Climb every mountain, wsl --mount every Linux disk in latest Windows Preview

Although Windows 10X remains missing in action, Microsoft dished up some more goodies for Linux fans in the latest Dev Channel build of Windows 10. Microsoft opted to start by highlighting the, er, revolutionary "Search" feature to the Default Apps page now available to all Dev Channel Insiders in build 20211, however it was a …

[oiseau]

Not till hell freezes over.

... those who currently dual-boot Windows and Linux; a swift wsl -–mount with a valid drive path will permit access to the Linux filesystem ...

If you actually "dual-boot Windows and Linux" it is probably because your daily boot is on Linux and need (for whatever reason) access to a Windows installation every so often.

ie: dual-boot Linux and Windows. Not the other way around.

Those who know what they are doing will value their Linux installation and stay away from this dumb tomfoolery.

It is a recipe for disaster, a hellish "fox in the henhouse" scenario.

If you really need to have windows, you can set up your desk next to one [8^D!] or fire up one or more virtual machines in Linux with all the Windows you need.

But let any Windows installation acess my Linux drives?

Not till hell freezes over.

Twice.

O.

[Gene Cash]

Re: Not till hell freezes over.

Considering the last time Windows looked at one of my Linux filesystems and it trashed it, I agree.

[Spamfast]

Re: Not till hell freezes over.

Upvoted because I agree.

But realistically, the most common pattern on desktops in most organizations is Linux running in a VM on a Windows PC since even developers' machines are required to be running the corporate-approved flavour of Windows as domain members with whatever daily changing and never pre-tested group policy and flaky AV shenanigans the IT drones engage in to justify their existence.

[Zakhar]

Re: Not till hell freezes over.

Indeed, and also how does this work with POSIX rights? Maybe they simplified it mounting as root, that would be so typical of W$...

[FIA]

Re: Not till hell freezes over.

But let any Windows installation acess my Linux drives?

But isn't this just letting the Linux access one of your Linux drives? WSL2 is Linux running in a VM, with some tighter host OS integration.

[Zakhar]

limited to those natively supported in the "kernel".

Do we have to understand with that sentence that fuse mounts (sshfs, encfs, curlftpfs, etc...) are out of scope, fuse being mainly "userland" (with some "kernel" code).

[Will Godfrey]

Nope

Microsoft's 'Encapsulate' phase is not coming anywhere near here.

[Lucy in the Sky (with Diamonds)]

Dual boot is so 1991

Back in 1991 I used to dual boot for quite a few weeks. Afterwards, I came to realise that computers were better off just running until the next service pack came out. Every time since then, when I needed a new OS, I have either built a new VM, or set up a new physical box.

On my primary computers it takes me many months to several years to justify an outage for a reboot, let alone to entertain the concept of simply rebooting just to have a different OS running.

This is not too dissimilar to those many happy years I have spent in corporate, when I had to apply for a retrospective change request to gain permission to reboot a sever that I have already rebooted weeks ago.

[Spamfast]

Re: Dual boot is so 1991

I came to realise that computers were better off just running until the next service pack came out

I'd ask if you are tripping if it wasn't for your moniker.

So your philosophy is "fuck my decendants"?

If a desktop machine isn't doing something useful, turn the bloody thing off. At the wall.

As a bonus, with none of the transformers for the monitors, desktop USB hubs, switches & PC consuming juice and making the aircon work harder, you save money.

[jake]

Re: Dual boot is so 1991

And I suppose YOU get to decide what is useful for MY machine to be doing?

[FIA]

Re: Dual boot is so 1991

Back in 1991 I used to dual boot for quite a few weeks.

Dual boot what just out of interest? (NT wasn't out, Linux wasn't out until October that year....)

(I mean I did too, but that was just putting in a DOS 4.1 disk instead of 3 :D )

[jake]

Re: Dual boot is so 1991

"Dual boot what just out of interest?"

In 1991 on Intel? How about quad boot?

4.3BSD, Coherent 4.1, OS/2 1.3 and DOS5/QEMM/Win3.0

[jake]

Re: Dual boot is so 1991

Who gives a flying fuck about uptime on any single given personal machine? Keeping it up forever pales in comparison to overall system stability and security. If a box needs a reboot, then reboot the fucking thing already!

Honestly, I thought THAT particular DSW was over a couple decades ago.

[Richard 12]

Re: Dual boot is so 1991

Exactly.

My PC doesn't need to be running overnight unless I've decided to set it actively doing something that takes ages, like compiling a new kernel or rendering something.

It's now fast enough that there's nothing I do that takes longer than a couple of hours, so now I run those "long" tasks over lunch or dinner, and always shut it down overnight.

My NAS is powered 24x7 of course, but that's a tiny ARM - and sleeps a lot, too.

[katrinab]

Alternatively

Linux works pretty well in Hyper-V. I’ve tried Debian and Ubuntu, both work out of the box without any hypervisor tools, other distros probably work too.

You can attach a drive directly to the vm, take it off line in Windows first, then add it in the vm preferences. Then you can share it with Windows using Samba. It’s a bit more involved, but it will work.

VMWare is also an option. You need to install VMWare tools in the guest OS, but after that it is a little easier to map hardware to the vm, and you have more optiins besides storage drives.

[Spamfast]

Re: Alternatively

So I install Microsoft's half-assed half-hosted/half-bare-metal hypervisor in order to run multiple OSes. But I can't do anything with the Windows instance that is hosting Hyper-V otherwise all the others will stop.

Have you ever tried uninstalling Hyper-V after installing it to try out WSL2? I don't recommend the experience.

Think I'll stick with a proper bare-metal hypervisor if I want that or VMwW or VBox for Windows-hosted, thanks. (Which, despite post facto patching - thanks for the warning, MS - still seem to run poorly with Hyper-V enabled.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time it was Netscape.....now Linux is in the cross-hairs......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

*

http://techrights.org/2008/02/19/evangelism-ooxml-microsoft/

*

Do we need any more evidence?

[jake]

But I mount my Linux disks ...

... under Linux. Seems cleaner that way, with no middle-man to go wrong.