Microsoft Posts WSLg Preview - GUI App Support With Windows Subsystem For Linux

[dpeterc]

Do you want to know why I know this WSL thing is another Microsoft tactic to cause harm?
Because there wasn't and there isn't any market demand for it.
It is not a product that anybody wanted.

On the contrary, there is a lot of demand for this. It has been tried many times in the past. One of the best attempts was NutcrackerNT.

https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/nutcracker-xsdk

It was a complete Posix Unix implementation for Windows NT. With X Windows server.
So you could port Unix software to Windows NT with the same level of difficulties, as you do when you port it to Linux.
It had two big problems - did not support shared libraries, so compiled files were huge. And it did not support shared memory, so MIT-SHM extension of X11 did not work and graphics was slow.

MinGW also fulfills this goal - simple porting of Unix/Linux applications to Windows. It has huge number of users.

http://mingw-w64.org/doku.php

There is a vibrant community of WSL users, you are just not aware of it.

WSL allows you to run unmodified Linux binaries, there is not need to port the software, so it is much better than MinGW.
Microsoft did a great job this time, and is fulfilling a real business need. If you don't know this, you don't have a lot of real world IT experience.
95% of the world is running Windows, and now you will be able to run your Linux application, unmodified, at full speed, mixed with other applications. Why is this bad for you?

[ATFx]

Yes, I'm proving your point, in fact, I'm on your side, I was complementing what you just said.

I agree with you mate.

Sorry I misunderstood.

[aspen]

Average iPad fanboy

nice ad hominem, do you have an actual argument? my argument was "why can't we just have a civil discussion about a rather cool feature without anyone spewing FUD?"

[dragorth]

Wait.... So you need to run a rdp client to get the gui?
I don't understand why wsl is attractive at all. If you have to run a client viewer, might as well run a VM

This is a VM, so you got your wish?

[Guest]

Embrace... done (WSL)

Extend... this. preview but done soon

Extinguish... coming soon D: (Windows is now able to run Linux and Windows apps at the same time, ha take that Linux)

The things that keeps me away from Windows are its telemetry, slowness and poor filesystem performance...

Extinguish will happen through SecureBoot and Pluton, probably. Pretty sure they won't provide Linux support for Pluton.

[andyprough]

my argument was "why can't we just have a civil discussion about a rather cool feature without anyone spewing FUD?"

That's not what you said. You said that idiots were screeching, which was not happening at all. If you like civil discussions, then you should not drop into the middle of a civil discussion and start complaining that we are a bunch of idiots that are screeching.

[Guest]

I find it interesting how much negative opinions there are about this.
Linux has a desktop market share of what ... 2%?
Now Microsoft is helping to bring access to Linux desktop apps to the other 90% of desktop users and make it even easier for people to use and develop Linux apps.
If I wish to make a portable app, should I even bother with Windows port once my Linux code runs fine on Windows?
Why focusing only on the negatives?

Lol, Microsoft isn't doing this for the sake of Linux desktop apps, it's because they want more people to use and buy Windows licenses. That is their only goal here. No matter how much people delude themselves into thinking that Windows isn't important to Microsoft anymore, it's pretty clear and obvious that Microsoft wants everyone to use Windows.

Whether it's by carrot or stick, or a combination of both, they'll work towards it.

[Guest]

I'm amazed. Just like that, they came out with a means of running Linux GUI applications on Windows. Mega plus that they used Weston for the Wayland compositor.

Weston was always crap as-is in Linux, despite being the reference compositor. No proper window management, nothing to immediately expose all windows in a grid like how Gnome (Win key), Plasma (Ctrl + F8) and Windows 10 (Win key + Tab) does it.

Now Microsoft actually made Weston usable, albeit in Windows.

Definitely looking forward to seeing how the finished WSLg solution will look like.

Yeah, Weston was a code/implementation sample, for compositor developers. It's not meant to be a showcase DE for normal users.

[Guest]

Imagine a world where you can run a window app on Linux with Wine and have the Linux run on Windows wsl which is running on your Mac in a VM.

And the M1 Mac is simulated using Redstone in a Minecraft instance running on a RISC-V machine

[Guest]

Hopefully the line endings are fixed. Last time I've use wsl it messed them with Windows line endings.

Xserver? Does Wayland still use such?

Hopefully I could use it to test my x-plane linux plugin etc.

Does Defender also scan the Linux stuff?

Ugh yes, fuck that line ending bullshit. Does anyone know if RTF suffers from the same problem? It's standard across platforms right?