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    Ubuntu on Windows

    (blog.dustinkirkland.com)
    2049 points bpierre | 32 comments | 30 Mar 16 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 1.765s | source | bottom
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    bcantrill ◴[30 Mar 16 19:35 UTC] No.11392265[source]▶
    This is great to see, as it's very similar to the approach that we took with LX-branded zones on SmartOS[1][2]. I commented at some length on the other thread on this on HN[3], but I have a bunch of questions about apps that we know to be thorny: Go, strace, tcpdump, systemd, etc. As we learned, this approach is entirely possible -- but there are many, many details to be nailed before you get to the point that you can run production applications on it. So while the journey across the uncanny valley of Linux is long and arduous, we know from our experience that it can be done. Very much hoping that Microsoft gets to the other side -- and that they open source it all so we can all learn from one another!

    [1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/illumos-lx

    [2] http://us-east.manta.joyent.com/patrick.mooney/public/talks/...

    [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11392119

    replies(5): >>11392299 #>>11392418 #>>11393777 #>>11395242 #>>11395345 #
    tkinom ◴[30 Mar 16 19:55 UTC] No.11392418[source]▶
    Can windows 10

        apt-get install/run most/all the x/gtk base apps

    apt-get build from source those apps.

    ?
    If so, I will consider switch.
    replies(1): >>11392455 #
    1. NateDad ◴[30 Mar 16 19:59 UTC] No.11392455[source]▶
    No. No GUI applications (currently, and no announced future support... and I wouldn't bank on them doing it).
    replies(7): >>11392517 #>>11392570 #>>11392716 #>>11392718 #>>11392848 #>>11394041 #>>11412719 #
    2. ramy_d ◴[30 Mar 16 20:06 UTC] No.11392517[source]▶
    vim?
    replies(6): >>11392580 #>>11392631 #>>11393474 #>>11394131 #>>11395283 #>>11395301 #
    3. webreac ◴[30 Mar 16 20:11 UTC] No.11392570[source]▶
    If ubuntu can run, you just need Xming to have all GUI applications.
    4. 15155 ◴[30 Mar 16 20:12 UTC] No.11392580[source]▶
    Presumably, as it's not a GUI application. Not gvim though.
    5. paradite ◴[30 Mar 16 20:19 UTC] No.11392631[source]▶
    It's in the list given by author:

    apt, ssh, rsync, find, grep, awk, sed, sort, xargs, md5sum, gpg, curl, wget, apache, mysql, python, perl, ruby, php, gcc, tar, vim, emacs, diff, patch...

    replies(1): >>11395331 #
    6. anthk ◴[30 Mar 16 20:27 UTC] No.11392716[source]▶
    If GUI applications run X, any X server on ayn architecture which supports the X11 protocol will work.

    Check out XMing.

    7. mcpherrinm ◴[30 Mar 16 20:28 UTC] No.11392718[source]▶
    Fortunately X11 is "network transparent" and there's X11 servers for windows. It shouldn't actually be that hard to make this work (though the perf will probably be pretty bad in a naive implementation).

    At very worst you could SSH to localhost and X11-forward to the same host -- but you can optimize that.

    replies(3): >>11392743 #>>11392964 #>>11394373 #
    8. anthk ◴[30 Mar 16 20:31 UTC] No.11392743[source]▶
    Nope, XMing works perfectly if you export the display to localhost (the default) and it's really fast, it even has GL support with MESA , with hardware acceleration.
    replies(2): >>11395203 #>>11395349 #
    9. baq ◴[30 Mar 16 20:44 UTC] No.11392848[source]▶
    i recently discovered mobaxterm's awesome automatic x server and x forwarding. suddenly i find myself gvim'ing on my (non-prod) servers. i imagine it'll be similarly easy but better.
    10. julian_1 ◴[30 Mar 16 21:01 UTC] No.11392964[source]▶
    Wayland might be a cleaner api layer to integrate into the windows display subsystems.
    replies(1): >>11394529 #
    11. icc97 ◴[30 Mar 16 22:18 UTC] No.11393474[source]▶
    You can already run vim from the msys git distribution
    replies(1): >>11394031 #
    12. rhabarba ◴[31 Mar 16 00:09 UTC] No.11394031{3}[source]▶
    There is also a native Vim, compiled with Visual Studio: http://tuxproject.de/projects/vim
    13. ldehaan ◴[31 Mar 16 00:11 UTC] No.11394041[source]▶
    not yet, and probably not likely, but if you're interested in running winders on a Linux i have x2go instance for testing and it works quite well. I use an internal gb network though, so your experience will vary.
    14. zodiakzz ◴[31 Mar 16 00:27 UTC] No.11394131[source]▶
    It's already working as shown in the video demo: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/P488
    15. ageofwant ◴[31 Mar 16 01:24 UTC] No.11394373[source]▶
    Or you could just use ubuntu...

    It amazes me that people will rag on linux because its "hard" and then build these elaborate Rube-Goldberg machines to avoid the most obvious solution.

    replies(5): >>11394456 #>>11394513 #>>11394519 #>>11394591 #>>11395584 #
    16. moron4hire ◴[31 Mar 16 01:43 UTC] No.11394456{3}[source]▶
    Are those the same people? I don't think those are the same people.
    17. brianwawok ◴[31 Mar 16 01:56 UTC] No.11394513{3}[source]▶
    Ubuntu being has hard nothing to do with why I don't use it as a desktop or laptop environment (but in fact I use for every server I touch if at all possible)
    18. coldtea ◴[31 Mar 16 01:58 UTC] No.11394519{3}[source]▶
    >It amazes me that people will rag on linux because its "hard" and then build these elaborate Rube-Goldberg machines to avoid the most obvious solution.

    It amazes that people don't understand that one's usage patterns might be different, so "just use Ubuntu" wouldn't be applicable (e.g. UNIX savvy guy who appreciates the shells and userland, but nevertheless wants to do Windows .NET development, or work with native and proprietary Windows programs the rest of the time).

    replies(1): >>11395113 #
    19. techdragon ◴[31 Mar 16 02:02 UTC] No.11394529{3}[source]▶
    Or we could use X11 right now with one of the several existing X11 display servers that work on Windows :-)
    replies(1): >>11395261 #
    20. eggy ◴[31 Mar 16 02:27 UTC] No.11394591{3}[source]▶
    I have been running dual-boot Windows/Linux forever (Minix before Linux took over ;) ). I have purchased programs - Mathematica, Ableton Live, Clip Studio Paint, etc... that I have on Windows along with VS and .NET/F# stuff. This will make my world so much easier, since I only use Linux for the occasional program I don't want to bother compiling on Windows due to dependencies and long make files. Cygwin and MSYS2 have their issues to make this more enticing to me.
    replies(1): >>11395188 #
    21. ageofwant ◴[31 Mar 16 05:09 UTC] No.11395113{4}[source]▶
    The "UNIX savvy guy" will just use Windows when he needs to, either in a VM, a Azure windows instance or his company provided laptop and call it a day.

    All the yakka spent on avoiding the obvious solutions to justify "usage patterns", should signal any half-aware dev that those precious patterns are broken.

    replies(2): >>11395803 #>>11396135 #
    22. aristidb ◴[31 Mar 16 05:32 UTC] No.11395188{4}[source]▶
    Mathematica at least has a Linux version. :-)
    23. kristianp ◴[31 Mar 16 05:37 UTC] No.11395203{3}[source]▶
    I found apps using xming in a VM to be quite laggy, not fast to the point where I could use them regularly. e.g. SublimeText.
    24. petecox ◴[31 Mar 16 05:57 UTC] No.11395261{4}[source]▶
    headless, you're still stuck with Windows Explorer as a window manager.

    I don't use a particularly fancy WM/DE under Linux but it's the little things such as middle click paste, and window operations such as maximize horizontal/vertical (by using the middle and right mouse buttons) that I miss.

    25. ◴[31 Mar 16 06:02 UTC] No.11395283[source]▶
    26. stephengillie ◴[31 Mar 16 06:06 UTC] No.11395301[source]▶
    It works really well in Powershell. I use it on Win8.

    https://juliankay.com/development/setting-up-vim-to-work-wit...

    27. stephengillie ◴[31 Mar 16 06:19 UTC] No.11395331{3}[source]▶
    At least half of these already exist, either as .NET cmdlets, Command Prompt functions, or Windows EXEs.

    RDP, Robocopy, Find.exe, Sort-Object, Select-Object, Select-String, Invoke-WebRequest, Invoke-RESTMethod, IIS, .NET, CMD, ASP.NET, and Compare-Object will fill most of those needs.

    And Powershell accepts "cat" if "gc" for "Get-Content" is too long. Or "ls" if "dir" or "gci" for "Get-ChildItem" is too long. And each of these is a case-insensitive object you can pipe right into ConvertTo-Html or Send-MailMessage.

    Or you can create a UDP socket with .NET right from Powershell, and send your objects that way.

    28. ionelm ◴[31 Mar 16 06:23 UTC] No.11395349{3}[source]▶
    It doesn't. It's outdated and not free. This should be way more known: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/
    29. baq ◴[31 Mar 16 07:39 UTC] No.11395584{3}[source]▶
    no i couldn't, corporate it won't let me. this will be so much better than anything else currently available.
    30. rkangel ◴[31 Mar 16 08:41 UTC] No.11395803{5}[source]▶
    Yes, I will "just use Windows" when all the dev tools for my embedded environment are only available for Windows.

    And when I'm stuck on Windows for whatever reason, I'll be immensely grateful to be able to do that with a bash shell and all my normal configuration and tools.

    31. coldtea ◴[31 Mar 16 10:35 UTC] No.11396135{5}[source]▶
    >The "UNIX savvy guy" will just use Windows when he needs to, either in a VM, a Azure windows instance or his company provided laptop and call it a day.

    Still missing the fact that he could be needing them 24/7 for his work...

    32. ryao ◴[02 Apr 16 18:46 UTC] No.11412719[source]▶
    If they implement dri, alsa and evdev (without subtle implementation bugs), then Windows would be a decent development platform for Linux games and such games could run on both Windows and Linux. If Apple joins the party, it would be write once, run anywhere. :)