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Ubuntu on Windows

(blog.dustinkirkland.com)
2049 points bpierre | 43 comments | 30 Mar 16 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.866s | source | bottom
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captainmuon ◴[30 Mar 16 17:35 UTC] No.11391214[source]▶
A few random thoughts:

- Wow, hell is really freezing over!

- The hardest part of running bash and other posix things under windows is filesystem access. Windows uses drive letters and backslashes, unix has a root filesystem with forward slashes. It seems they are taking the same route as cygwin by "mounting" windows drives in /mnt/c (or /cygdrive/c).

- If you just wanted bash and some posix tools, the harder but nicer way would be to patch them to understand windows paths. It is not clear to me that it is even possible, for example many tools assume a path that does not start with a slash is a relative path - while "C:\" is absolute. You would also want to make more windows apps understand forward slashes like "C:/Windows". To make things even more complicated, there are NT native paths "\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Users\Bill", UNC paths "\\Server\share", and the crazy syntax "\\?\C:\MyReallyLongPath\File.txt".

- I am really surprised this works in an appx container. From my little dabbling with modern apps in Visual Studio, I've found that they are incredibly sandboxed - no filesystem access unless you go through a file picker, no network connections to localhost (!?), no control of top-level windows, no loading of external DLLs. You can get around most restrictions for sideloaded apps, but not for windows store apps. That they can now package such a complex application as a modern app (with maybe only the linux subsystem DLLs delivered externally) means that they are slowly moving the modern/universal apps and traditional Win32 apps together with regards to their powers.

- Running a Linux kernel in windows, and then ELF executables on top (without virtualization) is nothing new, see CoLinux or andLinux. If I understand correctly, this new work uses a new Linux NT subsystem. It remains to be seen if this is better (more performant) or worse (if the Linux kernel is just another process, and it crashes, it doesn't take down the system).

- If they actually wrote a NT subsystem for Linux, this opens a whole can of GPL licensing worms, as you'll need to include internal NT headers. However, they say it is closed source, so I wonder how they did it.

- This really stands and falls with how well it is integrated in the rest of the system. I want to install tools in "Ubuntu" via apt and use them from cmd.exe, and vice versa. And long term, a X11/Wayland bridge would be nice too.

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1. icefox ◴[30 Mar 16 18:50 UTC] No.11391895[source]▶
Some long term thoughts:

1) Linux has won the server (web) market. Developers would like to use a Unix box to work on their server code so they typically move to OS X. This could prevent that switch because they can still use Windows to developer their Linux server software.

2) Many projects start out as Linux and stay Linux and are only ported after much time and effort to Windows. Enterprises when faced with a tool that they want to use will also look to switch off Windows. Now rather than the cost of switching they only have to pay to upgrade their windows boxes to use the tool.

3) There is now a major incentive for developers to only build Linux binaries because it will work more places. This might cause a faster drain of developers as they eventually remove all windows specific code and can more easily migrate elsewhere. This feels eerily similar to the OS2 story and no doubt in the next week I expect to see more than a few articles discussing this very thing.

4) It will be much easier for Microsoft to bring much loved Linux tools to Windows so you can expect to see a more rapid increase of tools announced that now work for Windows.

5) Games: What about the graphical layer? Can I write the majority of my game as a Linux binary and only have the rendering bit left over to separately implement for Linux/Windows? Will this spur an increase of cross platform games?

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2. ◴[30 Mar 16 19:18 UTC] No.11392137[source]▶
3. cbhl ◴[30 Mar 16 19:21 UTC] No.11392161[source]▶
I imagine that 3) and 5) are hedged by how well Visual Studio is doing.
4. sbarre ◴[30 Mar 16 19:27 UTC] No.11392208[source]▶
Your first point describes me exactly (and many other developers I know). I grew up a Windows user, and switched to OS X because of the unix-like command line environment that more closely matched the servers I was working with in my job environments.

I would most likely switch back to Windows as my primary/only machine (because I also like to play video games sometimes) if I had the same kind of unix-like command line environment that I get in OS X.

Right now I basically need 2 computers at home to meet all my needs, but this would allow me to reduce it to one, so I could get a much better one (instead of the 2 mid-range ones I have now).

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5. TillE ◴[30 Mar 16 19:33 UTC] No.11392257[source]▶
On a practical level, this doesn't change anything for games. Anyone writing games for Linux is already using cross-platform tech like SDL or OpenGL or Allegro, or one of the many increasingly popular high-level engines.

Well, I guess it'll be easier to port roguelikes which use ncurses.

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6. chris_wot ◴[30 Mar 16 19:41 UTC] No.11392322[source]▶
I'm really hoping this allows me to compile LibreOffice on Windows. Perhaps if I worked out how to incorporate the WINE libraries it might make my life easier...
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7. 13of40 ◴[30 Mar 16 19:48 UTC] No.11392368[source]▶
> I grew up a Windows user, and switched to OS X because of the unix-like command line environment that more closely matched the servers I was working with in my job environments.

Out of curiosity, why would you not just go with a Linux desktop for that?

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8. simoncion ◴[30 Mar 16 19:54 UTC] No.11392409{3}[source]▶
> I'm really hoping this allows me to compile LibreOffice on Windows.

Is this not helpful?

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/BuildingOnWi...

LibreOffice has official Windows builds, so I would expect that they can already build the software on Windows.

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9. noelsusman ◴[30 Mar 16 20:12 UTC] No.11392577{3}[source]▶
I'm not that guy but I followed a similar path. For me, there is no laptop that truly competes with the MBP and runs Linux with no issues (I've never liked Thinkpads). The recent Dell XPS Dev model is the only product that has come close, but before that there was basically nothing.

I always use Linux for desktops., I see no reason not to.

10. Dobbs ◴[30 Mar 16 20:12 UTC] No.11392578{3}[source]▶
Not the OP, but for me at least I did. And it was unstable and didn't work very well. My OSX laptop "just works", that isn't to say it doesn't have issues but the amount of time I spend futzing about because of driver issues, sound issues or wifi issues is drastically reduced.
11. centrinoblue ◴[30 Mar 16 20:17 UTC] No.11392619{3}[source]▶
as someone with a similar history (front-end dev) I switched from Windows to linux after XP and then on to OSX in order to develop for iOS apps.

I would never go back to windows but would happily move back to linux if I had to

EDIT: I should note I didn't expect to like my Macbook air so much (fantastic machine)

12. uxp ◴[30 Mar 16 20:17 UTC] No.11392621{3}[source]▶
I'm not who you asked, but because I like to spend my day debugging my terrible code, not my desktop.

Before you ask, yes I do have a Linux laptop (Acer C720P ChromeBook, unlocked with Debian + Gnome), and with all the sudden issues that pop out of seemingly nowhere (my latest dragon is a recurrent kernel module crash that can fill my disk up with .core files in 10 minutes), I've switched back to a 13" rMBP. Though, I have heard that 2016 is going to be the year of the Linux Desktop...

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13. captainmuon ◴[30 Mar 16 20:19 UTC] No.11392642{3}[source]▶
I'm also not him, but I switched to OS X for a while, too. I couldn't afford a MacBook, so I actually ran a Hackintosh.

The reasons were 1) it ran the unixy stuff I needed for university AND modern games at the same time, and 2) it was boring and conservative. In a time where Linux and Windows were changing and breaking (Windows 8, Gnome 3, ...) it was nice to use something stable, well-tested, and polished.

14. wtallis ◴[30 Mar 16 20:20 UTC] No.11392651{3}[source]▶
Because OS X has historically been vastly better than Linux at all the non-server stuff, and comes pre-installed on the good laptops. The gap is a lot smaller than it used to be, but Apple is still the easiest choice for desktop/laptop Unix.
15. cturner ◴[30 Mar 16 20:22 UTC] No.11392672[source]▶
Non-trivial audio is still difficult to do cross-platform. You can load songs in SDL, but it's not suitable for writing something like a tracker. There's a library coming through libsoundio that looks promising for cross-platform, but it's still early days - I haven't been able to get it to compile yet.
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16. anthk ◴[30 Mar 16 20:29 UTC] No.11392730{3}[source]▶
OpenAL.
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17. fauigerzigerk ◴[30 Mar 16 20:56 UTC] No.11392930{3}[source]▶
Same history here. I did actually use Linux for quite a while but ultimately gave up because Linux just isn't good at the one job only an operating system can do, which is to make the hardware available in a reliable and efficient manner.

I just got tired of fixing sound issues, trying to make a scanner work or investigating CPU states to fix heat and battery draining issues on yet another laptop. Ultimately, I think, all of this is a result of the unresolved issue of who should write and test device drivers.

It doesn't help that I disagree profoundly with the prevailing package management philosophy of Linux distributions, but that is a comparably superficial problem that can be worked around.

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18. chris_wot ◴[30 Mar 16 20:59 UTC] No.11392954{4}[source]▶
It means I need to install Visual Studio. Right now I'm only developing on Mac OS X and Linux. On top of this, every time Microsoft updates Visual Studio, things like firebird tend to break :(

I'd rather use a toolchain I know better. In fact, I'd love to use clang on Windows.

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19. voltagex_ ◴[30 Mar 16 22:06 UTC] No.11393401{5}[source]▶
The latest Visual Studios support clang.
20. vacri ◴[30 Mar 16 22:52 UTC] No.11393645{4}[source]▶
> Linux just isn't good at the one job only an operating system can do, which is to make the hardware available in a reliable and efficient manner.

It's not the best desktop environment out there, but apart from desktop, linux is the most popular system at every step from small embedded systems to the most powerful supercomputers. That wouldn't be the case if it couldn't make hardware available in a reliable and efficient manner.

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21. simoncion ◴[30 Mar 16 23:01 UTC] No.11393687{5}[source]▶
> It means I need to install Visual Studio.

I mean, sure, but (unless things have changed dramatically in the many years since I was a Windows dev) you don't have to do anything more than install VS. The compilers and nmake can be used without opening the GUI. IIRC, you can feed a VS project file (or -I'm pretty sure- a solution file) to nmake and get the same result you'd get from loading the GUI and pressing build.

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22. chris_wot ◴[30 Mar 16 23:09 UTC] No.11393725{6}[source]▶
Definitely time for me to get off my backside and install Visual Studio then...
23. dang ◴[31 Mar 16 00:21 UTC] No.11394105{4}[source]▶
This comment breaks the HN guidelines. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

24. Retra ◴[31 Mar 16 00:32 UTC] No.11394153{3}[source]▶
In the same boat: I bought an MacBookPro bacause I wanted a nice (new) machine with a decent keyboard/touchpad that didn't force me to purchase Windows. And the keyboard and touchpad on these things are phenomenal.
25. andersen1488 ◴[31 Mar 16 01:25 UTC] No.11394378{3}[source]▶
Linux on the desktop is awful, and anyone who says otherwise is in denial.
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26. randiantech ◴[31 Mar 16 01:45 UTC] No.11394465[source]▶
This absolutely represents my case. I bought a MBP just because unix-like command line. IF Windows would provide a this feature at that moment (and giving the case this thing work as intended) I mostly probably would bought an XPS laptop.
27. cyphar ◴[31 Mar 16 01:50 UTC] No.11394486{4}[source]▶
Or maybe they don't need a bunch of proprietary software? I've been running Linux on all of my desktops for the past few years, and I don't find myself wanting anything more. When doing research, working on free software, etc. I don't need anything I can't get on Linux. I don't play games anymore, so that basically removes most of the "Linux on the desktop" issues that people have.
28. brianwawok ◴[31 Mar 16 02:01 UTC] No.11394527{3}[source]▶
For my desktop.. it does non worky things. For example I Zwift and I Game. Neither work well enough in Linux.

For my laptops... always had linux laptop problems. Sometimes have gotten really close to all the way working.. but then maybe I will find out my battery drains in 2 hours because some power saving feature is broke in my kernel and I cannot be arsed to go fix it, rather just buy a macbook.

Now for this vs macbook.. it depends how next macbook line looks. I need a 32GB ram laptop. If Apple skips that ship again, this will start to look pretty dang appealing.

29. viraptor ◴[31 Mar 16 02:30 UTC] No.11394602{4}[source]▶
That's anecdata. Of course it can work the other way too. I've got a printer/scanner which "just works" with Linux. On Windows however they need crazy, proprietary driver/application which always lives in the traybar and tries hard to take over native windows settings.
replies(1): >>11395832 #
30. yuubi ◴[31 Mar 16 03:08 UTC] No.11394736{6}[source]▶
Confirming you can feed a .sln file to msbuild (I did it the other day), no idea about whether nmake accepts them. Source: https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsdg_html_chunked/ChSetupWin3... .
replies(1): >>11394851 #
31. simoncion ◴[31 Mar 16 03:47 UTC] No.11394851{7}[source]▶
Ah, shit. I couldn't remember if the damn thing was called msbuild or nmake. [0] I guess one should replace all instances of nmake in my comment with msbuild.

[0] I do know that they are both parts of the VS build tooling. ;)

replies(1): >>11395056 #
32. yuubi ◴[31 Mar 16 04:48 UTC] No.11395056{8}[source]▶
I think nmake is or was a normalish make.
33. umanwizard ◴[31 Mar 16 05:45 UTC] No.11395227{5}[source]▶
It's not the most popular system on phones, unless you are using "Linux" in the correct sense to mean the kernel. But I believe GP was using it in the colloquial sense to mean GNU/Linux, since this thread isn't really about the Linux kernel, but the ""Linux"" userland.

Android certainly doesn't have the userland that is typically (incorrectly) called Linux.

replies(1): >>11395655 #
34. paulnechifor ◴[31 Mar 16 06:22 UTC] No.11395347{4}[source]▶
It depends on what you do. It's terrible for media things, but it's the best OS for programmers and I don't have to go along with every UI trend Microsoft/Apple are implementing this week.
35. kagamine ◴[31 Mar 16 06:54 UTC] No.11395445{4}[source]▶
That being the opposite of my experience. While we're making bland sweeping gestures, I have been having it easy developing on Linux (specifically Bodhi with Moksha DE) while fixing my partner's Windows PC every week because it fails constantly. Hell, Windows can't seem to go from location A to B and change networks without a meltdown. It's an awful OS with awful usability, a file explorer that is awful to use and a file system that makes development feel like physical pain.

There, now we're even. Let's get back to EEE, and the real porblems and advantages with this news.

36. vacri ◴[31 Mar 16 08:00 UTC] No.11395655{6}[source]▶
The parent was specifically talking about making hardware available for use. That's kernel stuff, not GNU userland.

But if you want to talk about userland, then you need to buy supported equipment. OSX doesn't work with a ton of equipment out there - as that equipment does not come with OSX drivers. Windows also works like shit when it doesn't have the drivers - anyone who has had to install XP regularly will quite happily attest to just how terrible it is at supporting network cards before you install drivers.

Then, of course, there's the bonus of the AMD Catalyst driver installer program for windows: at least as recently as win7, if you didn't have drivers for video, it fell back to VGA graphics. The Catalyst driver installer was too large to be seen on VGA - you couldn't see the bottom of the installer window to see what was going on, and couldn't drag the window high enough without a hard-to-discover key chord. :)

The argument to "buy stuff your operating system supports" sounds like a cop-out, but it really isn't. OSX, for example, is difficult to make run on things other than Apple-designed computers, but if you complained about it, people would write you off as an idiot.

37. fauigerzigerk ◴[31 Mar 16 08:51 UTC] No.11395832{5}[source]▶
>That's anecdata

Sure, that's what this whole thread is about. But I'm afraid that there is causality involved that we know about without collecting any sample data at all.

Developers of Linux device drivers for consumer devices quite often do not have access to all the hardware and information they need. And hardware makers quite often do not make high quality Linux device drivers for their consumer devices. For most consumer laptops, the vendor will not do integration testing to make sure everything works well together on Linux.

I don't think the right response to that is to deny that the average laptop or peripheral will work better with Windows. The right response is to make it clear that you have to make very deliberate hardware choices if you plan to use Linux and accept that much of the hardware you can use is always going to be slightly dated. And that is in fact what many Linux advocates are saying.

Choosing a Mac also restricts your hardware choices quite dramatically after all, so if a broad selection of hardware is your goal, Windows is the only game in town.

38. fauigerzigerk ◴[31 Mar 16 09:08 UTC] No.11395888{5}[source]▶
I was speaking in the context of the question I was replying to, which was "why would you not just go with a Linux desktop for that?"

More specifically, it's the state of Linux device drivers and integration testing for laptops and consumer peripherals I'm complaining about. That's not a result of any inherent deficiency of the Linux kernel or its design. It's ultimately an economics issue.

39. sbarre ◴[31 Mar 16 10:56 UTC] No.11396211{3}[source]▶
Because when i switched to OS X - over 10 years ago - I still needed access to Photoshop, MS Office and other modern business tools, most of which are still not available on Linux to this day.

And also because the user experience of OS X (and the "just works" aspects of the OS in general) is far above that of any Linux desktop.

40. yoklov ◴[31 Mar 16 14:00 UTC] No.11397192{4}[source]▶
OpenAL is neither good nor reliable. Sadly, nothing on linux has the quality/reliability of DirectSound.
41. yoklov ◴[31 Mar 16 14:05 UTC] No.11397240[source]▶
I wouldn't expect (commercial) games to use this, even indies. Gamers (on Windows) are extremely harsh if you ship a buggy product, and this tends to be what happens for most linux ports. Gamers on linux are more forgiving since it's very hard to guarantee quality on linux, so they're more used to it. I'd be surprised if anybody wants to give that up on windows.
42. tingol ◴[31 Mar 16 15:47 UTC] No.11398000{4}[source]▶
Measuring Linux maturity by chromebooks is silly though. It's a hack. Linux on bare metal works really well these days. Especially if you use a machine that has linux in mind (ie dell xps).
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43. btym ◴[31 Mar 16 18:38 UTC] No.11399484{5}[source]▶
I briefly tried switching to Ubuntu on my desktop a few months ago after being unable to compile some CUDA project on Windows. Gave up after spending several hours trying to figure out why it refused to set one of my monitors to anything other than 1024x768. Linux is easily the best operating system for productivity, but there are still too many issues to make it as comfortable as OSX or Windows for everyday use.