Microsoft is going to ship a full Linux kernel in Windows 10(theverge.com)
theverge.com
Microsoft is going to ship a full Linux kernel in Windows 10
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18534687/microsoft-windows-10-linux-kernel-feature
135 comments
Makes you wonder if the endgame is to eventually just gut windows completely and have a Microsoft GUI running on Linux.
You've misunderstood what this is. It is a full kernel for the Linux subsystem, which provides the ability to run Linux code in Windows. As I understand it, the existing solution maps Linux kernel calls to the Windows kernel. I can imagine it would be much easier to just provide a true Linux kernel rather than try to support a brittle mapping layer.
They are not putting in a Linux kernel for Windows. Huge difference.
They are not putting in a Linux kernel for Windows. Huge difference.
I have a decent understanding of what this is. I don't think WSL was added because they thought it would be cool to have two OS's. The bigger picture is every day windows becomes less relevant. Microsoft is now a powerful cloud company. I'm not sure even they even care about windows clients beyond legacy contracts. I think before thier users have no choice but to leave they want to say hey look, you are already using Linux, no need to go anywhere.
I'm pretty confident in saying Microsoft has zero intention of running Linux directly on the bare-metal serving as the driver layer for Windows.
This is nothing more than a way for Microsoft to provide a *NIX userspace competitive with Apple, you know, so developers actually consider using their products instead of Apple's.
Edit:
We're actually in the midst of quite the opposite happening with the Linux kernel. After Android pivots to Fuchsia/Zircon, it'll only be a matter of time before Linux running on the bare-metal outside of datacenters will be exclusively the niche domain of Raspberry Pi style tinkerer devices and the tiny population of Linux enthusiasts running them on increasingly poorly supported PCs.
PC owners will be increasingly less compelled to bother even trying a Linux installation when their OEM Windows install already contains it as a compatibility shim.
This all translates into Linux's native support for modern desktops and laptops deteriorating for lack of users, I fear it's not going to be a growing market.
This is nothing more than a way for Microsoft to provide a *NIX userspace competitive with Apple, you know, so developers actually consider using their products instead of Apple's.
Edit:
We're actually in the midst of quite the opposite happening with the Linux kernel. After Android pivots to Fuchsia/Zircon, it'll only be a matter of time before Linux running on the bare-metal outside of datacenters will be exclusively the niche domain of Raspberry Pi style tinkerer devices and the tiny population of Linux enthusiasts running them on increasingly poorly supported PCs.
PC owners will be increasingly less compelled to bother even trying a Linux installation when their OEM Windows install already contains it as a compatibility shim.
This all translates into Linux's native support for modern desktops and laptops deteriorating for lack of users, I fear it's not going to be a growing market.
Your edit isn't fair. I mean, if you ignore Android (where you hardly get to interact with Linux - even from a copyright perspective, Android Linuxes have rarely been Linux, since too many companies don't release the source of their binary blobs), then Linux on the desktop has always been relatively niche.
I am surprised that you could seriously suggest that the market for Linux on the desktops and laptops was even commercially viable (you say "I feal it's not growing to be a growing market"). When I started using Linux, it was basically people writing stuff for themself and releasing it to everyone. That actually seems like a fundamentally good goal. So what else could you want?
I am surprised that you could seriously suggest that the market for Linux on the desktops and laptops was even commercially viable (you say "I feal it's not growing to be a growing market"). When I started using Linux, it was basically people writing stuff for themself and releasing it to everyone. That actually seems like a fundamentally good goal. So what else could you want?
> PC owners will be increasingly less compelled to bother even trying a Linux installation when their OEM Windows install already contains it as a compatibility shim.
There is still a plenty of reasons to avoid Windows, from privacy concerns (telemetry anyone?) to cost (sure, OEM is cheap but there are laptops that can be purchased OS-free for less. Also, there's virtually no such thing as OEM Windows in custom PC builds).
There is still a plenty of reasons to avoid Windows, from privacy concerns (telemetry anyone?) to cost (sure, OEM is cheap but there are laptops that can be purchased OS-free for less. Also, there's virtually no such thing as OEM Windows in custom PC builds).
Wow, I can’t think of a future I’d like less. Thankfully this is nonsense ;)
It is true that desktop Linux users are a niche case. Hell, I would not be surprised if that niche got smaller, even; but I have some pretty intense doubts that it’s dying or even going in that direction. In fact I would argue that the desktop platform as a whole has been on a decline, whereas desktop Linux has merely stagnated. The average user who is either gaming or just Facebooking on Windows PCs are finding increasingly less use out of their desktops. The gaming market on PC is healthy, but it’s cracking: the fragmentation of PC game stores and the increasing power and versatility of game consoles probably poses a threat in the long term. For all other use cases, mobile operating systems like iOS and Android are rapidly becoming not only usable, but preferable. Banking on my iPhone feels like the future, compared to the shoddy web UIs full of age old cruft.
So Microsoft has made wonderful strides for developers using Windows. No sarcasm here; I’ve been developing software on Windows since Visual C++6 and it’s been nothing but improvements. But I develop software for servers and browsers. The Microsoft ecosystem does not appeal to me. .NET Core is great but there’s still a lot of work to go and it’s reaching maturity in a world where we have amazing languages like Go and Rust. I have still dabbled a bit in .NET Core and I’m impressed, but they would’ve probably had more success if it had kicked off years earlier than it did.
So what’s going on with Linux? Frankly, quite a lot!
- Wayland is finally reaching maturity, slowly. For now, this is causing loads of problems, but as those issues clear up it’s looking like this might finally work out!
- Valve continues to improve Steam, with integrated Windows emulation. It’ll never be a substitute for real ports, but it’s still cool.
- The reproducibility and immutability bug has bit a few hands. New, advanced distributions like GuixSD and NixOS offer a pretty unique, extremely predictable experience (even if that predictable experience is not exactly compatible with the full range of existing software.) Fedora has rolled out OStree-based system upgrades too, which is awesome. This is one of those things where desktop Linux was really awful that is becoming a strength.
- There is apparently genuine demand for OEM Linux. We see not one, but two vendors that appear to be thriving: Purism, and System76. I want one of those darn Helios boxes just to look nice in the living room (and yes, I run Linux in the living room, and it’s been way less horrible than I would’ve imagined.)
(There’s more; like btrfs and other innovations that benefit desktop AND server use cases)
There’s more. And it goes without saying that there have also been negatives. Like graphics drivers from our green logoed friends. But by and large, I’ve had a great past decade with Linux. Aside from a small audio issue, my desktops have been free of any hardware compatibility issues throughout upgrades. Intel offers GPU passthrough that you can use in your KVM boxes for better virtualization. AMD IOMMU is reliable for nearly any Ryzen setup (got a GPU passthrough setup going great over here, and it didn’t even take a whole weekend to set up.)
Is Linux dying? Hell no. Is it the year of the Linux desktop? Also no. These claims both come up constantly and neither ever materialize. Desktop Linux has its niche and it probably will for the foreseeable future. Don’t extrapolate the ebb and flow too far.
It is true that desktop Linux users are a niche case. Hell, I would not be surprised if that niche got smaller, even; but I have some pretty intense doubts that it’s dying or even going in that direction. In fact I would argue that the desktop platform as a whole has been on a decline, whereas desktop Linux has merely stagnated. The average user who is either gaming or just Facebooking on Windows PCs are finding increasingly less use out of their desktops. The gaming market on PC is healthy, but it’s cracking: the fragmentation of PC game stores and the increasing power and versatility of game consoles probably poses a threat in the long term. For all other use cases, mobile operating systems like iOS and Android are rapidly becoming not only usable, but preferable. Banking on my iPhone feels like the future, compared to the shoddy web UIs full of age old cruft.
So Microsoft has made wonderful strides for developers using Windows. No sarcasm here; I’ve been developing software on Windows since Visual C++6 and it’s been nothing but improvements. But I develop software for servers and browsers. The Microsoft ecosystem does not appeal to me. .NET Core is great but there’s still a lot of work to go and it’s reaching maturity in a world where we have amazing languages like Go and Rust. I have still dabbled a bit in .NET Core and I’m impressed, but they would’ve probably had more success if it had kicked off years earlier than it did.
So what’s going on with Linux? Frankly, quite a lot!
- Wayland is finally reaching maturity, slowly. For now, this is causing loads of problems, but as those issues clear up it’s looking like this might finally work out!
- Valve continues to improve Steam, with integrated Windows emulation. It’ll never be a substitute for real ports, but it’s still cool.
- The reproducibility and immutability bug has bit a few hands. New, advanced distributions like GuixSD and NixOS offer a pretty unique, extremely predictable experience (even if that predictable experience is not exactly compatible with the full range of existing software.) Fedora has rolled out OStree-based system upgrades too, which is awesome. This is one of those things where desktop Linux was really awful that is becoming a strength.
- There is apparently genuine demand for OEM Linux. We see not one, but two vendors that appear to be thriving: Purism, and System76. I want one of those darn Helios boxes just to look nice in the living room (and yes, I run Linux in the living room, and it’s been way less horrible than I would’ve imagined.)
(There’s more; like btrfs and other innovations that benefit desktop AND server use cases)
There’s more. And it goes without saying that there have also been negatives. Like graphics drivers from our green logoed friends. But by and large, I’ve had a great past decade with Linux. Aside from a small audio issue, my desktops have been free of any hardware compatibility issues throughout upgrades. Intel offers GPU passthrough that you can use in your KVM boxes for better virtualization. AMD IOMMU is reliable for nearly any Ryzen setup (got a GPU passthrough setup going great over here, and it didn’t even take a whole weekend to set up.)
Is Linux dying? Hell no. Is it the year of the Linux desktop? Also no. These claims both come up constantly and neither ever materialize. Desktop Linux has its niche and it probably will for the foreseeable future. Don’t extrapolate the ebb and flow too far.
Really? Maybe its because I work with biologists, but I have seen more and more non-techies with Linux desktops in recent years.
Had Microsoft improved their POSIX support on NT, instead of having it as nuisance to win contracts, and GNU/Linux would had never taken off.
WSL came originally from their plan to make Android apps trivially portable to Windows Phone.
Worth noting that Project Astoria was shelved before release, and WSL came out after Windows Phones final release.
So technically WSL was not intended to be used for porting android apps.
But they did use Project Astoria as at starting ground to create WSL.
So technically WSL was not intended to be used for porting android apps.
But they did use Project Astoria as at starting ground to create WSL.
> I'm not sure even they even care about windows clients beyond legacy contracts
Why wouldn't they? Windows does billions of dollars of sales a year.
Why wouldn't they? Windows does billions of dollars of sales a year.
Ya, for sure they care. I guess I'm just making the point that cloud and productivity tools is now the money maker & not just windows. According to this breakdown Personal computing is around 38% of Microsofts revenue (which is alot) https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/19/heres-how-microsof...
Windows has already lost out on the server game. Less desktop apps are being written each year with the move to mobile/web based apps. The desktop OS is largely becoming irrelevant.
We've been hearing that for 20 years; previously it was Web apps that would render the PC (aka desktop) irrelevant.
There is a huge and profitable class of applications that require the features of a PC. The Internet and wireless LAN/WAN and ARM architecture haven't changed that.
There is a huge and profitable class of applications that require the features of a PC. The Internet and wireless LAN/WAN and ARM architecture haven't changed that.
I feel quite positive that the web will be de facto platform (more than desktop or mobile) for writing apps. Things like WebGL, FRP, ChromeOS will only make that all more pleasant to write and use apps causing a (already happening) gradual shift in platform.
Enterprise uses Windows. Period.
Enterprise mostly uses Windows applications. The end users don't care about the OS only the shell and the applications.
This is functionally speaking exactly what WINE has been for Linux, although WINE differs and was a lot harder to develop because for obvious reasons it cannot contain a Windows kernel.
My only concern is one day people (Microsoft?) will start writing "Linux" software which would "perform better" on WSL rather than on regular Linux, then driving away part of the userbase from the real thing.
>My only concern is one day people (Microsoft?) will start writing "Linux" software which would "perform better" on WSL rather than on regular Linux, then driving away part of the userbase from the real thing.
I suspect their lawyers would gently remind them that the Department of Justice and the European Commission were not best pleased when they pulled that crap in the past.
I suspect their lawyers would gently remind them that the Department of Justice and the European Commission were not best pleased when they pulled that crap in the past.
>endgame
He’s not saying it’s happening right now.
He’s not saying it’s happening right now.
It could be in one of the other 14,000,604 outcomes.
I don't think anyone cares anymore - microsoft's future revenue is subscription based/monthly recurring services like office365, azure VMs, etc. Whether people access those from a desktop, laptop or android, ios device running windows 10 or a linux kernel or ios kernel or macos is moot.
I think they only want to be able to run Node, Python or Docker on Windows natively so that developers don't have motivation to switch to Linux.
Node and Python already run on windows natively... Docker for Windows is, meh, but it works. Still switching from a hackintosh at home to Linux... wish I could switch at work.
It does not make anyone wonder that. No one who knows Windows, anyway.
No one would have guessed a few years back that Apple would be running on risc chips, then Unix, then x86, then... Or Amazon becoming the leading internet infrastructure provider. Or MS dumping their browser for Chrome, or ten other very surprising things they’ve done lately.
Don’t underestimate what new leadership who have no nostalgia towards Windows, but want to save money to pay themselves bonuses might do.
Don’t underestimate what new leadership who have no nostalgia towards Windows, but want to save money to pay themselves bonuses might do.
> No one would have guessed a few years back that Apple would be running on risc chips
Just how far back are you talking? Because around 1988 most people were suspecting that apple would migrate to the 88000 at some point in the near future. And by the time it was obvious to apple users and (3rd party) developers that the 88000 was going nowhere fast, AIM had happened.
Just how far back are you talking? Because around 1988 most people were suspecting that apple would migrate to the 88000 at some point in the near future. And by the time it was obvious to apple users and (3rd party) developers that the 88000 was going nowhere fast, AIM had happened.
When I started out in the 90s there were cisc wintel PCs, cisc macs, and risc/unix workstations like Sun. The idea that Apple would be selling a risc/unix workstation would been laughed at. And of course that didn't last long, they blew everyones minds again by switching to Intel a few years later.
The fact that surprising things have happened in the past isn't evidence for a particular surprising thing happening in the future.
Who’s looking for evidence? It’s a call to open your mind.
Interestingly, I have it on good authority from someone who works at MS that they are experimenting exactly with that: Windows as a desktop environment running on top of Linux.
This is a bold claim - is your friend sure they're not "just" sharing some system calls, but still running both kernels?
I said they’re experimenting with Windows simply being a desktop environment on top of Linux. Only the Linux kernel would be involved. NTOSKRNL wouldn’t be present. I suspect if they’re trying to get native Windows apps to run, some call translation layer would have to exist (similar to what WINE provides).
Perhaps it is a bold claim, I haven’t seen it first hand. And it certainly has me hoping it goes much further than experimentation. I’d love to have a Windows environment on top of ext4 or zfs and the Linux kernel.
Perhaps it is a bold claim, I haven’t seen it first hand. And it certainly has me hoping it goes much further than experimentation. I’d love to have a Windows environment on top of ext4 or zfs and the Linux kernel.
It would be an interesting proposition - yet the burden of legacy code is too much. Essentially we are talking about a WINE-ey situation here, where your true honest humble int WINAPI WinMain program's messages have to be translated to Linux kernal calls and vice versa. It would be a huge hassle for everyone involved plus the corporate crowd would absolutely detest it (unless every corporate bell and whistle was there and I very much doubt it).
Considering MS has the actual source to the Win API, they could very well complete what WINE does on a linux kernel.
Reminds me of the time there was a comment wondering what the OS on Microsoft watch was- someone responded with a speculation - an erlang vm with js for gui
Why? With the NT now you can run Windows binaries AND Linux binaries. With the Linux kernel you can only run Linux binaries (no WINE does not count). How is that an improvement?
WINE is to Linux as WSL is to Windows... they're the same thing.
In any case, the WSL experience on windows is still pretty sub-par. Until you can at least support the functionality offered by PodMan directly, including SystemD etc, it's not there yet. Even then, it's been kind of nasty to work with in general the handful of times I've tried.
Currently using Docker for Windows, and the msys bash that comes with Git, which though annoying for some things is still better experience wise than WSL is. Next desktop (Zen 2) will be on Linux.
In any case, the WSL experience on windows is still pretty sub-par. Until you can at least support the functionality offered by PodMan directly, including SystemD etc, it's not there yet. Even then, it's been kind of nasty to work with in general the handful of times I've tried.
Currently using Docker for Windows, and the msys bash that comes with Git, which though annoying for some things is still better experience wise than WSL is. Next desktop (Zen 2) will be on Linux.
WSL1 yes, but not WSL2, this is the what this article is about.
Constantly people are bringing up that MS should switch to the Linux kernel. It makes zero sense.
You lose the ABI to run all the old Windows binaries out there when you can keep that AND run Linux binaries.
Also people seem to forget that the NT kernel runs on multiple platforms, on my XBox One with x86-64 CPU I can run old XBox 360 RISC CPU games. Windows 10 can run x86 binaries on ARM CPU:s. How is switching to a Linux kernel ever going to help with that?
Consequence of that argument is that Microsoft needs to support TWO flavors of Windows, one with the NT kernel & one with the Linux kernel. On top of that you get all the editions as a multiplier.
Constantly people are bringing up that MS should switch to the Linux kernel. It makes zero sense.
You lose the ABI to run all the old Windows binaries out there when you can keep that AND run Linux binaries.
Also people seem to forget that the NT kernel runs on multiple platforms, on my XBox One with x86-64 CPU I can run old XBox 360 RISC CPU games. Windows 10 can run x86 binaries on ARM CPU:s. How is switching to a Linux kernel ever going to help with that?
Consequence of that argument is that Microsoft needs to support TWO flavors of Windows, one with the NT kernel & one with the Linux kernel. On top of that you get all the editions as a multiplier.
Oh, I don't think Windows UI on Linux will become a commercial product... though I wouldn't mind a more windows-friendly shell with a much more complete WINE on linux. I actually like the tool/taskbar for windows 10 (sans cortana), still prefer the win7 start menu itself.
I did also like the Ubuntu UX a lot as well, not as much as Windows. Mac's is really usable but the MacOS-like shells are not quite there for the most part, at least from those I've tried.
I did also like the Ubuntu UX a lot as well, not as much as Windows. Mac's is really usable but the MacOS-like shells are not quite there for the most part, at least from those I've tried.
NT can not run Linux binaries. That is why Microsoft are now shipping a full Linux kernel for WSL 2. WSL 1 translated Linux syscalls to NT in the same way that WINE does in the reverse.
To be honest, WSL translated Linux syscall to NT the same way that it translates Win32 calls to NT. NT has its own API and has a thing called "personalities" which they used to implement both OS/2 and Win32 binaries support, and recently Linux. So where WINE is an additional layer on top of Linux syscalls, WSL1 is on the same "level" as Win32.
Linux kernel runs on a VM above the NT kernel.
Edit: NT kernel & hypervisor.
Edit: NT kernel & hypervisor.
Windows Is an Emulator
...doesn't quite have the same ring.
...doesn't quite have the same ring.
I mean it's all ring0
Emulator Not Inside Windows
Once upon a time I would run windows over a Linux served VM. It was fast, stable and happy, not having to deal with that much hardware.
I would be very interested in a Linux distro by Microsoft. Could be very compelling.
> Microsoft’s integration of Linux in Windows 10 will interface with a userspace installed via the Windows Store...
Given Microsoft's history, I can't help but wonder if this wholehearted embrace of Linux is part of a classic Microsoft embrace-extend-extinguish strategy.[a]
Is the endgame a Windows-only userspace layered on top of the Linux kernel?
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
Given Microsoft's history, I can't help but wonder if this wholehearted embrace of Linux is part of a classic Microsoft embrace-extend-extinguish strategy.[a]
Is the endgame a Windows-only userspace layered on top of the Linux kernel?
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
They can embrace Linux, but they can't extend it in any meaningful way. By which I mean they can't ever create a Microsoft brand of packaged Linux. The Linux marketshare is already flooded with distros, and any software that earns revenue running on Linux runs on all the major distros more or less equally well. What could Microsoft create for which Microsoft Linux would be an option so compelling that companies would pay money to buy Microsoft Linux?
For example, MS could create a whole new graphical alternative to X and Wayland that works better than them both. Their challenge for capitalizing on that would be to create a software that works only somewhat well on X or Wayland, but works perfectly on MS Linux. I predict the Linux crowd will not use it. At best, they'll end up providing an alternative for the benefit of MS aficionados.
For example, MS could create a whole new graphical alternative to X and Wayland that works better than them both. Their challenge for capitalizing on that would be to create a software that works only somewhat well on X or Wayland, but works perfectly on MS Linux. I predict the Linux crowd will not use it. At best, they'll end up providing an alternative for the benefit of MS aficionados.
Why not? Google did it.
Android was an embracing of Linux, they extended it with Google Play Services, and now they're moving toward extinguishing it.
Android was an embracing of Linux, they extended it with Google Play Services, and now they're moving toward extinguishing it.
Except they are not extinguishing Linux as a whole, simply phasing it out of their own OS offerings. Linux itself is still alive and thriving, and will continue as such even after it has been replaced in Android and/or its successor.
The classic EEE strategy aims to eliminate a competitor entirely. If that was Google's plan (which I doubt), it was doomed to fail from the start.
The classic EEE strategy aims to eliminate a competitor entirely. If that was Google's plan (which I doubt), it was doomed to fail from the start.
The classic EEE strategy is to "extinguish" the desirability of the open source offering compared to the perceived trick MS stuff, so the community shifts to the commercial offering.
Other replies have contested your use of the EEE metaphor, but I think it’s important to look at why Google seems to want to get off Linux. There are a few, but the biggest one seems to be the intentional lack of a stable driver API/ABI. That’s historically been a large part of the reason Android devices haven’t received software updates, since SoC manufacturers make their own “vendor trees” of the entire Linux kernel, and all kernel updates have to go through them. Recently with Project Treble they’ve tried to make things more modular; AFAIK it’s made it easier to apply small changes like security updates, but if you want to update Linux to a new major version, you’re still at the mercy of the vendor. Now, if you ask upstream, that’s the vendors’ own fault for not upstreaming all their drivers so that upstream can maintain them for them – but upstreaming drivers is hard, and it doesn’t mesh well with the (crappy) hardware development culture of proprietary and one-off designs, so they don’t do it.
In contrast, Windows and macOS both have stable ABIs for third-party drivers, with the result that you can upgrade your OS to the latest version and install the same drivers and they’ll probably work. One notable exception was the Windows XP to Vista transition, which made a number of breaking changes that required new drivers… and just look how that turned out.
If Microsoft switched Windows to the Linux kernel, well… To start off, of course, there‘d be a one-time break of all existing drivers; popular devices already have equivalents in or for mainline Linux, but there’s a very long “long tail” of devices that don’t. But even more importantly, they’d be opting into the Android model of periodic breakage for perpetuity. In theory, they might be able to avoid that problem by forking the kernel and adding their own stable APIs on top. But that would require such deep changes that the resulting fork would either (a) have an “abstraction layer” big and complex enough to be a kernel of its own, (b) be unable to keep up with upstream refactorings and thus diverge permanently and rapidly from mainline, negating the benefit of adopting Linux in the first place… or, most likely, both of those. Never mind the amount of engineering effort required to build that, compared to maintaining the kernel they have. Or the licensing issues they’d encounter in an ecosystem that’s currently even more proprietary-oriented than Android. Or the control they’d be giving up over future development directions (although to be fair, you could have said the same about Edge).
So yes, Microsoft could embrace Linux as their new kernel. But they’d be crazy if they did.
In contrast, Windows and macOS both have stable ABIs for third-party drivers, with the result that you can upgrade your OS to the latest version and install the same drivers and they’ll probably work. One notable exception was the Windows XP to Vista transition, which made a number of breaking changes that required new drivers… and just look how that turned out.
If Microsoft switched Windows to the Linux kernel, well… To start off, of course, there‘d be a one-time break of all existing drivers; popular devices already have equivalents in or for mainline Linux, but there’s a very long “long tail” of devices that don’t. But even more importantly, they’d be opting into the Android model of periodic breakage for perpetuity. In theory, they might be able to avoid that problem by forking the kernel and adding their own stable APIs on top. But that would require such deep changes that the resulting fork would either (a) have an “abstraction layer” big and complex enough to be a kernel of its own, (b) be unable to keep up with upstream refactorings and thus diverge permanently and rapidly from mainline, negating the benefit of adopting Linux in the first place… or, most likely, both of those. Never mind the amount of engineering effort required to build that, compared to maintaining the kernel they have. Or the licensing issues they’d encounter in an ecosystem that’s currently even more proprietary-oriented than Android. Or the control they’d be giving up over future development directions (although to be fair, you could have said the same about Edge).
So yes, Microsoft could embrace Linux as their new kernel. But they’d be crazy if they did.
But that doesn't negatively impact all the prior uses of Linux. The "extinguish" part means that they ruin Linux for everyone else. If Google stops using Linux as the kernel for Android... so what?
> What could Microsoft create for which Microsoft Linux would be an option so compelling that companies would pay money to buy Microsoft Linux?
Single-source licensing for enterprise-grade Linux and Windows, with a sweetheart deal. And they wouldn't have to do much, just take RHEL and offer certified builds and support. (Which is what Oracle does with their Unbreakable Linux.)
Single-source licensing for enterprise-grade Linux and Windows, with a sweetheart deal. And they wouldn't have to do much, just take RHEL and offer certified builds and support. (Which is what Oracle does with their Unbreakable Linux.)
You know how expensive it is to write a Kernel? I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft will ditch their own Kernel just as they ditched their own browser engine... Why waste time and money on something that other people do equally well or better for you for free? It's just business....
If it looked like Windows,shared files with Windows, and ran Windows apps (via emulation or virtualization) that would be a huge deal in keeping companies on MS platforms, even if they're Linux underneath.
Good point. The market segment of keeping companies on MS platforms is one I had not considered. That will certainly contribute to Linux not gaining a marketshare, and possibly fragment the overall Linux developers' ecosystem.
IMHO, this is the strategy. MS can't extinguish Linux; it's too late for that. But they can make it invisible and a "non-issue" for users. That would be a big deal and arguably better for everyone. Pretty smart, Microsoft.
It might be useful. Novell did that with Netware, and things didn’t go so well. But they didn’t have cloud revenue.
I'm feeling more like they want to inject their invasive "telemetry" into Linux too, or at least "normalise the deviance". I see their whole "we're open-source now" (mainly, open-sourcing code they can't really profit from anymore) and "friendly" face as merely trying to divert attention away from their darker side.
I don't think they care about Windows that much any more. They even dissolved the team and it's now a part of Azure team / Office team.
“Don’t care” is probably a stretch. There is still a ton of corporates who pay MS license feee for Windows. It’s still a huge part of core revenue, but future long term. revenue streams will come from services and new platforms.
I think those corporations care more about ADS and all the user management infrastructure than they do about Windows desktop.
If they could manage Linux desktops with group policy settings they wouldn’t need Windows at all.
If they could manage Linux desktops with group policy settings they wouldn’t need Windows at all.
All it takes is one application that's Windows-only and a lot of places are locked in. And maybe it's an app that isn't made anymore, or maybe it's an internal line-of-business app with no ready off-the-shelf replacement.
That wouldn't necessarily be a problem, though. They wouldn't kill the Win32/Win64 APIs or anything else that people tend to write Windows applications to, they would just replace NT with Linux and adapt the Windows APIs to run on Linux (basically WINE, but presumably Microsoft could do a more complete/compatible job due to all the institutional knowledge they have).
Some apps still wouldn't work, like anything that calls NT APIs, but they could make that work with a compatibility layer until they're ported.
I agree that this seems a bit unlikely, though. But who knows where their priorities may lie in the future?
Some apps still wouldn't work, like anything that calls NT APIs, but they could make that work with a compatibility layer until they're ported.
I agree that this seems a bit unlikely, though. But who knows where their priorities may lie in the future?
Okay, flip it around -- how many places are using a piece of hardware that doesn't have a proper Linux driver? How many people are still using laptops where Linux has problems with sleep/hibernate? And where do the benefits of using the Linux kernel come from?
I'm not disagreeing with this at all. Merely addressing the point made about what most apps are written using.
NT was the best part!
A significant amount of businesses worldwide are still run on Excel sheets and Access databases on SMB fileshares. Combine that with an insane amount of VBA code and you have something it is very hard to justify why you should spend time and money porting or virtualising when you can just keep it running on Windows. I work with very large banks and insurers and see this everywhere. Justify effort / cost / risk / benefits of that vs investing in new customer / ‘digital’ stuff that will actually sell more.
...why? In the consumer/desktop hardware space, Windows has much, much better driver support. What benefit would they get from this?
Previous discussion, with the official source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842817
I want native bash commands in Windows shell. I know powershell supports some commands, but and actual Linux shell to interface with the rest of windows will be awesome. WSL is getting there, sucks I've gotta install Python and node/npm twice.
The interop is pretty good, I don't have cowsay on Windows and I don't have node in wsl, but this still works:
C:\Users\Ryan>wsl cowsay hello
_______
< hello >
-------
\ ^__^
\ (oo)\_______
(__)\ )\/\
||----w |
|| ||
C:\Users\Ryan>wsl
ryan@DESKTOP:/mnt/c/Users/Ryan$ notepad.exe test.js
ryan@DESKTOP:/mnt/c/Users/Ryan$ node.exe test.js
hello, world!Do you need to do something special for "wsl" to send a command to wsl? I only get an error on my win 10 machine (that "wsl" is not a known command/let).
Do you have WSL installed? It's not part of Windows by default (at least not since I checked)
Yes, it's enabled- I can use bash and all.
I wish that PowerShell had a way of breaking down the learning curve. It understands some basic Bash commands like `ls` and `cd`, but I feel it would be good to use those as teachable moments, like tell me that `ls` is actually running `Get-Contents` or whatever.
I actually generally stay away from using aliases, since I like the verb-noun format and keeps it consistent with all the other commands.
But if you are ever curious, you can use Get-Verb[1] which will tell you what is going on.
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft...
But if you are ever curious, you can use Get-Verb[1] which will tell you what is going on.
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft...
I wouldn't even really say that PowerShell supports any Unix commands, they are just aliases. It breaks down pretty quick if you were to try to use any parameters.
They can still be useful, but just mostly while navigating in a command window.
They can still be useful, but just mostly while navigating in a command window.
there's cygwin, I think it's still active.
it's funny how web developers are finally discovering UNIX, bash and free software now and how MS is surprised. Cmdline has always been unusable, powershell is better but people need a proper pty and Bash.
Nevermind we tried to curb stomp you for the past 25 years. Haha.
I was thinking that when I read it. We're so far from the days when MS claimed that Linux had a lot of stolen and copyrighted code in the kernel.
Not really. We don't have ntfs and exfat drivers in the kernel due to patent claims. Fedora can't even show fonts properly. This is just usual diplomacy. Nothing to get too happy (or too worked up) about.
I have been noticing an uptick in pro Microsoft propaganda on Hacker News. Does Microsoft seriously think developers opinions can be swayed by some lip service after almost 3 decades of abuse?
[deleted]
What was old is new again, embrace and embed may succeed where extinguish failed.
This. Probably. Quite soon enough people who don't know better will think that the Proper Way to run Linux is as WSL inside Windows 10...
So how will the kernel run? I guess virtualised behind the scenes using Hyper-V and accessed using the Windows Terminal? Seems that this should replace the WSL project entirely which is kind of a shame because it was pretty cool.
Also, unlike others here, I'm not a fan of a computing monoculture where everything is UNIX going forward.
Also, unlike others here, I'm not a fan of a computing monoculture where everything is UNIX going forward.
You might find this interesting, https://youtu.be/tG8R5SQGPck?t=24m50s
Checkout the lightweight VMs (start around 38:00)
Checkout the lightweight VMs (start around 38:00)
Does GPL require Microsoft to open source Windows 10 then?
No, the only have to release the source for the custom kernel that they will use in their subsystem.
Wonder what this will mean. Is the ability to run Linux commands and programs going to be there just so people who like Terminal can do their job without VMs? Is this a deeper move towards making apps more universal? That would remind me of when Mac OS migrated to x86 in some fashion.
This is helpful for some of us doing data science and ML with consumer-grade GPUs.
systemd versus windows
systemd vs svchost.exe
If systemd works to start linux software with windows, before desktop login and the features PodMan needs are there, I'm looking forward to it.
Will the kernels be able to interact at all outside of the filesystem? For example could I write a Linux program which opens a Windows browser?
This already works with WSL1.0, so I'd consider it to be a regression if not. I just verified with opening vscode from bash in a windows directory from WSL using `code /mnt/c/Users/zeusk/Desktop/memester`
Also, output of `which code`:
> zeusk@DESKTOP-F776PPQ:/mnt/c/Users/zeusk/Desktop$ which code
> /mnt/c/Users/zeusk/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/bin/code
Also, output of `which code`:
> zeusk@DESKTOP-F776PPQ:/mnt/c/Users/zeusk/Desktop$ which code
> /mnt/c/Users/zeusk/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/bin/code
WSL1 shares the kernel, but WSL2 uses a hypervisor, so IPC is likely to take a hit.
Well, WSL1 has real bad performance with lots of small files and they say their internal performance tests unzipping a tarball 20x faster and git clone or npm install going 2-5 times faster. Not sure what IPC would make slower...?
Do they also offer package management?
This is just kernel support; you use whatever userspace you want on top.
Some of the existing WSL distros (like Ubuntu) already include package managers (like apt).
I'm very excited about this. It's like everything I wanted all in one operating system!
OpenSuSE Leap 15 anyone ???
World domination achieved.
Not on my boxen. Never again.
Anyone else here remember "eunice" on Vax/VMS?
oh man... if we can finally use native ruby gems on windows and host the sites through iis without the performance hit... this will be a game changer.
Gonna be a big download.
Sounds great, however I had already assumed that in order to save money, Windows 10 was probably just an obfuscated linux kernel running some weird MS fork of Wine.
That's just in the "professional" version that costs extra. ;-)
Thanks for the appreciation. Is a tough crowd out there. ;p
Tough? Discerning, perhaps, mate.
Perhaps. Though discernment makes no accounting for taste.