←back to thread

Ubuntu on Windows

(blog.dustinkirkland.com)
2049 points bpierre | 2 comments | 30 Mar 16 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
xaduha ◴[30 Mar 16 17:10 UTC] No.11390950[source]▶
> Windows 10 users

> Can open the Windows Start menu

> And type "bash" [enter]

> Which opens a cmd.exe console

Right... Bash is a shell, but your interaction with it is controlled by a terminal program. Unless there are some real changes to cmd.exe t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶e̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ . You can compile a native bash and other utils now yourself, it's not that hard.

EDIT: It's more like a Linuxulator from BSD, which is certainly cool.

replies(5): >>11390968 #>>11390991 #>>11391035 #>>11391091 #>>11391196 #
AlexeyBrin ◴[30 Mar 16 17:15 UTC] No.11390991[source]▶
You seem to completely miss the point of what they did. It is not a simple Bash recompilation for Windows. It is a way to run Linux (Ubuntu) binaries on Windows.
replies(3): >>11391133 #>>11391155 #>>11391172 #
xaduha ◴[30 Mar 16 17:29 UTC] No.11391133[source]▶
My point is that you need a terminal program (like putty or iTerm2 on OS X for example) to get all the benefits.
replies(1): >>11391178 #
tlrobinson ◴[30 Mar 16 17:32 UTC] No.11391178[source]▶
He says it mostly works in cmd.exe, and they're working on getting things like screen/tmux working too.

If a fully-compatible terminal emulator doesn't exist yet (I have no idea) I bet there will be one within a year.

replies(1): >>11391583 #
quotemstr ◴[30 Mar 16 18:10 UTC] No.11391583{3}[source]▶
conhost (the black box that typically runs cmd.exe) is a terribly shitty terminal emulator. My biggest gripe with Windows has been the lack of a decent pseudoconsome system that would allow an ecosystem of terminal emulators to developer, as one has for POSIX-ish systems.
replies(2): >>11393788 #>>11415843 #
1. ZenoArrow ◴[30 Mar 16 23:22 UTC] No.11393788{4}[source]▶
What about ConEmu? Works well for me, I especially like the Quake-style dropdown terminal option...

https://github.com/Maximus5/ConEmu

replies(1): >>11394082 #
2. quotemstr ◴[31 Mar 16 00:16 UTC] No.11394082[source]▶
ConEmu looks nice; it came out after I switched from Windows to Linux, so I've never tried it. I like the idea of hooking the console API functions; before I stopped using Windows, I was working independently on a similar API-hooking system that talked to the Cygwin pty layer instead of to a custom terminal.

With a real pty, you'd be able to use any Windows console program with mintty, sshd, Emacs term-mode, or whatever else you wanted, transparently. I regret not having a chance to finish that work.