BTW Windows Subsystem for Linux officially uses Arch now

There have been unofficial versions for years, but Arch Linux is now officially on the menu for people using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Robin Candau, an Arch Linux developer from Normandy, recently revealed that Arch Linux now has an official WSL image. Candau has been developing the project's WSL 2 image for some time …

[Anonymous Coward]

Arch has a nice balance of customisability and ease of use. (Speaking as a long time Gentoo user who ran out of time for re-compiling.... and decided that his computer is a tool to get hobbies done, not a hobby in and of itself...)

[Irongut]

Nice to see you finally acknowledge the Steam Deck and its large number of Arch users Liam.

[Liam Proven]

> Nice to see you finally acknowledge the Steam Deck and its large number of Arch users Liam.

Er, thanks.

I guess you did not count my article on Steam OS 3 and its industry-wide influence?

https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/27/osseu_steam_os_3/

Or the time I mentioned Steam's impact on user numbers?

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/valve_sponsors_arch/

Or when I mentioned it as a model for a KDE OS?

https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/29/kde_and_gnome_distros/

[AMBxx]

Just too much bother?

I use Windows for 90% of my work. I needed WSL to run Docker. It was all just too much bother. In the end, I just installed Ubuntu on a VM and installed Docker on that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just too much bother?

Installing a hypervisor, creating a VM, installing an OS etc was your alternative to the "bother" of running "wsl --install"?

Pretty much everything I do at work is either in a browser or in docker. I can put whatever OS I like on my work machine. But when I have a windows-specific issue that my Mac using colleagues don't have, I am not required to explain why I have windows on my laptop.

Given how much apple-bashing us windows users do at our company, I am not going to risk telling my colleagues that the reason I can't do something is because I put Linux on my laptop!

[martinusher]

Re: Just too much bother?

I don't know if Microsoft has tidied things up but I gave up on wsl almost immediately because of two things. They initially made a total pig's ear of the file system and they didn't plan for any kind of interworking between Windows and Linux. At a minimum I expected wsl to behave like Cygwin where you could run Bash commands from the Windows shell (but I suppose that contradicted MSFT's Marketing plan for their own shell which could include a few proprietary twists, aka the old "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" game again).

Running Windows in a VM is probably the only sane and safe place to run it.

[Richard 12]

Re: Just too much bother?

The wsl network stack is severely limited, last time I tried to set it up it only supported TCP.

Which sadly meant it was useless for network booting things

[Liam Proven]

Re: Just too much bother?

> I gave up on wsl almost immediately

So, WSL1?

> They initially made a total pig's ear of the file system

Definitely sounds like WSL1.

[eszklar]

I've been using Manjaro XFCE on my main laptop for a number of years now. So I'm fan of Arch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bleh

I don't see the point in Arch. Has systemd, pointless.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Bleh

This article is about running Arch on Windows and the deal-breaker for you is systemd?

[Anonymous Coward]

Policy is one thing.......enforcement......something else again!

Quote: '...Windows was always required by their "internal policy"....'

(1) Find a spare workstation

(2) Install your Linux distribution of choice

(3) Install and configure Wireshark and Snort

(4) Find out LOTS about the "corporate network".........

......and it's very likely that the "official" admin folk will take a while (never?) to notice!

Once upon a time................

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Policy is one thing.......enforcement......something else again!

Even if you manage to stop any packets emerging from the workstation's interface the switch would record an active interface with no traffic which might be a little suspect as Windows tends to be pretty chatty. In any case I think only ethernet broadcast and multicast traffic would be visible.

The network stacks of various OSes leave a signature on the traffic which quickly distinguishes Windows from non-Windows hosts.

Being on the other side of this in an environment where just about every OS was run either attached to instruments or on desktops and servers it was mostly a matter of getting on to the track of a little skulduggery usually betrayed by ignorance and a lot of mind numbing stupidity before any harm was done.

Unlike the Arch developer I have been fortunate in 30 years in never having an employer mandated Windows desktop. Always Unix or Linux - I always tried to run the same OS as the critical servers. The last MS desktop was MS-DOS just to run a terminal emulator to talk RS232 to a Unix minicomputer or dialout to a remote minicomputer. (Queue Four Yorkshiremen sketch.)