Yikes, do you mean Windows Subsystem for Linux? I really appreciate MS folks putting in the effort to try something new, but WSL is close to worthless. I tried it a while back and could not get basic services to work. And why would you want Windows OS around if you just want to run Linux?
It depends exactly what you want linux for, but if it is command line stuff, then Windows Subsystem for Linux is ok.
WSL is just a linux syscall wrapper around the Windows kernel, so it isn't a perfect replica, but WSL2 runs a customised linux kernel alongside windows, so it should very close.
Windows has plenty of warts that I doubt WSL will resolve (can't delete open files, spectacular suicide if you use symlinks or junctions on system resources, different administrative abstractions and CLI tools, that sort of thing) but I might be willing to give it a spin if someone other than microsoft says nice things about it.
Windows Subsystem for Linux has been huge however. I used to have to run Vagrant or something on Windows to build stuff but WSL makes life super easy as a developer on Windows. I'm still one of the handful of people at a 600 person company though that runs Windows. :/
Windows should just run Linux. For apps that really need the Windows OS, use something akin to macOS parallels. I really like WSL of course, but would prefer an inverted paradigm.
I've been trying Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and it's a great idea, I can see my self moving to windows (from Linux) in the next months when they fix the slow IO.
The combination would work great for me, a terminal with Linux tools + a nice windows 10 experience (nice fonts, devices support) .
Microsoft if you're reading this this is your fault for not marketing enough.
WSL is windows subsystem for Linux. Think of it like this- say you have an 'ls' binary from UNIX machine. You have WSL enabled on your machine in Windows. Windows will start the ls process and the UNIX calls will be handles in windows. (the kernel has mappings).
It's possible, and actually its wonderful experience, to run full "linux" environment right from windows at native speed.
It's not perfect and one of the biggest issues has been file system speed but besides that and some other smaller issues its the absolute best of both worlds- OneNote + excel + outlook + i3
WSL is not nearly the same as actually using Linux. If it actually interacted with the rest of the system instead of just in it's little box it might provide some value. The way it stands you really have to search for everything. There are lot of tools for devs that just work on Linux/Unix that just don't work on Windows. I find Windows a pain (and am a C# developer professionally). I also like to game so of course Windows stays on my desktop at home, but my next laptop (MBP currently) will have Windows replaced with Linux for sure.
It's pretty sad when Linux users have given up on the Linux desktop and decided to just use Windows. Having WSL is surely a great advantage so you can get the job done, but it gives a feeling of a cobbled together system that is a reaction to the failure of Linux on the desktop.
Windows Subsystem for Linux is really close to that though. If you have not tried it yet you can download a Windows VM for developers from Microsoft that includes WSL and other dev goodies. Its mostly for evaluation but good enough to get started with.
If the WSL is the only reason windows is a decent development workstation, then why not just use Linux in the first place? What unique factor is Windows offering here?
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