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.
I worked on Windows for two decades and tried WSL1. Windows is not super annoying but as a developer all my tools were actually Linux native or cross platform so one day I just cut the middle man and switched to Linux. It wasn't such a big leap but my productivity definitely increased.
WSL is nice when you don't have choice. Linux is actually the optimum choice for most developers.
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?
I'm pretty sure WSL is not enough for any decent sized dev effort. And running Linux on a VM on an i3 would just be masochistic. Stick to Linux would be my suggestion.
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.
This. My laptop runs Windows (for non-programming reasons). It would feel like a prison except that WSL is really good--far more convenient than messing around with MacOS workarounds like brew. If you can't run Linux directly, Windows is the way to go.
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.
Yes it's great, I can spin up WSL to get a full Linux environment for web development, mimicking my production environments. I can use Windows IDEs to edit and browsers to test. Even tools like Browsersync work seamlessly running on Linux and syncing on Windows browsers. When I'm finished work, I can shut down the dev environment and play my favorite Windows games without having to dual boot :)
The point is that unless you are fiddling with the kernel, a Windows laptop with WSL makes for a great workstation for software developers. Even if I only develop for Linux, for me it is either a Mac or Windows on the desktop (my pet peeve with Linux on the desktop is the several counterintuitive paste buffers).
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?
Using windows for the popup/productivity/keybind easy mode stuff, while running Linux applications natively for development.
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