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Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

Off-Topic discussions about science, technology, and non Debian specific topics.
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ravisista
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Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#1 Post by ravisista »

Interesting :-) Don't see Debian in their store (yet) though. Not that I am ready to wipe my rock solid Debian Stretch to embrace this, but interesting shift towards Linux by Micro$oft.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/comman ... tall_guide

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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#2 Post by 4D696B65 »

ravisista wrote:Interesting :-) Don't see Debian in their store
Not interesting at all. Unlike Suse and Ubuntu, Debian never sold its soul to Microsoft.

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dasein
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#3 Post by dasein »

Not that I actually care, but I find myself wondering how exactly something like this would be different from, say, running Linux as a guest OS in VirtualBox on Windows.

Wheelerof4te
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#4 Post by Wheelerof4te »

ravisista wrote:interesting shift towards Linux by Micro$oft.
When M$ shifts to something, it usually does it to devour, assimilate and destroy the host. Now here is something interesting:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... 4/page-411

It seems even Windows 10 users aren't happy about the way M$ has headed, and some of them (rightly so) say it has become OS for entertainment only. They call it Alpha tester betaware OS, good stuff a few pages back. Also, update system has changed to twice a year (in April and September). Micro$oft will force "feature packs" updates down it's users throat, instead of more conservative security ones we are familiar here.

ravisista
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#5 Post by ravisista »

Wheelerof4te wrote: Also, update system has changed to twice a year (in April and September). Micro$oft will force "feature packs" updates down it's users throat, instead of more conservative security ones we are familiar here.
Yes. And when they can't force it down your throat, they'll simply will pull the plug on ya! https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/19/1600 ... e-atom-pcs


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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#7 Post by Lysander »

Wheelerof4te wrote:
ravisista wrote:interesting shift towards Linux by Micro$oft.
When M$ shifts to something, it usually does it to devour, assimilate and destroy the host. Now here is something interesting:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... 4/page-411

It seems even Windows 10 users aren't happy about the way M$ has headed, and some of them (rightly so) say it has become OS for entertainment only. They call it Alpha tester betaware OS, good stuff a few pages back. Also, update system has changed to twice a year (in April and September). Micro$oft will force "fe
I do wonder how many Windows 10 enthusiasts there are in ratio to users who a] just put up with it or b] dislike it. Most of the rhetoric I've read on W10 [if not all come to think of it] is from users who fall into the latter two categories. They either have no choice but to use W10 because of the company they work for or some piece of software which is vital to them, or they don't know how to move off it and just put up with it. It's a weird business model - forcing people to use your products even though they don't want to.
Last edited by Lysander on 2017-08-03 08:08, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#8 Post by None1975 »

4D696B65 wrote:
ravisista wrote:Interesting :-) Don't see Debian in their store
Not interesting at all. Unlike Suse and Ubuntu, Debian never sold its soul to Microsoft.
+1!
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#9 Post by ticojohn »

Having escaped from the evil clutches of the MS ogre, I can't imagine ever using Windows as a host for running Linux. Boggles my mind.
I am not irrational, I'm just quantum probabilistic.

ravisista
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#10 Post by ravisista »

Lysander wrote: I do wonder how many Windows 10 enthusiasts there are in ratio to users who a] just put with it or b] dislike it. Most of the rhetoric I've read on W10 [if not all come to think of it] is from users who fall into the latter two categories. They either have no choice but to use W10 because of the company they work for or some piece of software which is vital to them, or they don't know how to move off it and just put up with it. It's a weird business model - forcing people to use your products even though they don't want to.
Short answer : My two school going children. They are forced to use Windoze at school hence are familiar with it and expect the same at home too. I tried to force them to use Debian at home but the time/effort spent on learning curve (and the transition back and forth between home and school) was getting to be too much. Can't wait for them to finish school - I will immediately format the whole drive and install just Debian Stable. And live happily ever after (yes, I have a girl who was crazy about Disney crap).

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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#11 Post by Bulkley »

ravisista wrote:Short answer : My two school going children. . . . [etc.]
My entire extended family know I use Linux. Some have even used my machine. They all know that my Linux is the most reliable computer they have ever seen. It matters not one whit. Their friends don't use Linux; dealers don't sell it. Game over. Explaining that my version of Linux is Debian is simply pointless.

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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#12 Post by Lysander »

ravisista wrote:
Short answer : My two school going children. They are forced to use Windoze at school hence are familiar with it and expect the same at home too. I tried to force them to use Debian at home but the time/effort spent on learning curve (and the transition back and forth between home and school) was getting to be too much. Can't wait for them to finish school - I will immediately format the whole drive and install just Debian Stable. And live happily ever after (yes, I have a girl who was crazy about Disney crap).
This makes sense since they have no other frame of reference. If the only OS I had used were W10 I would probably think it were amazing. MS - and other companies, I theorise - are thinking generations ahead with regard to programming their userbase as they do their software.
Bulkley wrote:
My entire extended family know I use Linux. Some have even used my machine. They all know that my Linux is the most reliable computer they have ever seen. It matters not one whit. Their friends don't use Linux; dealers don't sell it. Game over. Explaining that my version of Linux is Debian is simply pointless.
I think trying to explain Linux distributions to a non-Linux user is quite difficult. OS users are used to the idea of a company making different OS versions rather than a community-driven OS which has different distributions and versions of those distributions. My father uses Linux so he understands it, likewise one of my brothers does, who I could safely call a Unix expert. My wife understands it a little but I wouldn't even bother trying to explain it to other friends/family. I feel it's kind of a different world and culture, and one which is hard to comprehend the usefulness or ethic of if one is not directly involved in it. Of course this benefits companies like MS all the more.

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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#13 Post by HuangLao »

4D696B65 wrote:
ravisista wrote:Interesting :-) Don't see Debian in their store
Not interesting at all. Unlike Suse and Ubuntu, Debian never sold its soul to Microsoft.
too busy doing that with RedHat...oh come on I had too...someone had too... :lol:

pendrachken
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#14 Post by pendrachken »

dasein wrote:Not that I actually care, but I find myself wondering how exactly something like this would be different from, say, running Linux as a guest OS in VirtualBox on Windows.
It's made for the Windows developer that also wants to make a release for Linux ( and not have to admin a VM ), not Linux developers that want to release for Windows...

Same as the Cygwin / MinGW projects: you get a bash / csh / zsh environment and GNU toolchain that can interact directly[1] with files in the Windows "host" machine. You don't have to mess around setting up a Linux VM to cross compile for your project if you are making win32 builds, you don't have the overhead of running in a VM ( even if it is pretty low these days due to hardware VM acceleration support) and you don't have to maintain two separate operating systems ( if I remember what I read a while ago the images are set up to autoupdate ). You also don't have to worry about setting up file sharing between the VM and the host.

The way it is happening now is interesting, it's deeper than the old SFU ( Services For UNIX, this actually isn't a new thing from MS, just a new iteration) stuff in the fact that MS is using Linux Native ELF binaries and the NT kernel is translating non-recompiled ELF binary Linux kernel calls into NT kernel calls. Think reverse WINE... The old SFU / Cygwin / MinGW way to get a GNU toolchain on Windows required every tool be recompiled to native Win32.


[1] There were a few caveats last I read, but in general you can use any of the GNU command line tools on ANY file on the Windows "host" machine. I.E. cat / grep / piping / bash scripting / find / whatever you want. Some enterprising people even managed to get X.org to communicate with some of the Windows X clients to run native Linux desktop applications on the Windows desktop ( this is currently completely unsupported - supposed to be CLI only ).


TL;DR: It's a pretty neat bit of technology, no matter where it came from. It isn't meant for Linux developers, it's meant for Windows developers who may want to put out a release for Linux. Or who just want to use GCC instead of Visual Studio to compile stuff.
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#15 Post by kopper »

pendrachken wrote:...you don't have to maintain two separate operating systems ( if I remember what I read a while ago the images are set up to autoupdate ).
Just a minor question, but how does setting something to auto-update mean that there is no need to maintain it? I don't argue that there isn't less overhead in subsystem approach, just that as far as I understand it, yet again this isn't care-free solution from security's point of view. Disclaimer: I don't know much about this subsystem topic and it's architecture.
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Re: Windows (10) Subsystem for Linux

#16 Post by pendrachken »

You don't have to do anything with networking / kernel parameters / firewall / ETC since the abstraction layer takes care of it for you and uses the NT kernel stuff that you are already using - meaning you only have to worry about settings on the "host" machine instead of on both, and the passthroughs ETC. The few caveats about full filesystem access are due to not YET having a full translation of UNIX ATTRs to the NTFS ATTR system ( which can have as fine a grain control, and in some cases finer control as Linux / UNIX ). You just need to make sure the application binaries don't have security issues, and you do that by making sure they are fully patched and up to date.

MS is stuck in an unfortunate cycle. Windows can be locked down for users just as much as Linux / UNIX can, it just isn't by default due to inertia - Dos / Windows 9x wasn't meant to be a multi-user OS, but that is what pretty much the world at large learned on, so when NT came out it had to be nearly the same... and then those that learned on the less restricted NT got used to it being almost unrestricted ( I.E. always running as admin ) they were reluctant to go to a more restricted account ala what started with Vista and UAC. A big part of the problem is with almost all the software written prior ( and some after ) to vista expects to run as administrator, which is actually against the specs of what MS wanted.
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The U.S. uses the metric system too, we have tenths, hundredths and thousandths of inches :-P

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