WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

[Rusky]

There are many valid reasons to use Windows, technical and otherwise. WSL is a superior solution to Cygwin, technically-speaking, and in some situations is also superior to a VM.

You are welcome to your hard-line stance against proprietary software in your own life, but realize that 1) you are making an explicit tradeoff to use free software even when it is technically inferior, and 2) that tradeoff is not appropriate for everyone. So kindly STFU every time WSL comes up- it is interesting for many reasons completely outside your RMS-worship.

For example, the architecture is an interesting proof of concept for binary emulation on a scale that has not been seen in consumer OSes recently. It has some interesting implications for kernel design, it would be interesting to see how much of it could reasonably be pushed to userspace (either as servers or libraries), and I'm sure there are a few places that Microsoft had to make some interesting choices to accommodate both programming models.

[onlyonemac]

There are many valid reasons to use Windows, technical and otherwise. WSL is a superior solution to Cygwin, technically-speaking, and in some situations is also superior to a VM.

It depends how you define "superior". Is Windows "superior" to Linux? Is Microsoft "superior" to Canonical, the Mozilla Foundation, the Open Document Foundation, the FSF, and countless other big names working towards establishing unrestricted, open standards making proprietary software redundant?

[...] completely outside your RMS-worship.

For your information, I happen to consider a certain "root mean square" very irrational verging on delusional. Perhaps you should find out your facts before you throw accusations at others.

[Rusky]

It depends how you define "superior". Is Windows "superior" to Linux? Is Microsoft "superior" to Canonical, the Mozilla Foundation, the Open Document Foundation, the FSF, and countless other big names working towards establishing unrestricted, open standards making proprietary software redundant?

I said nothing about any of those organizations- only that WSL is technically superior to Cygwin. It is a more direct implementation that has less impedance mismatch leading to poor performance and poor compatibility.

For your information, I happen to consider a certain "root mean square" very irrational verging on delusional. Perhaps you should find out your facts before you throw accusations at others.

Perhaps you should do some self-examination, then, since your position on this issue is identical to his.

[onlyonemac]

It is a more direct implementation that has less impedance mismatch leading to poor performance and poor compatibility.

Only because Microsoft prevent other developers from working as deeply inside the Windows operating system. Explain how you think it's fair that Microsoft prohibit struggling open-source developers from being able to do what they need to do so that Microsoft can release a technologically better (although proprietary) version of what the struggling developers are already trying to do.

Perhaps you should do some self-examination, then, since your position on this issue is identical to his.

In that case, you should be able to tell me:

• What Linux distro I am probably using.
• What browser extensions I am probably using.
• What brand of laptop I am probably using.

Except don't bother, because you'll be wrong, and you'll find that you don't know as much about me as you think you do.

[Rusky]

Only because Microsoft prevent other developers from working as deeply inside the Windows operating system.

False, and irrelevant to the actual subject of this thread. If you really want to talk about free software, perhaps you could compare WSL's approach with Wine's, or maybe the feasibility of implementing it in ReactOS.

In that case, you should be able to tell me:

• What Linux distro I am probably using.
• What browser extensions I am probably using.
• What brand of laptop I am probably using.

Except don't bother, because you'll be wrong, and you'll find that you don't know as much about me as you think you do.

Also irrelevant, because it doesn't change that you're derailing this thread. WSL is proprietary and that has downsides, we all know, but that doesn't make it unworthy of discussion.

[glauxosdever]

Hi,


I'm talking to both WSL supporters and opponents.

I'm afraid this is not the appropriate forum to fight about whether WSL is good or bad. This is an OS development forum, a very specialised forum, not some general what-piece-of-software-is-better forum. Please stop derailing it, you are not helping anyone here, plus you are wasting time you would rather spend on coding.

From this point on, I'll just let the moderators handle this thread however they see fit. I'll not mess up again with this.


Regards,
glauxosdever

[SpyderTL]

I use Windows, primarily, and I use ArchLinux and a few others inside VirtualBox when needed. I've tried Cygwin a few times and it was a pretty miserable experience. I plan on trying WSL at some point, and if it's more convenient then using a VM, I'll use it instead. Eventually, if I get comfortable enough, I may completely switch to one of the many, many Linux distros, but only if I can find a competent replacement for Visual Studio.

[matt11235]

I use Windows, primarily, and I use ArchLinux and a few others inside VirtualBox when needed. I've tried Cygwin a few times and it was a pretty miserable experience. I plan on trying WSL at some point, and if it's more convenient then using a VM, I'll use it instead. Eventually, if I get comfortable enough, I may completely switch to one of the many, many Linux distros, but only if I can find a competent replacement for Visual Studio.

If you have RAM to burn, Eclipse is nice.

• What Linux distro I am probably using.
• What browser extensions I am probably using.
• What brand of laptop I am probably using.

Do you use:

• Gentoo
• uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript
• a Thinkpad

[Roman]

a competent replacement for Visual Studio

Consider Qt Creator or Atom + extensions.

[onlyonemac]

If you really want to talk about free software, perhaps you could compare WSL's approach with Wine's, or maybe the feasibility of implementing it in ReactOS.

Again you're trying to prove that open-source developers produce poorer-quality work, but what you're actually doing is giving another example of where proprietary software (Windows) is making other developers' (the Wine developers) job a lot harder. It's easy for Microsoft to reimplement Linux, because Linux is open-source and well-documented, but it isn't easy for the Wine developers to reimplement Windows because Windows has a lot of undocumented API calls and reverse-engineering it is very difficult when you don't have access to the source code (and decompiling the binary code is illegal and likely to get the Wine developers into trouble).

[onlyonemac]

• What Linux distro I am probably using.
• What browser extensions I am probably using.
• What brand of laptop I am probably using.

Do you use:

• Gentoo
• uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript
• a Thinkpad

No, no, and no. To be fair, though, I do use a different ad blocker and I do have NoScript installed, but only to get around websites that use JavaScript to hide content from ad blocker users or open annoying popups or where the JavaScript is buggy and makes my browser run too slowly.

[Rusky]

If you really want to talk about free software, perhaps you could compare WSL's approach with Wine's, or maybe the feasibility of implementing it in ReactOS.

Again you're trying to prove that open-source developers produce poorer-quality work,

No, absolutely not. I think Wine and ReactOS are great, I just want to talk about the technical aspects of this stuff on the OS Dev forum. For example, the fact that the NT kernel is capable of providing processes with an entirely different set of syscalls that can support an entirely different userspace sounds cool for way more reasons than just running Linux stuff- what other kinds of things could we do with that? What existing kernels can pull it off, and in what ways? etc.

decompiling the binary code is illegal

False, reverse engineering is explicitly protected for compatibility purposes, at least in the jurisdictions I'm familiar with. And again, also completely irrelevant to what this thread should be about.

[onlyonemac]

For example, the fact that the NT kernel is capable of providing processes with an entirely different set of syscalls that can support an entirely different userspace sounds cool for way more reasons than just running Linux stuff- what other kinds of things could we do with that? What existing kernels can pull it off, and in what ways? etc.

Yeah, that's how Wine works.

decompiling the binary code is illegal

False, reverse engineering is explicitly protected for compatibility purposes, at least in the jurisdictions I'm familiar with. And again, also completely irrelevant to what this thread should be about.

Learn about the difference between decompiling and reverse-engineering, then come back. And I don't care how relevant it is to your idea of what the thread should be about, it's completely relevant to the discussion that is actually taking place in the thread as it demonstrates an important difference between proprietary software and open source software.

[Roman]

Even if the user doesn't care about open-source software, it's still important and intentionally leaving Cygwin is not doing anyone any favours except Microsoft.

That simply is not true. If WSL offers better user experience, then the user benefits by leaving Cygwin for it.

Cygwin may be the first step in encouraging a potential Linux user to use Linux, and teaching them about the values of open-source software. WSL isn't going to do that because it just reinforces the idea that "you can get everything you need from Microsoft" (which may or may not be true, but is nevertheless helping Microsoft to create enough FUD for them to monopolise even more of the computing industry).

The most important parts of encouragement of using Linux are the usage of open source programs for it and the user experience, it's not about is it Cygwin or WSL, except for that a technically worse Linux compatibility shim may prevent enjoyable usage of these Linux programs.

[SpyderTL]

And I don't care how relevant it is to your idea of what the thread should be about, it's completely relevant to the discussion that is actually taking place in the thread as it demonstrates an important difference between proprietary software and open source software.

Traditionally, I would agree that Microsoft has, in the past, almost exclusively used monopolistic, strong arm tactics in the software industry, and should, by default, not be trusted to build a platform upon for risk of being trapped in that platform for the long term. Virtually every company that I've worked for uses 100% Microsoft technologies, and complains about having to increasingly pay them for the same products every year, and every year we have the same discussion about moving away from the MS platform, and every year the cost to do so would be too high.

But, I will give them the benefit of the doubt in this case, as they have recently made quite an effort to open source a lot of that "proprietary" platform, as long as they maintain strict compatibility at the kernel level, so that switching back to Linux in the future is a trivial option.