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Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux
- tosti 6mo agohttps://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=windows%20linux%20subsystem&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa... Stop spamming plzkthxbai ^-^
- nilslindemann 6mo agoCan it run a Linux subsystem?
- jll29 6mo agoCould the be a good "mom and pop" OS to reduce (remote) IT maintenance workload for geeks from parent "clients"?
- Arainach 6mo agoNo. No one should be running Win9x for anything connected to the internet. Ever, full stop. The only reason to touch it is for a dedicated retro gaming setup or (completely airgapped) for some industrial tool with drivers/software provided by a company that has been defunct for 25+ years.
- setopt 6mo agoAre there even still sufficiently large populations of win9x-compatible viruses online to make it a security issue anymore?
- jjmarr 6mo ago> or (completely airgapped) for some industrial tool with drivers/software provided by a company that has been defunct for 25+ years. this is a juicy enough target to justify such a virus.
- jaggederest 6mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
- derefr 6mo agoMaybe not viruses much any more, but definitely worms. (And also some automated malicious servers scattered about the Internet that pull lists of devices with certain ports open from Shodan et al, and then repeatedly attempt to attack/penetrate whatever's on those lists.) There are several videos available on YouTube, of someone connecting a Win9x/2K/XP machine to the modern Internet, waiting just a few minutes, and then observing (through Process Explorer) the silent introduction of various payloads onto the system.
- MikeRichardson 6mo agoDid those machines have public routable IPv4 addresses or something?
- uint8_t 6mo agoYou didn't have a router with dialup, or early DSL, where the modem was a separate device. You'd often get publicly routable IPv4s in your university dorm, too. See also napster. :-)
- perching_aix 6mo ago
- qsort 6mo ago> Could the be a good "mom and pop" OS Hate to be that guy, but if that's your problem just hand them an iPad or a Chromebook. Unsatisfying, I know, but it's not like my mom is Mrs. Roberts. A WSL-like for Win9x is mostly just for the lulz.
- copperx 6mo agoAnd most "moms and pops" are around Bill Gates age, which means they grew with technology and are quite proficient.
- NetOpWibby 6mo agoMy mom still uses her Zip drives
- dotancohen 6mo agoWhat should I give her for unzipping?
- Arainach 6mo agoAs if there are any Zip drives remaining that haven't succumbed to the click of death...
- gitowiec 6mo agoAnd writing "Proudly written without AI." in README.md now is new black?
- dataflow 6mo agoMy question is, if they did decide to use AI someday, would they remember to update README.md in the same commit? I would probably forget.
- drxzcl 6mo agoThe agent will happily fix that for them. They are through like that.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- jessetemp 6mo agoIt’s a craft like anything else. Some people enjoy building a table and feel a sense of accomplishment telling their friends “I built this.” Other people just want a table and buy one from Ikea
- copperx 6mo agoAnd some people just click around in Fusion and have the table printed by a CNC and say "I made this", which is not true.
- perching_aix 6mo agoYou're right. The table first magically clicked itself together in Fusion, and then the wood climbed into the CNC machine and fixed itself static, only for that CNC to then mill it on its own accord, all in a flamboyant whim just to make a table. The finished table then climbed out of the CNC, applied finish on itself in the bathroom like the distinguished gentlemen it is, attached its legs, and then lived happily ever after. My food cooks on its own too as I always say!
- someperson 6mo agoI'm heartened that recent Linux kernels in 2026 can still target i386 systems! Between i486, i586 and i686 there's been a steady drumbeat of Linux distros and kernel itself deprecating support
- setopt 6mo agoI’m curious, are you running i386 devices or more philosophically opposed to deprecation?
- someperson 6mo agoPhilosophically opposed. I'd like to see indefinite support powered through emulation under a modern CI server hardware with rigorous automated test-suites, with maintenance potentially supported in part with AI. But someone else should do this, of course.
- cedilla 6mo agoWhat's the philosophy?
- someperson 6mo agoWhilst i386 hardware continues to exist, modern Linux kernels should continue to support it.
- loeg 6mo agoDoes it continue to exist?
- userbinator 6mo agoLots of it, especially in embedded systems.
- st_goliath 6mo ago
- rahen 6mo agoPrevious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861270
- johnea 6mo agoWindows fans, like being a Mustang or Corvette fan, represent arrested development in last centuries technology...
- isityettime 6mo agoWindows as a product feels that way, but I think if you're a kernel hacker, that's not really true for you. Monolithic kernels for Unix-like operating systems like GNU/Linux aren't fundamentally that innovative either. (There's innovation within Linux, of course.) I also don't really think computing advances in such a linear way. Lots of cool new tech is about digging up underappreciated insights from computing's distant past and applying it in a new context, or even just propagating it more widely. I'm not saying Windows 9x in particular had anything super interesting going on. But all of the viable desktop and server operating systems are based on really old tech, and at the same time computing's distant past is full of hidden treasures.
- EvanAnderson 6mo ago> I'm not saying Windows 9x in particular had anything super interesting going on. Win9X and the VxD layer was a neat virtualization system running in a very resource-constrained environment with a lot of backwards compatibility requirements.
- haileys 6mo ago> I'm not saying Windows 9x in particular had anything super interesting going on. Oh it did though, it is a very interesting OS. Much more interesting than it usually gets credit for. It's a proper 32 bit OS with pre-emptive multitasking and demand paging that is enough of a chimera with DOS that it still supports DOS programs, 16 bit Windows apps, and even your old DOS drivers - side-by-side with all the new 32 bit stuff.
- the__alchemist 6mo agoWindows is closer to a "Just works" for my use cases. I think if you are more into running applications on a PC or writing software not related to the OS, it can be a good choice. Where I would choose linux for servers, multi-user IT style systems etc.
- micw 6mo agoFor a second I thought github has updated to a clean and usable user interface. Then I realized that it's codeberg / forgejo ^^
- shevy-java 6mo agoPerhaps codeberg replaces github one day. Microsoft really should take things more seriously than they do right now. AI slop made them very lazy.
- b112 6mo agoIt happened with Oracle over and over. Bought MySQL, messed it up, mariaDB is king now. Bought openoffice, messed it up, now libreoffice is king. Created OEL, acted like complete asshats, messed it up, it just goes on and on. And that doesn't even touch the Sun purchase, Solaris was impressive in its day, it could have had a stronger holding even today. Microsoft's monopoly is a little like Oracle's was. Luck. Being ready at the right time. There was effective use of that luck, but that time has passed now. Ah well.
- iamkrazy 6mo agoThe most important Monopoly that needs broken today is apple's stranglehold on innovation. The app store needs to be really open, not half baked, still in full apple control, EU bullshit that's happening right now.
- MobiusHorizons 6mo agoI’m not a fan of Apple’s monopoly, but is there really much innovation left on mobile? I dont seem to find huge innovations on android. What in your opinion is the App Store preventing?
- onli 6mo agoDid they recently update the design? I don't remember it looking this good. The dark mode is of the type I like (it's not too black! Unlike Github's) and the light mode is quite close to Github's design and thus familiar, but cleaner, less clutter, I think friendlier. And with nice touches like how the codeberg logo integrates into the header bar. There is a prominent rss feed button! Github doesn't event link one in the head (I think, the head is stuffed, at least my browser does not pick it up). The design not perfect (in dark mode the header should change to a darker color, like their docs page does, and the contrast between the two backgrounds colors is jarringly small, that needs a divider) but still, now I want to switch. It also loads so much faster. Having such a cool project hosted there helps as well.
- DeathArrow 6mo agoIt seems similar to colinux.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- brcmthrowaway 6mo agoOne of the best software I ever used as a student andLinux too?
- inaprovaline 6mo ago> Proudly written without AI. Love it!
- mohamedkoubaa 6mo agoWe need a humans.txt standard
- copperx 6mo agoAnd a HUMAN.md
- mohamedkoubaa 6mo ago[flagged]
- zamadatix 6mo agoA safe assumption is shorter or more negative comments receive a lot of negative pressure on HN, even when they are commonly accepted views by the average user. If you're convinced it's not real users though, you can always ping hn@ycombinator.com and they can let you know if the downvotes came from likely bot accounts or not.
- mohamedkoubaa 6mo agoIt was a joke - that bots would not want a humans.txt to allow discrimination against ai generated content
- zamadatix 6mo agoAh - good one!
- debugnik 6mo agoAlready a thing. https://humanstxt.org/ https://humanstxt.org/
- 6mo ago
- shevy-java 6mo agoThe idea is quite cool. How practical is it though? Last time I used a Win9x system or Win2k was ... many, many years ago.
- thfuran 6mo agoIt’s about as practical as running doom on a microwave.
- olivierestsage 6mo agoThe perfect OS doesn’t exi-
- slicktux 6mo agoWe’ve been blessed!
- dreamlayers 6mo agoI cannot imagine why someone would like Windows 9x enough to use it, let alone develop something so complicated for it.
- mato 6mo agoBecause it's a totally awesome and fun challenge? Read the details of the integration!
- felooboolooomba 6mo agoHackers gonna hack for the hack of it.
- cmrdporcupine 6mo agoIf this had existed in the mid/late 90s so many things would have turned out differently.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- epistasis 6mo agoWhoa, 128MB of RAM on the Pentium, somebody is living LARGE. Almost hard to imagine 128MB of RAM in a Windows 95/98 box.
- TimeBearingDown 6mo agoI remember using 98SE on a 256MB PII laptop for a good while. ME was less stable and 2000 was a bit difficult for some games or at least h
- jonhohle 6mo agoI had 192MB in 1999. Coming from my 4MB 486dx, I didn’t know how it could get better! I was running a 1920x1200 true color desktop and could even play half life at 1024x768 high settings with my Rage 128! Now you need GBs just to get into Wayland. All the things we lost along the way :’-(
- Ancapistani 6mo agoShouldn’t this be “Linux Subsystem for Windows 9x”?
- skavi 6mo agosee Windows Subsystem for Linux and Windows Subsystem for Android.
- epistasis 6mo agoIt sadly continues the same abuse of English that's present in more modern Windows. The word order makes it seems that it's a "Windows subsystem," rather than a "subsystem for Linux," that just happens to be in Windows. If English used more word cases, Microsoft's unusual choice of word order probably would have been acceptable. But probably, some half-wit VP/PM decided that everything Windows must start with the word "Windows," and here me are. Even "Windows Linux Subsystem" would be far more clear, and one word shorter, even if it is ugly.
- IshKebab 6mo agoNo, we've been through this. The WSL logic is that it's the Windows Subsystem for [running] Linux.
- haileys 6mo agoYes it's a riff on WSL. It wouldn't make sense to flip the naming around - people would then just be confused about the naming in the other direction.
- Ancapistani 6mo agoIt was mostly in jest, but consistency would be nice - even if WSL makes no sense.
- ranger_danger 6mo agoNow run wine inside it to get support for newer programs :)
- charonn0 6mo agoAnd run the whole thing in DOSBox.
- a1o 6mo agoIs there a binary where I can just download this to run directly in a VM? Or even a pre-configured VM!