Microsoft loves Linux – as in, it loves Linux users running Linux desktop apps on Windows PCs Microsoft this week released a preview version of Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI, or WSLg, which provides a way to run Linux applications with graphic interfaces on Windows devices. Foretold last year at the software titan's virtual Build 2020 conference, WSLg takes the previously released WSL 2 beyond Linux command line …
Yes it has, but if KDE suited people's needs then they wouldn't be running Windows.
Personally I strongly prefer Windows as my desktop but as I also develop Linux software I also need something for that too. And there is something inherently useful about being able to fire up a Ubuntu console in Windows and do it. On occasions I will even be developing the same code for Windows & Linux and I can edit / compile / test from the same code base from both operating systems at once.
If Wayland is integrated then better again since I can literally type a command for some native Linux graphical app and it pops up on the desktop.
"Yes it has, but if KDE suited people's needs then they wouldn't be running Windows."
Of the limited people i talk to about computing (non work), many people don't know about Linux, so they would never even experience KDE.
They know about Android, but that is just because of the proliferatrion of the mobile devices, and probably don't know what an OS is about.
I use KDE, and it is great, similar to Windows 7 or XP interface in operation.
A conversation i had a while back, i explained that i ran Linux, and was asked, does it have Word or Excel, and i replied no (obviously), so the other person pretty much said what's the point. Perhaps until an ODF is the de facto standard, then Linux with LibreOffice won't make an in road that is required to accelerate Linux popularity ?
For personal use LibreOffice is good enough. If at work, where sharing files is important, using the cloud-based stuff is so much nicer then email files back and forth. Most, but sadly not quite all, of my colleagues use the cloud stuff appropriately. Old habits die hard.
It all depends on your job and your company's product. In most companies this will be the easiest way to run Linux. Keep in mind that, for better or worse, Linux is still a niche on the desktop with a share in single digits according to Statcounter. If you can get permission for a Linux machine, fine. If not, don't begrudge those whose companies hand them Windows kit.
Around 1990 I was asked to develop a graphics system to augment an existing text based system. It was for loading container ships and would have graphics representation of the ship and each bay and the containers and of the various tanks. It would have bending and shear graphs, stability, hazardous separations, and much more. It wasn't just GUI dialogs, it was full graphical, it eventually even had a 'helm view' as if looking forward from the helm (or indeed any chosen point) to ensure that the loading and trim met visual sighting requirements.
At the time I was running multiuser systems with Windows 3.1 hosted and an OS/2 system. I had compilers that would produce code for Windows 3.1 and for OS/2 and so I could make a choice whether to do the graphics in Windows or Presentation Manager.
When OS/2 was released with a Windows 3.1 sub-system the choice was obvious.
> KDE has been available for Windows for years
So has GTK, the graphical basis of GNOME. Back in the 90s I developed GUI applicationa using Glade* and Python that ran on Linux and Windows with zero code changes, not even a recompile. It even ran on Nokia 800 with a few minor features missing.
* Glade is a graphical interface designer for GTK projects.
Just curious, that's all.
There's no way I would run a Linux app on Windows, that's like trying to build on quicksand. That said, I can see some people having no choice.
That may be the actual end game: eventually paying Microsoft a subscription to run Linux in the corporate world.
Why is it like building on quicksand? You are literally running Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora or some other dist under WSL. As far as all the OS is concerned it *is* Linux and all the tools are Linux with no recompilation. Perhaps that isn't a good idea for for production servers but for people who might otherwise need two machines or a slower VM running as a guest of the other, it's fantastically useful. Just being able to type "bash" and having Linux in seconds is just super convenient. Even more so, if Windows allows graphical apps to launch through Wayland.
For me, the point is that Windows shouldn't be in direct control of hardware I own. It takes far too many liberties.
Windows should be completely limited to userspace, either via WINE or running inside a VM.
Fortunately, the games I want to run are supported under WINE.
That's fine although for people like myself who use Windows for other reasons it doesn't work.
As for WINE, I've used it extensively too and the main thing to realise is it isn't Windows. It is an independent implementation of *most* of the Win32 APIs. That means some software (mostly games) runs fairly well with it and other software runs terribly. If you want Windows on Linux and don't care about performance too much then you'd be better off with a VM.
On the premise that all OSes are crap, this is clearly a case of: 'Let's take someone else's pile of crap and put it on top of our pile of crap.'
Now we have the pleasure of all the crapness of one OS being added to all the crapness of another OS - as if one lot of crap isn't enough to be dealing with! As we all learned in school: a negative plus a negative equals more negative (never a positive).
So, if you are desperate enough, or manglement are mangled enough, this may be seen as a 'solution', but, ask yourself, is this the kind of solution anyone would actually choose if they were trying to minimise the 'crap' quotient?
The lost visitor asks the local: "How do I get to Dublin?" and gets the gnomic reply, "Well, I wouldn't start from here"
>Why is it like building on quicksand?
Linux is just software so you can run it as an application under Linux if you want to. You wouldn't normally do this but it used to be a handy way to debug kernel code. WSL is running a Linux kernel and its associated distribution as an application under Windows. This brings all the Windows baggage with it -- a highly inefficent kernel, an inflexible filesystem that is still wedded to drive letters and incompatible path notations and a dubious user model, to name just a few things off the top of my head. The only reason for doing this is that Corporate mandates the use of Windows but there's a growing gulf between corporate mandate and practical reality.
As for "Extinguish" I reckon the initial target's Cygwin. This is a highly effective simulated Linux environment for Windows based PCs that's widely used by applications that should run - and run a lot better -- under Linux but the Corporate Mandate Demands Windows. WSL offers the programmer all sorts of Microsoft specific gimmicks which gradually, almost imperceptably, migrate the applications away from a generic 'ix' environment to a Microsoft specific one.At that point MSFT can then go after Linux proper, relegating it to back office tasks until its got enoujgh knowhow to take it out there as well.
The only reason isn't the only reason. I use my home PC for Windows stuff like games, development and more. It is extremely convenient to be able to fire up WSL during a development session and be able to compile-test the code on Linux even as I'm editing it over in Windows. This has worked incredibly well for me for Rust, C, C++ and even Arduino. And yes I have a separate Linux PC I could use if I wanted but it's not as convenient.
I actually wish my corporate overlords would allow WSL in my work environment but they use docker scripts to run Linux in a VM that doesn't work even half as well.
As for Cygwin, that is for getting *nix software to compile & run on Windows without changing it much i.e. "./config && make". It has certainly has its uses, but most *nix ports to Windows actually use the alternative MSYS2 (plus mingw-gcc) because it produces standalone binaries that KNOW they're running on Windows. e.g. Git for Windows is a dist made with MSYS2. But neither Cygwin nor MSYS2 have much to do with Linux development.
Will try this, well some day. But now I want more, what would really be nice would be a Windows version that runs inside a container. Just imagine how convenient for IT to let users have a container version. When users log out the container can be backed upp to server. If they log in on another HW the container gets downloaded on the fly. Most users probably have similar files so some deduplication would be nice so files already present don't need to be transferred again. If a machine breaks just take another and continue as if nothing happened. Would solve a lot of windows legacy were every user need to be admin also. They can be admin on their container Windows but not necessarily on the host computer. All this updating can be done while users container version is residing on the server. Backup is inherent and reverting to some old state will not be a problem. /Henrik
what you said here should be old news 5 years ago but sadly, while it's a no brainer for anybody here, containers are at least 10 years ahead of the technical ability of the average joe IT administrator. You're lucky if any of them have ever heard of Docker, let alone Linux. Password resets and installing Windows images is about all that they can manage. WSL is the 1s time I've been able to achieve any technical computing on a corporate machine without having to fall back to using a personal computer for work. Next up I dream of Git integration in Windows so that I can add version control to the rich suite of tools my corporate overlords can provide!
I suppose the hapless IT administrator should have taught themselves these technologies and concepts for free, for the benefit of El Corpo, while watching the wages stagnate
Honestly, companies get what they pay for, and they aint paying...
I mean, we ‘could’ bring our ‘A’ game
Or we could just provide the bear minimum, much like the salary offering
Fuck em
BTW, docker or containers is not a hard concept to understand, give it a year and there will be some other concept that will get the hipsters cumming in their pants ;)
OK, let me give a more considered answer which yes and no.
The skills you have as a Windows admin or whatever are in wide demand but a lot of people have them. They're a commodity to be traded, at least that's the way agencies and HR will look at them and at the people who have them. Wages will stagnate because there's always somebody who hasn't got a job will take your job at a low wage.
So, yes, your response should be to teach yourself new stuff but no, not so you can stay in the low wage trap. You do it to get out of that trap. What you need is to know stuff that's just coming into demand but that relatively few people have.
You also have to remember that the new stuff you learn will become a commodity skill in due course by which time you need to be somewhere else.
Weird, when I've been doing development, I've been able to install on the company owned hardware whatever I needed to do the job. Unless you're in the call center, or a secretarial or other role where the computer is just a tool to do a non-compete related job, why does your company make it harder for you to do your job?
Personally I'm OK with Hyper-V - but the GUI still sucks, Windows Admin Center can be used, but that's even more basic for this job. But I think if you have time to explore/fight PowerShell, especially around the networking, it's as capable as 3rd party Virtualization Apps?
I'm impressed with WSL2 - see it being especially useful in the academic/teaching space
I tried Hyper-V, but none of the Linux distros I needed to run would install. I would be willing to try WSLg, but they require running preview Windows builds to do it currently. I'm willing to risk a beta for the one KDE/Linux app I really need. But I don't want to beta the base Windows OS too. I guess I need to stop procrastinating about getting QEMM installed. Would have been nice to have my one KDE app as a shortcut on my Windows task bar.
In the dark ages when I was forced to have Windows as my base OS for work, running Linux is a VM was the only way to get things done. My Linux VM could have an uptime of months, as I could just suspend and resume it every time Windows needed a reboot for an update.
I'd much rather run Win application on Linux (i.e. I'd prefer an improved version of Wine) for performance reasons if nothing else. There's so much going on in the background in Windows that time critical things are hard to do. We're currently fighting the OS for a time critical Java application - clock ticks are randomly up to twice too long because something outside the JVM steals time from our threads. Oh for a bare metal machine!
Ever considered VXWorks? If it's truly a realtime requirement a conventional desktop OS probably isn't what you need... Even one with claimed RT features.
Return Infinity were working on an interesting monotasking OS for similar purposes (BareMetal OS) that might also satisfy those cases where you need absolute control over operation of the machine.
Time critical Java on Windows? Fuhgeddaboudit. One reason being the garbage collector that runs whenever it wants and the other being the Windows mass market export license which precludes real-time operation (The State Dept forces MS and Apple to add intentional jitter to bugger up real-time use). If you need real-time, then your only options are Linux and BSD.
... of running Windows just to launch Linux applications. The experience is far better if you use Linux to run Linux code, without Windows talking its share of the CPU and memory.
A couple of years ago I still used (at work) a Windows 7 laptop with Linux in a VM, and spent most time in the VM. Then I manned up and ditched the Windows side (it helped that the corporate IT said that 8 years old machine cannot be upgraded to Windows 10). After that, it felt like I had got a brand-new laptop. Unshackled from Windows, the hardware could concentrate on running Linux, making everything noticeably faster.
This is for brain-dead corps who stick doggedly to Windows 10 on the desktop even though the software they're producing is Unix or Unix-like.
Also I'm pretty sure the end game is to make the Win32 API and the Windows GUI yet another option in a Unix-based world so they don't lose developer mindshare. Possibly even swap out Windows' kernel to Linux in the long term to save money but businesses can still buy Microsoft because everything else is too scary for them.
They tried expanding Windows to mobiles, tablets, and IoT and it's not exactly been a success. I think they're Unixifying because they've realised that the alternative, in a Unix-based world, is Windows finally getting thrown out because everyone's continually trying to bash a square peg in a round hole.
For those who don't know, O&OShutUp 10 helps with turning off most of that pesky telemetry.
> Microsoft’s CBL-Mariner, with Wayland, X server, pulse audio server
Cool, so now I can run two things I hate? Windows *and* Pulse Audio
Sarcasm aside, this is probably a positive development for some, but isn't something that's going to tempt me towards using Windows as a day-to-day OS (but then, I don't think it's necessarily intended to)
I'll probably get hated-on, but I gotta ask. Why? Other than developers who want to test cross-platform capability, who is this aimed at? The paper-MSCE crowd who keep hearing how wonderful Linux is, but can't figure out how to install standalone ESXi on an old box and spin up a CentOS 7 or Ubuntu VM ? The "admins" who stack black-box services together like Legos while reading the how-to recipe on StackExchange?
I know I'm old-skool thinking with this, but trusting Microsoft in anything Linux-related just seems like a Bad Idea. Sure, they've apparently hired some upper-management droids who claim to have the Linux religion, but in the end, GPL is the polar opposite of Microsoft's strategy, and can't really be good for their (or our) long-term plans.
Speaking of long-term plans, has anyone seen the Zune update that MS pushed out last week for Patch Tuesday? I got a text message about it on my Windows-Mobile phone, but Internet Explorer couldn't get to the download page at TechNet. Not sure what's going on here...
Ahh ...
Finally.
... trusting Microsoft in anything Linux-related just seems like a Bad Idea.
It does not seem like a Bad Idea: it is a Bad Idea.
But it's not old-skool thinking or old anything for that matter.
After all the crap the IT world has seen from MS in the past 30+ years?
It is nothing but good old common sense.
The kind that comes from having learnt from experience plus the wisdom accrued from years of IT work.
And I'll quote myself:
"Anything 'Windows for Linux' is nothing but a cancer out to get at the Linux ecosystem from inside out.
But the writing has been on the wall for ages, only that the (intellectually) blind refuse to see it and find it all so convenient.
One day it will be too late.
O.
Wake me when they release a Linux Subsystem for Windows applications.
Last time I tried Wine, Mono, etc... the results were too mixed for my purposes.
I'd really prefer to use Linux exclusively but there are some Windows applications I just can't do without (mostly business "stuff").
... there are some Windows applications I just can't do without (mostly business "stuff").
You prefer to use Linux?
If Wine does not suit you or does not work properly, then that's what VMs are for.
Take your pick, there are two or three out there.
I also have three or four Windows things I have not been able to replace.
A couple of them will never be ported to Linux.
So I have a Windows VM on hand just for that stuff I have to run every so often.
No big deal, easy enough and most are free.
O.
just want linux dead
And the best way to do it is to incorperate it into the crap pile that is windows and then blame linux when a linux only application refuses to run on said crap pile
Then go "ohh shiny shiny app runs on windoze with the need for linux........."
Remember the trick here is to get cash from every computer user on the planet and the more cash the better
Linux dead or alive no longer matters for Microsoft. Pay for a Windows license, sign in with your Microsoft account and you're free to run Linux. It finally seems there were enough Linux installations in the world for Microsoft to pay attention. Now it's only Mac and Windows that are left standing.
> Linux dead or alive no longer matters for Microsoft.
It obviously _does_ matter to Microsoft, if it didn't they would ignore it. In fact it matters because many cloud customers run Linux workloads.
> Pay for a Windows license, sign in with your Microsoft account and you're free to run Linux.
Or: don't pay for for a Windows license, don't have a Microsoft account and you've always been free to use Linux.
I am not sure why you think that Linux users will replace their systems with Windows running Linux apps. How many Windows users replaced their Windows systems with OS/2 systems because OS/2 could run Windows apps?
In fact quite the opposite happened. Instead of there being OS/2 versions of apps, developers just made Windows versions that would run on Windows and OS/2. Now developers can just make Linux apps that will run on Linux or Windows.
Linux servers and the kernel domain. No question about it. It'll never mainstream on the desktop though. I've waited two decades for that to happen.
I don't think there's any real desire to do so. Even if there was, the fragmentation of desktops and distributions still stops it from ever happening. The very freedom you hold so dear is defeating you.
You know, I love you guys. You're the smartest people on the planet. Your effort influences our society and the direction of the entire world economy.
If you really want to mainstream Desktop Linux don't waste your energy on grudges and old disagreements. Unify the best ideas from all desktops. Combine your efforts to create the best user experience out there. If you do that users and companies will find you and choose to use it of their own.
Microsoft isn't making money off Windows. Microsoft might be considering replacing Windows 10 with it's own Linux Desktop distribution. If that happened you'd get your wish -- sort of. The FUD machine will be in overdrive but the Linux community will only have itself to blame in the end because it didn't stop the fragmentation.
"the fragmentation of desktops and distributions still stops it from ever happening."
Ah, yes. The fragmentation of desktops. Nothing like Windows where W10 is just like W7 is just like W2K etc (leaving out a couple that even Windows fans would be hard pushed to praise).
I've got news for you. If you run Windows you're stuck with whatever look MS push out today. If it doesn't work for you, tough, just use it all the same. If you have a choice of desktops you have...well...choice. Maybe that's too hard a concept to deal with?
What's that? You can change the wallpaper? That's fine.
It took you 3 lines to list those. Most of them are not even a blip on user statistics. By comparison you can't even list all flavors of Linux & desktop environments. By a wide margin, the public is on Windows 10 which is not fragmented.
I tried listing the statistics here but it was disallowed.
I've seen a desire to mainstream Desktop Linux for many years. The reason why that isn't happening should be obvious. If the community wants to do something about it, it needs to find a different path.
It seems like you're saying Windows is fragmented which doesn't ring true. Later you seem to say users don't have a choice. That is factually wrong. They can choose MacOS or Linux or other operating systems. By a wide margin they choose Windows. The most unpopular versions of Windows surpassed Desktop Linux adoption by 1.5% in 2021.
I tried listing the statistics here but it was disallowed.
> Even if there was, the fragmentation of desktops and distributions still stops it from ever happening. The very freedom you hold so dear is defeating you.
As a Linux user, it's not defeating me - I'm quite, quite happy having a wide array of choice.
I'm not sure there are many involved in developing any of these systems where Linux's year of the desktop is actually a stated aim either. As you said
> I don't think there's any real desire to do so
You can't really be defeated when you're not trying to do something.
Most don't need wide uptake, they just need the system to work well for them, which (at least for me) it does.
This focus on "must be the dominant OS" always strikes me as odd - what's needed is for it to be well enough used that support continues, but also remains usable/useful rather than ultimately going towards more of a "one-size-fits-all" approach. It's the choice that makes Linux strong, not overstated aims of world dominance
YMMV of course
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Whatever kernel they're using runs OK on Windows, but anything which requires X falls down and dies pretty often. Tried running the Evolution client on an otherwise vanilla Win 10 Pro system, on a bespoke Win 10 box. Not so great.
You're better off running something like LTS Suse, and virtualizing Windows in VBox. That works great.
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