So I tried a thing

[BarriBurt]

I'd heard about WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), and finally messed around with it this afternoon.

For those unfamiliar, as I'm fairly sure I still am, that's a Windows Feature that lays the groundwork for deploying a Linux system into Windows. Not a separate VM, quite - it's a lot more like what WINE does. I think. Yeah, super confident there.

But it does let you download a linux distro from a short list (from command line), load up it's terminal, and start happily apt-getting or otherwise grabbing whichever Linux apps you like. And running them.

Then you install Windows Terminal, which lets you run the Linux, CMD, PowerShell, Christknowswhatelse sessions in different tabs. And even mix command line statements from any of them into one line.

I don't know what on earth I'm going to do with this thing yet, but damn it's cool. Who else has played with it?

And where's that dog meme gone... oh, here it is. Fun times!

 

[f33dm3bits]

I don't know what on earth I'm going to do with this thing yet, but damn it's cool. Who else has played with it?

Why would I want to play with WSL if you need to install Windows for it, while I have a real Linux installation without Windows on my system already? From what I've heard WSL is basically running a Linux vm on Hyper-V on your Windows installation and because there is GPU support it allows to you run graphical applications on Windows, it's probably a bit come complicated but that's basically it.

 

[camtaf]

"Windows not needed" - "I run Linux"

 

[sphen]

Who is the target market for WSL? Why does it exist? I have yet to see a use case for WSL that made sense to me.

 

[atanere]

Who is the target market for WSL? Why does it exist? I have yet to see a use case for WSL that made sense to me.

From the horse's mouth: here and here.

@JasKinasis could tell you more about Cygwin and perhaps offer a comparison.

I don't use either... not yet anyway. I have one custom Windows cmd script for backups that would be nice to migrate to rsync in WSL if it would function like my Linux backup script. But the scripts are very similar now, and I don't know if it's worth the trouble. Probably not.

 

[BarriBurt]

Why would I want to play with WSL if you need to install Windows for it, while I have a real Linux installation without Windows on my system already? From what I've heard WSL is basically running a Linux vm on Hyper-V on your Windows installation and because there is GPU support it allows to you run graphical applications on Windows, it's probably a bit come complicated but that's basically it.

Meh, it's a work SOE computer. Like most places we're a mostly Windows org. There are (very few) Linux users, but they self-support. At home I'm happily exploring Linux, so it's natural to look for what it can bring to work.

I just think it's pretty cool being able to blend an OS like this. Almost like someone in Microsoft looked at WINE and announced "we should do that!" - then somehow convinced management to get on board. Both platforms can play the same trick, it appears.

Linux is so dominant in the web server space and such a huge player in mobile (if you count Android as Linux - I do), that MS has aimed this at that developer market. Funny market to aim for; it seems kinda small and they really do their own thing, but you do you MS lol

Haven't honestly figured out any uses for it yet but it's another tool in the toolbox. Maybe bash scripts can add some value here.

thinks

In fact, if you want a mobile (android) app or a Linux web server to do something really clever to a Windows OS... this might make it easier to get a fleet of Windows computers to interact with it. Just spitballing, but scripting a deployment of WSL looks perfectly achievable to me.