Ask HN: What do you think of WSL? Would you switch to Windows?
For all the Linux/Mac users out there, would you consider switching to Windows as your software development OS? Why?
14 comments
Been using it since it was available only for developers / insiders. It progressed from almost useless to perfectly usable Linux substitute.
Cannot recommend WSL 1 for serious programming, it's just too buggy and unstable. Haven't tried WSL 2 yet.
I eliminated Microsoft from my life nearly 20 years ago. While my impression is that their software is less buggy and irritating in some ways now, I haven't heard anything compelling to pull me back into that world.
Apple lost me a year ago. Their software design and implementation has been declining for years, but it was the MBP keyboard fiasco that finally did it for me. Observing what has happened with Catalina has affirmed my decision.
Meanwhile, the state of Linux as a daily driver has greatly improved. And far more hardware just works with Linux. Right now, a System76 laptop running PopOS is really great. Considering cost, such a setup is far cheaper than a Mac, and I'm guessing less than a Windows laptop (since you avoid the Windows tax).
If you are comfortable developing in a Linux environment, and you don't have to use MS (or Apple) systems (e.g. because you are developing for those platforms), I can't imagine why you wouldn't use Linux right now.
Apple lost me a year ago. Their software design and implementation has been declining for years, but it was the MBP keyboard fiasco that finally did it for me. Observing what has happened with Catalina has affirmed my decision.
Meanwhile, the state of Linux as a daily driver has greatly improved. And far more hardware just works with Linux. Right now, a System76 laptop running PopOS is really great. Considering cost, such a setup is far cheaper than a Mac, and I'm guessing less than a Windows laptop (since you avoid the Windows tax).
If you are comfortable developing in a Linux environment, and you don't have to use MS (or Apple) systems (e.g. because you are developing for those platforms), I can't imagine why you wouldn't use Linux right now.
See, I love the Linux environment. I've been using Arch for the past 6 months and I absolutely love it.
I have problems with it though. Watching 4k (or even full hd) netflix on Linux can be an absolute nightmare. I'm pretty sure that's just because of lack of good hardware acceleration support on Linux because I tried everything. Also the battery life isn't quite there yet on my machine :(.
I think I will be switching back to Linux soon, upgrade my ram and just run a Windows VM for those rare occasions I need it.
I have problems with it though. Watching 4k (or even full hd) netflix on Linux can be an absolute nightmare. I'm pretty sure that's just because of lack of good hardware acceleration support on Linux because I tried everything. Also the battery life isn't quite there yet on my machine :(.
I think I will be switching back to Linux soon, upgrade my ram and just run a Windows VM for those rare occasions I need it.
I just started using ChromeOS to see if it can support developer workflow, and boy am I blown away. Fantastic UX
You get Debian 10 in a WSL style. Finally have dual touchscreens working 100%
Just realized my first experience with Linux was the achievement of editing xorg.conf so that dual screens would work at all (2002). Ironically, my first and last Linux desktop experiences where dual screen.
Unless of course Windows starts running on Linux...? Do you think they are on a path to run Windows as just windows on Linux?
You get Debian 10 in a WSL style. Finally have dual touchscreens working 100%
Just realized my first experience with Linux was the achievement of editing xorg.conf so that dual screens would work at all (2002). Ironically, my first and last Linux desktop experiences where dual screen.
Unless of course Windows starts running on Linux...? Do you think they are on a path to run Windows as just windows on Linux?
Apple really messed up with the keyboard. I've heavily considered going completely Linux - I just can't give up the MBP touchpad or battery life. Second to none...
WSL is pretty neat, but I have literally no reason why I would ever switch to Windows. All the day to day stuff is terrible, the internet login is terrible, the UI is incredibly bloated and awful, etc. WSL makes things better, but still not nearly as easy as using the same type of machine I deploy to. Not to mention that Windows literally won't run on a lot of older hardware, where Fedora or Arch or whatever is perfectly happy.
So I've been programming since I was 7 and used dual boot until I was 15. At 15, I switched to WSL when it came out, and then when I was 19 I bought a Mac.
Mac hands down is just better for programming. Especially with its fantastic touchpad support in my mind. WSL has some file system quirkiness that comes up every once in a while.
Other than that, it's passable. The Mac Finder file browser is super advanced and I use its column mode regularly. On top of that, dragging the current finder folder to terminal changes me into that folder in terminal. Mac is full of tricks like that which can be mapped to keyboard shortcuts. At the end of the day, being the power user that I am, these things matter.
I mainly do RTL, kernel, and some webdev if that matters.
Mac hands down is just better for programming. Especially with its fantastic touchpad support in my mind. WSL has some file system quirkiness that comes up every once in a while.
Other than that, it's passable. The Mac Finder file browser is super advanced and I use its column mode regularly. On top of that, dragging the current finder folder to terminal changes me into that folder in terminal. Mac is full of tricks like that which can be mapped to keyboard shortcuts. At the end of the day, being the power user that I am, these things matter.
I mainly do RTL, kernel, and some webdev if that matters.
I sincerely tried to switch from Mac to Windows for development (mainly web). It was just too slow on IO. Installing NPM packages could take literally 10 minutes on WSL. This says as much about the state of JS dev as it does about WSL but it was just not fast enough in general. Outside of WSL, Windows just wasn’t intuitive enough either. Everything you take for granted on Mac is missing from Windows.
The extremely slow IO has been fixed with WSL 2, with IO performance being approx 8% slower than running Linux natively.
I use a Mac for (backend dev for Linux) work, a Linux desktop at home, and a Surface Go for carrying.
The Surface Go (8GB SSD, not eMMC) and WSL has been great. I'm surprised that I can do just about everything but a bit slower which I don't mind when I'm out--back when there we're places we could go. Even not in WSL, Android studio built and ran an app I was playing with. Used my phone hardware, simulator would have killed it.
I haven't switched to WSL 2 and I don't know it will be better for me. Probably trading memory for I/O speed so it might depend.
The Surface Go (8GB SSD, not eMMC) and WSL has been great. I'm surprised that I can do just about everything but a bit slower which I don't mind when I'm out--back when there we're places we could go. Even not in WSL, Android studio built and ran an app I was playing with. Used my phone hardware, simulator would have killed it.
I haven't switched to WSL 2 and I don't know it will be better for me. Probably trading memory for I/O speed so it might depend.
NO! just look at MS and win it pwns user to serve them.
"linux" is a tool for users demands
I'll probably keep switching between mac and windows perpetually, although I may settle with windows at some point. Its crazy how software, even in the domain of software are windows-exclusive (although it seems to be mostly proprietary stuff)
I've been using Windows and before I'd get a Linux VM, but now I can just do it through WSL. Yes, technically WSL and Windows itself runs on Hyper-V (a type 1 hypervisor) as VMs, albeit with virtualized GPU passthrough. I use WSL on my laptop, but on my desktop, I use Proxmox with Windows, macOS and Linux VMs, each with their own GPU passed through with one for the host. Makes it super nice to see all three OS on one ultrawide monitor, especially if I'm testing desktop apps (usually written in Flutter).