Creating my awesome Windows 10 dev setup(chimerical.ca)
chimerical.ca
Creating my awesome Windows 10 dev setup
https://chimerical.ca/posts/creating-my-awesome-windows-10-dev-setup/
155 comments
For me, the first hour or so after doing a clean install of any recent version of Windows is spent carefully going through all the settings (not just both(!) control panels, but everywhere else including the services, task scheduler, group policy, etc.) and turning off everything unwanted. It feels like cleaning an infected machine: you're never sure whether you got it all, or something is going to make an unpleasant appearance later.
Yes you can do that, but it requires lots of time and dedication, and sometimes special knowledge. It’s sad that Windows comes out of the box like this.
You would think there would or should exist some script that could do all this? I’ll look for something online..
I've had success with Blackbird[0]. Will look into the other programs mentioned above and compare results. But after blindly running blackbird on a fresh install it changed most settings I would have changed manually and performance has been stable.
[0] https://www.getblackbird.net/
[0] https://www.getblackbird.net/
[deleted]
Looks like someone further on down in comments posted O&O ShutUp10 & Windows10debloater— will have to check those out
There's a free tool called ShutUp10 that makes this process very fast. It even warns you if Windows reverts a setting you changed - which happens all the time.
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
Wow.... looks like 100+ individual settings to toggle. It gathers them all together, but when I'm going through the configuration, I'm not only modifying the telemetry/privacy stuff but other preferences too, so it might not save all that much time.
(That UI is a little reminiscent of the Group Policy Editor, although I think the extra layer of ambiguous "slider buttons" make it even more confusing at first glance --- e.g. if the "App access to camera disabled" setting is red, does that mean the setting is not applied and apps can access the camera, or does the red mean the camera access is disabled? A "[*] Allow app access to camera" checkbox would be far more straightforward. That said, gpedit.msc's mix of enable-to-disable and disable-to-enable isn't much better either --- it's almost as if they are trying to mislead you.)
Wow.... looks like 100+ individual settings to toggle. It gathers them all together, but when I'm going through the configuration, I'm not only modifying the telemetry/privacy stuff but other preferences too, so it might not save all that much time.
(That UI is a little reminiscent of the Group Policy Editor, although I think the extra layer of ambiguous "slider buttons" make it even more confusing at first glance --- e.g. if the "App access to camera disabled" setting is red, does that mean the setting is not applied and apps can access the camera, or does the red mean the camera access is disabled? A "[*] Allow app access to camera" checkbox would be far more straightforward. That said, gpedit.msc's mix of enable-to-disable and disable-to-enable isn't much better either --- it's almost as if they are trying to mislead you.)
It's true that there are a lot of choices, but they are grouped into safe/risky/unsafe categories. I always just tell it to auto-flip the safe ones, and that does everything I want.
> It even warns you if Windows reverts a setting you changed - which happens all the time.
New dark pattern from Microsoft. One of the reasons to get off the platform forever. If settings change themselves they shouldn’t call themselves settings
New dark pattern from Microsoft. One of the reasons to get off the platform forever. If settings change themselves they shouldn’t call themselves settings
There's also W10Privacy [0], with way more settings.
[0]: https://www.w10privacy.de/english-home/
[0]: https://www.w10privacy.de/english-home/
[deleted]
I use a handful of Windows machines regularly and don't experience most of these problems.
Your disk space issue may be related to automated backups, system restore service, and LAN caching of Windows updates. You can disable these. Disk cleanup wizard can help here too.
Edge hijack has never happened to me, although a handful of links inside windows apps/services/docs do force edge to launch (which itself causes a confirmation to make it default, which I decline)
Windows is famous for backward compatibility, especially compared to Linux or MacOS, so I'm not sure what issues you're running into there. There are some strange system dependencies that I've seen cause issues; cortana search powering the start menu search feature and disabling the swap file causing numerous invisible failures come to mind.
Faulting anti-malware is frustrating because on windows you basically have to run it, and the default one is pretty okay. Most commercial options like symantec, norton, mcafee, etc are absolutely terrible.
Your disk space issue may be related to automated backups, system restore service, and LAN caching of Windows updates. You can disable these. Disk cleanup wizard can help here too.
Edge hijack has never happened to me, although a handful of links inside windows apps/services/docs do force edge to launch (which itself causes a confirmation to make it default, which I decline)
Windows is famous for backward compatibility, especially compared to Linux or MacOS, so I'm not sure what issues you're running into there. There are some strange system dependencies that I've seen cause issues; cortana search powering the start menu search feature and disabling the swap file causing numerous invisible failures come to mind.
Faulting anti-malware is frustrating because on windows you basically have to run it, and the default one is pretty okay. Most commercial options like symantec, norton, mcafee, etc are absolutely terrible.
I am in the same boat except that I am forced to use windows 10 for 8 hours a day. I try to not pay too much attention but it is irking me a little every single day.
Visual Studio used to be a great product but ever since I started using VS 19 I started having ugly issues every single day. During a day it hits weird bugs such as it simply won’t build, search functionality ocasionally is broken and I get crashes and auto restarts. Looked around for help and others are having the same issues but no solutions. Ms folks close the issues as ‘unable to replicate’. I replaced the machine and did a fresh install but no resolve so I have to live with it unfortunately.
> Ms folks close the issues as ‘unable to replicate’.
I'm sorry, but that begs the question - what is even the point of telemetry then?
I'm sorry, but that begs the question - what is even the point of telemetry then?
Good question. I don’t know. I hope the next version at least they’ll have these bugs fixed. I noticed this pattern over the years, every other major version of VS is decent and in between lemons. Im so reluctant to upgrade when everything works fine, you don’t even know.. But I have to unfortunately, my work dictates that
Windows defender makes Windows 10 absolutely impossible to use on slow (non-SSD) drives. That would be fine if there was an easy way to disable it, but it's literally impossible without digging through guides online. It's insanity that this is allowed.
It's super easy to disable if you have group policy
I know there are ways to disable it, but none are intuitive and/or discoverable by regular people.
Also Group Policy is not available on Windows 10 Home (without hacks anyway).
Also Group Policy is not available on Windows 10 Home (without hacks anyway).
I'd say it is easy enough, just paste some random scary command from a quick Google search into the shell. Or maybe my expectations are too low. It is not like I could have known how to disable the insanely stupid ApplePressAndHold thing on macOS without searching online...
The problem is the average person wouldn't know what a shell is in the first place, and those are the ones with the least powerful machines that suffer the most from this. They shouldn't have to go through a process that has the possibility of ruining their machine just to get it to work reliably.
You might be interested in OOSU10 (https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10) which has options to disable just about everything you can think of, including Defender.
Thanks, I'll use it on my gaming VM.
And windows still "reasonably" works after ?
Yes! I haven't noticed any difference.
I've started using OOSU10 on all my Windows installs as well as Windows10Debloater. It makes a performance difference on resource constrained devices and for other devices I just like a cleaner Windows install.
I've started using OOSU10 on all my Windows installs as well as Windows10Debloater. It makes a performance difference on resource constrained devices and for other devices I just like a cleaner Windows install.
Windows Enterprise has none of these issues (I use for a development project). It’s a perfect, smooth experience and I love it. Of course you’ll have to shell out something like $1100 for a license, which is highly impractical for most hone users.
A common refrain is that if you're not paying, you are the product, but does Microsoft still charge for Win10? My last contact with it was that I was offered a free upgrade from 8, and I don't recall 8 having these issues, so maybe that's why it was free.
Anyway, when I saw the monster price tag for Enterprise, I suspected that is what they determined was the cost of loss of analytics
Anyway, when I saw the monster price tag for Enterprise, I suspected that is what they determined was the cost of loss of analytics
It's not just analytics, but also expected level of support.
You can still buy win 10. The major point of the free win 8 upgrade was to let them avoid supporting the old version, which indicates the value of it to them was more than the cost of getting everyone to buy a new license.
Note that the free upgrade is not supposed to be transferable. New computer means new license, so you gotta pay.
You can still buy win 10. The major point of the free win 8 upgrade was to let them avoid supporting the old version, which indicates the value of it to them was more than the cost of getting everyone to buy a new license.
Note that the free upgrade is not supposed to be transferable. New computer means new license, so you gotta pay.
- macos is taking away more control. I hope apple reverses course. I would like them to nanny less and think about making their platform less inward and more outward.
- ubuntu still does a lot of silly stuff.
(I remove or neutralize motd, appport, snapd, ubuntu-report, unattended-upgrades, ubuntu-advantage, whoopsie and more)
- ubuntu still does a lot of silly stuff.
(I remove or neutralize motd, appport, snapd, ubuntu-report, unattended-upgrades, ubuntu-advantage, whoopsie and more)
> A barrage of updates I didn't ask for get forced on me (Despite whatever settings I put)
Let me just reboot for you when you're afk without asking.
Let me just reboot for you when you're afk without asking.
What kills me is that Windows will forcefully power on a sleeping laptop and update it no matter what you do. There is no "off" switch for this.
If you have a gaming or pro laptop in a bag, this is a fire hazard and could kill people.
I don't know how this was ever approved within Microsoft, but it is outright criminal negligence that should see them sued into the ground. Better yet, I'd like to see executives jailed if anyone every dies because of this arrogance.
Microsoft employees, get this through your thick heads: Your updates do not matter as much as my life!
If you have a gaming or pro laptop in a bag, this is a fire hazard and could kill people.
I don't know how this was ever approved within Microsoft, but it is outright criminal negligence that should see them sued into the ground. Better yet, I'd like to see executives jailed if anyone every dies because of this arrogance.
Microsoft employees, get this through your thick heads: Your updates do not matter as much as my life!
There's a bunch of nice tools that make most of that stuff go away in matter of few clicks
https://github.com/search?q=Windows+10+telemetry&type=
Well then, this setup isn't for you. Why not read some of the other articles on Hacker News?
[deleted]
An honest question from someone who hasn't used Windows since the early 2010s: as developers, what's the draw?
I've seen a few blog posts like this one where competent individuals attempt to construct a Linux-like development environment on their Windows install. It's clear that you're still fighting the host environment at the end of the day, and that anything that provides a Linux-like interface is going to suffer from both Windows' lackluster performance and the overhead of virtualization/translation/emulation/whatever approach your layer-of-choice uses. Is it familiarity, presence of other (non-development) applications, or something else?
Edit: I should say that I haven't used Windows since 2012 or so, but I have developed for it (mostly drivers and filesystem work) since then by running VMs. Ironically, my best experience developing for Windows has been entirely on Linux and macOS.
I've seen a few blog posts like this one where competent individuals attempt to construct a Linux-like development environment on their Windows install. It's clear that you're still fighting the host environment at the end of the day, and that anything that provides a Linux-like interface is going to suffer from both Windows' lackluster performance and the overhead of virtualization/translation/emulation/whatever approach your layer-of-choice uses. Is it familiarity, presence of other (non-development) applications, or something else?
Edit: I should say that I haven't used Windows since 2012 or so, but I have developed for it (mostly drivers and filesystem work) since then by running VMs. Ironically, my best experience developing for Windows has been entirely on Linux and macOS.
Hardware just works, interface is familiar and understandable, it works with high DPI displays reliably, Hyper-V and Docker and WSL/WSL2 make cross-platform development a breeze.
I'm not aware of any compromises I've had to make, whereas MacOS colleagues have to deal with compatibility issues with userland utils, Docker, running *nix VMs, and so on.
And as of a couple months ago, GPU passthrough with WSL2 enables using an Nvidia GPU for ML tasks using Linux binaries.
I'm not aware of any compromises I've had to make, whereas MacOS colleagues have to deal with compatibility issues with userland utils, Docker, running *nix VMs, and so on.
And as of a couple months ago, GPU passthrough with WSL2 enables using an Nvidia GPU for ML tasks using Linux binaries.
Another point in favor of Win10: full-disk encryption is easier to set up as Bitlocker on Windows. Together with the TPM, physical access no longer means easy data access, and you don't have to input a passcode for the encryption either.
There is no good story for tpm-secured booting into a full-drive encrypted Linux OS. What I have now still requires a passcode at boot, and it was still a pain to set up.
There is no good story for tpm-secured booting into a full-drive encrypted Linux OS. What I have now still requires a passcode at boot, and it was still a pain to set up.
My understanding is bitlocker is using your login credentials as the auth to get the TPM to unlock the disk - otherwise how is it blocking anyone else with physical access getting at data by just turning the power on if there's no auth?
You can enable TPM and PIN at boot that engages with the TPM, or you can just use TPM in which case your disk is unlocked by the bootloader (IIRC, terminology might be off).
The TPM and PIN has protections against brute forcing and offline attacks. The TPM only method for Bitlocker is more similar to FileVault.
The TPM and PIN has protections against brute forcing and offline attacks. The TPM only method for Bitlocker is more similar to FileVault.
I was about to write that you can easily enable full-disk encryption with Ubuntu on install, but then I realised you had a requirement to use TPM for this. Ubuntu doesn't support this mode without finagling, so this wouldn't meet your requirements.
So basically, the claim here is that it's easy to visualize linux in Windows than it is on a Mac?
That's swell, but what advantage do you perceive versus... just running linux? I understand if you're a .net shop, but I'm always confused about the lengths Windows users seem to go through to run Linux tools within Windows rather than just running Linux.
That's swell, but what advantage do you perceive versus... just running linux? I understand if you're a .net shop, but I'm always confused about the lengths Windows users seem to go through to run Linux tools within Windows rather than just running Linux.
Because then I have to run Linux as my desktop environment, and I would rather not.
My thoughts on this previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25425365
I have to fight against Linux to do standard desktop environment GUI things, while Windows just works for the most part. The rough edges of Windows are essentially all covered by the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
I have to fight against Linux to do standard desktop environment GUI things, while Windows just works for the most part. The rough edges of Windows are essentially all covered by the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
This exactly.
What most Linux people say when they say that they want the "Linux development environment" they mean some shell tools. Shell tools that are now available under Windows with better "fidelity" than under MacOS.
What most Linux people say when they say that they want the "Linux development environment" they mean some shell tools. Shell tools that are now available under Windows with better "fidelity" than under MacOS.
My answer is, I don't see the problems, and I don't fight windows.
I run WSL2, and when benchmarking performance is almost identical to rebooting into Ubuntu.
I've never had a laptop where everything worked well in Linux (WiFi, Bluetooth, sleeping), even when trying laptops where I was told it would work well, like the Dell XPS.
Also, I work on (open source) desktop software, where the majority of our users use Windows, so I like being able to easily debug their problems. I work in academia and get lots of word and Excel documents I have to edit, and find while open office can view them it often breaks them if I edit and resave.
I run WSL2, and when benchmarking performance is almost identical to rebooting into Ubuntu.
I've never had a laptop where everything worked well in Linux (WiFi, Bluetooth, sleeping), even when trying laptops where I was told it would work well, like the Dell XPS.
Also, I work on (open source) desktop software, where the majority of our users use Windows, so I like being able to easily debug their problems. I work in academia and get lots of word and Excel documents I have to edit, and find while open office can view them it often breaks them if I edit and resave.
Linux is bad for laptop batteries, 4K screens, other hardware, and most office programs. If you only use vim, stay plugged into an outlet all day, and don't need great video conferencing, then Linux is fine. But that's not most people.
OTOH windows is slower than Linux, but it's a price worth paying for some.
OTOH windows is slower than Linux, but it's a price worth paying for some.
> Linux is bad for laptop batteries, 4K screens, other hardware, and most office programs. If you only use vim, stay plugged into an outlet all day, and don't need great video conferencing, then Linux is fine. But that's not most people.
I don't disagree with any of this[1]! But we're talking about developers, not most people, and it looks like this particular author went out of their way to install a CLI editor.
Others have pointed out that Windows is still the right platform if you're a game developer, which makes a lot of sense to me. Are there other specific hobbyist development cases that are best served by a Windows environment?
[1]: Except the 4K and video conferencing. Those actually work quite nicely for me (n=1) on Linux.
I don't disagree with any of this[1]! But we're talking about developers, not most people, and it looks like this particular author went out of their way to install a CLI editor.
Others have pointed out that Windows is still the right platform if you're a game developer, which makes a lot of sense to me. Are there other specific hobbyist development cases that are best served by a Windows environment?
[1]: Except the 4K and video conferencing. Those actually work quite nicely for me (n=1) on Linux.
> [1]: Except the 4K and video conferencing. Those actually work quite nicely for me (n=1) on Linux.
I suppose I'll add my n=1 experience that battery life has been pretty good oob.
I suppose I'll add my n=1 experience that battery life has been pretty good oob.
Maybe it would have been even better in windows?
:-)
I remember playing with governor's, disabling hardware, supporting Nvidia Optimus and other stuff in Linux in order to get decent battery life (actually, i got decent out of the box. I wanted good battery life)
:-)
I remember playing with governor's, disabling hardware, supporting Nvidia Optimus and other stuff in Linux in order to get decent battery life (actually, i got decent out of the box. I wanted good battery life)
Was not the case on my last dual boot laptop (XPS 15), battery life was better under Linux on that.
Quite possibly.
This laptop is the first computer I've owned for myself though, and is what let me get into Linux. I tried dual booting for a while, used Windows ~2 times, and never went back.
I can get 8 - 10 hours pretty easily with Linux, and that's using GNOME, so I just haven't worried about it.
This laptop is the first computer I've owned for myself though, and is what let me get into Linux. I tried dual booting for a while, used Windows ~2 times, and never went back.
I can get 8 - 10 hours pretty easily with Linux, and that's using GNOME, so I just haven't worried about it.
Yes, I know one person can hack there way about all the Linux issues on their specific hardware for their specific work requirements.
I hate to beat up on Linux. I'm a 15 year user on my personal hardware who wishes he could use it for work.
I hate to beat up on Linux. I'm a 15 year user on my personal hardware who wishes he could use it for work.
> An honest question from someone who hasn't used Windows since the early 2010s: as developers, what's the draw?
Corporate standards? Also, if you're in enterprise land, there could be some weird tool you need to use (or is superior to whatever you can get on Linux) that forces/encourages you to use Windows.
Also, there may be some weird little ergonomics thing: I recently switched from Windows to a Mac at work. We use Outlook, and IMHO Mac Outlook sucks compared to the Windows version. It's just missing a bunch of useful little features that I got used to. I was originally planning on using Windows Outlook in a VM, but got thwarted by new policies set by our new desktop support vendor.
Corporate standards? Also, if you're in enterprise land, there could be some weird tool you need to use (or is superior to whatever you can get on Linux) that forces/encourages you to use Windows.
Also, there may be some weird little ergonomics thing: I recently switched from Windows to a Mac at work. We use Outlook, and IMHO Mac Outlook sucks compared to the Windows version. It's just missing a bunch of useful little features that I got used to. I was originally planning on using Windows Outlook in a VM, but got thwarted by new policies set by our new desktop support vendor.
Mac Outlook is so totally neutered compared to the Windows version. I thought Outlook on Windows was a crappy, crashy POS application, then I used it on Mac. It actually hinders my productivity. There's not even an option to manually run mail rules that you create. I guess you just have to wait for that e-mail to come in again to see if you set up your rules properly. No option to rebuild your mailboxes. I have had to remove and recreate my account multiple times already just to keep it functioning.
I agree with your sentiment for the most part (although I haven't run native windows outlook in 15 years)... however, for what it's worth, you can apply client side mail rules to existing emails on MacOS. I've used this to classify automated notifications into at least a dozen folders at work.
At home I use Thunderbird ;-)
That makes sense for a Windows development shop, but for a personal development environment? This blog and others I've seen seem geared at hobbyist developers.
For servers, I would never consider anything but linux. As a desktop OS, Windows gives me a great experience. I’m lucky enough that I don’t have the performance problems that others describe. Games. Hardware compatibility without configuration or tweaking. Windows subsystem for Linux v2. It all works like I expect and I don’t have to fiddle with it constantly.
Gaming. If you look at the author's posts on twitter, you'll see he's heavy into gaming / game dev. There simply aren't other platforms for this. OSX is atrocious with anything gaming related. Linux is getting there, but it's always a hack and there's a chance you'll be banned by platforms due to anti-hack detection algos often flagging linux/wine as nefarious.
Linux is definitely improving when it comes to gaming. A lot more games either support it natively, or they work quite well using Proton. Like you say, anti-hack/cheat algorithms on multiplayer games can be a problem. I dual-boot with Windows for those games that just don't work on Linux, but I find myself booting into Windows less and less....
which does not bother me one bit.
which does not bother me one bit.
Nothing stops anyone from using a Linux desktop as their workhorse and gaming in a VM with GPU passthrough.
With tools like Looking Glass (https://looking-glass.io/) you don't even have to leave the Ubuntu Desktop environment.
With tools like Looking Glass (https://looking-glass.io/) you don't even have to leave the Ubuntu Desktop environment.
I have looked into this extensively, and all I can say is that it's extremely difficult to get working on certain hardware configurations if you only want to use one card, and even then it's hard to set everything up the way you want to do it.
I've been running 2 Ubuntu servers running 3 gaming VMs. I agree to a certain extent that hardware choice is key. I got burned by AMD GPUs not resetting so switched to NVidia GPUs.
Didn't have issues for almost a year.
Rule of the thumb for me is: AMD GPU for host, NVidia for guests. I use AMD GPUs for host because open source drivers are awesome and makes kernel/version updating easy. NVidia for guests is no brainer since they don't have PCIe reset issues. For motherboard, pick one that has good IOMMU groupings, usually x<3|4|5>70 for AM4 or x299 for Intel, or go Threadripper.
Didn't have issues for almost a year.
Rule of the thumb for me is: AMD GPU for host, NVidia for guests. I use AMD GPUs for host because open source drivers are awesome and makes kernel/version updating easy. NVidia for guests is no brainer since they don't have PCIe reset issues. For motherboard, pick one that has good IOMMU groupings, usually x<3|4|5>70 for AM4 or x299 for Intel, or go Threadripper.
There's actually a kernel patch that basically separates every pcie device into its own iommu group (linux-vfio on arch). You shouldn't do that if you need the security provided by proper iommu groups, but it works for a gaming vm.
According to Wendell on Level1Linux, the reset bug should be fixed on AMD 6000 series gpus.
According to Wendell on Level1Linux, the reset bug should be fixed on AMD 6000 series gpus.
I almost don't want to answer, I'm wary about the replies telling me how I'm doing it wrong or how I'm unlucky with my hardware (with a hint of "I don't believe you") or with guides about setting up stuff.
I'm a linux guy, I've used linux almost exclusively for the past 10 years, but one of my two laptops recently started running Windows10 + WSL2.
Why I use it:
- WSL2 is usable. Looks like a linux, smells like a linux, and performance is way faster than on my linux laptop (purely because the windows laptop hardware is much more beefy, I'm just saying WSL2 performance isn't a bottleneck)
- Games, obviously, and I'm sure you know that. There's a non-negligible overlap between gamers and developers. VR games on linux is a no-go at the moment.
- Printers. I've never had a linux laptop that just worked regarding scans and printing. Sometimes I works, sometimes (usually) it doesn't.
- My otherwise well-supported thinkpad has a crappy broadcomm wifi+bluetooth chipset. It's just not well supported on linux. I've had to stay in a hotel for 2 weeks covid quarantine, I'm glad I had my windows laptop with me, as linux didn't want to connect to their wifi at all. Bridging wifi from my android phone is another workaround I use
- Regarding bluetooth, it's bad too. Audio works after a decent amount of manual config (finding the right driver online, the one shipped on ubuntu is the wrong one), but with horrible latency (almost 1sec). My bluetooth mouse is now working without issues, besides a bluetooth systemctl restart from time to time.
The bad things about it:
- A couple of random BSOD. I have no idea where to even start to debug them. Only 2-3 in 6 months of usage though.
- Botched upgrades. This was a bad one, when I bought the laptop, the latest upgrade just didn't work, it would brick the laptop. It seems to be a problem with my ryzen cpu, so the only solution was to reinstall and stop all updates until microsoft fixed it
- Upgrades in general, they're shitty, forced, etc... Nothing new here. I use third-party programs to stop the forced upgrades, so at least I have control over that
- Autohotkey is required for basic customization, like shortcuts. I'm very specific about my shortcuts (I need my bazillion emacs keybindings to work the same as in linux), but ahk makes it work for me.
- Some annoying, but non-critical bugs in WSL2. It might get better with time.
- Virtual workspaces are now shipped with windows, but their keybindings suck in a non-fixable way
There you go. I'm still a linux guy, I prefer linux and will probably dual boot an ubuntu+i3 once I buy a bigger SSD, but WSL2 makes dev on windows quite painless. All I need for my work is a terminal, emacs and a browser after all.
I'm a linux guy, I've used linux almost exclusively for the past 10 years, but one of my two laptops recently started running Windows10 + WSL2.
Why I use it:
- WSL2 is usable. Looks like a linux, smells like a linux, and performance is way faster than on my linux laptop (purely because the windows laptop hardware is much more beefy, I'm just saying WSL2 performance isn't a bottleneck)
- Games, obviously, and I'm sure you know that. There's a non-negligible overlap between gamers and developers. VR games on linux is a no-go at the moment.
- Printers. I've never had a linux laptop that just worked regarding scans and printing. Sometimes I works, sometimes (usually) it doesn't.
- My otherwise well-supported thinkpad has a crappy broadcomm wifi+bluetooth chipset. It's just not well supported on linux. I've had to stay in a hotel for 2 weeks covid quarantine, I'm glad I had my windows laptop with me, as linux didn't want to connect to their wifi at all. Bridging wifi from my android phone is another workaround I use
- Regarding bluetooth, it's bad too. Audio works after a decent amount of manual config (finding the right driver online, the one shipped on ubuntu is the wrong one), but with horrible latency (almost 1sec). My bluetooth mouse is now working without issues, besides a bluetooth systemctl restart from time to time.
The bad things about it:
- A couple of random BSOD. I have no idea where to even start to debug them. Only 2-3 in 6 months of usage though.
- Botched upgrades. This was a bad one, when I bought the laptop, the latest upgrade just didn't work, it would brick the laptop. It seems to be a problem with my ryzen cpu, so the only solution was to reinstall and stop all updates until microsoft fixed it
- Upgrades in general, they're shitty, forced, etc... Nothing new here. I use third-party programs to stop the forced upgrades, so at least I have control over that
- Autohotkey is required for basic customization, like shortcuts. I'm very specific about my shortcuts (I need my bazillion emacs keybindings to work the same as in linux), but ahk makes it work for me.
- Some annoying, but non-critical bugs in WSL2. It might get better with time.
- Virtual workspaces are now shipped with windows, but their keybindings suck in a non-fixable way
There you go. I'm still a linux guy, I prefer linux and will probably dual boot an ubuntu+i3 once I buy a bigger SSD, but WSL2 makes dev on windows quite painless. All I need for my work is a terminal, emacs and a browser after all.
Interesting you mention WSL2 as a plus.
I've used Linux since early 2000's and OSX on the desktop since 2010+. Before that Windows CE, 95 and think Vista or 7 was the last.
I was curious about what Windows looks like these days as it's been a decade and also curious about WSL2 as it seems online posts are generally positive over WSL. The surface go / surface line of devices looked interesting for a nsmall, stuff in the bag while traveling doing email/browsing/office type of machine. I was tempted to buy one to see what they are about.
At a contracting gig last year I was given a Windows machine. I'm not sure if it was because it wasn't the best and typical corporate laptop specs, or if it was because of the corporate lock-down, installed software, av, and other junk but my eagerness to try modern Windows and WSL2 quickly diapered. I struggled getting docker running, i struggled running docker in the subsystem, i found things where not working in the subsystem, had difficulty with paths etc. In the end the machine went back and I got a mac and was up and running in an hour with full dev environment and everything set up how I like using nix-darwin. Same for the other devs, they where unable to get a working dev environment on windows so sent the machines back for macs.
Some of it will certainly be my unfamiliarity but it just didn't seem compelling enough to overcome. Clicking the start menu and seeing ads instead of finding programs was a blatant yes this is windows moment.Even the UI /UX felt old which seems odd given that Microsoft have quite a lot of material out on user interaction and ux research.
An interesting observation about modern Microsoft is a lot of the onsite Microsoft Azure employees seem to be using Macs and Microsoft give them the option of running Macs.
I've used Linux since early 2000's and OSX on the desktop since 2010+. Before that Windows CE, 95 and think Vista or 7 was the last.
I was curious about what Windows looks like these days as it's been a decade and also curious about WSL2 as it seems online posts are generally positive over WSL. The surface go / surface line of devices looked interesting for a nsmall, stuff in the bag while traveling doing email/browsing/office type of machine. I was tempted to buy one to see what they are about.
At a contracting gig last year I was given a Windows machine. I'm not sure if it was because it wasn't the best and typical corporate laptop specs, or if it was because of the corporate lock-down, installed software, av, and other junk but my eagerness to try modern Windows and WSL2 quickly diapered. I struggled getting docker running, i struggled running docker in the subsystem, i found things where not working in the subsystem, had difficulty with paths etc. In the end the machine went back and I got a mac and was up and running in an hour with full dev environment and everything set up how I like using nix-darwin. Same for the other devs, they where unable to get a working dev environment on windows so sent the machines back for macs.
Some of it will certainly be my unfamiliarity but it just didn't seem compelling enough to overcome. Clicking the start menu and seeing ads instead of finding programs was a blatant yes this is windows moment.Even the UI /UX felt old which seems odd given that Microsoft have quite a lot of material out on user interaction and ux research.
An interesting observation about modern Microsoft is a lot of the onsite Microsoft Azure employees seem to be using Macs and Microsoft give them the option of running Macs.
Thank you for the detailed response! I was stung badly by the promise of POSIX on Windows back in the Cygwin era, so it's very possible that I don't fully appreciate just how good/seamless WSL2 is.
WSL2 has been awesome so far. I just recently decided to buy a surface book instead of a Mac because it felt like Microsoft was embracing linux more while Mac was drifting away.
After a month, other than keybindings, I’m very pleased. For me, the python experience made the difference. It’s 1st class with VSCode and remote debugging over WSL.
After a month, other than keybindings, I’m very pleased. For me, the python experience made the difference. It’s 1st class with VSCode and remote debugging over WSL.
I switched to Linux before WSL1 came out (which I heard was awful from people who were using it), so I've never used either. Then I heard WSL2 was far better, and then later that it still has fundamental problems:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25612962 (corrupting repos)
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5336 (no Internet access)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25612962 (corrupting repos)
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5336 (no Internet access)
I've gotten annoyed by some of the Windows bloatware recently, and I realized most of what I do should work fine on Linux. As others have said, I have hardware compatibility concerns, am not sure how a high dpi or external monitor will work, have battery life doubts, and am not looking forward to using Wine.
I don’t use a HiDPI laptop but, for what it’s worth, getting a 2x4K setup working on my desktop was nearly painless on Ubuntu 20.04[1]. It would probably have been even easier had I stuck to GNOME instead of switching to i3.
[1]: https://blog.yossarian.net/2020/12/24/A-few-HiDPI-tricks-for...
[1]: https://blog.yossarian.net/2020/12/24/A-few-HiDPI-tricks-for...
Proprietary tools that work significantly better/exclusively on Windows 10, plus games... yeah mostly games.
My thoughts:
Windows 10 isn't that bad in fact I prefer the standard windows UI than most of the weird linux desktops. They call them modern but none are simple enough such that they get it out of the way. Eventually on linux only i3 makes sense for dev work but otherwise for the common desktop user windows 10 UI makes sense (once you remove the search and cortana and turn it into XP style UI) even over macOS. Sadly the telemetry the bloat makes it quite unusable. It just keeps reinstalling things though there are antispy tools disabling (or limiting i'm guessing) telemetry.
Also i've tried WSL2 and Debian is much better than ubuntu. the ubuntu and snap fiasco is quite annoying. i know you can just uninstall snaps but i think a simple debian install is enough for most dev testing if you plan to go WSL2 because it's extremely lightweight and fast inside wsl2. Also vscodium is an option as open source without telemetry but wsl2 can't be accessed through it because it's apis i believe are closed source.
Also i've tried WSL2 and Debian is much better than ubuntu. the ubuntu and snap fiasco is quite annoying. i know you can just uninstall snaps but i think a simple debian install is enough for most dev testing if you plan to go WSL2 because it's extremely lightweight and fast inside wsl2. Also vscodium is an option as open source without telemetry but wsl2 can't be accessed through it because it's apis i believe are closed source.
Though it hurts to admit, I agree with this. Linux UIs have taken a great leap backward with Gnome 3. As a great fan of Windows XP, pre-Unity Ubuntu, and even Unity era Ubuntu, a de-Cortanized Windows 10 is far more usable day-to-day than an equivalent Linux UI (as long as you don't scratch the surface and try to update any settings).
I don't think it's that Win10's UI is actually "More simple". Everything I've seen suggests that it's just what people are used to.
I put some small kids in front of some Windows and some Linux machines running GNOME 3. They had an easier time with GNOME.
I put some small kids in front of some Windows and some Linux machines running GNOME 3. They had an easier time with GNOME.
On a daily basis I use Windows/OSX/Ubuntu interchangeably depending on what type of computer I'm on (desktop/laptop/server, respectively).
Up until I set up a similar environment to the author, dev on Windows was always a nightmare. Typically I'd just ssh into a server and use vim when I was on windows as it was a better experience. WSL has been a game changer. Code... just works. It's actually impressive how well integrated they've made it. I no longer have to do strange hacks or worry about different line endings on windows. It all just works now. If you're on a decently powerful PC, I'd recommend trying it out. It's more resource heavy than a native Linux install for sure, but it means you no longer have to dual boot for gaming. That's a big win in my book.
Up until I set up a similar environment to the author, dev on Windows was always a nightmare. Typically I'd just ssh into a server and use vim when I was on windows as it was a better experience. WSL has been a game changer. Code... just works. It's actually impressive how well integrated they've made it. I no longer have to do strange hacks or worry about different line endings on windows. It all just works now. If you're on a decently powerful PC, I'd recommend trying it out. It's more resource heavy than a native Linux install for sure, but it means you no longer have to dual boot for gaming. That's a big win in my book.
Windows is just so slow at most everything though...
I go back and forth between a personal Debian box and Surface laptop all day long and it really just emphasises the amount of bloat and drag that Windows experiences doing even the most basic things like manipulating files and using a web browser.
I can use VS Code on both OS's and everything is faster on Linux. Not sure why I would choose Windows unless I needed the C#/.Net toolchain.
I go back and forth between a personal Debian box and Surface laptop all day long and it really just emphasises the amount of bloat and drag that Windows experiences doing even the most basic things like manipulating files and using a web browser.
I can use VS Code on both OS's and everything is faster on Linux. Not sure why I would choose Windows unless I needed the C#/.Net toolchain.
I’ve spent over a year now 100% in linux. And while I have 0 desire to go back to Windows at all (I do run a VM to do bits of work on .net framework) sometimes the pain of linux can be frustrating. It can be so fiddly and trying to get things working can be hours of hair pulling.
My latest issue is a clean install of Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10, 18.04, all have screen flickering. Which doesn’t occur in other distros. (Not screen tearing)
https://imgur.com/a/Yfs4cXb
But if I try mint, it has random UI freezing. Pop_OS! Has random things that won’t install because the distro name is pop and not ubuntu. Kubuntu runs flawlessly but then I can’t sign into vscode sync out of the box.
But when it works, it’s awesome.
My latest issue is a clean install of Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10, 18.04, all have screen flickering. Which doesn’t occur in other distros. (Not screen tearing)
https://imgur.com/a/Yfs4cXb
But if I try mint, it has random UI freezing. Pop_OS! Has random things that won’t install because the distro name is pop and not ubuntu. Kubuntu runs flawlessly but then I can’t sign into vscode sync out of the box.
But when it works, it’s awesome.
My ubuntu 20.4 randomly freezes and i have to do a forced reboot. It happens every couple of days while using FF. It is still more pleasant than Windows 10 nonetheless
I really want to like desktop Linux but the stability compared to macOS wasn’t there. My latest experiment ended after randomly the OS stopped booting past disk decryption. I’m used to having to spend an hour or two tweaking things on it but after I failed to resolve that on my work machine in a few hours I was done
> Windows unless I needed the C#/.Net toolchain
Unless you're working on a legacy .NET Framework application, .NET Core will happily work on Linux.
Unless you're working on a legacy .NET Framework application, .NET Core will happily work on Linux.
And now .NET 5.
WPF is really not legacy - since it's included in .NET core but IS Windows only.
> IS Windows only
For now.
For now.
> Not sure why I would choose Windows unless I needed the C#/.Net toolchain.
You're missing out on Visual Studio... for Python, C++, etc.
You're missing out on Visual Studio... for Python, C++, etc.
Thanks to jetbrains, no, you’re not.
Before we even get to talking about CLion's features/usability vs. Visual Studio, you have to get over the fact that it's like $90/year...
I always find this such a strange argument. We're in the middle of hundreds of comments arguing about convenience and losing time fighting with bugs and environment problems. For the umpteenth time in the last year. And the price of an hour of your time (two at most) once per year might be a sticking point for solving much of that? Just doesn't make sense to me.
Why do you imagine Microsoft made Visual Studio free even for companies with <= 5 users if the same people would've paid for it anyway?
People would pay, especially companies would pay, because they are legally required to. But if you make it free than you have bigger chance to dominate the market.
Honestly, you're not missing much. Using Visual Studio is always a clunky, slow experience with frustrating UI changes every time I click something.
I'm using it as we speak and I'm finding it helpful rather than frustrating. I'm not sure what you're clicking that's changing your UI, but maybe you need to configure it a bit? You can disable Ctrl+Click for example if you don't like it, then forget about it.
Whenever I click "run", everything moves around and I'm not able to edit files. I had it customized, but if I'm going to have to customize it continually, it's not worth it.
What do you mean by "everything moves around"? Are you referring to how the tool window layout is independent for debugging vs. developing (like in Eclipse)? That's actually something many of us find incredibly helpful because some toolboxes don't even make sense in the development perspective (like the Locals toolbox), so we don't want them there. I'd bet once you got the hang of it and customized it, you wouldn't want the exact same toolboxes in both places either. (Eclipse does this too, except it's awful because it doesn't switch back automatically when exiting debugging.) What you want to do there is to customize it when debugging, but that takes like 1-3 minutes tops, and you just do it once and never have to think about it again. Tossing it out because of that is like abandoning your home because you don't like your room layouts and you don't want to arrange things in more than one room... if this is what's bugging you, you should really reconsider.
As for VS being slow, it mainly depends how big your project/solution is. Where I know it can be unreasonably slow is when you have lots of projects (several dozen) and you're trying to change all their settings, or something like that. However, if you're referring to the startup time specifically, it might actually be due to your computer not having generated the native images yet (try running ngen.exe executeQueuedItems for both 64-bit and 32-bit). If you mean editing source code, it shouldn't be sluggish at all. But if you mean features like Find Reference, Go To Definition, etc., those rely on Intellisense which takes a while to update for a complicated language like C++ (or a dynamic one like Python)—I don't expect much variation across IDEs here.
___________________________
UPDATE: I think you deleted your reply, but I replied to it already, so I'll paste it here:
You're talking just about when you hover on the tool tabs, right? (i.e. the delay should not be there if you click, right?) It takes 400ms to open by default because that's the default menu show delay on Windows. It's the same delay you see if you right-click inside a folder and hover on New, for example. The delay actually works well for menus for older folks/non-techies, but it's glacially slow for developers (including for menus) unfortunately. You can reduce the delay by changing
I can't speak to what CLion does with the memory you give it, but it's generally bad for programs to take up arbitrary amounts of memory, given that'd deny the memory to other apps. I wouldn't judge a program positively if it takes up more and more memory the more I give it.
For the ngen thing this is specifically what you want to run:
As to what you're missing by using CLion, well the first thing is the subscription money and the second thing is that it doesn't support nearly as many languages. Beyond that, I'm not sure I can give an accurate response right now because CLion has changed a fair bit since I last tried it, and added new features it didn't use to have before. I know one thing I can think of off the top of my head is that CLion uses Make and/or CMake, both of which have so many rough edges (like relative paths, paths with spaces, etc.) that anything based on them turns me off a priori (and in fact terrifies me because it means my files might get accidentally wiped). Other than that, I'd have to try it again myself and see what might have changed. You should just give both of them a real try and compare; you might end up liking both for all I know. But I can't think of anyone I know who's given VS a real chance and disliked it—the only exceptions I know are people who just hate it because they hate things Windows things altogether.
As for VS being slow, it mainly depends how big your project/solution is. Where I know it can be unreasonably slow is when you have lots of projects (several dozen) and you're trying to change all their settings, or something like that. However, if you're referring to the startup time specifically, it might actually be due to your computer not having generated the native images yet (try running ngen.exe executeQueuedItems for both 64-bit and 32-bit). If you mean editing source code, it shouldn't be sluggish at all. But if you mean features like Find Reference, Go To Definition, etc., those rely on Intellisense which takes a while to update for a complicated language like C++ (or a dynamic one like Python)—I don't expect much variation across IDEs here.
___________________________
UPDATE: I think you deleted your reply, but I replied to it already, so I'll paste it here:
You're talking just about when you hover on the tool tabs, right? (i.e. the delay should not be there if you click, right?) It takes 400ms to open by default because that's the default menu show delay on Windows. It's the same delay you see if you right-click inside a folder and hover on New, for example. The delay actually works well for menus for older folks/non-techies, but it's glacially slow for developers (including for menus) unfortunately. You can reduce the delay by changing
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\MenuShowDelay
I can't speak to what CLion does with the memory you give it, but it's generally bad for programs to take up arbitrary amounts of memory, given that'd deny the memory to other apps. I wouldn't judge a program positively if it takes up more and more memory the more I give it.
For the ngen thing this is specifically what you want to run:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\ngen.exe executeQueuedItems
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\ngen.exe executeQueuedItems
As to what you're missing by using CLion, well the first thing is the subscription money and the second thing is that it doesn't support nearly as many languages. Beyond that, I'm not sure I can give an accurate response right now because CLion has changed a fair bit since I last tried it, and added new features it didn't use to have before. I know one thing I can think of off the top of my head is that CLion uses Make and/or CMake, both of which have so many rough edges (like relative paths, paths with spaces, etc.) that anything based on them turns me off a priori (and in fact terrifies me because it means my files might get accidentally wiped). Other than that, I'd have to try it again myself and see what might have changed. You should just give both of them a real try and compare; you might end up liking both for all I know. But I can't think of anyone I know who's given VS a real chance and disliked it—the only exceptions I know are people who just hate it because they hate things Windows things altogether.
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I will never willingly use Windows 10 as my primary OS. Forced updates killed it for me. Don’t get me wrong, I actually prefer Windows as an OS over macOS in some ways, but the update policies do not leave you in control of your own system. The nail in the coffin was around 3 years ago when right in the middle of a recording session, Windows forced an update despite my best attempts at delaying and stopping it. The next day I backed up all my data and installed Mint and never looked back. Perhaps this was an overreaction, but I don’t regret it. I am glad I did this because I bought a macbook and discovered the word of mac-based DAWs and I am extremely thrilled, though I am fearful that one day macOS will become Windows-like in its system policies. And then life will suck.
Best thing i ever did; https://udse.de/reboot-blocker
The website is in German, but it really works, in contrast to a hundred other hacks to achieve this. Truthfully tho, Windows 10 is IMHO a joke. They could just have continued polishing windows 7 and i would personally have been pretty happy. I suspect i'm not alone in thinking this way.
Inb4 "you can disable automatic updates with these simple 4327 registry hacks and 322 group policies"
Until that one update you do install reverts all those changes...
I'm a crazy poweruser, who uses linux.
I use the fact it's scheduler priorities actually do something, and that there's different tiers of it. The fact I can change how cpu/mem/disk/etc is limited per apps (cgroups), or globally to use less power... (I get +20FPS to reliability and stability hit 60Fps in OverWatch cause of this, I don't think this PC could run OW on windows nicely at all)
I use xdotool to automate all the things...
I play with filesystems, audio (I still haven't seen any other system as good as mine for making my ears never bleed).
It also handles faulty HW perfectly fine, I can reload it, restart it, etc, isolated to just that component.
It handles old HW very well.
Drivers for everything I've ever tried always without any hassle (Albeit windows seems to have improved this.)
I can also disable the CPU mitigations and get a bunch of performance back... as my desktop PC doesn't run untrusted code.. nor have services accessible.
Windows goes bizzerk within a week every week and somehow just maxes out my work laptop/desktops CPU for no apparent reason... needing reboots to fix it. Windows updates ruin all long-running tasks (like, unittests).. and unitTests cannot be run at low priority, cause they still effect normal priority apps way too much... If you start playing with low level systems in it, it'll just start blue screening . MS telemetry... Ad's on desktop... A LOT of crap I don't care about comes with it and runs by default.. vs ~32Mb of ram usage by the time I hit desktop.
Windows goes bizzerk within a week every week and somehow just maxes out my work laptop/desktops CPU for no apparent reason... needing reboots to fix it. Windows updates ruin all long-running tasks (like, unittests).. and unitTests cannot be run at low priority, cause they still effect normal priority apps way too much... If you start playing with low level systems in it, it'll just start blue screening . MS telemetry... Ad's on desktop... A LOT of crap I don't care about comes with it and runs by default.. vs ~32Mb of ram usage by the time I hit desktop.
It's getting easier and easier to create a beautiful and functional dev environment in Windows 10 these days.
Only if you're unaware of all the hidden spyware you have to find and disable... the last time I had to install Win10, there were so many dark patterns everywhere.
Only if you're unaware of all the hidden spyware you have to find and disable... the last time I had to install Win10, there were so many dark patterns everywhere.
Unfortunately, in some organisations the OS on your workstation is not a choice you can make, so for some of us that are stuck in Windowsland it's quite a treat to have all these goodies available.
Windows is probably the best DE for Linux now. ( I'd still use i3 if I had a choice)
Windows is probably the best DE for Linux now. ( I'd still use i3 if I had a choice)
My latest fave for windows development is Scoop (https://scoop.sh)
It's basically like homebrew for windows, and all programs are installed into a user folder, so no admin rights are necessary.
It's basically like homebrew for windows, and all programs are installed into a user folder, so no admin rights are necessary.
Did you try winget [1]?
[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli
[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli
Why would you want to dev on a Windows machine though? Unless you're writing Windows code, I see no reason.
Between MacOS and Windows in recent years, I vastly prefer Windows. WSL2 alone beats the pants off anything in MacOS - and MacOS had become a much more frustrating experience over the past few years.
Windows is still, to some extent, full of magic and dragons underneath... and while they're doing an increasingly good job at hiding it, it does occasionally bite you in the arse. But Windows has on the whole become a competent development environment that works very well with almost any kind of development workload - with the exception of native iOS and MacOS. Also GPU accelerated ML on Windows is still kind of sketchy.
For a dedicated backend application development desktop, I still prefer Linux. But hardware support is generally better on Windows, plus you have access to Adobe Creative Suite, better colour management, better graphics drivers, etc. and there are types of development that just aren't practical on Linux, such as 3D games, Excel add-ons, VSTs and lots of proprietary embedded development platforms don't support anything other than Windows.
On the other hand, .NET development nowadays is just as easy on MacOS, Windows and Linux.
Windows is still, to some extent, full of magic and dragons underneath... and while they're doing an increasingly good job at hiding it, it does occasionally bite you in the arse. But Windows has on the whole become a competent development environment that works very well with almost any kind of development workload - with the exception of native iOS and MacOS. Also GPU accelerated ML on Windows is still kind of sketchy.
For a dedicated backend application development desktop, I still prefer Linux. But hardware support is generally better on Windows, plus you have access to Adobe Creative Suite, better colour management, better graphics drivers, etc. and there are types of development that just aren't practical on Linux, such as 3D games, Excel add-ons, VSTs and lots of proprietary embedded development platforms don't support anything other than Windows.
On the other hand, .NET development nowadays is just as easy on MacOS, Windows and Linux.
What do you find is so much better in WSL2 vs Mac? I find when I’m using WSL2 I feel more like I’m using 2 computers since they have the different file systems (you can’t just git clone into your windows file system from WSL for example) Whereas with Mac, it’s all one system and it’s all still Unix. The rest of Mac vs Windows seems like it could be up for debate (last few Mac updates have made it feel a lot less polished) but from a purely terminal experience I’ve found Mac to be so much better since it’s all just one system. I’m switching to Windows soon so I’m really curious, what’s your workflow for dev with WSL? For example, where do you keep your repos? What editor do you use? That sort of thing.
This is the issue for me too. You can’t interact with your regular files via WSL, so you can’t use imagemagick to convert an image on your desktop folder, or subl to open a file in Sublime. You can sometimes find the folder via File Explorer but Windows will corrupt your files if you change them there.
There’s other things that annoy me like typing latency, apt taking forever to run, an awful terminal emulator with basically no customization, copy and paste often just does not work. It’s really so frustrating.
There’s other things that annoy me like typing latency, apt taking forever to run, an awful terminal emulator with basically no customization, copy and paste often just does not work. It’s really so frustrating.
"You can’t interact with your regular files via WSL"
You absolutely can, I do it all the time. For example, you shift-click your desktop, click "Open Linux shell here" and run imagemagick or ffmpeg to your heart's content.
You can alias subl to your Windows sublime install and then subl ~/whatever will work as expected.
I don't experience any of your other problems. Apt is very quick, copy and paste works fine, typing latency seems lower than Linux (but I do have a 144hz G-sync monitor). I agree that Windows Terminal is a bit spartan, but I was never one for excessive terminal customisation on Linux either so it doesn't really bother me, I guess.
You absolutely can, I do it all the time. For example, you shift-click your desktop, click "Open Linux shell here" and run imagemagick or ffmpeg to your heart's content.
You can alias subl to your Windows sublime install and then subl ~/whatever will work as expected.
I don't experience any of your other problems. Apt is very quick, copy and paste works fine, typing latency seems lower than Linux (but I do have a 144hz G-sync monitor). I agree that Windows Terminal is a bit spartan, but I was never one for excessive terminal customisation on Linux either so it doesn't really bother me, I guess.
I do this sort of thing with WSL1 all the time. Unless you're dealing with large numbers of files or spawning thousands of processes (or have security software that gets in the way), it is perfectly adequate for me.
Just use cygwin.
You can interact with your Windows filesystem from WSL2, though the performance is worse than the VM's own filesystem. Additionally you can access WSL2's files through the \\wsl$ share. For example, /mnt/c/windows/notepad.exe ~/file launches notepad on my Windows desktop and opens ~/file from WSL2. While the integration isn't perfect, it is usable.
The reason I prefer it to MacOS is that it is actually a real Linux kernel with all the trimmings - such as apt, docker, eBPF etc. My recent experience on MacOS is that every update seems to break Brew, which, while better than MacPorts, doesn't even work all that well to begin with. MacOS is a weird BSD with poorly documented closed source system components such as launchd. If that's your thing, it's fine - but I personally find the Mac/BSD userspace unpleasant to work with and am tired of fighting against it every time Apple decide to break my attempts to make it more tolerable.
Versus a VM it's less clear, but the integration is actually fairly good, each of your WSL2 "distros" start instantly, you can launch them to the current directory in Explorer or use them from Windows Terminal without SSHing. For the most part, it _feels_ like Ubuntu is just a part of Windows.
My workflow with WSL2 is that I keep most of my repos in the Windows desktop and use Windows versions of JetBrains' IDEs or VSCode for most of my work, but then I use WSL for docker/kubernetes, running CLI-oriented things like vim, ffmpeg, imagemagick, shell scripts, python, terraform, etc.
Plus, I have a Ryzen 5950X with 128GB memory, which isn't strictly a limitation of MacOS, but it certainly makes my life a lot better!
The reason I prefer it to MacOS is that it is actually a real Linux kernel with all the trimmings - such as apt, docker, eBPF etc. My recent experience on MacOS is that every update seems to break Brew, which, while better than MacPorts, doesn't even work all that well to begin with. MacOS is a weird BSD with poorly documented closed source system components such as launchd. If that's your thing, it's fine - but I personally find the Mac/BSD userspace unpleasant to work with and am tired of fighting against it every time Apple decide to break my attempts to make it more tolerable.
Versus a VM it's less clear, but the integration is actually fairly good, each of your WSL2 "distros" start instantly, you can launch them to the current directory in Explorer or use them from Windows Terminal without SSHing. For the most part, it _feels_ like Ubuntu is just a part of Windows.
My workflow with WSL2 is that I keep most of my repos in the Windows desktop and use Windows versions of JetBrains' IDEs or VSCode for most of my work, but then I use WSL for docker/kubernetes, running CLI-oriented things like vim, ffmpeg, imagemagick, shell scripts, python, terraform, etc.
Plus, I have a Ryzen 5950X with 128GB memory, which isn't strictly a limitation of MacOS, but it certainly makes my life a lot better!
So you definitely can git clone into your windows file system from WSL.
There are a few edge cases that are tricky (for instance you can’t register a batch script in WSL2 as a file association handler) but for the most part it’s pretty smooth.
There are a few edge cases that are tricky (for instance you can’t register a batch script in WSL2 as a file association handler) but for the most part it’s pretty smooth.
Because I have almost 30 years of experience using Windows, and a complex set of tooling, scripts, and utilities that I have grown accustom to. Heck the sysinternals suite alone is incredible.
Windows has incredibly good keyboard shortcut support. A small example, the context/menu key on keyboards is the equivalent of right clicking wherever the cursor is at, making spellchecking as I type super easy, I'm sure MacOS has some meta-combo that does this, but over 20 years ago Microsoft made this tiny piece of accessibility a first class citizen on their platform by starting a certification process for keyboards that included such a key.
Windows has non-borked external monitor support, unlike a slew of MacOS machines. (See, every thread on HN where some subset of people report problems with external monitors).
Windows has insane hardware support, buy whatever upgrade is on sale today, throw it in your machine, and odds are it'll just work.
Speaking of insane hardware support, my current Windows install has switched motherboards and CPUs multiple times. Pop the SSD into a new computer, boot, wait a few minutes for the OS to setup proper drivers, and off I go.
The UI is a first class citizen, not an afterthought. At no point do I have to wonder if my setup supports screen sharing.
Its media pipeline is pretty darn powerful. Per app volume control rocks, but the entire media stack can be rerouted, split, and merged, in all sorts of fun and cool ways.
The clipboard works. really well. I have actually seen the source code to the clipboard in Windows, a lot of engineering effort has gone into making it work that well.
Apps don't randomly stop working because I upgrade. Major UI utilities that reach deep into the system that I started using on Windows 7 work just fine today.
Do I have complaints about Windows? Of course. IMHO it has gotten way to large, back in Windows 2k and even the Windows 7 days, the # of background processes on a clean install was a fraction of what they are today. My start menu only opens up every other time I click it (...). And as with every other OS, reliability has gone down over the years.
But Windows isn't some half forgotten wasteland. It is the single most popular desktop OS, and for over a decade it was also the single most popular development platform.
Would I do docker based development on bare Windows? No, but I've done Android and Web development quite happily on Windows.
For reference, I have done C/C++ dev on Linux, and right now I use both MacOS and Windows for dev.
Windows has incredibly good keyboard shortcut support. A small example, the context/menu key on keyboards is the equivalent of right clicking wherever the cursor is at, making spellchecking as I type super easy, I'm sure MacOS has some meta-combo that does this, but over 20 years ago Microsoft made this tiny piece of accessibility a first class citizen on their platform by starting a certification process for keyboards that included such a key.
Windows has non-borked external monitor support, unlike a slew of MacOS machines. (See, every thread on HN where some subset of people report problems with external monitors).
Windows has insane hardware support, buy whatever upgrade is on sale today, throw it in your machine, and odds are it'll just work.
Speaking of insane hardware support, my current Windows install has switched motherboards and CPUs multiple times. Pop the SSD into a new computer, boot, wait a few minutes for the OS to setup proper drivers, and off I go.
The UI is a first class citizen, not an afterthought. At no point do I have to wonder if my setup supports screen sharing.
Its media pipeline is pretty darn powerful. Per app volume control rocks, but the entire media stack can be rerouted, split, and merged, in all sorts of fun and cool ways.
The clipboard works. really well. I have actually seen the source code to the clipboard in Windows, a lot of engineering effort has gone into making it work that well.
Apps don't randomly stop working because I upgrade. Major UI utilities that reach deep into the system that I started using on Windows 7 work just fine today.
Do I have complaints about Windows? Of course. IMHO it has gotten way to large, back in Windows 2k and even the Windows 7 days, the # of background processes on a clean install was a fraction of what they are today. My start menu only opens up every other time I click it (...). And as with every other OS, reliability has gone down over the years.
But Windows isn't some half forgotten wasteland. It is the single most popular desktop OS, and for over a decade it was also the single most popular development platform.
Would I do docker based development on bare Windows? No, but I've done Android and Web development quite happily on Windows.
For reference, I have done C/C++ dev on Linux, and right now I use both MacOS and Windows for dev.
> Windows has incredibly good keyboard shortcut support.
yeah and they are all scarcely documented and basically impossible to discover. you just randomly come across them on obscure 00's era PHP forums, there's no big comprehensive list of them somewhere.
yeah and they are all scarcely documented and basically impossible to discover. you just randomly come across them on obscure 00's era PHP forums, there's no big comprehensive list of them somewhere.
> And as with every other OS, reliability has gone down over the years.
I can run Debian or Ubuntu for weeks, even months, without rebooting. I can barely run Windows for a day or two without rebooting.
Others have mentioned the maddening and massive updates that happen frequently, and the weird application crashes and poor performance.
Windows has some cool stuff, like Powershell and .Net, but it’s otherwise too painful to use unless I absolutely must (which happens more often than I’d like these days, despite going 5 years without using windows at one point). Plus, Powershell and .Net are more readily available on Linux.
I can run Debian or Ubuntu for weeks, even months, without rebooting. I can barely run Windows for a day or two without rebooting.
Others have mentioned the maddening and massive updates that happen frequently, and the weird application crashes and poor performance.
Windows has some cool stuff, like Powershell and .Net, but it’s otherwise too painful to use unless I absolutely must (which happens more often than I’d like these days, despite going 5 years without using windows at one point). Plus, Powershell and .Net are more readily available on Linux.
I'm unable to disagree with most of your points, but "I can barely run Windows for a day or two without rebooting." is hyperbole. If this is actually true, there is something seriously wrong with your install. Apart from that, Win10 pisses me off daily. It's insane that I harken back to the Win7 days as often as I do.
I've experienced this on many Windows machines. It's a combination of memory issues, little programs breaking here and there, forced updates, and stuff I frankly don't understand. Together, they very frequently necessitate a reboot after 2-3 days.
> If this is actually true, there is something seriously wrong with your install
This is the problem. It's very easy for stuff to go wrong with a Windows install. They deteriorate w/time. Why do you think so many times we end up just re-formatting a family member's machine? I've had to do that many times, even when malware wasn't an issue.
I've never hard to reformat a Linux machine for such issues, even though I've been primarily on Linux for well over a decade.
> If this is actually true, there is something seriously wrong with your install
This is the problem. It's very easy for stuff to go wrong with a Windows install. They deteriorate w/time. Why do you think so many times we end up just re-formatting a family member's machine? I've had to do that many times, even when malware wasn't an issue.
I've never hard to reformat a Linux machine for such issues, even though I've been primarily on Linux for well over a decade.
> Together, they very frequently necessitate a reboot after 2-3 days.
None of the 3 Windows machines in my house reboot other than for monthly updates.
Actually, if you count my Xbox as "running Windows"， I do have to reboot that slightly more often than once a month!
But seriously, now days a PC is a front end for a web browser, steam games, Adobe suite, and Office.
My current Win10 install started off as a Windows 8 install many years back.
None of the 3 Windows machines in my house reboot other than for monthly updates.
Actually, if you count my Xbox as "running Windows"， I do have to reboot that slightly more often than once a month!
But seriously, now days a PC is a front end for a web browser, steam games, Adobe suite, and Office.
My current Win10 install started off as a Windows 8 install many years back.
> I can barely run Windows for a day or two without rebooting.
Something is wrong here. I run Windows 10 for weeks at a time without rebooting. I'm typing this reply out on a Windows 10 workstation that has been up for ten days without a single issue.
Something is wrong here. I run Windows 10 for weeks at a time without rebooting. I'm typing this reply out on a Windows 10 workstation that has been up for ten days without a single issue.
OK, a day or two was probably an exaggeration, although it really does seem like that sometimes.
Probably part of the problem is that I only use Windows every 1-2 months, and then when I do start it up, it spins the fan for an hour downloading and installing updates.
That said, I really do end up with many, many more issues on Windows than on Linux. For example, I just yesterday had - out of the blue! - some Visual C++ Redistributable to suddenly go missing, and not able to open up Visual Studio Code (I'm mentoring some students who use Windows). I had used Visual Studio fine on that computer multiple times, and had never touched any of the system folders. No idea what happened to the missing library. I re-installed it and it was fine.
I end up helping family members who come to me with mysterious Windows problems. Often the problem is just that the OS has slowed down over a year or two of normal use. I've tried registry cleaners, and they sometimes help a bit, but the only real success I've had in those situations is saving their personal folder and re-installing the OS. Sometimes there is evidence of malware on their computer, but often there is not.
Never had things like that happen on Linux. Nor on OSX/MacOS. Windows just doesn't strike me as a reliable system. And that's not even bringing up the resource requirements for running Windows - I can easily run Linux on machines that could no longer run Windows without running into massive performance issues.
This isn't some pathological Microsoft hatred: I'm favorably impressed with Visual Studio Code, with Powershell, with C#, with F#, with Typescript. I'm just not impressed with Windows as an operating system. It did get more reliable after the moved the the NT kernel, but still not half as reliable as MacOS or Linux.
And, there's a downside to Linux, which is hardware compatibility (although that's rarely as bad as Linux critics describe it).
Probably part of the problem is that I only use Windows every 1-2 months, and then when I do start it up, it spins the fan for an hour downloading and installing updates.
That said, I really do end up with many, many more issues on Windows than on Linux. For example, I just yesterday had - out of the blue! - some Visual C++ Redistributable to suddenly go missing, and not able to open up Visual Studio Code (I'm mentoring some students who use Windows). I had used Visual Studio fine on that computer multiple times, and had never touched any of the system folders. No idea what happened to the missing library. I re-installed it and it was fine.
I end up helping family members who come to me with mysterious Windows problems. Often the problem is just that the OS has slowed down over a year or two of normal use. I've tried registry cleaners, and they sometimes help a bit, but the only real success I've had in those situations is saving their personal folder and re-installing the OS. Sometimes there is evidence of malware on their computer, but often there is not.
Never had things like that happen on Linux. Nor on OSX/MacOS. Windows just doesn't strike me as a reliable system. And that's not even bringing up the resource requirements for running Windows - I can easily run Linux on machines that could no longer run Windows without running into massive performance issues.
This isn't some pathological Microsoft hatred: I'm favorably impressed with Visual Studio Code, with Powershell, with C#, with F#, with Typescript. I'm just not impressed with Windows as an operating system. It did get more reliable after the moved the the NT kernel, but still not half as reliable as MacOS or Linux.
And, there's a downside to Linux, which is hardware compatibility (although that's rarely as bad as Linux critics describe it).
> I can barely run Windows for a day or two without rebooting.
Does Windows even allow to not reboot? I've heard that if you miss the update popup it will automatically do the update and reboot. And if you click "Remind me later" or whatever too many times it will just remove the button and force you to update. Did they fixed that or is it still doing that?
Does Windows even allow to not reboot? I've heard that if you miss the update popup it will automatically do the update and reboot. And if you click "Remind me later" or whatever too many times it will just remove the button and force you to update. Did they fixed that or is it still doing that?
Consumer versions work this way for high priority updates.
I guess no one remembers the days when the entire industry (re: Slashdot) yelled at Microsoft that they needed to stop letting users run around with ancient exploitable installs of Windows.
So, Microsoft forces important updates.
Fancier versions of Windows let you turn off most updates. Sev0 exploits, RCEs, and the like, well, those updates still get pushed down unless you have a corporate install with policies disabling all updates.
There is a trade off, and for decades (!!) Microsoft let users decide, but eventually "1/4 of Windows users just got their machine 0wned" showed up in the press too many times.
Kind of like how every time there is a widely installed Android malware app, Google gets blamed. "Why don't they enforce their policies!" Then soon as they do enforce their policies "The Android app store should just be a dumb distribution mechanism!"
I get it, different people expressing those sentiments (I hope...), but balancing "keeping people from having their bank accounts cleared out" vs "user choice" is not the easiest of decisions. After many years, MS has gone full force on the auto-updating side of the debate.
I guess no one remembers the days when the entire industry (re: Slashdot) yelled at Microsoft that they needed to stop letting users run around with ancient exploitable installs of Windows.
So, Microsoft forces important updates.
Fancier versions of Windows let you turn off most updates. Sev0 exploits, RCEs, and the like, well, those updates still get pushed down unless you have a corporate install with policies disabling all updates.
There is a trade off, and for decades (!!) Microsoft let users decide, but eventually "1/4 of Windows users just got their machine 0wned" showed up in the press too many times.
Kind of like how every time there is a widely installed Android malware app, Google gets blamed. "Why don't they enforce their policies!" Then soon as they do enforce their policies "The Android app store should just be a dumb distribution mechanism!"
I get it, different people expressing those sentiments (I hope...), but balancing "keeping people from having their bank accounts cleared out" vs "user choice" is not the easiest of decisions. After many years, MS has gone full force on the auto-updating side of the debate.
That's fine I guess, but the problem is that there is no option to disable it. I've even read recently that they removed from settings the option to delay the updates or something along these lines, because it was "too confusing for users". Can't they just do something like what hardware manufacturers did, which is "if you screw with our product on your own too much, you lose the warranty and we are not liable for any damages"?
MS never was liable for damages.
But back when Windows update had the option to disable updates, people who shouldn't (e.g. little Timmy setting up Gramp's machine) turned them off.
Then Microsoft got dragged through the mud, and grampa lost his retirement savings.
Back in the early 2000s, things were really bad. Going over to a non-geeks house, better than 50% chance to find malware, if they had broadband, good odds they were part of some sort of file drop for a warez group (or worse).
The issue now days comes that MS also pushes down feature updates, that is something that very valid objections to exist, especially with the dropping level of QA that exists throughout the industry today.
But back when Windows update had the option to disable updates, people who shouldn't (e.g. little Timmy setting up Gramp's machine) turned them off.
Then Microsoft got dragged through the mud, and grampa lost his retirement savings.
Back in the early 2000s, things were really bad. Going over to a non-geeks house, better than 50% chance to find malware, if they had broadband, good odds they were part of some sort of file drop for a warez group (or worse).
The issue now days comes that MS also pushes down feature updates, that is something that very valid objections to exist, especially with the dropping level of QA that exists throughout the industry today.
I have moved away from Linux. As much as I really want to use it, I always end up doing ... Linux ... as opposed to any real work.
Just last week, I moved my laptop back to Windows from Ubuntu because it froze up on me at least a couple of times a day (and that is a XPS13 - a system which is supposedly built to run Linux).
I have been using Linux since kernel version 0.99 or something, so its not like I dont know my way around it. I just dont really care which OS I run. It just needs to get out of the way and work for me and not against me. Windows does a good enough job at that.
Just last week, I moved my laptop back to Windows from Ubuntu because it froze up on me at least a couple of times a day (and that is a XPS13 - a system which is supposedly built to run Linux).
I have been using Linux since kernel version 0.99 or something, so its not like I dont know my way around it. I just dont really care which OS I run. It just needs to get out of the way and work for me and not against me. Windows does a good enough job at that.
> Per app volume control rocks, but the entire media stack can be rerouted, split, and merged, in all sorts of fun and cool ways.
I haven't heard about this! Do you have a reference?
I haven't heard about this! Do you have a reference?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/7w0i2b/routing_audi...
For audio.
I haven't done it with video streams in a long time, sorry. I do remember splitting audio off, changing it, and muxing it back together.
For audio.
I haven't done it with video streams in a long time, sorry. I do remember splitting audio off, changing it, and muxing it back together.
After more than a decade of developing on Mac and Linux I am moving back to Windows and continue to be quite happy there. Docker solved most of the problems that plagued Windows as a development machine. Mac hardware is incredibly expensive. Linux is great but I don’t enjoy it as a daily driver to do a lot of the administrative and logistical tasks expected of me as a engineering leader without the company.
Bill made sure in the past that Windows should be The Operating System on PC, and it stuck. I think most of the upsides of current windows usage stem from this achievement. Hardware, software compatibility, and familiarity are often cited as upsides, but these reflect the status quo more than the merits of the system itself.
[deleted]
Because Windows 10 is the best Operating System in the universe? It seems like HN is full of folks who last used Windows back in 2005 or something and are painfully out of touch with modern Windows.
>unironically implying modern Windows is better than older Windows
>obviously has never used Linux
U+1F923
>obviously has never used Linux
U+1F923
Anyone figured out how to complete disable Windows Updates and Windows account? I don't care if I am missing critical updates and an online Windows account, i just want my computer to run without any interference.
A windows account can be disabled by not creating one - hitting back, then forward, then forgot, then back, then forward, then "create offline account" will appear as a hidden option.
Disabling Windows updates is not possible.
Disabling Windows updates is not possible.
> hitting back, then forward, then forgot, then back, then forward, then "create offline account" will appear as a hidden option.
You're joking, right?
You're joking, right?
It's not this bad, but it's still bad. There's a "Skip this step" during the 1st screen which is non-obvious as to what it's going to do.
I have an offline account but it shows me a dialog about fixing my Windows account every day.
The only fix I know for this is joining the computer to a domain, and using your domain account.
This is the only thing that worked for me, been running like this with no issues for about 2 years:
Browse to C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution, right click on the Downloads folder, click properties. Security Tab, Advanced, Change Permissions, Disable Inheritance, Remove all inherited permissions from this object, Apply.
To enable windows updates, reverse this process. You may have to stop the service or go to safe mode to this, though I don't remember doing that.
Browse to C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution, right click on the Downloads folder, click properties. Security Tab, Advanced, Change Permissions, Disable Inheritance, Remove all inherited permissions from this object, Apply.
To enable windows updates, reverse this process. You may have to stop the service or go to safe mode to this, though I don't remember doing that.
https://archive.org/details/windows-10-ameliorated-1903
i think this is older version (i ran oct update)
you can also run the scripts on existing install but be warned its uh, very opinionated
i think this is older version (i ran oct update)
you can also run the scripts on existing install but be warned its uh, very opinionated
Windows for development for me is not a question for the filesystem alone.
Deleting a large folder like node_modules seems to take ages on windows as compared to macOS or Linux.
Deleting a large folder like node_modules seems to take ages on windows as compared to macOS or Linux.
WSL and VSCode have brought my machine pretty much to parity with developing on a macbook.
I'm sure there's more specialized cases where it's not up to par, but for the average use case, it's quite good!
I'm sure there's more specialized cases where it's not up to par, but for the average use case, it's quite good!
I’ve got a new-to-me (used HP Elitedesk 800 G1 SFF with 16g ram/240g ssd and I5-4590 with win 10 pro for $150) arriving this week. I haven’t built or bought a PC (had a few MacBooks in between) in probably 15 years, so this puppy is going to be well good enough for me and I’m looking forward to having a proper PC and getting a nice WSL and terminal setup and Scoop etc..
Question: any issue with WSL2 and network connectivity to say services such as node running in your wsl2 that you would connect to from your browser? I’ve heard that in wsl2 there could be issues with this and you may have to do some workarounds or extra config magic..
Question: any issue with WSL2 and network connectivity to say services such as node running in your wsl2 that you would connect to from your browser? I’ve heard that in wsl2 there could be issues with this and you may have to do some workarounds or extra config magic..
I haven't had any trouble. I'm running an elixir project that I'm testing over localhost, and you don't have to do any port magic whatsoever. Just run the app in WSL and go to localhost:port in your browser. The only problem I've had is if you do any of your development in the windows part of the filesystem, you might run into weird file locking issues, but I haven't had many of those.
Also, the WSL extension for VS code makes it hardly noticeable that you're even working in windows.
Also, the WSL extension for VS code makes it hardly noticeable that you're even working in windows.
I have a setup right now where I have the server (Flask inside a container) running on WSL2 and a browser in Windows pointed at it with no issues.
I believe there are some edge cases but you have to get into stuff that isn’t just “open a port and listen on it”.
I believe there are some edge cases but you have to get into stuff that isn’t just “open a port and listen on it”.
The biggest issue for is that WSL2 is painfully slow accessing the local Windows file system.
You can mount the WSL2 file system in Windows, but then changes to files arnt communicated to apps. So your code editor wont know about changes made in the WSL2 env.
Not everything works or can with WSL2 either. There are some things you cant build and run.
I use Windows for games.
I also have a need for Adobe SW and MS Office. (requirment of my job).
macOS is great for dev, Adobe and Office. But I cant game on it...
There is no perfect OS for me right now. :-/
You can mount the WSL2 file system in Windows, but then changes to files arnt communicated to apps. So your code editor wont know about changes made in the WSL2 env.
Not everything works or can with WSL2 either. There are some things you cant build and run.
I use Windows for games.
I also have a need for Adobe SW and MS Office. (requirment of my job).
macOS is great for dev, Adobe and Office. But I cant game on it...
There is no perfect OS for me right now. :-/
> The biggest issue for is that WSL2 is painfully slow accessing the local Windows file system.
This killed me after switching from WSL1 to WSL2. I missed the part in the notes where it said you should no longer store your files outside WSL. Finally figured it out eventually and the speed improvement was huge.
This killed me after switching from WSL1 to WSL2. I missed the part in the notes where it said you should no longer store your files outside WSL. Finally figured it out eventually and the speed improvement was huge.
I just did the same yesterday and was pleasantly surprised how far things have come (it's been ~15 years since I've done anything but game on Windows). WSL (both 1 and 2) are both very polished, and configuring VS Code w/Remote WSL setup was very simple (Windows GUI + Linux dev environment). The hardest part for me was getting past the gut-wrenching fear of using Windows Store to install something, but the experience from Windows Store "Install" to Windows Terminal "Debian" shell was actually... enjoyable.
function profile_alias { editor $PROFILE }
Set-Alias -Name profile -Value profile_alias
This truly has me excited to set up a dev environment on Windows 10. Thanks for the post.
I'm not sure if these issues are because I don't use it very frequently, but every time I start it up:
* CPU gets eaten alive by telemetry related services for minutes at a time.
* A barrage of updates I didn't ask for get forced on me (Despite whatever settings I put)
* Anti malware tools cause system to be I/O bound for about a minute
Longer term observations
* The disk usage goes up and up and up, even though I'm putting no data on to it
* I keep getting nagged to use a Microsoft account to sign in
* The default internet browser gets reset to Edge
* Some older applications just stop working for no reason, only to start working again weeks later.
On the plus side, Visual Studio seems to be much improved from what it used to be.