop and don't fully trust that it will work without a bunch of trouble/IT back-and-forth because they also made Windows users start using passkeys), and since then I've seen way more issues with Windows than Linux (e.g. one day my start menu just stopped reacting to me clicking on programs), in addition to things like ads in the lock screen and popups for some XBox pass thing that I had to turn off, which is just insane in a "professional" OS. A lot of days I end up having to hold down the power button to reboot because it just locks up entirely. OSX was a bit janky with docker filesystem slowness, homebrew being the generally recommended package manager despite being awful (why do I sometimes tap a cask and sometimes pour a bottle? Don't tell me; I don't care. Just make it be "install". Also, don't take "install" as a cue to go update all of my other programs with incompatible versions without asking), annoying 1+ second animations that you can't turn off that make it so the only reasonable way to use your computer is to never maximize a window (with no tiling support of course), and completely broken external monitor support (text is completely illegible IIRC), but Windows takes jank to another level. By contrast, I never encounter the issues people complain about on Linux. Bluetooth works fine. Wifi works fine. nVidia GPUs and games work fine. Containers are easy to use because they're natively part of the OS. I prefer Linux exactly because I stopped enjoying "tinkering" with my computer like 10 years ago, and I want it to just quietly work without drawing attention to itself (and because Windows 8 and the flat themes that followed were hideous and I was never going to downgrade to that from Windows 7).
• jahy-notes 1y ago
  Previously, I had dual boot with ubuntu and windows. Sometime last year I just removed ubuntu, and haven't regretted it. wsl works good enough.
• jchw 1y ago
  "More powerful than Linux" is silly. It's a VM. The most useful thing is that it does a bunch of convenience features for you. I am not suggesting that it is not extremely convenient, but it's not somehow more powerful than just using Linux. You know what's even more convenient than a VM? Not needing a VM and still having the exact same functionality. And you don't need a bunch of janky wrapper scripts, there's more than one tool that gives you essentially the same thing; I have used both Distrobox and toolbx to quickly drop into a Ubuntu or Fedora shell. It's pretty handy on NixOS if I want to test building some software in a more typical Linux environment. As a bonus, you get working hardware acceleration, graphical applications work out of the box, there is no I/O tax for going over a 9p bridge because there is no 9p bridge, and there is no weird memory balloon issues to deal with because there is no VM and there is no guest kernel. I get that WSL is revolutionary for Windows users, but I'm sorry, the reason why there's no WSL is because on Linux we don't need to use VMs to use Linux. It's that simple...
  • sweeter 1y ago
    And if they think that this version of Linux "isn't janky" but regular Linux is, than idk what to say.
    • PaulHoule 1y ago
      With WSL you can use “Linux the good parts” (command line tools, efficient-enough paradigms for fork() servers) and completely avoid X Windows, the Wayland death spiral, 100 revisions of Gnome and KDE that not so much reinvent the wheel but instead show us why the wheel is not square or triangular…
      • xnickb 1y ago
        After having used i3 and Sway, Windows is surprisingly bad at handling windows for an OS called Windows. It requires a bit of work to setup to your liking of course, but hey, at least you have an option to set it up to your liking
        • 1y ago
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• rini17 1y ago
  You don't stress about Windows updates? Hard to believe it.
  • chubot 1y ago
    Yeah exactly ... I want Windows running in Linux, not the other way around, so I actually control the software and the updates! I actually just tried WINE for the FIRST time (surprisingly, I have been out of the Windows world for so long) https://www.winehq.org/ https://www.winehq.org/ And as long as I installed the binaries from their repo, not Debian 12, it worked very well Wine is an impressive project too. It's not a VM, which has upsides and downsides, but I was able to run GCC-TDM, Python 3, and git bash in it!
  • phendrenad2 1y ago
    What do you mean by that?
    • rini17 1y ago
      As a reply to: You don't have to stress "do I update my OS?"
      • CoolCold 1y ago
        I'm also not sure on your question, over the last 5 years, average interruption time is ~ 5 minutes to apply update, which happens roughly once a 3 weeks or so. Once or twice per year, release updates happen and that takes may be 30 minutes of interruption (not totally sure here as I usually grab my coffee and cigarrets and go reading news on balcony, which may easily take ~1h for me). So for me, updates practically doesn't affect my workflow at all.
        • rini17 1y ago
          Congrats. I'm linux desktop user, still had to waste hours of time nursing miscellaneously recalcitrant windows updates that annoyed people around.
• Flamentono2 1y ago
  I think you might want to give more context. I use linux. I don't need WSL at all. Not at work nor at home. So you praise WSL because you use Windows as your main system? Than yes its great. It definitly makes the Windows experience a lot better. OpenSSH for Windows was also a game changer. Honestly, i have no clue why Microsoft needed so long for that.
  • JonChesterfield 1y ago
    putty is longer necessary? That would be a wild upgrade in usability for the work laptop, shall go try it
    • baq 1y ago
      openssh has been an optional windows component for... almost a decade now? including the server, so you can ssh into powershell as easily as into any unix-like. (last time I set it up there was some fiddling with file permissions required for key auth to work, but it does work.)
      • evanjrowley 1y ago
        OpenSSH on Windows is great for the odd connection and SFTP session, but I still feel strongly that any serious usage should just stick with PuTTY and WinSCP. The GUI capabilities these provide are what Windows users are used to. The only benefit of built-in SSH is if you're working with some minimal image stuff, like Windows Server Core or Tiny11. IMHO.
        • baq 1y ago
          IIRC (it's been a while) I used the server with vscode remote ssh extension.
        • johannes1234321 1y ago
          imo the interesting part in opensssh into Windows.
      • 1y ago
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• brooke2k 1y ago
  I think it depends a lot on what you're trying to do. I found that anything GPU-related was a nightmare of drivers and configuration which was a show-stopper for me. Now I just run arch/kde and that all works fine out of the box
• lpcvoid 1y ago
  That may all very well be, but uuh, you're then forced to use Windows
• gofreddygo 1y ago
  I want to know what limitations and tradeoffs am I embracing when using WSL vs booting linux off a usb stick.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• ksec 1y ago
  Now if they could only do Windows 12 by taking baby steps in yearly release of Windows 11.1, 11.2 etc. Iterating on improvements and polishing on Screens and Design that they haven't touched in the past 30 years. Improving on ARM support etc. And STOP adding Ads on the OS. And the Surface Laptop continues to push Hardware quality forward. From Speaker, Touchpad, Screen, Motherboard etc.
• thewebguyd 1y ago
  You can accomplish the same with Distrobox on Linux, but there's definitely something to be said about having the best of both worlds by running Windows + WSL. I honestly think Microsoft could win back some mind share from Apple if they: * Put out a version of windows without all the crap. Call it Dev edition or something and turn off or down the telemetry, preinstalled stuff, ads, and Copilot. * Put some effort into silicon to get us hardware with no compromises like the Macbooks I'm on Mac now, and I jump back and forth between Mac laptop and a Linux desktop. I actually prefer Windows + WSL, but ideologically I can't use it. It has potential - PowerToys is fantastic, WSL is great, I actually like PowerShell as a scripting language and the entire new PC set up can now be done with PowerShell + Winget DSC. But, I just can't tolerate the user hostile behavior from Microsoft, nor the stop the world updates that take entirely too long. They should probably do what macOS and Silverblue, etc. do and move to an immutable/read-only base and deploy image based updates instead of whatever janky patching they do now. Plus, I can't get a laptop that's on par with my M4 Pro. The Surface Laptop 7 (the arm one) comes close, but still not good enough.
  • nightski 1y ago
    I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but with Windows 11 Pro and group policy I was able to disable all of the annoying stuff, and because it is group policy it has persisted through several years of updates. It is annoying you have to do this, and it does take some time to get set up right. But it's a solution. That said I'd pay for a dev edition as you described it, that would be fantastic.
    • airstrike 1y ago
      There is no flavor of Windows 11 that is acceptable. Even the UI itself is a disaster. A cornucopia of libraries and paradigms from React Native to legacy APIs as if an interdimensional wave function of bad ideas had collapsed into an OS, but with ads.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
• pton_xd 1y ago
  Running a Linux VM on Windows is nicer than just booting into Linux? That's quite a take. Windows is so user-hostile these days that I feel bad for those who have to deal with it. Calling it delightful must be symptomatic of some sort of Stockholm syndrome.
  • PaulHoule 1y ago
    Maybe it is both-sidesism but the motd you get by default on Ubuntu these days is as bad as any OS. (“Ubuntu Advantage” sounds about as good as https://prospect.org/health/2024-01-12-great-medicare-advantage-marketing-scam/ https://prospect.org/health/2024-01-12-great-medicare-advant...) At least the nags in Windows look like modern web-based UI (so far that ‘use Electron’ seems to be the post-Win 8 answer to ‘how to make Windows apps’) in contrast to MacOS which drove my wife crazy with nag dialogs that look like a 1999 refresh of what modal dialogs looked like on the classic Mac in 1984.
  • alex_smart 1y ago
    > symptomatic of some sort of Stockholm syndrome I have since moved to macbooks for the hardware, but until not too long ago WSL was my linux "distro" of choice because I didn't want to spend time configuring my computer to make basic things work like suspend/wake on lid down/up, battery life, hardware acceleration for video playback on the browser, display scaling on external monitor and so on.
    • encom 1y ago
      You need new reasons to hate Linux, because all those issues were solved a while ago.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • frollogaston 1y ago
        There's no way, especially if you include Bluetooth in that list.
• connicpu 1y ago
  I think it really depends on what you do and whether the Linux side of it has hard dependencies on system packages. Personally, at work I much prefer working directly on my Linux workstation, and at home have even switched to using Linux for my gaming desktop. I really don't like the direction Windows has been trending for the past few years, and with the specter of a forced Windows 11 upgrade on the horizon I decided it's time to go all in. My system runs better and I can still play all my games. The jankiest thing I do is I have a mingw toolchain so I can compile some game mods into Windows DLLs to be loaded by Wine, but even that ended up being pretty seamless. Just install the toolchain and the project just compiled.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• tadfisher 1y ago
  Gnome (a linux desktop environment) ships a "Boxes" app [0] that is very impressive. You can, with a few clicks, install one of a huge number of Linux distros in an auto-provisioned VM, enable hardware passthrough for USB devices and host 3D acceleration, and manage files with drag-and-drop from the host system. I also use it for Windows and MacOS VMs (don't tell Apple), but you need to provide your own images. [0]: https://apps.gnome.org/Boxes/ https://apps.gnome.org/Boxes/
• phkahler 1y ago
  Most people have little use for running multiple OSes, and that drops a lot when you just abandon Windows entirely.
• asveikau 1y ago
  I'm old enough to remember that before docker there was chroot. It's fairly easy to put lots of different user mode portions of Linux distros into directories and chroot into them from the same kernel. It seems a bit like what you're asking for. There's also debootstrap which is useful for this technique, not sure if it also works on Ubuntu.
  • bigfishrunning 1y ago
    debootstrap absolutely works in Ubuntu
• pinoy420 1y ago
  [dead]
• 725686 1y ago
  I used to love WSL when I had a Windows machine because I used lots of docker containers, but now that I am in a Mac with Apple Silicon, there is no going back.
• TZubiri 1y ago
  The power of linux with the professionalism of paid MSFT engineers
• running101 1y ago
  I heart WSL. Years ago I was going to switch to MAC OS to have a more unix like experience/workflow. Then WSL came out and I stayed because Linux is the environment I spend most of my time in.
• 201984 1y ago
  WSL gives you no support for USB devices, which is a massive pain for embedded development when IT forces you to use Windows. Also, this might just be specific to my setup but WSL networking is very finicky with my company's VPN, and breaks completely if the VPN ever drops out requiring a full reboot.
  • ActorNightly 1y ago
    WSL2 can forward USB devices https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/connect-usb https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/connect-usb I regularly run ADB through WSL2 using this.
    • 201984 1y ago
      That doesn't work for mass storage devices without a custom kernel, and that's just too much hassle to bother with. https://askubuntu.com/a/1533361 https://askubuntu.com/a/1533361
      • ActorNightly 1y ago
        There are always going to be niche cases. In general USB storage devices are slow to transfer data anyways, so you are better off in copying the files directly from windows mounted location.
• cess11 1y ago
  Last time I used it they kept hogging some common keyboard shortcuts for whatever Windows stuff even though the VM-window was focused. Did they stop that?
• NelsonMinar 1y ago
  I think WSL is great but if your only goal is to run several Linux OSes, any hypervisor will do. I think Proxmox is better suited to your use-case (hosted on Linux). I love WSL because it lets me have the best of Windows and Linux.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• jollyllama 1y ago
  As of a couple of years ago the integration was not that great and I switched to just using a full-fledged VM instead. For example, trying to use binaries in WSL from within Visual Studio or vice versa was not great.
• VikingCoder 1y ago
  It doesn't work on any of my 3 Windows machines, all completely different hardware. Jank factor 100% for me. I wish I was seeing what you're seeing.
• jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
  ELI5 does it allow me to run windows programs in Linux?
  • frollogaston 1y ago
    no
• rao-v 1y ago
  I'm with you - after years of messing with dualboot Linux, including (foolishly) running multiday Gentoo builds, WSL + Windows now gives me everything I want from Linux with zero friction. In fact, I'm a little annoyed that I can't get a comparably smooth experience on my MacBook without spinning up a full QEMU VM. I know it's a bit hypocritical since, like most people, I run WSL2 (which is container/VM-based), not WSL1 (the original magic syscall translation vision). Does anyone know why there's no lightweight solution on macOS - something like LXC plus a filesystem gadget - that would let me run stuff like "apt-get install chromium"?
  • nobody9999 1y ago
    > WSL1 (the original magic syscall translation vision). Actually, the OG "magic syscall translation" is Cygwin[0], which dates back to 1995[1]. [0] https://cygwin.com https://cygwin.com [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygwin Edit: Fixed prose.
    • rao-v 1y ago
      Absolutely! I remember playing and struggling with Cygwin back in the day… I meant original in the sense of the original vision for WSL.
  • emmelaich 1y ago
    Perhaps with the Mac Hypervisor someone is working on it. But Qemu (via UTM) starts up pretty quickly for me. No slower than WSL2 under Windows. My only issue is that it seems to drain power even when idle.
  • emmelaich 1y ago
    Try https://tart.run/ https://tart.run/ >Native performance Tart is using Apple’s native Virtualization.Framework that was developed along with architecting the first M1 chip. This seamless integration between hardware and software ensures smooth performance without any drawbacks.
  • arzig 1y ago
    Is this close enough? https://github.com/lima-vm/lima https://github.com/lima-vm/lima
• RKFADU_UOFCCLEL 1y ago
  For me it was slow, full of compatibility issues, and glitchy. Some simple packages wouldn't even install in the official Ubuntu WSL distro. To be honest I don't know what the use case for this is, other than to run some one-off Linux thing once in a while without having to use another box.
  • Firehawke 1y ago
    How long ago did you try that? I use WSL2 to handle Linux (and Windows cross-) compilation regularly, along with running a number of native tools that are specific to Linux. I've never had any issues with that, even to the point that I've been able to run MAME natively from Linux and have it show up like any other windowed app.
• xboxnolifes 1y ago
  My only big gripe with WSL right now is GUI applications. wslg is not good, and the only good experience is when applications have a good remote development UX such as vscode. Another, smaller, gripe is networking. Because of how WSL is networked, I've run into edge-case issues with connecting to networked applications running in WSL from Windows.
  • 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
    Run a rootless X server (XWin, Xming) on Windows, network the two (SSH tunnel), you have GUI Linux apps on Windows.
  • okanat 1y ago
    You need to make sure that they use Wayland. Running X11 apps is significantly slower in wslg. Native Wayland apps run much faster.
  • sigwinch 1y ago
    Lack of all packet types disqualified it for me. Is there any hope for nmap, etc?
• KingOfCoders 1y ago
  Using WSL on Win11. I would prefer Linux but I never got used to Open Office/Gimp/... and need to use PowerPoint / Affinity. But WSL mostly works, and added some tools and config to make it useful with WezTerm https://www.amazingcto.com/upgrading-wsl-with-zsh-and-commands/ https://www.amazingcto.com/upgrading-wsl-with-zsh-and-comman...
• jasonthorsness 1y ago
  I totally agree and will join you on the hill. I used Linux exclusively at my job for two years straight and now do the same job but from Windows 11 with WSL 2 on the same physical ThinkPad T41 laptop. Windows gets the basics right more than Linux did (sleep states, display, printing). And as the OP notes; it makes it easy to run multiple distributions and never fear that something I install or reconfigure within the WSL2 terminal will screw up my host. Having a different OS improves isolation in this regard, not at a technical level but for me making mistakes and entering commands in the wrong place, since Windows does not accept Linux commands. JetBrains and VSCode both have great support for WSL2.
• daveguy 1y ago
  WSL is massively slower than Linux. Not just the 10% or so for VM, but probably 50-90% slower for disk access. It takes many times longer to start tmux. It has update bugs that crash open terminals and that's not even part of the regular windows forced-update fiasco. In short, it's garbage. It's one of the primary reasons I moved back to Linux for my daily driver.
• t_mann 1y ago
  Windows 10 with WSL(2) is/was peak Windows for me. You could build stuff and edit MS Office documents in the same place. Sadly, it wasn't meant to last. I have no intention of giving W11 a try, not yet decided what I'll be using come this fall.
• NikolaNovak 1y ago
  Is it not the case that wsl2 is a vm; it requires hyperV enablement; and that turns your main windows OS into effectively a type of privileged vm, since hyperV is a type 1 bare metal hypervisor? This is not often discussed, so it took me a lot of digging a couple of years ago, but I'm still surprised this is never discussed as a consequence / side effect / downside of wsl2. There are performance impacts to turning on hyper V, which may or may not be relevant to user (e.g. If this is also their gaming machine etc:)
• stephenr 1y ago
  ... You know that you can run VMs, or full-OS containers on a Linux desktop right? Or on a macOS Desktop. Bonus: doing so on either platform doesn't also mean your host OS is running under a hypervisor, as it does with WSL2. Bigger bonus: you don't have to run fucking Windows.
  • adithyassekhar 1y ago
    Windows by default runs on a hypervisor since some Windows 11 version.
    • stephenr 1y ago
      That just sounds like another reason not to use Windows at all honestly.
  • p_ing 1y ago
    > Bonus: doing so on either platform doesn't also mean your host OS is running under a hypervisor Why do you think, technologically, this is some form of "bonus"?
    • stephenr 1y ago
      Because it broke/put restrictions on the ability to run other hypervisors as the user.
• ryao 1y ago
  > Edit: for clarity, by "multiple OS" I mean multiple Linux versions. Like if one project has a dependency on Ubuntu22 and another is easier with Ubuntu24. You don't have to stress "do I update my OS?" You can run multiple Linux distributions in chroots or containers, such as docker containers. I have showed people how to build packages for Ubuntu 22.04 on Ubuntu 20.04 for example.
  • dismalaf 1y ago
    This is what tools like toolbx or distrobox solve. You can have easy to use containers with libs from any distro with a few commands, using podman or docker as the backend.
• burnte 1y ago
  I'll second you, WSL makes Windows a first class experience because now I can seamlessly have Linux and Windows apps in one laptop. Yes, I could run VMWare Workstation or HyperV, etc, but this is just better integrated.
• sneak 1y ago
  It’s a delight to use if you don’t mind your computer conducting 24/7 surveillance on you for a multinational corporation.
• jraph 1y ago
  > Edit: for clarity, by "multiple OS" I mean multiple Linux versions. Like if one project has a dependency on Ubuntu22 and another is easier with Ubuntu24. You don't have to stress "do I update my OS?" For this part, I just create systemd-nspawn containers. Last time I wanted to test something in a very old version of WebKit, creating a Debian Jessie container takes a few minutes. Things run at native speed.
• sebtron 1y ago
  I agree it is a convenient way to run multiple Linux VMs, but it comes with the drawback of having to use Windows, which is a major impediment to anything I may want to do with my computer.
• nhumrich 1y ago
  WSL is so incredible. But support for it from 3rd party dev tools is so terrible.
• trollbridge 1y ago
  I'll second this, and I'm someone who ran a certain alternative OS to Linux before Linux was viable instead of run Windows, worked as a developer of Win16 and Win32 apps early in my career which gave me a deep love-hate of the platform, couldn't stand Microsoft's monopoly tactics back in the 1990s and 2000s, and remain ever-sceptical of Microsoft's open source and Linux initiatives... ... but WSL is an excellent piece of work. It's really easy to deploy apps on. Frankly, it can be easier to a deployment there than on a Linux or macOS system, for example the reasons detailed above.
• rich_sasha 1y ago
  Forced to work on Windows for ++nth job, I was looking forward to WSL. Indeed, while it worked, it was magic. Sadly, I have had no end of bizarre bugs. The latest one almost crashed my whole desktop - as far as I can piece together, something crashed, leading to a core dump the size of my desktops entire memory - half the machine's RAM. This in turn put WSL in a weird state - it would neither run, not be uninstallable. Googling found bug reports with similar experiences, no responses from Microsoft and magic incantation that maybe worked for some people - but not for me. It might be due to my corpo's particular setup etc. but for me 95% of the value of WSL would be the ability to run it on "corporate" Windows boxes. Alas.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
  Perhaps "more powerful" is also a factor of who is the computer user. For example, Linux is not as "powerful" if the computer user is someone who knows little about how to use it. For a person who will not invest the time to learn, e.g., how to avoid or minimise dependencies, indeed something like Windows with WSL may appear "more powerful". The point of this comment is that "power" comes from learning and know-how as much as if not more than simply from choice of operating system. That said, some choices may ultimately spell the difference between limitations or possibilities.
• nickjj 1y ago
  > It's an absolute delight to use, out of the box, on a desktop or laptop, with no configuration required. I have been using it since the beginning of WSL 1 with a very terminal heavy set up but it has some issues. For example WSLg's clipboard sharing is buggy compared to VcXsrv. It doesn't handle pasting into Linux apps without introducing Windows CRs. I opened an issue for this https://github.com/microsoft/wslg/issues/1326 https://github.com/microsoft/wslg/issues/1326 but it hasn't gotten a reply. Also, systemd is still pretty sketchy. It takes over 2 minutes for systemd services to start and if you close a WSL 2 terminal for just a few minutes systemd will delay a new terminal from opening for quite some time. This basically means disabling systemd to use WSL 2 in your day to day. Then there's this 6 year old issue with 1,000+ upvotes https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4699 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4699 around WSL not reclaiming disk space. It means you need to routinely shut everything down and compress your VM's disk or you'll run out of space. Beyond that is does work well so I'm happy it exists.
  • Scarbutt 1y ago
    Also, systemd is still pretty sketchy. It takes over 2 minutes for systemd services to start and if you close a WSL 2 terminal for just a few minutes systemd will delay a new terminal from opening for quite some time. This basically means disabling systemd to use WSL 2 in your day to day. That doesn't sound good. I was planning to set up a Windows/WSL2 box, but this gives me second thoughts. Where can I read more about this?
    • nickjj 1y ago
      It's still ok even without systemd. Technically systemd is disabled by default, you have to turn it on with systemd=true in /etc/wsl.conf. I can't find a definitive source with an open ticket but if you Google around for "WSL 2 systemd delay startup" you'll find assorted folks talking it about with a number of different reasons. I just went by my end results of there is a delay with systemd enabled and no delay with it disabled.
  • CoolCold 1y ago
    never had problems of systemd/2 minutes delays not sure what would be the correct test here, but: root@LP-T16:~# uname -rn LP-T16 5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2 root@LP-T16:~# time systemctl restart ssh real 0m0.039s user 0m0.008s sys 0m0.001s
• internet_rand0 1y ago
  [dead]
• runjake 1y ago
  > WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. I'd venture to say this depends on which OS you're more comfortable with. I'm more comfortable with Linux, so I'd say it's easier/better/less janky to use Linux as a host OS. > Like if one project has a dependency on Ubuntu22 and another is easier with Ubuntu24. You don't have to stress "do I update my OS?" Once you're a developer who's been burned by this enough times, you do this with containers or dedicated dev VMs. You do not develop on your host OS and stay sane.
• have-a-break 1y ago
  The development experience is relatively cumbersome compared to using a native Linux distribution and containerizing application dependencies where needed.
• yoyohello13 1y ago
  Look I get it. I’m forced to use Windows at work and I thank the lord WSL is a thing. But I would switch to Linux base in a heartbeat if I could. WSL is jank as fuck compared to just using Linux.
• phendrenad2 1y ago
  I use WSL, but I'm actively looking for a way to move away from it. The only thing holding me back are languages like Ruby or Python, which are designed to work in a Unix-like environment. I briefly considered forking Ruby and stripping out all of the Unix-isms but in the end I gave up and just installed Linux (WSL).
• fluidcruft 1y ago
  docker is pretty easy to use on linux (even rootless docker isn't particularly painful) and KVM using QEMU is also pretty easy for running Windows things. I used WSL quite a bit but ultimately have switched back to running Ubuntu as my main. Here's the main difference between making Windows vs Linux the main OS from my POV: Windows is a lot of work and only the corporate editions can be converted into not-a-hot-mess-of-distractions (supposedly). Out of the box Linux doesn't have all of the bullshit that you have to spend time ripping out of Windows. You can easily re-install Linux to get the "powerwash" effect. But if you powerwash Windows you have to go back and undo all the default bullshit again. Having said that Windows+WSL is a very nice lifeline if you're stuck in Windows-land. It's a much better combo than MacOS.
• Gud 1y ago
  Can do the same with FreeBSDs Linuxulator. I run Arch Linux on FreeBSD, emulated.
• moshegramovsky 1y ago
  I'm a daily driver. It completely changed the way I work. Am I curious if something will compile? Open a terminal and type make. The files are all already there. You can even run graphics apps. It's wonderful.
• jm4 1y ago
  WSL is great if you're on Windows, but I wouldn't say it's more powerful than Linux. Distrobox on Linux covers your "multiple OS" use case quite well.
• rlpb 1y ago
  > Like if one project has a dependency on Ubuntu22 and another is easier with Ubuntu24. You don't have to stress "do I update my OS?" Have you tried lxd? It's far less janky than Docker (IMHO) to achieve what you describe. Docker is uniquely unsuited to your use case.
• 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
  You're right, it is incredibly nice. Just the other day I got a Windows-only developer to install and use the POSIX/*NIX toolkit we use for development/deployment. In 30 minutes he was editing and deploying left and right with our normal open source stack. No messing around with Cygwin or MSYS or anything, it all just worked in Ubuntu on WSL. It's fantastic.
• theanonymousone 1y ago
  I agree with your opinion on WSL. I psy a similar "tax" when I defend ChromeOS, and I will not stop it, like you won't. The Linux on Desktop is finally approaching, in more than one "shape", none of which is the shape some people expected/wanted.
• d--b 1y ago
  Well I guess now you just need to add WSL support to wine.
• GuB-42 1y ago
  > WSL is more powerful than Linux This is the kind of statement that makes you pay the karma tax. WSL is great, I use it on a day to day basis. I also use Linux on a day to day basis. And as great as WSL is, for running Linux software on supported hardware, Linux beats WSL hands down. And I mean, of course it does, do you expect a VM to beat native? In the same way that Windows software runs better on Windows. (with a few exceptions on both sides). Compared to Linux, WSL I/O is slow, graphics is slow and a bit janky, I sometimes get crashes, memory management is suboptimal, networking has some quirks, etc... These problems are typical of VMs as it is hard for the host and guest OS to coordinate resource use. If you have an overpowered computer with plenty of RAM, and are mostly just using the command line, and don't do anything unusual with your network, then sure it may be "better" than Linux. But the truth is that it really depends on your situation.
  • incoming1211 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • spartanatreyu 1y ago
      WSL 1 had fast IO but couldn't support all features. WSL 2 supports all features but has famously slow IO. Example: 1. Shell into WSL 2. Clone a repo 3. Make a bunch of changes to the repo with a program within WSL 4. Run git status (should finish in less than a second) 5. Open repo from a Windows IDE 6. Run git status. This makes windows change each file's permissions, ownership, etc... so it can access the files as git status recursively travels through every file and folder 7. Go for coffee 8. Go for lunch 9. Git status finished after 35 minutes. 10. Close IDE 11. Shell back into WSL 12. Make a change in WSL 13. Run git status from within WSL 14. Wait another 35 minutes as Windows restores each file's ownership and permissions one by one ------------------------------------ The IO overhead is so bad that Microsoft built two new products just to get around it: 1. VSCode WSL remote-client architecture. VSCode acts as a server within WSL and a client within Windows. Connect both VSCode instances (through proxy/tunnel if needed) and the server can perform the client's File IO ops on behalf of the client rather than letting an Application on Windows try to interact with any of WSL's file systems. 2. Windows DevDrive Basically set aside a virtual-disk/partition and set it up as a different file system (ReFS) that doesn't use Window's file permissions, ownership and doesn't decrypt then decompress on each file input, doesn't compress then encrypt each file output, and doesn't virus scan the files on usage. TL;DR Store the files on a network drive and hope race-condition ops from both WSL and Windows don't corrupt any files.
• Conscat 1y ago
  I'm sure that feature is important for whatever works you're doing, but that's a feature I've _never_ desired, and WSL is missing plenty of features that are important for my work. Hardware performance counters basically do not work in WSL2, which among other issues, makes it extremely difficult to use rr. https://github.com/rr-debugger/rr/issues/2506#issuecomment-2087891176 https://github.com/rr-debugger/rr/issues/2506#issuecomment-2... Some people say they got it working, but I and many other users encounter esoteric blockers. The Dozen driver is never at feature parity with native Linux Vulkan drivers, and that's always going to be the case. By default, WSL security mitigations cause GCC trampolines to just not work, which partly motivated the opt-in alternative implementations of trampolines last year. https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commit;h=28d8c680aaea46137170fef2bd1c6a98301518dc https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commit;h=28d8c680aaea46... gWSL is also a terrible X11 server that makes many very basic window management configurations impossible, and while I prefer VcXsrv, it has its own different terrible issues. I can imagine that WSL2 looks attractive if all you want to do is run command line apps in multiple isolated environments, but it is miserable for anything graphical or interactive.
  • CoolCold 1y ago
    > I can imagine that WSL2 looks attractive if all you want to do is run command line apps in multiple isolated environments, but it is miserable for anything graphical or interactive. Indeed, that's my case - using CLI mostly for ssh/curls/ansible/vim over ansible and Puppet, so on. For GUI part, Windows is chosen and shines for me.
• LeFantome 1y ago
  If you want to “run multiple versions of Linux at once” and don’t like plain Docker, maybe check-out Podman Desktop.
• echelon 1y ago
  > Every time I praise WSL on hn I pay the karma tax Hmm... > WSL is more powerful than Linux Oh.
• palata 1y ago
  > WSL is more powerful than Linux ... Are you a Windows user who is happy to have a good way to run Linux on Windows, or are you a Linux user trying to convince other Linux user that instead of using Linux, they should use Linux in a VM running on Windows? I am a longtime Linux user, and I can't see a reason in the universe why I would want to access my Linux through a VM on Windows. That seems absolutely insane.
• steeeeeve 1y ago
  I won't downvote you, but I will die on the other hill - the one over there that has a guy sitting down with his arms folded sporting an angry face every time someone something positive about WSL. There's at least three of us on that hill. And we're not going anywhere.
• dustedcodes 1y ago
  I tried it and found it to be such an abomination. I can’t understand why any self respecting software developer would use Windows with a bastard linux like WSL instead of just using actual Linux. Feels like a massive skill issue.
  • shipmaker 1y ago
    it's for when your corpo provides you with a windows laptop for development. hope that helps with your understanding
• harha_ 1y ago
  You can run multiple linux distros on linux just fine via KVM/QEMU, there is nothing special WSL offers except that it is a must if you're doomed to use windows.
• dark-star 1y ago
  For WSL 1, I kinda agree. It was basically the Posix Subsystem re-implemented and improved. Technically amazing, and running parallel to Windows without virtualization. Too bad it had so many performance issues. But WSL2 is just a VM, no more, no less. You can do the same with VMware Workstation or similar tools, where you even get a nice accelerated virtual GPU.
• micromacrofoot 1y ago
  This would be a great point if WSL didn't require running Windows
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• selfhoster 1y ago
  > WSL is more powerful than Linux because of how easy it is to run multiple OS on the same computer simultaneously. I do that with KVM too, and each has their own kernel, not one shared kernel made and controlled by one vendor.
• protocolture 1y ago
  I still have issues with the networking but I agree. Its a fantastic system and it shits me only that it could be a bit better.
• spookie 1y ago
  You can do the same on Linux. Distrobox exists.
• 29athrowaway 1y ago
  Windows treats you like a baby. You cannot learn the internals of it and it forces decisions on you. With Windows, the computer that you paid for is not yours.
• arzig 1y ago
  You use distrobox (https://distrobox.it/ https://distrobox.it/) and move on with your life. At work I use multiple versions of Ubuntu seamlessly without messing with VMs on a host fedora box without issue. That includes building things like .deb packages.
• screye 1y ago
  I've lived in WSL for 3 years now, and have zero complaints. It has worked with no issues what so ever. In 2025, Windows is the best Linux UI.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• nicoty 1y ago
  Still somewhat janky. I use it on my work machine (since it at least seems a bit faster than using VirtualBox) and regularly run into issues where npm won't build my project due to the existence of symlinks [1,2]. wslg windows also don't yet have first-party support from the windowing system [3]. I also remember having trouble setting up self-signed certs and getting SSL working. 1. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57580420/wsl-using-a-wsl-symlink-folder-from-windows https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57580420/wsl-using-a-wsl... 2. https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5118 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5118 3. https://github.com/microsoft/wslg/issues/22 https://github.com/microsoft/wslg/issues/22
• forinti 1y ago
  I use Ubuntu 22 in a LXC container on Ubuntu 24 (because of Webex). I also run other Linux instances with KVM. I even run a Linux x86_64 executable on an ARM SBC using QEMU. I just feel that Linux is so much more flexible than Windows.
• dankwizard 1y ago
  Real talk. And anybody who argues is taking a heavy dose of copium to justify their use of Linux and the ensuite of compatibility issues that entails. Let them have their sense of superiority :' )
• smitty1e 1y ago
  It's not literally true that "Weasels Ripped My Flesh"[1] but WSL2 did rip the python support in QGIS by polluting my PATH with space characters. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasels_Ripped_My_Flesh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasels_Ripped_My_Flesh
• landl0rd 1y ago
  I used to agree with this for WSL1. Syscall translation gave solid performance, decent FS integration, and interop within WSL with windows executables. I really liked it. WSL2 has been such a pain. You're basically managing a VM with VMWare Tools somewhat more integrated. I gave up on WSL2 after a few months and went back to booting my arch installation most of the time. Now I'm on a mac for the first time in a long time because windows has gotten so bad. This is doubly sad because the NT kernel is so well designed to host multiple OSes due to the OS/2 stuff decades ago. All wasted.
• Thaxll 1y ago
  WSL sucks and I much prefer having a true VM in Hyper-v. WSL is full of weird behaviour and gotchas. Docker?? no pid 1, weird kernel etc ...
• perrygeo 1y ago
  I like WSL for this single reason too - it gives me space to run isolated experiments without touching my primary OS. So if that's what windows users get out of it, cool. You can do the same thing with many other technologies on most other operating systems. I've used, in chronological order: FreeBSD jails, VMs, Cloud-hosted VMs, Docker, K8s, and Nix flakes. WSL is probably somewhere in around K8s. My point is, we've had the ability to run "subsystems" for decades, by different names, on every OS. WSL is cool but quite late to the game, far from being "more powerful than linux".
• sellmesoap 1y ago
  Jumping on the anti-wsl bandwagon; I just can't abide the loss on control on windows, will the next update ignore/reset/override my privacy settings? What Gordian knot must I slay to have a local only account (Thanks Rufus!) How do I turn off/uninstall a million things I don't want, Xbox game bar?!? Linux or *BSD give so much more respect to the user, on windows you are the product! Stand up for yourself and your data!
• TylerJaacks 1y ago
  I agree with you. Maybe if it had AI shoehorned in, hn would be happy.
• LeFantome 1y ago
  Have you used Distrobox?
• bunnie 1y ago
  I share your sentiments. Makes testing my builds against windows, Ubuntu 22, Ubuntu 24, etc a breeze. It pretty much 'just works' and I can take it to go on my laptop. Even though I do most my work in Linux, Windows is a convenient 'compatibility layer'. I was skeptical at first when my friend suggested I try this, but daily usage has won me over.
• ankurdhama 1y ago
  We already have Distrobox that does same thing.
• xarope 1y ago
  On linux, I've been using lxc (now incus) for years to get different distros.
• sheepscreek 1y ago
  Install Promox or TrueNAS on a bare metal desktop to experience the true power of multiple operating systems running simultaneously. On most days, I am running multiple VMs with these OSes in parallel: Windows Server 2025, Windows 11 Pro, and these flavours of Linux - TrueNAS/Debian, Ubuntu, Manjaro, Zorin OS. I also have a dozen or more lightweight containers running, some with LXC on the bare metal host and others with Docker inside the TrueNAS VM. This setup automatically backs up my data and is resilient to disk failures. It’s the ultimate form of power and bliss.
• shmerl 1y ago
  You can run multiple OSes simultaneously on Linux itself - Linux can run VMs just fine. I.e. Linux guests on Linux host and so on. Take a look for example at virt-manager (libvirt / qemu + kvm). And WSL is a limited VM using HyperV anyway. If you want to run a VM, you can as a well run a proper one which isn't limited and runs a full blown distro with sane configuration. So WSL is definitely not more powerful than normal Linux.
• OhMeadhbh 1y ago
  I'm not the biggest fan of WSL2, but it's definitely good enough for people to like it. it's worked well enough for me in the past, but the last time I used it, there were problems with mDNS and BPF that it just made more sense for me to boot into leenucks. But you're definitely not crazy for liking it. And people should chill out instead of downvoting for someone who just says what works for them. I haven't tried Win11 and probably won't unless my employer forces me to. But if Win11+WSL2 works for you, more power to you.
• osigurdson 1y ago
  It is really good but honestly would prefer something a little more like: - Linux that works great on a laptop / does the right thing when closing the lid - Linux that doesn't have worse battery life than Windows / macOS - Seamlessly runs Windows when you need to run something (e.g. click on Excel) - Isn't necessarily free (prefer quality over low price in this situation) Windows of course has many of these traits and WSL is a pretty good compromise, but I would prefer to boot into Linux and use Windows only when necessary (since my need for it is less common).
• charlieok 1y ago
  I like that wsl is a thing when I'm on a windows machine, but it can also serve as a reminder of the often unnecessary frictions that exist between operating systems. When the answer to a "how do I do X on windows" question begins with "start WSL", my primary reaction is frustration because they're basically saying "there's not a good way to do that on Windows, so fire up a Linux VM". Just to pick my most recent example, from today. I wanted to verify the signatures on some downloaded rpm files, and the rpm tools work on linux. I know, rpm files are native to a family of linux distros, so it's not surprising that the tools for retrieving and verifying their signatures don't work on windows but... it also seems reasonable to want a world where those tools can install and run on windows, straight from a PowerShell session, with no VM. Multiply that by all the little utilities that that can't be deployed across multiple operating sytems, and it just seems like some incompatibility headaches are never really going to go away.
• fsflover 1y ago
  > Like if one project has a dependency on Ubuntu22 and another is easier with Ubuntu24. Sounds like you could benefit from Qubes OS, which runs everything in VMs with a great UX. Including Windows.